Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Surprisingly, she does and grabs my arm. “Stop.”
I turn to face her so fast she takes a step back. “What the hell was that?” she demands.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You are, Grizz.” Her voice cracks with emotion, frustration or fear or something that stabs at me in ways I don’t want. “You were angry. Jealous. You stormed out like—”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
“Grizz.”
I look away. “You were hanging all over him.”
A smile graces her lips, eyes soft with understanding, and she lets me have that ludicrous accusation. “I was not hanging all over him.”
“He had his hands all over you,” I mutter. Or is that a pout? Jesus Christ.
“He put his hand on my back because someone bumped me! He’s my best friend! He’s like Tanner is to you.”
“Yeah,” I snap. “Well, Tanner doesn’t touch me that way.”
“You do shower with him after games,” she quips, eyes twinkling.
I almost crack a smile, because she’s right. But I don’t. I’m still pissed and plaster that scowl on my face even harder.
She exhales, leveling a chastising look. “Why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
She steps closer. “Grizz… we’re not exclusive. You said this was casual.”
I look at her then and something burns hot in the center of my chest. “I know that,” I say. “I know we’re not.”
She waits. She knows there’s more to say.
“But we’re exclusive now,” I proclaim, chest puffing out a bit.
Her breath catches, eyes rounding with surprise. “You can’t just declare that,” she snaps. “Just because you don’t like that my best friend is a dude, you can’t just change the nature of our relationship.”
“Yes,” I say, stepping closer, “I can.”
“And what does that even mean to you?” she asks, eyes searching mine. “Exclusive how? Exclusive why?”
“Because I don’t want anyone else touching you. I don’t want anyone else making you laugh like that. I don’t want your hands on someone else’s jacket, or someone else’s hands on your back, or—”
“Grizz—”
“I want your hands only on me.”
Silence drops between us and Daisy swallows. “So, you’re saying… you want us to be exclusive for sex.”
The defensive part of me wants to agree. The honest part refuses. “No,” I say quietly. “Not just sex.”
Her eyes soften, like she doesn’t trust what she’s seeing.
I drag a breath through my nose. “I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I know I don’t want to share you.”
She takes one step forward. Then another.
“So,” she whispers, “exclusive?”
“Exclusive… for everything,” I answer.
She exhales. Then she grabs my jacket and pulls me down into her mouth.
The kiss is nothing like the others in the past. It’s hotter and rawer. Her mouth opens under mine, desperate and relieved and hungry, and I grip her hips hard enough that she gasps.
I walk her backward until she hits the wall of the restaurant’s brick alleyway. I cage her in with my body and she fists my shirt. I bite her bottom lip and she moans into my mouth like she can’t hold it back. Her leg lifts around my waist and I catch it instinctively, pressing closer, swallowing the small sound she makes as our bodies lock together.
There’s no plan or control left anywhere.
Daisy breaks the kiss only when we both need air. Our foreheads rest together, breaths tangled, hearts slamming in unison.
Her voice is barely a whisper. “Grizz…”
“Don’t say anything,” I murmur, brushing my lips against hers again. “Just… stay with me.”
She nods once, a small, shaking motion.
And we kiss again, deeper and more passionate, in the brisk alley behind Onyx, wanting each other like it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.
Chapter 19
Daisy
I’ve been replaying the conversation with Grizz in my head for twenty-four hours straight. It loops the way a song does when you’re not ready to let go of it, the refrain hitting harder each time, its words inescapable.
It wasn’t even a long conversation. Just a handful of sentences, really.
After we made out behind Onyx—after he kissed me in a way that was far more than casual—we separated long enough for oxygen to re-enter the universe. And that’s when he said it, so casually it almost felt accidental. “I’m taking you out tomorrow on a date.”
Not Would you like to go out with me? Or Maybe we should have dinner sometime. Not even the classic Grizz version of affection, which would resemble I’m hungry. You’re coming with me.
He said, “I’m taking you out on a date.”
A statement, but not a command. Like he’d already made the choice and was giving me the luxury of pretending I had one too.
I managed to ask, “Date… a real date?”
He shrugged, which is Grizz-speak for Yes, but if I say yes out loud, I’ll burst into flames. Then he added, “Don’t make it weird.”
Which, of course, made it unbelievably weird.
But underneath the deflection, the shrug, the boyish scowl he tried to hide behind, I could feel the thing I’d been wondering since we first slept together: He cares. He won’t say it, but if he didn’t, it’s hard to believe he would want to go on an actual date.