Page 41 of Defended By Love

Grant kneels down in front of me on the couch. His hands flutter up to reach for my own, but pull back. He balls his hands into fists and drops them to his side.

“What do you need?” he asks in a voice that feels like a kiss.

I know he’s being sincere—kind, caring, dedicated, the very embodiment of sweet. But, with him in a towel, still damp and glistening, plus kneeling in front of me, I’m getting very unsweet thoughts about him. Very unproductive thoughts.

“First, I need you to put some clothes on,” I admit. Grant nods, like he’s just been granted a holy task. “Then, I need the truth. I need to know who you are, who you really are.”

There’s a slight flinch on Grant’s part, so subtle that I almost question if I saw it. At least, I would question it if I weren’t so absolute in my self-belief.

“The real me isn’t that suave superhero,” he says finally. “It’s some blotchy janitor who still lives in his mom’s basement.”

He doesn’t say all the other things—that he’s the guy who races into a crumbling building for me, who has the cutest/dorkiest sense of humour, who makes me feel like my ice heart is melting when he looks at me with those eyes of his.

I should probably say those things, especially considering how distraught he looks. I don’t. Even though I’m demanding honesty from him, I’m not willing to let myself be vulnerable in the same way with him.

Not yet. Especially not when it’s so much more dangerous for my heart if I’m allowed to fall in love with him.

“Yeah, that’s the guy I need to talk to.”

Chapter 22

When Grant reemerges a short time later, he’s wearing light gray sweatpants that look sexier than they have any right to be, and a faded, holey t-shirt that reads ‘I Drive a Hearse for the Carpool Lane’. I’m guessing he’s bulked up lately because it stretches against his broad, muscular chest and shoulders in a way that makes him fidget and pull at the seams. His hair is still wet, but less than before. Dark brown curls are starting to jump up, jutting out at odd angles that defy gravity as much as he does.

“I brought you some dry clothes.” Grant inches towards me like he’s a lion tamer about to feed a new lion. “I don’t think they’re really your style… sorry.”

I take the clothes out of his hands and hold them up. He brought a pair of Christmas pajama pants and a t-shirt that has a picture of robot aliens on it. They look oddly familiar.

“Is this from Bertha Jenkins’s graphic novel series about those aliens that crash land onto Earth and hide in plain sight as sex toys?”

“The Nightstand Why Choose series, yeah. I, um, was hoping you weren’t familiar with that series.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Everyone is familiar with Bertha Jenkins… apparently,” I add, looking at the t-shirt.

Grant runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I got those for free…” He trails off. “You know, after I paid money for it.” He exhales slowly. “I really don’t want to lie to you anymore.”

“So don’t.” I gesture for him to turn around while I change into the clothes he brought.

“I won’t! Starting now, I’m an open book.”

I peel off my wet clothes and pull the oversized t-shirt on. “An open erotica book,” I say, glancing down at the graphic.

“They’re romance—scifi romance. Not that the genre really matters. They’re phenomenally written. And the science! Amazing! Zagreus Hart was apparently so impressed with the science in them about space and time travel that he put the whole collection in our break room. That’s where I read them. Word around the water cooler is that they’re serving as the basis for some new project…”

He continues to talk about the science while I fold up my wet clothes and roll down the waist of the pajama pants so they don’t trail too far past my feet.

“You can turn around,” I say, interrupting Grant as he talks about how the dildo one of the alien-robots traveled back in time to their very first orgy after saving the world from ocean monsters… or something. I got a bit lost. I don’t usually read anything that isn’t titled ‘Evidence’, but I might have to make an exception for these titillating transformer aliens.

“True, my trope of choice is when a character returns to save the day, but I teared up so much when the butt plug came back to—” He trails off abruptly when he looks at me.

His normally gooey-warm eyes, narrow to a dangerous squint. The hardened edge makes me shiver, my nipples hardening in response.

Seriously, something about him just does it for me.

“You look too good,” he says in a low rumble that goes right through me.

I glance down at my outfit. It confirms what I already suspected: I would never be caught dead wearing this outside.

“Did some of the building debris hit your head on our way out?”

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