Page 47 of The Seascape Between Us

He looked up from his phone as I walked into the room and shot me a lascivious grin, his gaze roving over me from head to toe, leaving me feeling exposed despite my clothes, which, under his hungry gaze, I didn’t hate.

“You should have woken me,” I told him. “It’s late.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.” The grin pulling at his mouth—that talented, amazing mouth—stretched wider. “I figured you needed your sleep after last night.”

My face heated, and I couldn’t even really argue the point. I’d practically passed out after, barely staying awake long enough to climb into the shower with Grey and clean up before collapsing back into the bed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Grey said, his voice dropping and taking on a rough edge. The sound shot directly to my cock. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I’d been thinking about dropping to my knees on the floor in front of him, unzipping his pants, and sucking him until he exploded down my throat.Maybe I was easy to read. “I’ll never get out of here if you keep it up.”

“Fair.” He wasn’t wrong, after all. I had a full day ahead of me. Besides, the hotel, it was Thursday. I had groceries and medications to pick up and drop off, and I promised Mr. Zimmerman I’d help him clean out his shed.

“Later, though,” Grey said. “You should definitely look at me like that later.”

I grinned, made my way to the kitchen, and poured a cup of coffee. When I returned to the living room, I dropped next to him on the sofa and nodded at his suit. “Are you going into Portland?”

He made the trip a few times a week to check in with his business, but he always came back to The Square, to me. Something in my chest squeezed, and I did my best to ignore it. After all, no matter how much I loved being with him here, in our bubble, or working together at the hotel, it was all temporary.

“You okay?” Grey asked, frowning at me. “You look worried.”

I pushed the dark thoughts to the shadowy part of my brain so I could ignore them and pretend the future didn’t exist. “Fine. Just thinking of what I have to do today.”

His narrowed gaze stayed trained on my face, as if he didn’t quite believe me.

“Sorry, did you say if you were going into the office? I was distracted.”

He shook his head. “I’m at the hotel today. There are some deliveries coming, but we’re doing a virtual meeting.”

I hoped he wasn’t stretching himself too thin, helping me with the renovations while trying to run his company. I knew Finn helped him out a lot, but he shouldn’t be putting the hotel or me over his real life. “If you need to go in, I can manage on my own.”

“I don’t. Virtual meeting because of technology. Also, you’re going to be too busy. I don’t care what you say, that shed is going to take you hours to clean out.”

He made a valid point. Mr. Zimmerman had so much junk packed tight in the small building, the doors were starting to bow out. “I might get an early start. Are you okay with managing the deliveries on your own?”

I didn’t ask what was coming in. It was either the new linens for the rooms or the new patio furniture. Hopefully, both since the Grand Re-opening was less than two weeks away.

Then all this ends, an ugly little voice whispered from that shadowy corner of my brain. I wanted to argue, but there was no point. Once the hotel was done, Grey could go back to his old life, and I’d stay just where I’d always been.

I had to stop thinking about it. I wanted to enjoy the time Grey and I had left, and I didn’t want to ruin it all by obsessing about when it all came to an end.

I noticed the quiet first. From the minute I walked into the hotel lobby, silence settled over me, bringing with it a growing sense of unease. The hotel was never quiet, especially not since Grey had strolled back into my life.

Even without guests, there had been the noise from the restaurant in the evenings, and the relentless din of construction all day. I guess I’d grown so used to the rapid pounding of nail guns and the buzz of circular saws that the ever-present racket had just sort of become background noise. Today though, when I walked into the hotel lobby, silence greeted me, and it was both a relief and disconcerting.

Unease tickled at the base of my skull. Was something wrong?

I made my way to the dining room. At just past four p.m., there should have been some guests seated at the new tables Grey had insisted we buy at the same time we’d ordered the furniture for the rooms. The initial plan for updating the dining room had been new drapes framing the curved windows and fresh paint on the walls, maybe new linens for the tables, but Grey had opted to replace the tables and chairs too. Pointing out that they’d have to go in a few years anyway, so we might as well replace them now. In deep blues and warm teak, the end result was a restaurant that retained the same 60’s charm as before, but with a sleek, modern feel.

It was perfect. Exactly what I had always hoped for the space.

“You’re back already,” Grey said from behind me. I turned away from the dining room to find him closing the short distance between us. He was still wearing the dark slacks from this morning, but he’d taken off the jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, exposing tanned forearms. His hair was tousled and windswept like he’d been outside or, and far more likely, he’d been running his fingers through his thick, wavy hair. Somehow, he looked even hotter than when I’d last seen him this morning.

“Hey,” he said, softly once he was standing next to me.

“Hey,” I replied. Not especially original, but Grey didn’t seem to care. He leaned closer to kiss me, but I stepped back. “I’m gross. I’ll get you dirty.” A mix of dust and cobwebs clung to my clothes and skin from an afternoon spent hauling rotted cardboard boxes out of Mr. Zimmerman’s shed.

“You promise?” Grey’s smile turned lecherous, and he linked his fingers with mine, pulling me closer until my chest was flush with his. My heart stuttered, and a warm tingle spread over my skin.

He tipped his head up, so his mouth brushed mine, a whisper of a kiss that I chased until my mouth was fused with his. Ourtongues slipped against each other’s, and hot, hungry promise weaved between us with an invisible thread. I wanted to get out of there, go back to the house, shower, and then take each other apart, but first—.

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