“Only when the adventure is worth it.”
I bit my lip to hide my smile as the waiter came over. Grant ordered first before the waiter turned to me with a wane smile. “And for you, miss?”
“I’ll have the entire taster menu and a packet of the dried mango chips. Could we also get four pairs of wood chopsticks, please? The whole thing is to go.”
“To go?”
“Yes. Thanks a ton.”
The waiter nodded as he scribbled it all down on his notepad, probably used to far weirder orders than mine at this hour. Something about this place, with it’s slightly broken tile and flickering fluorescent lighting, calmed me. You knew what you got here.
“To go, Ada?”
I gave Grant an angelic smile. “Yep. We’re heading to my apartment.”
He looked at me steadily, reprove clear in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
“I need supplies for the lesson. Besides, you don’t really want to sit here and learn, do you?”
Grant glanced around. People in various stages of drunkenness were angling in and out and we'd already been given a couple of speculative looks because of our fancy dress. No doubt someone would strike up a conversation if they saw Grant in his tux and powerful air trying to maneuver noodles on two sticks.
“I see your point,” he said wryly. “Fine.”
“Good. Now, it’s your turn.”
“My turn?”
“I told you something that was personal. Tell me something.”
“It’s not a trade, Ada.”
“Why not? We’re friends, aren’t we? How about you say something about your family. It can be anything, any little detail. Doesn’t have to be revolutionary.”
Grant leaned back on the faded red pleather and looked thoughtful. He would refuse, but there was nothing lost by trying. Seeing if it was possible to peek behind the curtain one more time.
“My mother was a brunette,” he said finally.
“Like you, then.”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Was?”
“She’s gone now.”
I stroked the edge of the table, where the linoleum lining had begun to peel off in curled ridges. “Mine too.”
“I suppose there are better things one might have in common.”
I gave a small smile, careful not to do anything that might shock him out of this new intimacy blossoming between us. “Was your father a brunette too?”
Grant’s response, when it came, was measured. “I don’t know. I never met him.”
“Here, miss, sir. One Pad Thai, one red curry, a full taster menu and dried mango chips.” Two white plastic bags were deposited on our table, the outlines of boxes just barely visible inside.
Grant reached for his wallet but I stopped him with a raised hand. “I said my treat, right? It’s all part of the evening you paid for.”
Too late, I realized what my words sounded like. The waiter's eyes widened. A giggle escaped - I couldn't help it - and very soon Grant was laughing, too. The waiter accepted my money and hurried away without a backwards glance.
“You have a way with words,” Grant said and grabbed the bags.
“I’ll never be able to come here again,” I said with a playful sigh. “What a pity.”
We made our way to the front door only to stop dead. It was pouring outside. The sky had opened up and it rained with such fervor that drops bounced off the pavement and the asphalt, water running in rivulets down the street.
“Shit,” Grant swore. “We’ll have to wait until it stops. We’ll get soaked.”
A slow smile spread across my face. There was something about this night, about him, about the fluorescent lighting and the spinning, fragile thing between us.
“Hey. Let’s be adventurous.” I grabbed his hand and pulled the door open, dragging us both outside and into the downpour.
“You’ve gone mad!” He called behind me. We stopped at a crossing and I mashed the crosswalk button.
“You know that doesn’t actually do anything?”
“You never know!” I grinned, just as cars began to slow to a halt. The light turned yellow, then red.
“Hah! All my doing.”
“The all-mighty Ada,” he said as we ran up the street. It was abandoned, the rain dissuading anyone from venturing outside. Water splattered under my shoes with each quick step.
“Not much farther now!” Grant said, pulling me around the corner. I laughed. My hand was still in his and giddiness rushed through me, exhilarating and strange.
“I haven’t done this in a long time!”
“Run?”
“Been out in the rain.”
"Probably because you're mostly sane. Just not always," he remarked. The shoulders of his wool coat were dark black with wetness. I didn't want to think about our shoes.
“Sanity is overrated. Too much of anything is bad, you know.”
“I think that saying refers to things like chips or alcohol, not common sense.”
“You’re a bore.”
“So you’ve said.”
We grinned at each other and slowed to a halt outside my door. Billy was outside, pressed to the building under the entrance canopy, and shot us a horrified look.
“Miss Ada!”
“Hey, Billy. I’m sorry to give you such a fright.” I smiled at him as he opened the door for us.
“Thank you,” Grant offered. “Have a good evening.”
“Likewise sir, miss.”
“Enjoy your pickup game tomorrow!” I called to him.
“I will!”
I pressed the elevator button and leaned against the gilded doors. Adrenaline coursed through me. There was a steady drip drip drip of water against the marble tiles, our coats heavy with rainwater.
“You really can talk to everyone, can’t you?”
I shrugged. “I suppose. But it’s not like I always enjoy it.”
“I’ve noticed.” He waved me forward before stepping into the elevator after me. “You’re good at faking it, too.”
“So are you.”
He raised doubtful eyebrows. “Hardly.”
I gave a crooked smile. “You’re right. Not quite as good as me. But I think you wear a facade a lot.”
“Don’t we all?”
“That’s a cynical way to see it.” I fished out my keys from the slightly soggy purse. “But also probably true.”
“I knew you were a realist at heart.”
I scoffed and opened the door to my apartment. It wasn't immaculately clean, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I was suddenly really happy with my decision to tidy the past weekend.
“You can put the food on the kitchen table,” I told Grant, stalking off to find us clean towels. As I rummaged through my bathroom cabinet I heard the rustle of plastic, the scrap of chairs and then the soft, slow sound of jazz.
He was sitting at my kitchen table, long legs sprawled out before him. He’d shrugged out of his coat and it hung neatly on the back of the chair. Small cardboard boxes littered the table and the smell of warm, Asian food filled the kitchen. He’d unwrapped a pair of the chopsticks and was staring at them like he’d spotted a life-long enemy.
Grant’s thick hair was slicked to his head, clinging in odd patterns across his forehead. I tossed one of the clean towels in his direction, staving off the mad urge to smooth the hair back. “For your hair, Justin Timberlake.”
He began fastidiously drying his hair in the methodical fashion I’d forever associate with him, grinning. There was something so boy-like about it - as if he was eight instead of thirty. Grant Wood, in my kitchen, soaking wet and about to conquer chopsticks. It was enough to make me question the laws of nature and the universe themselves. Was gravity still even a thing? The laws of thermodynamics?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” He asked as he emerged out of his towel, hair half-dried and messy.
I cleared my throat. “Because you look intimidated. By a measly pair of wood
en sticks, at that, Wood.”
“Very funny. And I’m not.”
"Good choice in music," I added and began toweling my own hair. It would be a mess soon, none of the sleek curls I usually preferred.
“You ordered enough food to feed an army.”
"We're going to taste it all," I warned him. "You'll learn better if you can try with a lot of different textures and dishes."
“You are entirely making this up, Ada.”
I grinned and took a seat opposite him. “Perhaps. But I’m an auctioneer’s daughter. Selling things is what I do.”
He raised an amused eyebrow. “You mean bullshitting is what you do.”
“Same same. Come now. I want you to wrap this around the chopsticks, at the base.” I handed him a small rubber-band.
He stared at it blankly. “What you mean is, I’m going to start with training wheels?”
“Precisely. Which is why I think you’d prefer not to be in public.”
"You make my ego sound so fragile," he teased. But he used the rubber band to fasten them together at the base. The whole situation felt surreal, something out of a mismatched dream. Only a day prior I had been thinking that he might not even want to be my friend anymore, and now I was teaching him how to eat with chopsticks using the same method Max and I'd been taught as kids. Life, I guess?
“Then hold them like this… yes, exactly like that. Your index finger on top. And then you-. Yeah, exactly! Now try eating something.”
He carefully picked out a piece of tofu from one of the boxes and maneuvered it into his mouth. I watched in bemused silence.
“And ta-da! You’re a natural.”
“When does the rubber band come off?”
“When you’re comfortable enough to try. Maybe later, or next time.”
He gave a low, soft laugh and reached to grab the Pad Thai. “Of all the things to do tonight…”
“Spending time with a friend wasn’t what you were expecting?”
Grant paused and looked up me. “No. I suppose it’s wasn’t.”
“I think you’re a person who doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
"Thank you." Grant tipped one of the small containers of rice out onto his plate, using the chopsticks to help. "You sure know how to compliment someone."
But he didn’t sound annoyed, and I laughed. “Sorry. But you know what I mean? I don’t either.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re you.” He waved at me with his chopsticks, eyes bemused. “That hardly needs explaining.”
“What?”
“You’re Ada Hathaway. You… shine.” He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “And I know enough to know that you have a lot of friends to party with.”
I blushed, focusing on opening another box. “You’re right. But I would describe very few of those people as friends.”
“Then why do you spend time with them?”
“I used to, partly because it was an easy way out. I didn’t have to talk about anything difficult. They just… make a lot of noise.”
“And drown out the silence.”
I nodded, putting my head in my hands. “You can be quite easy to talk to.”
“When I’m not being an ass, you mean?”
I grinned. “Exactly.”
He shoved one of the boxes away from him. Nearly half of the food was still uneaten but would make for a great lunch. We loaded it into my fridge, companionable silence between us. The soft sound of Ella Fitzgerald crooned out from my speakers. I wondered how he’d found my playlist, and why he’d chosen this one. Nerves danced in my stomach. We were friends now, just like he’d said he wanted.
But everything in my body screamed for more. To see how his silent strength operated, to feel his hands on me again. Kissing Grant was like the first, sweet taste of a drug, ruining you forever from other substances. I didn’t know if I’d ever crave anything else again.
"Have a seat on the sofa," I offered. "I think I have a bottle of wine somewhere."
There was a pause - I held my breath, waiting for the rebuff - but Grant only nodded. “Alright.”
I handed him a glass and sank onto the couch next to him. His long legs reached far under my coffee table and he cut a sophisticated presence in my apartment. It’s impossible to forget that a man is wearing a tux. Every time you look at him, it hits you anew. They should be illegal.
“Grant?”
“Mmm?”
“Why did you bid on me tonight?”
He spun the wine around in the glass, watched it swirl. “Because of Ben Harris and Jack and Thorns.”
My stomach sank. Of course. Everything for the good of the company, always. Company first. I put the glass down, hating the sudden and completely irrational flood of embarrassed tears in my throat. I’d pressured him to come here and learn chopsticks when all he wanted, like always, was to be professional.
“And…” He trailed off and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “It’s not an honorable feeling.”
“What isn’t?”
“Jealousy. I couldn’t stand the idea of him spending time with you. Of anyone, really, but one who was so hell-bent on courting you, for whatever reason.”
I swallowed. “I thought you only wanted to be friends.”
“So did I,” he whispered. “Or rather, I always knew that was what was best.”
“Because of the company?”
He was quiet for a beat. “Yes,” he said finally. “Because of the company.”
“I won’t work there forever.” I inched closer on the sofa until our shoulders brushed, our knees touching. “And Grant?”
“Yes?”
"Even if he would have won, I'd have never shown him Pork and Moos. And I would never have taught him how to use chopsticks.”
Grant’s lips curved into that gentle, amused smile that I felt was reserved entirely for me. “I’m honored.”
He was so close I could feel the heat radiating off of him and see the flecks of hazel in his eyes. I reached up and ran a hand through the still damp curls of his hair, thick through my fingers. I didn’t think he was breathing.
“I haven’t been able to think about anything else but you, not since the storage room,” I murmured.
“Me neither. It’s been bad for my productivity.” He smoothed my hair back, moved closer, and then he was kissing me.
Hot, feverish touches of his lips and tongue, leaving me gasping for more. His fingers trailed over my bare arms, the curve of my neck, the skin of my back. Everywhere he touched I burned. What had been growing between us for weeks was unleashed, and I feared we might combust in the process.
I tugged at the silken lapels of his tux and he shrugged out of the jacket with ease, strong arms wrapping around me.
“Come here,” he groaned and pulled me across him. My knees settled on either side of his thighs as we kissed with frenzied desire. It was the storage room all over again, the tempest, the inferno.
His body was hard where I was soft, unyielding as I melted across him. A hand smoothed the spaghetti strap of my dress down my shoulder. Goosebumps raced across my skin.
His tongue skimmed my lips and left me breathless. We kissed and kissed, seeking further and deeper, as if our bodies could become one despite the layers of clothing between us.
My hand slipped down his shirted front, tracing buttons, until it settled on the hard bulge in his suit pants. No way this was going to be one-sided tonight, as it had been last time.
Grant broke off the kiss and leaned back. We looked at one other as the aching tension built between us. The decision was forming in his eyes - I knew it was already clear in mine what I'd chosen.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
I pointed my chin to the oak door behind us. “Over there.”
His hands cupped my behind as he rose in one fluid moment. I wrapped my arms around his neck and traced the hard line of his jaw as he carried u
s into my bedroom.
Grant put me down on the bed with sensual slowness and stretched himself out on top of me. I traced him with eager hands and tugged at the buttons of his shirt, my body aching for the feel of skin against skin. He smiled against my lips and kissed me thoroughly. I had expected Grant to be as meticulous and detailed in his lovemaking as he was in his work. But I wanted him wild - I wanted him to lose control. I twisted with my leg around his hip and rolled us around until he was beneath me. Strong and masculine against my body, I kissed my way down his chest, opening one button after the other.
“No thinking tonight.” I watched him as I slowly unbuckled his belt. Grant’s eyes were so dark with desire that they were nearly black, watching my movements.
I freed his erection and cupped him in my hands, stroked and caressed, felt him quiver against me. Stretching out across his body while I continued my ministrations, I tasted every part of him I could reach. His neck was salty under my kisses.
“No more,” he groaned. “I can’t-. Ada.”
With a powerful move he flipped us over and tore, actually tore at my dress until I was as bare as him. Strong thighs settled between my legs, arms lifted me up and closer.
Grant bent and took my nipple in his mouth. Fire raced through my body, to and from my core, where the need for him ached.
“Please,” I murmured. “Grant, no more teasing.”
He smiled down at me as his finger played over my core. “Oh, but baby, that’s what we do best.”
Grant entered me with excruciating slowness, inch after inch, until I clawed at his shoulders for more speed. He shuddered as he finally sheathed himself to the hilt, a strong weight inside me. I felt his heart beating rapidly against my chest and my own breath came in pants.
I wrapped my legs around him and touched my lips to the hollow of his throat.
“Yes,” he ground out and began to thrust. Nobody moved like him, and there had never been anything like us together before. He fit perfectly and with each departing stroke I ached for him to return.
The heat built between us, our bodies turning slick with the force of our lust. His hair was silky in my fingers, the skin on his back taut over wide muscles.
Look But Don't Touch: Enemies to Lovers Page 12
