Page 37 of Love Me Back
I rolled my eyes and went to the pantry, pulling out a box of cereal and grabbing the milk from the fridge. I didn’t answer his question because I didn’t have an answer. He hadn’tdoneanything. His crime was doing something on his own.
I knew I should be happy he was able to get out of bed and into the chair on his own, but I wasn’t because it meant I had one less excuse to put my hands on him.
I wasn’t really angry at him; I was angry at myself. My time here was limited, and I knew it. What I wanted to do was throw myself at him and beg him to forgive me for being stupid and pushing him away all these months. But then I remembered why I was pushing him away, and it just made me angrier. Because the truth was, I couldn’t put him and his family at risk.
“Jessie?”
“What?” I asked, my eyes focused on the bowl in front of me.
He didn’t answer right away, and I knew he was watching me. His heavy sigh had me looking his way, and the defeat and despair I saw on his face broke my heart.
“What should we focus on today?” he asked.
I wanted to shout at him that he needed to focus on me. I wanted him to push me and push me, believing I would give in, eventually. It was unreasonable to expect Grayson to continue to fight for something I had told him over and over again would never happen, but there was a part of me that wanted to be fought for.
When I walked away from my family, no one fought for me. My mother didn’t beg me to stay. My father didn’t demand that I do my duty as his daughter. Even my uncle let me walk away and change my name so I would be separate from him.
Was it too much to ask for someone to show me they truly wanted me? That someone believed I was worth the fight, worth the risk?
“We can move around the house and make sure the chair can get through everywhere so you don’t get stuck. Then tomorrow we can start making things you use daily accessible to your newheight.”
All he did was nod before he rolled away. I sat at the table doing my best not to let the tears that were forming in my eyes fall into my bowl.
I failed.
Chapter Fourteen
Jessie
Days flew by as Grayson and I settled into a routine. He still needed my help to get into bed each evening before we did his exercises, but in the morning, he was often up before me, either Hudson or Emerson helping him in the shower.
I was beyond thankful for that. I’d never survive Grayson, naked in the shower with droplets of water sliding over the muscles of his chest and back, slipping between the crevices of his abs.
UGH!My thighs squeezed together as I took a sip of my morning coffee. I looked up and found Grayson staring at me as I licked my lips, thinking about my tongue being in places it didn’t belong.
I would not survive another two weeks living in this house, staring at the man across from me every time we sat down to eat a meal. Every time I looked at him, I wanted to eat him up. Ten times a day, the idea of climbing into his lap assaulted me.
Would he push me away? Would he hold me close? There was no way of knowing where his head was at.
You could ask him!
Like that would ever happen. I had been doing my best since the day I met him to make sure he didn’t see the desire and lust on my face. I wore a double padded bra so he couldn’t see the way my nipples reached for him every time I got close.
And the exercises at night? Good God! I only hoped he thought embarrassment from him being hard was what caused the blush and not me crawling on the bed to kneel at his feet.
God, I wanted to kneel at his feet! I didn’t care whether he was standing or sitting. I just wanted to look up at him and see thedesire in his eyes. Desire for me.
“Jessie, would you like to walk the grounds with me today?”
“What?”
“Would you take a walk with me after breakfast?”
The boys had finished the ramp days ago, but Grayson still hadn’t been outside. I studied him carefully. He kept his gaze from mine as he asked, and I wondered what he was up to.
When he finally looked at me, there was something in his eyes. It looked almost like a plea. Like he was begging me to spend time with him. I guess I had been ignoring him unless there was something specific we needed to work on. In my defense, it was self-preservation. The more time I spent with Grayson, the more I wanted to be with him.
“Sure.”
