Page 61 of Trusting Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings 2)

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Grace was feelinga little bit looser thanks to her two Crown and Cokes. She wasn’t tipsy, by any stretch of the imagination. But she wasn’t feeling as stiff and in pain as she slipped off her jacket and stepped out of her shoes.

When the front door opened behind her she gasped, suddenly feeling like she was a teenager who got caught sneaking out, except in this case she was sneaking in. Not that she’d ever snuck out. Her mom had been too sick during her teen years to even know if she was in the house half the time. But this is how she imagined that would feel.

She’d left the bar without saying anything to Easton, who had been playing pool with his brother Eli. After that kiss, her head had been all over the place and she’d wanted to come home and be upstairs in bed before he got home.

It looked like that wasn’t going to happen.

“Hey. Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“We’re not actually together.”

He closed the door behind him and walked toward her in long strides. There was a look of determination in his face, and she braced herself for a fight. Well, not a fight. She didn’t think that Easton would actually fight with her, that wasn’t really his style. But she braced herself for a discussion where she would have to defend her actions.

When he stopped directly in front of her, she had to lift her head up. He pointed to the oversized reading chair in front of the fireplace. “Sit down.”

At his authoritative command her inner self went full swoon, collapsing on a fainting couch while begging, “Ravish me.”

“Excuse me?” Grace did her best to sound completely unaffected, but she was pretty sure that her breathless response and flushed cheeks were giving away just how much her body had liked his instruction.

“You need a massage. I’m going to give you one.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it. How could she argue with a man offering to use his large, powerful hands to make her feel better? Her entire body ached.

“Sit down.” He repeated.

Her chest was rising and falling as she walked over to the chair. As she lowered down onto the chair and watched as he started a fire in the fireplace. His broad shoulders and muscular back were visible through the thin material of his long-sleeved cotton shirt as he tossed in wood and then crouched down as he started the fire.

She did her best not to ogle him, but it had become somewhat of a habit over the past few weeks. Seemed he couldn’t help herself. Her eyes just gravitated toward him whenever he was in her line of vision. Sometimes even when he wasn’t her eyes would seek him out.

It wasn’t just because he was so gorgeous, although that certainly didn’t hurt. It was also because of the way his body moved. He was like a perfectly tuned machine. Yesterday she’d seen him swing a sledgehammer and her ovaries tingled so much she worried she might need to take a pregnancy test.

When the fire was beginning to roar, he stood and instructed her to, “Stay there.”

The independent woman in her wanted to say something sarcastic or at least clever, but her inner submissive chose this time to be dominant. So instead of telling him that she wasn’t a dog, or that he wasn’t the boss of her she just nodded silently.

He picked up Cleo, who had sauntered in to see him while he was building the fire, and then disappeared upstairs.

She tried to get herself under control. It was a task proving more difficult done than said, though. Whatever hormone his commands and watching him build the fire released in her body were working even better than the two drinks she’d had. The infusion of arousal or cortisol, or whatever it was, acted as a pretty powerful pain reliever, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. The thought of his work roughened hands touching her bare skin sent another infusion of dopamine shooting into her system dulling her aches and pains until they were almost gone.

She heard heavy steps on the staircase and looked up to see something out of a fantasy. Easton was walking down the stairs in sweatpants and no shirt. Yes, that’s right, he was returning to give her a massage with dark gray sweatpants, no shirt, and what looked like massage oil in his hand.

Then a thought hit her. She hadn’t been getting that much sleep and she wondered if perhaps she had fallen asleep when she got home and this was a dream. The fire crackling and flames putting off a dim, romantic light definitely cast the scene in a dream-like quality.

If this was a dream she didn’t want to wake up.

He walked toward her and for some reason she got nervous. Her. Grace Wells. Elsa the Ice Queen.

Out of that nervousness, she asked, “Do you always travel with massage oil?”

The left side of his lips tilted up in a boyish grin that had her vagina standing in the massage line calling next.

“I got it a few days ago when you complained about your shoulders and back hurting. I thought you might need it.”

His response hit her like cupid’s arrow straight in her chest. He’d actually gone to the trouble of buying massage oil because of her soreness?

The cynical side of her brain brought up the fact that his actions were most likely self-serving. Offer a massage and it would lead to something else. But as soon as that thought entered her mind, she shut it down. She might not know everything about Easton, but she did know that he’d gotten the oil because he’d been worried about her suffering. Just like he’d shown her yoga stretches and gotten her Arnica montana to relieve the pain she was in.

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