Where the hell had he been?
Just calling in long enough to say—sure, suspend her—before disappearing was bullshit. It was the coward’s way out, and halfway home, I found myself making a U-turn.
I parked in my usual spot and made my way to his front door. I knocked three times and tried to keep my anger at bay, deciding that I would just end things and get out of there.
However, that decision flew out the window when the front door opened, and standing in front of me was a virtual stranger. Sometime between last night and this morning, Grayson had transformed.
Gone was the long hair I’d grown accustomed to, and in its place was a clean-cut version of my teacher. The stubble along his jaw was still familiar, and as he moved aside and I barged in past him, I couldn’t help but look him over a second time. The change was so unexpected it almost broke through my anger, but then his eyes dropped to my lip and I remembered my shitty morning. I steeled myself against any curiosity and instead, fired both guns.
“What the fuck was that this morning?”
“This morning?”
“Yes. You know? When I got suspended.”
Grayson closed the door and latched it before stepping closer to me. Without answering my first question, he inspected me and asked, “What happened to your face?”
“What happened to me?” I questioned, my voice climbing higher with each note. “What the hell happened to you?”
He said nothing as he made his way past me and walked through the house to the kitchen. I followed silently, since that was what he was going with, and waited. He opened a top cabinet and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.
Reminded of my father, I backed up a step. He turned and asked again in a tone that was not to be argued with, “What happened to your face?”
I touched my lip, grimaced and answered, “My father.”
“Your father did this? When? Last night?” He paused and placed the bottle on the counter. Walking over to me, he gently grazed my bottom lip with his thumb and said, “You need to report him, Addison. Or I will. What fucking irony.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father died yesterday. That’s why I wasn’t at work.”
His words were delivered with such a sense of detachment it was as if he were talking about a stranger. If it hadn’t been for the dramatic change in him, I would have thought he didn’t care.
That wasn’t the case though, and as I started to put it all together…his lack of presence this morning, the physical change in his appearance, and the alcohol sitting on the counter—I could tell that Grayson was wanting to escape.
“Do you want to—?”
“No,” he interrupted, and I knew exactly how he felt.
I’d never wanted to talk after Daniel had passed either.
“I’m sorry—”
“Stop talking,” he said, walking me back until I hit the kitchen counter.
“Okay.”
As the edge dug into my back, Grayson’s hands came down beside me, caging me in. Pushing forward, he leaned me back slightly until his body was pressed flush against mine.
“I came to end things with you last night, but you ran away.”
Even though I’d been planning the same, to hear the words from him hurt.
“Then end it,” I taunted, pushing my chin out. I’d be damned if I showed him he could hurt me worse than even my father’s blow.
Grayson lowered his head until his stubbled cheek rested against mine and his lips were at my ear.
“I...” he started and then stopped.
I slid my fingers into the short strands now covering his head.
“You?”
He scraped his teeth along a line from my jaw to my chin. Then he lifted his head and looked me right in the eye as he sucked my bottom lip between his.
The sharp bite of pain that came from the cut on my lip made me wince, until his tongue came out and soothed it in a gesture so incredibly intimate, I felt my entire body tremble. Then his anguished words met my ears.
“I can’t.”
Breathing became difficult as he brought a hand to my chest and placed it over my heart. He held my full attention as he began to lightly tap—one, two, three. One two three.
“I need…”
I waited, wanting to hear it—needing to.
His other hand trailed a path around my waist, stopping at the top of my skirt. “I need to feel alive again.”
The word alive was so foreign to me, especially since the last few years I’d felt anything but. However, here with this man, I’d never felt more so as he continued to count my beating heart just like I had done his.
“I need everything.”
His eyes came back to rest on mine and as his fingers curled under my shirt, I replied, “Then take what you need.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Present…
Doc watches me unrelentingly as I sit down in my chair and finally speak.
“I pursued him.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever said the words out loud, and I feel the weight of them.
Doc nods silently, his way of saying continue, and I try to find the best way to explain the unexplainable.
“The first time I saw him was the first time in years that I felt…peace.”
“I remember.”
“You do?”
Doc smiles at me, and although it’s small, I feel the warmth of it. It’s as if he’s truly proud of me for trusting him.
“Yes. You came to see me after the first week of school. Do you remember what you said?”
Racking my brain, I try to remember that session, but when I think back to my first week of school, all I see is him.
“No. I don’t remember.”
“That’s okay. You said it in passing, probably not even realizing the relevance.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What’s that?”
“Being all doctor-like and cryptic.”
Laughing, Doc sits back. “Oh, so now I know where you got it.”
“Maybe a little,” I admit half-heartedly.
“Good to know.” Doc’s eyes narrow as he tells me, “You came into my office and you couldn’t sit still. You seemed distracted but not in a bad way. So I asked what was different that day, and you told me for the first time in two years—‘Nothing, I’m just happy.’”
Huh. It was something so simple.
It seems unbelievable that’s what gave me away, when happy is the last thing I ever expect to feel again.
Past…
I pushed Addison’s shirt up to reveal the pink lace bra underneath and felt my knees threaten to give way. Yeah, fuck walking away. The best I could hope for was to step back for a moment and catch my breath.
Moving to the other side of the kitchen, I told her, “Stay right there.”
Disheveled. That was how she looked as she leaned back against the counter with her shirt bunched up over her breasts and her hair in disarray, and I wanted more.
“Take it off.”
“My shirt?”
Coming to a stop against the opposite counter, I picked up the scotch and unscrewed the lid.
“Yes, your shirt. Take it off.”
Without hesitation, Addison reached up and removed her shirt, dropping it on the tiled floor.
“The skirt too,” I ordered and lifted the bottle to my lips.
With her beguiling blue eyes following my every move, she unbuttoned the top of her skirt. She traced the tip of her tongue over the cut on her lip, and I knew she had to be remembering the way I’d sucked it because fuck, I was.