Secrets, Lies, and Summer Skies

Chapter Seventeen

What Grayson called making do, I called luxury.

Never in my life had anyone told me I deserved the world, nor had they apologised for not being able to give it to me. To be honest, if Grayson had ended the night by picking up take-out and then driving us home to fuck me on the sofa, I'd have still deemed it one of the better dates of my life. Far better than anything Trey had done. His idea of a fun night out was getting wasted at one of the college bars where we got discounts and then fumbling his hands over my breasts before he passed out in bed.

Sometimes I wondered if it was really such a bad thing that he'd cheated on me with Anna.

I was probably better off without him.

"How did you..." I trailed off.

"When you travel for work as often as I do, hotel chains start offering you points and upgrades."

"But shouldn't you keep those for something important?" I asked.

"You are important, Kitten."

Butterflies stirred in my stomach. It wasn't right that Grayson could do so much to me with just a word. He was never meant to stir up my feelings the way he did. Jenny had said that the best way to get over Trey was to sleep with someone else. Grayson had just been convenient. Hot, obviously. Literally the best man I could've fallen into bed with, of course. But feelings were never meant to factor into the equation.

I turned in his arms and pressed my chest to his. Grayson's lips were immediately on mine. Whenever we kissed, it was always hungry and passionate. A prelude to animalistic sex that was unlike any other I'd had in my life. This was dangerously tender. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said that it was loving. A soft caress that sent the butterflies into such a frenzy that I felt they might burst out of me, betraying the way I felt to him. Telling Grayson that this was becoming something more was completely out of the question. He'd accepted the idea of sex when he thought it might end before summer was over, but anything more than that was complicated and a far greater risk to his friendship with my father.

A fling could be moved past and forgotten.

Love had a tendency to linger.

Thankfully, a distraction appeared in the form of my stomach snarling furiously between us. It was such a loud demand for attention that I jumped and couldn't help but laugh at myself.

Grayson, too, smiled and cupped my cheek in his hand. He brushed his thumb against my skin. "Hungry?"

"All I've eaten today is that cookie," I admitted sheepishly.

"Thought so." Grayson pressed his lips to my forehead and warmth flooded through me. "How does room service sound?"

"Like heaven."

His smile grew a little wider. "We should run you a bath, too. Your feet must still be killing you."

They were, but in the face of the hotel, I'd almost forgotten that I was in pain. It was only because he'd reminded me of it they throbbed in my shoes with renewed enthusiasm. To be honest, I was more of a shower girl, but a bath would do wonders for my legs and, with the view that the hotel had on offer, how could I say no?

Grayson left me to turn the faucet. It would take a while to fill, which gave him more than enough time to return to the living room and find the room service menu on the coffee table. I trailed after him, feeling out of place in the hotel suite without his company. Grayson might have grown accustomed to staying in such places for his work, but it felt alien to me. A phone was on a small table at the end of the sofa, and Grayson took the seat closest to it. He reached out a hand and, expecting that he wanted me to sit beside him, I took it without hesitation. It only took one tug for Grayson to pull me into his lap. I yelped before I landed on his knees, my surprise making him laugh.