Secrets, Lies, and Summer Skies

Chapter Thirty-One

"Didn't you say your place was being rented?" I asked as Grayson rounded the car. "What are we doing here?"

Grayson's hand closed around mine and he pulled me towards the door. "It was. They left a week ago."

My apprehension at entering the house abated, as did a small bubble of anger which I was surprised to feel swelling in my chest. At first, I'd feared that he'd lied to me about the house being occupied at the start of summer. The only reason I could think for him to do something like that was if he'd tried to manipulate the situation to stay in Dad's house while I was home. Grayson wouldn't have stood to gain anything from doing so at the time. Unless he thought that he could use our forced proximity to seduce me.

Given his reluctance to cross that line, it was ridiculous to think it'd been his plan all along.

Still, I didn't understand why he hadn't just told me that the tenants at his place had left. It wasn't like it would change anything between us. We were so far across the line of morality that it was barely a speck in the distance. Maybe he'd been afraid that I'd have ordered him to go home. As if. I could barely stand to be apart from him. There was no way I wanted to send him packing. Especially not when we had such precious little time before Dad returned and things would inevitably change in our situation.

Grayson punched in a code on the high-tech smart lock before the door beeped and gave way. He leaned back against it with a wicked smile on his face, took both my hands and pulled me into the hall. The door hadn't settled back in its frame before Grayson kissed me hungrily and pressed me against the wall. My purse dropped from my grasp and hit the ground, the contents spilling out across the floor where they'd remain ignored and unwanted until morning.

There was no escaping the cage his body formed around mine, especially not when he gripped my thighs and lifted me off my feet. I wrapped my legs around his waist, the dress riding up to pool between us, a flimsy barrier which would do nothing to protect me when Grayson took what was rightfully his.

A groan rumbled from the back of his throat. It was raw desire, and it drove him to tear his mouth from mine and rake his teeth against my jaw. The weight of his body against mine almost crushed the air from my lungs. His hard pectorals were as immovable and resolute as marble. Grayson tugged the wide shoulder strap down and lashed his tongue against my exposed skin. I rolled my hips, wordlessly begging Grayson to give me what I'd wanted all evening. To him, the foreplay had just begun. As far as I was concerned, I'd been ready for hours, and every minute that he wasn't inside me was a torment.

"Not here." Grayson jerked me away from the wall and I wrapped my arms around his neck. Once more, his mouth crashed against mine. When we parted, my lips pulsed hot and wet with the lingering sensation of his possessive kiss. "I'm taking you exactly where you belong. Upstairs. In my bed. Where I should've fucking taken you before you left for college."

As much as I trusted Grayson to carry me safely through his expansive, sleek modern home, I wasn't too sure of the stairs. That said, they were deeper and wider than the ones at home, and far less likely to cause an accident. Still, I held a little tighter around Grayson's neck and my legs tensed until we were safely in the upstairs corridor.

Grayson's home was far grander than Dad's, both outside and in. The upstairs hall was in a T-shape, with several doors to the right and left of us, but only one straight ahead. It was to this door that Grayson carried me. It had been left ajar and opened with a well-placed shove from his foot. I was reminded of our night in the hotel. It was the grandeur of the place. The sheer expanse of the room felt all the larger for the floor-to-ceiling windows which gave a perfect, unhindered view out across his yard.

But I couldn't help but notice how cold the room felt. How empty. I didn't know what to expect, but it felt more like a hotel than somewhere he went to for refuge. I knew that he worked late and travelled a lot, so I supposed that he didn't spend as much time at home as I did. It just didn't feel lived-in. It lacked warmth. A homely atmosphere. It almost made me pity him. Most people would kill for such an impressive house that looked like it'd been taken right out of the pages of a glossy interior design magazine, but it didn't suit him.