🥊 Hate or Fate 💕 {Enemies to Lovers}

.36.

We made our way back to Rebecca's apartment by taking side streets. Snaking around quiet neighborhoods, past pre-war apartment buildings, and too many coffee carts to count. It felt incredible to let our banter free flow while stealing passionate kisses up against tree trunks or the occasional car.

Gray never asked what we were doing again, and neither did I.

The fog of our powerful attraction had returned, clouding our judgment. His arms around me, his breath in my ear, his strangled moans deep in his throat, his heady scent, it was all too much.

Then there was the intangible connection between us. Gray knew about the broken pieces of my heart that I keep hidden away. He knew that the scars of my past were too deep and too jagged to be ignored forever. He could see my damage probably better than me. And yet, those things didn't scare him. If anything, they somehow bound us closer.

At one point, I offered Gray one of my headphones and we listened to sad bastard rock all the way to the stoop of Rebecca's apartment building. I'd been leaning against him, soaking up the blazing heat radiating through his jacket when Gray slowed to a stop.

"I believe this is you," he murmured reluctantly and bent down to kiss the top of my head.

"I'm not done," I snuggled in closer, afraid to lose the warmth I knew I would crave the rest of the night.

He ran his fingers through my hair to gently skim the length of my jaw before tilting it to meet his lips. The kiss was soft and sweet, like an indulgent bite of dulce de leche. I melted into him, hoping to prolong whatever it was we were doing.

"Darling, we're just getting started," Gray promised, his voice barely above a whisper.

If they weren't holding me upright, my knees would have turned to jelly. He sounded like Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart or one of those other dashing stars of the silver screen. No man had ever used the term 'darling' with me, and I was already hooked.

His thumb brushed my cheek so lightly it could have been a tear as I stood there, captive in his gaze.

"But, Rebecca," I uttered weakly.

"Don't worry," Gray breathed in my ear, tickling the fine hairs to send rolling shivers into my pelvis. My lady parts were starting to ache from wanting him, no, needing, him. "Bart already told me he intends to marry her."

"Elijah," I whispered.

"You don't owe Elijah anything," he assured me, his deep purrs making my new underwear so moist I was almost squirming. "I, however, owe him the truth."

"Why?" I challenged. "Why do you owe him anything? You already lied for him. You forced yourself to be miserable, for him. And what did you get? You got punched in the face."

"I got a chance with you," Gray smiled, not skipping a beat. The quickness of his response and the genuine quirk of his smile told me that he'd been ready for that question. "And unlike that asshole, I'm not stupid enough to fuck it up."

There wasn't a centimeter between us, and I was getting lost in his scent.

"Gray," I started, not at all sure about what I wanted.

"I know it's too soon," he interrupted. "I know you're scared. And, I've still got a lot of work to do to earn your trust, Isla, but I don't want to lie to you anymore."

"Gray," I gulped down the lustful temptations niggling my groin when he said my name. "I want you," the phrase popped out all wrong and I bit my lip, hard, in punishment. "I mean, I want to get to know you. I mean, I'm glad we're working together, so we can get to know each other. Ugh, no, wait, I mean-"

"I get it," Gray shut me up with a powerful kiss that swept through my body and sent my heart into a supernova.

His lips guided mine open as his tongue licked and swirled around my lower gums and deeper into my mouth. A cataclysm of sensations and emotions were exploding in my mind like a red supergiant star collapsing in on itself to splinter waves of sparkly interstellar dust and debris.

I hooked an arm around his neck to pull Gray closer, to take more of him inside of me. And he was happy to oblige. Arching my breasts into his firm chest, I tangled my fingers into his hair to relish the groan from deep inside his coat.

"Fuck," he gasped, pulling back too soon. "I forget myself with you, I've got to watch that."

"Do you?" I teased, reaching for his coat to tug him down into one more kiss. This time, a chaste peck on the tip of his straight nose. "I mean, I'm not exactly protesting."

"I know, and it's making it really hard for me to play it cool," he laughed nervously as he pushed a hand through his hair. "How about this? Dinner party, next week, my place. You bring Rebecca. I will invite Bart and a few other friends to make it, not such an obvious setup."

I let out a giggle at that. He was so cute, trying to fix up my friend with our mutual friend so that we could figure out what we wanted. When I was in high school, my grandma watched old episodes of a show called, I Love Lucy. His plot kind of reminded me of the kind of shenanigans the couples on that show would always get into.

"That way, we can cook and spend some more time getting to know each other before the party," he finished up, clearly very proud of his plan.

Clearly, nothing could go wrong with such a solid idea and pure motivations behind it.

"You cook?" I couldn't help myself.

Picturing Gray in a kitchen was like imagining myself naked in his bed. Super-duper sexy and all kinds of messy (but in the best possible way), and quite possibly combustible.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he replied, steadfast as a vow. "I just hope I don't scare you away."

I should have picked up on his tone or somehow understood what Gray wasn't telling me, but I wasn't thinking straight. My body felt woozy, which probably was due to my lack of caffeine and food at that point.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the incredible man standing right in front of me.

"Well, I can't wait to find out," I replied.

Gray lifted our clasped hands to slowly kiss the top of my fingers while keeping his glass green eyes on mine.

chapter word count: 1,112