Page 100 of The Ampersand Effect

Hey, Grier?

GRIER—9:43 a.m.

Yes, Tobin?

TOBIN—9:43 a.m.

This is a date.

The smile on her face was still there—but it had softened into something deeper as she realized how far they’d come. Howmuch had changed in just a few short weeks.

GRIER—9:45 a.m.

I can’t wait.

She set her phone down on the counter and inhaled a deep, satisfying breath.

She was going on a date.

With Tobin Maes.

Twenty-One

Tobin lay awake, tossing and turning in the dormitory-style bunk room at the hangar when she finally gave in to reality: she wasn’t getting any more sleep.

The wind battered the hangar, alternating between howling gusts and metallic wheezes as the building strained against the gale. It was a little after five a.m., so she risked a quick text to Grier.

TOBIN—5:17 a.m.

Good morning, Cinderella. Are you

swimming this morning?

Tobin suspected Grier used swimming much like she used cooking—as an outlet for her unspent emotion.

And what it did for her arms?

Well, Tobin certainly wasn’t complaining.

Grier’s shoulders weredefinitelyone of her best physical features—toned, supple, and exceptionally capable of pinning Tobin between them. A position Tobin had learned,repeatedly, that she rather enjoyed submitting to.

And the way Grier looked above her, sliding her body along Tobin’s, those loose curls of hair falling onto her chest and collarbones—

It was all just…extraordinary.

Grier’s patience with her preceding sex had been one of the greatest acts of compassion and understanding anyone had ever shown her. But when Grier had suggestedthat—the assisted masturbation— she’d unknowingly altered the very foundation on which Tobin had built her protective walls.

It thrilled her.

It confused her.

It altogether wrecked her understanding of relationships.

Grier had come into her life all flirt and folly—only to reveal an unexpected tenderness that invited Tobin to question everything she’d accepted as truth about intimacy, about herself.

She hadn’t had the time—or the mental faculties—to review and dissect her emotions following that first orgasm. Or the next two. She’d simply given herself over to the pleasure, allowing Grier to find her—exactly as she’d promised—and bring her back from the euphoria each time.

But that moment, those words, had been looping through her mind ever since: “Lose yourself, Tobin. I’ll find you.”