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“I’ll go shower and then we can head out.”
“Want me to shower with you?” I tease, knowing his answer.
“No way. We’d never make it there if that’s the case.”
I knew it. But I do follow him to his room and wait on the bed. His orders. He even showers with the damn door open so he can hear me if there’s a problem. As steam rolls through the room, I stare at his nightstand. The pill bottle he had is gone. I check the nightstand, they’re not there either.
Where would he have put them?
I don’t have time to inspect his room because he takes the fastest shower imaginable.
He’s in front of me now, dressed, hair wet, smelling soapy and fresh, which it causes me to stop breathing all together. He takes a step forward. A playful smile breaks out on his face and I can’t help but grin. That is, until he notices how low-cut my dress is. His eyes scroll down my body and he groans. “How am I going to survive this weekend?”
“By being a gentleman,” I say with a good amount of sarcasm in my voice. I hate that he’s being the good one. It makes me feel like the villain.
He leans forward, his lips coming close to my ear. “I promise to be a gentleman for as long asyouneed.”
His words send a pulse of electricity through me. I pull back. “What if I don’t want you to? What if I want you to take me right here and now? Fuck everything else.”
For a moment, no words are said. I only know it bothers him by the way his eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. He then brushes past me and starts to walk away. “I’m not Shane. I won’t treat you like a possession for the taking. You mean more than that to me.”
I blow out a breath and nod. Well shit, when he puts it like that. I cover my smile with my hand and follow him out of the room.
39
EVIE
We get to the lake house faster than we should with Grayson’s driving. He never does the speed limit anywhere. When Grayson first got his license, he got a ticket from Hicks for going 125 miles per hour in a 60 zone. He wasn’t driving his truck, but his dad’s old Camaro. Wyatt never allowed him to drive it again.
“You should slow down,” I add, bouncing around in the seat on the long dirt road leading up to Josh’s parents’ lake house.
“You should see me drive a tank,” he notes, smiling.
It’s then I realize I know nothing about his life for the last three years. Yeah, he was in New Mexico and Iraq. That’s all I know. The idea of him driving a tank, or any other detail of his time away, intrigues me. I want to know more, get closer to him and have no secrets.
I want to ask, but with the music blaring and the roar of the wind in the cab, it’s not the right time. Maybe tonight when we’re alone. He’s singing along to “By God” by Houndmouth. I can’t help but stare at him and the way his voice carries through the truck.
Laughter leaves my lips as his engine roars around the lastbend. “Did you get some driving lessons from Jameson the other night?”
“Maybe.” Grayson chuckles. “He’s pretty good.”
“It was good to see Aiden too.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that right?”
“Shut up.”
My first kiss was with Aiden when I was fourteen and he was sixteen. My second was Grayson at the baseball fields, two weeks later, and he slipped me some tongue to get that first real kiss in there. Grayson will never let me live it down that Aiden kissed me first, but he takes pride in knowing he was the first boy to stick his tongue in my mouth.
“You have no room to talk. Your first kiss was Courtney.” Do you sense the disgust in my words?
Grayson does and shakes his head, his eyes bright and wild at the same time. “A peck on the lips does not count.”
“Still, she had you first.”
His fingers touch my thigh, high, a smirk forming as he taps lightly. “No, you did.”
Smiling, my cheeks warm.