Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,85

know I like you, Qwest.” I toss my linen napkin on the table. “I’m sorry I’ve been so . . .”

I search my tired mind for the right word. “Preoccupied?” Qwest finds it for me.

“Yeah. It’s rude, and you’re great. It isn’t you.” I lob a smile across the table before lifting my water for a sip.

“Would you like to fuck me, Grip?”

I almost spew my water. I grab the napkin to dab at the corners of my mouth.

“It’s a yes or no question,” she continues unfazed.

“Um, maybe it isn’t.” I would laugh if this wasn’t so awkward. “I’m attracted to you, yeah. Of course.”

“I know that.” She walks over, slides between the table and me, and straddles my hips. “But what do you want to do about it?”

Her wrists link at the back of my neck. I run my hands up and down her back. She’s slim and tight and supple beneath her silk dress. She’d let me take her right on this table where her guard could hear her scream when she comes.

“Is there someone else?” Voice dropped, she runs a hand over my closely cropped hair.

“Yeah.” I release a breath, my voice low and husky, too. I shake my head. “No.”

“That’s also a yes or no question.” She slips her hand into the collar of my shirt and runs a long nail over my shoulder.

“I don’t know.” I try to focus on the conversation even as her touches distract me. “I’m just realizing that she may not feel the same way.”

“Then she’s a fool.” Qwest rocks her hips into me, the heat between her legs like a furnace on my dick.

I gently push her back to put some distance between us.

“Qwest, I like you.” I look her right in the eyes. I learned my lesson with Tessa. I’m not that dude who leads girls on anymore. “I respect you and think you’re amazing. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I’m afraid that’s what would happen. We got business together. We’re friends. Maybe we shouldn’t mess with that.”

“Let me worry about it.” She scoots forward again. “I’m going into this with my eyes wide open.”

She leans into me and sucks my earlobe into her mouth. Fuck. It’s been too long since I had some. My dick rises to the occasion, and she pulls back with a satisfied chuckle.

“So what do you say?” She opens her lips over my jaw, mumbling against my neck. “We doing this or what?”

“Um . . .” My underserved libido and my anger over Bristol riding off into the sunset with that punk ass urge me to say yes.

Gripe? Motherfucker, you know my name.

“You have a few days off.” Qwest slides her hands over my back under my shirt, lightly raking the skin with her fingernails. “Fly back with me to New York tomorrow night and I’ll screw myself into your system.”

A million, no more, guys would kill to have Qwest and her ass in their lap right now. I know this. It isn’t her. I’m just so tired of being with anyone who isn’t Bristol. In all these years, I haven’t figured out how to move past what started between us. I know it was only a week. And we were young. And I mishandled the situation with Tessa. I get all that, but it wasn’t just a few kisses on spring break. It’s the friend- ship we’ve built since then. It’s her passion about my writing, about my work. Her commitment to her brother. Her knife-sharp sense of humor. The soft, sweet side only a handful of people get to see. It’s the way she tastes. The texture of her skin. Her hair. Her laugh. The conversations I can have with her and no one else. Everyone who thinks we’re not right for each other doesn’t know her, doesn’t know me, or doesn’t know how good we are together.

I want Bristol. Not anyone else.

And that’s a problem, because for the first time, I have to consider the possibility that she doesn’t, not even deep down where I thought she did, want me.

Chapter 10

BRISTOL

THERE’S A MAN in my bed.

I barely know my name. I’m not sure who’s leading the free world or what year it is, but I do know there is a man in my bed. I at least know that is unusual. I don’t do sleepovers.

At least sober Bristol doesn’t do sleepovers. Apparently, after one . . . or two . . . or eight vodka martinis,