Page 26 of Grift

Jessica

Pure exhaustion wars with anticipation.

I look around the second-best suite at the Inn. My parents claimed the honeymoon suite for themselves, in a move that’s totally in character.

As the night draws to an end, and we’ve bid most of the guests goodbye, I feel Patrick’s eyes on me. Just the thought of it and what he might be thinking about makes me shiver. How he’d swept me up in that kiss so unexpectedly during the ceremony, the way he wanted me to take his last name like a brand and how I had when I saw the naked emotion on his face even as part of me balked, makes my cheeks flush red. It’s not embarrassment, as much as it’s pure heat from the memory of his lips on mine. The way I found myself wanting to please him and how that realization sends shockwaves through me.

“Go upstairs,” he says quietly, when it becomes clear that there is nothing else left for us to do. “I’ll meet you in an hour.”

My cousin helps me out of my dress, whisking it away to an assistant who will have it cleaned and preserved. I sink into a hot bath filled with lilac oils and bubbles. My feet ache from the heels and I can finally breathe now that I’m out of the corset.

But my eyes are on the clock. Finally, I rise and quickly towel off the bubbles, staring at the negligee hanging from hook on the back of the bathroom door. I’m not a lingerie person. My life really has never called for it. Yet someone bought this – along with several other racier choices – and laid them out on the bed for me to choose from. They’re waiting when I enter the room.

The one I chose offers the most coverage, although that’s not saying much.

It’s long and strangely modest, but the kind of clingy silk that hides nothing and a vaguely opaque white that I’m fairly certain is meant to show an enticing shadow of everything that’s beneath. The idea of wearing this in front of Patrick has my pulse beginning to pick up pace in my neck. I slide it on, pull the pins from my hair until waves tumble over my shoulders, and head to the bed to wait.

Sit? Stand?

I can read the book I brought with me. It’s an instruction manual on BDSM. It had seemed like such a good idea based on the contents of the file my mother gave me, but when the key turns in the lock, I’m mortified to be flipping through the pages absently trying to decode what’s happening in the pictures.

Patrick steps into the room. He’s already taken off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt partway down his chest. An untied bowtie dangles from his neck. He looks a little disheveled and my breath catches. Say what you will, but he’s totally magnetic.

I shift on the bed as the door swings shut, and he glances my way and then freezes. His eyes go dark and there’s a shift as his eyes rake over me, taking their time in appreciating every inch of my body exposed in that silken garment. It’s my wedding night. I shouldn’t be ashamed, and yet it’s taking everything I have not to wrap up in the fluffy white duvet that I’m nestled into on the bed.

He starts to speak, but what comes out is a low growl that leaves me shivering.

“Give me five minutes,” he says finally, his voice a low rumble as he stalks to the bathroom and closes the door hard. The shower runs, and when he finally emerges, he’s down to his white shirt and tuxedo pants. His feet are bare, and for some reason, I can’t look away. They’re large and he’s just standing there. There’s something very intimate about him being in my hotel room barefoot.

Our hotel room, I correct myself. We didn’t negotiate this part, and I don’t know what to expect. Don’t know his expectations or his preferences. God, this is a lot to take in for a single day or a single week. Honestly, it might be a lot for a single lifetime.

I tip my head forward so my hair tumbles over my breasts, and then look up at him from under my lashes. He walks toward the bed, and I freeze, but he sits gingerly on the edge. The mattress dips under his weight, tilting me a little in his direction. One tentative hand reaches out, and plays with a chestnut curl.

“Jessica,” his deep voice starts an ache in my core.

“Hey,” I say awkwardly, and he looks at me then. His face is a mix of desire, regret, and something I can’t read.

“You are so fucking beautiful.” At his words, my face heats even brighter, partly from embarrassment, partly from pleasure.

“Today in that dress, and now in this,” his hand slips from my hair to my bare shoulder and a little sound escapes me. “Christ. As much as this kills me though, I’m getting off this bed and going to sit in that chair because we need to talk.”

A strange sadness descends as he stands, walks to the bar and pours himself a drink. He doesn’t want me then. This is all obligation, all because we’d had to. Maybe I read this wrong. Or maybe, the absence of someone to love me – or even just positive human touch – is hitting me harder than I want to admit in this strange moment.

Fighting back tears, I watch as he pours a second drink into an expensive crystal rocks glass, and brings it over to me. He settles himself in the chair at the foot of the bed, legs spread wide and doing nothing to hide his arousal.

For one long second, I can’t look away.

Oh my god.

That’s not the problem, then?

When the long moments stretch out, I finally say, “What is it, Patrick? You don’t want….” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

His laugh is harsh, and I realize with shock that he’s fighting for control.

“I want,” he says, completely unashamed in his desire. “That’s not in question. The bigger question is what we’re doing here, what you want, and what’s the best decision with those things in mind. And what’s ahead of us.”

Easing back onto the pillows, I flinch when the book slides from behind me and down onto the floor with a thump. At first, he glances down uninterested, but when he takes in the title his eyes shoot up to mine. His dark eyebrows raise in inquiry.

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