Turning of the Stars Ch. 04

Anna woke up with the sun, not many hours after collapsing into exhausted sleep in Grant's bed. The warmth of his body soaking into her back and his arm draped comfortably around her waist nearly lured her right back into sleep with a smile on her face until memories from the night before started flickering through her mind like a demented movie projector.

'Do you want me to play with your clit like I'm playing with your nipples?'

Her eyes flew open and her cheeks burned with...something, was it embarrassment? Shame? She didn't know, but suddenly sleep was unattainable and she was overtaken with the need to get away. To think. To assimilate. She carefully crept out from under his arm and slid to the edge of the bed. One glance back at his sleeping face and she was blushing again. How could she possibly ever look him in the eye after last night?

'You're doing so good, baby. I'm gonna make you come so hard.'

Lord help her, just thinking about it had her burning up inside. The memory of that frighteningly intense orgasm had her up off the bed, snatching her dress off the floor and going in search of someplace to hide.

She found the bathroom downstairs and carefully avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her dress on. After pulling her tangled hair back into a knot and quickly rinsing her face off she sat down on the closed toilet for a moment to think. The pounding of her heart was so loud in her ears she had the irrational fear that Grant might hear it from all the way upstairs.

What on earth was wrong with her? As intense as it was she'd enjoyed every second of last night. Grant had shown her a whole new level to sex that she'd only suspected the existence of before. It was like he had some kind of sixth sense, he knew exactly how to get what he wanted from her and she'd responded to it on every level, physically, mentally, emotionally. Like he had absolute control over her.

She couldn't breathe. She had to go. She could call him later and explain over the phone, once she figured it out herself, but right now the thought of seeing him and looking in his eyes had her stomach all tied in knots. The creaking of the bathroom door made her cringe, but the place was silent as she padded softly to the front hall where she found her purse and, to her renewed embarrassment, her discarded panties. She paused at the front door to stuff them in her purse.

"You're taking off, huh?"

Anna jumped and whirled at the sound of Grant's voice from above. She looked up to see him leaning against the wooden railing of the loft, looking down at her with an expression so cold it gave her chills.

"Oh! I thought you were asleep."

"I could say the same for you."

"I just, um, I have...work today."

"Yeah, you told me you had to be at work at one," he said with a sardonic glance at the decorative clock on the far wall. It was six thirty.

"I'm sorry Grant, I was going to call-"

"Save it. I've used that line before." He stood up straight and ran his hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "You don't have to explain, believe me I get it. You wanted a good fuck, that's what you got."

"No, that's not-" She started toward the stairs, meaning to talk to him, try to explain as best she could why she had been sneaking out.

"I have to give you credit though, you really put in some time. You've been trying to get me to stick my cock in you for what, almost a whole week. That's dedication. Most girls give up after I blow them off the first few times."

Anna froze. Her jaw dropped and tears pricked her eyes. Part of her couldn't believe he really thought that about her, but another part felt the shame of knowing that on some level he was right. She had wanted him since they met and he knew it. How could he not the way she'd thrown herself at him? But she thought he'd been drawn to her, too. The idea that he'd been trying to blow her off was humiliating to say the least.

"At any rate, you don't have to sneak out with your panties in your purse like a used-up whore. Give me a minute to get dressed and I'll drive you home." With that he disappeared from view.

Anna's tears evaporated with anger and shock. A used-up whore? Potential comebacks swirled around in her head, none of which made sense, so she turned without saying a word and stomped out of the door, slamming it behind her. She made it almost to the sidewalk before she realized she was barefoot.

Going back in there wasn't an option. Neither was walking all the way home with no shoes on. Claudia would come get her if she called. It would be galling, but Claudia wouldn't give her too hard of a time. She pulled her phone out of her purse and almost cried when she realized it was dead. Looking up and down the street she noticed a gas station at one end of a long row of warehouses and headed for that, hoping the last pay phone on earth might exist in its parking lot.

...

Fuck her, then. Let her walk home. He'd watched her creep through his house trying get out without waking him up and he'd felt like more of a fool with every passing second. What had he been thinking? She was no different from all the others, just a better actress. Which was ironic because he'd screwed several actresses.

But he was the idiot who let himself believe she was different. He was the dumbass who let himself fall for her and now he was going to pay the price. And what a price, it felt like someone had torn a hole in his chest.

Insulting her had given him little relief; it just made him feel guilty on top of being angry and hurt. When he'd made that crack about blowing her off she'd looked like he'd slapped her and even though he knew it was probably all just an act it still made his chest ache to think that he'd put that look on her face. Especially since it wasn't true.

All along he'd been the one pursuing her, pestering her for more, and she'd been holding back. Holding out. In hindsight it was obvious she'd only been after one thing and realizing it made him feel like a fool.

'Are you asking if I want more than sex? Because I might have to wait until we actually have sex to answer that.'

"Son of a bitch!" He kicked at something on the floor at his feet, sending it sailing across the room to slam into the wall. It was a shoe. Anna's sandal. Surely she'd noticed she didn't have them by now, if she was going to come back for them she would have done it already.

As stubborn as she was she'd probably walk all the way home barefoot before she'd come back in here after the way he'd talked to her. The anger drained from him and he slumped against the wall. He couldn't let her walk home without her shoes.

...

She was halfway to the gas station when he pulled slowly alongside her, driving on the wrong side of the road.

"Get in the car, Anna."

She clenched her jaw and walked faster, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a response.

"I'm not going to let you walk home."

That was too much to ignore completely so she settled for flipping him off without looking.

"Fine, but at least take your shoes."

She stopped and glanced at the car just long enough to see him dangling her sandals out the driver's side window. She snatched the shoes without looking at him and turned her back, trying to balance while she brushed the debris off the bottom of her foot.

She teetered while slipping the second shoe on and would have fallen if a strong hand hadn't caught her elbow and righted her. As soon as she was balanced she yanked her arm away and started walking again, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, coming around to stand in front of her.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you a whore. Please just let me drive you home."

Anna stared at the bits of broken glass and fast food garbage littering the sidewalk and debated with herself. She was angry and hurt and, oddly, still afraid to look him in the eye, but she really didn't want to drag Claudia out of bed this early. If he was willing to give her a ride home she'd take it. But she wouldn't let him talk her out of being angry and she sure as hell wasn't going to accept that pitiful excuse for an apology.

"Fine." She turned and got in his car without looking at him once.

Anna stared pointedly out the window as they pulled away from the curb, but after a few minutes it was clear he wasn't going to try to talk to her. A brief glance out of the corner of her eye told her he was staring straight ahead, a resigned expression on his face. And maybe a little bit hurt. Okay, a lot hurt. Her heart clenched as she realized how he must have felt seeing her leave without saying goodbye.

Her resolve was breaking and she tried to hold on to her anger, but the words were out before she had even decided to say them. "I really was going to call you."

He shot her a what-the-fuck-ever look, but didn't speak.

"I was. Look I don't really know why I was leaving, but it's not what you think. I wasn't disappearing for good, I just got kind of freaked out...about last night." She could feel his eyes on her, but still couldn't meet his gaze. The pounding of her heart filled the silence, but she didn't know what else to say.

"Did I hurt you?"

Anna looked up at the concern she hear in his voice, catching his worried glance. "No," she assured him, placing a hand on his leg. "No, nothing like that." She started to pull her hand away, but he reached down and covered it with his, holding it in place. The soft warmth of it soothed her and she found herself staring at his long fingers where they twined with hers.

"It was just so intense and I've never done anything like that before. I didn't know how to act afterward. After the things I did...the things I let you do to me...I felt embarrassed."

She wasn't telling the whole truth and she knew it. She'd realized while she was walking that this wasn't really about the sex, or at least not just that. Their late night conversation had come back to her, the things she'd told him about her family and why she left home and that's when it hit her that she wasn't running from the sex, she was running from him.

Since she'd met Grant she'd felt something that she hadn't felt in a very long time- insecure. About her appearance, her judgment, her choices. It would be so easy to put the blame for that on him, but she knew it wasn't really his fault. She felt insecure because she actually cared about what he thought about her. And she cared about what he thought about her because she cared about him. A lot. Too much. She didn't want anyone telling her how to act or how to feel, but the way she felt about him...she found herself wanting to do what he wanted her to do, to be what he wanted her to be. That was what had scared her.

The idea of letting him, or anyone, inside the safe little bubble she'd constructed for herself since she'd been on her own was terrifying. She'd promised herself when she left home that she wouldn't waste her chance to become her own person, that she wouldn't let other people's opinions and expectations shape her own choices any longer. Then she'd gathered her sense of independence around herself like a protective cloak and gone out in the world, hacking a path for herself as she went. She couldn't throw it away now.

The car swerved to the curb, then stopped and Grant turned in his seat to face her. She risked a quick look at his face and when he caught her eye she found she couldn't look away. Those green eyes pinned her in place with their intensity.

"Embarrassed?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She had the feeling he didn't quite believe her. The silence stretched between them until Grant leaned toward her, releasing her hand to rest his arm across the back of her seat.

"Embarrassed about what we did, or embarrassed that you liked it?"

"I don't know." His stare disconcerted her. It was clear he knew she was keeping something from him and felt a powerful urge to to tell him the whole truth, but stopped herself. Instead she gave him as close to the truth as she could get. "I'm not looking for someone to control me."

His eyes widened in surprise and he drew back a bit. "Anna, I'm not trying to control you. I know better than to think you want to be told what to do when, oh I don't know, say you're holding a knife wrong or you're trying to walk the city streets barefoot."

Anna rolled her eyes and started to turn away, but he caught her chin in his hand and leaned in close enough that she could feel the heat from his body in the chilly morning air. So close that if she leaned just a few inches toward him she'd be kissing him.

"What we did last night had nothing to do with me controlling you." His eyes darkened and his voice dropped low as his fingers began to move absently against the soft skin of her cheek. "You were so hot, the way your whole body responded when I touched you, when I whispered in your ear, when I moved inside you. Surely you know what that did to me."

God, he was so close and he smelled so good it made it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. She couldn't stop staring at his lips and when he darted his tongue out to moisten them her breath caught in her throat. His hand fell from her chin and caressed its way down her arm, sending a shiver down her spine.

"Babe, I may have been telling you what to do, but you were the one in control. And I loved every second of it."

"I did too," she whispered, breathless.

"I know."

And then he was kissing her, slow and gentle at first then more insistent when she started kissing him back. His hand came back to her cheek, his thumb caressing her skin as he stroked the inside of her mouth with his tongue. Anna shivered again and leaned closer to him as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"Come back home with me. Please."

Anna rested against him for a moment, thinking. She could do this, right? She could be with him, spend time with him, sleep with him and not completely give herself up to him. She'd done it with other guys, she could do it with him. Ignoring the little voice in her head warning her that Grant wasn't like other guys, she took a deep breath and pulled back to look him in the eyes.

"I don't ever want you to talk to me like that again. I realize that I hurt your feelings and I'm very sorry about that, but that doesn't make it okay for you to say whatever mean things you want and expect me to just forget about them when you decide you aren't mad at me anymore."

"I'm sorry. I acted like a total asshole."

"Yeah, you did."

"I guess I was trying to hurt you back, but...god, I don't ever want to see that look on your face again, let alone be the one who puts it there. And not that it makes it any better, but you know I didn't mean it, right? I never tried to blow you off."

"Well I don't know, but-"

"How can you not know? Hell, I've been throwing myself at you all week. I put my own number in your phone, I molested you on a public sidewalk, I showed up at your house in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure I'm the one acting like the crazy stalker here."

"I guess when you put it that way maybe I should be concerned for my own safety." Anna gave in to the grin trying to spread across her face.

"You absolutely should be." His answering smile warmed her. "Now let's go have some breakfast."

...

"I think I've figured it out, or at least figured out what the problem is, if not why. Whoever is taking it only takes one or two bottles at a time, maybe once or twice a week, and it's never the same kind of liquor. A bottle of Jack here, a bottle of Cuervo there, no one notices because the quantity is so small. But it's been going on for months so it's adding up."

Grant shook his head and looked up from his laptop to meet Corie's concerned eyes. "It hasn't caused a significant enough monetary impact for me to notice, if Eric hadn't picked up on the inventory discrepancy there's no telling how long it would have gone on before I figured it out."

"Eric is the new bartender?"

"Yeah."

"Were there any other personnel changes?"

"No, I just hired Eric because I liked him and he had experience and I figured it wouldn't hurt to flesh out the staff. The disappearances actually petered off a few weeks before he started. Whoever is doing it still works there, I think. It's not happening at the club, so it's someone who doesn't do crossover. Or maybe they're just afraid you'd notice."

"I would notice," Corie said, absently flicking the rings her lower lip with her tongue. "I do an inventory check every night and keep track of spills and returns and everything. I count it all."

"See, and they should be doing that at the restaurant too. It's my fault, I was so caught up with everything else I wasn't paying enough attention to the bar over there. But as soon as I figure out who's behind this I want you to train the bartenders at the restaurant to do inventory your way. For now I'm going to act like I haven't noticed so I can try to figure out who's responsible."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? The liquor is going somewhere, what if someone's selling it or giving it to kids? You could get in trouble if it comes back to you."

"Eric is monitoring it for me at the moment. Nothing has gone missing in the last couple of weeks that we can tell. I just don't want to make it obvious I've picked up on what's happening. If I scare them off I'll never find out who's behind it. In the meantime I'll just have to spend more time at the restaurant until I figure it out. There goes my night off."

He rubbed his face wearily, disappointed that he was going to have to call and cancel his date with Anna. They hardly got any time together that wasn't late night hours and he'd really been looking forward to actually taking her out tonight.

"You know you could just wank one off real quick and it would achieve pretty much the same effect as a night with your little groupie."

Grant's hand dropped and he glared at her, thoroughly unamused. "Really? Still? Almost a month and you haven't stopped with your snide comments?"

"Oh come on, you used to have a sense of humor."

"That shit's not funny. It wasn't funny to begin with and it's really getting old."

Corie's eyes widened in surprise, then a look of understanding swept over her features. "Holy shit," she said with a laugh.

"What?"

"You're in love with her."

"Shut up." He closed the laptop and stood up to indicate their conversation was over as far as he was concerned. Corie didn't pick up on the hint.

"You are, aren't you? Admit it."

"So? What if I am?"

"Wow. That's just...wow. That was fast."

Grant agreed. And he didn't even tell her he'd known for a couple of weeks now. For some reason it made him feel silly and he knew for sure that Corie would laugh if he told her he realized it the first time they'd had sex so he settled for a non-committal reply.

"Yeah." He walked over to the fish tank and picked up the jar of food.

"So what does Anna have to say about that?" Corie asked, leaning back against the couch, sending the clear message that she wasn't going anywhere.

"She doesn't know."

"Good. Don't tell her yet."

Grant looked up from sprinkling food into the water, suddenly interested. "Why not?"

"It's too soon, she wouldn't believe you and it would totally freak her out," Corie said, in a tone of voice one would use to talk to a small child.

"You think?"

"Yeah, dude, she's not the kind of girl that's out trolling for a husband. She's got her shit together and she's doing her own thing. You move too fast and you'll scare her off for sure."

"So now you admit she's not a groupie?"

"Oh please, I only call her that because it bugs you so much. I mean come on, she's been around enough that even I can see she's not like that. She's pretty cool, actually."