I glanced back at the building, remembering one afternoon seven years ago when he took me up to the top of the building—before there was even a roof—and told me he was going to own it one day.
“Just how do you propose to do that? Daddy says this apartment is already sold to someone who paid so much they’d have to stay twenty years to make it worth it.”
“I guess I’ll just have to make an offer they won’t be able to pass up.”
“And what would that be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t plan to work construction all my life. I’m going to find something I’m really good at and I’m going to make millions doing it.”
“And then?”
“And then, I’m going to buy this place and set you up in here. Let you decorate it any way you want to. And then we’ll fill it with babies.”
“Babies?”
“Half a dozen, at least.”
I laughed. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to carry them.”
He lifted me from the waist and carried me to the makeshift table they’d been using to cut lumber on.
“I want a houseful of baby girls that look exactly like you,” he said, kissing the tip of my nose lightly even as he moved between my legs, pulling me tight against him. “And I want to give them the world, just like I’m going to do for you.”
“You must have made a hell of a good offer,” I said softly.
“More than you could possibly imagine.”
I glanced at him and realized he was watching me. Not only that, but I knew he knew I was thinking about that long-ago evening. I blushed, because my memory hadn’t stopped at the words we’d exchanged. There was so much more about that night that I’d tucked away in the back of my mind, refusing to replay it the way I did some of the others. Because that was the night I knew I loved him. It was the night I knew my life would never be the same. And that was the night he put me on a path that would end in the most devastating heartbreak I’d ever experienced.
“I should go.”
I pushed away from the side of the truck, intent on getting as far from him as I could. But he grabbed my arm and pulled me back, his eyes moving slowly over my face.
“Why are you here?”
“I think that’s my question,” I said. “I never left.”
He smoothed his hand over the side of my face. “If I’d had a choice…”
“You had plenty of choices, Grant.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes moving over me again. It was like he was trying to memorize me. Or maybe he was looking for the girl I was seven years ago. I was sure I’d changed. I didn’t see it, but I was sure someone who knew me as well as he did might. If he’d really known me as well as I’d thought he had…
“Come upstairs,” he said. “Let me show you what I’ve done with the place.”
“I have places I need to be.”
“It’ll only take a minute.” He stepped back and held out his hand. “Are you afraid you’ll be impressed?”
“You wish.”
I took his hand and let him pull me across the street. I knew the lobby of the building. It was still covered in the marble my dad and I had searched dozens of suppliers’ warehouses to find, still painted the same subtle creams and tan the owner had wanted. There was a little desk off to the side where a security man greeted visitors and accepted packages for the tenants. There was a security guard there now who lifted a hand in greeting to Grant.
“Good afternoon, Mr. McGraw.”
“John,” Grant said in a tone of voice I didn’t know. One filled with pretention and formality that the old Grant would never have used.
“You’ve certainly come up in the world,” I said the moment we were alone on the elevator.
“What makes you say that?”
“When I knew you, you wouldn’t have been able to afford the rent on a locker in this building, let alone the penthouse.”
He shrugged, concentrating on putting some sort of code into the elevator’s number pad that I assumed would take us to the top floor.
“Billy said you got lucky in California.”
“Is that what you really want to talk about, Addison? Where I got my money?”
I watched him turn toward me, saw the thundercloud cross his face.
“No. But I’d like to know what happened to you after you left here. And why you came back.”
“And I’d rather find out where you learned how to do that little hip twist you entertained me with last night.”
“What—”
He pushed me back against the wall and stole my lips, his mouth determined as he began exploring me. It was like the last twelve years hadn’t happened. We were simply picking up where we dropped off last night.
I twisted my head to break the kiss, but he simply buried his face in my neck, dropping tiny little kisses along that super sensitive spot behind my ear.
“Did you only ask me up here to get into my pants?”
“Can you think of a better reason?”
I tried to squirm out from under him, but then his tongue was doing something to my earlobe that made my spine tingle. Without any input from me, my hand slid up over the back of his neck, pulling him closer as the heat of his breath sent yet another tingle rushing up and down the length of me. I think even my toes curled in my heavy work boots.
His mouth came back to mine and neither of us noticed that the elevator door had opened for several seconds. But then some chime sounded and Grant groaned before backing away, running his fingers over my arms as he tugged me after him.
The elevator opened right into the penthouse. This aspect of the apartment had caused an argument between my dad and the architects at the time it was being constructed because he believed it was unsafe, but the architects insisted it was something the client has specifically asked for—so that visitors found themselves instantly stepping down into a sunken living room, facing a wall of windows that stood floor to ceiling. The view was breathtaking, looking down on a lovely neighborhood to the east of downtown Houston.
The room was fairly empty. There was a lovely bamboo floor that was clearly new—carpeting had been installed by our floor guys—and a single couch. There was a desk off to one side that was covered in paperwork and a laptop computer. But that was about it, leaving the rest of the large living room looking bare and almost sad.
I got a brief glimpse of the kitchen as Grant pulled me toward the stairs as the elevator swished silently closed behind us. There were impressive appliances on the counter, a beautiful stainless steel refrigerator and top-of-the-line oven sitting in their appropriate places, and a well-stocked wine cooler sitting in a small alcove that looked newly installed.
He pulled me up the stairs and into the huge master suite that took up the entire second floor of the apartment. It was just as empty as the living room below, only a television stuck to one wall, with a pretty impressive electronic array on a low table beneath it, and a king-sized bed shoved up against the far wall.
“I don’t remember you being a minimalist.”
“What more does a single man need than a good, sturdy bed?”
That should have been amusing—or even a little annoying—but hearing the word bed on Grant’s lips as he looked at me with the smoldering fire in his eyes made everything just sort of shimmer as my nervous system went haywire.
I didn’t fight him when he pulled me into his arms. As much as I hated to admit it, I was exactly where I wanted to be. He had this power over me that was impossible to ignore.
He lifted my T-shirt, tugged it from my body as his hands came around me and he pulled me against his chest. His lips were on mine again, his movement encouraging me to open to him again. I was already responding, looking forward to the taste of him. There was nothing better than the touch of a man like Grant, one who knew exactly where to touch me and how to touch me. I fully believed that no other man could ever make me feel the way he did. I’d accepted that a long time ago. Maybe that wa
s why I was so weak now. I shouldn’t have been doing this. But he wanted me. How could I pass that up?
He lifted me and lay me on the bed, his fingers already working the snap on my jeans. I tugged his shirt over his head, struck dumb by the raw look on his face. There was need there, and a whole world of emotions I couldn’t begin to pull apart and understand in my current condition. All I could do was touch him. Run my hand over his jaw and down along his throat, and soak up the realness of him. He was really here. He was really back.
He slipped off of the bed for a minute to tug my heavy boots from my feet. When they were free, he kissed them. A man who would do that—kiss a pair of feet that had just spent hours in work boots—was a man who was truly desperate for something. And then my jeans, his strong hands simply grabbing the cuffs and yanking them away. I laughed as my body threatened to go with them, nearly causing me to fall in a heap on the floor. But he saved me, grabbing my hips and pushing me a little higher up on the bed. And then my panties followed the way of my jeans and his fingers began to tug at his own.
I could have helped him. A part of me desperately wanted to hear that little grunt that slipped from his lips whenever I touched his swollen cock. But I liked the way his eyes were moving over me, like I was a priceless painting hanging in the Louvre. I did, however, reach behind me and unfasten my bra so that the scene was perfect for those curious eyes.
And then he was the piece of art, a masterpiece standing before me. Not much had changed about him in the past seven years. I got the impression that he no longer did manual labor. It wasn’t that his muscles were no longer well defined. They were. But the deep tan he’d always had when I knew him before was faded, which suggested the muscles came from a nice, air-conditioned gym.
Nothing wrong with that.
He still had the broadest shoulders and the longest legs, hips that any woman would admire, and a chest that my fingers itched to touch. If a man could be beautiful, he was more than that.
And he was looking at me.
He lifted my hips a little and guided himself to me, watching my eyes as he slowly made our bodies more than two separate entities. I tried not to break that gaze, but the pleasure that rushed through me was more than I could take. My eyes rolled back as I arched my hips, my calves sliding over the backs of his thighs and then up over his hips. He leaned over me, balancing himself on his arms, and dipped low to steal my lips.
Our tongues danced as he moved into a slow, gentle rhythm that I was able to match almost perfectly. This was what it was all about. This was why marriages were formed and torn apart, why perfectly intelligent people did things that couldn’t be explained in simple terms.
Our bodies fit together perfectly, touching each other in places no one else could reach. He touched me in places that made my nerve ending explode and my ability to think straight simply evaporate. And I knew that I touched him, too—knew by the way his breath came in such quick gasps that he had to break our kiss and bury his mouth against my shoulder, and by the way his simple, gentle rhythm became something rougher, fevered. I knew when he thrust his hips hard against mine and cried out as he filled me with life, as my own body betrayed my secrets by bursting into uncontrollable twitches and moans and toe-curling eruptions.
We were perfect. Still.
Chapter 7
I lay on my side staring at a blank wall across the room. I found myself wondering if we’d been far enough along on construction for him to have been the one to put the drywall up in here. I doubted it. I didn’t remember any drywall here that night. But wouldn’t it be ironic if he’d put up the wall I was lying there staring at seven years later?
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as he pressed his body against my back, his fingers dancing over the flesh covering my hip.
“The drywall.”
He kissed my shoulder lightly. “Billy asked me if I still did drywall. He seemed disappointed when I said no.”
“Billy always thought you were the best student he’d ever had.”
“Yeah?”
“You learned a lot quicker than anyone who came before or after. Especially after.”
“Having trouble with your drywallers, Ms. Chief Operating Officer?”
I groaned. “You have no idea.”
He kissed my shoulder again, brushing his lips against the same place he’d pressed his mouth when he’d orgasmed. I moved back into him, enjoying the heat of his body against mine. He made a soft sound against my shoulder as he slid his foot over both mine.
“I don’t know what we’d do without Billy. He’s the main reason most of our guys do things right.”
“What about the foremen? How many do you have now?”
“Five. And none of them are worth what we’re paying them. Most disappear the moment a space opens up at another company. They don’t like the paperwork.”
“Why don’t you use tablets?”
“Daddy’s old fashioned.”
He brushed the hair away from my face. “Berryman Construction would do much better if you modernized some of your operations.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve tried.” I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. “How do you know so much about us, anyway?”
“Billy,” he said, turning his face away as he said it.
“I guess Billy knows more about the company than I do.” I rolled onto my side again. “About you, too, I suppose.”
“I’m an open book, Addison. Ask me anything you want to know.”
I didn’t even stop to think about it. I didn’t even realize I was going to say it until the first few words were on the tip of my tongue.
“Where did you go when you left here?”
“California.”
“Why?”
He cleared his throat a little and I could feel him tense, feel the rigidity of his muscles as he pulled me closer against his chest.
“I had some family business I had to take care of.”
“Family? You told me your dad took off when you were five and your mom died right before you graduated high school.”
“All true.”
“So what family?”
When he didn’t immediately answer, I decided I was done. I didn’t want to play these games.
I climbed off the bed and walked around to the untidy pile where our clothes were laying.
“Don’t go.”
“I waited there for hours,” I said softly, my T-shirt pressed against my chest as I stared down at the floor. “I sat in that diner, sipping the same coke, for hours and hours, waiting for you to show up. The waitress felt so sorry for me that she brought me a slice of apple pie after three hours. I can still remember how the vanilla ice cream began to melt and slide off the side of the pie, how it looked like a sad little puddle of spilt milk after five hours. By then, I knew you weren’t coming. But I still sat there like a fool, waiting.”
“Addison…”
“Even after my dad showed up, after he dragged me home and told me to pack for New Haven, after I boarded that plane, a part of me believed you would show up. I believed you would come to me, tell me some crazy story about a car accident or an accident on the construction site. I thought there had to be some sort of explanation.” I laughed at myself as I stared down at my painted toes, realizing just how stupid I probably looked standing there stark naked, his scent all over my body, moaning like a child over a long-ago hurt. “The thing was, there was a simple explanation. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
“It was a long time ago,” Grant said softly.
“You lied to me,” I said, finally lifting my eyes to his. “All those times when you stared at me like I was the only girl who’d ever mattered to you, all the times you told me you loved me, it was all a lie. All I was was a game. You were the big man on the site, the one who managed to bag the boss’s daughter, right?”
“It wasn’t a game,” he said, sliding off the bed and coming to me. “And I didn’t lie.”
He ran his
hands over my upper arms, rubbing them like he was trying to warm me up.
“Can we start over? Can we leave the past in the past?”
I looked up at him. “Tell me how and I will.”
He brushed the hair out of my face and kissed me in that way he did that made all the hurt and the confusion seem like they no longer mattered. I was setting myself up for heartbreak and I knew it. But it was like speeding toward a fatal car crash. I saw it coming, but I couldn’t stop it.
Grant picked me up and took me back to bed. He leaned over me, but I pushed him back, pinning him against the mattress. I wanted to enjoy this man while I still could. Reality would eventually catch up with me and I would have to choose between my heart and my head. Until then, I wanted to create a memory that would keep me warm in the long, cold hours of the night.
I began with the soft space under his chin, that spot that made him groan as I worked my way slowly down his throat. I nibbled here, kissed there, never doing the same thing more than twice in a row. I wanted him to be surprised, wanted him to ache the way I’d ached last night. When I reached the center of his chest where a fine spattering of hair grew, I ran my hands over it, twirling it in my fingers until he grabbed my hand.
“Ow,” he said softly.
“Don’t you like pain, Grant?”
His eyebrows rose. “Depends on how it’s delivered.”
I just smiled as I bent to him again, teasing one nipple with the tip of my tongue. He groaned again, his hand sliding over the back of my head. He didn’t pull me closer, but he didn’t push me away, either. He simply rested his hand on the back of my head and waited as I continued to move lower over his body.
His abs tightened as I began to explore them. I could feel his muscles quivering as I approached his navel. The funny little pieces of skin that stuck out of that rounded space were soft, a little squishy. It was entertaining to press my tongue against them and feel his body respond. And below his navel, more hair grew. A friend in high school had called it a treasure map. I didn’t really care what it was called. I wanted to feel the pressure he placed on my head as he unintentionally pushed me farther down. I wanted to feel the excitement that I knew I was creating in him. I wanted to know that he liked my touch, that he craved it almost as much as I’d craved this these long seven years.
CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) Page 88
