How to End a Love Story(50)

Abruptly he leaves her and she finds herself shivering in the relative cold of the basement without Grant Shepard’s body heat.

“What do you mean,” he says, staring at her, “by ‘anyone else’?”

“I saw Lauren upstairs,” she mutters, and looks away. “And I wondered, if maybe you guys were . . .”

He lets out a soft ha of air.

“Not during this trip,” he says. “Not in a while, honestly.”

“Oh,” she says, and colors. “Okay.”

He tilts his head, then grins. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

She scoffs and looks away, but doesn’t deny it. Not when she can still feel the hum of satisfaction in her body processing the apparently very important information that (1) he thinks she’s cute, and (2) he’s not going home with Lauren.

“So that’s a rule, then?” he asks, studying her. “No enjoying anyone else?”

She thinks she must look ridiculous right now, her hair mussed, her skin flushed, her dress wrinkled. Fuck this.

She’s too smart for this.

She comes off the wall and reaches out to press a hand against his chest, taking back some control. He doesn’t put up a fight, and within a few steps, he lands against the back of the couch he had been sitting on when she came downstairs.

“It would be easier,” she says softly, “if we could say nothing’s happened.”

“Nothing has happened,” he says quietly.

Her palm slides down from his chest and stops at his belt. She pauses, then slowly brushes the back of her hand against the front of his jeans. He exhales sharply.

“I want—”

“I don’t want to know what you want,” she says, and slides her hand off.

“Okay,” he says, his breath ragged.

She feels powerful then, like he might do anything she asks, just now. Her fingertips skim his outer thigh, then she dips a hand under his belt, into his jeans.

“Fuck,” he exhales.

She leans forward, her breath a warm suggestion in his ear as she strokes him through the soft fabric of his boxer briefs. She can feel a damp spot, and heat. His throat muscles seem to go taut.

“There’s no way to win with us,” she says, stroking, squeezing, pulling. “There’s just . . . this.”

His breathing comes out in short, ragged bursts. He’s close, she thinks—it would be so easy to reach out and taste him. He probably tastes like something she can’t afford. Grant cups the back of her head and brings her close enough to rest his forehead against hers.

“Look at me,” he says, straining. “You want this?”

She watches him through glazed eyes, and the tip of her tongue comes out to wet her lips, which suddenly feel dry. A muscle ticks in his jaw and his eyes flicker, but he keeps watching her with a strained kind of intensity, until she gives a fraction of a nod. He isn’t going to last much longer.

“I want this,” she whispers.

“You can have it, then,” he gasps. “I have to come.”

“Come for me, then,” she murmurs, and he does, dropping his head to her shoulder and stifling a groan as his shaft jerks against the fabric into her hand. He drags his mouth—lips, teeth, stubble—against her skin so hard as he climaxes, she thinks it might leave a mark. “That’s what I wanted.”



It would be easier if we could say nothing’s happened.

Grant cleans himself up in the bathroom to the best of his ability. So far, he could say Helen Zhang is responsible for two of the quickest, hottest orgasms of his life. But she’s careful with him, the way that she’s careful with everything. Her hands never strayed to the skin, no matter how determinedly his dick pressed against the placket of his boxer briefs. When he finished, she let him linger against her for a few harsh, precious heartbeats before slowly extracting her wandering hands from him and murmuring, “There’s a bathroom over there, I think.”

She never kissed him either, at least not on the mouth.

Well, he thinks grimly, he never kissed her either.

She’s two up on him, though, and that bothers him.

Come for me, then. That’s what I wanted.

What about what he wants? He wants to bury his face between her legs and find out if she comes undone loudly without inhibition or with quiet shaking sobs. He wants to fuck her against a wall, then again in his bed, and maybe in a car afterward too.

I don’t want to know what you want.

Grant remembers the fire in her eyes when he asked her if she wanted this. If she wanted him.

I want this.

A feeling of hot, masculine pride surges in his chest at the thought that this woman—this prickly, particular woman, wants him. Or some parts of him, anyway. He isn’t sure how much she’s willing to give, but he suddenly finds he’s willing to take whatever he can get, for as long as it lasts.

There’s no winning.

Bullshit. He wipes his hands and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks like he just ran a marathon. He feels like a horny teenager, and like he could build a house with his bare hands. He’s Grant Fucking Shepard. And before Helen Zhang came into his life, he was always good at winning.

So that’s what he’ll do. He exits the bathroom to find the basement empty. He goes upstairs and is completely unsurprised to find out she left already. He locates his coat and quietly slips out as well. He doesn’t need to stay for the ball drop. He needs to make a plan.