Give a Little

by Lee Kilraine

  “Yes. For six months. I had a TBI. Needed to relearn how to feed myself, walk. Remap the connections in my injured brain. Months and months of pain. But a lot of love too. I wouldn’t have made it without my dad and my grandma Gigi. And Laura. It’s been a long three years.”

  The question I still wanted answered was, where did her ex fit in?

  “What about Paul? Thought he was an old boyfriend with the territorial pissing thing he did.” Any man worth his salt would have gotten his ass over there to help her no matter how long ago they’d broken up. The only excuse I’d buy was if he was an astronaut stuck on the International Space Station.

  “We broke up.” It was subtle, but the carefully flat tone of her voice said it wasn’t that easy.

  “Before the accident?”

  “No.”

  “Who broke it off? You?” I hoped to hell it was Tessa. I could see her doing that. Breaking up with him so she wouldn’t be a burden. But what kind of man would let her? What kind of fucking guy wouldn’t want to be there for her when she was about to face a walk through hell?

  “No.”

  The fucking weasel. I was pissed. Did I like the idea of Paul and Tessa together? No. No, I fucking didn’t. But what I liked less was the idea of Paul fucking abandoning her when she was at her lowest point.

  “He’s a fool. He’s a fool if he had you in his life—and threw it away.” Tessa’s head twisted around to look at me. Her eyes luminous in the soft light. She rolled in my arms until she faced me and we lay chest to chest. I pulled her further up, wanting her weight, so she was half-sprawled over me, one arm around my waist, her head resting on my chest. Damn, she felt good in my arms. “He’s a damn fool. He didn’t deserve you.”

  “Thank you. To be honest, it hurt at first. But it didn’t take me too long to realize he’d actually done me a big favor. I mean, it isn’t really love if a person can’t stick during the hard times, right?”

  Right. And then there were the times when even love wasn’t enough. Sometimes you love a person and the hard times hit like a tidal wave. And you try to hang the fuck on, but end up failing them anyway. Was that what had happened with her ex? Was he a nice guy who’d just been hit by the tidal wave and missed his chance to stick during the hard times? Like I had with Ryker?

  “You’re looking very serious up there.” Tessa ran her fingers over my chin and along my jaw. “You doing okay?”

  “Never better.” I turned my head and pressed my lips to her palm, surprising myself that that wasn’t a bullshit answer.

  “Good. Because now it’s my turn.”

  “Go for it,” I said. I was an open book, if you didn’t count the opening chapters I’d ripped out and stashed away.

  “Okay. I realize we’re lying naked in bed, but your lips, sadly, aren’t on any part of my body, so I’d like to hear about your brothers. And the one you lost track of…”

  Damn.

  Chapter 22

  Tessa

  I felt Gray’s chest expand under me as he sucked in a large breath before exhaling slowly. It reminded me of an exercise my physical therapist had me do: In with the good air, out with the bad. Cleansing breaths, she called them. I’d seen the flash of pain when he’d talked about his missing brother. Maybe my timing was bad. Maybe it was too personal.

  “Never mind. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No. Fair’s fair. Two-way street.” His hand ran gently down my back. “My brothers. I’ve got five brothers. You’ve met three of them. Ash, Eli, and Wyatt.”

  “Four if you count Beck. I haven’t met him but I have talked with him on the…” Gosh, I’ve got a big mouth, because right then was when I remembered the circumstances of my phone calls with Beck. I peeked up at Gray’s face.

  “Yes, yes you have spoken with Beck a time or two, haven’t you?” His raised eyebrow was offset by a quick grin.

  I poked a finger in his ribs. “Don’t get stuck on that part. Keep going.”

  “We didn’t have a great upbringing. If ever two people should never have brought children into the world, it was our parents.” He absently combed his fingers through my messy curls, and I relaxed into it. “I’ll just say that because of our childhood, my brothers and I are close. I guess you could say we raised each other but Beck, being the oldest, did a lot of the heavy lifting.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s sad what some kids have to live through. You’re lucky you had your brothers.”

  “Damn lucky. Only once we got put into the foster system our luck got spotty. Years of getting split apart, moving back and forth between different foster homes and our old man when he stayed sober long enough.” Gray stirred restlessly under me. “Not the happiest memories back then.”

  “Is that how you lost track of your brother? Getting shuffled around the foster system?”

  “No,” he said, only it sounded like it had been ripped from his throat, tight and harsh. His hand on my shoulder tightened its grip. His whole body tensed up. “No. Ryker ended up running away. He and I are only ten months apart. He was my best friend. You’ve never seen someone so full of life and optimism. He kept us all going on the days we wanted to give up. Him and Wyatt. Day after day. Year after year. But just when we got close to a way out—when Beck turned twenty-one and was fighting to get custody of us—Ryker couldn’t take any more. And he ran.”

  “Gray, it’s not your fault.” It was hard to watch the pain on his face. I rolled to the side, trying to read what was in his eyes. “None of us can know another person’s breaking point. It’s not your fault.”

  “It is.” He sat up, adjusting his hips back until his back and shoulders hit up against the headboard. He ran a hand down his face and released a sigh that sounded like it came from a deep empty well. “It is my fault. Ryker and I were in the same foster home. It was bad. But I kept telling him the next one could be worse. Told him we just needed to hang on until Beck got us out. He tried. We both hung on. Hung on every fucking day while the paperwork dragged on. And then one day he couldn’t. And I knew he was planning to run because he told me. He asked me to go with him. Fuck, he begged me to go with him. I told him I needed a day to think about it. Just to think it through. Maybe I was hoping he’d calm down and stop talking crazy. And maybe he knew it. Because the next day he didn’t ride the bus home from school. And I knew. I knew he was gone, and I let him run without me.”

  My heart squeezed at the pain gripping his voice. But worse was the guilt in his eyes. I knew that feeling. That feeling had sliced through my bones worse than any eighteen wheeler had. I hurt for him. My heart hurt for him and his brother.

  “We haven’t heard from him in ten years.” And he hit me with that gaze from our first meeting. That fierce passionate gaze that held equal parts love, anguish, and regret.

  I had no words to offer. I hadn’t figured out how to unload my own guilt or the unbearable pain of the void where my mother used to be. So instead, I offered myself. Hoping he might find some solace from my simply being there. Refuge from the horrible, isolating feeling I’d found in my own guilt. I sat up, carefully swung one leg over Gray’s hips until I straddled him.

  “I’m sorry.” I wrapped my hands around his jaw and looked into his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  His eyes held mine, then jerked away as he sucked in a breath, before landing back on mine.

  I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, tentatively, letting him choose what he needed. Simple comfort or distracting passion. He kissed me back. Slow and soft. He slid one hand through my hair to cup the back of my head, and he deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to my lips. I opened my lips and let him in, met his with my own.

  I made love to him, and he let me. I moved down his body, running my hands along his shoulders and arms. Along his muscles and warm skin. I kissed my way from his mouth, down his throat, and over the planes of his chest. I licked a path down the
ridges of his abs while my hands stroked his firm thighs and sharp edges of his hip bones.

  “Tessa,” he groaned, shifting restlessly on the bed.

  I figured he didn’t really want to talk right now, so I kept on going. Wrapping my hand around his hard length, I leaned down and licked the tip, and Gray hissed in a breath. I put the sensitive tip in my mouth, alternating between sucking and licking.

  “Tessa,” he said again before his hand wrapped around my jaw and carefully lifted me away, bringing my face up to his. “Any other time, I’d die for that, but I need this to happen together. Do you have another condom?”

  “A condom?” Did I? It had been so long, and I’d only moved into Gigi’s house after the accident, so I’d never had sex here. Maybe an old one. I stretched out over the side of the bed to click on the soft light before sliding open my nightstand drawer. Notepads, eye mask, two romance novels, a book of Sudoku puzzles, my vibrator, lip balm—

  “Wait, pull that out,” Gray said, looking over my shoulder.

  “My vibrator? Um, no. I don’t think so. What? Are you trying to avoid doing the work?”

  He coughed out a laugh. “It adds to the mix, Tess. It doesn’t replace my cock.”

  Interesting. But maybe another time. If there was going to be another time. I ran my hand toward the back of the drawer where I couldn’t see, and… “Ha! Found something.”

  An unopened box of condoms. What do you know? I tossed it over to Gray. “You might want to check the expiration on the box. It’s at least three years old.”

  “What I want to do is fuck you.” But he checked the box anyway. “Doesn’t expire for a year, so we’re good.”

  I rolled back into the center of the bed and watched while Gray ripped open the foil packet and rolled the condom on. I’d been so involved in the conversation that I forgot to appreciate his gorgeous muscles and beautiful face. I took him all in. His hard body and his movie-star looks. But it was the look in his eyes and the deep passion that he hid behind his sexy grin that made me lose my breath. I sat up, placed my palm in the middle of Gray’s chest, and pushed him down on the bed.

  “I know just where we left off,” I said, and swung my leg back over his hips, thinking I’d stay in control and ride him. “Oh, ow. Remind me not to do that again.”

  “Tessa, babe, no.” His hands framed my waist. “If you’re sore—let’s stop.”

  “I’m not sore. That salve was amazing. I just moved my hip wrong. I’m fine.”

  “Your hip?” His gaze moved down to my hips, probably did some quick math about the number of times my hips would be moving with me on top like this, and quick like a ninja, whipped us around until I was on my back under him. “You can lead next time. I guarantee you’ll like this way just fine.”

  “Guarantee, huh?”

  “You can take it to the bank,” he said, then got a funny look on his face. He shrugged, looked at me with the sexiest, dimpled grin. “Totally worth it.”

  “I don’t know, Gray. Right now you’re all talk and no action… I think you’re going to need to prove it.”

  Turned out Gray was a competitive man. And he more than rose to the occasion.

  Gray made hot, crazy love to me. And I liked it way more than just fine.

  I remembered resting my head on Gray’s chest and loving the way his hands ran slow strokes from my back down to my ass. Listening to his heartbeat while pressed up against the warmth of his body was nice too. Real nice. I think I dozed a bit.

  When I woke up, Gray was dressed and sliding on his shoes. He came over to the bed, sitting next to my hips. “Hey, Tessa.”

  “Hey,” I whispered.

  “I’ve got to go.” He leaned down, kissing my lips. “I’ll see you later.”

  “I know. You’re remodeling my kitchen.”

  I saw the white of his smile. And either I was still half-asleep and dreaming or he mumbled “ball buster” under his breath with a laugh.

  “I took Sully out again. I’ll lock up behind me. Night, Tessa.”

  “Night.”

  I thought I heard him laugh as he was leaving. I guessed he found my “You’re rehired” note that I’d taped to the inside of the front door when I’d gotten up to use the bathroom.

  I listened to his truck drive off and couldn’t stop the smile that slid across my lips.

  Three years ago my life fractured into pieces. I reached bottom in ways I could never have imagined. I’d been devastated. Emotionally, my heart shattered, finding out my mother had died in the accident. With me behind the wheel. I didn’t know what to do with that guilt. So I shoved it deep and have been trying to ignore it.

  I couldn’t fix my broken heart, but I could work on my broken body.

  The thing was when you take something shattered to pieces and put it back together, it’s not the same. Every new surgery was like being punched in the face. I dreaded when the doctors would walk in and tell me they needed to fix something else.

  So it’s been a long journey trying to make everything work again. Fitting all the pieces back together and trying to feel normal again. Even though it was a new normal.

  I could hide my emotional scars—for now. It was impossible to hide the physical ones.

  Paul’s rejection in those early days planted a small seed of insecurity. As I healed and grew stronger, that seed of doubt grew too. Would every man reject my broken, scarred body? Would any man be able to see past the scars? Thanks to Gray, I knew at least one man was able to accept who I was, scars and all. No, if Gray rejected me, it wouldn’t be because of my scars.

  He’s a fool. He’s a fool if he had you in his life and threw you away. He’s a damn fool. I’d long since recovered from Paul’s rejection. Time had proven it had been a blessing in disguise. But hearing Gray say that—my ex was a fool for throwing me away—it soothed the last little sting. Gray had helped put another broken piece of me back together.

  Chapter 23

  Gray

  Monday morning I drove by my bank, Old North Savings and Loan, and made a withdrawal and then drove on to the SBC offices. By the time I walked into the conference room for our weekly meeting, everyone else was already there.

  I slid the money from my wallet and placed it on the table between Ash and Eli without a word and moved to pour myself a coffee before grabbing a chair. I wasn’t happy to lose the bet, but I wouldn’t say I was too upset either. I’d been trying to puzzle it out. What was so different about making love with Tessa? And it hit me. Until Tessa, I’d only had sex. Tessa was the first woman I’d made love to.

  Ash raised an eyebrow at me while Eli ran his thumb along the corner of the stack of bills.

  “So you’re out,” Eli said. “Care to offer us any details for corroboration?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Eli, you idiot,” Ash said. “Why would he lie about it if it’s costing him a thousand dollars?”

  “Whoa,” Beck said, looking surprised. “That’s a little steep for a bet, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” Eli said. “But I didn’t think they’d agree”—Ash rolled his eyes next to him—“and it was supposed to give them incentive to stick to the sex-fast.”

  “A sex fast?” Wyatt asked.

  Ash simply shook his head. “Gray and I were trying to cure our flu.”

  “With a sex fast?” Beck looked between us. “Did it work?”

  “Not yet.” Ash frowned and looked across the table at me. “You?”

  “No idea, but I feel pretty good right now.” Huh. I did. My chest didn’t have that crushing feeling that had been doggin’ me the last few months. It felt like I could get a full breath. I actually wanted to get out of bed this morning when my alarm went off at five.

  Wyatt cleared his throat. “That might not be from the fast—if you know what I mean.”

 
“Can we be done talking about sex, please?” Ash asked, his voice clipped. “I know Wyatt’s not getting any because all he does is work and study, which was why we didn’t even invite you to join the bet, Wy. And I’m pretty sure Eli is saving himself for his granola-eating soul mate when she magically appears riding in on a rainbow unicorn, so the bet wasn’t a big deal to him. But even with my man flu, I’m on the edge here. So stop.”

  “Seconded,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for them to get around to bugging me for details. Or figuring out I slept with a client. Although, technically…

  “Motion granted. Our big item is that the King job was a success. So thanks to everyone. Especially for picking up my slack. My schedule should return to normal, which means, Gray, I’m back to handling the sales appointments.”

  “Thank fucking God.” I ran a hand through my hair. “You have all my respect. I’ll stick with production and design, thank you.”

  “Good timing,” Wyatt said. “We’ve seen a forty percent increase in requested estimates from the extra visibility we got from the King job.”

  “Good to hear. Moving on to our open jobs. Any problems to talk about?” Beck looked at me. “I almost hate to ask, but how’s the Madigan job?”

  I smiled ear to ear. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but fine. Eli and Wyatt helped me demo the kitchen. That kept us on schedule. We’ll have her new kitchen in within two weeks. It’s pretty straightforward. I think I’ll have design schematics and a proposal ready for her to look at this week for the rest of the house. Should have a signed contract for her house renovation soon.”

  “Good job sticking it out, Gray,” Beck said. “Talk about a turn-around. From crazy client to success story.”

  Ash locked his eyes on mine and deadpanned. “I’m going to guess it all came down to good communication.”

  Right. Like he didn’t play a part pimping me out. I mean, I’m not complaining with the way it turned out, but no, not biting on that one.