Play It Safe by Kristen Ashley
His grin died about a half a second before his eyes dropped to my mouth then his head dipped down and he kissed me.
It was nearly better than the first except this time, he didn’t push it, I didn’t whimper and it didn’t careen out-of-control. It was wet, it was deep and it was sweet.
And I loved every second of being in his arms on a snowy plain by a creek in the cold with his mouth on mine.
Every blooming second.
He lifted his head, eyes locked to mine and muttered, “Let’s get you back so you can deal with your brother, I can deal with my shit and then I can bring you back home.”
Home.
That was what he said.
Home.
I loved that too.
“Okay,” I whispered.
Gray grinned.
* * * * *
Three hours later…
I walked the streets of Mustang.
Casey had come back and Casey was super okay with letting the hotel room go because, “My girl, she’s all over me. It’s cool. I’ll crash with her. You and me will hook up for lunch at noon tomorrow at the diner.”
He didn’t ask about my first-ever date.
He didn’t ask if I got home by ten (I didn’t but it wasn’t that far after).
He didn’t care that I was crashing at Gray’s.
He just was rabid to get back to his girl (after, of course, he begged me for another hundred dollars which, of course, being me, I gave to him).
So he took his bag, the car, I dropped mine off with Manny at the front desk who assured me Gray had talked to him and even though we checked out late, he wasn’t going to charge us the extra day. I paid him for the time we stayed and then…I was free.
For a day, I…was…free.
I walked down the sidewalk of the square only just able to stop myself from whistling. Halfway down, I turned right and pushed open the door.
My eyes went to the bar.
Janie’s eyes came to me.
My body went to the bar.
Janie’s eyes followed me.
I put my hands on the bar.
Janie’s eyes didn’t leave me.
My mouth opened and this was what it asked, “That job still open?”
Janie smiled huge and this was how she replied, “Take it the date with Gray went good.”
At that, it was my turn to smile huge.
Chapter Twelve
I’ll Wait
Seven hours later…
“She doesn’t even know how to cook,” Grandma Miriam hissed at Gray in the kitchen while I sat in their comfortable, lived in, countrified living room that had crocheted doilies on the backs of the couch and armchairs (yes, doilies), my eyes glued to a TV that came nowhere near to drowning out her voice.
“Gran, Ivey’s in the next room,” Gray growled.
She ignored him. “Who’s ever heard of a twenty-two year old girl who doesn’t know how to cook?”
“Cecily knew how to cook and still, everything she made tasted like shit,” Gray returned.
“At least she knew,” Grandma Miriam retorted.
“And Nancy was so damned flighty, she knew what she was doin’ but still, she’d forget and every time I went to her house for dinner, the place smelled like it had just been badly renovated after a massive explosion because she either flat out burned the shit outta something or something boiled over, the gas went out-of-control, burned the wallpaper off the wall and I’d begin my date wielding a fire extinguisher,” Gray shot back.
I didn’t want to laugh because I was mostly terrified out of my mind seeing as Grandma Miriam seriously didn’t like me and didn’t mind me knowing but, it must be said, Gray was funny.
“She still knew how to do it,” Grandma Miriam rejoined.
“Yeah, and so do I and so do you and, it comes to that, which, Gran, this is our second date so why you got yourself in a snit, I don’t know, then you teach her or I teach her,” Gray responded.
“I’m in a snit because before date one, you got yourself a cut over your eye because of that girl’s troubles and this might be date two but it’s night two that girl’s sleeping under this roof.”
“In the guest bedroom.”
“Grayson Cody, look at me. I’m seventy years old and I had four sons. Four. And I was married to your granddaddy. Do you think after all that experience with Cody men that I don’t know?”
Oh dear.
“First,” Gray clipped and I bit my lip at his tone, “I would not disrespect you like that. Second, I wouldn’t do it to Ivey. I’m a Cody, Gran, and I’m more intimately acquainted with your other three boys’ bullshit than you are these days but I’m my father’s son. Remember that.”
Another bit of intrigue from Gray.
Grandma Miriam was silent.
Obviously Gray made his point.
Then Grandma Miriam decided to argue a different one.
“Don’t care you’re five or twenty-five, Grayson Cody, you need to watch that dirty mouth.”
Gray clearly didn’t feel like taking this admonition to heart considering I barely heard but still heard him mutter, “Fuck me.”
“Gray!” Grandma Miriam snapped.
I bit my lip again to stop myself from laughing because it might be scary but it was still funny.
There was nothing from Gray and then nothing from Grandma Miriam until I heard her declare, “I’m watching the box in my room.”
“Suit yourself,” Gray replied.
“I’d like to do it on my bed,” she told him.
“Right, you wanna get ready for bed? Or you wanna watch awhile and call me later?”
“Watch awhile,” she said much more quietly.
“Then let’s go, darlin’,” he muttered.
This time I was biting my lip because they could have an out-and-out and it ended with Gray putting his Gran in bed so she could watch television comfortably and not in the presence of the girl her grandson was suddenly dating that she didn’t like all that much only to go back and deal with her when she needed to get ready to go to sleep.
And I thought that was very sweet.
Grandma Miriam wheeled through calling out her lie that, though it had been a really long time since I went to church, I was pretty certain God frowned on as much as He disliked curse words, “Just feel like watchin’ a different show than you and Gray, child. I’ll say my goodnights now.”
“Goodnight, Mrs. Cody,” I called back and noticed as she wheeled around the stairs she didn’t look at me.
Gray, following her, did.
“Be back in a minute, dollface.”
“Okay,” I said softly.
They disappeared.
I looked back at the TV.
Suffice it to say, dinner didn’t go that well. Gray came to get me and we got back to his house before the meal had been prepared. Upon arrival, Grandma Miriam tried to press me into service and before I gamely waded in and commenced slicing off a digit or blowing up their kitchen, I confided in them that I’d never cooked.
Gray didn’t say a word, didn’t even give me a look though it terrified me to admit that. Still, it wasn’t something you could hide so, if we went beyond a second date, he’d eventually find out so I had to.
As evidenced by the fight that happened after I did manage to assist Gray in clean up, we all sat down and watched a sitcom then Grandma Miriam told her grandson she needed “a word”, she didn’t take to this too well.
I felt him before I saw him round the doublewide doorway to the living room. Then I watched him, ready to make my speech only to be cut off when he did something that took my breath away.
And what he did was pluck me right out of the couch and into his arms whereupon he entered the couch to lie on his back with me on top but tucked partly to the back of the couch.
I struggled to get my breath back then I struggled to get my wits about me then I pushed up slightly with a hand to his chest and looked down at him.
He had his beautifu
“I think maybe I should go back to the hotel,” I whispered and his arm, which was curled around my back, got tight.
“Ivey –”
“She’s uncomfortable.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“Okay, maybe, but now, she’s uncomfortable and this is her home and, my guess and you can correct me, but it has been awhile. No one should feel uncomfortable in their home.”
“That include me?”
I shut my mouth.
His other hand came up and he tucked hair behind my ear but left his hand there, fingers in my hair, palm under my ear.
“She’ll get over it,” he said softly.
I pushed it carefully, “Gray, honey, you promised that if her discomfort made me uncomfortable, you’d take me back to town. That’s happened.”
“Ivey, honey, how much money you got left?”
That shut my mouth again.
“You guard a lotta shit, give me that.” It was his turn to push.
“Six hundred, twenty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents.”
He shook his head against the pillow, his mouth moving like he didn’t know whether to grin or frown.
Then he muttered, “And sixty-seven cents.”
I bit my lip because I knew, knowing it down to the penny, that said it all.
Gray held my eyes a moment before he stated softly but firmly, “She’ll get over it.”
He was looking out for me.
This knowledge washing over me, the way it did, the way it felt, I blurted, “I got a job at The Rambler today.”
Gray’s body went completely still under mine.
Then he asked, “Say again?”
“Janie and I chatted and she said she was looking for someone, I asked if that someone could be me, she said yes. I start Monday.”
He stared at me, body still, mouth unmoving.
Seeing as this was the second date I’d ever had, it was kind of weird though I didn’t know much about dating. Still I thought lying stretched out with your date on his couch while his grandmother nursed her snit in the next room and in a few hours you’d be going to sleep in his guest bedroom had to be weird for anyone. The only man I’d ever dated was Gray not to mention the only man I really ever knew outside our parade of “uncles” was Casey so I didn’t know what to make of his response.
“Gray?” I called, it was tentative and that was not hidden in the slightest.
“Painful,” he muttered strangely.
I tipped my head and kept his gaze as I whispered, “What?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t tucked between him and the couch. Suddenly, I was on my back on the couch with Gray’s, long, hard body on mine and it was my head on the flowery, ruffled pillow staring up at him.
I found it hard to breath and not because he was heavy (though he was but he was holding most of his weight up on a forearm in the pillow beside me). Just because I’d never had a man on me.
That man being Gray, I liked it.
A lot.
“Painful,” he repeated, “seein’ as you hustle pool, you shouldn’t, you had one date with me, it was fuckin fantastic, you felt it just like me because you givin’ that up means you wanna see where this is goin’ just as much as me and my Gran is in the next room and I really, really wanna show my appreciation in a way that at this juncture I can not.”
Oh my.
“Don’t look at me like that, dollface, and don’t touch or kiss me or we will be goin’ back to Manny’s but we’ll both be spendin’ the night,” he warned.
Oh…my.
“Uh…how am I looking at you?” I asked.
“Like that,” he answered, his eyes moving over my face.
I bit my lip because I didn’t know how to help but more, I didn’t know if I wanted to.
Then I pointed out the obvious, “I’m not touching you, Gray, you’re lying on me.”
“Baby, no shit. I feel every inch of you and if I trusted myself right now to move, your ass would be in the armchair across the room and I’d be headin’ upstairs to a cold shower.”
Oh.
My.
“Gray –”
“I’ll add, at this point, don’t speak especially if it’s to whisper my name all breathy like that.”
I pressed my lips together.
Gray’s eyes moved to them.
My eyes got bigger because, recently, any time that happened, a second later his mouth was on mine. He’d only given me two deep, sweet kisses but before he dropped me off and since he picked me up, anytime his eyes moved to my lips, his mouth then moved to touch them.
Yes, even in front of his Gran (twice).
This didn’t go over too well either.
His gaze moved back to my eyes and when it did it didn’t settle but roamed my face before he muttered, “Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, on my couch, under me, her fantastic, fuckin’ hair all over my pillow.”
To that, I blurted, “This is your pillow?”
His eyes came back to mine.
“Yeah.”
“It’s ruffly.”
Finally he grinned and muttered, “Yeah.”
“Did you pick it?”
“Fuck no.”
Well that was a relief.
My thoughts must have been written all over my face because Gray burst out laughing. And it was safe to say, standing in his arms, watching and hearing him do it was amazing but lying underneath him and watching, hearing and feeling him do it was even better.
By the time he semi-sobered, so did I because something he said penetrated.
“You know I hustle pool?” I whispered.
The amusement fled his eyes and his face got closer when he answered, “Yeah.”
I guessed that. Still, it didn’t feel great having it confirmed.
“How?” I asked.
“The bar your brother was casin’? The Alibi?”
I fought against biting my lip and nodded.
“My uncle owns that bar and my other two uncles hang there. Your brother marked one of them and started playin’ him. He’s shifty, can be mean but he is in no way stupid. They followed him, caught sight of you, guessed the play. I was there, they told me about it, described you and I knew exactly who they were talkin’ about seein’ as I could barely keep my eyes off you when you were in The Rambler. I found you, warned you off.”
“Your uncle owns that bar?”
He nodded. “He’s shifty and can be mean too but doesn’t go down that road as often.”
Then something else he said penetrated.
“You could barely keep your eyes off me at The Rambler?”
He grinned. “Dollface, you’re not the only one with the ability to watch someone in a way they don’t know you’re watchin’.”
Hells bells.
“You knew I was watching you?”
“All night long.”
Darn.
His grin turned into a smile before it faded and he whispered, “You walked out before I could make an approach and you didn’t even glance my way. Saw you in the playground, you told me you were stayin’ at the hotel, swear, findin’ out you were driftin’ through hurt like a mother. Didn’t get it then,” his face got closer, “get it now.”
My heart started thumping.
Gray wasn’t done.
“Glad you’re takin’ a chance on a decent life in a decent place that’ll treat you kind.”
My heart started thumping harder.
Gray still wasn’t done.
“And glad you’re takin’ a chance on me.”
My heart began to thump wildly as tears filled my eyes.
“Gray –”
“Prettiest thing I ever saw,” he whispered.
More wet in my eyes.
“Gray –”
“Now on my couch.”
A t
Gray caught it with a thumb.
Then, still whispering, he shared with me, “My Dad taught me good things come to those who wait. He was a patient man and he taught that to me. I never lived anywhere in my life but here but that don’t mean I don’t know the ways of the world. I know somethin’ led you to that life but I look at you, nothin’ hard about you, not your attitude, not your mouth, not your eyes, nothin’. Whatever led you to that life wasn’t good but you didn’t let it make you hard. There’ll come a time when you’ll give that to me. And you take your time, Ivey, I’ll wait.”
Another tear slid out of my eye followed immediately by another one out of my other eye. And then another. And more.
Gray caught the ones he could catch with his thumb but the others slid down my temple and wet my hair. I stared into his blue eyes with their russet tipped lashes and thought but did not say he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and it wasn’t just his outward beauty that made him that way.
Then his eyes moved to my trembling lips, he dropped his head and touched his mouth to mine.
Then he rolled, him to his back, me tucked to his side and murmured, “Now, dollface, let’s relax in front of the TV.”
I rested my cheek to his shoulder, slid my arm around his stomach and whispered, “Okay.”
His arm around my back gave me a squeeze.
My eyes blinked away the wet, my hand lifted from his gut to wipe my temple then I put it back.
Then, even though this was the first time I ever lounged on a couch with a man watching TV, I thought it was unbelievably comfy.
And it came naturally.
Chapter Thirteen
Silly
One week and one day later…
“Fuck,” Gray whispered roughly against my lips and then his tongue was in my mouth again.
Yes.
We were upstairs at his house and he had me pressed deep against the wall by the door to the bathroom. Part of my skirt was bunched up at my waist because his hand was in my tights and my panties, cupping my behind, skin against skin. His other hand was up the back of my sweater, wrapped tight around, fingers curled so the tips were near to the side of my breast. I had yanked his shirt out of the back of his trousers and my fingers were exploring the muscled plains of his back, my other hand was in his hair, holding his mouth to mine.