A fireman, all suited up, disappeared inside the cottage door as neighbours filtered out on the lawn and flames started licking up the side of the house, black smoke filling the sky. “Let us do our job.”
“You don’t get it,” I yelled, pulling free of their grip. “Keeping her safe is my job.”
Turning, I ran for the front door just as the back half of the house exploded, hurtling me backwards. The air in my lungs emptied as I landed hard on the ground. I rolled over, coughing as I dragged myself to my feet.
“Grace!” I cried, my ears ringing from the blast. “No.”
“Casey!”
He spun around, coughing, his chest covered with dirt and ash and his eyes wild. “Grace!”
Casey grabbed for me, and I dropped the wriggling Mitsy from my arms when he wrapped his around me, burying me into his chest, one hand fisting my hair. “Oh my God.”
He held on, squeezing me. My ribs screamed and I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t care. I was freaked. Someone had been trying to kill us. I hadn’t truly believed it—maybe I hadn’t wanted to—but hell, someone had just blown up the ass end of the cottage right where we would’ve been sleeping.
“Casey,” I said again, having no idea what else to say.
He pushed me back, grabbing my face in his hands, his chest heaving up and down like he couldn’t breathe. “That was so stupid! Why did you do that? Jesus. When that back room exploded I thought you were dead!”
“I’m sorry!” I cried. “I didn’t think,” I told him, because I hadn’t. It was like my mind had completely detached, leaving my body driving the car. I just ran inside, grabbed Mitsy, and tailed it out the side entrance because it was closer than coming back through the front door. “I just reacted.”
He kissed me—fierce and quick. “Next time, you think! You fucking think, okay?”
“Next time?”
“There’ll be a next time, Grace,” he warned, his voice flat and grim. “It would be a mistake to think otherwise.”
I turned to look at the cottage. Firemen surrounded the back, flames dying under the deluge of water. If I’d been just a few seconds later, I would’ve died.
I really was stupid.
I’d just proved it.
By running into a burning building.
My brother was going to shit a brick if he got wind of what I just did. I looked at Casey. “We don’t have to tell Henry, right?”
Casey’s eyes went flat and hard. “What did you just say?” he snapped, anger evident in his tone.
“Casey, I—”
He let go of me, hands fisting at his sides as he took a step back. “You think I’m pissed because I have to explain to your brother you almost died in a damn house fire?”
“No, of course not—”
“I just watched the woman I love run into a goddamn burning building!” he roared at me, pointing at the smouldering cottage without taking his eyes from mine.
I froze.
“What?” I whispered.
“I love you, dammit!” Casey yelled, his voice cracking. “And I almost lost you. I almost …” He trailed off, sucking in a lungful of air.
Oh no.
My breath caught in my throat and my stomach pitched.
I’d pegged Casey as the guy who didn’t do commitment. Who didn’t fall in love. This whole thing was meant to be about living and loving life, and wild sex with a hot, irresistible man who both made me laugh and set me on fire. A moment in time to pretend everything was normal before I went home to face the music.
I hadn’t cared about my own heart. I knew before I’d even made the pact that leaving Casey would break it. And I could deal with that.
But I couldn’t deal with breaking his heart too.
That wasn’t meant to happen.
That wasn’t part of the deal.
Casey searched my face as I stared wordlessly, and I knew he was reading my thoughts. Seeing my hesitation, he turned away, hiding the hurt I already saw on his face.
“Casey.”
He shook his head and pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “I need to make some calls.”
My heart slammed against my ribs as I felt him draw away, not just physically, but emotionally, and I should’ve let him. I should’ve just let him make the calls and wait for him to realise that it wasn’t love, it was just wild, crazy adrenaline that would fade by tomorrow.
But I couldn’t.
Because I loved him too.
And seeing the hurt in his eyes and the slump of his shoulders made my heart ache.
“You, uh …” I drew a shaky breath and tried again, my eyes burning. “You remember when we first met?” Casey stilled, and after a moment, turned and looked at me. “I thought you were an asshole. Hot, but an asshole nonetheless.”
“I know, Grace. You called me an asshole.”
“You called me a bitch first.”
He held up his phone, indicating he had better things to do than argue about it. I couldn’t blame him. I started this off all wrong, but I didn’t know how else to say what I needed to say.
“What’s your point?” he asked.
I knew what my point was, but getting to it wasn’t quite as simple as saying three little words, so I forged on. “When Mitsy chewed your backseat on the ride to the duplex, I told myself it was payback, plain and simple, for you assaulting me in the airport bathroom—”
“That wasn’t assault!”
“You say potato, I say po-tah-to,” I muttered, remembering him shoving me against the tiles, his thigh wedged between my legs, his fierce glare. If his actions hadn’t been so outrageous, it would’ve been kind of hot.
“But I realised it wasn’t payback,” I continued. “It was me pissing you off to make keeping my distance easy because I knew you were trouble. I mean, look at you.” I waved my hand over the length of him, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, his firm, tanned chest on display. “Even covered in dirt and bits of grass, you’re still the sexiest man I’ve ever seen. Every man I’ve ever been with I’ve kept at a distance, but doing the same with you proved impossible. Right from the start you were there in my face, pissing me off, making me crazy, and making me feel. And somehow I kept coming back for more. And then you took me surfing that day and I knew there was more to you than I’d ever realised. So much more. There was a fierce loyalty for your friends, pain from losing your family, and this wildness underneath it all that with the slightest provocation, you would unleash, leaving me completely captivated.”
“Grace,” he breathed, his eyes going dark.
He took a step towards me and I held up a hand. “I’m not finished.” My gaze shifted to the waves crashing on the shore as I tried to find the right words. “People come and go, Casey. Some crash into your life and leave in the blink of an eye, others stay with you for years, but it doesn’t matter how long you have them for,” I said, looking back at him, hoping he understood what I was trying to say, “because the way they make you feel stays with you with forever, and you’ve made me feel so much.” Tears climbed my throat and I had to swallow them down so I could keep going. “You’ve made me laugh and made me cry, pissed me off, completely infuriated me and made me want you all at the same time. But underneath it all, you made me ache, and you made me love you so hard.” I took hold of his hand and pulled him close until his chest hit mine. The breeze had picked up, fanning my hair across my face. He reached up, brushing it away as firemen shouted and people moved around us. “That’s what makes you beautiful to me, Casey.”
A smile grew slowly on his face, and he rubbed his nose gently against mine. “That has to be the longest ‘I love you’ in the history of the world.”
I grinned in reply as people threw varied looks of disbelief our way for smiling in the middle of a war zone. “But definitely the best, right?”
He shook his head, his body quaking with laughter as he kissed me. “You’re the only woman who’s ever said that to me, Grace. I never knew how good
hearing it would make me feel.”
Casey made his calls. It wasn’t safe for us to stay out the night for obvious reasons, so after we finished speaking with the police, he arranged for Coby to drive up. He would take over dealing with the cottage and subsequent repairs and we would head home.
I was dozing in Casey’s arms in the chair on the front porch, my head tucked into his chest, when Coby pulled in the drive at five a.m. He drove up in Evie’s Hilux. The plan was for us to drive it back and leave his car here with him.
I heard him step onto the porch, but opening my eyes to greet him was a feat of strength that was beyond me right then.
“Is she okay?” I heard Coby ask quietly.
“Solid,” Casey replied. The deep rumble of his voice as he spoke was soothing and I burrowed deeper.
“You right to drive back now? I can watch her if you want to have a quick nap.”
Casey’s arms tightened around me, and I sighed softly as he stood up bringing me with him. “No, but thanks. I want to get her to the loft. She’ll be safe there.”
“What about Morgan?”
“What about her?”
“She knows where you live.”
“I can’t believe she would do this, Coby. She had her alibi for the night of the accident. We saw it on the security tapes. And she might be a bitch…” total bitch, I agreed silently “…but she’s a detective. Bombing a house? That’s taking it a bit far, don’t you think?”
“No. Women do crazy shit.”
I was pissed at Coby’s comment, but not pissed enough to wake up and join the conversation, so I let it slide. I couldn’t possibly refute his statement and make it sound believable anyway. We did do crazy shit. I, for one, could add stealing a car, crashing it, and running into a burning building to my crazy shit repertoire.
My eyes opened lazily when Casey started walking. He was carrying me towards the car just as the sun appeared over the horizon, casting soft pinks and orange into the sky. It was beautiful and I didn’t want to leave. Being here with Casey had been one of the best weeks of my life, despite it ending in a semi-blaze of glory.
Coby opened the passenger door and went to pick up Mitsy while Casey set me down in the seat.
He bent over the top of me, his eyes focused on doing my seat belt, not noticing I was awake and watching him intently. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my arm as he clicked the belt in place. He pulled back and glanced at me.
Seeing my eyes open, he smiled slow and sexy, and with a husky whisper, said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” I whispered back, my eyes dropping to his mouth, remembering how he’d pushed me back on the soft sand last night, shoved up the skirt of my cotton dress, yanked down my panties, spread my legs, and put that mouth on me in the most toe curling way imaginable. It seemed to be one of his favourite things to do. I wasn’t complaining.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, his lids lowering as he placed a palm on my thigh and began swirling his thumb on the bare skin.
“Like what?” I bit back a moan, wanting his hand to shift higher and not wanting it to because Coby was somewhere nearby putting stuff in the back of the Hilux.
“Like you want me to eat you.” Casey’s hand started moving higher and my pulse accelerated. “Because damn, I want to, and knowing you want me to just makes me hotter, and I can’t be hot right now. I need my head in the game so I can get you home safe. Visions of burying my tongue between your legs won’t help me do that.”
I stopped breathing.
He grinned. “Breathe, baby.”
“I don’t think I can right now,” I muttered. “Maybe later.” When I’d fallen asleep again and unconsciousness took over.
Maybe not even then.
We left soon after and I don’t remember the drive home because I slept the whole way. When I woke, we were parked in the driveway of the duplex. Casey stood by the car next to Henry. He was talking and Henry’s eyes were hard as he stood there listening, his arms folded. I quickly closed my eyes again, playing possum so when the brick shitting began over my exploits, I didn’t have to deal with it.
Five minutes later the car door opened.
“Grace. I know you’re awake.”
I focused on keeping my face serene and my eyelids still, but the more I tried, the harder it was. Damn, playing possum was a skill I had never fully mastered.
“Grace,” Henry repeated. “I know you’re awake because you’re not snoring.”
I cracked an eyelid open. “I don’t snore!”
My phone buzzed, saving me, and I sprang for it.
“Hello.”
“Grace, love.”
Fantastic.
I’d watched a show on TV the other night. One of those current affair type programs with the scare tactics. You know the kind that led you to believe flesh-eating bugs were invading the country and if you didn’t watch the show, you wouldn’t know how to combat them and subsequently face being eaten alive. It was one of those types, and after much eye rolling on Casey’s part, he caved and we watched the show. This one was on sinkholes, where the earth’s surface just falls away below you in a startling tidy kind of circle.
I needed to find one of those because according to the show’s host, they were opening up all over the earth’s surface when you least expected it, sucking you into the never-never.
That was where I needed to be right now.
“Dad,” I muttered.
Suddenly Casey stood right there in front of me, and he said something pretty damn amazing. “Give me the phone, Grace.”
If I didn’t already love the man, I would’ve after that. I flung the phone at him like it was a hot potato.
“A burning building, Grace? Really?”
And it was back to Henry while Casey put out the fire that was my dad.
His voice rose alarmingly as he spoke. “When I told you to stay safe, you interpreted that as run towards danger without passing go and collecting two hundred dollars?”
“You’re being dramatic.”
Henry’s jaw went tight, indicating I’d chosen the wrong response.
I tried again. “I’m sorry.”
His jaw kept ticking.
Casey eyed us from a small distance away, one arm holding my phone to his ear, the other tucked across his chest. His brows rose at me in silent question and I felt a rush of love. I had to bite down on the goofy smile that threatened for fear Henry would think me amused. I shook my head at Casey, silently telling him I had it covered. He nodded and half turned, focusing again on whatever he was saying to my dad.
“What good is sorry if you’re dead, Grace?”
“Henry.”
“What?” he snapped.
“It was stupid and it won’t happen again.”
His eyes narrowed cynically. “I don’t believe you.”
“So what now? Should I write it in blood? Will that make it more believable?”
“Maybe,” he muttered, backing up as I slid from the passenger seat to the ground. My body protested the movement after sitting down for so long and I winced. Henry reached for me, steadying me when I faltered.
I looked up at my big brother, time seeming to stand still for the longest moment. “I love you, Henry Bear.”
“Ah hell.” He blinked back tears and rather than letting me go, he wrapped his arms around me. I burrowed in, fighting sadness that I’d missed this for so many years. “I love you, too, Gracie Bean.”
An hour later, Casey had me situated at his loft. That involved him rolling my suitcase into his room, running me a bath, helping me wash my hair again, and dragging me naked to his bed, because apparently I needed to rest. I only complied because he was joining me.
Casey lifted the sheets and I slid in gratefully. He slid in behind, spooning me, all warm skin and hard body, his breathing soft and even against the nape of my neck. He pulled the sheets up over both of us, cocooning us in delicious warmth.
“Casey?” I murmured.
“What’s our plan?”
“Our plan?”
“Yes. Our plan. I’m still helping you find your brother,” I reminded him, and knowing they had someone named Seth from their office tracking down the coroner, I added, “And I’m coming with you when you talk to this Graham whatshisname.”
I braced for an argument but he surprised me by agreeing. “I don’t want you leaving my side right now.”
“I heard you talking to Coby. I know you don’t think Morgan instigated the accident and the fire, but I think she’s involved somehow and it’s something to do with your brother.”
His arm tightened, his hand cupping my breast as he cuddled me close. “I think you’re right,” he admitted, “but I can’t seem to fit any of the puzzle pieces together.”
“So stop trying. Put it out of your head until we talk to Graham, and then maybe they’ll start falling into place.”
His thumb flickered over my nipple and my blood heated as it hardened. “And how do you propose I do that?”
I pushed back, wriggling my ass against him, finding him half hard already. He exhaled harshly. “Grace.” He wedged a knee between the backs of my legs, parting my thighs. I sighed in anticipation. “I told myself I’d let you sleep,” he murmured in my ear. His fingers found their way between my legs.
I moaned softly. “So be quick then.”
His tongue snaked out, trailing a path along the back of my neck as he rocked his hips, rubbing his erection against my back, his fingers never ceasing their rhythm. “A quickie with you, Slim? That’s like drinking champagne when you’re already drunk. A waste of something that should be savoured.”
“Savour me after, Casey, please. I need you inside me.”
He drew his hand away, over my hip and down my leg. I felt him reach for a condom and moments later he lifted my thigh and filled my body with his. I gasped, my head falling back against him.
“Ah, fuck, Grace,” he groaned, pressing his forehead against my shoulder.
Give Me Grace Page 33
