The Rules Regarding Gray (21 page)

“Why is your suitcase out? Where the hell are you going?” Jas asked in a less than friendly voice.

“Uh… I have to go out of town for work. You can hang with Gray, right?”

“What happened to taking care of her? Giving her your undivided attention?” His voice sounded incredulous.

Gray stood from the lounger, making her way to the door. The pool side of the house was nothing but tall window after tall window, interrupted only by the large set of French doors that she’d left open. The sheer curtains that hung there were billowing out in the light wind, and she crept up to them, peering around the fabric. Jas and Ian were facing one another by the foyer, and they didn’t have a clue she was even there.

“
You
spend time with her. Give her
your
attention. You seem to like being attentive to her.” Ian smirked, placing his hands on his hips.

“Well, somebody has to be!”

Gray’s mouth fell open, and then she gritted her teeth.

Ian shrugged. “Go crazy. You have my full permission to break the rules. Get hopped up on Vicodin with her. Fuck each other’s brains out. Stick it wherever the hell you want. You have my blessing! Just deal with her.”

“She is not my responsibility!” Jas roared in fury.

And then she gasped. She didn’t mean too, but the tightness in her chest let loose, and the sound escaped as both of the men’s eyes flashed to the open door. But she was focusing on Jasper’s eyes. He clasped his forehead with his hands, and his face scrunched up in pain.

She could feel the tears pricking at the backs of her eyes, and her body was trembling. She sniffed her nose and turned around.

“Gray,” Jasper’s voice called after her, and then as the front door slammed, he roared again. “Fuck!”

He found her moments later as he ran out to the patio, but she was already on the phone with information.

“City and state, please,” the operator said.

“Austin, Texas.”

“Gray, what are you doing?”

“Get away from me,” she muttered as she covered her phone.

“What listing?”

“Uh… a cab company. I don’t know what—”

He snatched the phone from her hand, ending her call, and when she looked at him, she sneered.

“Give me my phone.”

“No. I need to talk to you.”

“Fuck you!” she snapped. “Give me my fucking phone now.”

“You have to listen to me.” He looked as furious as she felt, but when she blinked, a tear ran down her cheek, and he groaned. “Please,” he pleaded.

“I’m not your problem, and I don’t owe you my attention. I just want to go home. I can’t do this anymore.” And then she fell apart. She cried, brushing furiously at the tears and trying to rein her emotions in.

His hand touched her arm, and she yanked it away, sneering at him even as her tears fell.

He sighed, staring at the ground. “I’ll take you home.” His voice was quiet, and he sounded defeated as he turned and walked back to the house.

She followed him in. He snatched his keys from the entryway table, and he grabbed her purse that was under the table. He held the door open for her, locking it behind him, and as he followed her to his car, he was as silent as she.

She watched the streets tick off as they drove, and she stared out the passenger window. When she actually let her eyes focus on what she was seeing a while later, it was as they were jumping onto an interstate. They shouldn’t be on an interstate.

“Where are we? I said I wanted to go home.”

He glanced at her. “We are going home.”

“To
whose
home?” She sounded shrill.

He exhaled deeply. “Mine.”

She gaped at him. “You’re kidnapping me?”

He scoffed as he looked at her. “If you want to see it that way.”

“Pull over and let me out,” she demanded a bit childishly.

“Yeah, Gray. That’s going to happen. This is I-35. You’re not getting out. You’re going to sit there like a good little girl until we stop. Then you’re going to listen to what I have to say.
Then
you’re going to forgive me.”

She glanced at him, her lips pinched together in frustration. “I wouldn’t count on it,” she muttered.

“Boy, you’re pleasant when you’re angry.” He looked at her one last time, sighing as he returned his attention to the road.

She glared at nothing at all for forty minutes straight, and when they exited the interstate to winding country roads, she glared at the passing countryside for another fifteen minutes. She got lost in all the turns, and then they pulled onto a gravel drive through a set of gates. The gates were simple and rustic and said nothing of what was beyond, and it wasn’t until many more long minutes that she found out what lay farther down the winding road.

A sprawling country ranch grew larger and larger in front of them. There were trees surrounding them on this property, and the home itself was beautiful and simple. The stonework was rustic, the details on everything from the weathervane on the roof, to the iron on the garage doors, to even the porch swing on the front porch, was impeccable.

She glanced over at him, and he looked quickly at her too. He looked suspicious, as though he expected her to have another outburst at any moment. She wasn’t sure she could guarantee she wouldn’t. When he stopped the car, he rounded to her side and helped her stand.

“You live here?” She looked up at him.

“When I have time to.” He studied her for a moment, and then he turned and walked away from her toward the porch, leaving her in the dust and letting her follow at her own choosing.

She entered many seconds after him into the foyer with its tall ceilings. It had a southwestern feel without the requisite southwestern artifacts. The floor was a burnt umber natural tile, the walls a warm yellowish tan color with a stucco finish. His décor was simple and eclectic, with a large landscape mural over the fireplace in the living room. As she passed farther, she entered a great room. The kitchen was off to her right toward the interior of the house. An open dining room sat between the kitchen and the large family room. The ceilings were tall and vaulted with exposed beams, and the large family room sat on the end of the house. The three exterior walls of the family room were glass, and the one on the back of the house looked out at a sunken pool and a number of trees surrounding the patio area.

Beyond the kitchen was a long hallway that led back to what she assumed were bedrooms, and as her attention returned to this room it was to see him opening windows and doors to let some air in. He was flipping on a few lights as he went, illuminating the home from the dusk that was settling in around them.

He stopped as he neared her, and he looked at her. She held her focus on him, and then he took a deep breath. “Please come sit down.”

She followed him to the family room, and she sat in a side chair as he sank to the sofa caddy corner from her.

“Out of curiosity, how long do you intend to keep me here against my will?” She pursed her lips.

His lips pulled up slightly. “Such attitude,” he commented sarcastically. “We’ll stay as long as you want to stay.”

“So, you’ll take me home now then?”

His jaw tightened. “You’re going to listen to me first.”

She took a deep breath. She was acting hostile. In truth, she was exceptionally hurt, but she was also exceptionally angry, and it was amazing how that combination could leave her cold and distant from a man she never felt cold and distant from.

“I’m sorry.” His eyes were sincere, though she’d never expect an apology from him to be anything but sincere.

But those two words were all it took in her current state to break through the anger and leave the hurt. Her eyes teared, and she shook her head against the impending emotion. She’d been more emotional over the past week than she’d been in years. She wasn’t opposed to the stuff by any means, but she was used to her emotional meltdowns coming only on rare occasions. She brushed a tear from her cheek, and when she caught the devastated look on his face, she looked down to her lap.

“Please look at me.” It was that gentle tone she’d gotten kind of used to recently.

She pulled her head up, sniffing her nose.

“I’m so sorry. Stay until tomorrow at least. Just … don’t run away from me yet.” He looked nervous as he watched her.

She nodded tensely, but her eyes dropped from his to her lap again. “I just really want to be alone. Can I please go to bed?”

He looked away, shaking his head in frustration, and then he stood, walking toward the back door. “Take any bedroom you like.” And then he walked out, leaving her staring at his coffee table.

Chapter Nineteen

Jasper didn’t come inside until it was well after dark. He’d turned the patio lights on, uncovered the pool, and then spent thirty minutes cleaning out the leaves that had fallen and blown in since he’d been there last. He rescued a couple frogs as well, and then he re-covered the pool. What he was really trying to do was keep himself from worrying about what he’d done to Gray.

His argument with Ian hadn’t been meant for her ears, and every time he rewound that conversation and replayed it in his mind, he cringed. Logic said she must understand it was his fury at Ian that had driven his words, but there was no escaping the damage his words had done. Were he to hear her exclaim something so heartless and cold would he feel any better? Nope.

When he finally came inside, he wandered back to the bedrooms. He had four, one of which was a large master that opened onto the patio surrounding the pool. He wanted to find her there. But he knew damn well he wouldn’t, and as he suspected, his bedroom was dark. He opened the doors out to the patio, leaving the screen closed, and then he hopped in the master shower.

He slipped on a pair of underwear and nothing else when he went in search of her. He found her in the first spare room she’d have reached. He left the hall light on as he entered, and he stood there watching her. She’d worn a sundress that day—white with eyelets, very innocent and sweet, and she was still wearing it now.

She was lying on the front of her left hip, with her bad leg stretched out in front of her, and the skirt of the sundress had ridden up to just under her bottom. When he crawled in behind her, he slid his hand up under the skirt, pushing it up her back. She moaned, and he closed his body in behind hers, leaning to her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She whimpered, but she was waking up, and he pressed his groin against her bottom as he reached around her waist, pulling her body back into his.

“Jas,” she breathed out.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

He pushed her dress up higher on her back, forcing it over her head as she whimpered again sleepily. But she let it pass over her head, and he wriggled her loose from it.

“Forgive me,” he whispered.

She reached back, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him toward her. He lowered his head to her shoulder, breathing against her skin. He knew he could kiss her. He could kiss her, fuck her, do any damn thing he wanted to her, and she wouldn’t stop him—not late at night in a dimly lit bedroom when they both needed it so desperately and Ian had given them permission.

But, that was a decision that was going to be made between the two of them outside of a bedroom. He wasn’t going to give either one of them the chance to renege later and claim that it “just happened.” If they were going to do this, it was going to be the most intentional fuck of the century. That meant withstanding the taunt of her round little bottom pushing against his groin, and the heady whimpers as she wriggled against him.

Her body moved against his, her quiet moans the most arousing sound he’d ever heard. He was pushing himself equally hard against her backside, and when he lost it a little as she said “please” softly, he thoughtlessly and roughly pulled the back of her underwear down, exposing those cheeks he was so fond of. She cried out, and as his need surged again, he pulled down the front of his underwear, pushing his hard cock against the cleft of her butt cheeks.

She whimpered out the “please” again, and he nearly succumbed to it. He was humping against her bottom, his arousal sliding between her cheeks, and she was trembling.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

She reached back, and her palm trembled against the front of his thigh, but she didn’t push it. She didn’t reach for him or try to push him further, and their bodies just moved and rubbed against one another until he’d managed to quiet and resist the need for the time being. He fell asleep with his underwear still pushed down and his groin against her naked bottom.

* * * *

“Good morning.” Gray looked at Jasper shyly as she crutched her way out to the patio in her sundress. He was walking around the pool barefoot in a pair of jeans and shirtless, trying to catch more leaves with the net.

“Damn near lunch time,” he remarked.

She shook her head. “I think maybe I should stop taking Vicodin at bedtime.”

“I thought you stopped taking it.” He eyed her curiously. He was quite certain she’d stopped taking it.