“No. Stop.” She turned her head toward him, nailing him with her glare, all her frustration bubbling over. “What am I supposed to do with that, Grant? Tell me. You sleep with me, then shut down. You kiss me, then freak out. You admit you love me and then you disappear, leaving me with your mother who’s talking to me like I’m your girl. Something I’m reminded over and over again that I can never be. That spot’s already filled.”
“Charli—”
But her tirade steamrolled right over his attempt to cut in. “I get it, okay. I so freaking get it. Your wife was amazing. Your life was perfect. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to you. No one deserves that kind of tragedy. My heart hurts thinking about it. But you can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep making me love you more, then yanking the rug out from under me. I’m tough, but I’m not the goddamned Terminator, Grant. I’m not—”
But his lips were on her before she could get the next word out, his hands sliding into her hair and cupping her head. She almost rocked right off the back of the swing, the shock jolting her, but he held her fast. Her eyes drifted shut, the feel of his mouth on hers like being dropped into some dream state where time slowed. Her fingers slipped from the ropes, her arms finding their way around his neck. His tongue twined with hers, his need and desire for her pouring into the kiss. She didn’t want it to end, didn’t want him to pull back, feared what would happen when he did.
But soon, the need for air trumped the wish to not break the spell. He pulled back, his hands cradling her face, caressing. “My turn to talk, freckles. Can you let me do that?”
Her heart was pounding so hard, she wondered if she’d be able to hear him over the thumping. She wet her lips. “Okay.”
“You’re right. You deserve someone who is going to love you without pretense, or caveats, or comparison. You deserve a guy who can look at you and know that he’d rather have no one else there next to him besides you. That no other girl could even come close to measuring up.”Author: Roni Loren
She looked down, bracing herself for the blow. But he grabbed her chin, not allowing her to look way.
“Listen, freckles. That guy is me. That’s how I feel about you. I love you, Charlotte Beaumonde. Not second best, not as a consolation prize. You’re the only woman I want in my life. Past, present, and future.”
“But…” His image went wavy in front of her as tears clouded her vision, blocked her words.
“I’m done running, Charli.” He held up his bare hand, the tan line the only remnant of the ring that used to be there. “And I know that being with me is complicated. I’ll never be vanilla and my job is…interesting. And I’ll probably freak out every time you go to chase some adrenaline rush because God knows you can get yourself into some predicaments. But I’ll do whatever I need to if it means I get to have you. I’ll even learn to like Tom Brady…the cat, not the quarterback—that’ll never happen. I just—”
She pressed her fingers against his lips, laughing through her tears. “Stop.”
He grinned beneath her touch. “Too much?”
“A dom should never beg, right?”
He grabbed her wrist and kissed her fingertips. “Darlin’, if it means you’ll be with me, I’ll let you shackle me to the floor in front of everybody at The Ranch and beg like a dog.”
“That won’t be necessary.” She shook her head, bliss seeping through her every pore, pushing out the melancholy that had claimed her minutes earlier. He loved her back. Really loved her back. She reached out and grabbed his hand. “Haven’t you figured it out? You already have me, Grant. Even if you had dropped me off in Louisiana tonight, my heart would’ve left with you. I’ve been gone since the first time you kissed me. I’m the easiest sell in Texas right now.”
He grinned, a boyish light she hadn’t seen before filling his eyes. “You’re going to be anything but easy, freckles. But I can’t wait to get started.”
She slid off the swing and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing the top of her head to his chest. “Your place or mine?”
He nuzzled her ear, his breath a soft caress. “Our place, love. I don’t want to sleep another night without you next to me.”
The words were ones she never knew she needed but were exactly what she’d been waiting for her whole life. She raised her face to him and pressed her lips against his, relishing the feel of that once-forbidden territory. “Let’s go home, cowboy.”
EPILOGUE
Grant paced across his living room one more time, his boots creating a monotonous beat in the empty cabin. How could she not be answering her phone? Maybe the thing had died. Or, maybe she wanted to tell him the news in person. Or, maybe it hadn’t worked out, and she was sobbing in her car and too upset to call him.
“Dammit.” He checked his phone one more time to make sure it had a signal, then shoved it back in his pocket. “Come on, baby, toss me a crumb—a text, something.”
He laced his fingers behind his neck, trying to massage some of the tension away. He’d offered to go with Charli this morning, but she’d given him that back-off-cowboy look that he’d learned to heed. She had no idea how that feistiness made him hard every time she directed it his way. If she thought she was getting away with being a bossy thing, so be it. She didn’t need to know that all it did was add to the list of things he’d do to her later when he had her tied up and begging.
The sound of an engine had him hustling toward the front door. He stepped outside, his blood pressure immediately lowering. She was home. Safe. However the audition went, she was here and they could deal with it. Charli climbed out of the car, and Grant scanned her expression trying to read the answer before she told him.
Her lips were tipped down as she headed up the driveway. “Hey there.”
Her sad puppy tone and hang of her shoulders had his hopes tumbling. She hadn’t gotten it. He pulled her up onto the porch as soon as she was within arm’s reach and dragged her against him. “I’m sorry, freckles.”
She circled her arms around his waist. “They said I was too quirky for an anchor position.”
He pulled back, holding her at arm’s length. “Quirky? What the fuck is wrong with them? It’s called having a goddamned personality. I thought the new executives they hired couldn’t be as idiotic as the others, but clearly I overestimated them.”
She looked down, shaking her head. “It’s my fault. I stumbled in my heels on the way to the desk, then tried to make a joke out of it by taking off my shoes and telling them I was the barefoot reporter. Then when they gave me a story about Tom Brady sustaining an injury, I mentioned in the report that I’d named my cat after him because they both had good hair.”