Made in America (22 page)

“Holy fuck,” she pants. “That was better than this morning.”

I tease her twitching clit with the tip of my tongue before taking a few, final licks of her. Gliding back up the blanket, she eagerly takes me in her mouth, viciously kissing me all over before sucking on my tongue. I love how wild she is at times like this when all her inhibitions break down. Not that Raven is an inhibited girl, but it drives me crazy to see her go crazy, tasting herself on me.

Before I know it, she’s throwing me on my back and unbuckling my pants.

“Raven, I—”

“Shut up, it’s your turn.”

“I didn’t do that for me,” I say as she yanks my trousers around my knees.

“I know, and I’m not doing this for you.”

She takes hold of my cock and mounts me, gliding down slowly over my girth until it’s buried deep inside her.

I don’t struggle.

I don’t protest.

I just lay my head back on the pillow and watch the sky come crashing down as Raven fucks the stars out of me.

- 22 -

Raven

Ringing. Far away. Like a car alarm off in the distance.

My eyes flutter open from sleep. Drowsy.

Movement beside me. Hurried.

I stir, rolling over.

“Hello?” Grant says.

I murmur something and reach for the blankets, dreaming of the sky.

“What?” I hear him say. “How long?”

Pacing on the hardwood floors. Back and forth, back and forth.

His voice penetrates the haze, but I don’t know.

Don’t know who he’s talking to. Don’t know what time it is.

All I know is I’m tired, and want to sleep.

I drift…

drift…

drift…

Clothes being haphazardly thrown into a suitcase. Shuffling into shoes. He sits next to me and kisses my forehead. Strokes my cheek with his fingers.

“I love you,” he says distantly.

I mumble something incoherent to myself. Feel his lips on mine.

I smile.

He whispers, “I’m sorry.”

And when I wake in the morning, he’s gone.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Tito hands me a cup of coffee.

I feel absolutely wrecked, both mentally and physically. Handing him the note I found on the kitchen bar when I woke up, scrawled in Grant’s penmanship, I say “Gone, gone.”

“Raven, had to run back to the city on business. So sorry. Will call you later. G.”

He reads the note once more and hands it to Frankie, whose lips move when he studies it.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” I say after taking a sip. “We came here to get away from business, and now he’s running back to it?”

“Maybe that McCreedy guy you were telling me about had a change of heart?”

I run my fingers through my disheveled hair. I can’t imagine how I look. When I got up and patted around the beach house only to find Grant missing, I threw on a robe and came right over here. Thankfully the boys were already awake. Guess they didn’t have as long a night as we did.

“No,” I groan. “I don’t think so. He was pretty adamant on the phone about signing with Danziger.” I spew Alan’s name through clenched teeth. Just the thought of him invading what has been—up to this point—a fairly adventurous getaway makes my skin crawl. “And besides, the phone rang at some godawful hour, that much I remember. I don’t think McCreedy would call in the middle of the night.”

“Do you remember anything else?” Frankie asks, setting the curious note down.

I shake my head. “Not really. I was pretty out of it. We stayed up late watching the meteor shower and—well, let’s just say my brains were pretty scrambled.”

“”On the beach,” Tito’s eyebrows wiggle as he tries to lighten the mood.

I’m too worked up for mood lightening, though. I want to know where Grant is.

“I think maybe he said
I’m sorry
, I don’t know.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Leaving? I don’t know, Tito. This is all so…frustrating.”

I scowl into my cup of coffee as a million different things run through my mind. Why did Grant leave? Who was he talking to? Important questions that have no answers, and coupled with how guarded he is about his past, I can’t help but think the worst. Like maybe an old flame summoned him for some unthinkable reason.

But I can’t think like that, otherwise I’ll drive myself insane. The way he deflected our conversation last night at dinner was bad enough, and I was fine with that, I really was. At the time there was no use poking and prodding and ruining a perfectly good evening over trivial matters, but now all I want to do is poke and prod because something tells me this isn’t a trivial matter.

It’s something serious.

If it wasn’t, why would he cut and run in the middle of the night?

“Have you tried calling him?” Frankie asks. Tito and I both stare at him for a moment. I blink, and he frowns. “Come on, guys. I thought that was obvious.”

Grabbing my cell from the pocket of the comfy bath robe, I bring up Grant’s number and hit the green call button. Pursing my lips to the side, I gaze back at the guys as they look on with keen interest, listening as the ringing in my ears feels like it’s getting more pronounced with each passing second.

Along with my escalating feelings of dread.

“Hey—”

“Grant! Where are—”

“You’ve reached Grant Huffman. Sorry I can’t come to the—”

“Fuck,” I hang up. I don’t have to say anything to Tito and Frankie. Their faces already tell me they know the call went to voicemail. Instead I moan, “What should I do?”

Tito sets his mug down and gives me a hug. I hesitate at first. The idea of any human contact right now isn’t very appealing, but soon I warm up to his embrace, placing my head on his chest and heaving a long, unsure breath.

“It’ll be okay, baby doll. Frankie and I will take you out to breakfast. We’ll get your mind off things for now, okay?”

“Okay,” I pout.

I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or not, but when your boyfriend high tails it out of Dodge in the middle of the night, it’s hard not to feel insecure about something like that. Like maybe I did something off-putting. I know in my heart that’s ridiculous—that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with that phone call—but at a time like this, thoughts you wouldn’t normally get have a way of creeping into your brain.

“Scrambled or fried?” Tito asks.

I pull away, realizing for the first time how hungry I am. Those crab legs last night were good, but not very filling.

“Pancakes,” I muse. “A big stack of blueberry pancakes.”

Tito beams with delight. “Then let’s get dressed.”

Slipping into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, I tie my hair back in a haphazard ponytail while trying not to think the worst. Going into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I stare into the mirror. It not only reflects my face, but it also reflects the trepidation I’m feeling, and I stand there, gazing back at myself for a long while before I start wondering what I’ve gotten involved with.

Who
I’ve gotten involved with.

I don’t want to have these thoughts, but they sneak in like a burglar threatening to hijack my brain at gunpoint. Aside from what I’ve seen and felt, I don’t really know Grant at all. I don’t know his track record, his history with women. For all I know he could be a lying, cheating bastard, and that’s what he’s doing right now. Fucking some other woman while I’m standing here, being made the fool and oh, that’s just Raven, she’s a freaky lay but I’m not really in to her like I’m into you, baby.

I shut my eyes tight, holding back the sting of tears that threaten to cloud my vision. That’s already been clouded enough it seems. Tito and Frankie will be waiting; I don’t want to hold them up.

Heading downstairs, I’m just about to put on my sandals when the phone rings. Scrambling into the kitchen, I snatch it off the bar.

My pulse quickens when I see
his
name on the caller ID.

“Raven,” he says flatly when I answer.

“Grant, where the hell are you? What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry. I had to leave. I can’t explain it all now, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Okay? I woke up to find my boyfriend has gone rogue, how do you think I’m doing?”

He sounds exhausted. Sighing, I can picture him running his fingers through his hair, a five o’clock shadow plastered on his face. “I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I had to.”

“Had to what, Grant? What was so important that you had to take a call in the middle of the night and bugger off?”

“You heard that?” he asks.

“Yes, I heard that. Didn’t hear much else other than an I’m sorry. What are you sorry for?”

“I can’t tell you that, not over the phone. But I will.”

“When? Some day? Because let me tell you something, some day is creeping up on you pretty fast. Whatever it is you’re putting off, you’re going to have to face it.”

“What makes you think I’m putting something off?”

“C’mon, Grant. I was born, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You’re obviously hiding something. What is it, huh? A lover, a mistress? Am I just one in a slew of girls you’ve got lined up and down the East coast?”

“Raven, please. It’s not like that at all. You know you’re the only one for me.”

I scoff and shake my head. “At this point I don’t know what to believe. You said in your note that you had to run off for business, so since I’m your assistant, tell me—what sort of business are you on, Mr. Huffman.”

He says nothing. There’s a long, drawn out pause that sends my stomach fluttering into knots to the point where it feels like I’m going to be sick.

“I’ll send a car tomorrow to drive the three of you to the airport. I’ll see you at work.”

“Just tell me one thing,” I plead, and I hate that my voice sounds like that because I don’t want it to sound like I’m begging him for anything.

“What’s that?”

“Tell me you’re not with another woman.”

Silence.

Awful, dreaded, silence.

“Oh God,” I whisper.

“I’ll see you at work, Raven. I love you.”

Grant hangs up before I can say anything else, his words reverberating in my mind.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

The only problem is, I don’t know how to feel about him anymore.

- 23 -

Raven

By the time I get to the office on Monday morning I should be cooled down. I’ve had a couple of days to simmer and digest everything that’s happened, but when I step off the elevator and head toward my desk, the last conversation I had with Grant echoes in my mind, and when I see his office door closed I drop my purse on my chair and barge through it, ready for a confrontation.

Except none comes.

Grant isn’t anywhere to be found. His office is the way we left it after those hellish days dealing with the McCreedy account. There are papers and folders still on the floor, his iPod sits in the corner, and his desk—the same desk where he took me for the first time—sits disorganized and bare where my ass was when he angrily fucked my brains out.

“Grant?” I call out, thinking he might be in the bathroom.

Creeping over, I find that he’s not there either. The entire room is void of his presence, yet it reeks of him at the same time. His cologne, his scent, his mark is all over the place, and I collapse into his chair and sigh, wondering where I’m supposed to go from here.

God bless Tito and Frankie for trying to help me through it. They were saints this past weekend after Grant left, trying everything in their power to take my mind off things. We played
Cards Against Humanity
, watched
The Little Mermaid
, ate loads of ice cream, and talked until the wee hours of the morning about everything and anything
except
Grant. Mostly about their upcoming nuptials, which they still haven’t set a date for.

Yet through it all he was there, in the back of mind as I wondered and thought the worst, and now? Seeing him not even at work, what am I supposed to think?

“Um, Miss Young?”

I blink, and look to see a guy standing in the doorway, dressed casually in a pair of khakis and an untucked dress shirt. He’s offering me a crooked grin as his eyes scan the office, and I’m sure he must be wondering what happened, but I don’t have the energy to explain anything, so I just sigh, “Yes.”

“Sorry to intrude, but I saw that the door was open.”

“Can I help you?” I ask, rising from Grant’s chair and walking over to meet him. It’s only then that I recognize his face, and when I do my demeanor shifts. “Sam,” I say apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Sam’s our mail guy, in charge of delivering everything on this floor. Usually he just drops it off at my desk, but since I’m not at my desk…

He holds out the bundle of envelopes, asking, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I say, glancing over the mail. “Sure. Thanks for these.”

One piece in particular catches my eye, so I thank him once more and shut myself in Grant’s office before he can say goodbye. I’m sure whatever he thinks he saw will be the office gossip within the next hour, but I don’t care.

“JHBM,” I murmur.

These are the same initials I found online in reference to the only thing I could dig up on Grant’s past, and now they’re staring back at me from the top right hand corner of some nondescript envelope.

My heart races with confusion. It’s obviously addressed to him, but this might give me a little insight into what’s going on. Do I open it? Do I wait for him to come clean?

I grab the phone, thinking if I call Tito he might be able to talk me out of it, but who am I kidding? He’d want me to open it just as much as I want to open it.

Fuck it, I’m opening it.

I am his assistant, after all.

Tearing into the envelope, I pull out a single sheet of paper. Apparently the JHBM initials I found online stand for Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.