Page 301 of Off Limits: The Firsts

I broke one of my rules.

Shit.

I’m here when I should be at work. I’m wrapped in the scent of him when I should be in my flight suit and focused on this afternoon’s clients. Instead, I want to nestle back into this softness and remember every delicious thing he did to me last night.

No.

Get up.

I shouldn’t do this. I don’t get to throw my rules out the window for one man. One hotter than hell and more than skilled man named Grant Malone, but a man nonetheless.

I make myself sit up in his bed, the comforter held beneath my armpits to cover my nakedness, and take a look around. The room is classic and clean, light walls with dark gray and blue accents. Very male, but not in the bachelor monochromatic way. It’s tidy and there aren’t any clothes strewn about. He even took the time to fold my clothes on the chair in the far corner.

The walls hold a few black-and-white photographs of the ocean and cliffs—stoic, powerful, and moving. There are very few personal effects in his bedroom, but it’s cozy and inviting.

Determined not to want to know more, I force myself from the bed. My debate whether to take a shower is short lived. One, it isn’t my bathroom and that might be a little awkward just making myself at home. And two, I can still smell his cologne on my skin and I’m not certain I want to wash him away just yet.

If per my rules, I only get one night with Grant Malone, I ridiculously want to make it last a little longer. So, instead of thinking too much about how this is so unlike me, I force myself to get dressed in last night’s jean shorts, tank top, and unbuttoned overshirt.

It’s just when I finish making the bed—because as messy as I am, there’s no way I can leave an unmade bed for Mr. Nice and Tidy—that I hear voices.

At first, I think maybe they are from next door and Grant left a window open, but after a few more seconds, I know for certain there are at least two other men in Grant’s house.

“Dude, check it out,” the first voice says. It’s followed by a low hum of a chuckle.

“Looks like someone got lucky last night.” There’s a low whistle.

“Well, it looks like whoever it was, didn’t want this nice setup of coffee he left for her. So, I don’t mind if I do.”

Coffee? Did he just say coffee? My ears perk up and my mouth waters at the thought of it. Did Grant really leave me a coffee cup and all the fixings? There is a God.

I just need to figure out how to walk out of this bedroom, surprise whoever the two guys are in the family room, and retain my dignity. But, then again, there is no dignity lost considering we were two consenting adults. Plus, who cares what they think?

My shoes. I don’t have my sandals. They are most likely in the living room where I kicked them off last night. I look around Grant’s spotless bedroom and change my mind. They are probably sitting side by side by the front door.

“Hey, Grady,” the one voice says to the other.

It’s the same time the voice says those two words that I know who is on the other side of the wall. It may have been a long time, but I would know that voice anywhere. Grant’s brothers, Grayson and Grady, are in the other room.

“Shoes.”

Crap. They noticed them.

Cue the panic. And not the run-of-the-mill, walk of shame type of panic, either. More like these men used to run around in their underwear with me in their sprinklers when we were little. We share a history of getting sticky from eating Big Stick popsicles that we bought from the ice cream man.

I snicker at the thought of Big Sticks and how that has a whole different connotation now.

Should I just stay here and wait them out instead of face them? But then what? They walk in here, find me, and I end up looking like a damn heel?

The longer I stand here and listen to the two of them bicker like kids, the worse my nerves hum with the thought of what they’re going to think when they see me—little Emmy who suddenly up and disappeared years ago. That’s the kind of attention I don’t want or like.

So I react.

With a glance in the bathroom mirror, I grab some lipstick from my purse, do a quick fluff of my hair so I don’t look like a complete disaster, and then suck in my breath. When I’m fairly certain I don’t look like a hot mess anymore, I waltz out of the bedroom with my head held high and a smile on my face.

“I knew he was hiding something when I called him this morning. The son of a bitch.”

“Hey, that’s mom you’re talking about,” the other says.