The click of the lock and the harsh creak of the window sliding up was the best sound that ever touched my ears. Well, besides the sound of Grace’s voice singing or the music that emerged from her fingers when she played.
I tumbled in, scanning the room to see if she was truly alone. My entire body relaxed when I found no one else. Then my gaze locked on her and I was gulping for fucking air.
The glow of the streetlights fell across her soft skin, making her look ethereal; spectral. My God, did she wear the warmth of that soft light like no other. Her black hair spilled over her creamy shoulders and her exquisite silver eyes shimmered wide into mine. A loose white sheet cascaded around her body, held up only by the hands she held clasped at her breasts. I wanted to devour her.
“You’re not dressed, are you? Is that your sheet?” I could feel my own breathy voice puff out of my mouth and I clenched my fists.
She tightened the hold on her sheets and her gaze slid away from mine to stare at the floor. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Those four words were all she spoke, yet her presence was overpowering my senses. I was aware of all of her. The smell of wildflowers, raw heat radiating from her body, her breath quickening and the pure desire surging through her body, enveloping me.
A tension beyond anything I’d ever felt coiled deep inside me and my body shook violently. I wanted to taste her, touch her; completely make her mine. I wanted to feel her heat seep right into my skin and kiss her perfect lips until they were raw.
When she slowly pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, I came undone. I stalked towards her, backing her up against the wall. Her body responded to mine, arching off the wall to touch me, answering greedily. I leaned both my hands on either side of her face against the wall, and watched her lips slowly part. Instinctively, her hands came up to my chest, but it wasn’t to push me away. I knew this because they slowly slid up and fisted my shirt and pulled me in, dropping the sheet from her grasp. She wore nothing but a tiny bra and panties and the feel of her skin so close to me made my mouth water.
“Shane, stop,” she whispered between throaty breaths. Yet, her body continued to press itself into mine with need.
Hovering my face over her skin, I breathed her in and gently let my forehead rest against hers. The touch was erotic, sensual and loving. Skin against skin, mouths open, savoring each other’s scent and feel.
I skimmed my fingertips slow and gently over her bare shoulders and down to her waist. She felt like warm silk shivering beneath me.
Brushing my lips across her cheek, I buried my face in her hair. A soft gasp fell from her lips and they tilted up towards mine.
“Grace, all I want to do is kiss you right now,” I whispered. I softly pushed her hair back and grazed my lips along her neck. I couldn’t help but slip my tongue out to taste her sweet warmth. Delicious. She pressed against me harder and moaned softly against my ear.
“Shane, please,” she whispered. I knew her mind was asking me to stop, but I knew every other part of her body was aching for me to continue. I felt it in her clenched fists holding me tight, her small whimpers, and her warm skin against mine.
“Just tell me why I got crazy thinking you were going home with Ethan? Tell me why I want to kill any man that looks at you? Grace, I don’t want to feel this way.” Pulling my head back, I locked my eyes on hers. I slowly slid my fingertips back to her waist, hooking one under the silky lace trim of her panties, tracing a circle on the skin hidden beneath.
She sighed softly. “So tempting,” she murmured barely above a whisper.
I searched her eyes and watched as tears pooled in the bottom of them. I wanted to wipe them away, but I watched as her features hardened again and I knew our moment was over, but I knew it wouldn’t be our last. I didn’t know what force stopped her from taking a chance on me, or what she was afraid of, but I would be spending the rest of my time here making her mine.
“Shane. Stop, you’re drunk, you’re soaking wet, and you are so cold you’re trembling.”
The room spun around me as if I was on an alcohol fueled merry-go-round. I stumbled to her bed and sat down, hanging my head in my hands. “I’m not trembling from the cold, Grace,” I whispered as she walked out her door. She left me alone for a few minutes with my own thoughts. They were dark and disturbing and I wanted to crawl out of this skin. There was no way that I could ever replace Selah in my heart, but I desperately longed to ease the pain of losing her. The wounds still felt fresh, even though she was taken from me lifetimes ago.
Grace came back into the room fully dressed, carrying an armful of clothing.
A sudden sweep of fear flushed through me. Did I just go too far? “Did you wake up Conner? Oh, God. Grace, did you call the cops?”
“Shane, you are a real ass sometimes,” she giggled and knelt down in front of me and lifted my wet shirt over my head. She struggled a bit with the wet material and I laughed. She gently touched a hand to my face and smoothed her knuckles along my jawline. Waves of heat spread through my body and I clutched at the sheets of her bed to keep me from throwing myself on her like an animal. “I have dry socks, boxers and pants for you too, but you need to dress yourself.” Again, she left the room and I changed out of the rest of my wet clothes quickly.
When she didn’t return, I walked down the hallway and into the living room in search of her. She stood in front of the couch that she had made into a bed for me, with her hands over her face, body shaking, silently sobbing. It killed me to think I did that to her. She was plainly hiding so much from me, and I ached for her to let me in.
She lifted her head and her body straightened immediately when she saw me, not wanting me to see her humanity or her moment of need. Shit, how damaged is this creature?
“What?” she asked me exasperated. “There’s no way you should be going home this intoxicated in the snow with no jacket on.” She seemed to be trying hard to act pissy. It wasn’t natural for her; Grace didn’t come with a bitch bone in her body. She was hiding things, from me I knew, but mostly from herself.
“I really screwed things up with our friendship, didn’t I? You’re standing here looking at me the way you look at Tucker.”
She laughed.
“Why are you laughing at me?” I asked moving closer to her.
“Shane, you can’t ruin a friendship, if you were only pretending to be my friend to get into my pants.”
That was so easy for her to believe. Such a human jealous, self-pitying emotion. And I loved her more for it. I took her wrist and led her back to her bedroom, and she let me, placing her other hand on my back, as if she needed to touch me. I stopped in front of the door to her room and faced her, lifting her wrist to my lips. Her body trembled and her breath caught.
Her eyes fell to her wrists with a fear in them, and I followed them down. A tattoo darkened the soft skin. “You have a tattoo?” My thumb lightly swept over her skin and my heart raced. What the hell? “It’s covering up a scar?” I grabbed her other wrist fumbling for it; she gave it to me easily. A horizontal jagged scar ran across both of her wrists. “Why would you do that?” I asked.
She pulled her hands back slowly to her chest. “You know, Shane, the people that walk around you every day? Each of them has a life separate from you. Pasts, pains, loves and losses. You don’t know me. I am a hell of a lot more than a fifteen-minute screw, and sadly, most of your other friends are too. You just don’t ever see that from between their legs,” she whispered.
You are so right, Grace. You are so much more to me. So right, and I’m going to prove that to you over and over again. “Goodnight, Grace,” I said walking back into the living room.
Chapter 8
The next morning, I woke up with my brain hammering against my head. It was late morning and I was alone in Grace’s living room underneath blankets that smelled of wildflowers and summertime.
My entire body was stiff, and certain parts could rival the hardness of a diamond as soon as thoughts of Grace wrappe
d in her sheet came to my mind.
The coffee pot in the kitchen was half full and still on. I figured Grace had already been up when I saw her favorite mug turned over in the sink. I walked through the apartment looking for her. Empty. Silent. I walked softly to her room and knocked on the semi-open door. No answer. I pushed the door open wide enough to stick my head in.
I struggled to swallow the huge-ass knot in my throat and sweat broke out all over my body. Grace lay across her bed curled into a ball on her side facing away from the door. Ebony strands of glossy hair spilled across her pillows. The hem of her black shirt had ridden up high on her ribcage showing off a line of dark scripted tattoo across her back. From where I stood, I couldn’t read the words. Without even thinking, I walked closer.
Latin, the ancient language scrolled deep under her skin. Nullum Desiderium, Deus solus me iudicare potest (No regrets, only God can judge me). What was this creature’s story? I held myself back from touching the black inked lines. Who the fuck was I kidding, I was holding myself back from licking them.
The waist of her pants hung low against her skin and the most exquisite curve of a hip peeked out and traveled tightly into the soft ivory skin of her waist. I stood over her and took in her features in rapt desire as she slept. I studied every inch of her face. The smoothness of her skin, the plump pink curves of her lips and the shape of her nose were pure perfection. Under her closed eyes, her skin was a pale pink and a thin tear streak stained her perfect cheek. She took my breath away.
Her hands were clenched around some papers, no doubt containing the reason for her tears. I didn’t look at them further, whatever was in them, whatever pain they caused was her story to tell. Not mine to take.
I couldn’t help but stay and watch her. Could you blame me? It was one of the only times I could really look at her without her biting my head off or giving me those sexy little smiles that she pretends she doesn’t make when she looks at me.
I may or may not have watched her for thirty minutes.
I only touched her shoulder to wake her when more tears spilled from her eyes and small whimpers passed through her lips. Whatever she was dreaming of that made her cry; I wanted to save her from.
“Grace? What’s wrong, are you sick?”
She shot up and wiped at her eyes, “I’m fine. How are you?” She turned her head away from me and brushed away her tears.
Crap. I needed to make her think of something else and not her crying in front of me. I raked my hands through my hair and figured I should just act like I didn’t remember shit from last night. Hopefully that would make her pissed off at me and get her mind off why she was crying. “What the hell did I do last night?”
That did it. She glared at me and laughed humorlessly. “That’s great, Shane. No, really. That’s perfect. Why don’t you go home now, okay? Goodbye,” she snapped. Her head turned away again and her hand reached to wipe another tear.
Okay, I need to be a bigger dick right now. “Grace, I know we didn’t…did we?”
Yeah. That stopped her from crying. She wasn’t sad anymore, now she was pissed off. Whatever she was upset about and hiding from me was not the problem anymore. Now my complete douche-ness was the problem. Maybe I didn’t think this through.
She jumped up, grabbing all the papers and shoving them into one of her drawers. Then she bolted out of her room. Shit, I went too far!
I ran after her, caught up to her in the kitchen and swung her around to face me. “What did I do? Why have you been crying?” I leaned my face into her so all she could see was me. The face off lasted about five full minutes. Her expression softened.
“You didn’t do anything, Shane. You called me last night. You thought I was with Ethan. I hung up on you and you climbed up the fire escape in the snow, with no coat on and banged on my window until I let you in. Now please, just leave.”
“No. I’m not leaving until I know I’m not the reason you’re crying.” I stopped talking and looked intensely into her eyes. “You were wearing a sheet? You…you got me dry clothes,” I said, pretending I was just remembering.
“No big deal, see?”
“No big deal? I leaned you up against a wall; I can still taste your skin on my mouth. I can still feel your body against mine.”
My God, did my heart almost stop when I saw the shy smile that she tried desperately to hide from her lips. Now, if I ask why she was crying, she’d tell me.
Gently, I took her wrists in both my hands and skimmed my thumbs against her scars. I could feel the pulse quicken from my touch. “Why were you crying this morning?”
“I received a letter in the mail today from the hospice where Jacob passed away. Inside was a letter that he had written for me before he died. It was just hard to read it.” She slowly dragged her hands from mine and let them limply fall in front of her.
I scooped them right back up, “Grace...”
Her eyes searched mine and she blew her cheeks out in a puff. The tears poured down her cheeks right after. I pulled her in and held her tight. Holding her until the tears stopped and she looked up at me, and smiled timidly, “I’m sorry, Shane. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m not used to all this emotional crap.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against hers. I loved feeling her skin on mine like that. I moved my head just enough to look into her eyes, and breathed her in softly, our lips almost touching. It took all my strength not to kiss her. I closed my eyes and stepped back finding my resolve. I almost lost it again when her body followed mine. Damn it, then why the hell does she fight against me all the time? I stepped forward. Damn this restraint, I needed my lips on hers.
Before I could close the space between us further, the damn doorbell rang. “Please don’t be sorry, Grace,” I said before I let her answer the door. “I am your friend and I’m here if you need to talk about anything or need a shoulder to cry on.”
“Thanks,” she whispered and spun around to answer the door.
I tore my hands through my hair. “Especially if that’s the only way I’ll ever get to hold you,” I whispered looking up to the ceiling. I leaned back heavily against the wall making a soft thud, causing the pain in my head to throb harder and sharper.
“Good afternoon. We’re detectives from the 19th precinct. We’re looking for a Grace Taylor,” a man’s voice sliced through my thoughts.
I ran to Grace’s side instantly.
Grace offered the detectives a tight smile, “I’m Grace Taylor. How may I help you?”
“Miss Taylor, may we come in? We need to speak to you about the incident with Carl Sumpton.”
Next to me, Grace’s body went rigid. Nodding her head, she directed them into the living room. “I’m sorry, Detectives, but I’m not sure who Carl Sumpton is, unless you are referring to the man who attacked me in Boozer’s late Wednesday night?”
I walked ahead of them and yanked the blankets and pillows I slept on the night before off the couch, so they could sit. Folding the blanket up, I piled it on top of the pillows on a small antique style table that stood in the hallway. In the kitchen, I made a fresh pot of coffee, grabbed four bottles of cold water from the refrigerator and walked back into the living room to offer the detectives some. “I made some coffee, if you’d like,” I said.
One of the Detectives, he said his name was Ramos, accepted the water, “Thank you. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” He twisted off the top of the bottle and sipped the water, waiting for me to reply.
I held out my hand to shake the Detective’s. “That’s because I never said it. I’m Shane Maxton.” I smiled at him and sat down next to Grace, placing a water bottle on the table in front of her. Without thinking, my hand slid to the small of her back, giving her the slightest touch of pressure. I wanted to nuzzle my face in her neck when she moved in closer to me. And I freaking would have if those damn detectives weren’t eyeing us like we just robbed a bank.
Ramos looked at me deadpan, “You’re the one who helped to stop the at
tack.”
Grace’s body stiffened under my fingertips. I kneaded small circles over her back and she slowly relaxed back into my touch. “Grace was doing a pretty good job of defending herself. I think she could have taken care of him all by herself if I hadn’t gotten there in time. But I’m confused, we already spoke with the arresting officers at the hospital that night. Has something changed?”
Ramos glanced at his partner. Then the older man nodded his head and Detective Ramos gave me a somber expression. “After Mr. Sumpton was arraigned, he was remanded and housed in Riker’s Island. We don’t know how it happened, but he was put in his cell at 1400 hours and at the evening head count after meal, he wasn’t accounted for.” He hesitated for a moment, letting the news sink in. “The cell was still locked when they went to feed him. No one understands how he escaped, since the cell hadn’t been opened since his arrival. Furthermore, when questioned, none of the other prisoners even remembered seeing him inside his cell.”
What the hell? They let that piece of shit escape?
“Like he just vanished?” Grace asked.
The hand I held on her tightened and she moved in even closer to me. The level of my anger was about to explode through the roof. If it wasn’t for my hand touching Grace, which in some weird way was calming to me, I know I would have punched the detective in the face. These fuckards let that guy get away, the guy that took Grace into a back room and tried to hurt her!
Detective Ramos gave Grace a tight smile. “No. Most likely, he found some way out with help from someone on the outside of the cell. He probably terrified the other prisoners so badly that they pretended to see nothing. He was a monster when they brought him in. They needed a few corrections officers to settle him down when he was left in his cell, but there’s an even more disturbing part,” he explained. He sighed and continued, “When we ran his name through our system, nothing came up. Investigating further, we found him to be an outstanding citizen until the last five months or so.”