Delaney James seemed to have it all-a Manhattan townhouse, a thriving career as a fashion journalist, and a handsome, high-powered husband, but when he announces he's leaving her, Delaney's picture-perfect life unravels. Heartbroken and in need of a...
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Greyson stands up and brushes the sand from his jeans. He stretches his hand toward me, and from this angle, he's eight feet tall.
"What?" I ask.
"Come on."
I take his hand and let him pull me up off the blanket. "You're not about to make us leave, are you?"
He looks down at me and wrinkles his brow in confusion. "Why would I make us leave?"
"The bonfire. After Wyatt was done playing you got all weird and made us leave. Gave me some excuse about needing to pick up Hercules so your dad would go to bed."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." He runs his hands through his wind-blown hair and clears his throat. "At the time, I had no idea if you were going back to New York or staying here, and I didn't want to get comfortable having you in my arms again. I didn't want to get my hopes up and get attached if you were leaving."
I look up at him and swallow hard. "Oh."
He brushes his finger across my forehead, sweeping my hair off my face, and down the sensitive skin of my throat before he wraps his hand around the back of my neck. My body shivers under his delicate touch. The thin strap of my dress slips off my shoulder, and I watch his eyes follow his movements as his fingers slowly graze my skin and place the strap back where it belongs. His hand lingers there for only a second, and I find myself missing the contact when he pulls away.
"Let's go for a walk," he says.
Lacing his fingers through mine, he lifts my hand to his mouth and presses his lips against the inside of my wrist, and though the rest of my body feels like it's on fire, my skin feels cool as a breeze blows against the moisture his kiss left behind. I wait for him to realize what he did as we begin to walk, but he never does. It's a simple gesture, and only one of the many ways he'd show me affection when we were together, but we haven't been that way for a long time. It's a gesture that shouldn't come natural to him anymore.
We walk along the beach in comfortable silence. Waves crash violently along the shore, splashing against my legs and soaking the hem of my dress. Sand sticks to the backs of my legs as another wave hurls itself toward me, nearly knocking me over. Greyson turns toward me and playfully kicks some water in my direction, splashing me. I giggle – an embarrassing, adolescent sound – and splash him back.
"Tell me more about New York."
"What do you want to know?"
"Something you haven't told me yet. Tell me more about NYU."
I look out into the water. "Let's not talk about that."
"How come? I thought you liked it."
"I loved it. I just think we should talk about something else."
"Why?" he asks. He jerks his head back and frowns. "Why don't you want to tell me about it?"
"My decision to go to NYU is what tore us apart. I mean, who knows where we'd be right now if I hadn't been so selfish. Things are finally good between us, and I don't want to ruin it by talking about the thing that ultimately ended our relationship."
