Stripped (Stripped #1)(57)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

Atlanta? I bought a ticket back to Georgia?

Oh, God. Oh, God. God help me, what am I doing? Why am I going back to Georgia?

A possible answer strikes me as we lift off: I’m going back to Macon to find myself. I lost who I am in L.A. Or maybe I never knew who I was, and L.A. only muddled that further.

It’s too late to get off now.

Chapter 14

I land in Atlanta at 10:40 in the morning after a stopover in Houston. My stomach flops as the wheels touch down with a soft bounce, and after a long taxi, we pull up to a jetway. People around me gather their carry-ons and purses and laptops; I have nothing but my purse.

I stink of sex and sweat. My hair is in a messy bun, which I did in the airplane bathroom an hour before landing, having realized I looked exactly like I was running from someone, with my mussed and unbrushed hair.

I stink of Dawson. I reek of his musk, his essence, his touch.

I sense him all around me, in me. Which is nonsense, but I can’t shake the feeling. I shuffle along the aisle to the jetway along with the other travelers, and I hate myself with every step. Dawson loved me, and I ran from him. I left him in the gray hours of dawn, and I’m running back to the one place I swore I’d never return. I can just imagine his heartbroken expression when he wakes up, about now, maybe, reaching for me, hunting for me in that palatial monstrosity of a house, and not finding me.

I didn’t even leave a note.

I follow the crowd out into the airport, and the noise of chatter and bustle washes over me. I take a few steps away from the gate, heart aching with guilt, a lovesick soul cut into a thousand broken pieces. I had sex out of wedlock with a man I barely know and I left him without so much as a note of goodbye. I don’t have a cell phone. I didn’t bring my laptop or Fourth Dimension–issued iPad. He has no way of knowing where I am, even if he is inclined to chase me.

I stumble unevenly away from the gate, hearing the familiar twang of Georgia accents. I feel my own accent coming back and I haven’t said a word.

I’ve had four and a half hours to stew and think, and I’m no closer to knowing what’s right or why I’m back in Georgia. All I know is I want to go home—go to my dad’s house, and take a shower and sleep forever.

And then…I feel the too-familiar tingling of my skin and the prickle of my senses and the lurch in my belly. Hot, strong, unrelenting hands close around my hips and pull me backward. I feel his chest at my back. I don’t turn and acknowledge him; I slump back against him and muffle my sobs with my hands.

“You can’t run from me, Grey.” His voice is soft and powerful and intimate.

“How…how did you know?”

He laughs. “I felt you get up. Heard you crying. I knew you were panicking, and I knew you had to do it. I let you go, and I followed you. I was right behind you every step of the way. I sat in first class, and you never saw me. But I watched you cry, all alone. I watched you agonize.”

“Dawson, I…I’m sorry.” My accent, which I worked so hard to eradicate, is back in full force, as strong as when I was a clueless, mostly happy fifteen-year-old. I sniffle back a deprecating laugh. “God, listen to me. I sound like a redneck all over again, and I’ve only been back for five minutes.”

“I love your accent. Let it out. Just be you. Be Grey Amundsen.”

We haven’t moved, and people swirl around us like muddy river water eddying around a rock.

“I don’t know who that is,” I say, letting my head rest against his firm chest.

He tucks a stray wisp of honey-blonde hair back behind my ear. “Yes, you do. You’re you. You’re Grey. A mixed-up film student. A pastor’s daughter from Macon, Georgia. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and you’re the most dangerously sensual woman I’ve ever met. You’re hopelessly innocent, a little naïve, a lot stubborn, and absurdly cute when you’re mad. You make my c**k rock hard with a single look, and you have no idea you do it. You gave me the best day of my entire life, and then you ran away from it, which I knew you’d would.” He’s whispering this in my ear; I’m not breathing as he speaks. “You love me. And I love you. It’s not a sin. Or if it is, I don’t care.

“And you miss your dad. That’s why you came back.”

“I—what?”

He takes my hand and leads me away. “We’re going to go see your dad. You miss him, and you want him back in your life. And you’re going to introduce him to your boyfriend, the famous movie star.”

“I do? I am?” I’m trotting beside him as he takes long, purposeful strides.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” I consider everything he’s said as he goes through the process of renting a car.

He’s adroitly ignoring the stares and whispers of people who recognize him, and I’m trying to do the same.

We find our rental car, a one-year-old convertible red Corvette. He slides into the driver’s seat and turns to me. “Address?”

I spit it out without thought. “16543 Maple Grove Avenue.” I blink through my confusion. “Wait. We’re actually going back to my father’s house?”

He backs out and pulls out of the parking garage before answering, punching the address I gave him into his phone, a GPS app, most likely. When we’re heading toward my parents’—my father’s—neighborhood, he just smiles at me. “Grey, just breathe. I love you. Unless you can tell me, without lying, that you don’t love me back, then everything’s going to be okay.”

“I do love you. I do.” I whisper it, and the words are lost in the roaring wind, as Dawson has the top down.

He hears anyway, or he reads my lips, or he just knows the truth. “Good. Then it’s going to be okay. You love me. I love you. We’ll work out the rest.” He gives me a sharp look. “Do you regret what we did? What we have?”

I shake my head vehemently. “No! I don’t—I don’t regret it. It was…it was earth-shattering. I’m just all…all mixed up. I don’t know what to believe.”

“Believe in me. Believe in the fact that I love you.” He grins at me. “And believe in the fact that, once we get things a little more settled, I’m going to make you come so many times you won’t be able to walk for days afterward.”

“I can already barely walk,” I admit. “I’m sore.”

He just grins. “That was just a warm-up, babe. I haven’t begun to shatter your world. You can believe in that.”