Page 67 of My Grape Crush
“The longer I lie next to you, unable to do a thing about it, the greater the torture,” he explains. “But I have a plan.”
He rolls out of bed and slips into his shorts while I watch, taking in the lines of his muscled back and shoulders. I think of how he dominated me, his hands firm and warm, the devastation pinching his features when he let go.
I don’t know what I expected.
Something very Rhys-like. Sweetly sexy. Gentle.
Not lights-out, boundary-pushing fucking.
Not decimating spikes of pleasures that liquified me.
Or Rhys howling something in what I think was Greek but would sound dirty in any language.
And how he studied me after, like he wanted to read me for every reaction from his handiwork, made my insides blaze even hotter.
I prop myself up on both elbows and level my gaze at him. “And what does your plan entail? Other than a dash to the drugstore.”
“Not spilling the details. But we’ll both need the power of caffeine to survive what I have in mind.”
Rhys’s eyes flash with victory as he steals another kiss, hands supporting him on the bed, our mouths crashing together. Goddamn. He still tastes like me. After a seductive tongue twirl that leaves me whimpering for more, he pulls back with a winsome smile.
He is thoroughly adorable in his transparency on how much he enjoys having an evil plan.
But I still deliver a pillow to his face.
“Hurry up then, barista. And make mine a triple shot.”
He waltzes out of the bedroom, whistling some unfamiliar tune. A minute later, the crackle of beans ground into the finest espresso granules floats through the door. An ear-to-ear grin takes over my face. Nestled against his shoulder last night, when we were in that drifting space of near sleep, drained and raw from end-of-the-world sex, he’d kissed me and said I was perfect except for my taste in coffee.
And we both laughed as hard as our spent energies could allow.
But whatever is doing the happy jig in my stomach this morning feels kind of perfect. I slept like the dead thanks to a functioning air-conditioner. Or was it the bed? Or a certain someone who tipped me over the edge of surrender?
The answer is all three and not necessarily in that order.
I curl up like a snail and let out a contented sigh, savoring the morning sunlight streaming through the window, and the promise of a day spent together. The air smells faintly of fresh linen and us. I’m somewhere else entirely—replaying moments from last night—when my eyes latch onto a journal that lies closed on his nightstand. It’s not one of those spiral-bound cheapies, either. The leather looks expensive, the rich brown worn to a luster like a cowboy’s saddle.
A generic clicker pen branded withMiko’s Tavernarests on top, and a ribbon bookmark pokes out like a quiet invitation.
My mind rewinds, spinning back through time. Was it there last night? Half-blind with lust and the lights dimmed, I can’t say for sure.And in the umpteen Rhys videos I’ve watched, not once has he referred to a journal on camera.
But at lunch the other day, Evelyn asked him about his drawings.
All the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rocket to attention.
What’s inside? Notes of inspiration? Memories? Secrets? What if he’s drawn me? The possibilities are giddy and heavy all at once. I glance at the wide-open door. My ears perk. I can hear Rhys humming while he preps our coffee. Adrenaline crackles on my skin, and I feel a rise of something sneaky and wrong in my soul.
God, it’s so tempting.
No, Dani. That is a violation of privacy.
When Amelia snapped the lock open to my eighth-grade diary, she sobbed for a full week, devastated that I didn’t secretly worship her as everyone else did. Worse, I resented her for how easy she made it all look.
And we didn’t talk for weeks until she forgave me. (Never mind that she crossed the line. I was only too happy to be back in her good books.)
Point is, do I need to know his innermost thoughts? He just made love to me like we invented sex. Do I need the ego boost of seeing our names written together with pretty hearts drawn around them?
Maybe I do.
