only interested in one thing. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy with a stable family life, someone I could see myself dating if the circumstances were different.
I knew I would end up hurting us both if I entertained such thoughts, however, so I turned my attention back to my dinner.
Once the meal was over, the guys started collecting the dishes.
“Your turn on dish duty tonight, Eli,” Mason said.
Eli gathered the plates with a sigh but didn’t argue. It was nice seeing a bunch of grown men helping around the house. I imagined my father was the kind of man who expected his wife to handle all the cooking and cleaning while he sat in front of the television.
“I can help,” I offered, standing up with my plate in hand.
“No way,” Eli said, taking my plate with a grin.
He headed to the kitchen, and the rest of the family made their way out of the dining room, leaving just Graham, Lillian, and me.
“I think I’m going to retire to my room. I have a long day of traveling tomorrow,” Lillian announced, placing both hands on the table to rise. “But it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Emmy. I hope you’ll stay for breakfast before I head out tomorrow afternoon.”
“I—” I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to get this woman’s hopes up that I would stick around, that I was dating her son, but a part of me wanted to stay and have a family breakfast with them. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s been a pleasure to meet you too, Lillian.”
She left the dining room, leaving Graham and me alone. I was exhausted from everything that had happened that day even though it wasn’t that late.
“So we have a full house, as you can see,” Graham commented thoughtfully. “You’ll take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch down here. Follow me, I’ll show you to my room.”
I followed him, trying my damnedest not to stare at his ass as he walked to the staircase. Graham had told me he wasn’t a stripper, which I now believed. But seeing his tight ass, I could see why someone might make such a mistake. He had the body and the rugged good looks to pull it off - and he had. I still thought about the way he’d stripped off his clothes. And then later, the way he looked in my hotel room, naked and all mine. And the way he felt when I…
We reached the top of the stairs, and I was breathless, not from the stairs, but from remembering the body-shaking orgasms he’d given to me.
He turned and glanced at me, cocking an eyebrow. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, my cheeks burning red.
“Not feeling light-headed or anything, are you?”
“No, not light-headed,” I assured him, adding in my head, at least not from the stairs or the accident earlier. Because I was feeling a little lightheaded from being this close to him again. “I do have a question though.”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you strip if you’re not a stripper?”
He looked sheepish for a quick second. “I didn’t want to leave. If I had to take my clothes off to get you to let me stay that night, it was a small price to pay.”
I blushed furiously. He smiled at me and turned to continue on to his room.
We walked to the end of the hallway and entered a room on the right. The place was pretty cozy with a hand carved wooden bed frame up against the wall draped with a forest green duvet. A dresser on one wall with some shirts folded on top. A desk on another with some paperwork alongside a laptop computer. With no photos on the wall or anything, it felt fairly bare and incomplete.
“We’re only staying here until we figure out a more permanent place,” he said, as if reading my mind. “This is only a temporary rental.”
“What are your plans?” I asked.
“We’re thinking of buying some land and building a few cabins for ourselves,” he said. “Trying to talk Ma into joining us, but you see how that went.”
“Have you all always been close?”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he answered, then furrowed his brow. “It was hard leaving our mom behind, but she’s encouraged us to set up out here. We have family out here we never got to know, and she wants us to strengthen those bonds.”
“She’s a good woman,” I said.
“That she is.”
I met Graham’s gaze, and neither of us spoke