Inappropriate - Vi Keeland Page 0,43

really well even, but no one had ever kissed the shit out of me. My mind was in a fog from it.

He smiled and used his thumb to wipe my bottom lip. “God, I wanted to do that so badly all night.”

I gave him a goofy grin. “I’m glad you waited until we were in the parking lot. Otherwise I might not have left.”

Grant pretended to bang his head against my car. “Fuck. Did you have to tell me that?”

I giggled. “Thank you for sharing your sunset with me. I had a really nice time.”

“Sunrise is even better. You’re welcome to stay tonight and find out in the morning.”

I smiled. “Maybe another time.”

It took all of my willpower to pull away from Grant. I’d been teasing, but I was so turned on, I was lucky he’d waited until now to kiss me like that. I brushed my lips with his one more time and opened the car door. He stood watching as I buckled up and turned the ignition.

As I put the car into reverse to back out, I rolled down my window. “Goodnight, Grant.”

“Dinner soon?”

I smiled. “Maybe. If you’d told me who the boat was named after, my answer would have definitely been yes.”

Chapter 16

* * *

Grant - 8 years ago

The shower door opened and steam billowed out. I smiled, finding a naked Lily ready to join me.

“Hey. You feeling better?”

Lily stepped inside the stall and shut the door behind her. She put both her palms on my chest. “Yeah. It must’ve been the flu or something.”

The flu. That’s what she always called it. Lily seemed to get the flu more and more over the last year. Yet the days she spent curled up in bed never came with a cough or fever. Lily was depressed. Of course, she had every right to be. She’d dropped out of college because she hated the non-art classes, her mom had disappeared into the wind a year ago, taking her three-year-old brother, Leo, with her, and both of us had taken my mom’s death a few months ago pretty hard.

But Lily’s constant, bedridden bouts of depression seemed like more than just regular depression. She would shut down for days every time her flu hit. She didn’t eat, didn’t talk, didn’t function as a person. And even though she spent almost twenty-four-seven in bed, she rarely slept. She just stared, unfocused, lost in her own head.

It scared me. I didn’t say it, but more and more lately, her highs and lows reminded me of her mom’s—so much so that I’d been pushing her to see a therapist. That discussion always turned her depression into anger. Because to her, needing help meant she was like her mom.

Lily leaned in and pressed her body against mine. She shut her eyes and looked up at the streaming water as it rained down. A huge smile spread across her face, and I couldn’t have stopped the one that broke out on mine if I’d tried. That’s the thing with Lily—her smile was contagious. When she didn’t have the flu, she was so full of life and happiness, more so than the average person. The happy times always made me forget about the sad ones…until it happened all over again a few months later.

She pushed up on her tippy toes and pressed her lips to mine. The water from overhead streamed down over our joined lips. It tickled, and both of us started to laugh.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” she said.

I pushed the wet hair from her face and smiled. “I’m hoping you’re thinking about bending over and hanging on to that wall behind you.”

Lily giggled. “I’m serious.”

I took her hand and slid it between us, down to my erection. “So am I. Can you tell?”

She laughed more. “I’ve been thinking about how much I love you.”

“Well, I like the sound of that. Go on.”

“And how much I love living down here with you.”

My grandfather had given me a boat a few months ago on my twenty-first birthday—the very first boat he ever built. When Mom died, Lily and I decided to move into it and live down at the marina. It wasn’t exactly a traditional home, but my girl wasn’t exactly traditional either, and it made her happy. Plus, we spent every weekend sailing and exploring new places together. Since I’d started working for my family’s company after graduating college a few months ago, we could pretty much afford to live wherever we wanted. But this boat