To my shock, both were exactly what I needed.
I didn’t stop to question why. I only knew that I could take a full breath again. That this captivity was suddenly my safe security. That he’d made my maniacal ranting stop, so I’d give him my surrender—at least for now.
“All right, take a fucking breath and tell me what this is about,” he said against my ear. His nearness scrambled and stuttered my senses in the same wonderful collection of seconds. Again, I heeded his command without thinking. “Good,” he crooned. “Now breathe again. With me this time.”
I felt his powerful chest expand against me as we inhaled and then exhaled together. Once. Twice.
Finally, he turned me to face him. His hands remained on my shoulders. He bent down to align his stare with mine. “Hey there, gorgeous.” That damn grin of his, classic Twombley, slid into its cocky, sexy place across his lips. “What’s up?”
“I—I left him alone.” As soon as I stuttered it, tears clawed up my throat. I gulped to fight them back down, but it was no use. A hot, fat escapee rolled down my cheek. Then another and another. Grant carefully, sweetly, wiped each one away with his thumb. “I’m the worst,” I rasped. “I can’t even care for a stray cat properly. Robert. He—he needs me, Grant. But I left him!”
Immediately, Grant stood up tall again. He held out his hand for me to take. “Come inside with me for a second.”
“But…but…” I thumbed over my shoulder toward the food on the table. “We have breakfast.” I sniffled again and wiped my nose with the back of my wrist. “I’d feel terrible to waste all that food, Grant.”
“This will just take a second, and then we will eat. Promise. Come on.” He gestured with his outstretched hand again, so I took it. Quickly, he was towing me behind him through another part of the boat we hadn’t explored on the way out to our first meal.
“I think this will help you, baby.” Grant opened a door to a smaller bedroom and stood aside for me to go in, and he quickly closed the door behind us. I gasped the moment I saw the little porcelain dishes on the floor—one with clean water and one with kitten food.
But then my black-and-white friend was brave enough to pop his head out to see who came to visit, and I gasped a second time.
“Grant?” I swung my head around to meet his persistent grin and smoky blue gaze. “You brought him too? Robert?” My knees hit the floor with a thud, and I started calling for him. “Kitty kitty kitty?”
Sure enough, when the adorable feline heard my voice, he padded out from his hiding spot under the bed. His little wiry tail went straight to attention as he wove in and out of Grant’s long legs, purring as loudly as his young motor could sound.
I laughed in pure delight. Even the cat knew who the most magical person on this boat was.
Impulsively, I bolted upright. Joyously, I threw myself into Grant’s arms. Though I hit into him with a whump, he easily absorbed the impact and immediately wrapped his strong arms around me. Just as easily, he took the opportunity to nuzzle his face into my neck. He lifted me off my feet and set me up on the bed, where I knelt tall so our stares were much closer to level. I cradled his face in my hands and gazed deeply into his eyes.
Those kind, generous, endless blue eyes…
“You’re an amazing man, Grant Twombley.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I let him have the cocky preen. He certainly deserved it this time. “This was one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me. Do you know that? I would’ve never forgiven myself for abandoning him.” I just shook my head in pure, stunned bewilderment at this man’s thoughtful awareness. “But you knew that. You knew that about me.”
“I did,” he answered quietly. “I want this trip to be restful and stress-free for you, Rio. I tried to think of everything, but I’m sure I missed something.” He gave a panicked look around the cabin as if he were reviewing a mental checklist. “So just remember how happy you are right now when one of those things comes up, ’kay?” He followed his admission with a boyish smile that made my chest ache in an unwelcomed way.
Robert nudged his way between us on the bed, demanding his share of attention and giving me the perfect reason to pull away from the embrace I had so spontaneously entangled myself in. I needed to do my very best to stay out of confusing physical predicaments with this man.
At all costs.
And I could already tell, it wasn’t going to be an easy feat. Because I had crystal clear memories of what it felt like to be in his arms. And in his bed. My body recalled exactly how incredible it felt to be mastered by this man’s mouth and hands, and good Lord, his—
“Rio?”
“Yeah? Hmm? What?” I looked at him sheepishly. If he could read the thoughts I was just having, he spared my dignity and didn’t call me on them.
“Let’s go eat,” he said. “We can start letting him out of here a little at a time so he can get used to the boat. The crew has a kitty life jacket for him. Once he gets used to wearing it, he can roam about wherever he wants.”
I burst out laughing. “Did you just say a kitty life jacket?” Talk about words I’d never thought I’d hear spoken.
“Yes, I did.” He even let out a snicker because, seriously, the image conjured was impossible not to laugh at. “But seriously, Rio, have you ever seen a cat try to swim? Not a happy ending, babe.” Grant made a scrunched-up face, and even that was adorable, and the inflection in his voice while saying it? I felt like a starry-eyed teenager.
I held my hand up to stop him from going into further detail about swimming cats, though. “No, I know that part,” I said while scooting off the bed. I gave Robert one more rub behind the ears before we walked out, promising I’d be back in a bit. “But I’m blown away that you looked into all of this. How did you have time? How long were you really planning all this?”
In a lot of ways, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that. Had Grant been looking into this charter for a long time? If so, why? Had my eventual meltdown been that obvious—or was his motive threaded into something else? Something like…desire?
For me?
That last notion got dismissed as soon as we sat down to eat. The simplest answer was usually the truth about something—and for this, the simplest solution also brought the deepest dagger to my chest.
Grant had this floating resort on standby because he’d used it with other women.
Whisked them all away for decadent cruises because he could. And because they were willing and wanton and beautiful. Not frazzled and fucked up and confused.
“Well, Elijah was a lot of help on arranging things,” Grant explained while pouring me a glass of juice. “The man has connections you can’t imagine. But when I finally nailed down the charter, they asked if there would be pets coming along. That reminded me to go back to your place to get the little guy.”
And maybe, just maybe, all of this was really a last-minute thing. I let myself believe it for a little while longer, grinning before I asked, “So…you did?” I tacked on a laugh, because the mental image of the Tree in his suit, crawling through my bushes to find Robert, was too delicious to resist.