Page 26 of Beautiful Betrayal

“We’re going to be okay,” he promises, and I wonder if he’s trying to convince me or him, or both of us. It doesn’t matter though. I want him to be right. I want him to be right so badly that when his mouth comes down on mine, I am instantly clinging to him the way I would a ledge for dear life. I can’t let go or I’ll cease to exist. I won’t let go. Not this time. Not ever. No matter how fierce that storm becomes. No matter how brutal the fight I know is to come.

Chapter eighteen

Mia

“Stop kissing me like it’s goodbye, Mia,” Grayson orders, pressing me against the closet wall in between a row of his clothes and mine. His fingers tangle roughly in my hair. “There is no goodbye. Not this time. Not ever again. You’re mine and just to be clear, I’m yours. I wasalwaysyours.”

“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. Things happened. Those things change us.”

He kisses me, a deep, drugging kiss. “Do we taste different to you?” His hand slides down my back and he cups my backside, molding my hips to his hips, his erection pressed to my belly. “Do we feel different? How do we feel, Mia?”

“Perfect,” I whisper. “But we aren’t perfect. We can’t pretend that we are.” Emotions overwhelm me, the idea that I left him after his father died cutting me into a million little pieces. “Grayson—”

“We’re back together. That’s what matters. We can talk, fight, fuck, and repeat to get past this, but we have that opportunity for one reason and one reason only. We’re here. We’re together.”

“We’re together,” I whisper, my hands sliding under his shirt, palms pressing against his taut flesh in an effort to confirm those words that don’t yet feel real.

“I don’t want to be without you again,” he says, his voice low, raspy, affected, as his mouth closes down on mine and the minute our tongues connect, we’re desperate all over again. Our hands are everywhere and clothes are shoved, pulled, and pushed until we’re standing there in the closet, naked, and it’s still not enough.

Grayson pulls my leg to his hip and his thick erection presses along the wet seam of my sex. I moan with need and satisfaction because he’s here, we’re here, doing this. He presses inside me and lifts me at the same time. It’s just like beside the car the day of the funeral. He’s holding me and his hands squeeze my ass, pulling me away from the wall and down on top of him even as he’s pushing into me. I hold onto his shoulders, my nails digging in, my lips finding his as his hand settles between my shoulder blades. And when we can’t kiss for the force of our passion, I bury my face in his neck, inhaling that delicious woodsy scent of him that I want to roll around in, get drunk on.

It’s as if we both feel like we have to hold onto each other, to get closer to survive and perhaps that’s where this leads; we do have to hold onto each other, we do have to get closer to survive all the damaged places we’ve been and now we cannot fully escape. I don’t want this to end, and yet when my back hits the wall again and he drives into me, I welcome the tumble into bliss that follows. I welcome the shudder of his body around mine. I revel in the deep, guttural groan that escapes his lips in pleasure with me and no one else. Our bodies tremble and ease, seconds ticking before Grayson eases back and says, “How about that pizza?”

I laugh, “Yes. Please. I’m officially starving.”

He kisses me, a quick brush of our mouths before he settles me on the ground, but when we would pull on our clothes, he cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “We’re together, Mia. Everything will work out.”

“I want it, too. I really did hurt without you, Grayson.”

“Me too, baby. Me, too.” He strokes my hair. “Let’s eat in the kitchen where we can heat up the pizza and talk.Reallytalk. I owe you a few more explanations.”

He means about why he fired me off my case the day we broke up and I dread this conversation. I’m not even sure I can have it now. I don’t want to fight with him and yet I know we need to clear the air. I know I’ve avoided conversations that I shouldn’t have avoided. I think he feels the same thing, the dread, the wish that we could just go back to where we started. I sense it in the air, I see it in his eyes. He doesn’t want to fight, but we have to have tough conversations. We have to deal with this.

As soon as we’re both back in our sweats, tees, and sneakers, Grayson takes my hand and leads me forward, out of the bedroom. Once we’re on the stairs, he bends our elbows, pulling me next to him. “Talk, fight, fuck,” he says softly, and the new ball of dread in my belly softens when we enter the kitchen and seem to fall into old habits. He kisses my hand before he releases me to place the pizza in the oven. “Do you remember the first time we ate this pizza?” he asks, turning up the temperature.

Do I remember?

So very well.

“How can I forget our first date?” I ask, settling onto a barstool. “It was a week after our meeting for drinks, and I still hadn’t called you on Friday night, so you took matters into your own hands.”

“I had no choice,” he says, joining me to sit on the barstool next to me, both of us facing each other, his hand settling on my knee. “I wasn’t letting you run from me.”

“I wasn’t running.”

“You were, Mia. You were running scared. I saw it in your eyes.”

I cut my stare and think back to that night, to where I was in my head when I met Grayson because it feels a lot like where I am with him now. And I know Grayson. I know that’s the point in this conversation. He knows that, and he wants me to tap into that memory, into those feelings, and the way he freed me from them. No. The waywefreed me from them.

Grayson cups my head, and kisses me. “How about some wine, baby?”

“Yes. Please. Do you have that one—”

“Of course I have that one. It’s what you like.” He stands up and crosses the room to another bar at the end of the kitchen while I let my mind go where he wants it to go. To our first real date:

It’s seven on Friday night and the cubicles beyond my office door are all empty. I gather my work and slide it into my briefcase. My cellphone rings and I grab it to find my father calling. “Hey, dad.”

“You still at work?”

---