GRAYSON

Sunlight streamed through the curtains of my bedroom. It was nearly July, and a burst of heat followed the sun. It seemed so much brighter than it had the rest of the summer. Thank god for air conditioning.

It didn't matter, though. Even with the A/C, it was hot beneath the covers with Nessa's legs tangled around mine. With her breath hitting my skin. She was snuggled next to me, her face hidden in the crook of my neck. If my parents weren't home and my bathroom wasn't a handful of steps from the living room, I'd drag her out of bed and wake her up with a cold shower. Wash the sweat away and then finally take in every little bit of her.

But my parents were definitely home. One of them was knocking on my door, and I had to blink past the sleep in my eyes to see it was mom peeking her head into the room. God, she was nosy.

"Breakfast, soon?" she whispered.

I rubbed a hand over my face. "Sounds good."

"We're making crepes."

Fancy breakfast. I should have known.

"Okay, mom."

She smiled.

"Twenty minutes?"

Nessa squirmed next to me, burying her face deeper into my neck. She made a sleepy, little noise, and suddenly I felt a warm mouth clamp over my skin. Kissing me. Her tongue swept over the sensitive area on my neck. I swallowed a groan. "Nessa," I choked softly, trying to get her attention before turning a glare on my mom.

"Twenty minutes is fine," I said through gritted teeth.

Mom barely withheld a wide-eyed look of amusement before vanishing from the doorway and whipping the door closed.

Jesus Christ.

Nessa was oblivious, but I no longer cared now that we didn't have an audience. She continued to kiss my neck, and I tipped my head back, enjoying the feel of her lips on me.

"Nessa," I breathed again, and this time I got a faint murmur in reply. Like she was barely awake but didn't want to be. Or just didn't want to be interrupted. But I was impatient to get a good look at her. "Get on top of me, darling."

She didn't, too busy expertly exploring my collarbone with her mouth. So I grabbed her hips and tipped her up while I lay back in bed. Nessa gasped and then straddled my hips like I wanted her to. Her hair was a messy halo around her head, but her eyes surprised me. They were bright and more alert than I'd been expecting.

Maybe because I just whipped her upright.

I smiled. "There's my girl."

She responded by flashing a crooked grin and running her hands up my bare chest. I caught her by the wrists, and she pouted.

"You never let me touch you."

I lifted a brow. "That is not true."

Unless my memory had been messed up, that pretty little hand of hers had done some work on me that day in my car. Not to mention her mouth. Her pert, hot mouth.

She rolled her eyes like she disagreed. "Do you not like it?"

"Adler..." I shook my head and released her wrists, seizing her hips instead to slide her down over my body. I knew when she felt what I wanted her to because she inhaled sharply. "I don't like it. I fucking love it. It's sending me over the edge, and we're supposed to have breakfast with my moms in twenty minutes."

Nessa arched her brow. "Twenty minutes is a long time."

"Not nearly long enough." I rolled my hips up, making Nessa's eyes roll back as my erection hit her square between her legs.

It was going to be so fucking hot when she rode me for real.

"Besides," I said, trying to keep my voice steady even though my insides were screaming. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Yeah?"

She didn't really sound like she was listening, but I continued anyway.

"I have a gig this weekend that I've been trying to get ready for."

"Yeah?" she said again, clearly distracted. She bit her lip and arched her back to stretch leisurely, giving me a to-die-for view of her in my t-shirt.

I couldn't help it; I reached up to brush my thumbs over her nipples, watching as they poked through the shirt even more. "It's near Monterey."

Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and I thought I heard a slight moan escape. "Monterey?" she breathed.

I snorted, enjoying how color was rising on Nessa's cheeks. I wanted to strip my shirt off of her and see it everywhere else, too. But knowing my parents, they would pick that moment to burst the door open to announce breakfast.

"It pays basically nothing," I added, rocking up against Nessa again to watch her eyes burn as she opened them again. "But they're giving me a free room for the night. Oceanside and everything."

"That sounds nice," she said, whimpering a bit as I continued to tease her. But then I dropped my hands away, wanting to make sure she was listening for the next part. I wanted her full attention.

"It does if you'll come with me."

Nessa didn't like that I'd stopped. She leaned down, teasing me this time with the brush of her breasts over my bare chest. My cock twitched in my sweatpants, and I let loose an unsteady stream of air. Nessa returned to kissing my neck, and I was worried that she hadn't heard what I'd said. And that we weren't going to manage to finish this conversation. But then she leveled her face over mine and smiled. "You want me to come with you?"

"Yeah." I grinned back. "I want you to come, and then I want to take you on a date, Adler. A real date."

"I'd like that." She gave me a quick kiss, and I cupped the back of her neck before she could pull too far away.

"I also want to sleep in a bed with you that isn't in a tiny-ass dorm or my parents' house," I whispered across her lips.

The curve of her lips was delicious. "I'd like that, too."

"Now that that's settled, let's get some breakfast."

With one last thrust upward into Nessa's soft body, I bucked her off of me, tossing her to the side. She bounced back on the bed with a scowl on her face. And at that moment, it was impossible not to kiss her. I swooped down to kiss her lips and then her cheek and then her neck and then a little nibble on her collarbone. And then I had to rip myself away, so I didn't keep going lower.

"God, you're annoying," she breathed, even though her fingers had twisted into my hair like she wanted nothing more than to never let me go.

I shook my head with a grin. "I know you want to hate me, but you can't. You never really could."

Her eyes softened as she let go of me so I could slip out of bed to find some clothes. Nessa tossed her legs over the side of the bed, sitting up and following me with her eyes. I felt them on my back.

"You're wrong."

"Don't try to argue with me on that one, Nessa," I laughed, keeping my eyes trained on my pile of clothes. I couldn't look at her right now, not if I wanted to get my raging erection to chill the fuck out. "Never once did you really hate me. Not after you kissed me that night."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

Without thinking, I looked back at her and then internally cursed at the sight. She was all rumpled and gorgeous. Especially as her lips parted, and she murmured the next words.

"I don't want to hate you. Not anymore."

There was a long pause before I could find my voice.

"That's a relief. It would be a little awkward if my girlfriend hated me."

****

We stepped into the kitchen a few minutes later, and Nessa still hadn't quite recovered. Whether it was from what happened in bed or because of what I'd muttered when I'd gotten out of bed, I wasn't sure.

I could guess it was because I'd called her my girlfriend, though, and she was struggling to wrap her head around it. Just like Nessa always struggled to wrap her head around things that I always knew were inevitable. My plan was to give her a little time to think about it before bringing it up again.

But then one of the first things my parents did when we sat down for breakfast was apologize profusely for not letting Nessa know what happened to me, shooting me a look while saying, "If only Grayson had told us he was dating someone."

A light blush crept into her cheeks. Within ten minutes the word girlfriend and dating had been flung at her, and I half expected her to run out of the house.

But she didn't. She sat there at breakfast, unmoving, wearing one of my sweatshirts, an OSU football one that I had a feeling she would steal. It made for an adorable scene, one that had my heart bursting. Nessa sitting beside me at the kitchen table with my parents, wearing my clothes, looking sheepish.

Bursting.

"I was working on it," I said, rolling my eyes at the moms as I stuffed a strawberry into my mouth. "I planned to invite her for dinner over break."

Nessa jerked her head up.

"You were?"

"Yeah." I dropped my fork, reaching up to wipe a little bit of powdered sugar from the corner of her mouth. "I'd figured I could go to your house one day, and then you could come to mine another." I gave her a wink. "You didn't think I was going to go the whole week with only seeing you once, did you?"

Her blush grew, and I could tell Nessa was torn between making one of her teasing comments and acting nicely in front of my parents. So I saved her and brought up something else that had been on my mind.

"Hey, will you let Rory know that I didn't mean to bail on him?

Nessa was frozen for a moment, and then she bit down on a shy smile. "Of course."

I nodded, happy with that.

"Can I have some orange juice?" I looked over at my moms on the other side of the table.

But they had funny expressions on their faces, and it took them a second to get their shit together before Maman fumbled to grab the OJ.

"Rory is her little brother," I explained, and they both just nodded. "He always wants to play football with me."

"So you've met her family, huh?"

Mom sounded a little jealous. Like we'd purposefully left them out of the equation.

"Only because I've been driving her home from school all year. Chill, mom."

"So, how did the two of you meet?" Maman cut in.

I heard Nessa make a little choking sound, and I glanced to my side to find her pushing the crepe around on her plate. I was happy that she had at least eaten half of it.

"Do you want to tell them?" I asked, not wanting to expose anything she didn't want to expose.

"If it's...." Maman paused, giving a slight cough. "You know, you don't need to tell us," she rushed to add.

That comment did not seem to help Nessa. She let out a short laugh, which also turned into a bit of cough like Maman's.

"She was at our last game of the season," I filled in for Nessa until she could collect herself a bit more. "I saw her in the stands, cheering against us. It made me curious."

"Against you, huh?"

Mom was intrigued, but I knew Nessa might mistake it for being judgemental, so I quickly jumped in.

"She had a good reason."

"I have a little beef with the OSU football team," Nessa admitted, her face a little more composed than a minute ago. "But I guess some of the players are alright," she added with a cute grin as she looked up at me, slipping a slice of fruit into her mouth.

"Do I sense a little bit of anti-establishment at the table?" Mom piqued, raising her brow. It made me want to roll my eyes, but Nessa laughed.

"Something like that." Her eyes twinkled as she looked at me.

"Instant approval from me, then," Mom said with a warm grin that made Nessa visibly soften and relax.

"That's good." I took another swig of my orange juice, trying to clear away the thickness in my throat. "Because I don't plan on letting her go anywhere anytime soon."

I could tell there was another one of Nessa's sharp remarks on the tip of her tongue, but she just looked me up and down, a brightness to her gaze. "You do know I have to leave for class tomorrow, right?" she asked before popping another strawberry into her mouth.

I knew. I just planned on going with her.

Maman leaned forward with interest, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder. "Oh, what class are you taking?"

A shyness overcame Nessa's features again. She slowly chewed, her eyes flicking between Maman and me. Finally, she swallowed and shrugged a shoulder. "I enrolled in a summer music course."

Maman's eyes lit up. A knowing glance at me.

Something lit up inside me, too. A hot, swelling pride. "Music, huh?"

Nessa's eyes found mine and held them, and that simple eye contact made the beat of my heart pick up. It made me feel like I was truly living again.

"Yeah," she said softly, "music."

💗

one real date, coming right up!

xoxo amelie

ps I feel like I'm in a music slump, and I love listening to something while I'm writing. Idk but if you're the kind of person that likes sharing music recommendations, pls comment your fav songs atm!