My muscles tighten almost to the point of agony as those wonderful white sparks of light explode behind my eyes. Every nerve ignites, and before I even realize what I’m doing, I chant, “Now, now, now.”
First, the swell of Rhys’s shaft as he reaches his orgasm fills me, stretches me a moment before the flood of hot wetness follows. I ride the wave of my climax as I drop my head against the tiles, with Rhys still pumping his hips as he drains himself into me, my name a hoarse cry ripping from his throat.
We stay like that for a long while, with the water falling over us like rain. My legs ache, and when Rhys twitches inside me, I smile. “You’re incredible.”
“We’re good together.” Rhys is breathless, pulling himself out of me.
Okay, but why am I suddenly…empty? “That we are, baby.”
We wash again, quick this time. Then, get dressed, and after a bagel breakfast, I tell him I need to check on my grandmother. It’s been a few days, and I hate not seeing Gram that long.
“You say this like you expect me to protest.”
“With only four days together, I doubt you want to spend one of them at my grandmother’s house,” I tell him as I finish washing the dishes.
“Charlotte,” he drawls, “I don’t care if we shovel shit for the next four days, as long as we’re shoveling it together.”
Well, now. That’s about the sweetest thing a man has ever said to me.
“How about we not do that?” I suggest. “But she lives on St. Crowe Lake. We can have a picnic.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He dries the last dish and puts it away. “If this grandmother of yours is anything like you, she and I will get along well.”
I snort out a laugh. “Gram doesn’t like anyone. Her body may be brittle, but her mind is sharp as a tack. Her insults can cut a person to ribbons with a surgeon’s precision.”
Rhys slaps a hand to his heart and inclines his head. “I have been warned.”
Chapter Thirteen
“About time you came. I was getting worried, Muffin,” Millicent ‘Millie’ Benson remarks the second Rhys and I enter the house. She’s sitting up today, thank God, on the same old brown couch I slept on for most of my childhood. She stabs a bony finger at the cell phone on the snack tray crowded with medication bottles and a glass of water beside the couch. “You could have at least called.”
“Because you would have answered if I had?”
Frowning, she flutters a hand over the phone. “I don’t know how to use this fucking thing half the time. I think the damn thing is broken.”
“It’s notbroken.” I kiss her cheek. She’s scary-thin. I lay a hand on her forehead. “You feeling okay today? No fever?”
“Stop fussing.” Gram pushes my hand away. “I’ve never been better.” With her glasses hanging on a strap around her neck, she places them on her nose, shoving them way up. “Not here two minutes and fussing already.” She squints and blinks as she drags her critical glare over Rhys. “Who’d you bring with you, Muffin?” Then to Rhys, “You sure are a big one. Not from around here, are you?”
“No, he?—”
“Wasn’t talking to you,” Gram snaps at me.
“No, ma’am, I’m not,” Rhys answers.
Gram points to the old and faded floral chair. “Sit yourself down, boy.” Then she mutters, “Standing way over there, making me strain my eyes.” Louder, she says to me, “Charly, do me a favor. Get the two of you some lemonade. Nikki made some fresh this morning. She’s a nice girl, that one. Swear, she must be a saint the way she puts up with my cantankerous ass.”
Gram laughs at her own observation.
Rhys crosses the living room, and as I watch him go, I’m embarrassed how nothing has changed in this house since I lived here. All Gram has allowed me to do is repair damage as the shack deteriorated over the years. God knows I wanted to either move her out or redo the entire place, but Millie Benson is stubborn as hell. It’s almost as if she’s preserving this tiny corner of the world, leaving it exactly as her daughter lived in it. Which I understand, but also, it’s been tragically unhealthy for her to have festered in her grief and sorrow all these years, and no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t pull her out.
“Who are you, boy? Where are you from? What are your intentions with my granddaughter? Swear to God, if you hurt her, I’ll beat you half to death, see if I don’t.”
Well, she’s still feisty. I’ll give her that much.
Once upon a time, Millie was an active woman. She was a star athlete in high school. Even set a record for the fastest female in Wayne County,andshe still holds the title to this day. Nothing stopped her or slowed her down—except the hit-and-run that killed her daughter and son-in-law.
It wasn’t her fault someone ran a stop sign, clipping the tail of my parent’s car. It sent them into a spin, ending when their car slammed into a tree, killing them on impact. It was a Friday, and they were on their way to get me from school. Gram surprised us with tickets to a Broadway musical (I don’t even remember which one). Instead, a speeding driver took everything from us in the blink of an eye.
