After breaking the news to Duke about my feelings for Grace, I’d called her the minute I walked out of his office. She’d also chatted with him but mainly about ditching Knox before she’d driven to Connecticut.
“We don’t have to watch a movie,” I said. “I can take you home.”
She brought her glass of wine with her as she sat beside me. “That would be the dorm. So, no. I gave Andie a heads-up that I might stay here tonight, if that’s okay.”
I thought I was being presumptuous, but I wasn’t about to cheer just yet. “You can stay with me anytime.”
I started the movie, and silence fell over us like a lead blanket.
Curling her legs under her, she sipped her wine. As for me, I was as stiff as a board, as in awkward. The last time I’d felt like this had nothing to do with a girl and everything to do with amob guy I’d met in my early teenage years. The man could scare anyone straight.
The music from the movie filtered through the overhead speakers as both of us stared at the screen.
A laugh broke out in my head. I was thirty-seven but felt fifteen again—palms sweaty, heart racing, mind on overdrive.
She set her glass on the coffee table. “Brian, can I tell you something without judgement?” Her tone led me to believe she had bad news.
I paused the movie, swallowed thickly, and gave her my full attention. “I told you. No judgement from me.”
She adjusted her body, sitting crisscross facing me. “I’m scared.”
I stretched my arm along the back of the sofa, angling my body in her direction. “About? You have a bodyguard, and I’m here.”
She shook her head wildly, her cheeks rosy, no doubt from equal parts shyness and the alcohol. “It’s not about someone following me, although Knox said he hasn’t seen anyone nosing around.”
That was good to know. Maybe, as she thought, her feeling was all in her head.
“The way I feel about you scares me.”
Whoa!My muscles snapped tight faster than the speed of light. I wasn’t expecting that admission.
“You’re upset?” She looked past me toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
I held her chin between two fingers so she faced me. “Surprised but not upset. Tell me more.”
She inhaled deeply. “I’m frightened to be with a man. I mean,reallybe with a man.”
She had an on-again, off-again relationship with Dominic, and as far as I knew, she hadn’t dated any other guy. “Dom and you?—”
“Never had sex. We’ve kissed, slept in the same bed, and done some other things. He tried, but after what I’d been through?—”
I placed a finger on her lips. “Please don’t finish that statement. If you do, I will hunt down every fucker in the sex-trafficking industry and torture them before putting a bullet in their heads.”
Rage consumed me, not at Dom. It threw me off-kilter, though, that she and Dom had never consummated their relationship, which was odd because anyone could see he was in love with her, but she treated him like a friend. My anger was directed at the men who bought and sold young women. The men who ruined their innocence while instilling fear in, torturing, and raping them. The fuckers who shattered their hopes and dreams.
“I want to be with you,” she said. “But I needed to tell you that.”
“Thank you for sharing.” I swallowed what felt like an elephant. “But Grace, just because you’re staying the night doesn’t mean sex. I’m not sure now is the right time.”
“Why?” she asked. “You don’t want me in that way?”
“Do you really believe that?” She had no idea how badly I longed to unbutton her blue blouse, snap off her bra, and see her gorgeous tits again. After that night in the hotel room in Connecticut, I’d memorized every detail of her breasts, which were perfectly round—small yet big enough to fit in my hands.
She shrugged, seemingly wanting to hear my answer.
Grace was a lot of things, but I’d never thought she was low in self-esteem.
I curled hair around her ear. “You know I want you.”
