Page 25 of For Love & Torture
Chapter 13
Isabel
Grant sits silently in the passenger seat of the new canary-yellow Ferrari the club gave to me. He just dropped off his younger brother’s car back at his house, and now I’m taking him home.
I have so many things I want to ask him, but I know better than to say a word. It’s been a month since we put all that shit behind us. We’ve worked extremely well together since we took sex and BDSM off the table and have only dealt with one another on a working basis.
Do I still have strong feelings for the man? The answer to that would be hell yes I do. I love the shit out of him. But I know I’ll never have his love in return. I know he’s incapable of giving his heart away. I accept him the way he is and I’m happy I get to be anything to him. I get to be there for him, whether he thinks he needs me to be or not.
He’s leaning his head on the head rest, his eyes closed. Even as aggravated as he is, he still takes my breath away.
We ride in silence to his place. A quaint little place he calls it. But it’s far from being little or quaint. Twelve thousand square feet give the man every room imaginable. Some of that footage is taken up by a full size, heated, indoor swimming pool. Grecian tile makes it look like something out of a five-star hotel.
Grant Jamison isn’t the kind of man to show off. He never talks about what he has or brags about how grand a style he lives in, but he does live better than most.
I pull into the long drive that leads up to his home, which sits on top of a hill on ten acres. His groundskeeper keeps the place looking immaculate at all times. Lush green grass covers all of those rolling acres. Tall pine trees line the back of the property while oaks and ash trees dot the rest of the place.
Despite its enormous size, the place comes off on the homey side. At least it could with a few feminine touches here and there. Not that Grant would ever allow that.
No, that would be letting someone get close to him. And now that I’ve met his brother and heard a bit about their past, I can see Grant doesn’t let anyone close to him. Not even his own family.
That may sound daunting to some. Like he’s a lost cause. But my heart tells me to keep on keeping on with the man I’ve grown to love. I can never abandon him completely, even if he’ll only ever let me be his friend.
Patience will be required with him, I can see that now.
As I stop at the front entrance, his eyes spring open. The dark blue orbs shimmer as he takes in our surroundings, then he rubs them with the back of his hand. “Here already? That was fast.”
“It was about half an hour.” I give him a smile. “Night then. I’ll see you tomorrow evening at the club.”
But he doesn’t get out of the car. Instead, he lays his head back and gazes at me. “Thanks, Bell.”
With a nod, I know he’s thanking me more for keeping my questions to myself than for the ride I just gave him. “You’re welcome.”
He glances at the time on the clock on the dashboard. “It’s five in the morning.”
“Yes, it is.”
His eyes meet mine once more. “Come inside. There’s no reason you should have to drive to your place. It’ll be another half hour before you get to climb into bed if you do that. And the room you’ve slept in when you’ve stayed over is still there. Right inside that door. What do you say? Wanna stay with me?”
Forever.
But I shake my head. “I’ll be okay. I don’t want to get in your way. Good night, Grant.”
“You don’t want to stay with me. I get it. I just thought that since we put the other stuff behind us, you might feel comfortable with me again. Not that I deserve that. ” His eyes drop, and I catch him looking at the ring on my finger. The one he gave me the first night the club opened.
“It’s not that…”
Before I can say anything else, he’s looking at me again. “It’s because we’re not going to have sex anymore, isn’t it? It’s because you want more out of me than I can give, isn’t it?”
I hold my jaw tightly as I think about what I should say to him. It is because of those things, but I don’t want to say that out loud for some reason. Like it might hurt him, and that’s the absolute last thing I want to do to him.
He hasn’t spoken this way to me since that night. And I honestly don’t feel comfortable with him doing it now. So trying to stay in professional mode, I change my tune, “You know what? I will stay.” I put the car in park and get out. “It’s dangerous for me to be driving this damn tired anyway. Thanks for inviting me.”
He climbs out of the low vehicle that most men as tall as him would have trouble getting in and out of, but he makes it look easy. Gliding out of the car, he comes to me as I walk around it. His hand touches the small of my back. “Good girl.”
My heart clenches in my chest as he talks to me that way. All I want is to be his girl. That’s really all I want. No one would be as good for him as I would.
Damn his tormented mind.
