Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 667(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
“I’m back with the cookies!” Leslie announces, and I eagerly rotate to face her finding her holding open a Tupperware filled with cookies. “Breakfast of champions,” she adds.
“Indeed it is,” I say, and I welcome the distraction of a cookie for breakfast. “I really missed these and you,” I declare as I finish off the scrumptious treat.
“I missed you, too,” she says, her tone sobering. “He missed you, Mia. He wasn’t right without you. He just wasn’t. He was—”
When I might ask her to expand on that thought, she seems to shake herself, and then refocus. “You have a full Tupperware container of cookies. You and Grayson can take them back to your place and—oh—well, I mean if you’re living with him again. Are you back at the apartment?”
I don’t know how to reply, and a million emotions assail me. The apartment. Our apartment. The place I called home with Grayson. Am I going back there? I want to. I so want to, but—the flaws. The problems. “She shouldn’t have ever left,” Grayson says, appearing across from me, and then rounding the island to pull me under his arm and next to him. “As far as I’m concerned,” he says, looking at me, not Leslie, “with me is where she belongs.”
Heat and emotions rush through me. “I’ll let you two have some time,” Leslie says. “Obviously this reunion is new. Make it a good one, you two.” She winks and heads for the door.
Grayson and I stand there, watching her leave and the minute the door shuts, I turn in his arms and stare up at him. “You’re right,” I say. “I shouldn’t have ever left. I regret that more every minute I’m with you again.”
“Then you’re coming home.”
“What about our flaws?” I ask, feeling insecure when I’ve never felt such things with Grayson.
His hand settles on my cheek. “Baby, we’re the most perfect thing in my life, but perhaps that’s the flaw. My inability, our inabilities, to see a flaw because seeing a flaw means we make sure that we deal with it before we let it hurt us. Come home, baby. Move back into our home.”
“Yes,” I say with no hesitation. “Yes, I want to come home.”
He cups my face. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He kisses me. “Let’s go take a shower.”
“Yes, but—”
He scoops me up and starts walking toward the bedroom. “Grayson, what about the call? What did Eric say?”
“Absolutely nothing new.”
“You were talking to him forever.”
He enters the bedroom and crosses to the bathroom, setting me down in front of the shower. “Grayson, I’m worried. What did he say?”
He drags my tee over my head. “I was sidetracked by a call from Japan.” He molds me close, unhooks my bra and kisses me. “Remember? I bought into a convention center in Tokyo.”
“Right. I still can’t get my head around that. That’s a huge buy-in.”
“Yes. It was. It kept me busy. I had to stay busy while you were gone.”
And he did. He tried to fuck me out of his system. It’s not a good thought, but it’s also not one I can blame him for. I left. I distrusted him. He pulls his shirt over his head and turns on the shower. “We should go see it soon,” he adds, dragging me into the shower.
“I’d like that,” I say, as he molds me close, the spray of warm water all but blocked by his big, wonderful body. “Have you ever been to Tokyo?”
“Not with you,” he replies, backing me into the corner, his fingers tangling into my hair, the thick ridge of his erection nestled between my legs. “There are so many things I want to do with you and experience with you, Mia. Things I’ve seen and I want you to see. Things I haven’t seen and I want to see with you for the first time.” His mouth closes down on mine, tongue flicking against mine, and I moan with the possessive taste of him. There is no part of me that doesn’t want this man, and as much as I fear there will be a part of him that doesn’t want me, that’s not what I feel.
He cups my backside and squeezes, his cheek coming to rest against mine, his lips at my ear, “So many things I want to do to you.” He presses inside me and his mouth crashes down on mine, and at least for now our flaws disappear. There is no Ri, there is no past, there is only the future, where I want to live forever.
Hours later, Grayson and I have both dressed, him in jeans and a T-shirt, all black, while I chose a soft emerald green blouse and faded jeans. We both pack up for the return to the city and then finally sit at the island and eat the pizza we didn’t get to last night, or rather, order a fresh one to enjoy. We talk about Japan, a project he’s excited about and I gobble up every detail, the way I always had in the past. He wants to take me there and there is this question in the air that we don’t discuss about my future: Will I go back to work for Bennett? It’s not a topic we dive into now, not when him pulling me off that case was what really left us vulnerable for a breakup. But that topic is coming and coming soon. I have to go back to work on Monday. I will go back to work Monday, and I will meet with Ri. No matter how Grayson feels about it. We’re going to fight, but this time I’m not leaving when we do. This time I’m going to fight and win because it’s about protecting him, something I’ve failed at miserably.