Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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I wake up the next morning to high-pitched electric drills, the thunderous buzz of a miter saw, hammers pounding, and my father telling one of his famous jokes, followed by Greyson's polite laughter. The noise is coming from the backyard and pouring through my open bedroom window. We're coming up on prime hurricane season and North Carolina is experiencing a cold front because of it. A cold front that's making it feel like fall – like Halloween is right around the corner – and one I'm particularly fond of.
I roll over and grab my phone from my nightstand, groaning when I see it's not even eight o'clock. Who starts manual labor before eight o'clock in the morning? Who starts anything before eight o'clock in the morning?
I throw off my comforter and get out of bed. If I'm up I might as well be productive and go for a run, considering I haven't even taken so much as a walk since we got home from LA. Greyson has one of those luxury, custom made, California King PranaSleep mattresses, and I want to spend every spare second I have laying on it. They run something like ten-thousand-dollars and the rumor is that Oprah and the Prince and Princess of Wales sleep on one. It's the most comfortable thing I've ever slept on and when he leaves for work in the morning and I have the bed to myself, I roll into the middle and let it swallow me up. I barely get out of bed with enough time to get ready for work, let alone get in a run beforehand.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull my hair into a ponytail before I squeeze myself into a mint green sports bra and black biker shorts, and as I make my way downstairs, I decide I want to have a little fun this morning. Be a little naughty. Greyson feasted on me like an all-you-can-eat-buffet when we were in LA, but besides last night, he's barely touched me since, and I feel like I'm going to explode. What I'm about to do may be a little childish, but I want to make it clear to him that he's not the only one who can tease.
He's not the only one who makes decisions in this relationship.
I slip out the side door and make my way up the driveway, and when I know I'm in Greyson's view, I turn my back to him and bend over, my ass in the air as I stretch out my hamstrings. Slowly and seductively, I run my hands down the backs of my legs. I open my feet so they're shoulder width apart, pressing the palms of my hands against the ground as I push for a deeper stretch, and when I look between my legs, Greyson is watching me, slack-jawed, one arm hanging loosely at his side with a hammer in one hand and the other dragging across his stubbled cheek. I gradually rise to standing – making sure to stick my ass out as I do – and when I turn all the way around and place my hands on my hips, a mischievous smirk lifts the corner of his mouth. His eyes travel up and down my body, and when he gestures to my tight sports bra and tiny shorts and gives me two thumbs up, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing. He spreads his fingers and holds his hands up to his chest, indicating toward my boobs, and presses his thumb and pointer finger together in a hand gesture that means he thinks they look perfect. A boyish smile brightens his face and his pulls his bottom lip between his teeth as he points to his groin, then to mine, and starts to enthusiastically hump the air, but he's interrupted when my father steps up beside him and smacks him on the back of his head, causing his baseball hat to fly off and land on the ground.
