State of Grace (9 page)

“Yes,” Leah affirmed, satisfied. Then she winked at her friend. “Now, Gracie, you didn’t tell me you were going swimming in the family pool!”

Grace just stared at the blonde lunatic while Sean stopped trying to hold it in, and laughed out loud. “I like you,” he said to Leah.

“Good thing, cause I like you, too. I wouldn’t let just anyone haul off my Gracie, here.”

“Wait a sec—no one is haul …” she was interrupted by another one of Leah’s squeals as the cowboy she’d been dry humping appeared from out of nowhere and wrapped a sturdy arm around her waist.

She turned her head up at him and smiled happily before putting her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I have terrible manners, Gracie knows this,” she apologized to Sean.

“This is Patrick. Patrick, this is Grace, and her—erm?  What exactly are you again?” she giggled.

“Oh, Grace,” he nodded. “She’s the one you had me look up the–”

“SHHHHHHH. We’re not talking about that, remember?” Leah interrupted urgently, trying to silently communicate with Patrick.

His brow wrinkled in confusion, but he slowly nodded.

Exasperated, Grace extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Patrick. When I saw you two dancing, I didn’t know that you two already knew each other. You work in HR at the hospital?” she asked dryly.

“How’d you know?” he asked, clearly delighted. “Leah talk about me?” he asked in a stage whisper. “It’s about damn time, I’ve been chasing her for God knows how long.”

Grace looked at Leah and felt a moment of pity. Leah looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. Mentally, she shook her head. She hoped Leah wasn’t serious about this guy. If she was, and they ended up procreating, their offspring were in serious trouble.

“Ahhh, well, Grace, Patrick’s roommate took off with someone he picked up at the bar and told Patrick not to come home, so we were just going to head back to my place in a cab, but I live opposite from where y—”

“I’ll make sure she gets home,” Sean interjected smoothly.

“I can take a taxi by myself,” Grace objected.

“Oh, you’re a doll,” Leah gushed, ignoring her. “I know she’ll be in good hands,” she whispered conspiratorially.

In mere seconds, Leah and Patrick were out the door, and Grace was left sitting in her stool wondering exactly how she’d ended up in this predicament.

Sean swiveled her chair around until she was facing him, yet again.

“So Gracie, you gonna be a good girl and let me get you home?” His smile was different this time. It was gentle. There wasn’t a smirk, and he didn’t look like he was keeping any delicious secrets from her. Maybe he was just blabbering all that nonsense about wanting her because of the alcohol earlier. Maybe now he’d even become brotherly, and she could stop fantasizing about him.

She twisted her lips to the side, frowning when he stared at the motion. His jaw worked and he looked like he was really trying to concentrate.

“Hey, you OK? Are you sober?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Just get me home,” she sighed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She was thankful they’d been able to hail a cab quickly. She could get home more quickly which meant she could leave the presence of his unsettling company sooner.

He held the door open for her, and she slid all the way to the very end, nearly pressing her body against the door.

“Two stops!” she said quickly to the cab driver before reciting her address, then his.

It was only ten minutes back to her place, but her torture that night knew no boundaries. 

Sean rolled his window down half-way. The temperature outside was perfect. Not hot, not cold, and just a light breeze.

“It’s gorgeous outside tonight,” he commented.

“Yes.”  Her response was curt and brooked no invitation to continue the conversation. 

“You guys fight?” the cabbie asked. “All the couples, they fight when they drink the liquor,” he said disapprovingly, his voice lightly accented. 

Nosy bastard.

“We’re not a couple,” she huffed. Sean snickered next to her.

“You not married?”

“No.” She wanted to tell him to just shut up and drive, but taxi drivers in New York City drove crazy enough already, and she didn’t want to piss him off any further.  Right now, the man held her life in his hands, and anyway, she was too tired to deal with a verbal altercation.

“You should marry,” the cabbie advised sagely. “If you want the kids, you can’t wait long. In New York, the problem is the boys and girls, they have too much choice.  My parents picked my wife from a good family. We married twenty-five years,” he said proudly. “You have too much to choose, you never satisfied, always looking for something else better. You have only few choices, you make the decision—” the cabbie trailed on, spouting his pearls of wisdom while inserting random articles where they didn’t belong. Even though she was incensed, she stayed quiet. If he was talking to himself, then he wasn’t talking to her. 

She snuck a glance at Sean, and he gave her a secret smile. 

Okay, the cabbie was more than a little ridiculous. She gave him a tiny smile back and something warm and pleasant unfurled in her belly as they shared the moment.

Her eyes soaked up his strong features. Angular planes graced a face that would otherwise be labeled as a pretty boy. She wondered what it would be like to feel his unshaven jaw against her skin, underneath her fingertips. Shivering lightly, she almost jumped when he spoke.

“Cold?” he asked gruffly, quietly. The cab driver was still babbling on.

She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.”

She trained her gaze out the window, realizing that the drive was coming to an end in less than five minutes. She swallowed, hating the tug-of-war she felt inside. She needed to get away from him, but she didn’t want this to end, whatever
this
was.

She knew he was a playboy. Even if she hadn’t grown up with him, she’d have known it just by the way he walked, the way he could smile so disarmingly, his persistence …

He was a playboy, she repeated in her head. M-A-N-W-H-O-R-E, she spelled out silently. He was nothing special, even if every time he looked at her, she got warm in places that had no right being warm, and her heart felt like it was going to pop out of her chest.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the driver pulled up outside her building.  She pulled out some cash and nearly threw it at him in her haste to exit the taxi. She gave the doorman behind the desk a shaky smile and walked quickly through the lobby to the elevator bank. Distance. She needed distance, she thought numbly, stepping into an elevator that pinged open. Even though he was already gone, she needed to put distance between them. She needed to hop in the shower and wash away—

The doors to the elevator stopped mid-way, right before the devil himself entered.

Her pulse raced, and she lost her ability to form words.

“We need to talk,” he said lowly.

She continued to stare at him mutely as the elevator started to move. He held her gaze unflinchingly. 

She turned away from him, biting her lip softly. “Look, I’m sorry I ran out. But I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

His eyes bored into hers. “Why did you?”

“Listen, we don’t even like each other. It was just a crazy night. Can we please just forget about it?”

He stood silently, listening as the words escaped her beautiful mouth, but intent on not paying any of them a whit of attention. The elevator stopped on her floor, and he followed her lead, uninvited. When she reached her door, she turned to face him.  Vulnerability shone through her dark gray eyes, and he hardened uncomfortably. To combat the pressure he felt building inside, he tightened his lips in a straight line and didn’t respond for fear of what would come out.

At his hard expression, she felt her heart sink, so she focused on digging her keys out of her bag. One hand on the door, she leaned over and pressed a soft kiss against his cheek. “Let’s just call a truce, okay? Thank you for seeing me home. You didn’t need to come up.”

He still didn’t say anything, and she turned back to the door. Movement shuffled behind her, and her heart sank when she realized he’d probably left.

Silently reassuring herself that she did the right thing, she fumbled in her bag for her keys, cursing when they slipped out of her hands and onto the floor. She bent to pick them up, but a large hand with a light sprinkling of dark hair covered them first. Her stomach flipped when she turned to find Sean's face level with hers.

"We need to stop meeting like this," he drawled.

She straightened as she stood up, and he followed suit.

"Give me my keys," she demanded, refusing to meet his eyes.

"You know," he began pensively, "I don't think I've ever seen your place."

"Keys," she reminded him, hand outstretched.

Instead of handing them over, he slipped his hand into hers, curling his fingers into hers, while he deftly slipped the key into her lock.

Before she could protest, he was inside, tugging her after him.  She quickly recovered from her momentary shock, stalking in after him to give him a piece of her mind, only for him to spin around to face her as he shut the door.

Something dark in his eyes made her back away. Every time she stepped backward, he moved forward, until she felt the hard press of the wall behind her. He closed the distance in quick strides before bending his head to hers and cupped her neck in his hand. His index finger danced over her frantic pulse, and he began to trace lazy circles.

"Why was it a mistake, Gracie?" he whispered.

She tried to look away, whimpering helplessly as he tipped her chin up so she couldn't escape his eyes.

"Because we don't like each other," she muttered stubbornly.

"I think we disproved that a few months ago, don't you?" he pointed out quietly, his voice husky.

"That was just sex," she argued lamely, feeling her blush extend to the roots of her hair.

"It was just amazing, mind-blowing, fuck-me-into-the-next-universe sex," he murmured wickedly as his lips ghosted over hers while his hands settled firmly over her ass, bringing her pelvis to rest right against his groin.

Every alarm bell in her mind went off when he pressed her against his rock hard erection, but then he traced his tongue over the shape of her lips.

She let out a little moan, her lips opening up just a little, but it gave him the perfect entry to sweep in, plunder, and take. His mouth fit perfectly over her lips as his tongue explored inside the warm cavern of her mouth. As he took her mouth, he rocked his hips against hers, and she felt her panties go damp. Needing to touch him, to get her hands on him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and wound one hand into his thick hair, humming as their bodies pressed closer.

She raggedly tore her mouth from his. "This is a really bad idea."

His hand slipped under her shirt, caressing the sides of her waist and ribcage, and she drew in a sharp breath at his hot touch against her skin as he once more pressed his lips against hers.

"Really bad idea," he agreed. "But doesn’t it feel good being bad?" Wicked blue eyes dared hers, and any remnants of resolve she had slipped completely away.

It stung to hear him say it was a bad idea, even though she had said it first. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have answered his question because he pressed inside her mouth again. Dimly, she became aware as she felt the soft material of her skirt slide down and air hit the skin of her thighs. His mouth never left hers, even as his hands plunged into the waistband of her lacy boy-shorts. 

“Love your choice of underwear,” he muttered against her lips.

His thick finger rubbed lazily around her mound, touching her everywhere except where she needed him the most. She growled demandingly in her throat, arching against him in pursuit of delicious friction.

Still standing in her living room, he hiked one of her thighs around his waist, opening her for even more access to her throbbing flesh. Magic fingers swirled around her clit before plunging into her wet heat. Delirious, she tore her mouth from his, desperate for air as he stroked her to the edge.

“More, more,” she heard herself groan, barely recognizing the gritty need in her own voice.

“More what?” he asked huskily as his hands continued to tease her to distraction. She ignored his question, pressing her center into his hand. He ripped his hand away, the other one holding her steady at her throat, and she mewled in protest.

“More what?” he repeated his question, and a thrill ran through her as his eyes darkened intensely.

“You, more you. Please,” she panted feebly, too far gone to think of anything at all. Not their mutual dislike, not the consequences, not the awkward morning after. Words escaped her mouth, but she had no idea what they were. Shamelessly, she begged with her body, arching into him.

His eyes flared in satisfaction at her plea, but he still didn’t give her back his hand. She whimpered in distress as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet.