Chapter 27

The steady beat of his heart is the only thing that keeps me grounded as Grant flies me back to my apartment. All the pocket paparazzi are having a field day; here’s the elusive Garnet Defender (or Crimson Streak, if you ask popular opinion) for all the world to see. I know that by the day’s end—not that that means anything right now—my face will be splashed alongside his all over the internet, but I don’t care about that.

I was fired.

I was fired from a job that I thought needed me to run. I put in extra hours, missed family events, prioritized it over everything else, and in the end, it didn’t matter. There was no parade or public protest to mark my leaving, just a staggered step before it walked on just fine without me.

Alternating waves of anger, sadness, embarrassment, and even some of grief wash over me. Through it all, I just curl in closer against Grant’s chest, listening to the sound of his heart and feeling his warmth until everything else disappears.

Everything disappears, that is, except the feel of him.

By the time we touch down at my apartment, I’m drunk off the feeling of him. I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but the way he was holding me was really doing it for me. The hand on my back, held me tight, while his thumb made sweeping strokes that just barely brushed the back of my neck. His other hand gripped me high on my thigh, just close enough for me to imagine what would happen if he let his hand drift just a little bit higher.

I never thought I was one for exhibitionism, but the thought of us flying high over the city, just out of sight, while his fingers brush long passes at my center is one that I don’t hate. I also don’t hate the thought of his fingers slipping inside me. I would ride his hand with my legs wrapped around his waist just high enough to remain unseen.

And if we do get seen, there’s always the good ole time loop to fall back on.

My whole body is tingling when Grant sets me on my little terrace. I slide my hands up his chest, loving the feel of the soft cotton of his ridiculous t-shirt under my hands instead of his usual cheap spandex. Up and up, I rove my hands over his hard chest and onto his smiling cheeks.

Because, of course, he’s smiling. It seems that every time he looks at me, he’s smiling.

“I’m really sorry about what happened back there,” Grant says. My hands still hold his face, my thumb toying at the corner of his smile that he can’t seem to wipe completely from his mouth.

A hot tear falls unbidden from my eyes. Even though I know it’s just a job, it hurts. It feels like I’ve lost someone I love. Or a part of me that I love.

Even as I think about how completely ridiculous it is to cry over a job, more tears come.

Grant’s hands are on my cheeks. We stand on my terrace, holding the other’s face and staring into each other’s eyes. My thumbs chase the errant smile on his face while his brush away every tear before it has the chance to mar my face with its descent.

“I just thought that they needed me,” I babble.

Grant nods. “They’re idiots.”

Probably. But I don’t know if that makes me feel better to be rejected by idiots.

Going on my tiptoes, I press a kiss to Grant’s mouth. It’s light and salty with tears, at least until the touch registers. Then, it goes from a calm ocean breeze to a raging typhoon.

One of his hands leaves my face and touches me everywhere all at once. He’s on my waist, on the top of my rib cage, and then on my ass. With a squeeze of my ass that sends shivers and a needy moan through my body, he starts walking me backwards until my back hits my patio door.

Dipping his head down, his mouth is hot on my neck, kissing and sucking and grazing his teeth on me, as he runs his hand a little off my ass and onto my thigh. With one fluid motion, he hitches my leg up and around his hip. His lips find mine again and he’s kissing me in a way that makes me forget any kiss that hasn’t been with Grant.

He bends his legs and tilts my head back to possess my mouth. His tongue sweeps into me as his hard cock nudges at my throbbing clit. Again, I swear he must be using his gravity powers to put it in exactly the right place because it rubs up and down in just the right place to make me shudder with every grinding pass.

Another moan escapes my throat. It sends Grant into an even more escalated frenzy. As easily as lifting his arms, he lifts me so that both of my legs wrap around him. My back bores into the door behind me as he scorches my mouth with impatient kisses and the promise of pleasure.

Impatient myself, I move one of my hands between us to stroke at his cock. The tips of my fingers just barely dip below his waistband and graze the top of his cock when he pulls back abruptly.

He slides me down the front of him, making a garbled noise of frustration when he turns away.

Grant scrubs a hand through his impossibly messy hair, shooting me a look of painful desperation.

“You’re upset,” he says, but I think he’s mostly saying it as a reminder to himself. “You’re crying and sad and…” His eyes rake me over. I know how I look, panting with anticipation and flushed from pleasure.

He takes a heavy step towards me. We’re in each other’s breathing space; my air is his and his is mine. His forehead dips down to rest against mine and he pulls up one of my hands. He curls his hand around it and holds it against his racing heart.

“Not now,” he whispers. “Not yet. Not until you’ve fallen for me. This can’t just be physical.”

He kisses my forehead and pulls back, our hands still folded against his chest.

I scowl. “You have quite the habit of rejecting me.”

“And you have quite the habit of coming on to me when you’re upset.” He grins. “Have you considered getting a stress ball to deal with your feelings?”

“Whenever I have feelings, I just work until I’m too tired to feel,” I mumble.

Then, I pause. That’s maybe the saddest sentence I’ve ever said. Not only is it the truth—I did work to avoid feelings—it’s also not possible any longer.

“I’d really like to have a bunch of mind-blowing sex to avoid all this.” I try to say it as a joke, but it comes out as a sad elegy to my broken heart.

“I know,” Grant whispers into my hair. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to save the mind-blowing sex for another time.”

I get that he’s right. I get that I should probably take some time to come to terms with the shattering of my worldview instead of just coming. Still, it’s markedly less fun.

“You sure we couldn’t just sneak in a couple of quick orgasms apiece to take the edge off?” I ask, not really daring to hope that he’s going to say yes.

Grant laughs. For once, it’s an appropriate time to laugh. I was in fact trying to make a bit of a joke. Sort of.

“I don’t want you to give you a quicky orgasm to ‘take the edge off’. In fact, I don’t want you running away from your feelings at all. I’m in love with you and one day, some day soon, you’re going to fall in love with me right back. When you do, I want you to feel as hopelessly lovesick as I feel. I want you to love me so much it’s all you can think about. I want you to love me so much that you smile to yourself when you think about the colour of my eyes. I want you humming love songs to yourself because, suddenly, they all make sense.

“I’m really sorry that you’re sad right now, Sunshine. Believe me when I say I’ll do my best to help you through these feelings. Just know, that I promise it’ll all be worth it when you fall in love with me. Every single day is going to be better than the last when you finally fall for me—even if it’s the same damn day again and again.”

For a brief second, there’s a champagne-light bubbling of happiness that sparkles in my chest.

Until I suffocate it.

Grant doesn’t know me. Not really. I’m not the kind of girl people fall in love with. I’m the girl who grates. I’m the hangnail that continually catches. I pull and pester, annoy and fester until people need to cut me loose.

Even when I think I’m indispensable, I get cut loose.

If hurts this much when Domnic fires me, I can’t even imagine how much it would hurt if I let myself fall for Grant and he does the same. When he does the same.

There’s no soft soul under my hard shell. There’s no lovely girl behind the glasses. If Grant is waiting for me to fall in love with him, really fall in love, he’s just setting himself up for disappointment—setting both of us up for disappointment.

“I thought we agreed to put a pin in all the love talk?” My voice cracks slightly on the last word.

Grant opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but then thinks better of it. Maybe it’s my weepy eyes or my cracking voice, whatever it is, he decides to spare me the agony of further professing his love.

“Right. You want casual?”

“More than anything.”

Grant clears his throat, takes a step back from me, and then leans with one arm against the door frame. He pairs the action with a smoldering look that’s half-dorky and half-super hot. Like him.

“Hey girl. Do you play Quidditch?” he asks. “Because you look like a keeper.”

He pauses and grins at me.

I stare back at him.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Of course, he laughs. Probably should’ve just gone ahead and called himself Mr. Giggles as his superhero name.

“Serious question,” he says. “Did you have a T.V. growing up?”

“No.” I get that he’s being metaphorical here, but I don’t understand why. I do pop culture. I watched the new Robin Hood movies. I follow Louis St. Clair on social media. “I would just rather do other things than talk about… whatever it was you said. Squid itch?”

Grant’s eyes flash with a delighted sparkle that sends a shiver through my entire body.

“Other things?” he prompts.

“Yes,” I say, a bit frustrated. “I believe I’ve made it perfectly clear that I’d like to have a couple orgasms today. You’re the one who’s declined.”

Grant steps into my space yet again. Every time he does it, it’s absolutely intoxicating.

“Hailey, if it scares you when I tell you that I believe you’re my soulmate, it’s going to terrify you when I fuck you. When I finally get to be inside of you, I’m going to show you that you’re mine and I’m yours. If you think you’ve seen how intense I am about you, it’s nothing compared to how I’m going to be when I get you to come on my cock. You’re going to see just how crazy I am for you because I know I won’t be able to hold anything back.”

Then, Grant boops me on the nose with a single finger, smiles and releases me so that he can grab my spare key from a hidden pocket on an herb planter by my door.

Okay, we are going to have to talk about the fact that he knows where my spare key is—just not yet. Right now, I’m still reeling from the thought of what he’ll be like when he’s finally inside me. I want him to lose control when his fingers and cock are inside me. I want to feel him move inside me and show me that I’m his in every single way.

God, I want him.

“So if you’re not going to fuck me, what are we going to do?” I ask, trailing after him like a puppy, even though we’re inside my own apartment.

Grant looks around and beams appreciatively at the place, even though I literally copied all of my decorating from a page in an IKEA catalogue.

“Well, you said that if I stayed quiet around your boss, I’d get to plan out what we do for a day.” He waggles his eyebrows like a silent movie villain.

“Yes?” I say, bracing myself.

“There is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.” He trails off suggestively.

As much as I wish he were talking about sex, I know that’s not it. Which means, it’s something awful. It’s like how excited he was for me to have breakfast with his mom. Although, to be fair, I guess that turned out not completely awful. Not that I’ll tell him that.

“And what’s that?”

“Would it be wrong for me to assume that you’ve never watched most scifi movies?” he asks with a grin on his face.

Oh god.

“Are you sure you don’t want to fool around?”

He shakes his head with a maniacal grin on his face. “Buckle in because we’re about to go to a galaxy far, far away.”

I sigh, remembering when I got crushed by a building. Those were the days.