Grayson's Vow

by Mia Sheridan

Today may be a very bad day, but

tomorrow may be the best day of your life. You just have to hang on until you get there.

Watch what people do when they think no one’s watching, love. That’s how you’ll know who they really are.

He looked like a prince, but if I were going to cast him in a fairy tale now, I’d cast him as the dragon. A beastly, judgmental, fire-breathing dragon.

He looked like every hero in every fairy tale I’d ever dreamed come to life. And God, I wanted to believe in heroes again. But sometimes, I supposed, a girl just had to be her own hero.

“Do you think I have any desire whatsoever to marry you or anyone else?” “No, I’d imagine you’re about as capable of monogamy as a junkyard dog. Not that that has anything at all to do with me.”

I should have to tolerate you when your own mother couldn’t even be bothered?

“I’m real happy to meet you, ma’am. Mr. Grayson says he might be marrying you, and I think that’s real fine. He says he can’t figure whether you’re a spoiled princess or a little witch, but I think if you are a witch, it’s the good kind ’cuz you sure are pretty.”

“I’m gonna have a whole bunch of money someday so people like me too.” His brow wrinkled up in thought. “Course, my mama says it’s not what a person has, but how he treats others, so I don’t know.”

Tendrils slipped down around her face where they always seemed to be when her hair was up, apparently too silky to stay put for long. I wondered what that hair would feel like wrapped around my fist. Damn it! Shut those thoughts down.

I wondered what she’d be like in bed. A hot, little temptress who… Goddamn.

My mother used to say that marriage is much like wine. They both mature slowly and grow deeper and more complex with time.”

“Don’t you knock?” I yelled. “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,”

I nodded slowly, biting my lip, thinking about how much Grayson Hawthorn and I had in common. Both raised by fathers who never thought we were enough.

“And by the way, my dear,” Charlotte said, resting her hand on mine on the counter, a glint in her eyes, “forget the prince and princess. I always imagined the most interesting story was between the witch and the dragon.”

When we arrived at the Napa County Clerk’s Office a few minutes later, the sky suddenly opened up and started pouring rain. Grayson chuckled. “The fates are against us.” I gave a small laugh too. “Apparently. Although I’ve heard that rain is good luck on a wedding day.”

My husband was going on a date on our wedding day. My husband was going on a date on our wedding day. I had the sudden, intense desire to double over with laughter. Only you, Kira. Only you would be in a situation like this.

“So who are you exactly, Kira?” Jade asked. Why, I’m his wife, peaches. I hope you have a lovely evening on your date. It took everything in me not to say that. I had agreed we should carry on as usual as long as we were discreet, although I hardly thought this qualified.

When I’d walked into her cottage and seen her standing there completely nude, lust had gripped me so tightly, I’d almost grabbed the doorframe for support. For a moment, I’d been overcome by something strong enough to make me feel weak in the knees, my mind going suddenly and briefly blank. I’d never experienced anything quite like it before.

And now we were married. Till divorce do us part.

“I’ve never been very good at obedience. Or meekness. Or curbing my sharp tongue for that matter. I’d make a terrible wife.”

Had I thought this girl was merely pretty? I was the stupidest man alive. A blind fool. A complete moron. She was beautiful.

“When the missus wants to dance on the back of a tractor, who am I to tell her no? She owns half of this vineyard.”

“You will no longer climb trees nor dance on tractors at my vineyard.”

“If you do, I’ll show you just how much of a dragon I can really be,”

“I thought it was apropos,” Grayson said, opening the front door for me, “that our first date be inside a bank. After all, a bank is where it all started.”

“Curiosity is different than blatant rudeness,” I murmured, staring out the front window.

Our first kiss had been harsh and challenging, our second ravenous yet tender, but this one was slow, sensual, as if our mouths were making love.

I had to relieve myself four times alone in the bathroom just to function enough to care for the little witch. No, this was not normal. Had she put some kind of evil spell on me? I felt possessed by a sexually aggressive demon straight from the depths of Hades.

“Kira, I can’t have a dog named Sugar Pie. No man owns a dog named Sugar Pie.” “Oh.” She put one finger up on her lips. “Well, that’s what I named her, and she seems to be attached to it. Her full name is Sugar Pie Honey Bunches.”

“You may be her father,” he said quietly, his voice deadly calm, “but you will never lay a hand on my wife again. Am I clear?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” “Said the Dragon to the witch,” she said softly, a small twinkle in her still-teary eyes. “There’s my girl,” I said.

she’d basically been told her passion in bed was somehow inappropriate and disgusting. And she’d believed it. And who could blame her? It’d been her first experience.

People suffer all over the world every day. But people triumph all over the world every day too.

you can’t shut off one emotion without shutting off all your emotions. You have to feel the pain if you’re going to feel the joy.

a deep moan emerging from my throat as I threaded my fingers into the silky waves of her hair, tilting her head so I could plunge my tongue deeper. I wanted to devour her, become part of her fire, her life force.

“Let me give you pleasure, Kira. Let me show you how beautiful you are when I make you come.”

Kira’s breathing evened and she let out a small, delicate snore. She was asleep. God, if I’d realized being married would be so sexually frustrating, I might have asked for more compensation.

The front of his jeans looked strained and full. I swallowed, wanting very much to feel it in my hand again. Yes, I wanted him, I admitted. I wanted him with an aching desperation that both scared and excited me.

But it made me feel like an outcast, and God, I’d felt that so often in my life. I just wanted once to belong somewhere.

Who could compete with Vanessa? She was beautiful inside and out, and I felt like the witch Grayson called me—ugly, ragged, and excluded.

“there’s nothing on earth like the feel of someone who loves you grasping your hand in the dark when you’re lost and afraid.”

love is not always smooth and easy. Love can be piercing. Love means exposing yourself—all of yourself, every tender part—to being hurt. Because true love is not only the flower; true love is also the thorns.”

I love my wife. Beautiful, bewitching Kira who had brought me back to life with her combination of fierce defiance and deep vulnerability.

If I was choosing jewels for you, I’d choose something entirely different…maybe emeralds for your eyes or rubies for all that fire inside.” He gave me a sweet smile. “Nothing as colorless as diamonds or opals. Not for you.”

When I, too, stood naked before her, her eyes roamed down my body, stopping on my swollen erection. Her eyes shot to mine, the flush on her cheeks deepening. “Can I touch you?” “Yes, God yes,” I choked. “I’m yours. Please touch me.”

The worst part, though, was the way she looked at her two other boys while I was there. And I realized that it wasn’t that she was incapable of love—it was just she was incapable of loving me.”

“Sometimes pain is so great, it feels as if it carves out vital parts of who you are. But love is meant to fill that empty space. If you let it, grief makes more room for love within you. And the love we carry inside makes us strong when nothing else can. Let it make you stronger. Better. You can get there. I know you can.” Let me help you. Let me love you.

“You know what I think? I think I must have been desperate, and you were…what’s the word? Convenient. Since you’ve been gone, I’ve decided I like more of a variety of women than marriage vows dictate.”

“I believe, sir, that where there is love, there is always hope.”