“Come with me to the resort on Wednesday,” he murmurs and leans closer, his leg once again brushing up against mine.
My cheeks blaze crimson as I recall my dreams last night. Dreams where he touched me and held me. Dreams where we were naked and tangled together. “I, uh…”
He chuckles. “Down girl. I meant as colleagues. I’ve needed to travel out to the property now that I’ve acquired it from Mr. Collins. There’s some business stuff I need to take care of. I’ll require the aid of my hardworking assistant.”
Embarrassment floods through me. Of course he wants to look at the property. I assumed he meant he wanted to take me away for a romantic weekend. God, I’m such a flake around him. If he wasn’t so damn good-looking, I wouldn’t get so tongue tied. This whole friends thing will take some practice. I’d guess that most friends aren’t as severely attracted to the other, like I am to him.
“Yes, I’ll go. I knew what you meant,” I tell him firmly, despite the burning heat still lingering on my cheeks and throat.
He flashes me a crooked grin. “Come on. Grab your coffee to go.”
Once we’re outside in the cold drizzle, he pops open an umbrella and holds it above us. It’s small, so I have to lean into his side to keep from getting wet. Together, we start walking down the busy sidewalk.
“Gwen and I watch football on Sunday nights. She likes to cook. Spends hours making all this finger food, even though we’re the only ones there to eat it,” he says with a chuckle. “You should come over tonight and watch the game. As friends of course.”
My gut instinct is to tell him no but then I remember I’m attempting to try new things here. Friendship is one. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to try and get to know Gwen a little better.
“Okay,” I concede. “What should I bring?”
He guides me over to his white Range Rover. “Yourself. That’s all I want.” The husky way in which he says it has me frowning at him.
“Gray…”
Pulling open the car door, he laughs. “Stop reading so much into everything. We both want you there.” I slip into his vehicle, that smells just like him, and ponder what I’m even doing right now. This was not a part of my Sunday plan.
“Where are we going?” I question once he slides into the driver’s seat.
He shrugs as he zips down the road. “I need to do a little shopping. You up for a quick visit to the mall?”
Considering we’re now going in the opposite direction of my home, I can’t help but agree. It would be rude to make him turn around to take me home. “Yeah, the mall sounds fun.”
The seat warmers in his car have me feeling relaxed as ever. I’m enjoying the passing sights and the music that’s playing and the comfortable quiet between us. So much so that it isn’t until a song that Vaughn used to play when we were fucking comes on the radio, that I feel ice begin to creep into my bones. I hadn’t realized how little I think about him when I’m with Gray until now.
“Can you change it?” I ask, my voice breathless.
My eyes close and I can almost feel the weight of Vaughn as he pins me to the mattress. The way he’d wedge his knee between my thighs until his cock was settled against me. How he’d hold me down and fuck me slowly at first. I’d get lost in his gentle touch until he’d turn dark on me. Until he’d hit me or choke me unconscious or do something equally brutal.
“Violet, babe, you’re scaring the hell out of me right now,” a voice growls.
I snap my eyes open to see Gray glaring at me at a stoplight. My hand shakes as I swipe a lock of hair away from my face. Not meeting his gaze, I say, “Nothing. I was just daydreaming.”
The song has long since been changed and the light has turned green. This time, the silence inside the car is thick and heavy. I can sense him brooding about what just happened. Sickness roils in my belly.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he says gruffly. “That’s what friends do.”
Not about this.
I can’t ever talk to anyone about this.
“Maybe one day,” I lie as I twist my fingers in my lap.
He reaches over and covers my hands with his much larger one. His pinky innocently grazes against my clit through my yoga pants, causing me to jolt. I sneak a glance at him. His jaw clenches as he maneuvers the road with ease, his attention ahead of him. My nipples harden, and I know my panties are now damp.
What is wrong with me?
I’m a pervert.
He’s trying to comfort me, and all I can focus on is how his pinky rests against the seam of my sex. My breathing is heavy. I try desperately to calm it. His thumb rubs over the back of my hand in a comforting manner. I wish it were his other finger, though, doing all the moving.
“I need help picking out a chair,” he tells me as we pull into the mall parking lot. “They have one of those ergonomic office stores here. Ever been?”
I shake my head because I can’t manage words with his finger on my pussy. He gives my hands a squeeze which makes a thrill shoot straight to my core from where his finger innocently rubs against me again.
“There’s a spot,” I choke out, pointing to an empty parking space. I jerk my other hand out from under his and run my fingers through my hair. Instead of pulling his hand away, he settles it back on my thigh. That naughty pinky of his seems to fit right up against me as if it belongs there.
He pulls into the spot and tugs his hand away to put the car into park. I let out a long breath I’d been holding. His full lips curl into a lopsided grin when he regards me. My entire body buzzes with electricity that seems to be linked to him.
“Ready?”
I bolt from the car and stalk toward the mall. Soon, he catches up to me and places his palm on my lower back. The rain has stopped, but it looks like the bad weather will continue throughout the day.
“Your ass looks nice in those pants, little quitter,” he says with a grin.
I huff and glare at him. “Boss. Boundaries.”
He snorts and gives my ass a swat. “Friends get to say these things.”
I’m pretty sure friends aren’t this touchy-feely, but what do I know. What I do know is that it is fucking with my head. Gray is too hot for him to be playfully touching me all the time. One of these days he’s going to get me so worked up that I pounce on him.
We spend the next hour trying out office chairs. He says he needs a new one and insists I try them all out to tell him which is the most comfortable. When I sit a little longer than necessary in one of them and close my eyes, he snaps his fingers.
“I want this one,” he tells a salesclerk.
I turn my attention to s
ee him watching me with his muscular arms folded over his solid chest. He looks good today. No surprise there. He looks good every day. But now that his focus is on me, he seems especially handsome. His eyes seem to never leave mine. The way his gaze follows me everywhere reminds me of Vaughn. But with Vaughn, I’d always felt like a mouse caught in a trap—and he was the cat about to eat me.
Gray stares at me as if he’s trying to memorize every freckle and expression.
He watches me with a hunger that promises so much more than friendship.
“Stay there,” he tells me. “I’m going to go pay for this.”
When he disappears, I let my mind wander. I remember shopping with Vaughn early on in our relationship. Back when he’d only started becoming possessive. At the time, I thought it was sexy.
“TRY THIS ONE ON,” he says with a wolfish grin. He holds up a skimpy dress fit for going to a club.
I frown because he’d promised he’d take me to buy more jeans. After growing up in a household where my mom scrimped and saved so we’d scrape by okay, it is nice having a boyfriend with money and who wanted to splurge on you. Problem is, I don’t ever feel right to ask him for what I need. I just let him buy what he wants.
And today, he wants a red dress two sizes too small.
He flashes me a smoldering grin that has me tugging the fabric from his fingers. I walk to the dressing room with a frown playing at my lips. Sometimes Vaughn is everything I ever wanted in a boyfriend.
Other times, he’s intense.
Too intense.
With each passing day, his like for me turns into something borderline obsessive. And while I think it’s hot when he glares at other guys for looking at me, I don’t always think it’s hot when he lashes out at me for it.