Page 24 of Unbound Boxset

Grant nodded. “I know. I guess she’s going to have to get over it and so will the other students. I’m done hiding you.”

Her heart bloomed in full expansion and made a mockery out of the Grinch. Her skin felt suddenly too tight for her body. He pretended to be casual. She knew differently. She knew it took everything Grant had to trust her and their relationship, to let the truth out. Ariel realized she had to tell him her own truth. Tonight. She had to tell him she was leaving.

Ariel closed the distance between them with a leap, and then she was in his arms. He murmured low and caught her hard as she launched herself through the air. She stabbed all ten fingers into his long hair and pulled his mouth down on hers. His arms snagged around her waist and held her tight as her tongue thrust between his lips and she took him on a wild ride, her fingers pushing up his shirt to caress all those carved muscles in his chest, his arms, his back. She squeezed his buttocks and with one hard tug, his pants came down with his underwear, exposing his arousal to her hungry hands and traveling fingers.

He managed to do the same to her in a few seconds and then they were both naked. He quickly donned a condom. “No dinner?” he gasped, lifting her up so his cock pressed against her wet opening.

“Screw dinner.”

His mouth came down and laved her breasts, pulled her nipple between his teeth and sucked. She groaned and urged him to go faster, wanting him to lose the fragile thread of his control when he loved her, wanting him to stop holding back. Ariel grasped him between her fingers and worked him up and down, sliding her thumb over his sensitive tip, guiding his length between her thighs.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, thrusting her hips upward, ready to claim him and both explode over the edge.

“You want this?” he asked, his cock moving into her, sliding inch by precious inch.

Ariel punished him with her fingernails and her teeth. She bit his earlobe, raked the skin over his back, and urged him to come inside her. She wanted, no, needed, him to surrender to her tonight.

“If you want it, tell me. Tell me everything.” His voice was a low growl as he massaged her breasts and teased her clit with the hot flesh of his arousal, getting her so close yet not close enough.

“Put your cock inside me!” she demanded, opening her legs wider, her back pressed against the hard wall, willing him to do it, just do it.

“Not until you come for me. Come. Now.”

He grasped her hips, positioned her, and slammed his cock into her wet opening.

Ariel came hard in a rush of wetness, her voice tearing on a scream that cut through the studio. But he wasn’t done, he thrust in and out of her, again and again, lifting her up until the second orgasm ripped through her. She collapsed against the wall, falling against his hot, damp skin, his erection still pulsing inside of her with hot demand. She groaned and admitted defeat again. He still refused to come inside of her. Not unless it was on his terms.

The thought worried at her like a mouse with a piece of string, but he was easing back and forth over her sensitive clit, slowly, so slowly she didn’t even realize he was moving until the tension built again in delicious intervals, the friction of his cock against the swollen nub so outrageously pleasurable, tears burned her eyes. She fought the fall, not wanting to have another orgasm, and she cursed him, but he just laughed and held her still, working himself inside of her again and again until she came, her flesh pulsing almost painfully from the release.

This time he let her slide down to the floor, still inside of her. Only then did the full emotions hit like a hurtling freight train, and tears leaked from her lids as she surrendered to the final collapse of all of her clever ideas of love and distance and realized Grant Madison had changed her life and she would never be the same.

* * *

Grant held her close, stroking back silky strands of her hair from her face as she cried. The tears dropped slowly on his bare chest and a piece of him broke loose inside of him. Her vulnerability and openness tore him apart. It reminded him of the night they spent together a few days ago. The pain and doubt in her face had torn him apart. He’d shown her a way to heal, but he’d never been with a woman so open and committed to the process. Not even his wife had been able to join him that intimately, knee to knee, breath to breath, heart to heart. The experience hadn’t just brought them closer, it had ripped apart barriers and left him raw and exposed.

Grant figured he’d have plenty of time to work it out. But now, he realized she needed to tell him something, something he wasn’t going to want to hear. Tension gripped him like a vise. He breathed slowly. “Tell me what’s wrong, Ariel.”

“The promotion.” She paused. “I have to leave. I have to move to Chicago by the end of the month.”

The breath whooshed back out of his chest and he sought to find a grip as he sorted through the complications. “Okay. For how long?”

“If I succeed? Probably permanently. If I fail? They’ll give me two years to make a go of it.”

He battled his sudden weakness to beg her to stay. Grant reached down deep and vowed he’d never ask her to give up the promotion for him. This was her dream, as the creation of his school was his. He understood the passion of loving what he did, the pull of the work as a constant tease to his consciousness, the satisfaction of completing a day with students. He fell into bed at night and felt full in a way that had nothing to do with food. Ariel was a talented woman who was going to make partner. She’d run the Chicago office and make a name for herself, far away from her Iowa origins. He loved her even more for it, understood her like he had no other woman. In that moment, he decided to let her go.

And never tell her about his true feelings.

His tone contradicted his slowly crumbling heart. “Then we have a month together and we won’t lose a moment.”

Ariel stiffened beneath him. Her words were hesitant. “Do you want to do the long-distance thing? Grant, I can’t imagine walking away from you. I⁠—”

He stopped her by smothering his mouth over hers. If she said the words he wanted to hear, he’d fall apart. She would stay, and they’d never know what she could have been. Her lips softened, became pliant beneath his until she quieted. “I don’t want to lose you, either. But you’re moving because this promotion is what you’ve been waiting for. I’m so damn proud of you, Ariel. You go to Chicago and kick some ass. But I think we need a clean break. You don’t need the distractions of a long-distance relationship, and I don’t know if I can handle it.”

The ravaged hurt on her face almost made him take the words back. Almost. Grant knew it was the only path for them, and words of love would only tear them apart and make things harder.

Slowly, he lifted her up and they got dressed. “It’s getting late. Let me take you to dinner and we’ll talk more.”

They drank wine in the candlelight of the expensive French restaurant. He tried to enjoy the crisp white linens, the rich sauces and delicate fish. They toasted to her success and talked. But not about the promotion or the unspoken questions they both wanted to ask.

And didn’t.