Page 42 of Giving Grace

“Was I supposed to shave for this thing?” I pick up the watch and look at it. “I have time. I might be able to—”

“Nah, man—you’re fine. It’s a beach wedding,” he says like it should actually mean something to me. “You on the road yet?”

“No…” Because I know Declan didn’t just call me out of the blue to get my ETA, I follow it up with a question of my own. “Something wrong?” Asking makes me nervous because if something is wrong, that means I’m going to actually be counted on to make things right. Things are better but responsibility still makes me nervous.

“Grace forgot Cari’s veil at their place, and she needs you to swing by and pick it up on your way out of town,” he tells me.

“Is she standing there?” As usual, just hearing her name make me feel like someone jerked a knot in my spine. “Put her on the phone.”

Wrong move, Ranger. Talking to Grace takes prep work, you know that—you can’t do it without psyching yourself up, so just say okay and hang up the fucking phone.

Because Declan has no idea what the fuck he’s doing to me (or maybe he does and just doesn’t care—it’s hard to tell with him) he says okay and passed the phone to Grace with a it’s Ryan—he wants to talk to you.

A few seconds later, I hear the soft intake of her breath before she speaks. “Ryan?”

She says my name and just like that, my dick is so hard I could break boulders with the head of it.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

Lifting my hand, I rub that back of my head like I’m trying to clear it. “Where is it?” I ask her, wincing a bit when I hear how rough and uneven my voice sounds. When she doesn’t answer me right away, I prompt her. “The veil, Jimmy—where is it?”

“Oh, ummm…” She sounds distracted. Like there are a thousand different things she’d rather be doing than being on the stuck on the phone with my creepy ass. “On top of the washing machine. In the laundry room. I put it down to help Molly with her shoes and forgot to pick it back up.”

“Okay,” I tell her, recalibrating how much time I have before I have to leave. My leg is a lot better than it used to be, but stairs still present a challenge. I won’t have time to shave after all. “I’ll grab it on my way out of town, just text me their door code.”

“Really? Oh, thank god,” she sighs in my ear, the sound of it going straight to my cock. “I owe you so big for this, Ry—”

“A dance.” It tumbles out of my mouth before I can catch it, on that same gruff, uneven tone that sound like my voice box is being dragged across hot asphalt.

Fuck if you’re not full of wrong moves today, Ranger.

“A what?” She doesn’t sound relieved anymore. She sounds apprehensive. Maybe a little worried.

“A dance,” I repeat slowly, sounding way more confident than I feel. “That’s what you owe me. A dance—we are going to a wedding after all.” I’ve never danced with a woman in my life and this sure as fuck isn’t what toeing the line that she drew between us looks like, but it’s out there now and I can’t take it back. And even if I could, taking it back is the last thing I want to do.

“Okay,” she says softly. “A dance—on one condition.”

“Are you sure you know how IOUs work, Jimmy?” There’s humor in my tone but there’s something else underneath it. Something rough and uneven. Jagged at its edges. “They don’t usually come with stipulations.”

“Well this one does,” she informs me, her tone so cool and haughty that it has me dropping my hand down to adjust the hard-on I have trapped between my thigh and the bathroom counter.

“All right then…” I’m sure she can hear it in my tone. That I’m hard for her. That all she had to do was breathe into the phone to make me that way. “Lay it on me.”

“Stop calling me Jimmy.” She whispers Jimmy into the phone like it’s a dirty word and I can’t help but start to laugh at her, right before she hangs up on me.

Twenty-seven

Grace

Ryan wants to dance with me.

That’s what he said.

That’s what you owe me, Jimmy.

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