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CHAPTER 29

JILL

G rady circled my clit one more time, the spark quaking through me and dropping me down until I was seated to the wide base. I was impaled on Grady Holloway’s massive, steel cock, and my vision went dark. Any vestiges of my innocent teenage crush obliterated.

“ Fuuuuuuck ,” he got out, his forehead landing on my shoulder. “You’re fucking squeezing me already.”

I’d been halfway to coming from the sounds he made while I went down on him. I’d thought the Ferris wheel was hot, but I’d been wrong. Grady’s hands in my hair, tensing and releasing as he fought the urge to hold me down on his cock while he thrust up into my mouth was the single hottest thing I’d ever experienced.

Until this.

“Go slow,” he panted, his eyes locked on mine. “I want this to last.”

Pushing up on my toes, I watched his muscles ripple with tension, my body sucking him in as I lowered slowly back down. But it felt too good. I couldn’t hold back. I picked up my pace, the need to come clawing at me, demanding I move.

“So fucking good,” he growled, his eyes down, watching me take him over and over again. “Too fucking good,” he bit out as he dug his fingers into my ass and began slamming me down onto him harder.

I’d never had rough sex. I’d barely had sex at all. So seeing the way Grady’s control slipped, his restraint fraying, was like a bomb going off in my core. I was building with every stroke, everything tightening until I was past the point of frustration. I needed more, I needed something I didn’t even have words for.

Grady looked up at me, reading my expression. “Grind, baby,” he panted, holding my hips down on him and tilting me back and forth. The contact with my clit shot through me.

“ Yesss ,” I hissed, rocking against him, hot sparks rioting through me. The pressure was building, the hunger tightening through my thighs, heavy tremors starting to make me shake in his lap.

“Fuck yes. I feel you.” He thrust his hips up into me as I rode him. I was so close, our movements speeding up as we both raced for release. But then Grady reached his hand between us again, pressed his thumb down on my clit, and I saw stars.

“ Grady !” I gasped, the orgasm shooting through me in a rush so strong I had to grab for his shoulders to hold on.

“ Fuck. Coming. Fuck.” He grunted out words in broken, choppy breaths, jerking my pussy down as he pumped up into me. “Fuck, Jill,” he groaned as his arms clamped around me so hard I felt his heart beat crashing into mine. He shook as I collapsed against him, my whole body pulsing and trembling while I struggled to catch my breath.

“Holy shit,” I muttered after a few seconds, the world starting to filter back through the haze.

He leaned back, his expression open and awestruck, combing the hair from my face. “Worth the wait,” he whispered, kissing me sweetly, slowly.

I fell into the kiss, letting my body go lax against him, the taste of what we’d just done was lingering on his lips like sugar and I wanted every last crystal. Nothing else had ever tasted so sweet as kissing Grady.

After lulling me into a kiss-induced stupor, Grady stood with me in his arms and set me carefully on the bed before going to get a cloth to clean us up. It was warm and soft and his touch was so tender it tugged something loose in my chest, something I wasn’t sure I was allowed to feel.

By the time he’d come back from the bathroom, I’d gotten a chill and was about to get up to retrieve my clothes, when he stopped me. “No way, gorgeous. Get back in that bed.”

Laughing at him, I did as he said. It was too cool after the rain to have this argument in the open. I dove under the covers, and Grady followed. He wrapped his body around mine and settled me against his chest.

“That’s better,” he sighed.

“I have my own bed,” I muttered, not really sure why I was arguing. This was as close to heaven as I could imagine.

“Not right now you don’t,” he grumbled, his lips in my hair. “Stay right here.”

Pressed against Grady’s warm skin, spent and satisfied, listening to the even pace of his breathing, it was only a matter of minutes before I was fast asleep.

When I opened my eyes again, the sun had set and the rain had stopped. The lights from the parking lot were on, casting a golden yellow light through the gauzy curtains. When I shifted, I found I was pleasantly sore; proof that it hadn’t all been in my head. A dream better than any I could have ever imagined. Especially because it was real. But then I heard Grady. It sounded like a cry at first, but when I turned over, he looked asleep.

He did it again and I realized he was dreaming. Worried it was a nightmare I gently reached for his shoulder to nudge him awake. But the second I touched his skin, he jumped, shoving me away so hard I tumbled off the bed.

“No!” he yelled, ripping at the sheets as he bolted upright. His eyes whipped around the room, finding me on the floor, and his expression crumbled. “No.” He slumped off the bed, crawling backward away from me as his eyes filled with sorrow. “Jill. Did I hurt you?”

His back was against the wall, his brow creased, regret in his eyes.

“No,” I said in a rush, grabbing his T-shirt from the ground and throwing it on as I went to him. “I’m fine.”

“Not you,” he muttered, his head falling into his hands as he struggled to breathe. “I can’t hurt you.”

“Grady,” I whispered, kneeling beside him, careful not to touch him again. “You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. Look.” He didn’t pick his head up, so I risked reaching for him, my fingers combing softly through his hair. “Look at me, baby,” I begged, the words scraping out as my heart broke.

When he lifted his head, he froze as he took me in. He scanned my face, then looked down my whole body, hunting for proof.

“You’d never hurt me.”

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes. “I would. I have.” The tension dropped out of him, his head falling back against the wall as he stared hopelessly up at the ceiling. “I did. Not you. But I hurt him, Jill.”

Who ? “What are you talking about?” I asked, settling onto the floor a little closer to him.

“He was pulling me under and I . . .” He stalled out, the words trapped in his throat as he tried to swallow. “I . . .”

Finally, he looked back at me, and my stomach twisted. I’d never seen Grady like this before.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to.”

“Grady, it’s okay. You saved him.”

“But I almost didn’t.” The sentence fell out of him, landing like a bomb between us. I could see it in Grady’s eyes, his shame was eating away at him.

“But you did,” I reminded him, refusing to let him think he was anything less than a hero. “Tell me what happened.”

He swallowed hard, shaking his head. “I can’t. I don’t know if I can.”

I wasn’t sure if the chills I saw race over his skin were from his panic or not. “Come back to bed,” I tried, but he shook his head.

“No, I should never have risked that.”

I couldn’t stand to see him like this, so I crawled over to him, climbing into his lap and wrapping my arms around his neck. At first I was worried he was going to push me away, but he didn’t. He closed his arms around me and squeezed so tight I thought I was going to break.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed into my neck, his face buried so tightly against me I almost didn’t hear him.

“You didn’t hurt me, I promise.”

“But I scared you.”

I nuzzled into him, stroking his hair, his back, touching him everywhere I could to soothe him. “The only thing that scares me is whatever this is. Because it’s eating away at you. I wish you would just tell me.”

He pulled back with desperate eyes. “You don’t want to know that part of me.”

“Grady.” I cupped his cheeks, resting my forehead against his. “I want to know all of you.”

“Not this. You’ll never see me the same.”

How could he think that? “Nothing you did out there will change who you are to me. Nothing .”

When he swallowed I could see how badly he wanted to tell me, to let this thing go that had been holding him down for so long.

“Please,” I begged.

He shook his head, but started anyway. “He was fighting me. I knew he didn’t mean to, but it was taking all my strength to stay above water. And then he wrenched my shoulder and the pain was so bad. All of the sudden I went under and he was holding me down.” He trembled and I cinched my thighs tighter around his waist. “I couldn’t get him off me, so I,” he paused, pulling his gaze away. “I hit him.” He looked back up at me with agony on his face. “I hit him hard, Jill. I punched him more than once, trying to get away. I was so scared he was going to kill me. I hit him again and again until he finally let me go.”

“ Grady, ” I exhaled, the weight of what he was telling me making my stomach knot. “You were trying to stay alive.”

“But I had thirty pounds on this guy and I whaled on him. By the time I realized what I was doing, I almost puked. I got away from him, but he was gasping for air.” He hung his head. “I didn’t want to hurt him, but I did. And every nightmare I have is of me bashing his face in with my fists and leaving him there to drown. I’m a monster, Jill.”

“No, you aren’t,” I said, taking a hold of his face and making him look at me. “You were a human who was afraid to die. You didn’t bash his face in, you didn’t leave him there. You saved his life. I saw the videos, Grady, he was fine. He didn’t have a mark on his face. Whatever you did to get away from him, you didn’t hurt him the way you think you did.”

“Look at me,” he said, pushing me back so I could look down at his strong, powerful body. “I’m massive compared to him. I never should have touched him.”

“You’re not Superman. You were in danger out there, too, and even though you were scared and hurt, you still dragged both of you to shore.”

Grady looked away and I could see him warring with himself. He wanted to believe me, but for months he’d been alone with this and it had ripped away at who he thought he was. The perfect all-American athlete, the professional hockey star who’d never failed at anything in his life, who’d never let anyone down. That kind of pressure was overwhelming to me; I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to live under that weight his whole life. And then to feel like he’d failed when everyone else was calling him a hero.

“You fought for your life,” I whispered, not wanting him to feel guilty about this for one more second. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

His eyes were glassy, rimmed with tears when he found mine again. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“I know.” I kissed him as tears fell from both our eyes. “You did the best you could, Grady. That’s all anyone could have asked of you.”

There was something in his eyes, like he’d genuinely never considered that before. Given how driven and successful he’d been since he was a kid, I could imagine the message he’d heard the most had something to do with failure not being an option—no matter the circumstances.

“Please don’t try to be perfect, Grady. I need you to be real. Because then I can be real too.”

“ You are amazing,” he said in a rush, his trembling fingers lacing through my hair. “You don’t even see it, but you are.”

I’d never felt amazing. I’d never felt anything above average. But this last month with Grady I’d started to feel . . . more. More capable, more daring, more alive.

“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?” he asked again, his eyes searching my body for a mark or bruise.

“Yes, I’m sure. You’d never hurt me.” It felt utterly impossible to imagine it. I’d never felt safer or more precious with anyone.

He swept his fingers through my hair, air rushing out of him. “Never.”

“Come back to bed,” I pleaded when I saw more goosebumps on his skin.

He hesitated, his eyes darting from me to the bed.

“Yes, I’m staying. Don’t fight me on it.” I stood up and held out my hand. He took it, a look of tired relief on his face.

When we got under the covers, Grady laid on his side away from me, as if he shouldn’t risk holding me again. But I wasn’t going to have that, so I rolled into him and notched my knees behind his, snuggling up as close as I could get. When I laid my hand gently on his arm he reached for it and hugged it to his chest, bringing me even closer.

“Thank you, Jill.”

Laying a soft kiss to his shoulder I whispered, “I’ll be right here.”

A shaky breath cracked out of him as he brought my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it, and we slipped into sleep until morning.