“That’s just it. I don’t want you to talk to her about me. I can fight my own battles, Grayson Lucas. I’ve been doing it way before you came in the picture.”
“Point made. I just really want you with me tonight. Is that so hard to understand?” he asks, pulling away to button his cufflinks. His cufflinks. How did I get here? This is not who I am. My eyes travel down his body and then I remember why: sex. Heart-stopping, take-your-breath-away sex. I thought it might cool off after a few days. It’s been two weeks, and if anything, it just keeps getting better. I don’t know how that’s possible or how to explain it. The simple truth is that I’m getting addicted to Grayson Lucas—so much so that he’s practically living here. He still keeps his room, but he’s definitely here ninety percent of the time. I might have even given him a key the other day when he said he was going to cook dinner for me and have it waiting when I got home from the garage—a dinner that happened to be amazing, and the fact that dessert was him eating me after just made it even better. So… he still has the key. I don’t know a woman alive who would judge me. There’s some things a woman can’t resist and Grayson Lucas does indeed have a magic tongue. That said, I’m not even sure a magic tongue is enough to make me go through with this damn dinner.
“I have another question, how did you know what size to buy this damn dress?” I ask him through the mirror. It’s a red dress that’s all silk and hugs my body like a glove. It shows way too much of my breasts, though at least the valley it exposes is covered by a small scrap of lace that stretches across the front. The dress ends just above the knee and it’s so tight that walking normal and not like a damn duck isn’t exactly easy. Then comes the heels. I am not a small woman in any sense, but I’m a firm believer that a woman who stands five-foot-ten shouldn’t wear four-inch heels. Okay, well, let me amend that: I shouldn’t wear four-inch heels. I’m not graceful like a lot of women. Instead, I feel like freaking Godzilla standing over everyone else and teetering on the edge of a cliff because my balance sucks. The only saving grace is that Gray is so tall that he’s still taller than me, even in these damn shoes. I turn around to look at him and my stomach is so queasy, I feel like there’s a war going on inside of it.
“Sweetheart, a man knows the measurements of a body he worships. It was easy.”
“I don’t think we should talk about how easy it is for you to figure out a woman’s measurements,” I tell him, just slightly annoyed and ignoring his sweet talk.
“Fair enough.”
“Besides that, however, where did you find a place that sold dresses like this around here?”
Gray breaks eye contact and looks down at his tie and then turns away heading to where his shoes are. “It wasn’t that hard,” he says, and his voice sounds… different. I see those red flags—the ones I seem to see a lot when Gray is around.
“Gray?”
“It’s a little shop in Addington,” he says and shrugs. “What does it matter? It worked and you look gorgeous. You’re going to be the most beautiful woman there. That’s what is important.”
“I guess so,” I tell him, still not convinced. I can’t help feeling like Gray’s keeping something from me.
“Are you ready, sweet lips?” Grayson asks once he has his shoes on. He looks amazing, and as much as I don’t want to go to this damn dinner, I do want to be around Gray. Besides, as much as I might want to deny it, Gray and I are dating. Hell, we’re practically living together. There’s a perverse side of me that wants to see what life with a pro-golfer is truly like. I realize I’m looking for reasons to push him away even as I want to keep him close. There’s a need inside of me to prove that we’re just too different to ever make this work. Jackson is right when he tells me I’m a complicated woman. I sigh and take a deep breath for courage.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“That’s my woman,” he says, and he has no way of knowing how his words set off butterflies in my system and how they warm me. I want to be his woman, even though I’m trying to find reasons to keep him away. See? Complicated.
He wraps his arms around me and hugs me close. He kisses the side of my neck and I can feel his tongue coming out to lick along my pulse point.
“Thank you for doing this for me, Cooper. I know you’d rather be shot. It means a lot,” he whispers, and a little more of resistance fades. That’s why I agreed to this damn dinner. That, right there.
“Let’s just get it over with,” I sigh grudgingly.
He laughs and leads me to the door. “It won’t be that bad, sweet lips. It’ll be over before you know it. We’ll make an appearance and leave as early as we can get away with,” he says, closing the door behind us. The sound of it echoes and sounds like my doom.
“It will be that bad. I’ll have to be in the same room with Cammie Riverton and her father.”