Grip Trilogy Box Set

I angle my head, studying him. If there’s one thing I know, it’s when Grip wants something. He’s never held back from me, never left me wondering what he wanted from me, but now, I sense that he’s withholding something.

“What do you want?” I slide back down the headboard until we’re both lying down, facing one another. “From me? Grip, tell me what you want.”

Hesitation clouds his expression, and then he shutters his face altogether.

“Like you said.” He pushes the wild tumble of hair back from my face. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Tell me what you want.” I brush my thumb over the dark slash of his brows. “Can you do that for me?”

“Bris.” He drops his lashes, covering whatever is hiding in his eyes. “I don’t think—”

“Right—don’t think, just tell me.”

He scans my face. I know my expression is a blank check, offering him whatever he wants, but I don’t care. All hesitation falls away. Staring back at me is the persistent man who pursued me shame- lessly for eight years, who wore my resistance down to nothing.

“I want you to come with me.” A muscle clenches in his jaw. “I know it’s selfish and might seem like I’m asking you to follow me across the country, but—”

“Yes.”

“I’m still asking,” he goes on, like I didn’t speak, like he didn’t hear me. “I don’t know how we make it work. We’ll figure that out together, but the thought of seeing you only a few times a month . . . I know we can do it, I just don’t want to.”

“Grip.”

“And maybe I am a caveman. Maybe it is sexist to ask you to be the one who moves. It’s just, with classes three times a week, I don’t see how I can—”

“Grip.” I press my fingers over the soft lips that were making love to my nipples not even an hour ago. “Baby, I said yes.”

“You did?” he mumbles into my fingers, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

“I did.” I laugh, not exactly sure how I’ll make it work, but knowing that I will. For him, I will. “I mean, I’ll have to come back and forth some, but I have to try. I don’t want a long-distance relation- ship. That sounds like torture.”

Grip’s smile dims and his brows draw together.

“But Rhyson needs you here now more than ever. He won’t be happy to hear you’re moving to New York at such a crucial time.”

“Rhys will understand. He’s got Kai.” “What does that mean?”

“That he knows how it feels to have someone who means more than everything else.”

Grip’s expression softens. His eyes are intent, like he’s memorizing the way the light strikes my face the same way I’m memorizing him. He slowly, painstakingly peels the sheet back from my breasts, the cool air raising goose bumps on my naked skin . . . or maybe that’s just Grip.

“I know you said you like a rough fuck.” Grip shifts until he’s leaning over me, his weight supported by the muscles flexing in his arms. He slots his lean hips between my thighs, and I feel him eager and ready again through the sheet covering my legs. “But how do you feel about long, slow, grateful ones?”

I widen my thighs so he sinks deeper into me.

“The longer,” I say, reaching between us to grab his growing erection, my hand fisting him, lengthening him. “The better.”

Chapter 4

Bristol

ME: Hey! I know it’s Sunday morning, but I need to talk to you about something.

Rhyson: Sure. You wanna call?

Me: I was actually thinking about coming over.

Rhyson: See you when you get here.