Letting Go (Thatch 1)

Jagger

September 10, 2014

I LOOKED TO the side when I felt Grey’s breathing deepen, and smiled when I saw her eyes were shut and her mouth was slightly open. Reaching over with the arm she wasn’t lying on, I brushed her hair away from her face and trailed my fingertips across her cheek, nose, and lips.

We’d been going all day. After sorting through everything of hers in the extra room yesterday, we figured out what we could put in the warehouse and what was going to go. We drove a few towns over to donate the things we didn’t need, and then went shopping for stuff for the warehouse. Stuff that I couldn’t care less about, but Grey was having fun decorating, and I loved that she was taking her move-in seriously and making it obvious the warehouse was ours instead of mine.

Once we’d gotten home and put up everything she’d chosen, we went to work on painting the spare room, then decided to go out to eat. We’d gone to Ben’s favorite restaurant in the next town over to celebrate his birthday—that had been the day before. After visiting the cemetery, we’d gone back to the warehouse to set up the extra room and had just finished when Grey was called in to cover a shift at The Brew. I’d finished a piece I’d been working on while she was gone, and went to pick her up for dinner, which led to us driving over to our dock to just relax.

We’d been lying there talking for hours when her words began to get slower and then stopped altogether. And now I couldn’t stop looking at my beautiful girl as she clung to me while sleeping on my shoulder.

“Grey,” I whispered, and my smile widened when she grumbled in her sleep. “Babe, it’s time to go home.”

One eye cracked open then shut again, and she cuddled closer against my body. “Not yet,” she mumbled.

“It’s been a long day. Let me take you home and put you in bed.”

Her eyebrows lifted, but she didn’t open her eyes as she muttered something I couldn’t understand.

“What was that?” I asked on a laugh.

“I said: ‘You’re getting there.’ ”

“Getting there, huh?”

She made some sort of affirmative noise in her throat, and her eyes slowly opened when I slid out from underneath her to hover over her.

Placing my mouth against her throat, I moved up until my lips were barely brushing her ear. “I’ll slowly undress you from the front door to the loft,” I breathed into her ear, and glanced down when her body shook slightly to see her arms covered in goose bumps. Settling down between her legs, I dropped my voice even lower. “Then I’ll lay you down on the bed and memorize every part of your body with my lips and hands . . .”

Grey’s fingers dug into my back, and her lips parted on a soft exhale, but she didn’t say anything.

“I’m going to bring you to the edge again and again until you’re screaming in frustration.” Moving away from her ear, I looked directly into her dark gold eyes that were now locked on me. The heat and want were clear in the way she was staring at me. “Then I’m going to spend the rest of the night wrapped up in you . . . inside you.”

A soft moan blew past her lips and she whimpered my name.

“Is that okay with you?” When she just nodded, I placed a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth and pushed away from her to stand up. After I’d helped her up, I nodded toward the car in the lot as I handed her my keys. “I’ll get the blanket, wait for me in the car.”

My phone started ringing as I was gathering up the blanket, and I answered without looking at the screen. My mind was on nothing but Grey, and what was coming for the rest of the night.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mr. Easton?”

“This is, may I—”

“Mr. Easton, this is Janelle, I’m with ADT Security. I’m showing that your intruder alarm is going off, did someone accidentally trigger—”

“What? No! We’re not home.” I took off running for the car, and Grey stepped out when she saw me.

“Do you want me to notify the police, Mr. Easton?”

What kind of question was that? Our alarm was going off and we weren’t home. Why wouldn’t I want the police contacted? “Yes!”

“What’s—”

“Get in the car, Grey,” I barked, and opened the back door to shove the blanket in there, then got into the driver’s seat as the ADT employee spoke.

“I’ve alerted the police for you, and they’re on their way. Are you out of town? If so, can someone you trust go to your residence to speak with the police?”