K. Linde - Take Me for Granted

My hands were trembling, and I fought for control. I was going to need it. I gulped and continued, “I regularly woke up to my dad’s screams in the middle of the night. Even though my mom was working two jobs to try to make ends meet while taking care of me, she told me not to worry about the screams and to just stay in my room.”

I turned my back on Ari, breathing heavily. My heart felt like I’d dropped it into a blender and set it on high. I couldn’t keep it together, and I remembered exactly why I’d never told anyone else. I had to peel back layer after layer just to force the story out.

“Grant,” Ari said, hopping off the bed and wrapping her arms around me from behind. “You don’t have to tell me the rest.”

She was trying to protect me from my own memories.

But I had to continue.

“One night, I awoke to my mom’s screams. I didn’t have any rules against checking on my mom, so I made my way down the hall. My dad had pulled a gun on her, and she was begging him to come back to her. She just kept yelling, ‘Come back to me, Mike.’”

My throat seized as a vision of my mother cowering on the opposite wall hit me like an arrow to the heart. I could still see my father standing threateningly next to the dresser, telling her that he couldn’t save her, that he hadn’t been able to get her out. I imagined my ten-year-old eyes growing wider and wider, knowing what I was seeing but not believing that it was happening.

“I ran out to cover my mom, not wanting anyone to get hurt, but all I did was startle my dad. He freaked and fired without warning. I ducked, trying to pull my mom down with me, but she was already gone.”

Ari gasped behind me, and in that second, I was glad that she couldn’t see the tears welling up my eyes.

“He shot her in the chest twice.”

“Oh, Grant, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, coming around to my front and holding me tight to her.

“The gunshots broke my dad out of his stupor. He saw my mom dead, and he blamed me.”

“What?” Ari asked, pulling back to look at me.

“If I hadn’t jumped in the way, it would have been like every other nightmare. Nothing would have happened.”

“You don’t know that!”

“She’s gone! It doesn’t matter!” I roared.

She shrank back, and I immediately regretted taking my anger out on her.

“I’m sorry, Ari.”

“It’s okay. What happened to your dad?”

“He pistol-whipped me, and I blacked out. The neighbors had heard the gunshots though, and they called the cops. I was taken to the hospital, and my dad was taken to jail. He got an attorney to claim that he had PTSD, so instead of first-degree murder, his sentence was reduced to manslaughter with the option for parole. I moved in with my aunt and uncle on my mom’s side, the Duffies.”

“So, the dog tags,” Ari said, holding them out from herself. “They belonged to your dad?”

“Yeah.”

“How could you wear them all the time?” she asked.

“I told you once, they remind me of the man I want to be. And I want to be nothing like my father.”

“You’re nothing like him,” she told me simply.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve seen the man you hide from the rest of the world. You would never be careless with your family. You love them fiercely, even the ones who aren’t blood.”

I said the words that I’d been holding back for years, the words I believed to my very core, “I could have saved her.”

“You were ten years old. You should have never been in the position to have to save her. It’s not your fault.”

I wanted to believe those words so badly. But thirteen years of convincing myself of the opposite just wouldn’t go away.

I could have saved her. I’d never forgive myself. I’d never forgive him.

Whatever I’d thought Grant was going to tell me…was nothing compared to what he’d just revealed. We all had skeletons in our closet, but this wasn’t a skeleton. This was a body bag and a twenty-plus-year jail sentence. This was uprooting his entire existence to move in with his aunt and uncle. This was thirteen years of guilt weighing down on his shoulders.

No wonder he had hidden this from the rest of the world. Yet, I couldn’t imagine hiding this, being all alone in my grief, not having anyone to lean on. The fact that he was as normal and stable as he appeared was a miracle. Experiencing something like this could have done a lot worse to him than turning him into a callous playboy.

I felt a newfound respect for Grant blossoming. He’d survived so much, and while it was clear he was still in pain from it, he had risen above what had happened to him. He had friends who would kill for him, a younger cousin who adored him, and legions of adoring fans.

And he was here…with me.

“So, that’s my story,” he said. His eyes looked off in the distance as if he was still lost in that tragic night.

“You made it through a lot and without any help. I mean, you didn’t even go to therapy or anything, right?”

Grant scoffed. “Therapy was the bottom of a bottle and a warm pussy.”

“That sounds like you. How did you survive when you were a kid though?”

“My guitar. It saw me through all the hard times,” he told me. “My guitar and the tags.”

I sighed as he mentioned the dog tags that were still hanging around my neck.

I slowly pulled them over my head. “Grant, I don’t know if I can keep wearing these.”

“What?” He looked astonished that I would even think of taking them off after he’d given them to me.

“I don’t think you or I should have a constant reminder of what happened. I think you should just…let it go.”

I knew it was easy for me to say. I hadn’t been there thirteen years ago. I hadn’t experienced what he had gone through. I had no idea what it would be like to see my mother die right before me, to see my father sent to jail, to feel the guilt that had clearly sunk into Grant at an early age.

“I can’t let it go,” he said the words like an insult. “I…you don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t,” I said, not letting him rile me up for once. “I could never understand. I’m sure few people could understand what you’ve gone through, Grant. But I want to.” I ran my hand up his arm.

“The tags…I know that they should hold the opposite feeling, that I should hate them…hate everything about them. But I don’t. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s a complete contradiction. One part of me knows that they’re not enough to keep me from ending up like him. The other part knows they’re the only link I still have to the only life I’ve ever been happy in. I lost both my parents in the same day. All I can remember is the bad—the memories, the inexplicable fucking horror of what occurred—but sometimes, when I look at them and when I look at you wearing them…I remember those earlier days. I remember when I didn’t feel the pain.”

Grant took the tags I still held in my hands and eased them back over my head. “Every time I see you, Princess, I feel better. Every single day, you push away the pain and the memories. You’re my life raft in an endless ocean. You saved me from drowning. You saved me from myself.”

I stopped breathing and just stared up into the depths of his chocolate orbs. Gold flecks at the center reflected back at me. In that moment, I saw every ounce of sorrow consuming him, but I also felt the warmth directed at me. Grant McDermott was baring his soul.

And the scariest part of it all was that I felt the exact same way. I hadn’t gone through what he had gone through, but Grant had still saved me. I’d thought I was happy becoming the person my parents had always wanted, but I’d never felt passion until Grant. And I’d never forget it.

My lips found his softly. He held me against him and took comfort in what I was giving him. I knew then, trapped in his arms and lost in his kisses, that I wanted this to move forward. I’d held back, wanting to give myself to someone I truly cared about, waiting for the right moment, waiting to feel ready. I could never be more ready than at this moment.

I took Grant’s hand and gingerly led him back toward the bed. My heart was hammering in my chest in anticipation, and words were stuck in my throat. He read the questions in my eyes and returned them with a kiss. He effortlessly lifted me onto the bed, and I slid backward while I unbuttoned my cardigan. He smiled as I tossed it to the ground.

Everywhere he touched me was igniting a fire on my skin. I couldn’t get enough of him, yet I was terrified of exposing myself like this. His fingers ran along my stomach, pushing the shirt aside, as he lay kisses across my milky skin. I sucked in at his touches, at his utter adoration of every inch of my imperfect body.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured. His tongue teased the edge of my belly button.

“You make me feel beautiful.”

He smiled knowingly up at me and unsnapped the button on my jeans. “You should always feel that way, inside and out.”

I flushed at his compliments. He wasn’t teasing me. He truly thought I was as beautiful as he’d said. Under that gaze, I couldn’t disagree with him.

My jeans followed my cardigan, and Grant’s shirt came off next. I admired his body in a way that I’d never really appreciated. I’d seen it before. I’d run my hands over it, but here in the light…God, he was gorgeous. He was tall and tanned with strong arms and six-pack abs. His tattoos were bold and prominent against his skin. He had those V lines that made girls go crazy, and I suddenly understood why.

His lips traveled to the hem of the lace thong I’d worn especially for this evening. I didn’t have any lingerie—I’d never had use for it before—so this was as good as it would get. Grant didn’t seem to mind. I yelped softly as he nipped at the tender skin before dragging the thong down my hip with his teeth.

My legs trembled softly in anticipation as he eased my legs apart and fluttered his fingers lightly along my inner thighs. I gasped at his warm breath before he experimentally flicked his tongue on my clit. I was so lost in all the emotions swirling between us that I already felt like I was feverish with need for him.

There was no hesitation. There was no holding back. There was only Grant and me. This was what it was supposed to be like.

I’d spent so much time thinking about what it would all be like and whether I’d be comfortable moving forward that I’d never let myself just be in the moment. But none of that anxiety plagued me tonight.

His tongue continued its work, making me squirm, and then I felt him ease two fingers inside me.

“Mmm,” he groaned. “You’re so wet.”

My cheeks heated at the admission. Everything about us being together right now was turning me on. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it made me tense anyway.

“It’s a good thing.”

He started moving his fingers in a come-hither motion inside me. That released all the tension I’d been holding.

“You know another good thing, Princess?”

Whatever his tongue is doing?

He swept his tongue across my lips again, and I whimpered.

“The way you taste.”

“Mmm?”

He repeated the motion. “You taste so fucking good.”

I felt the beginning buildup register in my core and radiate out through my body. No one else but Grant had ever made me feel this good. Or maybe I’d never dropped my defenses long enough to open myself up to this. Well, my body was open now, and it was all I could do to hold on to the covers before an orgasm arched my back right off the bed. I moaned as I rode out the wave of euphoria that followed.

“Nothing sexier than your face when you come.”

I smiled hesitantly and inched closer. “I think you should take these off,” I said, snapping the waistband of his boxer briefs. I fought for the confidence I always had outside the bedroom.

Grant was out of the rest of his clothes and pushing me back onto the bed again within a minute. Our bodies pressed tight, our lips melded together, my fingers digging into his hair, his grasping my hips desperately. I could feel the need rolling off of him in waves. And it was rolling off of me, too.

I could feel him ready between my legs, and Lord knows Grant had completely warmed me up.

“Ari,” he breathed into my neck before planting a soft kiss on the skin. “I want you tonight, love.”

My heart beat wildly at the pet name. He used a million-and-a-half different names as if they were commonplace but never that one.