He’s addicted to making girls come, is he?
I can learn to live with that.
Oh, fuck.
Grainger is home.
Nobody told me he was coming. Instead, I head downstairs in the morning only to run right into him in the front hall. Not sure he was expecting to see me either. The look of sheer horror on his face is fucking priceless.
“Gidge,” he says, almost suspiciously. He looks a little shaky, a little less like the asshole who once told me I needed a leash than I feel he should. The sight of him shouldn’t make me weak in the knees, shouldn’t make me tremble, shouldn’t make me burn.
But it does. Oh fuck it does. My body and heart ache for Grainger in a way that’s criminal, in a way that makes me ashamed even as it makes me feel whole. It doesn’t make any sense, but then, we never have, me and him. It doesn’t make sense that he wanted me to be his before he even knew who he was finger-fucking in that dirty clubhouse bathroom. It doesn’t make sense that I should be so attached to someone I hate.
“What are you doing here?” I blurt, and he shakes his head at me, giving an awful smirk before meeting my brown eyes with his own. Mine are more of a red-brown than his, but close enough.
“What am I doing here? What, I’m not welcome in your little harem?” He gives me a dark look, like he really wants to tell me something but is holding himself back. I know what that look is for, however. He’s looking at me like he wants to talk about the pregnancy.
Not sure if he knows that I know or …
“I meant, what are you doing out of the hospital. Sin just got back yesterday, and you …” Almost died. Flatlined on the table next to me. Got chest compressions while I stood and watched with a detached stoicism that scared me.
“I’m not going to die, Gidge,” he says, as nicely, I think, as someone like him is able to be. He removes his hand from where it was resting against the wall and moves closer to me. Can he sense how fast my heart is beating? Is he reacting to me in the same way or am I the only crazy person in this room right now? “That was a onetime thing; they got me all fixed up.”
I just look up at him, but I’m not sure what to say, what to do. He’s always been the most difficult man to be around, to fall in love with. My mind strays to other things, to the memory of losing my virginity to this man, to letting him take my ass, to the way his hot seed filled my palm inside the storage room of Reba’s church.
Shit.
“Can you get the hell out of my way so that I can sit the fuck down?” he growls, exasperated as he pushes past me. As if we haven’t been separated for too long. As if he didn’t almost die. As if things are the way they’ve always been.
He moves into the living room and sits down heavy on the couch, letting out a long exhale.
“I’m still sore all over,” he tells me, letting his head fall back as I linger in the doorway. His dark gaze slides to me, and a look of pure annoyance flashes across his handsome face. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snaps finally, and both my brows go up. “You’re just going to stand there and fucking stare at me?!”
He sounds enraged, but I can’t figure out why. What have I done now?
“What’s your goddamn problem?” I growl right back, storming into the room and planting my hands on my hips. “You’re home for two seconds and yelling at me already?” I splay the fingers of one hand against my chest, glaring down at him with every ounce of emotion that I’ve felt in the last week. My melancholy. My love. My fear.
I almost lost you, you dipshit. Forever. We were almost separated forever.
“I’m excited to see you, you fucking piece of shit, worthless, cocksucking asshole.” The words explode out of me, and Grainger frowns hard, blinking back in surprise before he’s scowling all over again. “Excited, Cade. Do you hear me? Goddamn it.” I shake out my hair as I stare down at him, and the edge of his mouth quirks.
“That’s better. I was wondering if someone had stolen your fire, sweetheart.”
My turn to scowl back at him. He knows I hate that, being called sweetheart. And yet, I almost like the way he says it. Because I’m that screwed up. And he’s that screwed up, and this is just us. We tell each other that we hate one another when what we really mean is I fucking love you so much that it hurts me, kills me, rips me apart. It’s hell to love you, and I want to burn forever in your flames.
