Page 130 of Built to Fall
I shake my head, a small, nervous smile tugging at my lips. “Not quite,” I murmur, meeting his gaze fully now.
The smirk he gives me is slow, sure, and devastating. He straightens up, his hands bracing on either side of the counter, like he’s grounding himself before saying something that matters.
“No?” he asks softly. “Then what are you here for?”
It feels awfully similar to our time in Martha’s Vineyard. The tension is heating the air between us, making both of our chests rise and fall quicker.
“I want to take you up on your offer.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
LINA
Grant doesn’t move right away. Just watches me. One beat. Then two.
The kind of stillness that makes me feel like maybe the world is folding in on itself or expanding to fit the two of us inside it.
“My offer,” he repeats, but slower this time. Velvet and smoke. “You sure?”
God, I wish I wasn’t. It would be easier not to be. Easier to backtrack and pretend I came over here for pizza and nothing else. But there’s no pretending. Not when he’s looking at me like this. Not when I feel like I’ve peeled my skin off just by walking through his door.
“Yes.”
He rounds the island slowly and deliberately, like he’s trying not to scare off a wild animal. Me, apparently. My pulse is everywhere—behind my knees, in my wrists, in my throat; the list could go on.
He stops in front of me and says, “Okay.”
Just that. But it’s not simple at all. Not in the way he says it. Not in the way it lands in my chest like a dropped piano.
Then his voice softens as if he’s handing me something fragile. “But I need you to know this isn’t a transaction, alright?”
“I didn’t think it was?—”
“I know,” he cuts in gently, soothing something inside me I didn’t even realize was trembling. “But I need to say it out loud. Just in case there’s some part of you still holding that belief close because you think it keeps you safe.”
My mouth opens and closes. Nothing comes out.
“This,” he continues, his fingers brushing my knee—not possessive, just grounding. “This is not me doing you a favor. This is not me collecting on some unspoken debt. I’m doing this because you deserve more than you’ve ever been given. I want to give that to you—as much of it as I can, at least.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m okay with that. I know what he means by it. He can give me an orgasm, but nothing beyond. Not the relationship. Not the strings.
At this point, I have to be okay with that. Even though he’s told me outright that he has feelings for me, there’s a reason he’s not acting on them.
He breathes out a laugh, low and amused. “I want to touch you,” he says. “That’s it. That’s the whole story.”
And just like that, my body is no longer mine. It belongs to the weight of his words, the way he’s looking at me like I’m not fragile but something holy. Something that deserves reverence.
“I trust you,” I say, and mean it so much I almost hate myself for it.
He smiles, and it ruins me. Not wide. Not smug. Contained just enough to feel like a bullet grazing skin, like he knows he’s winning but he’s being gentle about it.
His hand slides up to the side of my face, thumb tracing under my eye. He’s cataloging the exact way I fall apart.
“Good,” he whispers, leaning in closer, mouth brushing the shell of my ear, voice so low it’s barely audible. “I’m gonna take my time,” he murmurs. “I’m going to learn what makes you fall apart.”
I make a sound that’s not at all human. Somewhere between a breath and a prayer and the start of a confession I wasn’t planning to say out loud.
“I’m ready,” I whisper, my voice so small it almost disappears.
