Just That Easy (29 page)

“Sweetheart, you are very hot, and very, very good at what
you do. I’m glad he paid you well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m out. This is
just not my thing. You can do whatever you want to him, I’m sure he’ll like
it.” She tried to make her exit look relaxed, outwardly as if she was bored,
going to go find a drink and a better show. Inwardly she was screaming with the
rage against what had just happened.

Grant caught up with her when she was halfway out the door
of the place.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Home.”

“How? And you just left me there with her?”

“You seemed to like it just fine.”

He grabbed her arm, whirled her around. “Do you think I was
there for me?”

She reached down and grabbed his thick cock, still straining
through his jeans.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it, baby?” She yanked her arm free,
turned and continued her trek through the parking lot, her break for freedom.

“I drove.”

Her anger peaked. It didn’t come out often, but when it did,
was just as intense as she could be with anything else. She turned on him, hand
on her hip. “Yeah, well, I bet you a hundred bucks I can get a ride in less
than five minutes. Watch me. You like watching me, right?” Spinning back
around, she ground pavement with those high-heeled leather boots, wanting as
much distance between them as possible.

“Goddamnit, Teryn!” His voice was an angry roar, and he was
on her in three lunging steps. Grabbing her arm again, he dragged her backward,
almost off her feet, to the car. He pushed her hard against it, pinning her
beneath his weight.

Knowing this game already, she relaxed, and affected looking
bored, unruffled.

“What the fuck do you think, I’m going to let you go off and
get yourself picked up by some idiot looking for a hooker on the street? Get
yourself beat to shit, maybe worse? What the hell are you thinking?”

“That this is the last place I want to be right now.”

“What, here, or with me?”

She didn’t answer. She looked down at the ground, she
couldn’t focus on his face, he was so angry he actually scared her with it.

“That’s what I thought. Fine, Teryn, go. Walk the fucking
street, I don’t care. I don’t know what else to do to get through to you.”

“What, you think throwing some silicone blonde on me to
shake her tits in my face is going to do it?”

“You liked it, I know you did.”

“No, you liked it, and I liked
that,
whether I wanted
to or not. I get it, it’s not hard to figure out—who could fuck you better than
another girl, right? Well not me. I seriously doubt another woman could make me
feel what I felt when I was sitting there.”

“You were feeling something, I could see it.”

“Yeah, pissed off is what I was feeling, watching you pull
her onto your lap, like…fuck!”

“You’re jealous.” He relaxed his shoulders and slid his
hands up her arms. He actually grinned a little. For once instead of it melting
her she wanted to slap that silly ass grin off his face.

“Yeah, well, if that was another guy licking my crotch with
his tongue…”

“I would have thought it was hot, that is, if that’s what
you wanted.”

“So, is that what
you
wanted?”

“No, it’s not. I wasn’t here to be with her, Teryn, I’m here
with you. I didn’t want to have you watch her with me. I wanted you to do
whatever felt good to you.”

She turned her head, sighing. “I knew that.” She felt
defeated, lost.

“Then why are you so angry? Say it, whatever it is. I’m
tired, Teryn, tired of fighting for you, so just get it out.”

“Why does it matter so much to prove to you that I trust
what you say? Don’t you have everything you already want from me? I’m in your
bed every night, I’ve gone through about every fantasy you’ve thrown in front
of me, I’ve tried to please you in ways I hadn’t even thought of, all at your
direction, Grant. I’ve climbed rock walls, gone racing, I’ve been whipped, for
Christ’s sake. I’ve done things I would never, ever do for anyone else. This
whole time, you’ve been pushing me. Do you realize you’ve been manipulating me?
And I let you, Grant. I bet you don’t even know it, whatever it is you need
from me that’s so damn important, it’s more important than just letting me do
it on my own. What more do you want out of me?”

He stood, face purposefully turned away. His skin turned a
deep flushed color, and she knew if she could see his eyes they’d be a deep,
violet blue. His hands clenched at his sides, breathing heavy, the vein at his
temple standing out in relief.

No time like the present to just get this done with.

Again, she asked him. “Grant, what more can I possibly give
you that I haven’t already?”

His voice a roar of anger, it boomed across the deserted
parking lot, over her as he turned on her.

“I need you to love me, Teryn! Really love me!” He threw his
hands up, pacing. “It was never only about the sex. The sex is incredible, but
it was also the only guaranteed thing you would give me. I’m so goddamn alone I
can’t even breathe. I’ve
been
alone my entire life, until I met you.
You’re the only person who didn’t want anything from me for once, but you give
me everything I ask for. Everything except your love. I feel so goddamn
desperate, like some fucking lovesick dog that can’t do anything but chase
after you. You don’t know who, what I was before, I can’t go back there.”

He looked up at her. Her green eyes were filled with tears.

“I do love you. Why do you think I would do all of this?”
She dropped her eyes, the tears spilling over onto her cheeks.

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “You are always so
goddamn perfect, everything about you, the way you challenge me, take care of
me, always wanting to do something new, the two of us together. I didn’t want
to love you. I tried to fight it, but it’s there anyway. I’ve always thought
that as soon as you knew you had me, I’d be another adventure you conquered. I
didn’t think you would do it on purpose, but you wouldn’t know what to do from
there, there wouldn’t be anything left to find, to need. That would mean this
was done, game over.”

He stood facing her, mouth gaping slightly, fists clenched.

“I do need you, Teryn, I’m never going to stop needing you.
There can’t ever be enough days left in my entire life where I wouldn’t need to
see what you’re going to bring out in me next, no matter how deep we go, or how
crazy we get. Just watching you live every minute with me, that’s never going
to stop. You are more than anything I ever thought I would have. I might show
you with my body, Teryn, but it’s what’s in my heart.”

Those blue eyes. Waiting. Hopeful. The
urge to completely fill them with whatever, anything, consumed her like a fire.
The image of that woman with her tongue on him, she wanted to shred it from her
memory, from his. Her thighs grew tight, she felt the stab of heat spread from
between her legs. She needed to possess him, all of him, now.

Is this how he felt, when he was just willing her to give
everything of herself over to him? Willing her to release all her doubts, give
her every inch of her body, her mind, her heart?

The hungry need that usually came over him poured into her
like burning hot whiskey down her bare throat. She filled her hands with his
hair, pulling his lips into hers, wanting to cover every inch of him with her
mouth, annihilate any and all thoughts in his head save one. Her.

She slid her hands under his shirt, slipping over that warm,
hard skin, feeling the muscles of his belly quiver a little under her fingers.
She needed to feel the power of controlling him, make him give her every ounce
of his desire, himself, as she’d pushed him to do before. But this time, it
wasn’t going to be slow, easy or sweet. He was going to know what she felt,
whether she told him or not, and he was going to know it now.

She pulled his jeans open and knelt between his thighs,
shoving him roughly back into the side of his car before he could try to pull
her back. “Teryn! Shit…ahhh… Christ, we’re in the parking lot… Fuck that feels
so good.”

Her mouth moved over him, every spot she knew he loved to
have her taste, swallowing him hard, deep. No part of him went ignored and she
pulled him quickly to the point where she knew he was on the edge, his hips
were grinding into the rhythm of her sucking him deep into her throat, her
tongue making him lose his mind.

“Teryn…fuck.” He pulled her back, roughly. “I don’t want to
hurt you, but this isn’t how I want this. Stop.”

“I thought this was about me, what I want?”

“That was in there. This is about us now. Us. Get that word
in your head.”

“There’s a lot of words in my head.”

He pulled the car door open, slid into the driver’s seat.
“You coming?” he asked, adjusting his still wide-open jeans, trying to zip
them. He meant for her to get in the passenger side.

“No. You are.” She pushed in on his lap, sliding the button
on the bottom of the seat to send it crashing all the way back.

Her mouth was back on his, she knew he could taste himself
on her lips, that it sent a thrill through him. She felt him stiffen beneath
her, his rock-hard cock searching out the warmth of her wet slit hovering just
above it, her skirt flaring open and lack of panties now apparent. This was her
show. Parking lot or not.

“Teryn… This isn’t going to…”

With total abandon she completely filled herself with him,
spearing his heavy cock deep into warm, wet walls of her pussy that ached to
possess him. Almost as he had been the night before, her need was stripped to
the most primal of instincts. Her voice hadn’t laid claim to him, but her body
did, her entire soul did. She rode him hard, fast, ripping her shirt up over
her shoulders, throwing it aside, her skirt shoved high around her waist,
straddling him with abandon.

“I don’t care what it is, I need to feel you, and that’s all
there is.” Her voice came out a whisper, she didn’t look at him. Just kept
moving.

She felt almost violent. If there was any way possible to
mold them together, to make skin sear into skin and melt into each other, she
would have done it. The anger and fear that she’d felt watching someone else
touching him, it burned through her still. The panic it caused when he admitted
his need to love her, her own need to say it, the whole showdown of this being
the tipping point had driven her over the edge. She wanted to possess him, all
of him. She wanted to fucking rip that need to conquer everything right out of
him.

Each thrust drove home the feeling more and more that she
possessed him—only her—just as she already knew. But she needed to feel it. It
wasn’t that someone else had touched him, it was that she was driving him to do
it. Faster, deeper, she slammed him into her, wet, hot, and grinding down on
him hard. He was clenching his hands on her arms. His eyes were squeezed
shut—something he never did—and he was grunting a deep, guttural sound as she
felt him come into her as she screamed into her own deliverance. It racked
through her, or so she thought. Until she felt the hot, wet sting on her face,
and knew the shudders passing through her were tears. The exhausting emotion of
it all was just too much.

Grant said nothing, he folded her against his chest,
stroking her back as the sobbing subsided, kissing her hair softly over and
over again.

“You okay?” he whispered to her.

“No. Obviously.”

“I know you aren’t. I’m sorry this was such a disaster. It
wasn’t a total waste though, now I know not to get you a girlfriend for
Christmas.”

She pinched his arm. “Jackass. How can you always make
jokes?”

“Sometimes I don’t know what else to do, Teryn.” He slid her
shirt over her head, lifting her arms and pulling it back down over her, sweet,
attentive. Like always.

“Neither do I, Grant. I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know you are. There’s nothing you won’t give me, I know
that now.” He kissed her softly again. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I think
we’re done with these adventures.”

“So, now what?” She needed to know.

He sighed. “We do what everyone else does, we go day by day,
we take what comes.”

Driving home, he let the impact of what had just happened
sink in. There was no getting around it, he dreaded what he knew he needed to
do. Even though the last two weeks had seemed like a lifetime, the
all-consuming quest to reach every little corner of passion with Teryn, hoping
along the way it would finally become something more than just that. And it
had. He just hadn’t prepared for how he would handle it when it did.

“Teryn, when we get home, we need to talk.”

“You just said home.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that bad?”

“The opposite.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk about? Or does it have
something to do with, well, all these things that keep coming up about who you
were before? Your family?”

He couldn’t hold back the deep sigh that built in his chest.
“This is going to be hard. I have to tell you something about me, Teryn,
something you should have known right from the start, but I just, I didn’t
think it through before we started this. I needed to know you could love me,
that I wouldn’t lose you before I could… Shit, it’s going to take a long time
to explain this, the car isn’t the place. I need to stop by my place and get
some clothes. I’ll tell you as soon as we’re, uh, home, I promise.”

He avoided the look that he knew had washed over her face.
After what had just happened, to drop a bomb on her that he was revealing
something about himself might be enough to kill the connection they’d finally
just managed to make. It had to happen either way. That was when they pulled
into the small driveway of his apartment.

The expensive sedan was the first indication of something
out of place. The second was the woman who stood on the balcony leading to his
apartment at the top of the stairs. Tall, blonde, the epitome of carefully
constructed perfection that only the best plastic surgery and a wardrobe of
designer clothes could buy.

“Shit. Teryn, you need to stay here for a minute.”

“Who is she, Grant?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. This has nothing to do with us,
something very, very old. I’ll be right back. Just stay here, please?” Visibly
shaken, his eyes pleaded.

“I don’t know if this is what you wanted to talk about, but
I’m right here, I won’t go anywhere. Unless I need to.”

“You don’t need to.”

He leaned in and kissed her briefly, then left the car and
sprinted up the stairs. A gnawing feeling crept into her gut. The feeling when
you just knew that ugly thing that you always expected to come crashing into
your world was bearing down on you as if you had a target painted on your
forehead. Why now? Did this have to do with what he wanted to talk to her
about? A heavy ball of molten lead formed in her belly. She should have paid
better attention to the questions she had. The things she knew were little bits
of what had to be part of a bigger story, but she’d ignored them, trusting it
was probably just his family past, painful, like hers. Except obviously that
had been wrong.

Why the hell hadn’t this happened before she let herself
think for a minute that they really were together, in love?

Before she’d given in.

Even if she had wanted to avoid hearing them, it would have
been impossible. The screaming started almost the minute he reached the
balcony. Not all the words were clear, but enough were. Especially the words
“You can’t just walk away from it all and pretend it doesn’t exist, even if you
did find some little bar tart to fill your bed.” And “You don’t have a choice.
You have to come back, and take control of things. If you don’t your Mother is
in danger of losing everything.” Finally, the name, screamed at the top of the
woman’s lungs. “Like it or not, you are Grant Callahan, no matter who you
pretend to be, and it’s time you took some responsibility for it.”

She felt about as humiliated as if he’d just stood there
himself and slapped her across the face. It explained so much. Those black
Irish devilish good looks. Callahan. No wonder. The Tag Heuer watch, that
incredible wool blazer, the five-hundred-dollar lingerie, the wine. All these
things he just knew, took for granted. Because they were part of his world.
Part of the world of the ultra-rich who did take those things for granted.

Worse, the Grant she saw standing at the top of that balcony
wasn’t even her Grant. When he’d faced off with the woman, she saw someone she
didn’t know appear in him, stiff, angry, face menacing, voice a snarl. His eyes
were cold. She could see the hatred in them for this woman. The easygoing
Grant, the confident Grant who stood casually as if he didn’t have a care in
the world, was gone. This man was almost not recognizable. Even earlier, angry
over the whole situation between them, he’d looked nothing like this. The Grant
who faced off with the woman at the top of the stairs looked hard. Cold. This
was the man he’d warned her he could be.

The tirade continued, and then the worst came, words that
reverberated in Teryn’s head, as the woman stomped down the stairs, livid. The
words she tried to find some way to explain, knowing that it was impossible,
especially after he had just told her he needed to reveal something to her
about himself. She wanted to get out of the car, to run, but she froze, head
reeling.

Glancing Teryn’s way, the woman jumped in her car and tore
out of the driveway. Grant slowly descended the stairs to Teryn, opening the
car door for her, looking up at the dark sky.

“You heard her.” His voice seethed, barely controlled.

“The next town heard her.” She needed to see his eyes. “Look
at me.”

Cold. Still so cold and hard. His jaw set in a tight line,
his body ramrod straight, tight, all trace of anything she’d known wiped away.
He stood differently, his voice was different—he was different.

“I don’t even know who you are. Wait, I do know who you are.
Fuck me, I was right all along.” Her head turned, she moved as if in a dream,
staring blankly through the windshield of the car at nothing. The shock didn’t
give her time to catch up, to focus. “You lied to me. I knew better than to
just ignore you keeping your family a secret, thinking I felt sorry for you.
All along it was just because you knew when I found out it would end. All those
little things that kept nagging at me. Like how the hell you could wear a
thousand-dollar watch like it was nothing, how you sometimes act like you just
own the world. That’s because you fucking do!” Anger gripped her, and she
turned back to him. “No wonder you have that attitude that nothing will ever
hold you back, because it won’t! You can walk off and go anywhere, have
anything,
anyone
, any time you fucking well please.”

“Obviously not, Teryn, or I wouldn’t have been working so
goddamn hard just to have you.”

The words were like a rocket blast to her psyche, that he
dared to even pretend, after what she knew, had just learned.

She climbed out of the car and looked up at his cold
expression.

“Exactly. Why would you do that? Never mind, I already know.
The challenge. Nothing is too good for you to conquer, all the while thinking
no one is
really
good enough for the great Callahans, for you,
apparently. I’m not good enough to even know your real name. Just good enough
to use for a summer fuck-buddy, right? You are one of
the
Callahans,
right? Don’t bother, I already know. I don’t read that shit but only a cave
dweller wouldn’t have heard of
the
Grant Callahan, playboy, fucking rich
boy gigolo.” She gathered herself up, hugging her arms to her chest. The anger
rose, heating her from within. “Was it fun, Grant? You just pissed you got
found out before you had a chance to end this and bolt? What, are you slumming,
run out of snotty rich girls to fuck?”

She stood nose to nose with him, those cold eyes not
wavering, and not softening back to the Grant she knew either, the one she
wanted to take her in his arms, tell her it’s okay, it’s all a mistake. But it
wasn’t, and there was no going back.

“Teryn! Stop. Give me a break, after what just happened
between us, I deserve the right to explain myself. You owe me that.” Even his
words were different, commanding in an authoritative tone, the tone of a man
who easily owned anything within his reach, and was used to demanding what he
wanted. A tone that was not the Grant she knew.

She was nowhere near done with him. She didn’t care if she
was screaming at him, or who heard her.

“I don’t think so. You have no right at all, Grant. None. It
all makes sense now, all the crap about your rigid parents. Poor little rich
boy, am I supposed to feel sorry for you because your family was fucked up?
Well, guess what, lots of people’s families are fucked up, but they don’t have
a huge empire that owns half the goddamn country! Tell you what, maybe I should
have told
you
something right from the start. So you would know the
damage your goddamn charade caused, as if you care what it’s doing to me. How
about having barely any parents at all, Grant? No father in sight. How about
moving from crappy apartment to crappy apartment, a new school every year, no
friends, spending most nights on your own because even your mother is too busy
with her own life? Yeah, except I didn’t have a trust fund or a boarding school
to run away to, or whatever the fuck you rich people do to drown your sorrows.”

She was pacing now, shaking with anger, she’d been yelling
so loud her throat was raw, and now she felt the strength flooding out of her.
Resisting the urge to fold in front of him, she squared her shoulders. Her
voice was quieter now, but angry, as menacing she hoped as his had been on that
balcony.

“You wonder why the hell I wouldn’t trust you? Because I am
sick of feeling like I had to take whatever love someone gave me and be glad
for it. I moved on from where I came from, I made a life for myself, and I
didn’t fucking need you in it! I didn’t need you to come and play your little
rich boy party game on me, and twist me up like this, Grant. You know what, so
I’m different, so I don’t think or act like everyone else, that doesn’t mean
someone like you has a right to come along and use me. And that’s exactly what
you did. Whatever, I’m going to walk from here. Don’t follow me, just…just
don’t anything.”

“Teryn, please, you don’t understand, please give me a
minute.”

The Grant she knew was coming back, physically at least,
even if the one she’d thought she’d fallen in love with didn’t exist, and never
would. His eyes had softened, his shoulders were slumped. His voice sounded
like the Grant she knew. Or thought she knew. He looked as if he were in pain.
Good.

“Oh, I do understand. I understand that I heard that woman
say she was your ex-wife, except you neglected to tell me you were ever
married. In fact, you just told me you’ve always been alone, so totally alone,
poor little you. Which is what you based claiming that you love me on. You
don’t know shit about being alone, Grant, let me assure you. This whole time,
all this trust you kept yammering on at me about, and now what? What I know, is
that you are a selfish, manipulating bastard, Grant. You’re a fucking Callahan.
Did you think I would want your money, is that it? You don’t deserve the chance
to say anything, nothing at all.”

“No, Teryn, that’s not it, that’s not why I didn’t tell you,
I don’t even want the money, that’s the whole problem.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. A lie is a lie. Every single minute
I’ve been with you started with a lie, so it’s all downhill from there. Get out
of my way.”

“Please, Teryn, I’m not selfish, I didn’t manipulate you.”

“Now
that’s
a lie, and you know it. You don’t even
buy it yourself, it’s written all over your face. Leave me alone, Grant. You’ve
had your fun little anonymous summer fling, now you can go back to, to
wherever.” She pushed past him, walking into the dark, tears streaming down her
face. Before she got half a block his car pulled into a driveway in front of
her, blocking her path. He jumped out.

“Teryn, you’re going to stop and give me a chance to tell
you what’s going on. You can’t walk home like this.”

“What, looking like the little Goth whore I dressed up to
be, for whom? Oh, right, you. And I’m going to
listen
to you? Is that an
order, Grant? Sorry, I think you’ve taught me about everything I need to know
now. I don’t need to take orders from you anymore, game is over. I learned to
let myself be whatever I wanted. I learned to take chances, I even learned when
to pull back. I also learned that what I thought I knew all along was right—if
it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Yeah, now I get it, Thrill
Seekers, right.”

“You’re right about me being a manipulative bastard. I
didn’t mean to, it wasn’t what I planned to do. I thought I was… I thought I
needed to control what you knew about me so you could trust me. No one trusts
anyone with the name Callahan, and you already didn’t believe in me from the
very first day, so… I just didn’t think I had a choice. I’m sorry, Teryn, I
really do love you, I’ve loved you since I laid eyes on you, since that first
time you let me make love to you on my kitchen table. You’re so open, so
honest, even if you didn’t know how to let go and just follow your heart, you
still didn’t cover up anything about who you were, and I did. I’m sorry. You
deserve better, I know you do.”

“Damn right I do, too bad it doesn’t exist, Grant. I thought
it was you. I thought I finally knew who you really were. Maybe there’s a
reason no one trusts people with your last name, Grant, you ever think of that?
You don’t love me, I’m just something you can’t have, and you don’t know what
the hell to do with that.”

“Teryn, what I am is everything you thought about me, right
up until tonight. The person Olivia talked about, that person doesn’t exist,
never has. Please let me tell you the truth.”