And Greyson sees it.
He traces the scar with one finger and sets my hand on his own scar. The gesture only endears him to me. Because he’s scarred too, but he’s not embarrassed about it.
As he bends over and presses his lips to my scar, my eyes well up.
“What happened here?” he murmurs.
I don’t know why he makes me emotional, but I blink back the tears and slide my hand down his chest over his own scar. “What happened here?” I counter, my voice thick with emotion.
“Ladies first,” he says gently, easing back and watching me with eyes that are no longer sleepy, but dark and patient.
I’m not sure I want him to know that one of my kidneys is not mine. That I’m a transplant patient. That I need to take pills to make sure my body doesn’t reject my donor’s organ. That maybe in a couple of years, I’ll need to exchange this one for a new one yet again, if it starts giving up.
These are not things you tell a man when you’re starting to date, or just f**k, or whatever we’re doing. There’s this show called the Millionaire Matchmaker, and I will never forget how the expert Patti went all over a girl who’d dumped some serious issues on a poor bachelor’s lap.
You do not do that!
Guys do not care about it unless they genuinely care about you first!
Quietly, I touch Greyson’s nipple ring instead, and hearing him hold his breath when I tug it playfully, I grin into his suddenly very dark, hungry eyes and say, “I should get a nipple ring.”
He laughs, then sobers up and shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
He rubs my butt. “That’s not f**king happening. No one’s getting anywhere near my business.”
I realize the thick bandage on his right arm is stained with blood, so I sit up with a start. “What happened here? Did I scratch you?”
He merely smiles to himself as he tightens the bandage. “It takes a little more than a kitten’s claw to make me bleed.”
“Let me help.”
Shifting closer, I take the bandage and carefully wrap it around his bulging arm. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m good,” he says dismissively.
When I finish wrapping it up, I impulsively set a kiss on it, slowly setting my lips on him and closing my eyes as a tenderness sweeps through me. A man making me feel this tenderness is so alien to me. Usually men are just . . . guys to me. Not even human. More like enemies that must be handled with care. Used, on occasion. But what I feel for this one is the most powerful thing I’ve ever in my life felt. Almost as if I know him from before. In some past life . . . in my dreams . . .
Before I can lift my head, his nose finds my ear, making me smile against his bandage and squirm when his breath tickles me.
He trails his hand lightly down my spine and settles it at the small of my back. This man gets my lower body on overdrive, but my upper body is getting the same workout, just ask my heart, which hasn’t beaten right for over thiry-six hours. And is he giving me the look too? I raise my head, and I’m tingling from my fingers to my toes. His smile is lazy, sleepy, and it melts me.
“That’s nice,” he says in a rumbly voice.
“What?”
“Nurse Melanie,” he whispers.
Something inside me buzzes and zings and I groan at my body’s stupid, instant reaction, then I tip my head up to kiss him while holding his head and pulling him down to mine. He brushes my lips, teasing me with a smile.
I groan in protest when my phone alarm starts screaming like mad, and I realize it’s Sunday—for a fact.
“Uffff, I’ve got brunch with my parents.” When he doesn’t seem too willing to let go of my waist, I push at his thick wrists. “Mister, I have to go.”
“I propose you cancel,” he says lazily.
“I can’t. I’m the only one who comes to brunch, and we always do brunch on Sunday.” I start gathering my undergarments and hunting down my dress. “You can come if you want to,” I blurt out, and when I notice his closed expression, I add, “No strings. I mean, it’s just breakfast. Not even that, brunch.”
“Nah, don’t think so.”
He’s still sleepy and in bed, stretching as he checks his phone, first one, then he pulls out another. “Can I use your shower, real quick?” I nervously ask.
“Use anything you like.”
Once again I feel strangely shy . . . I don’t know why he does that to me. Normally in a fling I’m uninhibited and can boss a poor boy around, if I want to. But clearly there’s no bossing this one around. Aware of his eyes on my ass as I retreat, I walk to the bathroom and turn on the warm water, easing inside the stall. I slowly exhale as the water runs over my head.
Greyson stalks into the bathroom just as I’m coming out of the shower stall, and while I wrap my hair in one towel and my body in the other, he flips on the water and showers in about a minute flat.
“Is that right?” he asks, a mocking light in his eyes.
“So right. I’m a slow boil but when I boil, I BOIL!”
As I force myself to slip into my clothes, he’s still in the nude, and before I can zip up my dress, he’s cornered me against a mirrored wall, my br**sts squished against him.
My nerves crackle at the brush of his lips. I set my hand on his chest to push away again, but my fingers just seem to lie there instead, absorbing him, spreading over thick, hard, delicious muscled pec.
“I have to go,” I whisper, rubbing his nipple ring with my thumb.