The Reluctant Romantics Box Set (The Fall, The Mind, The Heart)

I chuckled, seeing him smile for the first time in days. “You’ve been busy, Grant.”

“No, babe.” He grabbed my hand and shut my door, p

ulling me back into the house.

“Grant, I have to go. Really, I can’t stay,” I said halfheartedly, wanting him just as much.

“Rose, I have to be inside you...right now.” He scooped me up in his arms and took me into his bedroom. He took my clothes off piece by piece and covered every inch of my body with his kisses.

“Grant,” I moaned breathlessly, all too eager for him.

“I have to make you come, baby. I live for it, is that wrong? I just want to make you come, call my name, shake while I’m inside you. I want to feel you hot and wet around me and erase the world. I’m so addicted to you, to this.” He dipped his head down then licked me until I came, sighing his name. He climbed on top of me, his eyes deep pools of blue, so full of emotion, and of love for me. The slow descent of his head and his deep kiss were my undoing. His mouth drew everything from mine as my chest pounded in anticipation of his touch. He entered me slowly, inch by sweet inch, and I watched him shudder in satisfaction. His strokes were long and filled me to the brink, not an inch of me missed. The movement of his hips fueled the slow haze we were both drawn under and I clenched around him, completely gone. He stopped suddenly, still wracked with emotion and pulled me close to him, burying his head in my chest. I turned him on his back and pulled myself on top of him.

“I will do whatever you want, Grant. What do you want?” I was completely intoxicated by him and wanted to soothe his heartache.

“You, just you,” he whispered over and over as he started moving again, pulling my hips down to meet his length. The world could set fire and neither of us would care when we were connected like that. The intensity we felt, our hearts and minds totally in sync, the feeling could never be matched. I called out, shuddering against him as he took his time filling me up, leaving me full, gasping, and complementing my name with his hoarse voice.

Once sated and dressed, he walked me back to my car and held me to him tightly. It had been an emotional couple of days and I felt the urge to reassure him one more time.

“Whatever you want. I’m yours Grant, always. I love you,” I whispered to him before I slipped into my SUV. I dared not look back in the rearview for fear I might fall apart. I’d left him alone to deal with his father’s estate, but a part of me knew it would only get him back to me sooner.

Grant

God gave us all the gift of intuition. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy to miss or ignore. I’ve always been really careful to listen to my gut. Like the time Tommy Andrews threw that curve ball and I was sure of it and cracked that bastard out of the park. Or the time I avoided that bear trap on my first hunting trip with my father. I didn’t have to see it to know it was there. Then there was the time I was a couple hundred dollars short of having enough money for my father’s meds and bought my first scratch-off ticket. Sometimes the gut knows before the mind has a chance to catch up. Tonight I spent a good amount of time thanking my intuition.

She was my match, my heart, my soul, my future, and not just because she was beautiful, and not because she was smart or funny and she got my jokes. It was not because of the incredible sex we had either, or the way she looked at me, even though all these things contributed. It was the way I felt when I was with her. She had this effect on me like no one else ever had. I could climb and move mountains. I was stronger, braver, and I felt more like me, the me that I was before the world’s shit beat me down. I’d gladly take the scars I’d been given just to be able to appreciate the gift of knowing myself again through her. She did that for me.

She floats right in front of me now. She floats.

She floated around our engagement party, a woman with the same conviction that we are both part of a bigger picture, a picture we are about to paint together. I saw the love in her eyes for those around her and for me. I was sure I couldn’t feel more full, happy, content, whatever you wanted to call it. It weakened me and made me stronger at the same time.

I looked around the people admiring our connection, clinking glasses in celebration for us. I could feel their excitement for her, for me, for who we were together. They knew it, too.

“What are you doing?” she asked as I pull out my hunting knife.

“Marking our tree, babe,” I said as I dug my blade into the rough bark and cleared the way for our initials. We’d opted to come to the land at sunset after our engagement party rather than go back to her apartment. It was our place and I knew when Rose suggested it that she wanted to be here as much as I did.

“I don’t have a suture kit out here,” she said in warning.

“You aren’t the only Foster good with a knife,” I mused as she sat beneath me and inched away from the falling bark. I looked down at her reaction and saw her smile at the thought of her new last name.

“There’s something about this place,” she said in a whisper. “I can’t explain it.”

I smiled as I began to carve on the freshly uncovered wood.

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s like...it’s exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t know it.” My grin spread as I pressed my knife in deeper with each word she spoke.

“I love when your dimple pops out. It’s only when you smile like that.”

“Hush, woman, I’m trying to do a manly thing here,” I scolded as I glanced down at her. She sat in the grass, not giving a damn about ruining what I was sure was an expensive dress. She looked at the pond behind me in a slight daze.

“So peaceful, it’s like a dream.”

“I think I dreamed you into my life,” I said, staring down at her perfect features. I was sure I’d never seen anything more beautiful as the fading sun glinted off her hair, making it a fiery red. She looked up at me with a look of stunned amazement as I sheathed my knife and threw it to the ground, lifting her to see my handiwork. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I pulled her to me and whispered in her ear. “You cold?”

“No.”