The Rules Regarding Gray (35 page)

“Well, this is an interesting piece,” Gerald commented as he studied the cock in the dining room.

Jane glanced at Jasper, and he rolled his eyes as she stifled a laugh. She didn’t care for the cocks any more than he did.

They strolled on, and eventually, after an hour or so, they’d made it through the home. It was a large home, and he’d taken this tour with an antique broker the week before too. When they made it back to the front foyer, Jane and Gerald chatted for a moment. Gerald had been taking notes along the way, and he was assuring her that he’d get a report to her as soon as possible.

She hung back when Gerald left, and as she turned to him, it was with a sly smile on her lips. “So, I know I suggested dinner out, but what would you say to ordering pizza and watching movies instead?” She looked hopeful.

He was certain he looked nervous. He was always nervous when he spent personal time with her. He knew she was attracted to him. And she
was
pretty, but… these nerves never felt good—not the way nerves like these should feel.

“Sorry,” she offered. “I’ve just had a long day, and I would love to take a load off tonight.”

He finally smiled. “Sounds good.” He nodded. “Why not?”

* * * *

Jasper felt Gray’s palm traveling over his shirt as her hand moved up his chest. He moaned, soaking in the feel of her touch after too long without it. “Oh, fuck,” he murmured. And as that hand reached his neck, her other trailed lower over his stomach, slowly moving to his cock. He was hard, and every muscle in his stomach clenched and rippled as he waited for her fingers to find his erection.

Her palm gently moved over the front of his pants, finding his rigid hard dick and gripping it as her fingers moved lower. “Fuck, you
are
big,” she murmured against his ear.

“Gray.” He groaned out her name.

She stilled for a moment, and then she rubbed, pushing her hand low to his testicles, cupping and squeezing them through his pants. He inhaled against her neck, but he shook his head. She didn’t smell right.

“Are you hard for me?” she crooned seductively.

She didn’t sound herself, but he hummed his response, desperate for more of her. “Mm-hmm. Please, Gray.”

Her body moved against his, her supple large breasts pressing against his chest, and as he nuzzled against her neck, he inhaled the scent again as his hands gripped and squeezed the soft mounds of her tits. Something was wrong.

“Gray,” he murmured again, desperate to hear her voice.

“Baby,” she responded in the wrong voice.

And then he panicked, shoving the body away from him as he pushed himself up on the couch. He gasped, panting as he tried to breathe through the shock. He rubbed his eyes as he blinked, trying to wake up. When he opened his eyes, she was staring back at him as she sat at his hip on the couch. It was the wrong she.

“Are you okay?” Jane asked as her palm gently stroked his thigh. “Sorry. You sounded like you wanted it.” She seemed genuinely confused, and he shook his head, trying to process what was going on. He’d been content. He’d been at peace, knowing his Gray was there, and now … she was gone. She’d never been there.

He nodded, staring at his lap as he tried to cope with the sudden loss of her. He couldn’t do this forever. He couldn’t torture himself with her memory for the rest of his life. He had to let her go. Why the hell couldn’t he ever let her go? He peered up to Jane, and he tried to smile.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

She bit her lower lip, glancing down at his groin. She leaned close to his mouth, brushing his cheek with her fingers, and he sighed, trying to relax. But she paused, studying his eyes for a moment.

“What does Gray mean?” she asked with a quizzical expression.

He shook his head.

“Is it a person?” She cocked her head to the side.

He gnawed on the inside of his lip, but he eventually nodded.

She studied him for a moment as his eyes shifted around. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

He nodded again.

“Oh.” She looked stricken for a moment.

“She’s…” He took a deep breath, and he let it out slowly. “She’s no one.”

She nodded tentatively, and then she leaned to his mouth as he closed his eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“He told him he was still seeing you!” Anna practically shrieked into the phone.

Gray was sitting in a stupor on her bed, still trying to wake up from her impromptu mid-day nap. “What? Anna, I’m still half asleep, and you’re not making any sense.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you since this morning.”

“Yeah, sorry. I fell asleep. I was up all night knitting. Now can you please tell me what the hell you’re talking about?”

“Okay. Well… Knitting?”

“Anna!”

“Okay. First of all, you’re not allowed to get mad at me. I swear it wasn’t completely my fault. I mean, I didn’t set him up. It just happened that he was there.” She was in speed talk mode. “I mean, maybe I was doing some intel at Graystone last night, hoping to pick up on something, anything, that could explain this. Because, you know what? It just doesn’t make any fucking sense!” She was shrieking into the phone again.

“Anna, please. I’m so confused right now.” She stood up, moving to the kitchen and starting some coffee.

“Okay, just listen. I’m there, sitting at the bar, trying to pry some info from his bartender—”

Gray groaned. “Oh, you didn’t. Please tell me you’re not stalking people.”

“Just listen. So, I’m sitting at the bar, striking out with the bartender, and who walks up to me? Ian-the-dumb-fuck-let’s-have-a-threesome-ex. That’s who. He’s already half-drunk, slurring his words. He’s hanging all over me, and I start asking him questions, just prodding for information, how’s Jas doing, that sort of bullshit.”

Gray grabbed a coffee cup from the cupboard, and she stood there, yawning and waiting for the coffee maker to spew her life force into the pot. She gave up, and pulled the pot from the burner, slipping her cup under the stream.

“I’m still so confused, honey.” She yawned again.

“He admitted it. The shithead motherfuckin’ fucking son of a bitch fuckwad from hell admitted it!”

“Wow. That was a lot of F-bombs for one sentence. I haven’t heard that many since the Tiger sex scandal. Care to tell me what he admitted?”

Anna took a deep breath, letting it out loudly. “He told Jasper he fucked you. He said you’d fucked his brains out the second he saw you when he returned from Dallas. Gray… Jasper still thinks you and Ian are together. And I mean
together
together.”

Every ounce of air in Gray’s lungs came rushing out in a huff as she sank to the dining room chair, her coffee forgotten. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” She shook her head. “How? Why would he…?”

“Why do you think? Because you broke up with him.”

“Oh, my God. No. No.” She kept shaking her head.

“Yeah, honey. The fucker played you two like a goddamn card game.”

“I have to…” She stood, looking around her loft. “Ian said Jasper’s seeing someone. Oh, God.” She whimpered.

“And you don’t think it’s possible he lied about that too?”

Gray nodded. “But maybe it’s not a lie! I have to go. I have to go back. I’m going. If he’s not going to answer my phone calls, I’m just going to go.”

“Well,” Anna started awkwardly. “I mean, you could just leave him a message. Maybe tell him, and…”

“I’m going. Anna I have to let you go.”

“Of course you do. Now go get that emotionally fucked up sweetheart and drag his ass home where he belongs.”

“Yeah,” she said as she nodded. Really, she was just pumping herself up. “I’m just going. I’m going right now. Not even going to pack a bag.”

Anna made an odd sound. “
Oh
… I mean maybe a pair of underwear or something, you know. Let’s not get all archaic.”

“Fine.” She was still nodding. “I’m going to pack a bag,” she said firmly. “Then I’m going.”

“Okay.” Anna agreed.

“Okay,” Gray replied.

Click.

Gray grabbed the first small bag she found in her closet, and she started stuffing clothes into it from the nearby clothing basket. She’d never been more terrified in her whole life. She’d also never been more excited, and it wasn’t until she realized she was stuffing dirty clothes into her bag, that she stopped moving, took a deep breath, and forced herself to focus.

She shook her head, dumping the dirty clothes back into the dirty clothes basket, and then she stood, limping her way over to her dresser. She managed to stuff the bag with clean clothes this time, and she grabbed her purse from the dining room table as she walked to the door. She was going to do this. She was going to go beg him to take her back, and then she was going to slap him for being a jerk.

She pulled the door open, and she marched to the elevator, slamming her hand on the button, and then she even grunted as she silently fist pumped the air. She listened to the old thing creak and grown on its way up to her level, and she stared at the floor, running through the scenarios. She was like a football player before the game, running through her plays. She was going to yell at him. She might slap him. She was definitely going to forgive him. But she might have to slap him first. And, God, what if he really was seeing someone else? She couldn’t take that. And what if he really just didn’t want her? He had kicked her, more or less, to the curb the last time she saw him.

She shook her head as she stared down at her feet, and then the door was being lifted open by someone in the elevator. She didn’t bother looking up at the person. She was simply too busy playing out how this was going to go to care if the person in the elevator thought she was crazy.

“Gray.”

She gasped as her head snapped up. And she stared wide eyed back at him. “I’m going to slap you.” The words fell out of her mouth.

“Okay,” he said calmly.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Jasper stared at Gray as he stepped off the elevator, and she stared back, her mouth hanging open.

He glanced down at her bag. He was interrupting something. “Where are you going?”

“To San Diego.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he felt the corner of his mouth pulling up slightly. “And you packed a…” He shook his head in confusion. “That’s a thermal lunch tote?” He actually did smile then. “And the sleeve of that green cardigan of yours I like so much is sticking out.”

She glanced down. “Oh… Well…” Her lips pursed and her brow wrinkled. “I was … in a hurry.”

He inhaled deeply, taking her keys from her and moving to her door. His fingers trembled as he unlocked her door, and when he turned around to face her, her face was still frozen in shock as she watched him. He was still just trilling at the fact that she’d said she was going to San Diego. There was only one person in San Diego she knew, and he was standing right in front of her in as much shock as she appeared to be in.

“Well, I was coming to you.” He bit his lip as he pushed her door open.

Her lips trembled, and he stepped through the door as she followed him. She’d actually stepped through her door herself without the assistance of two artificial legs, and as he looked down at her boot, he smiled.

“I like it.”

She glanced down, nodding. “Jasper, what are you doing here?”

He nodded, taking a deep breath. “I made a mistake.”

She nodded.

“A big one. The worst in my life, in fact. The thing is… I don’t care about you and Ian—”

“He said you were dating someone.”

He stared at her suddenly confused. “Oh… Yeah, I guess. But we weren’t dating. Not…” He shook his head for a moment. He wasn’t doing this right. “Okay. The estate agent asked me out. She came onto me. And she… I thought she was you. I was sleeping, and…”

She gasped, her eyes suddenly panicked.

“No!” He corrected. He tried to smile. “She kissed me, and… And I fell apart. I… I asked her to leave. Then I packed a bag and took a cab to the airport.” He nodded. “That was last night at eleven.” He laughed quietly, and then he shook his head. “Too bad there were no flights out to Austin until this morning.” He shrugged. “It was kind of a long night.”

“You could have called me,” she offered. “I was knitting.” She seemed like maybe she was a little deranged.

He’d been in his own deranged mood since the night before, so much so that he’d literally sat at the airport all night long, waiting… And waiting. The first flight out was six-fifteen that morning, and with an inevitable layover, he’d only just gotten in at one that afternoon. Now he was exhausted, terrified he was going to screw this up, and not a little bit curious as to why she’d been ready to walk out the door to come to him after the way he’d treated her and pushed her away.

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I don’t care about you and Ian. I mean, I do care. It guts me.” He grabbed her hands. “But I don’t have the right to care.”