Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“So you’re finally admitting you made up that committee just to have a reason to call me?”
“No. That committee wasn’t even a thought when I called you. I just wanted to talk to you. I figured seeing how things were going your first day back would be reason enough to reach out. But you had to call me out on it, asking if I called any other employees to check how their days were going. So I panicked and made that shit up while I was on the phone.”
I tilted my head up to look at him and smiled.
“Don’t gloat, sweetheart. You’re putty in my hands as much as I am in yours. I just don’t lord it over you.”
“I am not putty in your hands.”
“No? Then give me that mouth, and let’s see if you stop me when I’m feeling you up for all the neighbors enjoying the sunset to watch.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Maybe. But I still would bet this boat that if we start kissing, you wouldn’t stop me from slipping my fingers into your shorts and fingering that sweet pussy of yours.”
My jaw dropped open.
Grant leaned down and kissed my chin. “Careful,” he whispered in my ear. “You keep that mouth open too long, and I might fill it.”
I wanted to tell him he was nuts, but honestly, even hearing him say “fingering that sweet pussy” had between my legs tingling again. So he wasn’t that off base. Rather than challenge him, I turned my head forward and settled against his chest.
“So Leo and you have an interesting rapport.”
“Kid’s new hobby is being a pain in my ass.”
I laughed. “He said you’ve been his Big for a long time.”
Grant was quiet for a moment. “He’s my ex-wife’s half brother. They share the same mentally unstable mother. He was born in the hospital while his mother was a patient in the psych ward. Father is some guy she met when they were living in a halfway house. She went off her meds when she got pregnant and wound up back in a psychiatric facility. Kid was in foster care by the third day of his life.”
“That’s tough. And he’s still in foster care?”
“He’s living with his father’s aunt, who’s had temporary custody the last few years. But she’s older and not really equipped for a teenager. I tried to get custody at one point a few years back when he’d gotten in trouble for stealing, but family trumps a single, non-blood relative who lives on a boat and works sixty hours a week.”
I liked how honest he’d become with me, and that I didn’t have to pry things out of him like at the beginning. But I really loved that he was the type of man who’d try to get custody of a troubled kid who was the sibling of his ex-wife. I turned around and looked into his eyes, pressing my lips to his.
“What was that for?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I just like you. The more I get to know you, the more I find to like.”
Grant looked away for a moment. “You know how you said you don’t always see things so clearly when you first date a guy, and you have a habit of picking assholes?”
“Yes.”
He looked directly into my eyes. “You’re doing it again.”
My face wrinkled. “What do you mean?”
“Fairytales have a Prince Charming and a bad guy. Life isn’t so black and white. Sometimes Prince Charming is both.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
Grant shook his head. “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
“But why would I be disappointed?”
“Ireland, I’m the kind of man who brings women to an apartment I don’t live in to fuck them.”
I blinked a few times. “Okay…well, you’ve mentioned that. But I’m here right now. And you know you could have pushed things and slept with me when we were downstairs. Yet you didn’t.”
He stared at me. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ireland.”
“Okay. I believe you. But I’m a big girl. If you do, I’ll live. You don’t need to keep warning me away.”
Grant closed his eyes. After a solid minute, he opened them and nodded. “Okay.”
The mood definitely changed after that little chat. I had to work early in the morning, so once it got fully dark, I told him I needed to get going.
Grant walked me to my car. “Thank you for coming to the carnival today,” he said.
“I had fun. You’re leaving for a business trip tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. I have a seven a.m. flight.”
“We’ll both be up at the ass crack of dawn then,” I smiled.
He leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on my lips. “I’ll talk to you during the week.”
“Okay.”
The entire ride home, I went over everything that had happened that day. It had seemed like such a perfect afternoon, followed by a mind-blowing orgasm in the evening, and a picture-perfect sunset. Yet Grant couldn’t seem to leave things that way. He had to tell me what a bad guy he was, even though everything I’d witnessed so far in my time spent with him had shown me just the opposite. I went round and round, analyzing and overanalyzing where things had taken that turn, and I came back to one commonality. Every time we talked about Grant’s ex-wife, he took a step back.