Page 20 of To Teleport, or Not to Teleport?
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I met his gaze and found him studying me. “I-I um, overheard talk about damage here.”
His face lit up, and my heart squeezed as the boy I remembered reappeared. Grayson had always been beautiful, but when his cat rose to the surface, he became devastatingly so. A thin sheen of darkness had followed him the moment his father’s sins had become his, and yet, when it was just the two of us, I found it gone.
“You were worried? About me?” His devilish grin made the butterflies in my stomach flutter at warp speed.
“I’ve never stopped,” I admitted, and the moment the last word slipped free, I questioned my sanity at such a confession.
Grayson stilled, and his grin was replaced with a hunger I’d never seen. He caught my face in both hands and devoured my mouth with his. I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and held on, afraid I’d melt into a pool of desire and fantasies. His lips were firm, nipping, licking, and sucking until I gave him entry.
He deepened the kiss and drugged me with his taste and touch. I could have never properly fantasized about the moment. Any description I could come up with would never have done it justice. Though firm, he was also gentle as he gave me both sweetness and an animalistic carnal desire I knew I’d never get with anyone but him.
With one kiss, Grayson had ruined all other men for me.
Sucking in a shuddering breath between kisses, I froze when a vision slammed into me. Destruction, anger, dread, and hopelessness filtered through the images, and my eyes welled with tears.
“What did you see?” he asked, wiping the wetness from my cheeks.
Pressing a hand against my heart, I willed it to slow. “Furniture was ruined—no, destroyed. Someone destroyed your work.”
Grayson looked around the shop, the muscles in his face twitching with his thoughts.
“What else has happened?” I asked.
He stepped back, and I wrapped my arms around my middle, hoping to contain some of the heat he’d shared. “Some stupid shit,” he said, shaking his head and returning to me. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Someone’s targeting you, Grayson. That matters!”
A boyish smile filled his face as he pulled me against him.
I pushed back enough to meet his gaze.
“They want me gone, and it’s not going to happen.”
“Grayson!” The soft press of his lips to my forehead stilled me.
“Aileen, I’m not leaving.”
“W-why the H-E double hockey sticks not?”
His chuckle rumbled against my pinned arms. “Still can’t bring yourself to cuss?”
I narrowed my gaze, unamused. “I’m not here to talk about my choices in words.”
He cupped my face, his thumb caressing my cheek. “No, you came here worried about little ole me.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“I’m yours,” he whispered and pressed a feather-soft kiss to my lips.
“G?”
I sprang from Grayson’s arms like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and a moment later, one of the men from the diner stepped in from the back room.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were talking to a customer.”
Grayson chuckled. “Kaleb, this is Aileen, my mate.”
A sound I’d not heard before slipped from me at the same time a bolt of magic left my fingers, zoomed around the room, and hit Grayson in the bottom. I’d always had control of my zaps, unlike my teleporting skills, but this mate business was frazzling me.
