“Pain in the ass,” I mutter as I spray the mud off the front of my Range Rover . . . again. The street is nothing but mud due to my neighbor’s landscape project. Broken sprinkler heads and truckloads of dirt don’t make for a pretty road to drive on.
“Hey.”
I yelp at the sound and whirl around to find Grayson standing there, sweaty, out of breath, and looking far more sexy than I want to admit.
“What are you doing here?”
“Running. I was out for a jog.”
“Great.” I try to sound unfazed. Like I haven’t rerun the other night in my head a million times to try to figure out if I read too much into what he said. To try to figure out if I overreacted to the situation on the street.
I don’t get like this about a guy, never have, said I never would, and so it’s driving me absolutely crazy. “Have a good rest of your jog.”
“Sid?” He sounds surprised when he shouldn’t be. “Is something wrong?”
“Nope. I’m fine. Just fine.” I turn my back to him and start spraying my tires again. It’s so much easier focusing on them than the incredibly sexy sight of him that I don’t want to acknowledge. The visual that immediately clouds the way I felt the other night.
“You’re fine? That’s universal woman code for I’m pissed at you.” His chuckle scrapes over my nerves as he reaches out to take the hose from me, and I yank it away.
“Don’t!” I spin around to face him and, of course, he’s way too close. The nozzle I aim at him is the only thing between us, and my car is at my back.
“You care to share what I did wrong?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He draws the word out. “I waited around for you at the festival the other night.”
The side that wants to believe the words he said in the office melts while the skeptical one who saw him with the strawberry-blonde snorts.
“What? You don’t believe me?”
Did I really just snort out loud?
“No, I don’t. I saw you.” I jab the hose nozzle in his direction, and a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, which only serves to infuriate me further. “I saw you and that woman—”
“What woman?” he laughs.
“The pretty one with the strawberry-blonde hair.” He snorts, and I jab the hose in his direction, suddenly on the defensive and more than aware that I think I’m going to look like an ass here. That all my overthinking was for nothing. “Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking shit.” He puts his hands up, but his smile remains. “That was my sister-in-law, Grant’s wife. Her name is Emerson.”
Oh. Shit.
“I was playing the part you want me to play. Chatting up the ladies asking about the contest, urging them to go online.” Embarrassment flushes every ounce of my body. “I was whispering to Emerson how ridiculous it was, and she was there to laugh at it all with me.”
“Oh.” As in, Oh shit, I look like the craziest hormonal bitch ever.
All I want to do is crawl under this car and hide when his grin widens to epic proportions. “Am I forgiven?”
“No.”
His laughter rings out, and I hate that I love the sound of it. “Okay. What else do you need from me?”
His words throw me. Words no man has ever spoken to me during a fight. It’s usually, “Can we get this over with?” or “Are we done yet?” or “Can we have make-up sex?”
Make-up sex.
The idea sticks but only because he’s sweaty and sexy and so damn close that my every nerve is already attuned to him.
Like they needed any help.
“Sidney?” he prompts when I don’t respond. His gaze moves. A slow, languorous slide from my head to my toes that makes me feel as if he’s undressing each and every inch of me.
“Yeah?”
“You have some”—he reaches out and runs a hand over the curve of my chest just above my tank top—“dirt right there.”
I swear my breath hitches. I know my nipples harden. I react when I swore I wasn’t going to. Damn him. He showed up here with those eyes and those muscles, and hell, even I have to admit that I’m in trouble. I’m down the rabbit hole when it comes to him, when I don’t want to be.
And when he leans in and brushes his lips against mine, my mind fogs, and my body tenses and—
“Argh!” I accidentally spray him with the ice-cold water square in the chest, and he jumps back.
“Oh my God.” I can barely get the words out as I laugh hysterically. “I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry.” Tears pool at the corners of my eyes.
He shakes his arms so the water flies off them as his gaze lands on mine. “Turnabout’s fair game, Thorton.” His brows lift in a taunt. His fingers twitch as if he’s itching to touch.
He takes a step toward me.
“It was an accident. I swear.”
Another step.
“Uh-huh.”
Closer.
I can’t resist. The playful look on his face. The desire unrivaled between us. The relief that I acted like an irrational female and he took it with a complete grain of salt.
I tighten my finger on the trigger of the nozzle, sending a stream of water straight to his chest. He tries to jump out of the way, but he’s too close to avoid it.
“Oopsie.” I shrug and smile coyly.
“That wasn’t a very smart move.” There’s a roughness to his voice that electrifies the air as it telegraphs where his thoughts are. What it is he wants.
And I hope to God I’m right in thinking that it’s me.
“What are you going to do about it?” This time, I’m the one who taunts. I’m the one who teases. I’m the one who wants to finish what we’ve almost started a few times but had too much damn common sense to finish.
Another step.
I can smell the soap on his skin. I can see the beads of water on his neck and arms. I can hear the hitch of his breath. “There are a whole lot of things I could think to do about it, but I’m not sure which of them we’d regret the most once they were done.”
I squirt the hose again. This time, he flinches. This time, a laugh falls from his lips. This time, he lunges after me to grab the hose, and I dodge away from him, my fingers pulling the trigger so that I completely soak the front of his body.
The air fills with our shrieks and threats as I hit him and then run. As he dodges and then chases.
Around my car. Another stream of water. My sides hurt from laughing so hard, and I’m not paying attention as Grayson takes the hose lying on the ground and yanks on it, pulling the nozzle from my hands. I turn to run but realize I’m out of real estate. My back is against the fence, and Grayson is standing in front of me, nozzle pointed my way and a smirk playing at the corners of his lips.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I say, hoping for an ounce of mercy when I showed him none.
I yelp when the cold stream of water hits me in the stomach. “Oopsie,” he mimics me, and all I want to do is strangle him as the water slides down the denim of my shorts and over my thighs.
“Grayson.” It’s a plea. It’s a warning. It’s an oh my God does he look gorgeous with his hair plastered to his forehead, the lighthearted grin on his face, and his shirt clinging to every cut inch of him.
“You know what they say about paybacks, right?”
“Yes. That a gentleman like you would never retaliate on a poor, helpless female like me.” And then I shriek as another spurt of water hits me.
“Oopsie.” His laugh rings louder than mine. “Nice try, but you’ve made it clear you’re no damsel in distress, so that doesn’t fly with me, Princess.”
Crap.
And that’s the only thought I get to have before I’m hit full-on with a longer stream of water. “Stop. No. Grayson.”
I rush him. I try to yank the nozzle from his hands, and when I do, I throw it to the ground and run. Through the gate. Into the backyard. Around the flowerbeds.
I make the fatal error of thinking I can run past him on my way back to the front yard, and before I know it, Grayson hooks an arm around my waist, and we both fall laughing onto the grass.
The fall knocks the breath out of us, but within seconds, I’m wriggling to get away from him.
Then I’m not.
My body freezes, fully aware of every long, lean inch of his body flanking mine. Of that instant burn in my belly and ache in my thighs when I stop moving only to find his face in front of mine. His eyes on me. His lips inches away. His body wet and warm all at the same time. His dick hard and pressed against my thigh, telling me his thoughts align with mine.
“Grayson . . .” This is a bad idea.
Kiss me.
This is such a bad idea.
Why isn’t he kissing me?
And then he does. A soft brush of his lips against mine. And then another. Sips and sighs of a kiss as we lie on the ground in my backyard with the birds overhead and a lawnmower sounding off elsewhere . . . but my entire world is focused on him.
On the rough brush of stubble against my chin. On the drops of water falling off his hair and onto mine. On the softness of his lips, the flex of his muscles, and the hints of restraint being tested.
There’s a tenderness in his touch, his kiss, but there’s the underlying edge laced with riotous desire that I can taste on his tongue and feel as he touches me.
Every part of me warms. Heats. Wants more when I fear it might only bring the agony of wanting more again.
His hand runs down my rib cage and slides under my shirt. I gasp as his wet palm brings a chill to my skin while his lips bring warmth to every other part of me. He finds my nipple over the wet lace of my bra and squeezes it ever so gently between his fingertips. The sensation is like a mainline to the delta of my thighs. Between his touch, the adeptness of his kiss, and the feel of him getting harder against my thigh, every part of me aches for more from him.
I lose myself in this world. The grass beneath us. The taste on his tongue. The groan of desire vibrating in the back of his throat.
The slowness begins to slip into want.
The tenderness builds into greed.
The desire morphs into need.
“Grayson.”
“Inside,” he murmurs against my lips between kisses.
“Yes.”
But neither of us moves. Neither of us wants to ruin the perfection of the moment. The calm before the storm.
“Inside,” he says again.
“Neighbors,” I murmur as the dog next door barks.
He pushes himself to his feet and then takes my hand to help me up. We don’t speak. We only lose eye contact when I walk ahead of him. His hands frame my hips as I take the steps up. His dick is hard against my backside as I fumble with the doorknob that always sticks.
I giggle as nerves take over, when I’m not one to normally giggle. Nerves I shouldn’t feel because I’m a grown woman. He’s a grown man.
I shouldn’t be nervous about this, but I am.
Grayson Malone makes me nervous.
He presses a kiss to my shoulder. “Let me,” he says as his hand closes over mine and we turn the knob together.
The door opens. We step inside, the silence bathing us, making me hesitate as the jitters wage a war inside me.
“Sidney.” That voice . . . his voice, which is all scratch of gravel and grit of restraint, has me turning slowly to face him.
Our eyes meet and hold, questioning what we’re about to do and simultaneously saying to hell with it.
The snap of desire whips and cracks and takes over. Within a heartbeat, his lips are back on mine. Our kisses greedier than before. The tender sips of lips turn to nips and a fight for possession. The soft dance of my fingertips up his spine becomes a fist in his hair.
Wet clothes become frustrating as we pull and shimmy and yank them off, our thirst for each other’s skin so much more important than the barriers between us.
The minute we’re naked, we’re back in each other’s arms again. No time to admire the other. No need to when the desire is already at a fever pitch from what feels like weeks of foreplay bringing us to the crescendo of this moment.
We bump into a wall and laugh.
“Bedroom,” he says.
I stumble some as he moves me backward, his hand squeezing my ass and the feel of his dick, rock-hard and ready for me is enough of a distraction that I forget how to make my way through my own house.
“We need a bed. Now.”
I slide my hand down his chest and abdomen, needing to feel him. My fingers circle around his cock; my palm strokes him ever so gently as my lips and tongue toy with his. His hands tense. His groan grows louder. His body stills as his mouth breaks from mine, and his head falls back as if to welcome the sensation.
He’s incredible to look at. The broad shoulders and tapered waist. The strong thighs and the definition of his abs. The bump of his Adam’s apple and the tendons straining in his neck. The girth of his shaft and how it bounces in reaction as I use my hands to please him.
As desperate as I am to have him, I take my time because there’s something intoxicating about watching the way he reacts to my touch. I spread the precum over his tip and work the length of him again, over and over until his hands grip my arms and every part of him begins to tense.
I’m doing this to him.
I’m making him hard.
I’m making him groan my name.
“Christ, woman. You are going to be my undoing.” The second he utters the words, he yanks my hand away from him and crashes his mouth to mine. It’s a take-no-prisoners kiss that has me digging my fingernails into his shoulders and losing all sense of my surroundings.
When the backs of my legs hit my bed, we tumble onto it, and the full desirous assault begins anew.
His lips are on my breast.
His hands slip between my thighs, fingers whispering over flesh begging to be parted, touched, pleased.
My mouth parts. My moan fills the room.
His teeth tug gently on my nipple. Bites of pain followed by licks of pleasure make every part of me ache with that slow burn of desire that urges him to rush and begs him to take his time.
My back arches.
The heated breath of his chuckle touches my skin, leaving warmth even after the sound has faded. Chills chase the adrenaline that courses through my veins.
His fingers run the line of my sex and find my clit. Electricity sparks against my every nerve as he adds friction with his touch. Harder. Faster.
Come on. Writhe. Come on. Buck. Come on. Bow.
His chuckle is in my ear. “Not yet, Princess. Not without me in you.”
I groan in frustration and then sigh in ecstasy at the onslaught of sensations when Grayson slides his finger down my seam and circles my entrance. My thighs widen.
“Christ, Sidney.” The groan that follows as he slips a finger into me is probably the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard. Not that I can think about it long because he starts fucking me with his finger. Over and over. He adds a second and curves them within so they hit every hot button he needs to which has me spiraling again. Then a third finger.
His biceps bulge and flex with each plunge in and pull out. His gaze switches back and forth between my eyes and where his hand works its magic. His teeth sink into his bottom lip as he adds a rub over my clit with his thumb on each withdrawal.
My eyes close as I slip beneath the veil of bliss, the surge beginning to build. Bit by bit. The pleasure. The friction. The slide. Each one brings a new wash of ecstasy.
It’s almost too fast, too intense, and I don’t try to control it as my orgasm slams into me without any restraint. My fingernails dig into his forearms as I beg him to keep going and silently wanting him to draw this out as long as he can. I can’t decide which I want more, and he doesn’t let me as he runs his tongue up the line of my neck to my ear. My breath shudders, and my heart pounds as my body slowly recovers from the onslaught of pleasure.
“I don’t have any protection,” he murmurs into my ear.
“Top drawer,” I say as I let my body come down from the high.
The bed dips. The foil rips.
“Sidney.” His hands are on my thighs, his legs beneath them.
I chuckle. “I’m out of breath, and we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.”
“It’s good, all right,” he murmurs as he runs the tip of his cock up and down my slit, coating it with my arousal. It’s almost too much to bear on my hypersensitive flesh. “That I can promise you.”
“You’re a cocky bastard.” One that looks like a damn Adonis.
“You have no idea.”
And with that one phrase, he thrusts into me. I cry out in shock. In pleasure. From every sensation under the sun that feels like white lightning and molten lava rolling through my body all at the same time. He starts slow, a barely-there rock of his hips, a tease and a question and an invitation for me to move with him. As we fall into the rhythm, he picks up the pace. Thrust after thrust. Claim after claim. Pleasure after pleasure.
A squeeze of his hand on my thighs.
Right there.
A shift of my hips up.
Oh God.
The slap of his skin against mine as he bottoms out inside me, his crest rubbing over my bundle of nerves within.
Grayson.
A grind of his hips. A slow withdraw inch by glorious inch, allowing me to feel every single sensation he evokes from me.
I’m gonna come.
And then another orgasm slams into me. This time, a little stronger. This time, in a different way. While the last one was high heat and a sharp punch of arousal, this one is like a rolling wave of bliss. It surges and ebbs so right when I remember to breathe, it comes back again stronger than the wave before. My thighs are locked around his hips, my hands fisted in the sheets as he rocks his hips into mine and lets me ride it out.
Just as I resurface from its haze, Grayson’s groan fills the room as his body tenses, his hips still, and his head falls back as he loses himself to his own climax.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, first absorbing and then coming down from our orgasmic high, but eventually, he collapses onto the bed beside me. Time passes in slowing heartbeats and calming breaths.
Our fingers intertwine, but we don’t say anything. I relive the past forty minutes. I think of the wet clothes somewhere in the family room. The hose still on, water probably trickling out of the nozzle. The neighbors probably wondering what all the shrieking was about.
Then I laugh uncontrollably. I can’t stop. There’s something about the push and the pull, the hero and the damsel, the contest and the judge, and everything that’s happened between us that makes me find humor in the situation.
“I know,” he says as his thumb brushes over mine in the simplest of ways but one that has my heart melting without my permission. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“No, it should have. It definitely should have.” I pant the words.
“Shh, let’s not tell the Gazette, though.”
Or my father.
Rather than take offense as most would, I just laugh harder. “I guess it’s finally true. They can all claim I’m biased now. And damn, am I biased.”
He shifts onto his side, props his head on his hand, and leans over so he can brush a tender and unexpected kiss to my lips. “No one has to know,” he murmurs, the tenor of his voice already has that ache simmering again.
“No one can know,” I correct as I trace a line over a pleat in the sheet between us, realizing suddenly how much that notion bugs me. Not that I normally go around wearing a sandwich board announcing who I slept with the night before, but something about hiding the fact that I’ve been with him upsets me.
Or maybe, in a petty way, it’s more like I want women to know he’s been with me, since jealousy obviously doesn’t suit me well.
“On the down low. Just how I like it,” he murmurs playfully and winks.
“Says the man who has a line waiting in town for him.”
“You and that damn line.” He rolls his eyes and leans forward.
“Ow!” His teeth nip my shoulder, and it’s my turn to shift onto my side so my position mirrors his. “Mr. Malone, how is it that you have willing women taking numbers to wait for you—”
“It’s been some time since a number was pulled,” he says and taps a finger on the tip of my nose as I lift my eyebrows with this little tidbit of knowledge.
“That’s none of my business,” I say but obviously am pleased with the spontaneous explanation, “but your son never knows.”
“I have a secret,” he says, his grin in full effect as he leans forward and whispers, “I’m a ninja.”
There’s something about serious Grayson Malone being playful like this that makes his comment funnier and more endearing than it should be. I can’t stop from laughing or smiling. “A sex ninja?”
“A pussy ninja.”
“Oh my God.” I fall onto my back when my laughter doesn’t stop. “You didn’t really just say that, did you?”
“Sure did.” His fingers reach my ribs and start tickling me until I’m squirming away from him, laughing so hard my sides hurt. “I’m stealthy. Sneaking around keeping my pussy pursuits under wraps.”
He kisses the place under my jaw, turning my laughter into a soft moan. “You know this is not right, right? You talking about being a pussy ninja after just having sex with me?”
“I’ve obviously had sex before,” he says, pressing one more kiss to my collarbone before leaning back and looking at me. “I do have Luke for proof.”
Now there’s a look in his eyes that shifts the mood from playful to serious to I’m not sure what, but I ask the question that flickers into my mind, even if it isn’t the right time to do so.
“Why is it that the ladies around town know who you’re seeing, but Luke never does?”
His eyes narrow and a sigh escapes from his lips as he falls back onto his back once again. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Luke gets attached to women too easily. He wants every woman who enters my life—even if it’s the mail carrier—to be my wife. And his mom.”
“Poor guy.” My heart breaks.
“You don’t know the half of it.” His chuckle is edged with sadness. “I’ll do anything I can to protect him from getting his hopes up and then having them crushed.” He rises suddenly from the bed in all his naked glory and stares at me.
“What are—”
“This isn’t exactly what you’re supposed to be talking about after I’ve rocked your world.”
I yelp as he leans forward, grabs my ankles, and pulls me to the edge of the bed. When he leans over, his dick rubs against my thighs as he drugs me with a slow, mesmerizing kiss. “That leads me to believe you need it to be rocked again. Shall we?”
And slowly but surely, Grayson has his way with me.
Not that I put up much resistance.