Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely

Declan

I blame the margarita.

It cools me off, and the drink helps me turn down the heat of the moment. That’s good, in a way, because I want to take my time tonight. I want to enjoy every second of this evening out with Grant Blackwood.

This night feels like it exists in its own sultry, hazy, sexy plane of existence. But I’m acutely aware, and I suspect he is too, that if we stand a chance of having something real this time around, it needs to start with more than flirting.

More than sex.

It needs to start with hard truths.

That’s where I begin after I drain the glass. “I started seeing someone in the last year,” I say.

Grant blanches, his eyes bugging out. “What?”

I reach for his hand to reassure him but pull back at the last second, realizing I shouldn’t touch him like this in public. Not until we’ve figured out the new ground rules for that, and all that a public touch, not an under-the-table one, entails. “A therapist,” I quickly correct.

He breathes in deep relief. “You asshole. You scared the fuck out of me.”

I laugh, diffusing the tension. “I’d never do that. I meant—I’m seeing a therapist. Her name is Carla. She’s fantastic and wise and insightful. And she’s helping me with a ton of things.”

Grant’s grin is different from the ones he flashed my way earlier. Different, too, from the I’m happy to see you smile, or the you’re turning me inside out one. It’s warm, authentic, and seems to come straight from the heart. “That’s awesome. How did you decide? Is it okay to ask you that?” he asks.

“You can ask. It was actually my mom’s idea,” I tell Grant. “She suggested it about a year ago, when we were in Tokyo over the holidays. She’s been seeing someone basically since my dad left. She’s a big advocate of therapy, and she thought it could be good for me.”

“And is it? Good for you?”

“It is, but it’s really fucking hard.” I mime cracking my chest open with a can opener. “It’s like spilling your guts and hoping the people around you still want to hang out with you.”

He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Not your favorite thing to do—spilling your guts.”

I shake my head. “But I’m learning. We’re working through a lot of shit. Like the way I took everything on when I was younger, to protect my mom from my father’s downward spiral. How I tried to protect myself from him, how I put on blinders a lot of the time.”

“It’s what you had to do to get through,” he says.

“Or so I thought.”

“And now?” he asks. I’m grateful Grant’s taking this in stride, that he’s asking genuine questions, that he’s not scared off by my baggage.

“Now, I’m learning to be more open. To try to trust.” I draw a steadying breath. That word—trust—is the cornerstone of my issues.

Trust is so damn hard. But I want to get there. I want to trust that the world won’t fall apart around me. Trust that I don’t have to fix everything. Trust that I’m enough.

Grant reaches under the table for my hand, clasping it in his. “Man, I have to say I’m really happy for you. I’ve never been to a counselor, but it seems like it’s working for you. You seem like . . .”

I arch a brow. “A different person?”

He shakes his head, his tone adamant. “You don’t need to be a different person. I always liked who you were. Who you are. I think you seem like a more content version of yourself.”

“You can say it.” I goad him, squeezing his fingers.

“Say what?” He furrows his brow.

“A better version. I was kind of an ass.”

“You weren’t an ass. Not at all. If you were a jerk before, I wouldn’t have liked you. And I liked you. So much,” he says, his tone intense, then a little softer as he adds, “I just wanted to know more of you.”

“I want you to know more of me, Grant. I think I’m capable of that now,” I tell him, feeling completely vulnerable, stripping naked in a whole new way. This is what I need to do for us to have a chance. “We talk about you too.”

Surprise flits across his gorgeous blue eyes. “What do you say about me?”

“How I keep thinking about you. How I keep wondering. How nothing compares to you,” I say, my eyes never straying from his. “You’re my what-if.”

He tries to rein in a smile, but it’s futile. “You mean that?”

“Completely,” I say, then take a steadying breath, needing it for courage. “But here’s the thing.”

He winces.

I would too.

Here’s the thingusually precedes bad news.

“What’s the thing?” He lets go of my hand.

I set mine on the table. “When I started seeing Carla last May, she challenged me to really think about what I wanted to change in my life. Who I wanted to be. The type of person I want to be, and the type of man I want to feel worthy of.”

“And what type of man is that?”

“It’s not a type.” And here goes the full truth. “It’s you. I want to be worthy of you.”

Grant closes his eyes, like this is all so much. When he opens them, he breathes out harshly.

Worry snakes through me. I drag my hand along the back of my neck. “Is that too much? I’m sorry if it’s too much.”

Grant shakes his head. “No, it’s not too much. Not at all. I just feel like there’s a but coming. Maybe I’m bracing for it.”

Fair enough. He’s not entirely wrong. “The only ‘but’ is this: I promised I wouldn’t start a relationship during the first year we started diving into my issues. I’m really trying to treat it like recovery. Does that make sense?”

He tilts his head. “What do you think you’re in recovery from?”

“Loving an addict. Enabling an addict, for sure. Co-dependency. All of that, but also all the choices I made, like at the end of high school when I nearly tanked my baseball career. The regrets I have over that, and over how I ended things with you way back when. I’m trying to learn how to do things differently. I don’t want to bring all my bad habits into a new relationship. I want a real chance.”

Grant slides his fingers through his thick hair as he does when he’s thinking, absorbing new info. “And you want that with me?”

“I want to be with you. I want to be involved with you,” I say plainly, hoping he wants the same damn thing, but knowing I have to handle this conversation so much better than the meet me in Miami one I bungled five years ago. There’s no beating around the bush about my state of mind now. And no pushing him beyond what he can handle, like I did then. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life asking what if I had told Grant that I want to try again,” I say, my heart beating outside my damn body.

His blue eyes shine with possibility. “You really do?” There’s wonder in his voice, perhaps disbelief. Or possibly the same damn emotion I feel—hope.

“I really do.” My gaze stays locked on his as I push past how foreign it feels to talk this openly to someone I care so much about. I have to do this. “But I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t want to make a mistake this time around. That’s why I want you to know the score. I’m still learning how the hell to be open about my feelings. I might still be rough around the edges, and I’m honestly a little terrified of starting up again at the wrong time. But if I don’t tell you this and put everything on the line, I might as well strike out looking. If you’ll have me like this—still working on me—I’ll do everything I can to make us work. I’m stepping up to the plate. And I’m taking a big fucking swing.”

There it is.

The truth of my heart.

Flaws and all.

Grant shudders out a breath. Scrubs a hand across his jaw. Parts his lips but takes his time. “First, I’ve always loved getting around the bases with you, so you swinging for the fences kind of gets me going. Second, I’m glad you told me where you’re at and what you want. You being open is a huge turn-on.” His brow knits. “But I’m a little confused now, so I’m going to be really blunt. It sounds like you’re on a timeout, and that you also want to sleep with me and start a relationship. So, Deck, what exactly are we doing tonight in, oh, say, about an hour?”

I laugh lightly. Then shrug, feeling a little helpless. “I want to spend the night with you. I want to find a way to be with you. But if you want to wait till I’ve got more of this shit figured out I understand.” I take a resolute breath. “If you tell me to call you in May and you’ll see where you’re at and if you’re still single, I’ll honor that. If you tell me thanks but no thanks, I’ll respect that too.”

His expression goes full Edvard Munch “The Scream.” “That sounds horrible.”

I laugh. “Like a brand-new form of blue-ball torture?”

“Exactly. So, May is a year for you?”

“Yes,” I say, heavily, because waiting to touch Grant the way I want sounds like the worst form of torture. “Three months from now.”

He blows out a long exhale. “So, you’re saying you want to be with me. Like really be with me. And then you’re also asking me if I want to wait three months to spend the night with you? Is this a test? Like, do I want all of your cock and some of your heart? Or none of your cock and all of your heart in three months?”

A laugh bursts from me. “I’m happy to give you all of my dick anytime, and yes, I want all of yours too.” Then I turn serious again. “It’s not the physical I worry about. We’ve got that down. But I want more than sex. I want all of you, but I want to make sure I can be good for you in every way too, and I’m still a work-in-progress. So, if you want to wait on the whole cock until I get more of my shit together, I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you.”

Grant shakes a finger at me. “You’re a cruel fucking man. You tortured me with your wicked hands and your dirty talk and all those filthy, sexy, insane things you say that make me melt for you. Not to mention those eyes and the way you stare at me. Do you have any idea how you look at me?”

I slide closer, eating this up with a big spoon. “How do I look at you?”

Grant leans into me. “Like no man has ever wanted anyone the way you want me.”

Lust slams into me—a punishing, beautiful jolt of desire. “Because that’s how I feel for you. In every single way. But if going full-speed ahead now is going to ruin my one chance with you, I’ll wait,” I say, putting that out there, so he knows how I feel. “Like I said, you’re my what-if.”

He looks up and those blue eyes hold mine with so much honesty and need as he whispers, “Don’t you know? You’re my what-if too.”

My skin sizzles with the promise of an us. This is the reward for speaking the truth. A big, beautiful reward. “Good,” I say.

“You’ve got to know I want another chance with you. It’s why I asked you out tonight. I’m desperate for this. For us. But I also care too much about you to mess up your work. I’m so happy you’re seeing someone, that you’re treating all this as seriously as recovery.” Grant draws a deep breath, then his lips curve into a grin and he shrugs playfully. “But on the other hand, if we don’t fuck tonight, I think I might die . . . so can you please make this whole-cock-or-no-cock decision for us?”

I laugh, tempted, so damn tempted, to pull him against me. To kiss the breath out of him right here. To thank all the lucky stars that he’s willing to brave my imperfections, to gamble on my flaws. To take a chance on me. I’m not going to squander it, and if Grant wants me as I am, then I want him too. “Seems like the decision’s been made. I refuse to let you die. You get the whole cock.”

“Thank God. I want the cock, the whole cock, and nothing but your cock,” he says, relieved, then a wicked glint crosses his eyes. He takes out his phone, clicks on a folder and shows me his test results. “Negative.”

I do the same. “Negative too. We better be going bare.”

“Mmm . . . yes.”

“Can’t wait,” I murmur, and once again, we might set the place on fire.

Good thing the waitress swings by and asks if we want a refill.

“Just an iced tea for me,” I say, grateful for the distraction.

“Diet Coke,” Grant says, and when she brings them by a minute later, I take a drink. “I want to hear more about you. What you’ve been up to. I have to say, I was really proud of you last night. For your award.”

“Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

“I kept thinking, too, that when I met you, you were like a cub.”

Grant rolls his eyes. “Gee, thanks. Just what I’ve always longed to hear.”

“Come on. You were a rookie in every sense. You were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But look at you now,” I say, gesturing to the man next to me.

Grant sits a little taller, straightens his shoulders a little more, knocks back some soda. “What do you see now?”

“I see a champion. I see a businessman. I see a friend. I see a family man. Most of all, I see a leader,” I tell him earnestly. “I see a man who had a dream. I see a man who put some things aside to make that dream come true.” Another drink of the iced tea, then I add my final thought on who Grant Blackwood is. “And when I see that man, all I can think is, my God I like that man so much.”

Trust. That felt like trust. Like what Carla was getting at. Putting yourself out there and trusting the other person won’t stomp on your heart.

Grant doesn’t seem like a heart stomper.

“You,” he says softly. “You and me.”

“Me and you.”

His eyes hold mine. “I told you what would happen if we were together again,” he whispers.

I remember his words in my apartment perfectly. But I want to hear them anew from his lips. “What would happen?”

Grant sets down the glass, his blue eyes sparking with something entirely new, but something wonderfully familiar too. He looks at me like he did once upon a time. But he also looks at me in a whole new way, like maybe it’s our moment. “That I would fall for you again,” he says.

A greedy, needy sigh escapes my lips as I gaze at the only man I’ve ever loved. I want to wrap my hand around the back of his head, pull him close, kiss him soft and tender, so that everyone could see he belongs with me. Only me. “So fall for me. Because I’ll be doing the same for you.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

What it sounds like is a second chance.

Then it sounds like the sexiest night ever is about to begin when Grant lifts an eyebrow, his lips curving into a dirty grin as he inches closer. “To answer your question from earlier, I do have more ink. Want to see it?”

As the waitress sails by, I hold up two fingers and call out, “Check, please.”