Page 31

Chapter

Thirty-One

GRACE

T he moment he filled me, the need transformed into urgency and the fist of his grip keeping me focused on him only seemed to kindle a kind frantic craving. I surged up to rock against him only to have him seize my hips and drive me down again.

Our mouths collided. We both seemed to abandon the earlier gentleness. Our kiss was all teeth, tongue, and heat. Gasps of breath left him to fill my lungs even as he took the air from my mouth.

He dragged my sports bra upward but it was only to push it out of the way so he could fill his hands with my breasts. The combination of massage and teasing twists had me clenching around him.

Shifting a hand back into my hair, he demanded I arch my back as I tilted my head back. The position was a strain and it made keeping pace with riding him a challenge. Sweat slicked over my skin from both the angle he kept me at and the slam of his cock filling me.

It was difficult to maintain my rhythm then he sucked one of my nipples against his teeth and I forgot how to breathe. With one hand on my hip and the other in my hair, he guided me up and down even as he sucked, nipped, and teased one nipple before kissing a wet path to the other.

I thrust my fingers into his hair. The thickness of it teased my skin as he nibbled a slow circle on my breast. Then he sucked a hard bite against the curve of it and I swore it sent a bolt of pure lust through me that had me clamping down on his dick.

“Fuck,” I whispered, the curse falling from my lips as he shoved it free with another rock of our hips. Oh, hell, he was lifting his hips and driving himself into me as he seemed to gorge on my breasts. I teased my nails over his scalp and just when I thought I might lose my mind, he hauled me back to him and kissed me.

An explosive moan escaped me as he increased the speed of our coming together. The friction of his cock hitting me deep and my breasts rubbing against his chest just amplified the dizzying tension spiraling through me. It was wanton and desperate, even as the way he teased at my lips took on a kind of heady sweetness.

“AB,” I gasped out each letter in between kisses. But there was no evading the utter possession of his mouth as he locked me into place so he could drill upwards. Every strike seemed to press my pelvis into his and he moved a thumb down to add more pressure to my clit.

I was going to fly apart. It was almost too damn much. I lost the thread of what I was doing as my thoughts collapsed. We were nothing but sensation and straining bodies, hot breath, and frantic hearts, and more. The hunger was real, I wanted him so damn much.

Then the pressure splintered and the pleasure threatened to drown me. I couldn’t escape his contact. The added pressure of his fingers as he pushed upward, filling me on every stroke ripped cry after cry from me.

“Too much,” I strained to say, but his mouth swallowed every word. The world went white, and his hips stuttered before he swore. Heat spiraled through my belly as he came. Feeling his release just added another dimension to the impression of him.

Burned into my flesh, molded into my body, and filling me up. His shoulders were slippery when my hands fell to them and I sagged, damn near boneless as he grunted again, another half-jerk and his cum soaked between us as it slid down.

His heart seemed to be racing as fast as mine. His breathing was damn near as ragged. “When I said swim…” I managed to push out the single syllables between gasps of air. “I meant getting wet in the pool.”

“Sure,” he answered in an equally wrecked voice. “But I like being inside of you, where you’re wet and you vise around my cock so goddamn sweetly.”

A shudder raced up my spine and my nipples went taut even as my toes curled. I was still spasming around him, little aftershocks chasing through my system as he traced his fingers up my spine.

“We didn’t actually get to the taking all our clothes off.”

“You’re right,” he murmured, mouthing a kiss to my shoulder. “Give me a minute.”

It was my turn to pat him. The sun spilled over us and it warmed my skin where it reached. Everything else was comfortably snug against him. I wasn’t even sure what he meant. Honestly, I probably could have drifted off right there but a few minutes, or maybe it was a few hours later, he moved and lifted me with him.

One moment we were standing and then I was on my back on the sofa as he slipped free. He cupped my pussy and I whimpered. It was almost too sensitive for the heel of his hand to rub against my clit. Then he was pressing his cum back into me.

Another laugh escaped me as he spent a little time rubbing the excess around my clit. It sent starbursts to my vision and my hips bucked again almost of their own volition.

He bent over me and destroyed me with another drugging kiss. When he straightened, I sighed. He stood, gazing down at me like some blond god and all I wanted was to explore every inch of him.

“Stay there.” Another kiss and then he strode away. I would push up on my elbows and look after him in a minute.

Just one more minute. I needed to put myself back together again. Find out where my own control went now that my muscles were all but dissolved.

A whisper of fabric roused me and I opened eyes I hadn’t even realized had closed. Alphabet was back and he held out a water glass to me.

I managed to push up on an elbow and drank down about half of it thirstily as he peeled his jeans down. The movement revealed his legs to me. The thick ropey muscles of his thighs that tapered over his knee on the left and into his calf but disappeared on the right into the cap of the prosthetic that fit there.

The metal seemed almost insubstantial next to the rest of him. He toed off one shoe, but other stayed in place after he stripped the jeans away and tossed them back into the chair we’d abandoned.

I licked my lips as I studied him. Scars twisted up his right thigh. Damage from the same injury that took his lower leg? Something else? It had a rough look to it, the skin seemed pitted and I wanted to touch, but even as I stretched out my hand, I glanced up at him for permission.

He drained the rest of the water and set the glass down before he moved closer. “You can touch me, Gracie-girl.”

With care, I traced my fingertips over the memory of damage etched into his flesh. It was smoother in some places than others. There were striations in the scars that seemed to deepen over the thicker muscles in his right quadriceps.

He was built, but I hadn’t been wrong about his swimmer’s build. Or how really beautiful he was. His cock was semi-hard, jutting out. The redness of the tip promising me it was already flushing with blood again. I gave into the desire to stroke my hand upward and give him a couple of pumps before I explored his left thigh with the same devotion I paid to the right.

“If you want to know,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”

That pulled my attention back up to his eyes and I laid back and held out my hand to him. He set his phone down next to the empty glass and then lowered himself until he draped me.

He was even bigger this way, a muscled and masculine blanket that had me wrapping my legs around him and propping my feet against the backs of his thighs. The weight of cock against my pussy just added to the connection.

“Tell me only what you want to tell me. Am I curious?” Oh look, I found my words again. My breathing wasn’t quite even yet. “Yes, absolutely. I want to know. But I don’t want to hurt you in any way.”

What did I know about injuries like this?

One corner of his mouth curved upward as he studied me. “It’s not a pretty story, but it’s not all that special either. We were on a mission, special forces, Army. We were deep into territory we had no business being in, but the mission demanded it. It was fine until it wasn’t.”

He traced the lines of my face, teasing around the curve of my jaw with the gentlest of fingers. The deep blue of his eyes was so dark, it was like night fell over them.

“Bombs are definitely not fine. Mines are even worse. IEDs… they are the worst of all. The best ones are the ones you don’t even see coming. The explosion didn’t take the whole of it, but the damage…”

With a shake of his head, he nipped a kiss to my lower lip.

“There’s a point where the pain is so much, you forget you’re feeling it at all. It’s probably endorphins from the agony, or maybe it’s the shock. Doc came after me. He got burned really fucking bad trying to get me out. Then the guys were there and they were hauling us both out. Took a long time to get back to safety, but they didn’t leave either of us.”

A sigh left him and he ghosted another kiss over my lips.

“When I woke up, I was in a medical ward and the leg from below the knee was gone. They tried to repair it. Surgery has come a long way, but there was already infection and the bone was shattered.” He waved his other hand as if nudging it all away.

“It feels like a million years ago. Doc was getting sent back to the States. The burn care was going to take a long time. They wanted to send me back too… I needed therapy and recovery and all the things you never think you might need some day.”

The light shrug of his shoulders, an acceptance that humbled me even as tears filmed my eyes.

“I couldn’t change any of it. It was done. I had to heal. Went to a place down in Texas, it was founded by a Marine—former one anyway. They built up this great rehab with psychiatrists and physical therapists and prosthetic technicians… pretty much anything you think you might need and some you don’t.”

Another kiss whispered over my lips.

“Eventually, the guys came back, helped pull my head out of my ass. Pushed me with the therapy. So did the guys there… I learned how to move again. I can do pretty much everything I could before with the prosthesis. Well, almost everything… going skinny dipping takes an extra minute cause I need to take it off so the sleeve doesn’t get wet.”

“That’s… but you’re okay, now? Right? You said therapy?” I couldn’t imagine it. My body and my looks were my living, but that seemed so shallow compared to him.

“We all have good days and bad, Gracie-girl. I do okay most of the time and when I don’t… Well, I have Goblin. He helps.”

“I can see that.” I stroked the hair away from his face. His phone buzzed and he stretched over to pick it up.

“One sec.”

He eased upward again and I was suddenly a lot chillier without him. He didn’t go far, just shifted to sit on the coffee table, phone in hand. His thumbs flew over the screen. Answering a message, clearly. Then he hit send and there was a little boop of it going.

A moment later another sound indicated a new message. He answered that, and I rolled onto my side to watch him as he went back and forth with the guys—one of them, all of them, did it matter?—for a few minutes.

Another flicker of a smile then he set the phone aside and looked back at me. “They are in place and have eyes on the target.”

Fresh tension coiled in my stomach. “It’s still daytime though.”

“Yep, they’ll be several hours yet. So we have time. They want to see if he leaves the house before I work on cracking his security. So we have another hour—maybe two before I have to work.”

I licked my lips. “We can do a lot in a couple of hours.”

“Gracie-girl,” he said, a slow grin lighting him up. “You read my mind.”

I don’t know which of us reached for the other first, but his mouth was on mine and I was wrapped around him. We had time.

We were going to take it.