by Erika Kelly
It sucked not to be the one who got to go home with Knox. “It was a thousand times worse.” Because she’s my heart.
“We going to get some grub?” Robert asked.
“You bet.” Gray needed to be more careful. He didn’t want to make his friend uncomfortable. “Delilah’s expecting us.” They continued along the boardwalk, crossed the street, and headed into the resort hotel. Keeping with the wild west theme, the lobby had deep red carpet and shiny brass sconces and chandeliers. The staff dressed in the style of the early nineteen-hundreds, when Calamity was founded.
Reaching for Knox’s hand, Gray led the way to Wally’s, the elegant restaurant with one-hundred-eighty-degree views of the sage meadows and dark gray Teton range.
“How the hell did Brodie do this?” Robert marveled at the décor, before heading into the restaurant with them. “I thought he designed terrain parks.”
“A little over a year ago, his friends were making noise about moving to Seattle or San Diego,” Gray said. “They couldn’t make a decent living here. My dad always called him a visionary, and I guess he was right, because Brodie came up with this idea and then, a year later, here we are. It’s a work in progress, of course, but he’s gotten a lot done.”
Robert looked to Knox. “See that? Brodie’s no architect. He’s not an engineer or a contractor. A year from now, I could be Luc Bellerose.”
“You absolutely could,” Knox said. “Though it might take a teeny bit more than a year.”
“Hey, Gray,” the hostess said. “Delilah’s got a table all set for you guys. She’s prepared a tasting menu. Come on.”
They wove their way through the light wood tables and pale green booths, greeting familiar faces, until they reached their four-top. Just as Gray moved to slide in next to Knox, Robert did the same, and they collided.
Robert grinned. “Old habit.” He took the chair across from them. “Okay, so, the florist’s all over your idea. He’s working with the gallery owner, who’s got concerns about her floor, but they said not to worry, they’ll take care of it. I’ve got three more models, which means we’re good to go even if I can’t get any more since they can repeat.”
“I have to ship the dresses to New York this Friday,” Knox said. “Are they going to the gallery? Can she store them for me?”
“She can’t close down that long,” Robert said. “But she does have a storage space we can use.”
“Well, they can’t just be in a storage space.” Knox looked worried. “They’re fragile, and the fabric picks up odors.”
Robert raised a hand. “It’s actually the unoccupied building right next door. We have to pay the landlord the same amount we’d pay for a pop-up store.”
“The person you’ve hired,” Gray said. “Does she know how to pack wedding gowns?”
“Of course.” Robert sounded offended. “I’m flying someone in from LA.”
“Hey, it’s a valid question,” Gray said.
“At some point you have to trust me. Have I fucked up yet, even once?”
“That’s got nothing to do with making sure the person you hired can handle seventy-five-thousand-dollars-worth of couture wedding gowns,” Gray said.
“Let’s put ego aside,” Knox said. “This is my show. I have to be on top of everything. I’d be stupid not to.” She pulled her napkin out from under the silverware and spread it across her lap. “Okay, so, we’ve got nine models.”
“Ten.” Robert smiled, pleased with himself. “That retired one I mentioned? She’s in.”
“Can I see them?”
“Yeah, sure.” He pulled out his phone, scrolled until he found what he was looking for, and passed it over. “I’ve got their portfolios in a Dropbox file.”
While Gray downed his water, Knox flipped quickly through the file. “I don’t recognize any of these women. Oh. Wait.” She looked up at him with a strange expression. “That’s Marie-Thérèse.”
“Yeah. She retired a couple years ago. After she had a baby.”
“I thought she only came out of retirement for Luc.”
“Apparently, she’ll do it for Grangers, too.” Robert took his phone back. “I can be pretty persuasive.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.”
“I’m sure you are, since you learned on the first day we met.” Robert grew animated. “You remember that day? I told you I’d followed a coyote.”
“How could I forget? Not many people spend Christmas morning alone in a park. It shocked the hell out of me to see someone else there. Especially a kid from school.”
“What were you doing there anyway?” Gray knew the story, of course, but as a kid he hadn’t thought to ask. It only struck him now that she’d been nine at the time. “You lived pretty far from any parks.”
“Christmas Eve, we spent the night at the lodge, where my mom worked,” Knox said. “I don’t really remember much, just that she wasn’t waking up, and I was getting impatient to open my presents.”
“I’ll tell you why she left the room.” Robert only had eyes for Knox, and they glittered with a private joke. “You wanted hot chocolate.”
She leaned closer to Gray. “How do you even remember that?”
He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her, ridiculously pleased when she settled in against him.
“The lobby had a coffee and tea station, and you wanted cocoa. But you couldn’t reach it. You spilled something, and when people started coming over, you ran out of there like you’d just pulled off a heist.”
“That’s exactly what it felt like.”
“And you ran across the street to the park. As soon as I saw you, I wanted you to stay with me, but I knew you’d want to go back inside when the coast was clear.” One side of his mouth curled up. “So I told you I’d seen a coyote in my backyard, and that I’d followed him.”
“And there I went, trying to track down an imaginary wild animal. Nice job.”
“Well, it started us, so…no regrets.”
“All I really wanted was to open my presents.” She didn’t acknowledge his sentimental comment, and Gray appreciated it.
“And the hot chocolate,” Robert said.
“And the hot chocolate.” Knox turned to Gray. “We wound up spending the whole day together. Forgot all about the stupid coyote. My mom went nuts trying to find me, and I never did get my hot chocolate.”
Gray breathed in the scent of her floral shampoo. “Did you get what you wanted that Christmas?”
She rewarded his question with a sweet smile. “I did. My mom came through and got me the Deluxe Magnadoodle.”
“Oh, my God.” Robert slapped the table. “Do you remember those walkie talkies we had?”
“That was hilarious.” She straightened, looking at Gray to explain. “We—”
“—wanted to see how far apart we could get and still hear each other.” Robert deliberately cut Gray out of the conversation. “But I took it too far and started climbing down the cliff. Shit, do you still have that scar?”
“Of course.”
Robert reached across the table to cradle her hand, turning it over, and running a finger along the fleshy part of her palm. “I told you not to follow me down there.”
“Where did you think I should go?” She pulled her hand back. “I was completely alone in the woods, it was getting dark, and there were creepy sounds out there.” She pointed a finger at Robert. “And you weren’t using the walkie talkie anymore, because you wanted to go home in time for—”
“The Sopranos.”
Knox shook her head. “Nope. The Amazing Race. You wanted to enter with Gray.” She nudged him with an elbow. “Do you remember how obsessed he was? He was so worried they’d end the show before you guys were old enough to be on it.”
“You’re right,” Robert said. “You’re totally right. It was The Amazing Race. In fact, that’s why I tried to climb down that cliff.”
“You were in training.”
“Exactly. But then you came after me.” He squeez
ed his eyes shut. “Jesus.” When he opened them, he clasped his hands behind his head. “I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my chest.”
“What happened?” Gray asked.
“You don’t know?” Robert asked, at the same time Knox said, “I found him. He was making his way down the side of the mountain…more like skidding down. He kept landing on his butt, and I called out to him to wait for me, but he couldn’t—”
“Dude, gravity had me fuckin’ careening down that mountain. But I turned around and saw you jump. You jumped off the ledge, and I thought you were good, you landed, but then you lost your footing. Slammed onto a boulder and sliced your hand open. Jesus. I felt so bad.”
“Yeah, but you took really good care of me,” Knox said. “You gave me a piggyback ride to your house. Cleaned my wound. Gave me the last Klondike bar.”
A phone chimed. Knox reached into her tote bag and pulled it out, reading the screen. “It’s Delilah. She wants me to come to the kitchen and say hi. I’ll be right back.” She got up and took off, both of them watching until she disappeared behind the double doors.
When she was out of sight, Gray turned to his friend. “Come on, man. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Robert reached for his water and took a long, slow drink. He set the glass down, pulled the napkin out from under the silverware, and dabbed his mouth.
He was not going to play games. Not where Knox was concerned. “I thought you were all about your career.”
“I am.”
“Then, why play games with me?”
“Oh. Is that we’re calling it? Because I call it catching up with my ex-girlfriend.”
“I get what you lost, and it sucks. But it’s been seven years. You made your choices. Don’t try to mess up what Knox and I have.”
All civility left, as Robert planted his feet on the floor and lunged forward so fast water sloshed out of glasses. “And you don’t think it’s fucked up to hook up with my ex? What about the bro code? You wouldn’t go after one of your brother’s exes.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t go after any woman who’d been with any of my friends or brothers.” He paused to make his point very, very clear. “Except for Knox. And I think you know that.”
“Oh, I knew.” Robert’s smile turned hard and mean. “Everyone knew. You had it bad for my girl.”
A flood of heat washed up his neck, burning the back of his neck, but he kept his mouth shut.
“You had everything a guy could ever want,” Robert said. “Brothers, a dad, money…and everything you touched turned to gold. You had everything…except the one thing you wanted most.” He leaned in so close, Gray could see the birthmark on the edge of Robert’s jaw. “My girlfriend.”
And that was it. Gray’d had enough. “My dad treated you like his own. You were part of my family until you stole from him. You had money, and you had skills. If you hadn’t chosen drugs over boarding, you could’ve competed with us. You made your choices. And, yes, I wanted her, but I never touched her, never made a move. I respected your relationship even through all the years you treated her like shit.”
“Right, Saint Gray. Perfect fucking Gray Bowie. You want to lay it all out on the table, then let’s do it.” He stabbed a finger at Gray. “You don’t bail on friends when they need you most.”
So, he’d lied about being cool with everything. No surprise there. “I didn’t bail on you. I tried everything I could to help you, to get you clean. You didn’t want it, and when I finally figured that out, I backed away. I wasn’t going down with you.”
“You stayed for Knox. You wanted to be her hero…it’s the only reason you stuck around as long as you did. Don’t pretend it was anything other than that.”
“Are you fucking serious? You know how hard I tried. You want to blame me, but you’re the one who ended the friendship. You ended it when you chose drugs over me. When you chose to get high over hanging out with me. Every time you asked me to bail you out of trouble? That was using me. It sure as hell wasn’t friendship. Stealing my dad’s watch, showing up wasted to a competition? Friends don’t do that. But you’re right about one thing. Nothing—nothing—made me sicker than watching you hurt her. That was the deal-breaker for me. How many times did you let her down? Break her heart? I couldn’t stand it.”
“And yet she still chose me. Must’ve sucked, huh? Mr. Perfect couldn’t get the girl.”
He’d never seen this side of affable, charming Robert, and suddenly the picture came into focus. “Jesus, did you ever love her? Or has it always been competition with me?”
“Everything okay here?” Knox sat down, looking between them.
“Just clearing the air,” Robert said.
She gazed up at Gray with concern. “You okay?” She stroked his thigh.
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” She drew in a breath. “Guys, whatever issues you have to work through, I’m going to ask that we deal with it after fashion week, okay? Please? Can we do that?”
“Of course.” But Gray wasn’t sure they could.
Because he’d never been less sure of Robert’s motives.
Knox patted her face dry, then pulled the elastic out of her hair. “Gray?”
“Yeah?”
Leaning back, she looked through the doorway into her bedroom and found him facing the window, stark naked, stretching the resistance band. Holy mother of God. Feet braced, he stood there with one arm stretched all the way out and the other bent at the elbow and crossing his chest, making his biceps bulge. The muscles of his back flexed, his broad shoulders tapering to a trim waist and rock-hard bubble ass.
That ass started moving, bunching and releasing like some Magic Mike dancer. When she glanced up, she caught his big grin in the window’s reflection. “Perv.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You’re the one thinking sketchy thoughts about my ass.”
“It’s really nice.” She made a circling motion with her finger. “Why don’t you face me when we’re having a conversation?”
“It’s just safer for me this way.”
“Safer?”
“Yeah. Once I show you the frontal view, you’ll leap across the bed like a mountain lion.”
“If you’re talking about your wiener…I don’t know, Gray. At this point, it’s just kind of…same old same old, you know?”
“You sure about that?” He turned around to reveal a hard-on like a steel bar.
“Oh, my God, Gray. Is that from staring at your own reflection?” She balled up her hand towel and tossed it at him. Of course, he snatched it out of the air. “If you’re about done with your Mr. Universe poses, do you think we can go to bed now?”
“That depends. You going to keep me up all night with your insatiable needs?”
Pretending to give it some thought, she let her gaze wander from those strong shoulders to the sculpted pecs, down his ripped torso, to his thick, long erection. “Yes.”
He got back to stretching. “Then I’ve got to stay in shape.”
“You’re very disciplined.” She flicked off the light and sashayed toward him. “I admire that.” When she reached him, she set her hands lightly on his chest. He dropped the resistance band and reached for her, but she shook her head. “Don’t let me interrupt your routine.”
She skimmed those powerful shoulders, the skin smooth and hot, and down his thickly muscled arms, her palms registering every curve and bulge. Up on her toes, she leaned into his neck and breathed him in. “You smell as good as you look.” Reaching around, she stroked his back, the muscles flexing under her touch. When she got to his ass, she squeezed hard.
He grunted. “You’ve got about ten seconds before I toss you on the bed.”
“Hold your horses.” With her hands full of his ass, she kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, then wandered to one nipple, which she licked and sucked before trailing wet kisses across to the other one.
His hand came to the back of her hand, and she
shook him off. “Dammit, Knox.”
“It’s not every day a woman gets the run of a body like this.”
He cupped her cheeks, tilted her face. “I’m not a body. I’m Gray.”
Clarity hit her like an alarm jarring her out of a deep sleep. She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to get it. He’d grown up feeling invisible in his family, but then she’d gone and done the same thing when all she did was talk about Robert.
She brought her hands around to his chest, sweeping up and around his neck. “You should know that it’s not the hard body that turns me on—lots of men are fit. It’s not your handsome face, your medals and trophies, and it’s certainly not your money. It’s the man who takes responsibility for the actions of his friend, when she drives a Jeep through someone’s living room.”
“It was your living room.”
“You would’ve gone above and beyond no matter whose career Amelia had wiped out. I see you, Gray, and I feel so damn lucky to be with you. Every minute of every day, you’re on my mind, and you can bet your very hard ass that the immediate thought that follows is how grateful I am that you chose me.” She dropped to her knees, and the vulnerability in his eyes only made her want him more.
Grasping his erection with both hands, one on top of the other, she stroked him in twisting pulls. She took pity on his strained expression by licking the head with the flat of her tongue.
His fingers dug into her hair, barely touching her scalp, but poised to grip her if she dared pull off. It made her smile. Until she sucked him deep into her mouth, one hand tugging on him, the other clutching his ass to keep him right where she needed him.
His hips flexed, and he started pumping. She watched his chest rise and fall, his eyelids lower. Loved the way his hands clamped down on the sides of her head, the tremble in his thighs, and the groans deep in his throat.
“Fuck, Knox. Fuck.”
He was moving too fast for her to flick her tongue, so she used suction instead. He had that just-showered scent of soap and man, and his fingers digging into her hair, the rough punch of his hips, made her drenched with desire.
