Chapter 38

I've felt it.Hell, I've felt it for a while now. I haven't even been in Fiasco for all that long, but holy shit do I feel it with this man. Hearing that declaration as he draws small circles along my wrist, I blow out a shaky breath. I want to believe it, because I feel it too. "You're in love with me?"

"You have to know that. And I guess if you didn't, then I wasn't clear. I love you, Laney Young." He kisses my lips, stealing any words from me that could outweigh his. "A little more every day."

His thumb rubs across my lips, and I inch closer as I run my fingers up his chest and over the place that's beating so fast. All for me. "This is the part where you're not supposed to leave me hanging."

"Shaw," I tell him, smiling at the curiosity dancing in his eyes.

His thumb slows its movement.

"Laney Shaw. You need to say, I love you, Laney Shaw."

His mustache quirks. "You first."

With a smile and an exhale, I go first. "I'm in love with you too, cowboy."

With a smirk at hearing his nickname, he moves my hair away from my shoulder. His touch always feels possessive and strong, but right now, it feels like appreciation. Grant cups the back of my neck, driving his fingers into my hair. "I love you, Laney Shaw." And then he erases any space left between us. When his lips meet mine, it's as if we're making a promise—sealing the words with the pull that exists between us. His tongue licks along the seam of my lips and rolls with mine, setting a deep warmth in my core that flickers out across my skin. A small groan escapes his lips as we both take a breath. And anything that felt soft or simple turns into a desire to express with our bodies the way we feel for the other. His fingers sink deeper into my hair and pull tighter, shifting me on top so that I'm straddling his cock. The hard length of him pressed up against me is only separated by a few thin layers.

I sit up, and as his eyes rove along the curves of my body, it feels like the most wicked game of foreplay. Rolling my hips forward, I peel my tank off. He folds one arm behind his head and the other he reaches up, drawing a line from my navel to between my breasts. The kind of confidence I've found just by the way this man looks at me is something that I hadn't expected. I tilt my head back as he continues moving his hand along the same path to my neck.

The grit of his voice drags along my skin when he says, "You're so beautiful like this—trying to take what you need. That's my girl." Craving the friction, I roll my hips again. I hold his wrist and bring his fingers to my mouth, kissing the rough pads.

"That's it, honey. Eyes on me."

I flick them with my tongue, wetting them and guiding them around my lips. I keep my eyes on his and pull them in my mouth. His cock jumps at that, and I can't keep myself from smirking at the response.

"He wants a turn," he laughs.

I yelp out laughing as he quickly flips us both over, my back hitting the mattress and Grant hovering over me. When he settles between my legs, my smile falters and the mood moves back to the intensity from just a few moments ago.

My eyes water as I gaze up at him, the low, gravelly whisper only making them blurrier. "Don't look at me like that."

"I like looking at you. You're very handsome, you know." I smile, trying to lighten the moment to keep him from seeing how I'm cataloging everything. The weight of him. The way he breathes in, smelling my hair. The scruff of his beard as it tickles me just right. How his eyes soften when they're looking at me.

"Don't look at me like you need to remember. I'm yours, honey." I search his eyes for more, the caveat or the exception. But it doesn't come. It's a calm, quiet promise. An offering. He's mine, if I want him. And god, do I want him. To keep him. To stay. To love him.

He places a brief kiss on my lips first, then my forehead, before he buries himself in my neck. His forearms hold him above me just enough and nestled between my legs. I want him. In every single way, I want him.

"Make love to me."

The request is instantly answered as his teeth drag along my shoulder. He kneels back, pulling my legs up to rest on his shoulders. Tucking his fingers in the waistband of my pajama shorts, he rolls them off as he turns his head to kiss my ankle. Once he moves my legs back down, he spreads my knees wide, his thumb gliding up and down my pussy. He doesn't say anything, only watches his thumb play from my pussy to clit and back as quiet moans leave my lips. He kneels up and pulls down the boxer briefs that he'd worn to bed, his thick and hard cock showing exactly what it wants.

Same.I let a whimper escape.

He runs his thumb through me again—one, two, three, strokes before he leans forward and swipes that thumb across my lips, drawing my arousal around them. Hovering above me, he licks my mouth, kissing the wet away. "Better than bourbon."

I smile against his lips. Before I can say anything, his cock rubs where his thumb had, hitting my clit at just the right pace and pressure to pull the gasp from me. When he kneels back again, he starts to bury himself into me and swipes in small, measured strokes along my clit.

"Grant . . ." I breathe out.

Like I've ignited something, he wraps his arms around me and lifts me up to him, kissing me. A punishing kiss with lips and tongues lashing and consuming as I sit against him, rolling my hips and pulling him into me deeper with every thrust of his hips. The sweat that's slicked our bodies and the way he moans has my orgasm waiting patiently to let go.

"Laney . . . fuck."

"I know," I exhale. His arms stay around me tight as I hold on to him, burying my face in his neck, and running my lips from his, down his neck, and along his shoulder.

"You feel so good, so perfect." When he moans against my neck, he leans back enough to find my lips. His kiss can barely finish as his mouth opens, holding me tighter against him, grinding into me so deep, brushing that spot within me that has me trembling. "I'm going to come, baby."

I hold him tighter, not letting him move back and chasing my own orgasm. "Come."

He tips his head back to make sure he understands the demand.

So I make it clear. I want him to own every part of me. "With me."

He tilts his hips just right so that he grinds against my clit, and that's all I need. The last moment before I fall completely, he says, "If you want me to pull out, baby, you have to tell me now."

I shake my head no as I let him fuck me faster.

"Oh fuck, come now," I moan, just before I'm screaming.

His hand wraps around my hair and he holds me flush to him, and he releases a groan from deep in his chest. The sound of his pleasure is the final piece that makes my vision blur. My whole body tenses and clenches and starts to pulsate just as he spills into me. It's a succession of heavy breathing and sweat. Filth and heat. Lust and a love that feels like it radiates throughout my entire body. Across every inch of real estate on my skin.

When he falls to the side, collapsing onto the mattress, he takes me with him. We're a tangle of legs and covers as we hold each other and come down from everything we just shared.

Minutes tick by before either of us move. And I can feel him dripping out of me.

I turn my head to look at him. His eyes are closed and a small smile rests on his lips. I study his profile from the square jawline to the prominent slope of his nose. Separately, they would be severe and intimidating, but with his eyes and the way his lips meet the hair of his scruff, he's beautiful.

"You're looking at me and fucking me like it's goodbye."

How can he know me so well? "I'm telling you I love you too?—"

His eyes open and he smiles big and wide, but the smile falters when he sees the tears brimming in my eyes and the way I can't smile at what I'm about to say to him. "But?"

"But I don't know if I can stay, cowboy. I can't put anyone in your family in any kind of danger. I can't risk you—" I swallow the cry that wants to come out with that confession.

He leans up, cupping my face. "Then marry me."

"What?" I search his eyes, because I didn't expect those words to come out of his mouth.

"Marry me. If you need to leave, they'll allow me to come with you if we're married."

I can't hide the smile and nervous laugh it pulls out of me. "That's crazy. Grant. We've just started..." My eyebrows pinch closer as I think about what he's really saying. Without even knowing the details, this man is suggesting we get married. "Do you even want to be married?"

"To you? Yes." He says it so confidently, like this isn't a rushed decision or that it's been barely any time since I've even known him.

"But your life is here. Your family. We've only known each other for?—"

He tips my chin up to look at him, halting my words. "My family will always be my family. No matter where I am, I love them and they love me. But you're wrong about my life, honey. I've been treading water. Wasting time trying to keep people away. But I've only just started living again." He wipes the tear that's fallen down the side of my nose. "This woman who has no filter and calls me cowboy is the person I want to do life with. I don't need more time to tell me something I already know."

With a fluttering belly, I sit up and watch as his eyes dance between mine, searching for what I'm thinking. For what I'm going to say.

He takes a deep breath as he pushes my hair away from my shoulder. "It started with Griz's mom. Then it happened to his first wife, and then again with my nana." He clears his throat. "Then my parents." He runs his fingers along the top of my hand. "Fiasco loves saying shit behind people"s backs without thinking about how it hurts. We've been hearing it since we were kids: ‘The Foxx boys are cursed.' And I never put much weight on it until I lost Fiona. And then when Lincoln lost Olivia."

I can see and feel how much this has gutted and haunted him. It's beyond comprehension how he lost so many people he loved. And then to think it's somehow his fault? I wrap my fingers around his.

"I had known Fiona since we were kids. We went through school, and eventually, the academy together. I was a year ahead of her, but she was eager to fill Del's shoes."

"Is Del her dad?"

He nods. "And my best friend once I started working for the Fiasco PD. Things between Fi and me, it wasn't some long-time crush. It started as friends with benefits. Getting drunk and hooking up. And somewhere along the way, I fell for her." He smiles. "She didn't want to tell anyone about us. I did, but I knew things for her were harder. She was one of six women in the department. And she was respected; Del made sure of that." He clears his throat. "Del was my superior officer, and it felt like I was lying to him."

As he rubs at the back of his neck, I can tell how hard this is for him, and it makes me wonder if he's ever said any of this out loud.

"The morning I told her I loved her was the same night that she went on a call and"—he clears his throat again—"it wasn't good intel, but she went. The second I heard dispatch, I knew something didn't feel right. I had this gut feeling; told her to stand down. And I couldn't get there." His eyes water, and I watch as he battles with letting them fall as he tells me. "I couldn't get there fast enough to back her up." He holds my hand tighter. "After that, I couldn't do the job anymore. I had failed her and going there every day reminded me that when someone really needed my help, someone I loved, I didn't get there in time." He covers his eyes with his free hand, but as soon as he does, I move in and wrap my arms around him. My heart breaks for him and this guilt he carries.

Tilting his head down, his forehead rests on my shoulder. "And a year later, Liv left us. I put my grief aside to be there for Linc and my nieces, but I didn't want to feel anything after that. I don't think I felt anything for years. I worked, worked out my shit on the heavy bag, and made my bourbon. That was it."

I lean back so he'll look at me. I need him to see me when I tell him this. When his eyes meet mine, I wipe at the stray tear that reaches his lips. "I. Am. Lucky."

He searches my eyes for a beat.

"Ask me why I'm lucky, cowboy." I smile, and my whole body warms at the look in his eyes.

A small smile touches the corner of his lips. "Why are you lucky, baby?"

"Because you love me."

His eyes pinch closed and his nose scrunches as he hears me say it.

"Because I get to love you. And I get to marry you."

His hands frame my face as his eyes dance with mine. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." I nod frantically, a tear trailing down my cheek.

My hands cover his, that frame my face. When his lips find mine, it feels like more than just kissing the man I love. It feels like coming home. This complex and caring man who hid behind so much loss in fear of it being the only option for him.

I tip my head back, thinking about something he'd said that I hadn't put together until right now. "What do you mean, made your bourbon?"