Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“I do, actually. I make a point of taking a few minutes every day to watch either the sunset or the sunrise. I run on the beach in the morning and catch it, or if my day starts early, I make sure I’m back here before sunset.”
I leaned my head back against Grant’s chest. “I like that.”
He squeezed me closer. “Good. I like this.”
Time just got away from us after that. We talked for hours, and before I knew it, it was almost midnight.
I yawned.
“You’re tired.”
“Yeah. I get up at three thirty.”
“Want me to drive you home? I can pick you up to get your car in the morning.”
I smiled. “No, I’m okay to drive still. But I should get going.”
Grant nodded. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
He helped me off the boat, and the gold-painted name on the back caught in the dock lights. Leilani May.
“Who is the boat named after?”
Grant looked away. “No one.”
For a businessman, he wasn’t a very good liar. But the evening had been so nice that I didn’t ruin it by pressing the subject.
We walked down the dock hand in hand, and when we got to my car, Grant took my other one, too. He laced his fingers with mine. “So did I pass your test? Do I get an actual date?”
I smirked. “Maybe.”
“Good, then I don’t need to be on my best behavior anymore.”
Grant let go of my hands and cupped my cheeks. He guided me to take a few steps, and before I realized what was happening, my back was up against my car and he’d planted his lips over mine. I gasped, and he didn’t waste the opportunity to dip his tongue inside. His kiss was assertive, yet gentle at the same time. He tilted my head and groaned when the kiss deepened. His desperate sound turned me on almost as much as the feeling of his hard body pressed against mine. My purse fell to the gravel, and my hands wrapped around his back. When I dug my nails into him, he grabbed my ass and lifted me off my feet. We groped each other, my legs locked around his waist as he grinded against me. I could feel how hard he was even through our clothes.
When the kiss finally broke, I struggled to catch my breath. “Wow.” I’d been kissed before, kissed really well even, but no one had ever kissed the shit out of me. My mind was in a fog from it.
He smiled and used his thumb to wipe my bottom lip. “God, I wanted to do that so badly all night.”
I gave him a goofy grin. “I’m glad you waited until we were in the parking lot. Otherwise I might not have left.”
Grant pretended to bang his head against my car. “Fuck. Did you have to tell me that?”
I giggled. “Thank you for sharing your sunset with me. I had a really nice time.”
“Sunrise is even better. You’re welcome to stay tonight and find out in the morning.”
I smiled. “Maybe another time.”
It took all of my willpower to pull away from Grant. I’d been teasing, but I was so turned on, I was lucky he’d waited until now to kiss me like that. I brushed my lips with his one more time and opened the car door. He stood watching as I buckled up and turned the ignition.
As I put the car into reverse to back out, I rolled down my window. “Goodnight, Grant.”
“Dinner soon?”
I smiled. “Maybe. If you’d told me who the boat was named after, my answer would have definitely been yes.”
Chapter 16
* * *
Grant - 8 years ago
The shower door opened and steam billowed out. I smiled, finding a naked Lily ready to join me.
“Hey. You feeling better?”
Lily stepped inside the stall and shut the door behind her. She put both her palms on my chest. “Yeah. It must’ve been the flu or something.”
The flu. That’s what she always called it. Lily seemed to get the flu more and more over the last year. Yet the days she spent curled up in bed never came with a cough or fever. Lily was depressed. Of course, she had every right to be. She’d dropped out of college because she hated the non-art classes, her mom had disappeared into the wind a year ago, taking her three-year-old brother, Leo, with her, and both of us had taken my mom’s death a few months ago pretty hard.
But Lily’s constant, bedridden bouts of depression seemed like more than just regular depression. She would shut down for days every time her flu hit. She didn’t eat, didn’t talk, didn’t function as a person. And even though she spent almost twenty-four-seven in bed, she rarely slept. She just stared, unfocused, lost in her own head.
It scared me. I didn’t say it, but more and more lately, her highs and lows reminded me of her mom’s—so much so that I’d been pushing her to see a therapist. That discussion always turned her depression into anger. Because to her, needing help meant she was like her mom.