Give Me Grace (51 page)

A tear escaped and ran down the side of my face. It slid off and plopped onto the sheets below. Because of course it sounded easy when he put it like that. Damn Casey for being so logical and so heartbreakingly persistent. My resolve wavered, but it didn’t break.

“You’re going to marry me, Slim,” he vowed when I couldn’t find the words to reply. His tone told me he’d brook no argument and I wanted to believe it. “I won’t stop asking until you eventually realise that there aren’t any sure bets in life. Not for anyone. And it doesn’t matter because people don’t need sure bets. They just need hope and determination, and I have enough of that for the both of us.”

My heart began to pound so hard I could feel the
roar of blood in my ears. “Okay,” I breathed, feeling his determination as though it was seeping into my own skin just by touch alone.

Casey pulled back, tilting his head slightly as he looked down at me. “Okay?”

“Okay. Don’t stop asking me.”

It wasn’t a yes and it wasn’t a
no, but it was enough for his lips to curve deliciously. My blood stirred in response, a sweet ache beginning to throb between my legs. He was so masculine in his satisfaction that I found myself returning the smile. “You’re beautiful,” I told him.

He shook his head, his grin widening. Then he kissed my lips, and my neck, and then down further, until my nipple was in his mouth and he was sucking it deep and hard, forcing a sharp cry from my lips.
Moments later, loud music began to pump from the living room. I giggled as the sound of “Sweet child o’ mine” by Guns N’ Roses pealed through the speakers, informing me Coby was into the classics.

“Oops,” I said with a grin at Casey’s roommate trying to drown us out.

“You’re loud in bed,” Casey told me.

A f
lush climbed my cheeks, making me hot. “I am not.”

His next words made me jolt with surprise. “My name’s Casey Daniels,” he began. We were having another do-over? My heart began to
race at this adorable side of Casey he sometimes let out to play. He kissed his way across to my other nipple, tugging it between his teeth. He sucked quickly and then let go with a small pop. “And I’m madly in love with a woman who’s loud in bed and snores like a man.”

“I do not!” I practically yelled, my face getting hotter.

I felt his answering smile as he kissed his way down my belly, sending goose bumps skittering across my skin. “She’s also stubborn, and incredibly sexy, and one day…” he licked the crease of my thigh and my breath hitched “…she’s going to marry me, and it won’t make me the happiest man on Earth…” his tongue flicked out and stroked my clit skilfully “…because right now I already am.”

I cried out again when he took the small button in his mouth and sucked. The music kicked up another notch and I giggled again.

“You’re turn,” Casey told me with a laugh, reaching for a condom.

I snatched it from his fingers and forced him onto his back. It was no easy feat forcing Casey to do anything
, so the minor exertion had me breathing hard. I took his warm, hard cock in my hand, feeling it twitch under my touch. Before rolling the condom down, I leaned in and licked the head, swirling my tongue and taking him in my mouth.

I drew back
slightly, everyone—family and friends—would be descending on the loft soon. “Do we have time for this?”

I gave another quick lick and Casey groaned as I looked up at him. “Slim, if I ever say no to that question, you have my permission to get my gun out and shoot me with it.”

My body shook with laughter as I took him deep in my mouth, as far back as I could, then I hummed, letting my throat close tight around his erection. He let out his own shout, jerking his hips, pushing his cock further in my mouth before pulling back quickly.

“Jesus,” he panted, gripping the base of his cock.

“He can’t help you right now, but I can,” I told him as I began to roll the condom down, looking into Casey’s eyes as I did so. Their colour was the darkest I’d ever seen them, and I couldn’t force my eyes away.

“My name’s Grace Paterson,” I began, my voice solemn as the laughter died away. “And I’m madly in love with a man who’s overprotective and bossy, and spends way too much time on his hair.” That last one was a total lie but finding a negative about Casey was hard work.

“I do?” He seemed surprised and I had to laugh. Gripping his cock, I swung my leg over his lap and began to sink down, taking him inside me. A groan rose up from inside his chest as I squeezed him.

“He told me once that he was good with his tongue and the way he looked at me when he said
it had me believing it. I think I’d believe anything he tells me when he looks at me that way—as though I’m the only person in the room. So when he promised me he’d fight for me, I knew it was true.” I took a deep, shaky breath and swallowed the sob of emotion. “He’s also incredibly hot, and a total badass, and one day …” I began to move, rocking slowly. Casey tensed, waiting. “One day I’m going to marry him because he’s not only in my heart, he’s my goddamn hero.”

Casey pulled me off and flipped me underneath him easily, making my earlier efforts of moving him around seem feeble at best. He kissed me hard, his tongue sweeping deep inside my mouth before pulling off.

“Coby better turn that music up louder,” he told me, sliding back inside my body. He rolled his hips and I bucked upwards, drawing him in as far as our bodies would allow.

“Why?” I locked my legs around his waist.

As though hearing him, the song kicked over to “Welcome to the jungle” and the walls began to thump.

“Because I’m about to pound the woman I love into this mattress and make her scream louder than a low-flying fighter jet.”

I grinned, slightly breathless. “How romantic.”

I woke to Coby rapping on the bedroom door
, and I rubbed my face sleepily, not sure how long we were both out for. Casey was spooning me and I felt hot and sweaty under the heat of his naked skin.

“Grace,” he called out softly. “Your family’s here.”

My stomach dropped to my toes. The sheets rustled when Casey stirred, as though sensing my tension rather than waking from Coby’s intrusion.

“Crap,” I muttered
. Casey stretched and rolled quickly from the bed.

“I put them off for as long as I could,” he reminded me, slapping me on the ass to get me up.

He had. They’d been at the duplex, waiting for news on my disappearance. I knew they knew about the cancer, so Casey rang them to let them know I was okay because I wasn’t up for talking. Not right then. He explained to them everything that happened, going into great detail when I heard Dad peppering him with questions. He also told them we would finish with the police, he would take me home to his loft for a shower, and then they could meet us there. Dad had yelled. I heard it. And still Casey stayed calm and forceful, willing to incur the wrath of my father so I could have the time I needed before I spoke to them.

Now my time was up.

I found Casey’s old football jersey in his dresser and tugged it on. I added my own pair of sweats to the casual ensemble, and when we walked out of Casey’s room, Coby was busy playing host and offering drinks.

I shook my head when he asked what I wanted. How could I think about drinking when I was about to tell my dad I was moving to Sydney? The way he was with
Mum and her cancer, he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight.

Before I could take a breath, Dad rushed me. My face mashed into his chest as he smothered me. “Dad,” I squeezed out.

“Shush,” he muttered. “Let an old man fuss over his little girl.”

I tried to tell him there was a line between fussing and suffocation
, but I couldn’t get the words out. I wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly he was gone and then Henry was there taking his place.

“Gracie Bean.” His voice cracked and my arms tightened around him.

“I’m sorry,” I told him because I was. I hated seeing him hurting. When it was Mum who was sick, sometimes I would climb in his bed and burrow into his side, like it was us against the world. Now it was me who was sick, and Henry didn’t have anyone to climb into his bed and comfort the pain like we used to do for each other. That made me sad.

He buried his head in my neck
, and I felt a tear plop on my shoulder. “Life is so fucking unfair.”

“It is,” I replied
because it was true. I pulled back. Henry looked terrible—his shoulders were slumped and I could feel the heaviness in his heart. It made me realise that I didn’t need to be here in Sydney just for me and Casey, but for my brother. I just didn’t know where that left my dad.

“I’ll be okay,” I tried assuring the both of them.

Dad nodded stoically but Henry gave me nothing.

Coby returned from the kitchen with a round of whiskey for each of them. We all sat down in the living room, Casey beside me. He brought the glass to his lips, about to tip his head back when I realised that a little bit of liquid courage was exactly what I needed right now.

Snatching the glass from his hand, I gulped it down in one hit, hissed audibly at the burn, and braced. “I’m moving to Sydney.”

Dad reared back as though I’d just told him I was moving to Botswana to become one with the meerkats. Then his lips pressed into a thin line, indicating the famous Paterson stubbornness was making an appearance. “No.”

I held my glass out to Coby, indicating a refill with pleading eyes. He must have understood the gravity of my situation because he took it without saying a word and disappeared back to the kitchen.

“Dad,” I began.

Casey took over, threading our fingers together. “Sir—”

“Nate,” my dad boomed back at him.

“Nate.” Casey squeezed my hand. “I can understand the next few months are going to be difficult for Grace but—”

“Difficult?” Dad paled and I knew he was thinking of
Mum. Of the months and the years spent prolonging her life and then watching her fade from our lives eventually anyway. “You have no idea what months and years of chemotherapy can do to a family.”

“No, I don’t,”
Casey answered honestly and I squeezed his hand in return because the thought made me ache unbearably. I didn’t want Casey to know. I didn’t want this for him. “But what I was trying to say was that I would move to Melbourne in a heartbeat for Grace if that was what she wanted.”

I jolted with surprise, looking at him. All that talk about his brother and him reuniting and the Valentines being his family, and he’d never said a word. He’d walk away from all of that for me? My heart expanded until I thought it would burst right out of my chest.

“You would do that for me?”

He returned my look of surprise with one of his own, as though I should’ve automatically known of his plans to move mountains for me. “Of course. It’s up to you, Grace. Where do you want to be?”

“She wants to be home. In Melbourne,” Nate clarified, answering for me.

Henry shook his head, brows drawn. “No,
Dad. She wants to be here where I can take care of her.”

Dad folded his arms, gearing up for an argument. “You work shit hours, son. How on God’s earth do you think you can be there all the time to take care of her?”

I leaned closer to Casey. He let go of our threaded hands and put his arm around me instead, tucking me into his side. Coby returned at that opportune moment with my drink and I accepted it gratefully. Then he went to leave, giving my family privacy, and I grabbed him, making him sit on the other side of me. He sat, tense and a little awkward at being thrust into my family drama, but my hope was that his presence might make them behave.

“I’ll figure it out,” Henry told him, his voice beginning to rise as he leaned forward in his seat. I knew then that I was wrong. My father and brother were quite willing to embarrass themselves in front of the entire world, or at the least, Coby. “I’ll quit the band.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” I declared, leaping feet first into the argument with rising anger. Dad and Henry paused to glare at me. I glared back. “You’re living the dream, Henry. Not many people get a chance to do that. I’m not letting you quit!” I told him, finishing with a shout.