by Shannyn Leah
“How do you know how I act with my family?”
“I am smooth and sly like a cat. The walls talk darlin’, and you, my sweet, usually dodge events down hallways or behind curtains.”
Emma laughed. “Or, you’re sneaky as a weasel.”
Grayson laughed before growing serious. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Stay out of the limelight? I step out of my condo, and I know there’s someone waiting to take my picture. I’ve been stopped all over this cruise for photo ops, and I’m sure a parent or two down here has enjoyed our playtime with their cameras.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s hope they weren’t recording when you fell in the bouncy castle and your skirt flipped up over your head.”
Emma gasped. The humiliation of that moment had left her laughing uncontrollably on the inflated pillow, but now it didn’t seem so funny.
Afterwards, her eyes darted around the room now, to see how accurate his assessment was. Sure enough, a few people redirected their looks when her attention fell to them.
“I don’t model my face on a giant worldwide campaign,” she offered.
“But you’re a Caliendo. You sit in the public eye at the resort. You walk and mingle with guests who know very well who you are, all day, every day, and yet if I look you up, your pictures are limited to events and galas. There is nothing personal about you.”
Emma frowned at him, but she wasn’t mad. “Have you been stalking me?”
He gave her a nonchalant shrug of his thick shoulders. “Tell me your secret, and I will tell you mine.”
Emma chuckled. “Alright.” She took a deep breath. “My secret is...” she smiled at him, lowering her voice and moving in closer to him.
How did he still smell so soapy scrumptious after bouncing around with kids all day?
Grayson moved in too, until their faces were inches from each other. Soft, hot lips tempted her.
Focus.
“...I’m...” She licked her lips, she couldn’t help it. “...known...” She smirked. “...to be...” He was fun to tease. “...stuck-up.”
Grayson eyes widened at her joke and he roared with laughter, falling back into his seat. The beautiful noise brought more sets of eyes their direction.
“Stop. Shhh.” She laughed, grabbing his arm. The heat was instant, stopping his laugh and landing his sultry eyes on her. There was that sexual tension he’d been successfully hiding all day.
Emma released him. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, but he couldn’t shed the desire shading his eyes. “Expect me to dig my hands into the popcorn to graze yours on at least a dozen occasions before this movie ends.” He glanced in the half-empty popcorn bowl. “That is if you don’t eat it all before then.”
She’d lost her appetite for food as her appetite for him had forcefully returned.
They needed a change of topic, ASAP.
“When you are one among six siblings, it isn’t hard to go unnoticed. And to be honest, I don’t like being the center of attention. You see me as a book nerd, sitting away from the party, a goody two-shoes, not living and instead hiding, but it’s not that I have a fear of putting myself out there. I’m content standing on the sidelines. I don’t want the world to know the last guy I dated was more concerned about how I looked than I was.” The mistake she called, Mr. Dress-up. “Plenty of gorgeous gowns, of his choosing, were delivered to my suite before occasions we attended together. Sweet you would think, right?”
Grayson nodded, but didn’t look convinced.
“Yeah, me, too. Kind of. I still had my radar on with that one, and low and behold, what shows up at my doorstep? An entire fall wardrobe of brand name clothes with a note to discard my current wardrobe.”
“No?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awful.”
Emma slanted a look at him. “Coming from the man who didn’t even notice I had legs until I was strutting around in one of Izzy’s half dresses.”
“In my defense, you didn’t show your legs off until that night, and it was your eyes not hiding behind your glasses that really caught my attention. Your eyes are captivating, especially when they switch from the clearest blue waves, to the deepest, darkest shade of the sea.”
Emma swallowed hard and sucked in her lips. She should have said thank you, but instead she said, “That’s you making me mad to my deepest, darkest core.”
“I beg to differ. Secondly, I was way more in-tune with your legs in the yoga shorts at the gym than Izzy’s dress.”
She slapped him for both comments. “Shut up.”
He chuckled, moving away from her, and rubbing his arm as if her little slap hurt. “And thirdly, you don’t need to wear a dress that shows off your legs to catch the eye of people around you.”
“Fourthly,” she interrupted. “For your information, I didn’t wear the dress to catch anyone’s attention, because I am lacking in the attention department. Did you not hear a word I’ve said?”
He only grinned. “Take the compliment.”
Emma opened her mouth to tell him off when his fingers covered her lips. “And don’t ask if that’s what I was trying to do, when you know it was. I’m saying you’re fine just the way you are.”
Emma was tempted to lick his fingers. Salty, buttery sweetness is what they would have tasted like.
When he took his hand away, her tongue darted over her lips and yes, oh so delicious, left her craving more.
Grayson watched her mouth before looking at her again. “How do you turn something so ordinary into something sensual, without even trying?” he asked.
She had no idea. “Because your sappy line sucked you into a sappy movie plot and you’re mistaking your rough hands making my lips dry as a compliment of you having an effect on me more than the thank you I was prepared to say.”
“Well, that’s not confusing.” His sarcasm was cute, too.
Emma smiled.
“Let me clear up one more thing before this movie starts,” he said.
“Oh please do.”
He grew serious. “You’ve made all the aspects I admire about you seem flawed, book nerd, standing on the sidelines, goody two-shoes. You get to laugh in the hallways with people who actually like you, instead of faking a smile with the people who talk behind your back. I am intrigued how much people are drawn to you, and you don’t even see it.”
Her eyebrows quirked. “Drawn to me?”
“Your mother speaks the world about you. So proud of the free weekend yoga classes you’ve organized at the kid’s center in Willow Valley. Izzy looks to you like for the answers to questions she doesn’t dare ask out loud. Abby treats you like her blood sister. And Melissa watches over you like a precious jewel. Their respect for you is a rare quality to obtain from people.”
Grayson sounded amazed, but at the same time, he looked sad. His smile faltered, and his eyes showed sadness. He had let her into a modest area of his pain. Did he think people didn’t respect him? Grayson was so highly respected in the business world, it had made it hard for her to maintain the hatred she’d had for him. How far from the truth she’d been.
“It’s also known as family love. Did you notice you didn’t mention a single person who wasn’t close to me? If I didn’t already know you aren’t trying to sleep with me, after that comment, I would certainly have thought that was your intention.”
“My aunt thinks you’re the sweetest,” he offered.
Everyone thought that. “That’s my image,” she said.
Grayson leaned in closer. “Stop digging. Everyone thinks highly of you, and even if they didn’t, I don’t really think you would care.”
Emma grew serious this time. “Do you care what people think about you?” Emma had never envisioned Grayson as giving a second thought to other people’s opinions of him. He always seemed to stand confident and strong.
“No. Well, I didn’t...until you.”
What kind of warped game was cupid playing with them
? The little cherub bastard needed his bow taken away.
UNCERTAINTY CROSSED EMMA’S face at the genuine confession he would have never spoken before today.
What was up with him? Did it have something to do with Linda digging into parts of him he worked at keeping hidden? Had she chipped away some of his fear of talking?
No, it wasn’t Linda. It was how at ease Grayson felt with Emma. The blue-eyed beauty was as judgemental a person he’d ever met, and yet talking to her came easier than anyone else. He knew she was good for her word. She spread no gossip and was the perfect listening tool, but that wasn’t what caused him to open up, it was her.
“Why do you care what I think about you?” Emma finally asked.
That was a good question.
He shrugged and went back to paying attention to the big screen in front of them. They were early and he watched the cruise advertisements for the activities available on board scrolled past.
“Is that what today was about? Changing my view of you?” she asked.
It hadn’t been.
Grayson looked at her. “Did it?”
Emma shrugged and he couldn’t help but grin.
“Elaborate,” he said.
“You first.”
Grayson sighed in defeat. “Yes, I may have stalked you...a few times.”
“That’s flattering but not what I’m talking about. Why do you care what I think of you?”
Grayson met her straight on, because he wasn’t repeating himself. “I don’t like the way you look at me, like I only have one thing in my head: sex.”
Every shade of red touched her cheeks. “Isn’t that how every woman looks at you?”
“I don’t care about them or what they think. They’re as superficial as you think I am. But, I’m more than that. Not one moment on this cruise, not one, that I’ve spent with you has been to get you into my bed and yet every corner we turn that’s how shallow you think I am.”
Grayson wasn’t so sure this was the place to have this conversation or why he’d even said it all. Luckily, they were in a corner far away from everyone else.
A flicker of guilt and regret flashed in Emma’s eyes.
“Truthfully, your image scares me, and the way my feelings for you have changed on this cruise scares me. When I’m cutting you up, I’m really only deflecting my insecurities. Fighting how much I want you, with how wrong us being together would be.”
How much she wanted him? How much did she want him? And how wrong would it be?
“I would never let you become just another one of the women in my life. No matter how much we both want it. You are too good for that. Too good for me.”
“Don’t undervalue yourself. Sleeping with a lot...” Emma grinned at him. “...of women is what you do and not who you are. And, I will admit, today has certainly tipped the possibility that you are more than just a pretty face.”
“We’re turning into a sappy chick-flick,” he said. “I avoid these conversations at all costs.”
“Really? You seem to be digging right in today.”
“I blame you.”
Emma giggled. “Me? Why?”
“There’s something about you.” He touched her face, cupping her cheek, knowing he shouldn’t, and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her temple.
Her eyes drifted shut momentarily and he waited for her to open them before continuing. “It started the first day I sat across from you at the library. The first words out of my lips were the first words you cut down. I probably deserved it− ”
“You suggested taking me to a part of the library where we could get naked together.”
“I did deserve it.”
Emma nodded.
“You were straight up honest with me that day, making it clear I would never see you naked.” He waited for her to blush. Success. “Since that day, you have never failed to put me in my place. Sometimes, maybe it’s mean or harsh, but usually it’s accurate, and you’ve never run from telling me the truth, no matter what it was. With the world of lies we live in, when it’s hard to trust even the people closest to you, I always look forward to your honesty. It’s refreshing.”
Emma’s smile fell. “I didn’t know you felt that way. All these years I sort of hated you, but maybe deep down I hated the mask you wore, when I could see more in you. The more in you is more attractive than even your ridiculously hard, ridged, six-pack.”
Grayson grinned. “Only you could appreciate the inside me over the outside me.”
“I think you would be surprised at who would like the man I saw today.”
“And, what man did you see today?”
Suddenly, the lights dimmed and the volume increased, perfect timing to eliminate the sappy movie playing between them.
Emma leaned toward him. “I have a confession,” she said. “I put the red dress on so you would notice me.”
Grayson exaggerated a gasp.
“What? I know. Don’t judge me.” She giggled.
“I think we do too much judging.”
They sat back and Grayson listened for her hand to slip into the popcorn container, so he could follow and caress her hand. Complicated, maybe. Wrong, probably. But the shy smile she sent him was worth it.
Chapter Fifteen
“EJACULATION.”
Emma groaned. “I swear Izzy if you say ejaculation one more time...”
“That totally just happened between those two,” Izzy said. “Three o’clock, red bikini and the guy looked pretty damn proud of himself. Ejaculation.”
Brock had spoiled the women with access to two personal cabanas, side-by-side, each day of the cruise. No running around saving seats in the morning or afternoon, the cabana was theirs to come and go as they pleased. They had squeezed four loungers under one cabana to enjoy each other’s company and Izzy was effortlessly demonstrating why it had been a bad decision.
“You can’t prove it,” Abby agreed with Emma. “Naughty bingo rules: only use words you can see. Muscles, tight ass, oil...” Abby named off more words they’d already used in their visual game of naughty bingo. “And for every couple that walks by and you say ‘ejaculation’, we are taking points away from your score.”
Izzy waved at Abby. “Please, you’ve had so much to drink, you can’t even keep score. Straight ahead, guy strutting this way, wanting to−”
“Izzy!” The girls screamed.
Emma looked ahead, and saw who Izzy was referring to: Grayson. All six-foot whatever, bare torso, shorts hanging low around his trim waist, catching the eye of every woman on deck while making the men cringe with jealousy and vowing to hit the gym later. No man could compare to the massive width and appeal of Grayson.
“Wave,” Izzy said to Emma.
“You wave,” she retorted.
Izzy snickered and Emma knew trouble would follow. “The future silver fox doesn’t want to ejaculate with me.”
There it was.
“Minus ten points for Izzy,” Abby said.
“Not fair, I wasn’t playing the game,” Izzy whined, as if they were really keeping accurate score.
“Yeah, but it was rude,” Abby said.
“But it was accurate,” Melissa chimed in. “And he’s heading this way. Sexy aviator glasses. Tight little ass.” Melissa laughed at her naughty words about Grayson.
Heavens, those aviators were sexy on Grayson and Emma knew exactly what that tight little ass felt like.
“Beefy muscles,” Abby said.
“Sweat and oil,” Izzy said.
“Playboy,” Melissa said.
There was a round of groans.
“But again, accurate,” Melissa pointed out. “Virgin,” she said, looking at Emma.
Emma rolled her eyes. “I am not a virgin.”
“I bet it’s dusty down there.” The sophisticated way Melissa spoke about topics so far from proper was aggravating.
“It’s not dusty,” Emma said through clenched teeth, watching Grayson approaching. He was definitely heading straig
ht to them.
Abby fell into a fit of laughter and when she stood, she pulled her sunglasses off and had tears streaming down her face. “You ladies are topping my sisters right now, and I didn’t think it was even possible. Especially you.” Abby pointed at Melissa. “Who would have known you have so many dirty thoughts in that prissy little head of yours? I’m going to get more drinks to keep you all relaxed. Oh look, it’s Micah and Casey heading this way. Don’t do anything you don’t want in a magazine.” The warning was directed at Emma, but she ignored her, pretending not to notice.
“I’m digging Micah’s man bun,” Izzy said, slipping her sunglasses down her nose to get a better view. “Do you think he’s off limits because he’s writing an article about us?”
“Yes,” Emma said at the same time Melissa said, “No.”
Emma glared at Melissa. “Yes,” she repeated.
Izzy pouted for about five seconds before Grayson arrived. “Hey there. Are you ready to take us skydiving or what?” she asked him.
“I’m up for skydiving,” Grayson said. He left his sunglasses on, when Emma would rather see his big green gems.
“Alright!” Izzy jumped from the lounger. “Do we get special front row access because you’re, well, because you own the cruise?”
He chuckled at her enthusiasm. “I can see what I can do.”
“I’m going to grab Abby,” she said and was gone like a puff of smoke.
“Blonde. Ditsy. Childish,” Melissa said.
“She’s playing naughty bingo,” Emma explained to Grayson.
He took his sunglasses off. “Naughty bingo?” She loved how wickedly amused his green eyes were by the idea.
Emma nodded.
“How do you play naughty bingo?” Grayson asked.
“It’s quite simple, genius,” Melissa said. “Find an object and name its naughty part.”
Emma would have slapped her friend if she was within reaching distance. As she anticipated reaching over, Grayson slid onto Emma’s lounger. Skin on skin...his warm, oily, masculine skin touching her entire side. It felt good.
