I Lost His Number

Then he kissed me.

Epilogue

I lay in my bed, half of me draped over Grant, stroking the tips of my fingers back and forth over his masculine chest while the sun rose outside. His hand lightly rubbed my lower back and the top of my butt, every caress sending tiny sparks of blissful pleasure through my entire body. I was sweaty and sticky again, but I loved it.

After he’d kissed me, we hadn’t even told Melanie goodbye. We’d gone straight to my house. We’d taken both our cars, so we hadn’t talked. I’d made it through the door first, but we still hadn’t talked. He’d taken one step inside, shut the door with a kick of his boot, then he’d ravished me. Our clothes were in ruin, a trail leading from the back door all the way to my bedroom. He’d fucked me the whole way there, then he’d made love to me in my bed.

Even now, thoroughly sated, I still wanted him, still felt the dull throb low in my belly, the occasional tightening inside me. I doubted that I’d ever get enough of him. I trailed my fingers down his chest and stomach, then lower, over the soft skin were his thigh met his groin, right next to a very special part of him.

He murmured sleepily, “Keep that up and I’ll keep you up.”

I smiled and kissed his chest, then lay my cheek on him. “I still can’t believe you’re not mad.”

He chuckled, and it was a lovely masculine sound. “Why on earth would I be mad?”

I pushed up to lie on my forearms so that I could see him and raised an eyebrow, replying sarcastically, “Oh, I don’t know, because I deceived you?”

His hand stopped caressing my back and he just looked at me for a moment. “Maybe Ishould be mad,” he said quietly.

Uh-oh.

“But not for the deception you think,” he added.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Let me ask you this,” he said, and then he rolled us over so that he was lying on top of me, his big body between my legs, hovering over me, trapping me beneath him with his eyes gazing right into mine. I was nervous, but I also liked being beneath him. I liked it a lot. I also liked the feel of his hard length lying in a hot line up my stomach.

“Did you still want me in Maui?” he asked.

Shit.

*****

We were in an airport again, this time in Maui, waiting for our flight home. We’d gone straight there from the Maui Ocean Center. And once again, I was alone with Grant, seated beside him, and Melanie had left us alone to find a ladies’ room. The only difference was that we were sitting on a bench, no armrest between us. Grant’s arm was draped across the back of the bench behind my shoulders, his thumb lightly touching my bare shoulder. Hours later and I was still reeling from the kiss he’d given me back at the resort, when he’d thought I was Melanie.

“Hey,” he said, his big hand cupping my shoulder and giving me a gentle shake. I glanced at him and he smiled. “Did you have a good time?”

I just looked at him, memorizing the lovely lines of his handsome face, his neck, shoulders, everything. I must have stared at him for too long, because his smile faded, expression replaced by…I don’t know, something else.

“I did, yes,” I nodded, painting a smile on my face.

His eyes narrowed. “Are you lying to me?”

With some embellishment, I pursed my lips and looked away, giving it some thought, then I gave him a genuine smile. “No, I really did have a good time.”

His answering smile was big and warm. “Same here.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know. I heard it every night.”

Grant laughed, but I was surprised to see him blush. “Sorry about that. I guess it was pretty callous of us.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Well, you know, what with you and Brad, and all that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I waved my hand dismissively.

“I do though, worry, I mean.”

I looked at him again, and there was something there, something in his earnest gaze that I wasn’t fully picking up on. His mouth moved, as though he was trying to say something, but nothing came out. He tried again.

“I wanted to tell you, when you met him,” he trailed off, looking away from me, straight ahead.

“Tell me what?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

He looked at me. “That he wasn’t good enough for you.”

My heart melted. He could be so sweet and caring. I raised an eyebrow though, playfully. “And what is good enough for me?”

“Worship, for starters.”

Both of my eyebrows went up, along with my smile. “I should be worshiped?”

Grant nodded, and there was that look again, something in his gaze, the set of his mouth. He reached up and tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear, and the delicate brush of his fingers against my ear made me shiver. It also tightened my nipples, and other things low in my body, almost painfully, just from that simple innocent touch. Jesus, what this man could do to me...

“You should be cherished, Lydia,” he told me softly, his big brown eyes so full of emotion, so earnest. “You should be desired, craved, and yes, worshiped.”

Now it was my turn to lose my ability to speak.

His hand slid down the back of my neck, sending tingles down my spine, then he brushed the back of it against my cheek and jaw.

“Do you ever wonder?”

I blinked at him. “Wonder?”

He nodded. “What if.”

Dallas. He wanted to talk about Dallas again. “If I hadn’t lost your number?”

He nodded again, his finger delicately brushing along my jaw, his gaze locked with mine, so intense, almost desperate. But for what?

Of course, I wonderedwhat if. All the time. But could I tell him that? I loved him, this man I’d met by chance at a bar in Dallas, this man who had completely broken me out of my shell for a few hours, who had made me feel like a real woman for the first time in my life, this man who was with my sister. And that as the crux of it. Grant belonged to Melanie, not me, and he was happy. I loved him. I loved my sister. I need him, and I needed her. I wouldnot fuck this up, not for any of us.

“Not really,” I replied flippantly.

His finger instantly stopped moving against my jaw, falling away. He moved his arm back along the bench, so that he wasn’t touching me anymore, and his expression transformed into a guarded mask, not hurt, but not anything.

God, I hated having to do this.

“I mean, sure, sometimes I wonder,” I said, then casually shrugged a shoulder. “But who doesn’t, you know? People question fate all the time. You can go crazy doing that though, wonderingwhat if, but I try not to. Just don’t see the point. Things are the way they are, and there’s no changing that.”

He didn’t say anything, for so long that I got uncomfortable and looked away.

“Well, I’m glad you had a good time,” he told me.

I glanced at him, saw him smiling, somehow knowing it was fake. I couldn’t help but wonder...

Grant and Melanie had been together for so long, but they weren’t married, nor engaged. They didn’t even live together, not officially. Grant still had his tiny house in Terrell, and Melanie had her apartment in Dallas. She told me that he’d asked her to move in with him, but she’d said she wasn’tready to be domesticated. At the time, I just assumed she didn’t like his house, and especially not what would become a rather long commute to work. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe Grant was ready to take the next step in their relationship. The question was whether he was ready for the next step because he wanted it, or because what he had with Melanie was safe, familiar.

I didn’t know if they’d had a fight, if they were in trouble, if things between them weren’t working out, but Idid know that I wouldn’t be the one to drive them apart. It broke my heart, but I’d done the right thing. I know I had.

“You’re a wonderful friend to me, Grant,” I told him.

He snorted, bitterly, but he tried to hide it with a grin and said, “A friend would have kicked the shit out of Brad.”

I grinned back, but I saw through him. Everything had changed, his easy posture, his confident tone, the warmth of his smile, the light in his eyes, all gone. Not permanently, no, but for now, and it was my fault.

I reached over and picked up his hand from the back of the bench, pulled his arm between us and held his hand, lacing my fingers through his.

“I don’t need that from a friend.”

“What do you need, Lydia?” he asked, looking down at our hands.

I looked at them too, struggling not to reveal to him how very much I loved the feel of his big hand wrapped around mine. I shrugged and said, “To be loved.”

“I love you,” he shrugged casually.

My heart stopped for a moment, because his tonewasn’t casual. At least, I don’t think it was. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to know what he meant by that, and if I looked, I was afraid I’d see it in his eyes.

“I don’t mean like that,” I chuckled.

“Right.”

It wasn’t an admission, nor was it a denial.

Shit.

*****

I still hadn’t answered him.

Did you still want me in Maui?

“Lydia?”

I’d been staring at his chest. When I glanced up at him, his eyes widened just a touch.

“You did. Didn’t you?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

Grant sighed and rested his forehead against mine.

“Are you mad?” I asked when he didn’t say anything.

“No,” he breathed, kissing my forehead, then my eyebrow. “I was with Melanie, and I thought...” he trailed off.

He looked vulnerable, and I wasn’t sure why. I laid my hand on his cheek and he pushed into it, closing his eyes.

“You thought what?”

He looked at me and swallowed. “I thought we could work things out, take our relationship to the next level, something more than just fun.” He sighed, then he grinned and rubbed the tip of his nose against mine. “Besides, you told me I was a friend.”

“Awonderful friend,” I corrected him, smoothing my thumb across his soft lips, smiling when he kissed me there.

“Well, it wasn’t the right time, anyway.”

I frowned. “The right time for what?”

He smiled, kind of sadly, but then it brightened and he gave me the softest and sweetest kiss. “To tell you that I was in love with you, to tell myself.”

“Oh, Grant,” I whispered, and I hugged him to me.

His arms pushed underneath me and he held me tight, skin to skin, so warm against me, so right. I don’t think I could say that I fell in love with him that first night in Dallas, but I was certainly infatuated with him, and I definitely lusted after him. I’m pretty sure it happened gradually, over time, as we got to know each other.

And that was what made it so hard, so painful to see him with Melanie, to know that if I hadn’t lost his phone number, if Melanie hadn’t met him, that eventually, over time, we’d have fallen in love. The years of me pining for him, of him not knowing, of Melanie having no idea of how I felt because she was too caught up in herself and having fun, none of it would have happened. None of it would have been necessary.

I was drawn out of my thoughts when his hips gave a little thrust, pushing his renewed erection against my stomach, and he kissed me behind my ear, smoothing his hand down my side, thumb caressing the edge of my breast. That I was the cause of his arousal made me feel giddy and sexy all at once. It also made me wonder...

“Grant?”

“Hmm,” he mumbled, sliding his hand down to my hip and under my thigh, trailing kisses down my neck as he scooted down my body a little.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but...” I trailed off, wanting to know, but not wanting to make him uncomfortable, particularly not so much that he’d stop what he was starting. He pushed up on an arm and looked down at me. “Am I different from Melanie when you and I...well, I mean, when we’re together, like this?”

He smiled and kissed the tip of my nose. “Oh, yes. World’s different.”

I smiled back. “How so?”

His big brown eyes gazed down at me with such raw intensity. “I hunger for you, crave you,” he told me, voice soft and low, so masculine that it made me shiver. “I always have.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely curious.

He thought about it for a moment, so I took the opportunity to explore his chest and back - not to mention his tight butt - with my hands, slowly caressing his muscular body, taking my time.

“I didn’t fall in love with you when we first met, but...I adored you,” he said quietly, then he chuckled. “That next morning, I wanted to stay with you so badly, but I was afraid that you’d regret what we’d done. I also had the perfect excuse of having to go to work, but...I practically prayed to God that you’d call me.”

His fingertips were stroking the back of my thigh, moving in, so close to my center that it tightened things low in my body, parting my lips with the feel of it, of him.

“And now that you have me,” I began, smoothing my hand down his chest, his ripped stomach, then cupping the wide end of him and gently caressing his length with my palm. He sighed for me and briefly closed his eyes, and I loved that I had that effect on him. “What are you going to do with me?”

He grinned. “Worship you, for starters.”

I grinned back and he kissed me, soft and sweet, but building in intensity. His tongue slipped past my lips and into my mouth, finding mine, kissing me slow but deep. My hand stroked him gently, up and down, every inch of him that I could reach, feeling his arousal leaking onto my palm. Suddenly, he stopped kissing me and gave me a level look.

“You know, I probably should have asked this earlier - seven or eight times, come to think of it - but,” he trailed off, then grinned. “You don’t have trouble with birth control like Mel, do you?”

I chuckled. “Definitely not.”

His grin widened and he gave me a brief but intense kiss, moving his hips between my legs, the big end of him finding my opening. “Now that is a wonderful thing to hear, Lydia.”

I shivered in anticipation, locked my gaze with his, needing to look into his eyes. He gazed back at me, and I was so wet for him that he slid inside me, burying his hard length into my body in a single deep push. The feel of him filling me up so perfectly bowed my spine, thrusting my breasts up to him.

“God, you’re big,” I sighed, feeling my walls gripping him tightly, so happy that I could telling him these things now, that I no longer had to hide my pleasure with silence.

He groaned and held his throbbing length deep in my body. “You know I’m not really that big, right?”

I chuckled, and it made things low in my body grip him even tighter, which made him jerk inside me, which made me whimper and curl my body up to him and kiss his neck. “Maybe, but you’re big for me.”

He slid his other arm out from under me and rested on his forearms, settling some of his weight on top of me, fast becoming one of my favorite positions was this wonderful man. The feel of so much skin on skin was amazing. He drew out of me then, about half of him, then thrust smoothly back inside me.

“God, Lydia,” he groaned, thrusting again.

He slid in and out of me, slow but so very deep, and I clung to him, tight and tighter, the pleasure building like a coiled spring that threatened to release far faster than I could have imagined. I spread my legs wider and that much more of him slid inside me, making me cry out for him. He showered my neck and jaw with light kisses, breath hot against my skin. My hands clawed at his tight ass, pulling when he’d thrust. The pleasure built, swelled inside me until it felt too large for my body to contain.

It hit me without warning. He swelled, throbbed mightily, thrust so very deep, holding himself there. He spilled into me, so hot and so powerfully, and it brought me screaming, tears of joy and bliss streaking my face. His big body shivered against me, hips grinding his spurting length into me.

After a while, he kissed away my tears.

“Where you have been, Lydia?”

In my post orgasmic haze, and still distracted by the feel of him inside me, of being so full, I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Huh?” I sighed, unable to open my eyes.

“My whole life.”

I chuckled, and with my eyes still closed, found his face with my hand and brought him down for a tender kiss. I tightened my arms around the only man I ever really loved, smiled against his soft lips, and whispered, “Waiting for you.”