by Keeland, Vi
She smiled and took my hands. “You want to know a secret?”
“What’s that?”
“I’m a little afraid to be all alone with you. That’s honestly one of the reasons I insisted on drinks rather than a full date.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess I sort of don’t trust myself with you. You make me…nervous. Not in a bad way, if that makes any sense.”
I took one of our joined hands and brought it to my lips to kiss her knuckles. “It makes a lot of sense. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you scare the shit out of me, too.”
Chapter 18
* * *
Ireland
“There you are.”
Grant had disappeared at some point during the rehearsal. The pastor had stayed after the practice was over, and he’d talked for so long that I couldn’t get away to look for my date until now.
“Sorry. I got a work call and had to take it, so I stepped out.”
Grant looked away as he spoke. I hadn’t known him long enough to really read him, yet it wasn’t the first time I’d gotten the distinct feeling he was full of shit. Again, I let it pass.
“Oh. Okay. I lost track of you during the rehearsal. Dinner is about to be served.”
Grant nodded.
“Is everything okay?”
“Of course. Just got a little distracted for a moment.”
His eyes still didn’t meet mine. Maybe I was reading too much into things. Even if he hadn’t stepped out to take a call, and just needed some fresh air, it didn’t really matter.
I smiled. “I’m guessing a wedding rehearsal where you meet all of my friends at once isn’t exactly what you had in mind when you asked me for a second date.”
Grant wrapped an arm around my waist. “It wasn’t. But I’ll take what I can get.”
I lifted my arms up and around his neck. “I never would have thought it, but you’re a good sport. I’ll have to make it up to you later.”
Grant’s eyes darkened. “I like the sound of that.” He leaned in and brushed his lips with mine.
Our private moment was interrupted by the sound of my best friend’s voice. “Get a room.”
I smiled and introduced Grant to the soon-to-be bride.
“Grant, this is my best friend, Bridezilla. Formerly known as Mia.”
Grant and I separated, and he extended his hand. But Mia wasn’t having any of that. She went in for a hug. “It’s nice to finally meet you, bossman.”
He chuckled. “You, too.”
She hooked her arm with his and started to walk toward the door. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to everyone and tell you all their secrets so you don’t feel like an outsider.”
Grant laughed, assuming she was kidding, but I knew better.
Inside, Mia introduced Grant to two dozen people, and when dinner started, she sat down with us instead of Christian, her husband-to-be, who was seated at the other end of the long table.
She ate a piece of her salmon and pointed her fork in the direction of our friend Tatiana. “She had her boobs done.”
Grant looked over. His eyes dropped briefly to her enormous boobs, and then he turned back with a chuckle. “Not sure that’s a secret to too many people.”
He was absolutely right. Tatiana’s implants were each almost as big as my head, and her chin practically rested on them, they sat so high.
“True.” Mia nodded down to the end of the table to the woman sitting across from Christian. “Callie, my soon-to-be sister-in-law—the blonde on my side—sleeps with a teddy bear.” She lifted her chin to the table across from us where her dad and his wife were sitting with Christian’s parents. “My stepmother, Elaine, has a stack of love letters from an old boyfriend she keeps hidden in the attic.”
Grant raised his brows. “You seem to have something on everyone.”
Mia continued around the room, telling funny secrets about almost everyone. When she seemed to be done, Grant looked at me, while speaking to her.
“You forgot someone.”
Mia bit her lip, like she was considering her options, and leaned over to Grant. “She has porn inside the old Disney DVDs in the living room cabinet. She thinks I don’t know about it.”
“Mia!” My eyes went wide, and I felt my face start to blush. I hadn’t realized she knew about that. But the three of us laughed. Of course, the pastor picked that moment to walk over. He put his hand on Mia’s shoulder and smiled.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. You three look like you’re having a good time. I just wanted to say goodnight to the bride-to-be.”
Mia told the pastor she’d walk him out, and after he started to walk away, she leaned back to us and whispered, “I’ll be back with his secret in ten minutes.”
Grant chuckled. “I like your friend.”
“She’s crazy, but I’m definitely going to miss her. I’ve actually never lived alone. I went from my parents’ house, to my aunt’s, to a roommate at college, and then to sharing an apartment with Mia.”
“Will you get another roommate?”
“I had an ad on Craigslist. I’ve narrowed it down to two men.”
“Men?”
“Yes. Jacque is a French underwear model living in the States for a year, and Marco is a fireman.”
The look on Grant’s face was so serious, I couldn’t keep it going any longer. I started to crack up. “I’m teasing. You should see your face, though.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Very cute.”
“I’m actually really excited to live on my own. I told you I’m building a house. It’s not much, but I love the area. It’s a new development. The whole community is built around a big, beautiful lake—though my plot isn’t lakefront because those parcels were almost four times the price. But I love how woodsy they’re keeping it and how far apart the houses are going to be. It feels like a serene vacation place. When I first bought the land, I had an architect do the blueprints for my dream house. Then I had some estimates done on building it, and I realized I’d dreamed too big and needed to scale back. So it’s much smaller now, but I can’t wait until it’s done. It’s about sixty percent there.”
He smiled. “That’s great. I’d love to see it.”
“I like to drive over to the property every once in a while and check it out. Maybe next time you can take the ride with me, and I’ll show you the lake and give you a tour of my half-built house.”
“I’d like that.”
***
Two hours later, Grant drove me home and parked in front of my apartment building.
“Thank you for coming with me,” I told him. “I know it wasn’t an ideal date, but I enjoyed it anyway.”
“I did, too.”
I definitely wasn’t ready for him to leave. “Do you want to come in?”
Grant looked me in the eyes. “You have no idea how much I do.”
I smiled, but as we got out of the car and made our way up the elevator, I became extremely anxious. When I went to put the key in the lock, Grant noticed my hand shaking.
“Are you cold?”
I shook my head. “Nervous, I guess. I’m just…I’m really attracted to you, and I like you, but I’m not ready to…have you spend the night. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea because I invited you in.”
Grant turned me around and put two fingers under my chin, lifting so I looked him in the eyes. “The choice is always yours. We can take it as slow as you want.”
My shoulders relaxed, and I exhaled. “Thank you.”
I felt much calmer after that. Inside, I went to my room to change and left Grant opening a bottle of wine. When I came back out, he was standing in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and Beauty and the Beast in the other.
He arched a brow. “She wasn’t joking.”
I felt the heat on my face and snatched the box from his hand. “I went through a dry spell. Don’t tell me you’ve never watched porn.”
He grinned. “Of course I have. I just don’t store mine in Disney DVDs.”
I laughed, took the wine out of his hand, and guzzled half of it in one gulp. As long as we were on the subject, I figured I might as well see what types of things he liked to watch. Lord knows, I’d found I had a bit of a fetish. “Is your collection specific to any type of porn?”
Grant squinted. “Are you asking me if I like to role play or have any fetishes?”
“I guess. I just found certain things worked for me, while others didn’t.”
He took the wine glass from my hand and drank the other half. “I’m not particular. But now I’m desperate to know what you’re into.”
I let out a nervous laugh and took the empty glass from his hand. “I need more wine for this conversation.”
After I refilled, I led Grant over to the couch. “Can you just pretend you didn’t open Beauty and the Beast?”
Grant shook his head with a wicked grin as he lifted my feet onto his lap. He began rubbing. “Not a chance, sweetheart. Spill it. What’s your kink?”
“It’s not really a kink.”
“So let’s hear it. Or do I need to unveil your full Disney collection and figure it out for myself right now?”
I drank a little more liquid courage. “I found that I sort of like videos where the woman is pleasuring the man.”
Grant stopped rubbing. “You like to watch a woman give head?”
It was the new millennium. I shouldn’t be embarrassed by anything that empowered me sexually, yet I bit my lip and nodded.
“Jesus Christ,” Grant grumbled. “You’re fucking perfect. How the hell did you ever have a dry spell?”
I laughed. “My dry spell was self imposed. I have a pattern. I pick an asshole to date. Then I blame it on the entire sex and take a long hiatus.”
“You’re sitting here with me. Does that mean I’m an asshole?”
I sipped my drink. “I don’t know, are you?”
His playful smile wilted. “I can be. But I don’t want to be to you.”
“It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to figure out where my issues come from. I have some serious trust issues, Grant. My dad used to accuse my mom of cheating all the time. I’ll never know if there was any truth to his accusations. I like to believe there wasn’t, and he was just irrational and unstable. But that’s what they always fought about, and were fighting about the night he ended her life. When he panicked and took off, he left me handcuffed to a radiator where no one found me for two days. And yet I still have a tendency to be attracted to dominating, asshole men.”
“And you see me as one of those?”
I shrugged. “I don’t now. Though I never see it at first. I like confident men—ones who are assertive and exude a certain kind of energy. You definitely fit that bill. But in my experience, the men with the take-charge personality I find so attractive don’t necessarily make the best partners. The last guy I dated was really controlling. He didn’t like me hanging out with my friends, and when I did, he’d check up on me. When I told him to back off, he had a way of making me feel guilty for wanting my own space.”
Grant took my hand. “I’m sorry. We all have past relationships that carry into how we deal with things in the future.”
“You know how I finally decided it was time to get rid of Scott, my ex?”
“How?”
“Without even realizing it, I’d started to click my pen.”
“And that means…”
“Scott had a pet peeve. He hated when anyone clicked their pens.”
Grant squinted. “You said Bickman hated foot tapping and heavy perfume and you used to do those things to secretly annoy him.”
I smiled. “Bingo. I was unconsciously doing things to annoy him. That’s not a sign that screams stable relationship. So I broke things off.”
“I’ll have to remember that. When you type at me in all caps, I’ll know what it means.”
I laughed. “Is that your pet peeve? Not sure you should have shared that with me.”
Grant smiled. “You have a wicked side, Saint James.”
I felt like I’d shared a lot of my past, yet I didn’t know too much about his. At least not the important stuff. I knew he was adopted from foster care, but I got the feeling his baggage didn’t come from that.
“Can I ask what happened between you and your ex-wife?”
Grant’s jaw flexed. He looked away for a minute and then stared down when he finally started to speak. “Lily had a similar background to me—an unstable mother with no father in the picture. Except her mother was mentally ill, not an addict like mine. When we first met, I was attracted to her because of how different she was than everyone else. I didn’t know back then that mental illness was hereditary. I thought she was spontaneous and wild. And for a long time she was. But slowly, over time, the highs she ran on started to spiral into lows. There was no middle ground with her.”
I’d learned a lot about mental disorders over the years. A part of me always wanted to believe there was something wrong with my father. I wanted to blame what he’d done on anything but him, because it would be easier to accept that he’d killed my mother if it wasn’t his fault. So I knew bipolar disorder and other depression-related illnesses often started in a person’s twenties.
“I’m sorry. That’s tough.”
Grant was quiet for a moment, and then looked up at me. “Thank you. Like you said, it doesn’t take Freud to figure out why I haven’t had many healthy relationships with women since then. I didn’t lie. I made a point of making sure they understood I wasn’t looking for love. I guess we both have trust issues.”
I nodded. “I appreciate your honesty. But is that what you want from me, too? I’m incredibly attracted to you. I might be okay with a sex-only relationship if that’s all you truly want. Though I could also see myself falling for you, Grant. So I’d appreciate you being up front about what you’re looking for.”
He tugged my hand and guided me to move from sitting next to him to sitting on his lap. He cradled my face between his hands and spoke into my eyes. “I want more with you. But I’m not sure what I’m capable of, Ireland. I won’t promise you something I’m uncertain I can deliver. Yet I’d like to try to make this work.”
His words weighed heavy on my chest. It made me sad for him that he seemed to think he was incapable of love.
I forced a smile. “Thank you for your honesty. I guess every relationship has a risk to it. So we’ll just take it one day at a time and see where it goes.”
Grant nodded, though he didn’t seem too sure of himself.
“How did we get from porn to our fucked-up lives?” I asked.
He smiled. “I don’t know, but I’d definitely prefer to go back to talking about how you like to watch a woman give head.”
I play-smacked his chest. “Of course you would.”
Grant crooked his finger at me. “Come here.”
I’d been sitting on his lap and now lifted one leg to straddle him. Settling, I moved my face close enough that our noses were touching. “Where? Here?”
He gripped the back of my neck and spoke with his lips pressed to mine. “Right here. Exactly right here.”
We made out like two horny teenagers after that. When our kiss broke, he tugged my hair to expose my throat and buried his face in my neck. He kissed and licked and bit his way up to my ear.
“Tell me, Ireland. Is it just women you like to see give oral? Because I can’t wait to bury my face between your legs and have you watch me lick you.”
“Oh, God.” I loved the sound of that. My body was already on fire from this kiss, and I could feel his erection pushing against my swollen clit. I might only have to move back and forth a few times to get myself off if he kept talking like that in my ear. I was this close to doing just that…until a voice interrupted the moment.
“This looks better than the one I watched in Aladdin. Think I’ll make some popcorn.”
I jumped at the sound
of Mia’s voice. Literally. I jumped off Grant’s lap, into the air, and landed on my ass on the floor. I rubbed my backside. “Jesus, Mia. You scared the crap out of me.”
She chuckled. “I wasn’t quiet when I came in. You were just too engrossed in what you were doing.” She waved her hand at us. “Carry on. Pretend I’m not here. I’m going to bed, anyway.”
Grant extended a hand and helped me from the floor.
“I assumed you were sleeping at Christian’s,” I said.
“Nah. I’m making him stay celibate for the two weeks before our wedding.”
I laughed. “Poor Christian. A bridezilla that won’t put out.”
Mia stuck her tongue out at me. “Goodnight, lovebirds.”
Once she was gone, I sat back down on the couch next to Grant. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. Probably a good thing she walked in. You want to take it slow, and between the way you looked tonight in that dress, knowing you have a porn collection, and that kiss, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself much longer. I think that was my cue to get going.”
I wanted to tell him to stay in the worst way, tell him to come back to my room with me and I’d show him all the techniques I’d picked up from watching those videos. But he was right. If things didn’t slow down, I would be the one to get hurt. That much I knew.
So I nodded. “Okay. Thank you again for coming with me. Would you…be my date for the wedding next Saturday night?”
He leaned over and planted a kiss on my lips. “I’d love that.”
I walked him to the door and opened it, but stalled at saying goodbye. “Where is your trip this week?”
“The east coast.”
“Okay. Text me if you have time.”
His eyes roamed my face. “I’ll make time.”
My stomach did a little somersault. The oddest things gave me that warm, mushy feeling. Grant kissed me goodnight, and I smiled and shut the door. But a few seconds later, there was a knock again. Just like last time, I figured he’d forgotten something.
“Miss me already?” I teased.
“If you’re free tomorrow afternoon, there’s a party at Pia’s Place.”
