That’s what makes it different, though. Grant isn’t someone I met randomly during a work shift. He’s an embodiment of my happiest days in undergrad, and my most disappointing, too. He’s been rooted in my mind long before I reluctantly agreed toour deal. I’ve seen the way he’s changed, how he’s still the same person I was infatuated with comms class, and I’ve uncovered a deeper side of his life, too.
It was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that my heart never really let Grant go. It was easy to fall for him all over again.
I want to be the person in his corner, supporting him, like he is with me. Whether that be as his partner, his friend, or something in between. The answer was always going to be yes.
“So?” Grant shuts the laptop and moves it off his bed, onto the nightstand.
“Still not better than the original.”
“You’re full of shit.” He grabs onto my waist and shifts us, rolling on top of me while I laugh playfully. “You’re just saying that to spite me.”
“I am.”
I’m not. The movie was fine, but not nearly as good as Patrick Dempsey driving off into the sunset on a lawn mower.
Neither movie comes close to seeing Grant’s dimples appear.
“You like teasing me too much.”
“I do.”
At the core of our relationship, before we started ripping our clothes off and stealing kisses over coffee tables, we’re friends. Grant is one of my best friends. It’s a bonus that he’s also become my boyfriend.
“I think you like when I tease you, too.” His voice drops into a sultry tone. My body responds instantly. Thighs rubbing together when he smirks and leans his mouth to my ear. “Do you like when I tease you, baby?”
Baby.
Grant has learned more about my body than I have in my entire life. My likes and dislikes, the way I twitch when hetouches a certain spot. He never forgets, tracing my body into ecstasy every time we get lost in his apartment.
He’s taken note of how his nicknames affect me, too. My breath catches when he blows into the sensitive space of my neck.
Grant’s hand runs up the side of my leg, bunching the ruffled fabric of my dress around my waist. His lips kiss the exposed skin of my neck and my head goes back in a moan.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.” My voice is airy when I answer. “I love it when you tease me.”
The thin strap of my dress falls off my shoulder, and Grant kisses that spot, too.
“How do you want me to tease you tonight?” A thumb circles my temple. I’ve learned that’s his signal telling me he wants to see my eyes. His gemstone green stares back, intense and focused. “My fingers? My mouth?” He breathes out and quiets like he can’t believe his own words. “Or do you want me to tease you with my cock?”
Everything stills. My heartbeat, the air around us, his fingers caressing the back of my head. It’s the first time Grant has ever tried to initiate something that would directly involve his pleasure, ormetouchinghim.
Usually, before I can do anything to pleasure him, he stops me. I never push or pressure, but when he tucks himself into my side and dozes off at night, I stay up wondering why he won’t let me touch him the way I want to.
I’ve been waiting so long to dissect his hesitance, that I’d almost resigned to never knowing. It’s painfully poetic, considering how I went from despising Grant to desperate for the most intimate parts of him. Things considered, not much is different between those days and this one. Except for a label.
My hand rests on his cheek and he kisses my palm. “Is that why you wanted to wait? You wanted me to be your girlfriend first?”
I have no problem with that. Lots of people want confirmed commitment before sex. Grant feeling that way wouldn’t change how I perceive him.
He shakes his head, though. “It wasn’t that. Trust me, even during our first night together, I wanted it so fucking bad. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.
“But how I feel about you and what I want to give you is more than physical. I want to do right by you, always. And we already started this entire thing on the wrong foot, because I left us there. I needed to make sure I deserved to have you that way.”
Grant’s eyes never leave mine throughout his monologue. They shine a certain shade of green under the dim light of his bedroom, only illuminated by the lamps on his nightstands. They’re softer, vulnerable, like at the dining room table.
“I wanted to right my wrongs first.” He pecks a kiss on my lips sweetly. “Helping you finish your story was my first priority.”
