I stand at the shower threshold and prop my shoulder against the wall. His head snaps around, the dark eyes narrowed and connecting with mine. He's braced for a fight I'm not giving him.
"Thank you," I say, wanting to ease things between us, even though it probably won't be our last clash over this issue.
Grip's wide palms slow in soaping his biceps. The tight line of his mouth loosens some and he sighs.
"Don't thank me." He braces one hand in front of him against the tile, eyes dropped to the water rushing down the drain. "It's my responsibility to take care of you."
He slants a look at me through the steam, a groove between his thick brows.
"That's all I want, Bris." He pierces me with the intensity of his eyes. "I want you safe. I didn't get the chance to personally protect you before. All I'm asking is that you let me do it now. I didn't want you anywhere near that motherfucker, and now you won't be."
Anger, concern, and sincerity knot in his deep voice, as tangled as the emotions twisting in my belly and coiling up tightly in my chest. Even when I'm driving him crazy, there's a fathomless affection for me in his eyes. It was there all those years when he was fucking other people and I was doing the same. It's there now, as clear to me as the water flowing in rivulets down the shower door.
There's something helpless about truly being in love, the kind of love they write songs about, that inspires poetry and launches ships and wreaks havoc. It leaves you slightly off balance, controlling when you mean to cherish, smothering when you mean to hold close. Maybe it takes a while to find the just right. I saw that in Rhyson when he and Kai first got together, and now I see it in Grip, too.
Hell, if I'm honest, I see it in myself.
Grip loves me desperately. I recognize that in him because it mirrors my own heart. I love him desperately enough to debase myself with Parker in broad daylight if that was what it had taken. How can I be angry at Grip for reciprocating that love? For feeling as helpless and off kilter as I do sometimes?
"Okay, Grip." I draw a deep breath that's scented and steamy from the shower. "I'll give you this one, but you need to give me something, too."
He ducks his head under the water streaming over him, licking along that body the way I want to.
"This isn't a negotiation. I will protect you every time as I see fit," he says. "But what do you think you want?"
"Amir moves to New York with us."
"Hell no." He glowers at me. "I don't need him."
"And I didn't need you running interference with Parker, but I understand why you did that. For your own peace of mind. I need Amir in New York with you for mine."
He's quiet, staring at the tiles under his feet for a few seconds.
"Grip, I know you think you're all straight outta Compton . . ." I pause for his chuckle, which I know is coming. "But you're famous now-like really famous, and you cannot assume everyone has good intentions."
"I know that, but I can take care of myself." He looks at me, the conflict of wanting to please me and needing to maintain his pride clear on his face. "I always have."
"Well you haven't always been this version of yourself," I counter. "And you'll be in situations with factors you can't control all the time. You need another set of eyes, someone you can trust."
He considers me, the stubbornness in his eyes yielding a little.
"Rhyson's had stalkers," I remind him. "And he always resisted having a lot of security, but that taught him how vulnerable he is because of what he's chosen to do. Now that he has Kai and Aria, security is tight and everywhere all the time."
Grip just nods.
"Doing this for a living, it makes the stakes high," I say. "But when you love someone, it raises them even more. You have more to lose, and I don't want to lose you, Grip."
Just the thought of something happening to him is like a hot poker through my heart. I know he can see the fear in my eyes. I don't even try to hide it, and I am not above exploiting his love for me to get what I want it if means keeping him safe.
"Besides," I say, struck with sudden inspiration I can't believe I didn't use earlier. "If Amir is there protecting you, he's there to protect me, too, right?"
Grip's eyes narrow and his hands go still as he considers this.
Bingo.
"Okay, he can come," he finally says, but sets his face in stone. "But no way is he living in the same apartment. I don't care how many floors it's got."
"I thought you might say that, which is why I already called about another apartment up for lease in the building."
"You already . . ." He shakes his head, exasperation and grudging admiration in his eyes. "Okay, Bris."
I turn to go before I feel less magnanimous, glad I've found at least enough peace with the situation not to ruin what was already going to be a difficult day.
"We're good?" he asks, soaping the heavier muscles of his shoulders and his ink-splattered arms. Water skids over his chest and between the stacks of muscled abs. A trail of suds migrates south, catching in the hair nesting around his cock.
I lick suddenly dry lips and subtly squeeze my thighs together to suppress the involuntary pussy clench the sight of him incites. While I was negotiating, I could block out the absolute perfection of him, but now I can't look away from the wide head that still feels like it's splitting me open every time even after months together. I don't know if my body will ever fully adjust-I hope not, because the almost-too-much-ness reflects my emotions, like this love is almost too much, straining the seams of my heart until I think I may burst from what I feel.
"Yeah . . ." I clear the huskiness-and hussy-ness-from my voice and try again. "Yeah, we're good."
A strong hand vices my wrist and tugs me forward until I'm just beyond the shower threshold, close enough for steam to slip under my dress, but not close enough to get wet-except I am wet. I may not be in the shower, but my panties are soaked. Then it only gets worse when, with his other hand, he strokes himself languorously, lazy flicks of his wrist that lengthen him into a thickly veined, rigid column.
"Bristol."
My name on his lips pulls my attention from the steady pull between his thighs to the dark stare trained on me, his eyes narrowed with water droplets clinging to the thick lashes tangled at the corners.
"Tell me what you want."
Those are my words, the ones I used to probe about New York. I knew what he wanted then, and he knows what I want now. I grit my teeth against all my wanton urges, but the words spill out.
"You." My breath comes short and quick. "I want you."
In a quick motion, he jerks me into the shower, fully clothed. My dress plasters my skin, and water seeps into my shoes. It will infuriate me later that he has ruined a perfectly good pair of Jimmy Choos.
8
Bristol
"You did this on purpose."
I flip down the visor mirror to study the bright red mark on my neck. I should have left that bathroom, but no, I just couldn't resist. Grip's shower ended like so many do-with me up against the wall.
Grip lets out a salacious chuckle from the driver's seat. He's one of the few people allowed to drive my car, and as he navigates back roads on our way to his mother's house, I'm glad I trust him to do it. As nervous as I am, I'd probably run off the road.
"So, you think in the middle of shower sex, I had the presence of mind to give you a hickey?" Grip flicks me a disbelieving glance. "Just to embarrass you at my mom's house?"
"Yes, I absolutely do, because you're always looking for ways to embarrass me."
"Babe, I don't even know if the sky is blue when I'm inside you."
"You're so full of shit." My laugh takes flight on the wind with the top down. "Your sweet talk doesn't work on me."
His knowing look picks my bravado apart, because his sweet talk totally works on me and he knows it.
"As if I'm not nervous enough." I play with the cuff of my linen shorts, focusing on that small movement instead of the next few hours meeting Grip's friends and family. I've met some here and there over the last few months, of course, but with Grip on tour all summer, not many.
"Don't be nervous." Grip's frown comes quickly now that he sees I'm legitimately not looking forward to this. "Amir will be there, and Shon. You know them and they love you, and my mom is asking about swirl grandbabies every time we talk, so I'm pretty sure you've won her over. Once we procreate, you'll have her eating from the palm of your hand."
"Swirl . . . wait, what? Oh, my God." I'm not sure if my stomach flips over inside because of his mother's outrageousness or at the thought of having Grip's kids. I never saw myself as maternal-like, at all-but imagining myself pregnant with Grip's child is a different matter altogether. I'm assaulted with images and feelings better examined alone than when I'm heading into what feels like social battle.