All Chapters of The Bound Collection: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

We had slept in the next morning before we took Gray's stuff to my apartment. He didn't have much, just his clothes. It saddened me that he had left his entire life behind at his house when he'd moved out, but he said he could replace material things. It didn't seem to bother him, so I tried not to let it bother me, but something about his departure from his marriage seemed more sudden than planned. Or possibly he'd given her everything to ease the weight of the guilt he'd felt over leaving.Scarlett and Topher had helped us load everything up and followed us over to my apartment. They would leave my place to go by Heather's and start the process of moving her in. I doubted it would be as easy as Gray's leg of the trip had been. My space was a decent size for me, but adding another person was a little cramped. It was probably a good thing he didn't have a ton of belongings because we had a hard time figuring out what to do with his clothes. There was definitely not enough space in

After Gray had learned about Will, he'd been careful on how he approached anything new in the weeks that followed. He wanted to push the envelope beyond missionary but wasn't interested in a repeat of the night he tried to take me from behind. I appreciated his understanding, and at times, he coddled me. I wanted to grow, move past the barriers I'd held on to. My psychiatrist believed our exploration was healthy and encouraged me to continue as long as I felt comfortable, but that was just it, I wasn't sure where to draw that line. So we'd agreed to explore together-the trust this required from me was enormous. I struggled with disconnecting the abuse I'd witnessed Will endure, from a healthy sex life.Gray came in the door with a black plastic bag. I knew he was up to something. I gave him a kiss on the lips, and asked, "What's in the bag?""I got you something. Well, I got you something, and I got us something." He reached into the bag and pulled out a sleek pink vibrator and a D

Gray and I kept rehashing the same conversation-we both missed the other. He had tons of spare time during the week, and I had none."I sound like a bitch complaining, Annie. I know you work your ass off, but I need you, too. It's like the sun doesn't shine during the day anymore without you around. I knew what I was getting into, and it's not fair to ask you to change your goals to accommodate my life, but baby, I'm lonely." It was weird to hear my alpha-male talk about the sun not shining and the darkness in his life. It also hadn't escaped my attention that if I didn't meet his needs, someone else would always be willing to. He had never said that, nor had he implied it, but I wasn't stupid. I didn't need someone to draw me a map to reach that conclusion.The first time we had this discussion, he had made the mistake of telling me Abby was always home when he got there, waiting for him, at his beck and call. I reminded him of how that ended and couldn't stop the nagging thoug

The conversation with Jack had gone better than I expected. He wondered how long I would continue at the pace I'd been keeping before my body gave out. I was honest with him about the hospital stay, which of course disappointed him, but he admitted to having done stupid things along the way to keep his head above water. While he hadn't come out and said it, my drive for success is what made me a valuable employee-he had benefitted from my insatiable desire to overachieve. He liked the idea of me selling accounts and other people working them. I was thrilled when he agreed to let me direct my workload. It enabled me to take on as many or as few clients as I wanted and could handle. I wasn't surprised when he lowered my base salary and restructured my commission, but I was confident Jack would still make it worth my time. Maybe Gray's suggestion to cut back was a smart move. Anxious to tell him how our conversation had gone, I grabbed my phone from my backpack and sent him a message.M

As the fall semester was coming to a close, I found myself dreading finals. The last couple of weeks, Gray had been distant. I might have been imagining it, or it was possibly just the amount of time I'd had to spend wrapping up school projects and studying, but something was off. The summer had been perfection and going back to school had been tough. Each semester got harder, and this one had been daunting. The truth was, I missed him. I had encouraged him to spend time with his friends, to go out, so he wasn't sitting here watching me work, but I hated not being able to go with him. But between me having no interest in bars, and his not wanting us to be caught in public together before his divorce was final, I was spending a lot of time alone. We went out together but tried to go to less public places, places where we were less likely to be noticed. I hated feeling like a dirty secret, but his ex was doing everything she could to slow down the divorce process. His friends all knew