Grant goes still as he unlocks the door to the condo. Oh, my god, I sound like a jealous wife. There is no way I had a right to ask those questions, but out of everything I’ve learned today they are the only questions I have.
Opening the door to the condo, he pushes it open before turning to me. He doesn’t say a word, just bends over and stands, with me slung over his shoulder. I want to yell or scream at him. I can’t, because I’m too ashamed about the last thing I said. I land on the bed with a plop.
Shaking his head, he starts undressing. “Out of everything today, that’s what you care about? I swear you make me nuts sometimes. Compared to you she was a fucking hag and no one’s mouth has ever made me come as hard and quickly as yours. Are you fucking satisfied?”
Naked now, he’s angry, hands on his hips, aggression in every line of his body. My right brain screams be afraid. I’m not, not for a second. Instead, I’m breathless. I feel like I’m at the edge of a precipice waiting for the fall I know is coming, but unable to step back. I shake my head. I’m not satisfied, not by a long shot.
Rough hands pull my skirt off, his hands shake as he yanks my panties down. Before I have time to think about the shaking in his hands he tears my blouse open and off. Closing his eyes, his head goes down. A single finger burns a trail over where my skin meets the satin covering of the bra.
I can’t move, trapped in the air between us. It’s back, that moment in the office where the air became too thick to breathe. When it felt as if there was no one and nothing but the two of us.
Grant presses a kiss to the valley between my breasts while a hand undoes my bra, releasing my breasts to him. “Mine?”
His eyes are back to mine. I blink now, terrified by what I see there. It swallows me whole, consuming me until there is nothing left inside me. Instinct for self-preservation screams to run, run fast, run far. Overwhelmed, for a heartbeat I’m lost in my fear then a new instinct has me reaching for Grant.
I press my palm flat against his chest. The powerful, hard thumping of his heart beneath my hand quiets the fear. Finally, I answer him the only way I know how. In a whisper that trembles, from lungs so tight I can barely breathe. “I belong to you.”
Blue fire glows, “Mine.” He whispers against my mouth as his mouth covers mine. Deep drugging, his kiss leaves me breathless, boneless.
His mouth trails down my neck, sucking lightly on the heartbeat pounding at my throat before pressing a kiss there. Grant cups a heavy pouting breast for his hot mouth to lick, tease, suckle until I’m nearly in tears. He presses a kiss to the painfully tight nipple before moving to the other breast to begin the same assault.
Restless, needy, my hands reach for his cock, desperate to urge him inside me where I need him most. He simply
captures my wrists to hold them above my head, ignoring my pleas, dropping a kiss to my begging mouth.
He kisses lightly down my body, licking, kissing gently until at last he reaches my weeping, aching core. His lightest touch has my swollen, heated skin shivering in reaction. With a sweep of his velvet tongue he opens me to his slow, languorous tasting of me. My whole body is shaking with the need for release. He says something against me, but I’m too lost to understand him. Seconds later he moves up to suck deeply on my clit, sending me into a body shuddering climax.
Before I have stopped shaking, Grant is above me. His eyes capture mine as he thrusts into the heart of me until we are skin to skin. For the first time there is no skill, no control in his thrusts into my body. There is only need driving him into me again and again, until all over again I’m spiraling out of control into another climax. It’s so powerful, so intense I scream, clinging to Grant. I’m over the precipice now, falling headlong, every muscle tight, preparing for the crash, only it never comes. When Grant comes with me his arms are wrapped tightly around me and I melt into him.
For a long time we don’t move. I don’t want to move. I don’t want this moment to ever end. Then Grant rolls to his side, I cling to him. He pulls me tight against him. When the tension ebbs out of Grant, I think he’s asleep and chance a look at him. He’s not asleep, our eyes meet.
His smile is sad. “I love you, Anne. I thought I could hold it in and wait for you to be ready for me to tell you, but I can’t. I don’t want you to ever wonder where you stand with me. I hated that you were afraid of me today, of only believing you were safe in our bed.” I can’t breathe, my chest aches.
“Hey, shh, it’s okay, it will all be okay. I understand it’s scary. If it’s any consolation, sweetheart, I didn’t want to fall in love. The idea of you having my heart is as scary for me as it is for you, but you do.
“I get the only point of reference you have for love is the love you had for your son. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose him, but I’m here. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. We’ll learn this together.”
My thoughts are a confused jumble, he can’t mean it. Love isn’t real, and if it is it doesn’t last. Yet, staring up into Grant’s eyes, I see he does mean it. For him it’s very real. Fear threatens to overtake me. I don’t know anything about love, not really.
He’s right, the only thing I know about love was the love I felt for my son. It had been complete and total and over too soon. I only know of love as pain, when it was gone it felt like my whole life had been shattered around me. It’s what it felt like when I saw my son’s tiny body before they took him down to the morgue. I don’t want to know anything more about love. I don’t ever want to hurt that badly again.
Looking back up, I see Grant is asleep. A pang of sadness hits me to see his brow furrowed in sleep. Already he has to be regretting what he said. I can’t give Grant what he wants and needs. When he figures that out, it will only hurt him more.
Knowing I won’t have long before he wakes up again, I try to wiggle out of his grip. He tightens his hold before finally letting me go with a sigh. I run for the closet and pull out my suitcase. I start throwing things inside, not caring what I’m grabbing.
Blindly, I grab a dress, tossing it on the island as I open a drawer looking for a bra. The memory of our first morning slams into my chest, and I have to grasp the island to stay standing. The morning after, when I knew my life had changed completely. That moment watching Grant, wanting to touch him, desperate to discover every inch of him. While I was trying to figure out what is was about him that made me so hungry for him.
Then I remember those crazy, scary, overwhelming moments in the bathroom, as I tried to understand what I was feeling. How, ever since, I’ve done my best to ignore those feelings. They hadn’t gone away, in those moments when I woke up to find Grant still in bed with me they were there, in the times when Grant walked with me through the Shedd, and as we slowly walked through the art museum they were there. I can’t walk away from them because they were there even when he wasn’t. If I left the feelings stayed with me, they weren’t going away.
The realization turns my legs to gelatin, and I hit the floor with a thump I don’t even feel. I don’t know how long I sit there with my arms wrapped around my legs. I’m unseeing, unaware of anything except that Grant loves me and he had every reason to be scared of loving me, because love isn’t something I know how to do.
“I knew I should have waited.” Grant sounds tired, not angry or sad, just tired. He’s looking around at the mess I’ve made, and the open suitcase. He’s still naked, and even with all the turmoil my mind is in, I want him instantly. He sees it in my eyes and shakes his head with a smile.
Bending down he picks me up, his hold tight yet gentle. “I told you, sweetheart, you aren’t going anywhere and neither am I. We’ll figure it out together.”
This time when he lays me down in bed he’s gentle. When he follows me down his touch is hungry, demanding, voracious. Thinking of how close I came to never feeling this again, I’m just as hungry, just as voracious.
For the first time, he’s rough enough for a moment I wonder if he’ll go too far, but he doesn’t. Pulling back, he kisses me in apology until I urge him back to making love to me. When I come he follows me, catching me as I shatter into a million pieces, putting me back together in his arms.