Page 26 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)

Chapter Nineteen

Daniel

I woke slowly, warm and relaxed, cocooned in a heavy duvet and a general sense of well-being.

Without opening my eyes, I rolled onto my back and stretched.

My muscles felt loose, relaxed and a little sore, like after a good workout, and almost instantly, memories of Grey and the night before in this bed cluttered my head; his hands roaming possessively over my body as though memorizing every inch by touch, his mouth whispering filthy promises against my skin, and his cock pumping inside me, leaving me feeling used and owned in the best way possible.

In spite of coming fast and hard last night, my dick perked up with the memory, and I reached across the bed for Grey, then frowned. The bed beside me was empty, the sheets cool.

Where had he gone? Unease tugged at my insides, and I cracked open an eye.

Sure enough, Grey was no longer next to me. I sat up and frowned, the warm, languid feeling fading rapidly. He almost never woke before me.

Then I noticed the light was wrong. The yellow glow spilling through the narrow gap between the drapes was higher and brighter than it should have been.

What time was it? How late had I slept?

I shoved back the blankets and grabbed my phone off the table.

Eight-thirty? I never slept that late. Normally, I was up before the sun, planning everything I had to get done for the day.

Of course, that had been before I’d taken up residence in Oliver Mackenzie’s house with his son.

Maybe having some space between me and the hotel took a little of the edge off so I could relax when I wasn’t working.

Hell, maybe being away from the hotel in the evenings gave me a chance to not be working.

I trusted my staff to handle things, but when I was there, I felt guilty for not helping out.

For years, Brody had lectured me about needing space from the hotel.

I hated having to admit he might be right.

I knew, though, it wasn’t just living here that had me sleeping better.

It was Grey, too. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like someone had my back.

Now, over the last month, since we’d stopped trying to score points off each other, we’d developed an easy rhythm managing the hotel together.

He was much better at the big picture issues while I managed the day-to-day.

He also wasn’t great at interacting with guests.

That unfiltered part of his brain that allowed for a steady stream of whatever he was thinking to flow from his mouth didn’t go over great, so I made sure to steer him away from any customer service concerns.

Besides, he needed the extra time to focus on his other business.

The hotel wasn’t the only place Grey and I had fallen into an easy partnership.

The weeks spent in his father’s house felt like a cozy domestic bubble, separate from the real world, where we talked and laughed and fucked like the last seventeen years never happened, and while I couldn’t get enough, I also couldn’t shake the distant dread buried deep inside myself.

We existed on borrowed time, and seeing the hotel slowly become everything I’d wished for, I knew we ticked closer to the bubble popping.

I would go back to my life, and Grey to his.

When we’d first started this, I told myself I would be fine when it all inevitably ended. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

The idea of returning to my old life, day in and day out, with just work and the hotel, of Grey leaving me behind again, carved me out inside, leaving me hollow.

I climbed out of bed, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt before shuffling out to the living room, where Grey sat impeccably dressed in a gray suit and black shirt with no tie. He held a coffee in one hand while he scrolled on his phone with the other.

He looked up from his phone as I walked into the room and shot me a lascivious grin, his gaze roving over me from head to toe, leaving me feeling exposed despite my clothes, which, under his hungry gaze, I didn’t hate.

“You should have woken me,” I told him. “It’s late.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.” The grin pulling at his mouth—that talented, amazing mouth—stretched wider. “I figured you needed your sleep after last night.”

My face heated, and I couldn’t even really argue the point. I’d practically passed out after, barely staying awake long enough to climb into the shower with Grey and clean up before collapsing back into the bed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Grey said, his voice dropping and taking on a rough edge.

The sound shot directly to my cock. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I’d been thinking about dropping to my knees on the floor in front of him, unzipping his pants, and sucking him until he exploded down my throat.

Maybe I was easy to read. “I’ll never get out of here if you keep it up. ”

“Fair.” He wasn’t wrong, after all. I had a full day ahead of me. Besides, the hotel, it was Thursday. I had groceries and medications to pick up and drop off, and I promised Mr. Zimmerman I’d help him clean out his shed.

“Later, though,” Grey said. “You should definitely look at me like that later.”

I grinned, made my way to the kitchen, and poured a cup of coffee. When I returned to the living room, I dropped next to him on the sofa and nodded at his suit. “Are you going into Portland?”

He made the trip a few times a week to check in with his business, but he always came back to The Square, to me.

Something in my chest squeezed, and I did my best to ignore it.

After all, no matter how much I loved being with him here, in our bubble, or working together at the hotel, it was all temporary.

“You okay?” Grey asked, frowning at me. “You look worried.”

I pushed the dark thoughts to the shadowy part of my brain so I could ignore them and pretend the future didn’t exist. “Fine. Just thinking of what I have to do today.”

His narrowed gaze stayed trained on my face, as if he didn’t quite believe me.

“Sorry, did you say if you were going into the office? I was distracted.”

He shook his head. “I’m at the hotel today. There are some deliveries coming, but we’re doing a virtual meeting.”

I hoped he wasn’t stretching himself too thin, helping me with the renovations while trying to run his company. I knew Finn helped him out a lot, but he shouldn’t be putting the hotel or me over his real life. “If you need to go in, I can manage on my own.”

“I don’t. Virtual meeting because of technology. Also, you’re going to be too busy. I don’t care what you say, that shed is going to take you hours to clean out.”

He made a valid point. Mr. Zimmerman had so much junk packed tight in the small building, the doors were starting to bow out. “I might get an early start. Are you okay with managing the deliveries on your own?”

I didn’t ask what was coming in. It was either the new linens for the rooms or the new patio furniture. Hopefully, both since the Grand Re-opening was less than two weeks away.

Then all this ends , an ugly little voice whispered from that shadowy corner of my brain. I wanted to argue, but there was no point. Once the hotel was done, Grey could go back to his old life, and I’d stay just where I’d always been.

I had to stop thinking about it. I wanted to enjoy the time Grey and I had left, and I didn’t want to ruin it all by obsessing about when it all came to an end.

I noticed the quiet first. From the minute I walked into the hotel lobby, silence settled over me, bringing with it a growing sense of unease. The hotel was never quiet, especially not since Grey had strolled back into my life.

Even without guests, there had been the noise from the restaurant in the evenings, and the relentless din of construction all day.

I guess I’d grown so used to the rapid pounding of nail guns and the buzz of circular saws that the ever-present racket had just sort of become background noise.

Today though, when I walked into the hotel lobby, silence greeted me, and it was both a relief and disconcerting.

Unease tickled at the base of my skull. Was something wrong?

I made my way to the dining room. At just past four p.m., there should have been some guests seated at the new tables Grey had insisted we buy at the same time we’d ordered the furniture for the rooms. The initial plan for updating the dining room had been new drapes framing the curved windows and fresh paint on the walls, maybe new linens for the tables, but Grey had opted to replace the tables and chairs too.

Pointing out that they’d have to go in a few years anyway, so we might as well replace them now.

In deep blues and warm teak, the end result was a restaurant that retained the same 60’s charm as before, but with a sleek, modern feel.

It was perfect. Exactly what I had always hoped for the space.

“You’re back already,” Grey said from behind me.

I turned away from the dining room to find him closing the short distance between us.

He was still wearing the dark slacks from this morning, but he’d taken off the jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, exposing tanned forearms. His hair was tousled and windswept like he’d been outside or, and far more likely, he’d been running his fingers through his thick, wavy hair.

Somehow, he looked even hotter than when I’d last seen him this morning.

“Hey,” he said, softly once he was standing next to me.

“Hey,” I replied. Not especially original, but Grey didn’t seem to care. He leaned closer to kiss me, but I stepped back. “I’m gross. I’ll get you dirty.” A mix of dust and cobwebs clung to my clothes and skin from an afternoon spent hauling rotted cardboard boxes out of Mr. Zimmerman’s shed.