Lash looked to me then to Gray then smiled huge and answered, “Fuck no.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him.
“I’m not,” he told me.
“But –”
“Babe, you love me, I get that. But your man does not want me here and I orchestrated this so I’m cool with bein’ kicked out. Reunite. Enjoy it. You deserve it.” He came to me, wrapped his hand around the back of my head, kissed the top then he let me go and stepped back. “Me and Freddie’ll see you two at breakfast.”
Then he walked into the bedroom area and disappeared into the bathroom.
I looked to Gray and whispered, “You could have made him feel welcome to have dinner with us.”
“Dollface, no way in hell he’s welcome to have dinner with us,” Gray whispered back.
I glared at him thinking he was probably right.
“Baby, come here,” Gray ordered. “You’re too far away.”
“I’m two feet away.”
“Ivey, for seven years you’ve been two states away. You’re too far away. Come here.”
My heart swelled, my belly curled in a really nice way and I went there.
And when I got there I found he was again right. Really right.
And when I made it the two steps to him, I was right.
Right where I wanted to be, right where I belonged.
Held tight against the long, lean frame of Grayson Cody.
* * * * *
My head pressed back into the pillows as it washed over me.
At the same time, Gray shoved his face in my neck and I heard it come over him.
We came simultaneously; we’d never done that before.
It was brilliant.
The fingers of both his hands were laced through mine, holding them over my head pressed into the pillow. He was buried deep and staying right there. My legs were up, knees bent, thighs tucked deep to his sides.
We said nothing, just came down, joined, close, holding hands, tucked tight, Gray’s breath drifting against my neck, mine his shoulder. We needed no words, we’d had them, we’d need more but not now. Now was about what he’d just given me, I’d just given him, both at the same time, our bodies as close as they could be, our fingers laced, sharing space, breath, a bed, our time, our lives.
What we should have had for seven years, this, more of Gray’s dimple, his laughter, maybe children, creating a family.
We felt it, both of us, I knew it. I knew it was searing through his mind too. We took that moment after being found again to experience the loss, mourn it so we could let it go.
I loved him then and now so desperately, it hurt. But if what happened didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have Lash, I wouldn’t have Freddie. It sucked I couldn’t just have it all without the pain in between but I’d learned life didn’t have that in store for me and I wasn’t a victim, life didn’t give that to anybody.
But I had it all now.
All of it.
Everything.
Then Gray’s lips moved to my ear and he whispered, “Say you love me, Ivey.”
Yep. I had it all.
Everything.
My fingers squeezed his hands and I whispered back, “I love you, Gray.”
I felt his sigh on my neck.
Then he said softly, “You gotta clean up, okay but come back to this bed in that nightie but no panties.”
We weren’t done.
Yippee!
“We’re not going to sleep?” I asked to confirm.
“Yeah, we are.”
Oh. Bummer.
Gray kept talking.
“But when I wake up, be it morning or middle of the night, I don’t want anything in my way that wastes my time.”
Brilliant.
I grinned.
He kissed my neck, pulled out and rolled off me.
I rolled into him, kissed his chest then rolled off the bed and did what I was told.
Back in bed, tucked tight to Gray’s side, my arm around his gut, my head on his shoulder, my leg tangled in his, he’d pulled my nightie up to my waist so his hand was cupping the bare cheek of my ass and my eyes were drifting closed when Gray called, “Ivey.”
“Yeah, baby,” I answered sleepily.
“Thank you for takin’ care of Gran and savin’ my land.”
My eyes shot open.
“Pay you back,” he went on.
“Gray –” I started also starting to lift my head but his other hand came up, fingers in my hair cupping the side and he held it down.
“Not with money, baby, but swear to Christ, by the time you leave this earth, you’ll feel I paid you back.”
I started deep breathing.
Gray asked, “You gonna start bawlin’?”
“Maybe,” I whispered, that one word trembling.
“Shit,” he muttered.
That was when the tears stopped threatening and I grinned.
Then I pressed deeper.
Gray’s hand slid through my hair then went away.
“Love you, honey,” he whispered.
“Love you too, baby,” I whispered back.
“’Night.”
“Goodnight.”
And shortly after, my eyes drifted closed and it was.
A very good night.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
No Stone Unturned
Lash Caldiwell
After breakfast with Cody and Ivey, Lash and Freddie were coming back from the gym after working and they both saw them. Fifteen feet ahead standing at the glass doors that led to the attractively landscaped pool.
And they both stopped.
Ivey was wearing a slightly see-through silk robe Lash bought her, its glimmer was bronze. Under it, a gold bikini.
Cody wearing his jeans, boots and gray t-shirt from yesterday.
He had his hand light on her hip, his other hand was bunching her hair at the back of her neck, his neck was bent, his lips on hers.
She was leaned partially into him, up on her toes in her muted bronze, slim strapped Havianna flip-flips, the swirly pattern visible on the soles. Her hand was to his abs, her other hand curled around the side of his neck.
Something happened and the kiss changed. Cody touched his tongue to her lips or Ivey hers to his or just the fact hit them that they were together, close, reunited after seven years of heartbreak.
So they forgot where they were.
Cody’s hand slid from her hip back and down to cup her ass. Ivey’s hand slid from his neck up and into his hair. Her body pressed close, she got up on the tips of her toes and her hand at his abs became an arm tight around his back. Both their heads slid into deeper slants. Their mouths were open and the kiss turned visibly carnal.
“Fuck me, seein’ that I see now you were never in there,” Freddie muttered at his side and Lash grinned. He and Ivey were openly affectionate but they never made out and certainly not in a public corridor by the pool of an exclusive hotel spa in the Colorado plains. “Watch that shit any longer, I’ll need a cold shower,” Freddie kept muttering.