Page 38 of His Build

Lucy sat up and squeezed his hand.

“They were killed instantly. The car was totaled. They said it was a miracle I got away with so few injuries. I was actually only bruised in the crash; it was when they extracted me from the car that I tore my face up. It was like the car… wanted me to remember what I’d done.”

Graydon put the heels of his face up to his eyes and then Lucy was there, sitting on the arm of his chair, her arm around him, cupping his head against her chest as he broke down.

He’d never told the story like that. He’d never told anyone about the Percy Sledge song playing, how it still echoed through his memory. How he had to cover his ears if he ever heard it.

After a minute, Graydon pulled away, dipping his face into his shoulder to wipe it clear.

He looked up into Lucy’s face after. “Thanks for letting me get all emotional.”

“Are you kidding?” she said, her voice soft. “At the risk of me bringing in my professional self, these are ‘breakthrough moments.’”

Graydon smiled, his chest cracking open and swelling at the same time. Then he reached up and kissed her. She tasted of the rosé, and of the sweetness of impending summer. Of Lucy.

* * *

After they finishedoff the last of the warm bottle—they never did get that ice—they ran down to the water for a midnight swim. Graydon felt better than he had in years, and it wasn’t just the magic of being with Lucy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let go like that. It was as if the dust had been swept from his memories. The old wound had been exposed, and it hadn’t killed him.

The dock was pitch black, the lake an open silence around them. Across the water, lights from the odd cottage glistened. Behind them, only Lucy’s room at the motel was lit up.

She’d put on a frilly swimsuit that she’d made him promise not to laugh at, but to her she looked like a gift—a package he wanted to tear the wrapping from to find the prize inside. He had only his boxer briefs for a bathing suit.

Graydon stood on the dock for a moment after she slid into the water. He looked over his shoulder and then shrugged and dropped his briefs to the ground. He made a show of kicking them off, knowing she could only see his silhouette.

He heard her gasp echo across the water, followed by her laughter.

Graydon laughed too. He was a man freed from a prison of his own making. He leapt in like a carefree teenager, all arms and legs and no grace whatsoever. The coldness sent a wave of shock through him and when he popped his head out he whooped, then swam to her and swept her up in his arms.

“Aren’t you worried about someone hearing us? You’re a little exposed,” she said, still laughing.

“I have a solution for that,” he said, nuzzling her ear, the sound of water lapping against the dock next to them.

“I’m sure I know what it is.”

“There’s no feeling like it,” he promised, and he stood there on the rocky lake-bottom as she considered. After a long moment, she pulled her straps down. She bobbed in the water for a moment, then her hand emerged with the suit hanging from it like a flag.

When she tossed it onto the dock, it landed with a wet slap that made his cock twitch even in the cold water.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he growled, reaching for her under the water. The feeling of her skin gliding against his was exquisite.

She gasped as he brought his hands around her ass and lifted her up so his cock fit neatly underneath her.

He lifted her up higher so her breasts bobbed on the water, and as the hard bud of her nipple emerged, dripping in the starlight, he took it in his mouth, tugging gently at it with his teeth.

She moaned. “I want you.”

A piece of him melted into the lake water.

They managed to make it back to the motel, shivering, and into the shower, and this time she leaned over against the wall, the spray of the water bouncing off her ass as he slid into her from behind.

They lay in her bed later, tangled in sheets and damp hair and the afterglow of an ecstasy so intense he knew he had crossed some kind of threshold. Not just with her and their working relationship, but in himself. He had given himself to Lucy so completely, it was like half of him had disappeared inside of her. He wanted it to stay that way.

14

An insistent buzz rattled Lucy’s brain awake, though she didn’t understand what the jarring sound was until she saw Graydon reach out and slap his hand on the bedside table. He held the phone over his head, squinted at the screen, and groaned.

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