Authors: Janet Eckford
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Multicultural & Interracial
“Did you just giggle?” Edward snorted.
That seemed to be the final straw, because they each were rolling and barely waved the waitress away when she came to ask them if they needed anything. Gulping in air, Grant tried to collect himself but found it hard when he looked into the dancing eyes of the other men. When he was sure he had everything under control, he sighed and rested his head against the wall.
“I love her so much.”
“Yeah, we know,” Micah replied.
“How do I get her to believe me?”
“Keep telling her until she finally listens,” Thomas offered.
“That doesn’t sound stalkerish or anything,” Edward replied dryly.
“Because you’ve been a wealth of advice,” Thomas snapped back.
“I love her
so
much,” Grant repeated with frustration.
“She loves you too.”
Grant looked at Micah and wanted to believe his words. He was her twin, and there was no denying the connection they shared. “Why can’t that be enough?”
“Because she’s crazy.”
Thomas yelped when Micah smacked him in the back of the head.
“It
is
enough. You just have to prove it to her.”
“Just, for God’s sake, wear a condom this time.”
“You are such an asshole, Edward,” Micah growled.
“Someone has to be.”
Grant snorted when Edward winked at him. He’d have to figure out his situation with Charlie on his own, but even with her brothers’ bickering and fighting, it was nice to know her family was in his corner. He just had to get the woman he loved to join them.
Charlie unlocked her front door and could hear the sounds of music streaming through the house. Stella was still with her grandmothers, and she smiled at the thought that Grant had decided to stay over even without his daughter in the house. Slipping out of her shoes, she put her purse down on the side table she kept in the entryway and walked quietly into the living room. She paused and looked around with confusion when she realized Grant wasn’t there. The sudden sound of something falling had her running toward the kitchen.
Once there, she gasped in horror. The room was in complete disarray. Cabinet doors were missing, dishes were stacked on the floor, and pots and pans were strewn across countertops. In the center of it all was Grant, red faced and holding a measuring tape.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re home early.”
“It’s after midnight.”
“I thought you would have stayed out later.”
“Because I’m such the party animal. What are you doing?” she asked again, looking at the disarray in her kitchen.
Charlie wouldn’t classify herself as a neat freak. With a new baby, she could use the expert skills of a maid, but her kitchen was one of the places she thought of as a sanctuary from the clutter that seemed to have invaded every other aspect of her home. She took pride in knowing everything was in its place. She’d acquired quite a few cooking accouterments over the years, and seeing them spread haphazardly around her kitchen made her eye twitch. This was not what she’d had in mind when she first walked in the door and realized Grant was home.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he replied, swaying a little.
“Are you drunk?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a hard stare. She’d never seen him drunk and didn’t have a point of reference to draw from, but there was something very suspicious about his behavior.
“No!” he exclaimed, waving his hands in the air.
“You look drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” The hiccup at the end of his statement made her doubt that.
“Maybe a little tipsy,” he conceded and put the tape measurer on the countertop.
“Were you with my brothers?” she asked, squinting.
“Yes.”
He was totally drunk. What she wanted to know was why he’d torn her kitchen apart. Charlie stepped around dishes and other items that had been neatly arranged in her cabinet, but now were stacked on the floor, as she entered the room. It wasn’t a large space, and with all the clutter, it appeared tiny.
“It was supposed to be a surprise.”
The dejected tone in his voice as he repeated his previous statement caused her to pause and look at him. His face was flushed and his eyes were a little glassy, but there was no mistaking he was upset about something. She couldn’t figure out what.
“What was supposed to be a surprise, Grant?” she asked calmly.
“This.” He waved his hand around the kitchen and slumped his shoulders. “I know you love your house, but the kitchen is too small. I was going to measure it and get it designed and get it nice for you so you would know how much I love your cooking and how important I think it is because home-cooked meals are better and because I love you and if you saw the new kitchen you would know that.”
Charlie blinked slowly once Grant finished his rambling statement. This was definitely not the coolly collected man she’d come to know over the last several months. Grant was always careful with each word that left his mouth. This man standing in front of her looked like a lost little boy—a dusty, slightly drunk little boy, but no less endearing.
“You wanted to remodel my kitchen?”
“No, I wanted to show you a plan for a remodel. So you would be happier.”
She sucked in a breath and blinked as tears prickled at her eyes.
“Oh, baby, please don’t cry. I’ll make sure to clean up my mess.”
Grant maneuvered around the mess he’d made and gathered her in his arms. With his strong arms around her, she felt tears leak from her eyes.
“I can’t help it. I cry all the fucking time now. I think pregnancy damaged my tear glands,” she sobbed.
“I promise I’ll put everything back. It seemed like a good idea after Micah dropped me off.”
“Because you’re drunk.”
“Slightly tipsy.”
She snorted and held him closer and buried her face in his chest. She inhaled his clean scent that was slightly masked by the odor of the bar he’d been in with her brothers. His solid presence coupled with the declaration he’d just made caused her heart to pitter-patter. Pitter-patter, she thought with disgust, whose heart pitter-patters? Oh, yes. Hers, obviously, probably to match her new form of emotional neurosis. Grant pulled her tighter, and her damn heart did its stupid flutter thing that caused her eyes to well up and more tears to escape. She continued to rub her wet face into his shirt and hoped it was only tears dampening the fabric, because snot was definitely not sexy.
“You want to remodel my kitchen so I can cook more?” she whispered, bringing her arms up around his waist.
“When you say it like that, it sounds pretty sexist.” He chuckled as he smoothed her hair.
She laughed and continued to hold him tightly. It was the most insane thing he’d ever done, and she felt her body warm at the idea he’d done it for her. Yes, the not-so-sound reasoning of alcohol had fueled it, but that didn’t make it any less sweet.
When she’d left the restaurant where she’d spent hours talking with Mary, she’d promised her best friend she’d be more open, that she’d be more willing to believe that what she and Grant had was more than just the baby they shared. Smiling into his chest, she was happy that tonight was the night he decided to do something insanely romantic.
“No, I get it.”
“Do you?”
Charlie pulled back and looked into his eyes. There was a vulnerability there she’d never seen before. It caused her heart to race and all the questions she had about him to evaporate. As she looked, she saw something she’d never been willing to acknowledge before—love. It was such a beautiful expression it almost hurt. Pressing up on the tips of her toes, she gently kissed his mouth. It was a delicate kiss, fragile like the feelings she hoped she’d expressed through it. Grant responded the way she needed and pressed his lips lightly to hers.
“You were doing it because you love me,” she whispered against his mouth.
Emotions flickered rapidly across Grant’s face as he stared down at her. She mentally chastised herself when she saw hope and joy warring for space on his face. He was such a good man, and to think she would have ever doubted him had her pulling him down closer for a deeper, richer kiss. He responded in kind and pressed her tightly against him. They stood like that, drinking from each other’s mouths until she forgot why oxygen was important.
“Why did you look me up?” she asked, more curious now than needing some type of confirmation his feelings were sincere.
“I needed to see you again. I kept telling myself it was hurt pride because you left without saying goodbye, but when I saw you I knew it was more.”
He brushed his lips gently against hers as he cradled her face in his hands. For a man who worked behind a desk, his hands held a delicious roughness that caused her body to tense with anticipation of being caressed by them. When he dragged the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip, she shivered from the sensation.
“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”
She would have ducked, but he kept her head in place and gazed at her with the same naked vulnerability of earlier. It spoke to the same vulnerability she hadn’t known she’d carried since that morning in Italy, when she awoke to find her limbs entwined with his and she’d panicked. It wasn’t love that she’d felt for him in the early rays of sunrise, but it was an emotion so similar in its infancy that she couldn’t risk being the only one to feel it. She’d had lovers and boyfriends in the past, but none of them had made her feel the way Grant had in such a short period of time, and instead of doing the adult thing and seeing where it could go, she’d panicked and left.
“I freaked out because I liked you too much.”
“You did?” he asked with a smirk.
“Lord, don’t make me regret that.” She chuckled and moved in closer to kiss him.
“Never,” he replied before meeting her halfway.
She loved the feel of his lips against hers and could kiss him for hours. The taste of the whiskey he’d been drinking still flavored his mouth, and it made the kisses seem more decadent. Charlie was lost in the sensation of his mouth mating with hers and wanted to feel his lovely lips on every inch of her body.
“I’m drunk.”
Charlie blinked at his abrupt statement and looked into his flushed face.
“I know,” she replied with a snort.
“It’s going to be sloppy if we do it, and I have a reputation to uphold.”
Charlie threw her head back and laughed. Most people didn’t know Grant could be funny, in a dry sort of way, but nevertheless still funny. It had been one of the first things that kept her in his bed that weekend months ago in a hotel room in Rome. She brushed a blond lock of hair from his forehead and smiled as a familiar twinkle of mischief danced in his eyes.
“We can make out until I pass out instead.” He smirked and waggled his eyebrows.
She giggled when he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. She laughed all the way into her bedroom—which was now going to be theirs—right up until he fulfilled his promise.
***
Grant rolled over and sighed when he felt Charlie’s warm body next to his. He hadn’t meant to get trashed last night and was rethinking going out with Charlie’s brothers ever again. He had a horrible headache, but as he pulled her into a spoon position, he found his headache couldn’t compete with having her soft body pressed to him. He ran his hand lazily up and down her hip and nuzzled the back of her neck. He remembered thinking it would be a good idea to measure her kitchen for a remodel after Micah dropped him off. He also remembered her coming home and seeing the mess he’d created, but what had firmly settled into his memory was her admitting she knew he loved her.
Dragging his hand from her hip, he rested it on her softly rounded stomach and breathed in the scent of jasmine from her hair. She shifted slightly and placed her hand on top of his, and he smiled at the gesture. He’d kissed and petted her last night, and engaged in a good old-fashioned make-out session before alcohol claimed him. Before he’d completely passed out, Charlie brought him water and a few aspirin to take. His memory was fuzzy from that point on, but he could remember her kissing him gently and telling him she loved him. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of hearing it.
“How’s your head?”
“Which one?”
He punctuated his question with a slight thrust of his hips. She giggled and pushed back gently. It was all the encouragement he needed before he had her on her back, kissing his way down her body. Her quiet moans spurred him on, and he took his time tasting her until he could get to the main prize.
“Wait, I want to say something first.”
“After,” he answered against her hipbone.
“No, this is important, Grant.”
She tugged on his hair and he reluctantly looked up at her. Her hair was a tangled curly mass around her head and she had creases from her pillow, but he didn’t think she’d ever looked lovelier to him. This was the unvarnished picture he’d get to have every morning, and his chest swelled with pride.
“More important than this?” he asked, brushing his thumb against the wet folds of her body.
“Yes, but I swear I’m going to be really quick.”
Grant reluctantly moved back up, resting above her on his forearms. She brushed hair from his eyes as he smiled down at her. The look she gave him shone with love, but there was a pensiveness to it that still made him nervous.
“What is it, baby?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “Fuck, I did not want to cry.”
He leaned down and kissed away tears trailing down her face. “It’s okay.” He rolled over and pulled her into his arms.
“No, it’s not okay.”
“Crying isn’t a bad thing,” he tried to assure her.
“I know, but that’s not what I want to talk about.”
“I know, baby, and you don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, I do, Grant. If we are starting fresh, I have to acknowledge what I did was wrong. Even if it was fueled by my own insecurities and fears, it was still wrong.”
“Okay.”
She pushed away and gave him a hard stare. “Okay?”
Grant shrugged and tried to bring her closer, but sighed with frustration when she sat up in bed and crossed her arms. Although the gesture did push her breasts up more, which made him painfully aware of how aroused he was.
“Yes, okay. I’d forgiven you a long time ago.”
“Just like that?”
Grant reached for her before she could blink and had her pinned below him. She let out a squeak of surprise and opened her mouth to protest but was silenced by a kiss. Charlie was persistent, but he was even more stubborn, and now that he knew she loved him he didn’t want to have guilt clouding what they could be together.