“Whatever’s bothering you,” she said, reaching up to cup my cheek, “it’ll work out. It always does.”
Her touch lingered, light but grounding. And for the first time that day, the pressure I’d been carrying eased.
When we finished the last round, I walked her back to the counter and told Hill to box up the Sig.
“That one's yours,” I said. “Take it home. You don’t leave the house without this.”
She looked at me. “I have Malice.”
“Malice is a good shot. But what if something happens to Malice? That means something happ…”
“Lesley.” She shifted her weight, arms crossing. “I'm not a gun person.”
“You just put eight out of ten in the chest cavity of a paper target on your first time through. You're a gun person. You just didn't know it yet.”
She opened her mouth, and I raised an eyebrow. She closed it.
Hill set the case on the counter without a word. She looked at it, then at me, then picked it up.
“I want it on record that I’m protesting this.”
“Noted.”
She tucked the case under her arm and turned toward the exit, and I watched her move—that was the problem. I had spent the last hour with my hands on her, correcting her grip, adjusting her stance, her back against my chest, and my body hadn't forgotten a second of it.
I was fighting every filthy thought I had. The way she’d pressed into me when I corrected her stance, I wanted to drag her right back against me, bend her over this lane, and show her what real aim looked like. Her soft hands gripping steel made me imagine them gripping my dick instead, trembling, begging. I was tripping.
I clenched my jaw, leaned into her palm just enough to let her know I felt it. Because that's what she did to me, made me want to blur every line. Often.
“One day, Mr. Grimson,” she chuckled, eyes still daring me to cross it.
I exhaled slowly. “One day, Mrs. Grimson,” I echoed.
She slipped her hand into mine as we headed for the exit, casually flipping my whole world upside down.
“I need food since you infiltrated my plans,” she said once we hit the parking lot. “Korean? I want some kimchi.”
I smirked, unlocking the car. “Done. No kimchi, though.”
Her laugh followed us into the night, and for the first time that day, the edge I’d been carrying loosened.
The Aldridge was the kind of hotel that made you stand up straighter just walking through the lobby. Marble floors, vaulted ceilings, chandeliers that caught the afternoon light and threw it across everything in pieces. I’d worked this ballroom three times before, and I still felt it every time the double doors opened.
“Girl, this is giving everything,” Iesha said, turning in a slow circle in the center of the room. She filled the whole room with it. “Kim, you see this ceiling?’
Kim was already on her phone, camera up. “Coco Con deserves nothing less. This is it. This is the one.”
I smiled, clicking my pen against my iPad to take notes as they rattled off the number of guests they were expecting at Southern Hearts and Signed Kisses Book Event. This year, the vibe was Coco, melanin, black romance. All the things. So thebrown room of the Aldridge rightfully made sense. I smiled, I was so good at what I do.
My phone buzzed against the tablet with a text from Lesley, who was in Memphis right now on business.
Mr. Grim: I like your hair down.
I smiled as I caught my reflection in the window. I had on my black-and-white polka-dot top, tied in a neat bow at my neck, wide-leg trousers, and my red bottoms. My hair was down, big and full, the way I wore it when I wanted to feel like myself. I’d been looking forward to this walkthrough all week.
Me: Thanks for noticing.
“This event grows every year. How many guests can it hold?”
