Stealing Mr. Right

by Tamara Morgan

  “Would you look at that? It’s four of my favorite people in the whole, wide world.” Grant approached our booth with a smile on his face and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. No combination of things could cause a flustered distraction as much as that. He had a marvelous chest—I saw it once when he was changing shirts, a brief flash of tawny skin and a smattering of hair. Those two buttons were like a peep show reminding me of what I couldn’t have. “I would have said my four absolute favorites, but I’m not sure my mother would forgive me. So I’ll cap it at five.”

  Grant wasn’t close enough to give me a proper greeting, so he dropped into the seat across from me and nodded instead. It was enough—a nod from Grant wasn’t like a nod from mere mortals. Every action that man took carried a hundred hidden meanings. That nod said, hello. It said, I see you sitting here pumping my friends for information, and I think it’s cute. It said, I also hope you discovered something good, because it’s all the satisfaction you’re getting from me today. It probably could have kept going, but Simon intervened.

  “How is Myrna, by the way? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “Oh, she’s fine. Busy at the hospital, as usual. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

  “You do that,” Simon said and smirked. “What does she think of Penelope? I bet she’s ecstatic to hear you’re finally getting serious with someone.”

  I saw through Simon’s ruse in a flash. He was baiting me. He was baiting me with Grant’s mom.

  I tossed my head and refused to let it get to me. Of course I didn’t care that they’d been best friends for decades and that they had some kind of childhood tie that would forever bind them. Of course he had more insight into Grant’s personal life than I did. And of course I hadn’t met the woman who’d raised him. We’d been seeing each other for three months. There had been no talk of exclusivity. He’d only grazed my nipple once, and that was entirely by accident, even though I’d done my best to recreate the series of fortunate events that led up to it.

  I was no expert on traditional male-female relationships, but I was pretty sure nipple play came before meeting the parents.

  And if my throat hurt a little at the thought of how far out of the realm of possibility meeting the parents was, what of it? It wasn’t like we were dating for real. This was still part of the game of pretend we were playing. Cops and robbers. Good guys versus bad guys. Make-believe.

  “She doesn’t know about Penelope yet, to be honest.”

  “Ah, I see.” Simon’s gloating look was so intense, it practically gave me a third-degree burn. “I guess she wouldn’t, given the circumstances.”

  A heavily shod foot nudged against my calf, and I didn’t have to look to know it was Grant’s size thirteen snaking across the distance to comfort me. Then his other foot did the same thing, and I realized I wasn’t being comforted so much as I was being pinned in place.

  “I know,” Grant said and winked at me. Holding me forcibly down with his feet and then winking about it—that was the man I currently called my boyfriend. “Which is exactly why I’ve decided to take Penelope on a road trip to my hometown for Christmas.”

  “What?” Simon cried.

  I wasn’t far behind with the theatrical outrage, but resistance was futile with Grant’s enormous legs holding me in place.

  I settled for a glare instead. “What do you mean, a road trip to your hometown?” I asked.

  “You. Me. A rental car. Miles of highway stretching before us.” Grant reached across the table to cup the side of my face. “You’ll come, won’t you? I can’t think of anything I’d like more than for the two most important women in my life to meet.”

  Wow. It took a low kind of man to make an offer like that in public, to foist a challenge in front of his friends, thereby making it impossible for me to back down. The crinkles around his eyes deepened, and that was when I realized he’d done it on purpose. He wanted me to say yes, and he knew very well this was the best way to get me to do it.

  At any other time, in any other place, I’d have flatly refused the offer. But Simon was gawking and flustered beside me. Paulie and Nathan had smiles on their faces. And Grant’s feet still held me down, forcing me to meet him on the battlefield.

  Oh, I’d meet him. I’d meet him and his sweet old mother if it was the last thing I ever did.

  “That sounds lovely,” I lied.

  The gleam of appreciation in his eyes almost made the sacrifice worth it. His thumb came up to trace my lips, and we might as well have been alone in the bar after that. “Perfect. I know she’s going to love you.”

  20

  THE HOLIDAY

  (Fifteen and a Half Months Ago)

  West Virginia wasn’t the remote wilderness I’d imagined, but it was a far cry from New York. I’d left the state before—gone to New Jersey and Connecticut, picked up the occasional odd job in Washington, D.C.—but this was the farthest I’d ever strayed from home.

  It was pretty, I’d give it that much. I could stand in the middle of Central Park and squint my eyes enough to believe I was surrounded by nature, but it took the rolling foothills of the Appalachians and snow deep enough to reach my knees for me to realize how far off the mark I was.

  Grant’s mom lived in a semiremote location. From where we stood on the freshly plowed driveway, all we could see was the cozy split-level house where he’d grown up, complete with smoke chugging out the chimney, as well as the six or so acres of land that surrounded it. We weren’t isolated, exactly—we’d passed several houses on the way in—but I was pretty sure no one would be able to hear me scream.

  A girl could disappear out here. Be murdered. Or—

  Thunk.

  Have snowballs thrown at her back?

  “Hey!” I ducked before Grant had a chance to land a second missile—this one aimed neatly for my head. “That’s not fair. You have to warn me first. I like to know when I’m being attacked.”

  He stopped in the middle of scooping up another handful of snow. He wasn’t wearing gloves, which didn’t seem to affect him in the slightest. “If you insist. Penelope Blue, light of my life, girlfriend extraordinaire, general pain in my ass—”

  “The compliments aren’t necessary.”

  He paused long enough to smile at me, the sight of it more blinding than all those acres of snow. “I’m going to throw snowballs at you until you beg me for mercy.”

  “Never.”

  Fast—so fast I thought it must be a supernatural trick—he flicked the handful of snow and caught me right in the face with it. The flakes melted on my skin almost immediately, but a few clung to my eyelashes, rendering my vision a blurred white.

  Relying on instinct rather than sight, I ducked to the right, narrowly missing another well-aimed projectile. I paused to form one of my own. “You play dirty, don’t you, Emerson?”

  “Absolutely.” With a flying leap, he dove out of the way, rendering my poor snowball null and void. I’d had really good aim, too. “If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I play to win. Every time.”

  “I’ve always thought that was such a stupid statement,” I said. Now it was my turn to dive, and I gave him a glimpse of my criminal derring-do with a tuck and roll that had me safely ensconced behind the wheel of the oversized Jeep we’d rented to drive down. Snow nipped down the collar of my jacket, and I could feel the damp seepage of my jeans pressing against the packed ground below, but I didn’t care. Especially when the sound of two snowballs on the other side of the vehicle meant they missed me by a huge margin. “Everyone plays to win. Otherwise, why would they bother starting the game at all?”

  He didn’t respond right away, so I dared to look over the top of the car’s hood. He wasn’t in sight, which immediately put me in a panic. Already, I was coming to learn about his catlike grace, the way he could sneak up on people out of nowhere. Arming m
yself with a well-packed snowball, I crept along the side of the car, my eyes scanning for any sight of him.

  I didn’t get far. A hand grabbed my ankle and yanked, sending me—and my trusty snowball—sprawling. Before I had time to react to the sight of Grant wriggling out from underneath the SUV, he had me pinned to the snow.

  Being overpowered like that, so easily and thoroughly and without a moment’s hesitation, was exhilarating. The ground was hard and cold beneath me, but that hardly seemed to matter with such a hard and hot body on top. Grant wasted no time pushing the knit cap off my forehead and claiming his victory kiss.

  What a kiss it was. If I’d had any questions about whether we’d indulge in public displays of affection at his mom’s house, he laid them to rest with the force of two lips and one persistent tongue. Both of them pushed deeper and demanded more. Not that my lips and tongue were passive participants in this display, mind you. I might have lost this particular battle, but there was a long and fruitful war yet to be waged.

  There were layers of winter clothes between us, but we might as well have been naked for how my body reacted to his touch. This marked the first time Grant and I had kissed horizontally—and if you think that isn’t a distinction worth noting, then you’ve never been kissed horizontally by someone like Grant before. See, he didn’t just kiss with his mouth. With him, it was a full-body effort, every muscle working hard to achieve its aim.

  Vertically, this meant he constantly pushed me into things. Walls, tables, the side of his car—anything that would allow the press of my breasts against his chest, the hard lines of his muscles seared against me in ways that tormented me long after we said good-bye. Technically, we never did more than lock lips, even if the frantic way our bodies molded against each other signaled a need for more.

  Now that we were on the ground, it was impossible to keep things at that level. I wanted to crawl inside the warm culvert of his body and burrow there. I wanted to open my legs and let him settle firmly between them. I wanted him inside me so badly, it had become more than a physical ache—it was a physical void, a phantom limb, the searing pain of knowing that I was missing a vital part of myself.

  I probably would have done it, too. Had sex with him right there on a snow-covered driveway, my ass a block of ice, his mom a few yards away baking Christmas cookies in anticipation of our arrival.

  Fortunately, Grant released a soul-deep groan and pulled himself away. Well, the top half pulled away. The bottom half only ground into me harder, reminding me how easy it would be for him to maneuver a few zippers and answer all my prayers.

  “You’re terrible at snowball fights,” he said. “Did you know that?”

  “I do now.” Unable to help myself, I wriggled against him, eliciting another one of those rugged groans and making me feel like the most powerful woman in the world. “Do you want to know what I am good at?”

  Contrary to my expectations—and my hopes—he didn’t ask me to provide an answer. He didn’t even smile. He just remained on top of me, his desire still very much a presence between us.

  “I wasn’t kidding before, you know,” he said.

  I blinked up at him, confused. What wasn’t he kidding about? That he wanted to decimate me with handfuls of snow?

  “I play to win, and I don’t always fight a fair game to do it.” His voice was rough, and it grated against my heart. He wasn’t talking about the snow at all.

  “Well, I wasn’t kidding either,” I replied.

  Now it was his turn to look confused, though it was more of an adorable wrinkle of his brow than actual perplexity.

  “I hate when people say that,” I explained. “It’s a humble brag, minus the humble. Name me one person who plays to lose. One.”

  That got him to smile a little. “A boxer who’s being paid to throw the game.”

  “Okay, with the exception of that.” Since I wasn’t quite sure what he wanted from me, I allowed the moment to settle back into solemnity. “I’m not afraid of things getting rough, Grant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Oh, I know you’re not afraid. That’s the problem.” He sighed and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. His fingers were freezing against my flushed skin, but I didn’t draw away. “You said you wanted to be warned before I attack. Well, I’m warning you now.”

  My heart picked up. “You’re declaring war?”

  “Not exactly. I’m declaring my intentions.” Feeling me shiver, he rolled over on his back, his arms wrapped in a bear hug to bring me with him. The position we landed in was even more sexual than the previous one—I sat astride, my legs parted over the top of his. Both of us panted from something that wasn’t exertion, but I knew this moment was about a whole lot more than sex. “I’m crazy about you, Penelope Blue, but I don’t know how much longer I can be a gentleman about this.”

  My lips spread in a smile. I liked where this was going. “Then don’t be one.”

  “I mean it.” His hands spanned my waist to hold me still as I made a tiny—infinitesimal, really—movement against the hard length of him. Even that tiny jolt flooded my body with pooling warmth. I thought it might do the trick for him, too, but all he did was tip his head back with a ragged groan, drawing deep breaths like they were his only lifeline. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained with the efforts of immobility. “There are two guest rooms inside my mother’s house, and I have every intention of using them during our stay.”

  “Why? Is she old-fashioned, like you?”

  His eyes crinkled despite his best intentions to remain in control. “Brat. You enjoy tormenting me, don’t you?” He continued without waiting for my response. Which, to be fair, was a firm yes. And why not? He was tormenting me right back. “I didn’t bring you down here to seduce you on my childhood bed, and nothing you say or do is going to goad me into it.”

  “Then why did you bring me here, Grant?” I’d promised myself I wouldn’t ask that question, but there was no stopping it. I had to know. I had to leave here with an understanding about what was going on inside…if not his heart, then at least his head. “What am I doing spending the holidays with you and your family?”

  The fact that he didn’t hesitate was more unsettling than all the rest. “Easy. I wanted to show you where I grew up.”

  * * *

  “Pen, would you be a dear and move the tree a little to the right? The glare keeps flashing off the window. I think it’s giving me a migraine.”

  I paused at the top of the stepladder where I was putting the final touch on the Christmas tree—an angel topper, no less—and stared at the tiny scrap of a woman who had somehow managed to give Grant life.

  “You want me to move the entire tree?”

  “Would you?” She tipped her head back against the couch and sighed. “I don’t know why I bother decorating anymore. It just comes right back down again.”

  It was a good thing her eyes were shut, because it took me a solid twenty seconds to recover my bearings. I cast Grant a supplicating look—he was trying to get flames to emerge from smoldering logs in a black-sooted fireplace—but all he did was twinkle up at me, laughter in his eyes.

  “I’d offer to help, but it takes a lot longer to burn the water out of wood than you’d think,” he said. “I could be here all night.”

  Mrs. Emerson didn’t open her eyes or even look up as she said, “Laugh it up all you want, but I’m not feeding either one of you until it feels merry in here. This family Christmas was your idea. I’m supposed to be in Hawaii right now.”

  Grant’s eyes only twinkled more. “Sorry, Mom. Pen promises to move the tree right away.” He went back to throwing so many crumpled pieces of newspaper onto the grate, it was a wonder we weren’t all asphyxiated.

  There was nothing for me to do after that but get off the stool and move the tree. I wouldn’t get any help from either one of the Emersons, that wa
s for sure. I don’t know what I’d expected Grant’s mom to be like—I’d had one or two visions of a Psycho-like scenario in which Mrs. Emerson was revealed as Grant in a dress—but I should have known better. Mrs. Emerson was small—smaller than me, even—but other than a diminutive stature and a few strands of gray hair, she was exactly like Grant. Stubborn and charming and not the least put out by me at all.

  The angel was slightly askew at the top of the tree, but I decided that even Christmas angels deserved to go a little crooked now and then, so I left her like that. I was still on the fence about whether or not Mrs. Emerson really expected me to move a fully decorated, eight-foot blue spruce on my own, but I knew Grant was watching me out of the corner of his eyes to see how I would handle things.

  In other words, it was a test.

  Yet another twist in a game I didn’t know the rules to and, frankly, no longer cared to play. Had I been anyone else, my mocking suitor’s vows of chastity and constant scrutiny might have upset me, but protocol was for other women. Softer women. Women who cared about whether they impressed their annoyingly perfect boyfriends in front of their mothers.

  I marched over to where Mrs. Emerson sat reclining and dropped to her level with the crouch of my knees. She hadn’t lied. From that angle, there was a reflective glow from the large bay window at the front of the house, and it flashed in an intermittent light that could quickly grow annoying. Which was exactly why I grabbed an engraved wooden screen posing ineffectively in a corner and dragged it over. A few minor adjustments, and it formed a barrier to the light without impeding her view.

  I was examining my handiwork with triumph when I heard Mrs. Emerson break out in laughter. The sound of it was one hundred percent Grant, that signature deep-throated chuckle that practically forced its way out.

  “You were right about this one, Grant.” She didn’t stop laughing as she spoke, merely forming her words in the spaces in between. “She doesn’t take any crap, does she?”