“I don’t mingle well with others.”
“Yeah, I know. Pretend you do.” Rolling my eyes, I grabbed his hand and tugged all two-hundred-sixty pounds of him back into party central.
That was where we stayed for the next hour, sipping our waters and smiling in the right places and laughing in others. Grant’s arm never left its post around me.
I’d been on my feet a while, in killer heels no less, and my mind was reeling from all of the introductions and conversations with dozens of people I’d either just met tonight or had just met this past season. It was overwhelming, and I knew I was hedging my bets the longer I stayed. My HD always got worse when I was tired or stressed.
So far, Grant and I had been able to keep my HD from the media. We didn’t go out much to places where people would expect a person like Grant Turner, reserving our dates for home or somewhere unexpected. It wasn’t that I felt ashamed of my disease, but I just wasn’t ready for the whole world to know. I was still struggling to get used to having a camera stuffed in my face when I was alone at the grocery store and some random fan recognized me—I wasn’t ready for all that came with being “that famous football star’s girlfriend who has Huntington’s.” I really wasn’t ready for what everyone would realize next, turning their attention and speculations on Charlie.
While she knew HD was a genetic disease I’d inherited and she may have also inherited, she didn’t give it much thought. She was more concerned with her dad’s number of receptions than the probability of her one day winding up wheelchair bound.
I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. That was my main reason for keeping my HD a secret from the public. But from the way I could feel my mind starting to scramble, the phantom jerks already rocking my body, I knew I’d waited too long to go in search of some private room.
Grant was in the middle of a conversation with one of his coaches when he leaned over to me. “What’s the matter?”
My hand twitching in his answered his question.
“Excuse me for a minute, Coach.” Grant clapped his hand on his coach’s shoulder. “But this party’s dying a little early. Time to liven it up.”
Saying nothing else, he steered me through the crowd, stopping by the DJ’s table and leaning over to say something to him. The DJ bobbed his head and flashed him an okay sign.
“What are you doing?” I finally got out, the words sticking in my mind for a minute before I could say them.
Grant pulled a dining chair from one of the tables and dragged it to the middle of a large, open space. Then he turned me around, so I was standing in front of it. “Taking the attention off of you,” he said, mischief brimming in his eyes. “Sit.”
The only reason I did was because I wasn’t sure if I should keep standing with the way my foot was trembling out of control. “You’re taking the attention off of me by sitting me in the one chair in the middle of a room filled with people?”
Grant curled my hands around the bottom of the chair. “That’s the plan,” he said, right as a different kind of beat throbbed through the room. A beat that had been created for one thing.
“Don’t tell me your grand idea is to—”
“Not planning on telling you. I’m going to show you instead.” Grant jacked his brows at me as he slid out of his tux jacket.
People started to cluster in around us as that beat kept rolling through the room. Then he gave his bowtie a tug, undoing the top collar button as he stepped one leg over me. And then the other, looking down at me with a hot-as-hell glint in his eyes, despite realizing the entire room was now staring at us.
“Really, Grant Turner? Your big plan is an impromptu lap dance?”
His head barely shook as his hips slowly started to catch the beat. “I’m taking the focus off of your Grass.”
I blinked at him. “With a lap dance.”
“Whatever it takes, baby. Now just sit back and enjoy it.” He gave me a crooked smile as his finger played with the next button on his shirt.
Hoots started coming from the women in the room.
“So what?” I tried keeping my eyes on his as he thrust above me, pulling another button free. “No one will notice my spastic shaking because you’re grinding all up in my business?”
The sexy smolder notched up another degree. “Have you seen my grind?” His hands slapped down on his thighs as he gave a particularly enthusiastic thrust. More whoops came from the women and men in the room as money started raining down around us. “My hips are damn practically double-jointed.”
I tried fighting the smile, goddamn I tried, but it was impossible. Not a person in the room was paying attention to the woman sitting in the chair, her head and hands twitching every few seconds. No, everyone was focused on the giant MVP grinding like he was auditioning for some sad spin-off of Magic Mike.
“Great. So instead of Grass, they’ll just label me some kind of attention-seeking pervert.” My eyebrow lifted at him as he gave his ass an impressive shake. More dollar bills rained down.
His chin lifted. “It’s about time everyone knew what’s up.” Then he gave his shirt a yank, sending the rest of his buttons flying into the air.
Okay, so now the noise in the room was comparable to the noise in the arena on Sunday.
“You’re insane, Grant Turner.” I dropped my head over the back of the chair, so I could smile up at him, forgetting about everyone else and enjoying this moment. This crazy, surprising moment I’d never forget.
“It’s Jack,” he said, sliding out of his dress shirt, one arm at a time. “Jack Hammer.” His hips pitched into me hard enough to send the chair screeching backward a few inches. “And I hope you’re packing a wad of singles in that sexy-ass dress of yours because this ain’t for free.”
When he threw his shirt over his shoulder, there was a stampede of stilettos to get to it.
“Fresh out of singles.” I trembled when his hands gripped the headrest behind me, his solid forearms running along the sides of my face, caging me in. “Spent those all last night. But I’ll figure out some way to pay you back.”
His brow arched. “You always do.”
The last few tremors jerked through my body, totally unnoticed in a room full of people looking in my direction.
Grant hadn’t just saved me from the big, bad things of the world—he’d saved me from the little ones too.
Leaning up, I kissed him softly. “I love you, you crazy, beautiful man.”
He kissed me again, his eyes softening. “I love you, you crazy, beautiful woman.”
THE PARTY CONTINUED late into the night, and I think we were both surprised by how much we enjoyed ourselves. Several of the players on Grant’s team had come from similar backgrounds to ours, and a couple were married to their first loves from back then. The coaches were a little gruff and couldn’t seem to turn their mind off from the game, but they were good guys who I knew had Grant’s best interest in mind, which rated them high in my book.
The owners might have been another story, but they came with the game and wrote the checks. For the most part, we managed to avoid them, which suited me just fine.
When it hit one and people were still lingering, in no hurry to leave, Grant wound his arm around me and led me toward the exit.
“I think you made more in one lap dance than you did playing for the Storm.” I eyed the wad of cash stuffed in his back pocket, giving his already nicely round butt an extra bubble. “I think you might want to consider a career change.”
Grant chuckled. “Being a male stripper sounds like too much work.”
“Says the man who hasn’t missed a day of practice in his life. Except for the one he spent collecting every scrap of research on the disease formerly known as Huntington’s.”
When he shrugged, the extra dress shirt one of his teammates had let him borrow looked ready to rip apart at the seams. The player was the team’s kicker—not exactly the same body build as the team’s tight end. Still, it had been a nice gesture, despi
te the woman in the room groaning in protest when Grant pulled on a shirt after finishing his lap dance that certainly delivered in enthusiasm, if not skill.
When a yawn escaped my mouth, the skin between Grant’s brows creased.
“What? I’m exhausted. I thought we’d be out of here hours ago.”
I’d gotten up early with Charlie to get her schoolwork in for the day and go through her stuff with me to pack for the trip. Then we’d both helped Grant pack after discovering his idea of packing for three months abroad was stuffing a pair of jeans, shorts, three shirts, a pair of sneakers, and a football into a duffel bag. When Charlie asked him how he’d forgotten to pack underwear, both of our cheeks had gone the slightest shade of red and we quickly turned the conversation to what Paris would be like in the spring.
“I’ve been good all night. I’m not risking my chance of having my patience go unrewarded if you fall asleep in the truck on the drive home.”
“Oh, it’s less of a risk and more of a guarantee,” I said around another yawn.
Grant broke to a stop in the hall, looking up and down like he was searching for something. Then he spotted something behind my shoulder. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward a closed door.
“Grant,” I hissed, glancing into the still buzzing ballroom. The door was closer to the ballroom than the elevator, and he wasn’t what one would consider a quiet or stealthy lover.
“That’s right, baby. You start practicing saying it now because I’ll have you shrieking my name in a minute.” Then, without a look inside, he pulled me into the dark room then sealed the door behind me.
“Where the hell are we?” I asked, grappling around for a light switch.
“Doesn’t make any difference to me.” Grant’s hands found me and he backed me into a wall, caging his arms around my head as his lips found mine.
I might have wanted to know where we were or if there was at least a lock on the door, but when that man started kissing me the way he was, moving his body against mine how he was, nothing else mattered, least of all some measly lock on a door.
“I need you, Ryan,” he whispered against my lips, his hands lowering from the wall.
The sound of his zipper opening sounded especially loud under the cover of darkness. In this kind of dark, every other sense was heightened. It was like the loss of one sharpened the others.
My leg wound around his legs, and I pulled him to me before tugging his pants down over his hips. His warm steel pressed into my stomach through the thin material of my dress.
“Then have me,” I breathed, gathering my dress in my hands until I’d exposed myself to him.
A rumble echoed in his throat when he realized I hadn’t been lying about forgetting something when I’d gotten dressed earlier.
“Grant, please,” I begged, squirming against him with raw need.
“Wait,” he panted, sucking in a slow breath like he was trying to oxygenate his brain.
“You’re kidding me, right? What in the world could be worth waiting for right now?” I arched my back off the wall, tipping my hips into him.
I felt him reach for something in his jacket, his lips finding mine once more. Then he pulled back, and even though I couldn’t see anything in this pitch-black room, I could feel his eyes on mine.
“Asking you to marry me.”
The breath I’d been taking caught short, my knees feeling weak from nothing other than emotion. “Are you . . .” My voice wasn’t working right either.
“Asking you to be my wife? Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Or that’s more like what I’m begging.” His hand found where mine were still gathered around my dress, and he pulled the left one free.
My eyes were burning with tears, and the rest of me felt on fire. I’d never known being loved by another could feel so effortless. As the moment caught up to me and I realized what he was asking me and where he was asking me and how he was asking me, my body rocked with my laughter. “Only you would have your pants around your ankles when you asked a girl to marry you.”
His forehead fell into mine. “Only if that girl was you.”
My free hand molded around his jaw, holding him to me. I wanted to say yes so badly. The word was a silent prayer on my lips, but first, he had to know something. Yet one more thing to drop on him, as if I hadn’t put him through enough already.
“I can’t have another child, Grant. I can’t willingly bring another child into this world knowing they have a fifty-fifty chance of getting this one day. I won’t.” My fingers curled into him, the pads of my fingers dragging along the scruff of his stubble. “You deserve to know that. If you want another child—children—I’m not the woman who can give them to you.”
There was a half note of silence, then his body pressed into mine so I couldn’t go anywhere unless I made it past him first. “I don’t give a fuck about that, Ryan. I have my family. You. And Charlie.” The strength of his words filled the room, the truth in them ringing in my ears. “You two are my family, and all I want is to be a family. I don’t need another child. I don’t need the promise of growing old together. I don’t need anything but you two.”
My tears were salty on my lips, but every bit as sweet.
“Marry me, Ryan.” He kissed the corner of my mouth. Then the other. “Marry me, baby.”
My thumb moved down his face until I could feel the pucker of the scar from one of the times his dad had split him open with an unexpected hit. I caressed it with the same thumb I’d broken when my mom bent it back too far after I’d asked if she’d get up and make me something to eat. The scars of our past were carved all over our bodies. But I knew the future we’d create together would heal them all, even the ones that ran deep.
Never erased, but healed. Never forgotten, but forgiven. With Grant, all things were possible, as he’d proven to me over and over again.
“I’ve been married to you as long as I’ve known you, Grant Turner.” My thumb drew across his lips. “I suppose it’s time we make it official.”
He had a ring down my finger before I’d finished my answer, but maybe, like me, he’d known we’d belonged to one another from the very beginning, until the very end.
His hands came around my hips, lifting me up the wall as he slid closer. Then he slowly lowered my body down over him, his breath escaping as I took him inside me.
“You are half of my soul, Ryan Hale. The best part of it. Don’t leave me ever again.” His head fell into the wall beside mine as I tightened around him. “You are within me, so you can’t expect me to live without you.”
My orgasm was chasing through me, building from the pure emotion of the moment. Dropping my hands to his shoulders, I braced myself and slid off of him before lowering back down slowly. “I won’t.”
I sank my teeth into my lip as he pumped into me once, hard enough my body thudded against the wall.
“Nowhere I can’t follow,” he rasped in my ear.
A whimper spilled past my lips as his thrusts picked up in pace and strength.
“I promise,” I whispered.
That was when I felt his release spill through his body, his final thrust burrowing deep inside me as his hands curled into me like I was the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of the world. His release spurred my own, the power of it making my body bind around him as our bodies took from each other’s exactly what we needed.
He held me until my breathing recovered and my body had stopped trembling. He didn’t pull out or away. He stayed in and around me, a vestige of my past and a promise of my future.
“Damn.” His voice shook in a breathless rush. “My fiancée gives it up even better than my girlfriend did.” His hips pinned mine against the wall, as I felt him swell inside me again. “Can’t wait to see what my wife’s capable of.”
I grinned in the dark, moving my hips in unison with his. “You just won the biggest game of your life. You just got engaged. This is going to be a t
ough moment to beat.”
Grant’s hand slipped behind my neck, holding me as he rocked into me, taking my body and sharing his with me. “Yeah, it will be,” he whispered, his smile evident in his voice. “At least until tomorrow comes. And the one after that.”
My hands wound around the man I loved—the soul mine belonged with. “And all of the ones after that.”
WE WERE BACK at the beginning. Back at the start. Because you can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. To rise above, you have to touch down every now and again.
When I’d come back into Grant’s life, I wasn’t sure if I could hope for twelve months of good health, and now I’d had twelve years. He’d given me hope for what my disease didn’t have to be, he’d given me the resources to think outside the box, and he’d given me a second chance to rewrite our ending.
We didn’t get to choose when we were born into this world or when we’d leave it, but we did get to choose how we’d live the time in between, and I squeezed more out of each day than I guessed some people did from a whole lifetime. That was what confronting one’s death will do—it made life that much sweeter.
“Is it how you pictured it?” Grant joined me in the doorway, dropping his arm around my shoulders as we studied the apartment.
It was the apartment I’d spent most of my young life with my mom. The same apartment that had tainted my dreams all of my life. The very apartment I was hoping to, finally, lay to rest. To be at peace with.
I’d felt so weak and helpless within these walls, but now I felt the opposite. It was Grant’s love, Charlie’s love, and the way I loved them that was responsible for it. Love chased fear away.
“Almost,” I answered, pulling something out of my back pocket. I made my way back into the apartment, tiptoeing silently so as not to resurrect the demons buried inside.
Behind me, I heard Grant move with me, stopping behind me when I crouched in the middle of the room. He didn’t let me out of arm’s reach whenever we crossed into Clink territory, and he didn’t take his eyes off of me whenever we stepped without the walls of this complex. Twenty-five years had passed since that day he’d found me here, our first meeting, but for Grant, it was as though it had happened yesterday. Time would never change that. Some things time couldn’t fix, no matter how much of it passed.