I could hear the bar bustling around us, but all I was focused on was the way Grant slid his arm around my waist. His fingertips traced lines along my hips as I leaned further into his body. I pressed my cheek against his sculpted chest and relished how he held me.
He didn’t control me.
He simply cradled me.
My eyes were nearly closed when I heard Jane’s voice off in the distance. She was telling Grant to take me home. She was leaving with Hollis, but I didn’t care. My best friend had had that crush on my brother for years, and it was about damn time I could finally stop hearing about her desire for him.
“Come on,” Grant said into my ear. “Let’s get you home.”
He picked me up effortlessly in his arms, and I slid into his chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung to him as he carried me to his car. He dipped me down into the backseat, and I laid my head down, watching as the world spun around me. I rattled off my address and drifted in and out of sleep, but with every passing second, I could feel myself sobering up.
I was single, newly single, for the first time in eight years, and I wanted to celebrate it. I wanted to enjoy it. I wanted to be a reckless single twenty-six-year-old and spread my wings and make memories I would enjoy looking back on. I wanted to erase all the arguments and all the yelling and get into the pleasurable meat of what it meant to be a twenty-something adult in this day and age.
And I wanted it with Grant.
He pulled up to my apartment complex and helped me up the steps. I was significantly soberer than when we had left the bar, but I was also more confident. I slipped my key into the lock and pushed the door open, then I gazed up into Grant’s twinkling brown eyes.
“Need help getting inside?” he asked. “Or is this where we say goodnight?”
And without another word, I threw myself at him.
Our lips collided, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I expected him to pick me up and walk me into my apartment. To press me against the wall with his taut muscles and rip my clothes off my body. My lips were undulating against his, and my tongue slid across his lips. But instead of his hands falling to my hips or his lips parting for my tongue, he stood there.
Unmoving.
I felt like an idiot. All of those swirling teenage dreams came to a grinding halt. I pulled my lips away from him and settled back down on my feet as embarrassment cascaded over my body. What the hell had I been thinking? I had clearly misread any signals I thought he’d been giving off at the bar. I looked down at my feet before I slung my purse over my shoulder, then I turned to head into my apartment.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, without turning to face him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Are you drunk?”
His question stopped me in my tracks as I stood just inside the doorway to my apartment.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you drunk?” he repeated.
I turned and lifted my eyes to Grant’s. I could see the conflict running behind them. Was that what he was afraid of? That he was taking advantage of me?
“No,” I said. “The fresh air from the car ride sobered me up. Thank you for that, by the way. For bringing me home.”
“Okay,” he said. “And you’re welcome.”
I nodded and reached out for the door, but it crashed open and caught me off guard. Grant’s hands gripped my hips and hoisted me off my feet, then slammed my back into the wall. A gasp fell from my lips; one he swallowed as he covered his mouth with mine. My eyes fluttered closed and my legs wrapped around his waist, and I could feel his hands digging into the meat of my body.
He lifted me from the wall before he reached back and slammed my door closed. Then he placed me against it and began to tug at my clothes. His lips were electric, caressing my neck as his hands slid my dress from my body. I was panting. Moaning. Aching for him between my legs. He set me down, and I tugged his pants down his body before I pulled his cock out. It was leaking. Pulsing. Warming in the palm of my hand.
Then Grant whipped me around and pressed me to the door.
He kicked my legs apart with his own before his lips fell to my neck, nipping and sucking as his hands ran along the curves of my body. He unhooked my bra with one hand, and I allowed it to slide down my arms as he cupped my tits and caressed my nipples to engorged peaks. I could feel his hips grinding against mine. I could feel his cock sliding between my dripping pussy folds. His hands grabbed my ass and massaged my skin, then I felt one of them disappear behind me.
“Should I grab us some protection?” Grant asked.
“I’m on birth control,” I said breathlessly.
“Good,” he said hotly.
His cock sank into me from behind, and my legs gave way. His arm hooked around me and held me up as he buried every inch into my throbbing pussy. Our juices dripped, and my body shook. I was pressed between his sinewy body and the cool strength of the door. He slid in effortlessly, coating himself in my arousal before he slid back out.