Page 47 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

“Anything,” Easton responded.

Grace had a feeling that he wasn’t just talking about her quitting her job or moving here. She could see that his question was more personal than that. He was asking if she regretted what had happened between the two of them.

“No. No regrets,” she stated firmly.

Relief. That’s what she saw flash in Easton’s big brown eyes as his lips tilted up in a grin.

Damn. Seeing that half-smile and his warm stare was making her a lot hotter than the fire was. She wanted, so badly, to show him just how much she didn’t regret the night they’d spent together.

Grace had never felt so drawn to another person before in her life. Attraction? Sure. But what she was feeling was a lot more than attraction. It was like Easton was magnetized and she was metal being pulled towards him. She felt powerless to stop it, and that was not a feeling she enjoyed.

But that’s exactly why she couldn’t do that. She needed to keep her distance. If not, she feared that she’d end up in his bed and if that happened, she didn’t even think a reality show would be enough incentive for her to get out.

She’d meant it when she’d said that Easton was going to be trouble. He was dangerous. At least to her. He was her kryptonite, her Achilles’ heel. Forget her stubbornness being her downfall, the man standing in front of her was the real threat. Because if she wasn’t careful, she’d lose herself in him. And that was something that she couldn’t let happen.

Grace abruptly shut her computer and stood. “It’s late. I better get some sleep. If we do get cast, I have a feeling I won’t be sleeping much the next six weeks.”

As she walked past him, she noticed that Easton put his hands in his pockets. She wondered if he was just as tempted as she was. Did he want to touch her as much as she wanted to touch him?

The thought of that being the case sent a thrill rushing through her.

When she reached the stairs, he cleared his throat. “Do you know when we’re going to hear one way or another?”

She glanced over her shoulder and when their eyes met, all the air escaped her lungs. There was so much intensity in his stare. She felt it from the top of her head down to her toes.

“They said they’d let everyone know in the morning. Goodnight.” She turned her head and rushed upstairs, hoping he didn’t notice her change in demeanor.

When she got to the room and shut the door, she noticed that her heart was racing like it was in a high-speed chase.

Her Elsa the Ice Queen persona was not one that she ever actively worked to create. It was just who she was. She did not get emotionally attached to people, aside from her sisters, ever. She didn’t have to work to stay detached, she just was.

Now she felt a little silly for taking pride in her Ice Queen identity. Clearly, it hadn’t been something she’d done. And now that it was being challenged, she was having a very difficult time using self-control to maintain it.

She wanted, more than anything, to feel Easton’s hands and his mouth on her body. Which made perfect sense. He’d given her the best orgasm of her life. That was a completely reasonable conclusion from the information her brain had. If that was all she wanted, she could chalk it up to a justifiable physical desire.

But it was more than that. She wanted to put her hands and her mouth on him again, too. She wanted to feel his muscles twitch beneath her touch. She wanted to bring him close to the edge and then watch him go over it. She wanted to make him feel as good as he’d made her feel. She might even want that more than she wanted her own release.

There was no justification for that. There was no way to explain that desire away as a physical need. And that scared the hell out of her.

Her brain was scrambling trying to come up with a hypothesis as to why that might be. Clearly the night they’d spent together had somehow rewired her brain. All she had to do was fix that.

That was it. She needed to send the synapses another pathway so that her body would have a different association with pleasure.

With a plan of action in place, she rummaged through her bag and grabbed her go-to pleasure giver and lay in bed. After switching her intimate massager on, she placed it between her legs, closed her eyes, and began to play out her most used fantasy in her mind. A man taking complete control of her and her surrendering to it. The reason why it was her go-to fantasy was because there was no danger of it happening in real life.

Even with her massager, and her vivid fantasy, her body was not getting there. She might as well be pressing the vibrating toy to her shoulder for all the good it was doing her.

She was just about to turn it off and give up entirely when she heard the shower come on. Instantly a picture of Easton naked beneath the water popped into her head. Drips were sliding down his muscular chest all the way to his rock-hard abs. He took himself in his hand and stroked and that was all it took to bring her up and over the edge.

Her body shook with a powerful release as she fantasized about him getting himself off. When the final tremor subsided, she turned off the device, opened her eyes and stared up at the stationary ceiling fan blades above.

He’d ruined her. She couldn’t even get off using her tried and true toy without thinking of him.

Maybe doing this reality show as a couple, even one with no benefits, was a terrible idea. What if she actually began to develop real feelings for him?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she dismissed it.

That was impossible. She’d gone over thirty years without ever coming close to making that sort of connection. Six weeks of having a platonic relationship with someone to compete on a reality show wasn’t going to change that.

She was Elsa the Ice Queen.

As she closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep, she could feel her inner voice’s brows lifting in obvious disapproval.

She’d quit her job, sold her condo, and moved to a town that she’d only ever visited for a couple weeks at a time, but the fake(ish) relationship was the thing that her inner voice objected to?

Well, to that she said, overruled.

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