Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,235

be late for our own party.”

Your party. I don’t correct him, but we both know this party could go on without me. There are probably several people there who wish Grip would go on without me.

He grabs his T-shirt from the back and yanks it over his head, tossing it into the bathroom hamper. My steps stutter to a halt. My eyes cling to his skin, stretched like dark velvet over the balletic play of muscles in his back. He shucks the bottoms and drops those in the hamper, too, unaware that my mouth has gone dry.

I know I had a point, but the flare of his powerful thighs, the tight curve of his ass from a tapered waist—it scrambles my thoughts. When he turns to the side to start the shower, his dick juts from the flat, ridged topography of chest and abs. I lick my lips, lips that have more than once been doused with the spicy-sweet taste of him in my mouth.

Why is he so damn fine? It’s not fair.

“It’s not fair,” I mumble faintly. That jars me, reminds me I wasn’t done with this argument. “Parker manipulated me, Grip. It wasn’t fair to keep me out of it, and I want to make sure you don’t do this again.”

“Fuck fair.” Grip steps into the shower. “I don’t care if it’s fair—I care if you’re safe. We can fight about this every day if you want. You aren’t leaving me over it, and I’m not leaving you, so what the fuck ever. Agree to disagree. I’m done talking about it, Bris.”

With that, he turns his back to me, reaching for the shower gel.

He’s right. I’m not leaving him over it, but I don’t want to resent him. I want to trust him. I want him to trust me. That’s what we have, and I won’t let him ruin it with his irrational overprotectiveness.

I stand at the shower threshold and prop my shoulder against the wall. His head snaps around, the dark eyes narrowed and connecting with mine. He’s braced for a fight I’m not giving him.

“Thank you,” I say, wanting to ease things between us, even though it probably won’t be our last clash over this issue.

Grip’s wide palms slow in soaping his biceps. The tight line of his mouth loosens some and he sighs.

“Don’t thank me.” He braces one hand in front of him against the tile, eyes dropped to the water rushing down the drain. “It’s my responsibility to take care of you.”

He slants a look at me through the steam, a groove between his thick brows.

“That’s all I want, Bris.” He pierces me with the intensity of his eyes. “I want you safe. I didn’t get the chance to personally protect you before. All I’m asking is that you let me do it now. I didn’t want you anywhere near that motherfucker, and now you won’t be.”

Anger, concern, and sincerity knot in his deep voice, as tangled as the emotions twisting in my belly and coiling up tightly in my chest. Even when I’m driving him crazy, there’s a fathomless affection for me in his eyes. It was there all those years when he was fucking other people and I was doing the same. It’s there now, as clear to me as the water flowing in rivulets down the shower door.

There’s something helpless about truly being in love, the kind of love they write songs about, that inspires poetry and launches ships and wreaks havoc. It leaves you slightly off balance, controlling when you mean to cherish, smothering when you mean to hold close. Maybe it takes a while to find the just right. I saw that in Rhyson when he and Kai first got together, and now I see it in Grip, too.

Hell, if I’m honest, I see it in myself.

Grip loves me desperately. I recognize that in him because it mirrors my own heart. I love him desperately enough to debase myself with Parker in broad daylight if that was what it had taken. How can I be angry at Grip for reciprocating that love? For feeling as helpless and off kilter as I do sometimes?

“Okay, Grip.” I draw a deep breath that’s scented and steamy from the shower. “I’ll give you this one, but you need to give me something, too.”

He ducks his head under the water streaming over him, licking along that body the way I want to.

“This isn’t a negotiation. I will protect you every time as I see