Page 26 of Shark 2

“What was that about?” I asked our silent group.

“He’d made that coffee table for his mother. He finished it and the next day was when she stood by the alpha and they banished him,” Grant explained. “He put the table in their courtyard, set it on fire, and walked away while she’d cried.”

Oh.

12

When Reed had returned to our table, he’d acted like nothing was wrong, which was good, but also worrying. Pushing his feelings down too much would lead to an explosion.

Yes, I knew from experience.

The twins cuddled me extra hard when we finally returned to the room after dinner. I lay between them on the bed, their heat surrounding me and their purrs filling the night.

They were both sound asleep, still not able to handle their liquor very well.

I, however, couldn’t sleep. My chest hurt and I wanted to go for a swim, but we weren’t home, we were in a desert, devoid of water.

For over an hour I tried to let the twins’ purrs lull me to sleep, but that was not in the cards tonight.

Extricating myself from between them, I leaned my head through the open doorway between the shared rooms and saw Grant was still awake. He leaned back against the headboard, his phone in his hand as he scrolled through something.

I tiptoed into the room to avoid waking Reed and crawled up the middle of Grant’s bed.

He set his phone down on the side table and opened his arms and spread his legs a little wider so I had room to lay down against his chest with my legs between his. “Can’t sleep?” he asked softly and stroked my hair.

“No,” I whispered and rubbed my face against his shirtless chest. He smelled so good. Like a campfire. “What about you?”

“Same. I may have lied a little bit when I said I wasn’t nervous about the tournament.”

I chuckled softly and looked up at him. “You’ll do great. I’m sure of it.”

He set his hand against the side of my face and rubbed my cheek with his thumb. “You’re so beautiful.” Leaning forward, he pressed a soft kiss to my lips.

“Do you want to sneak out?” I asked.

“Sneak out?” he asked and arched a brow.

“Well, I didn’t get dessert and I saw that the place downstairs has cheesecake slices for sale.”

“Sold,” he said as he put a shirt on, and we both quickly and quietly slid sandals on, and exited the room.

We waited for the elevator hand in hand, smiling at each other like we were naughty kids on our way to do something we weren’t supposed to. The elevator arrived and it was empty as we climbed on and hit the button for the ground floor.

He pushed me against the wall of the elevator and kissed me deeply, his hands gripping my hips and my hands gripping his shirt. Someone got into the elevator on the next floor, but Grant didn’t stop kissing me, blocking me from view of the other person with his body.

We finally made it to the ground floor and only then did he stop kissing me.

Swinging our joined hands as we walked, we smiled at each other and ignored anyone around us.

At the display counter, I squatted down and debated for a minute about which cheesecake to get, but finally decided on the strawberry.

Grant got the caramel and chocolate one and we took our desserts over to one of the small booths in the seating area.

“Delicious,” I said around my bite.

“Try?” he requested and opened his mouth.

I stabbed a forkful and carefully fed it to him. He did the same for me and I felt that pressure and pain in my chest ease.

---