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thing, but I want to remember every detail. So I clamp my eyes shut and commit to memory the feel of every touch.
    He stops. “Why are you stopping?” I ask breathlessly.
    “Look at me.”
    I open my eyes to concern etched on his face. “Are you sure you want to do this? You look—pained.”
    I kiss him gently and then look directly into his eyes. “If you stop this right now, you will never see me again.”
    He intertwines his fingers with mine and raises my hand to his mouth. He lays a sweet kiss on the back of my hand and then pulls me forward to follow him. I notice his house is much tamer than the one the party was at, which was his parent’s home. I follow him up a beautiful, but not overdone, wooden staircase. It curves slightly to a landing upstairs. Two dark wood doors open to his master bedroom. It’s not grand or a bachelor pad. Rather, his bedroom is cozy.
    I’m taking in his room when he drops my hand. He lights a few candles on an armoire before he walks back over to me. Moving my hair from my shoulder and neck, he leans into my ear. “I’ve never done this before and certainly never here,” he confesses.
    He leaves a trail of kisses down my neck before he does the most shocking thing of all. The remaining hours of the night, Grant slowly undressed me, teased my entire body, and made love to me. I have had some amazing sex in my life, but never had I felt so cherished. I was wrong about Grant Kennedy, so very wrong. Amongst the passion, he unraveled my cold, black heart that night.

A Gamble
    After the night of our date, Grant and I spent every spare moment we had together. He sends me flowers at work every day with sweet or funny and inappropriate notes attached. The inappropriate ones are my favorite. I love how Grant makes me laugh, and he’s brought out the playful side in me. I didn’t have a very fun childhood, other than when I was with Whitney, but I think he’s somehow made up for it. In the past two months of dating Grant, I’ve been ice skating, had a picnic, and made snow cones with a machine he bought me when he realized I didn’t have one. Grant said everyone should have a personal snow cone maker.
    I’ve spent so much of my life worrying and trying to make something of myself. I think I forgot to look up once in a while and ended up missing out on a lot. Grant reminds me to look up. He is so carefree. I envy him. He just lives life and makes it look effortless. I like who I am when I’m with him.
    Two months after our first real date, I was finally coming up to a break I had planned into my schedule as a breather after taking my boards. I let Grant talk me into spending the last weekend before starting back at the hospital with him in Vegas to celebrate.
    “Pink or black?” I ask Whitney, holding up two lingerie sets. She is sitting on my bed next to the suitcase I’m packing fiddling with a picture on the nightstand of Grant and me.
    “Both.” She shrugs. “You never know.”
    “You’re right, and that’s why I keep you around,” I tease. “You’re so insightful.”
    “Alyssa, I kind of hate you. But you should get used to it. I’m pretty sure every girl within a hundred mile radius is jealous of you.”
    “Huh?”
    “Oh, my God. For a smart girl, you can be pretty dense. Grant Kennedy doesn’t date! He’s a playboy! But you come onto the scene and bam! He has an insta-girlfriend. You’re going away for the weekend with him. I was right! Up next is marriage and babies born sexy right out of the womb! Meanwhile, I’ll be a thirty-year-old spinster in a few years. It’s really unfair,” she whines.
    “Hey, maybe he has a hot cousin I can hook you up with.”
    “Nope, I’ve known of his family my whole life. There is only one male cousin named Ralph. My parents and his parents used to play doubles. Ralph used to chase me around and try to kiss me. The adults would never stop him either. They thought it was cute. He gave me a present for my fourth birthday.