Page 60 of Defended By Love

“I’m really sorry that you’re sad right now, Sunshine. Believe me when I say I’ll do my best to help you through these feelings. Just know, that I promise it’ll all be worth it when you fall in love with me. Every single day is going to be better than the last when you finally fall for me—even if it’s the same damn day again and again.”

For a brief second, there’s a champagne-light bubbling of happiness that sparkles in my chest.

Until I suffocate it.

Grant doesn’t know me. Not really. I’m not the kind of girl people fall in love with. I’m the girl who grates. I’m the hangnail that continually catches. I pull and pester, annoy and fester until people need to cut me loose.

Even when I think I’m indispensable, I get cut loose.

If hurts this much when Domnic fires me, I can’t even imagine how much it would hurt if I let myself fall for Grant and he does the same. When he does the same.

There’s no soft soul under my hard shell. There’s no lovely girl behind the glasses. If Grant is waiting for me to fall in love with him, really fall in love, he’s just setting himself up for disappointment—setting both of us up for disappointment.

“I thought we agreed to put a pin in all the love talk?” My voice cracks slightly on the last word.

Grant opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but then thinks better of it. Maybe it’s my weepy eyes or my cracking voice, whatever it is, he decides to spare me the agony of further professing his love.

“Right. You want casual?”

“More than anything.”

Grant clears his throat, takes a step back from me, and then leans with one arm against the door frame. He pairs the action with a smoldering look that’s half-dorky and half-super hot. Like him.

“Hey girl. Do you play Quidditch?” he asks. “Because you look like a keeper.”

He pauses and grins at me.

I stare back at him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Of course, he laughs. Probably should’ve just gone ahead and called himself Mr. Giggles as his superhero name.

“Serious question,” he says. “Did you have a T.V. growing up?”

“No.” I get that he’s being metaphorical here, but I don’t understand why. I do pop culture. I watched the new Robin Hood movies. I follow Louis St. Clair on social media. “I would just rather do other things than talk about… whatever it was you said. Squid itch?”

Grant’s eyes flash with a delighted sparkle that sends a shiver through my entire body.

“Other things?” he prompts.

“Yes,” I say, a bit frustrated. “I believe I’ve made it perfectly clear that I’d like to have a couple orgasms today. You’re the one who’s declined.”

Grant steps into my space yet again. Every time he does it, it’s absolutely intoxicating.

“Hailey, if it scares you when I tell you that I believe you’re my soulmate, it’s going to terrify you when I fuck you. When I finally get to be inside of you, I’m going to show you that you’re mine and I’m yours. If you think you’ve seen how intense I am about you, it’s nothing compared to how I’m going to be when I get you to come on my cock. You’re going to see just how crazy I am for you because I know I won’t be able to hold anything back.”

Then, Grant boops me on the nose with a single finger, smiles and releases me so that he can grab my spare key from a hidden pocket on an herb planter by my door.

Okay, we are going to have to talk about the fact that he knows where my spare key is—just not yet. Right now, I’m still reeling from the thought of what he’ll be like when he’s finally inside me. I want him to lose control when his fingers and cock are inside me. I want to feel him move inside me and show me that I’m his in every single way.

God, I want him.

“So if you’re not going to fuck me, what are we going to do?” I ask, trailing after him like a puppy, even though we’re inside my own apartment.

Grant looks around and beams appreciatively at the place, even though I literally copied all of my decorating from a page in an IKEA catalogue.

“Well, you said that if I stayed quiet around your boss, I’d get to plan out what we do for a day.” He waggles his eyebrows like a silent movie villain.

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