Chapter Four
G race thought she might pass out. All the blood drained out of her head and pooled in her feet, her lips cold, her brain fuzzy.
Her skin was chilled, but inside she was burning up.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She’d led the conversation here, that was undeniable. She’d been baiting him. Baiting this sexy stranger so that she could see just what he might do. So that she could...what, exactly, she didn’t know.
Well, now it had culminated in a request—no, a demand—for a kiss.
His eyes were burning, golden fire, and she could feel it streaking through her.
She didn’t kiss strangers. Ever.
Especially not shirtless strangers in hotel rooms that were probably more than her month’s rent for one night. Especially not big rough, cowboy-type strangers. Who drew foxes and swore and took her phone and freely confessed to the desire to order porn.
Neither of her exes would have ever admitted to such male crassness.
Likely they engaged in it, but they never would have confessed it.
Though, maybe Zack wouldn’t have confessed if she wasn’t a stranger. Maybe he was feeling freer, too.
Maybe this would be good for both of them.
Sliding down the slippery slope, Grace?
She wanted to punch inner Grace in her smug perfect face. Except, inner Grace had a point. Inner Grace was thinking of Hannah. Of the bad sister. The one who had gone off the rails, into parties and drugs and now, to the point where no one had a clue where she was.
Hannah, the daughter who made her mother cry, and her father sit in a dark room and just stare ahead sadly, at nothing.
The daughter Grace had spent her teenage and adult years trying to make up for.
But no one has to know about this. No one would ever know.
She was fighting against this strange, icy feeling inside of her. The one that had kept her mouth frozen shut and her words carefully chosen while her boss had effectively ripped her a new one. The one that always checked with her parents before she made major decisions, to ensure that her decisions were good ones.
The one that kept her head down and worked hard, her entire life a big demonstration of just how good she was so that no one would ever question it.
And after that showdown in her boss’s office, she was tired of that. Tired of trying to be the Grace everyone else wanted to see. The problem was she didn’t know how to be anything else.
But no one was here to question this. Zack was a stranger. He didn’t know anyone at work. He didn’t know her parents. He didn’t know her.
This room was out of time, this man out of context with everything else in her life.
Why not? Why not do this. Why not take this.
No one will ever know....
“One kiss,” she said. And even as she said it, she knew it wouldn’t stop at that.
But she was tired of being frozen in indecision. Tired of being scared to act.
So now she was acting. Just for now. Just for her.
“Sure,” he said, arching a brow and moving toward her.
He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her up against him, pinning her arms, his chest hard and hot against her wrists. “If you want to stop at one,” he said, his breath fanning across her cheek.
He smelled good. Like skin and soap. No cologne or any other artificial scent. Just man. And she’d never really appreciated the smell of a man before.
“Well, we haven’t even gotten to the one yet. You’re counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”
“Am I still the fox in this scenario? Are the chickens in the same henhouse?”
“I don’t know. Shut up and kiss me.”
He did. His lips were hard on hers, taking, not asking. And there was nothing about that she should find hot. She wasn’t into being taken. She wasn’t into brute strength and big hands. Traditionally speaking. Right now his brute strength and big hands were really doing something for her.
Like, lots of somethings.
He curved his arms around her, his palms flat on her back, pulling her in, his large frame enveloping her. He curled blunt fingers onto her skin, her mouth rough on hers, his tongue delving deep.
She arched into him, and his hand slid downward, down the dip in her spine, curving over her butt. She should be...shocked. At the very least she should be shocked. She shouldn’t be aroused. She shouldn’t want to push her hips back so that his grasp on her was even firmer. So that he was holding her harder.
She certainly shouldn’t be angling her head so she could kiss him deeper. But she was. She was doing all those things.
His touch was hot and sure, his tongue slick, his lips firm. She could feel his erection hardening against her stomach. And that was something else she should be offended by. But she wasn’t.
She moved against his body, relished the feeling of his hard, thick length against her body. It was amazing. To make a man react like this to her.
She couldn’t remember the last time it had been like this, if ever. And that was just from the man’s end. From her end...well, it had never felt like this. Sex was something she did because if she was in a relationship, it was part of the package.
She’d never been desperate for it. Had never felt like she wanted to—no, needed to—run her whole body against her partner’s, just so she could feel every inch of him on every inch of her. But she did now. She ached for it, the surface of her skin hypersensitive, tingling, desperate for his touch.
Suddenly, she was very aware of her nipples. She usually wasn’t. They didn’t do much, after all. A little tightening when it was cold. But now... Wow.
They ached. Honestly. She pressed herself against his chest in an attempt to get some relief. It sent a shock of heat down between her thighs. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She needed everything.
She freed her trapped wrists and moved her hands over his chest, rough hair over hard muscle abrading her skin.
He was so very much a man, a stupid observation maybe, since obviously he was a man. But everything about him was like some kind of testosterone-laden candy land, designed for her own personal pleasure. There were men, and there were men .
He was a man .
He moved his hands lower, to her thighs, and then she was being lifted up off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist, scrabbling to get ahold of him, looping her arms around his neck. And they managed not to break the kiss. Technically, they were still on only one kiss.
He walked them both into the bedroom, then turned and pinned her against the wall, his body hard against hers, his whiskers burning her cheeks as he deepened the kiss. She rolled her hips forward, rocking her clit against his hard abs.
This was crazy. She was crazy. Certifiable. And immoral and wicked. And her parents would kill her dead if they knew she was even considering begging him to take her over to the big bed in the center of the room.
But they will never know. That’s the beauty of it.
It was still crazy. She didn’t know anything about this man beyond his name.
Well, that wasn’t true. She knew he kissed like sin incarnate and that, even covered by denim, his erection promised pleasure she’d never known before. Pleasure she hadn’t thought possible.
Right now, that was all she needed to know. She’d made a decision, the decision, and the consequences could go to hell.
That was a more exhilarating thought than she’d ever thought it possible to have. To not care, for just a little bit, what people thought, what would happen next.
She needed it. Almost more than she needed his mouth on hers.
He lowered her a bit so that his arousal lined up with where she ached for him the most. He thrust his hips, hard, fast, against her, sending streaks of heat through her veins.
She wrenched her lips from his. She was the first to break. But she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t...
Pleasure tightened down low inside of her, a wire drawn tight, running through her core. So tight, she thought it might break her.
Grace shifted against him, making sure everything lined up just right. He leaned forward, growling, taking her mouth with his, his teeth sinking into her lower lip.
And the wire snapped.
Release flooded her, internal muscles clenching tight as her climax ripped through her. She opened her lips on a silent scream, her body tightening, shaking. She felt wrecked when it was over. Drained, sated and, at the same time, hungry for more. She needed her clothes off. They were too tight, the fabric heavy on her skin, constricting.
Weird because it was a tailored outfit and it had felt fine earlier.
But she didn’t feel like the same person. She didn’t feel like she was in the same body.
That could have something to do with it.
“I broke the rules,” he said, kissing the side of her neck, his teeth scraping the delicate skin there. “Sorry about that.”
He didn’t sound sorry at all. Fair enough. She wasn’t, either.
“No need to apologize,” she said.
“Good. Because I’m going to need you to take your clothes off now.”
He helped her get her feet back on the ground, and he released his hold on her. “Take your clothes off,” he said, his eyes burning into her.
She found herself obeying. Immediately. Because it was what she wanted. To get rid of these clothes. To be pressed up against him. Skin-to-skin.
“You, too,” she said, working the buttons on her blouse with shaking fingers.
She’d never been entirely comfortable with her body. She lacked curves. There was no dramatic swooping in at her waist. Her torso was slim, but straight up and down, and her hips were barely bumps. To say nothing of her A-cups.
She felt like he was expecting her to unveil a work of art, and instead of Matisse, he was about to get Spaghetti Splattered on a Canvas by Monkeys . Okay, not that bad, but she didn’t really consider herself worthy of the level of concentration, the level of excitement, in his eyes.
She undid the top button, then the next and he put his hand over the front of his jeans, squeezing himself. That big masculine hand caressing his own body was a sight that nearly sent her over the edge.
Again. Already.
He was magic, or something. Orgasm was a rare, elusive creature for her. One that she caught glimpses of through the forest, only to have it vanish into nothingness the moment her partner sneezed while still inside of her, or something.
She doubted even a sneeze could scare this one off. It was some kind of super breed of climax. Rarer, it seemed, than the regular ones, but not as skittish.
He wasn’t even touching her, and she was close—so close her heart rate was in high gear. With each button opened, he looked more intensely at her.
She shrugged her top off and let it fall to the floor, and he groaned, curling his hands around his length and squeezing. He didn’t seem to mind that her cups did not overflow.
Boosted by that, she reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, letting it fall down her arms. Then she shook it loose and let it join her shirt on the floor.
Not the sexiest move, perhaps, but he didn’t seem to care. He was looking at her like she was the first woman he’d ever seen naked.
Though, she wasn’t naked yet. She pushed her pencil skirt down, wiggling her hips and taking her underwear down along with it.
“Now you,” she said, not sure where she found her voice. Her throat felt too tight to force words out, and somehow she had. Maybe because she needed to see him naked. More than she needed air. Like now.
He unsnapped the jeans and shoved them down his thighs. Those thighs. They were every bit as amazing as she’d imagined. People would go broke putting coins in those old peepshow things just to see those thighs.
Hot. Damn.
Then she looked up just a bit and she really couldn’t breathe anymore.
Never mind. If all that was on offer in the peepshow she would go bankrupt. She would be found on her hands and knees on the sidewalk looking for spare change. Because he had absolutely the most impressive piece of male equipment she’d ever seen in her life.
“What?” he asked.
“What?”
“You’re staring.”
“Well...yes. I am.”
“Why are you staring at my cock?”
The way he said that word, such a dirty word that you didn’t hear in polite conversation, made her heart skitter. “I am staring at your...your...because well, because you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. And also, I’m interested in having sex with you. So that seems a perfectly good reason to stare.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Say it again.”
“What?”
“That you want to have sex with me. So direct and prim.”
“How is it prim?” she asked, blinking.
“Because if it would have been me... I just would have said I wanted to fuck you.”
Heat seared her cheeks. “Oh.”
“Did I offend you, darlin’?”
“No.” It was just that she’d never before had someone say something like that to her. It was a far cry from Aiden’s “Wanna do it?” back in freshman year of college, and it was an even farther cry from David’s vague grunting noise before he’d rolled over to give her a kiss and get a little action before they fell asleep at night.
It was direct. And...earthy. And she liked it.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, without even hesitating. “I do. I want it.”
Then he pulled her back into his arms, kissing her, bringing them down onto the bed with her on top of him, his...cock sliding against her clit.
She leaned over and kissed him, his hand curving around and cupping her breast, teasing her nipple.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“You wanted that?”
“I’ve been wanting it. I thought you were going to make me ask.”
“Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out what you want. But if I don’t get it right, I expect you to tell me just what you want. I want to blow your mind. I want to give you the best you’ve ever had, but we don’t know each other. We aren’t in a relationship. That means you have to tell me what you want. Because I don’t know.” He squeezed her nipple gently. “I don’t know if you like Italian food or Mexican food better. I don’t know if you like classical or rock. I don’t know if you like it bent over the bed, or if you like to be on top. If you like to give head or get it.”
“Yes,” she said, her whole body hot now. “Yes to all. And any.”
He was making her experience seem woeful. She’d never been bent over anything. She’d been on top a few times, but mainly to speed things along for herself. Or rather, to make the climax creature less elusive.
“Maybe we’ll start here,” he said. He lifted his head up and circled her nipple with his tongue, then ran the flat of it over the tightened bud before sucking it deep in his mouth.
She closed her eyes, let the pleasure wash over her, through her. There was something about him. Not just what he did, but him .
He traced the indent of her spine with the tip of his finger. Such a mundane action in many ways. But when he did it? It left a trail of fire. It left her feeling like she would never be the same.
“Oh...crap.” He reached to the nightstand and opened the drawers, his hand pressed against her lower back, holding her to his body while he turned and fished around in the drawer. “Oh...thank you, Marsha.”
She wasn’t going to question that. Not too closely. Especially not when what he produced turned out to be condoms. There was no happy road for her mind to go down there.
It didn’t matter why he had the condoms. Nothing mattered but this moment, because this was the only moment they would have.
He shifted her, handling her like her weight was nothing, the well-defined muscles in his arm and on his chest shifting as he did. Then he opened the condom and positioned it on the head of his member, rolling it on slowly.
He guided her onto his length, his hold firm. She went with him, taking him in slowly, gripping his shoulders tight as he filled her. Stretched her. He felt so good. So much better than anything or anyone had a right to.
It was like the first hit off a potent drug. She imagined. She’d never done drugs. Because drugs were for the other daughter. The bad one. Just like she’d never done a stranger. Because this wasn’t something for the good daughter, either.
Because it was wrong. Because there was a chance that the drugs and the men would be addicting, and that she would never get enough.
That she wouldn’t be perfect. That she would be ruined.
He flexed his hips and thrust up fully inside of her, and then she knew. She was ruined. For sex. For all other men. Forever.
There had never been anything like this before, and in that blinding moment, with him fully inside her, she knew there never would be again.
She looked down at him, their eyes clashing, and she felt it hit deep inside.
Then she squeezed her eyes tight and started to move. Holding onto his shoulders, starting slow before building up, the taut wire stretching out again, through her whole body.
She rode him harder, sweat beading over her skin, his hands moving over her curves before gripping her hips and holding on tight.
“Oh... Zack,” she said.
She wasn’t ready for the second climax. It crashed over her like a wave, sudden and shocking, moving through her whole body, taking her over completely.
It was enough to send him over, too. He thrust up into her two more times before freezing, fingers digging hard into her flesh as he gave up control, his head falling back, his expression that of a man in pain, a harsh groan on his lips.
Then he released his hold on her, his arms thrown back above his head, his chest rising and falling sharply with each breath.
“Dammit,” he said, short and sharp.
“What?” She got off him, her hand still planted on his chest, her heart beating fast. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I just... I couldn’t think of anything else to say because I think you might have killed me.”
She could feel his heart pounding beneath her palm. “You’re still alive. I can feel it.”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure...yep, pretty sure I’m dead.”
“Because it was good? Or are you now an emotionally scarred ghost due to some terrible error in my intercourse technique?”
“Because I didn’t remember sex was this damn good,” he said, rolling onto his side.
“So the condoms weren’t from a recent encounter with Marsha?”
He looked stricken. “What? No. I mean...she probably made sure they were here. Trying to keep me out of trouble. I think she’s of the opinion I land on the evolutionary scale several positions below her basset hound. That is an ugly dog. She thinks he’s beautiful.”
“Who is Marsha?”
“Do you really want to talk about this now?”
“Only if she’s your lover or your wife.”
“None of the above. She’s my manager.”
“Oh.” She blinked. “Your manager?”
“Oh...artsy shit.” He waved his hand. “Not a big deal.”
She flashed back to the fox. “What kind of artsy...stuff?”
“I’m an artist, I guess,” he said, looking painfully uncomfortable.
“You’re an artist?” she asked, feeling completely incredulous that the rather rough, uncultured man who’d just taken her against a wall was an artist . “That’s how you make your living?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s...incredibly hard to do.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I got lucky. I got some recognition for some things early on. And then I signed on with Marsha and she’s...well, she’s not a basset hound. She runs more toward pit bull. But that’s what you want in a manager, right?”
“I suppose you do.”
“I’m here for a gallery thing,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “I’m not very comfortable with any of it yet.”
It was so weird, sitting on a stranger’s bed, naked, talking about work.
But it was interesting. To see him uncomfortable. He was so confident, so unaffected. But there was something to the way he talked about being an artist. A strange dismissiveness.
She had a feeling, for whatever reason, that probably meant he cared about it.
“You’re actually doing an exhibition here?”
“Yeah, and schmoozing stuff. It’s not my thing. I’ve done it before, but I don’t get any more comfortable with it, it turns out. Damned inconvenient all things considered.”
“I guess it would be.”
“Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about me. I’d rather talk about you. And your breasts.”
She looked down. “These ol’ things?”
He threw his head back and laughed, then lifted his thumb and dragged it over her nipple, sending a shiver through her body. “Yeah. I’m pretty impressed.”
“At the private school I went to the girls used to ask if I’d gotten bitten by mosquitos on my chest.”
“Small is fine,” he said. “You’re small and perfect. And real. Better that than fake, I think.”
“Well, you’re in the minority.” She stood up. “I guess I should go. It’s...well, what is it...seven o’clock?”
“Nearly.”
“I should go home and...water my plants.”
“Right. I should...order room service.”
“I hope you can skip the porn now.”
He nodded. “It’s safe to say that particular urge is managed.”
“I think I’m flattered.”
“Then maybe my charm has improved with the orgasm.”
“So...should we...should I just go? I’ve never done this before.” And she was starting to shake, the buzz from her orgasm wearing off, leaving reality in its wake.
“Do you want the honest truth?”
She picked her clothes up from the floor by the wall and started tugging them on. “Depends. But...hit me.”
“I’ve never done this before, either.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“I’ve been in two comfortably friendly relationships. One wherein I lived with the guy until one day he wanted to move out. Neither of us were too sad about it. That was six months ago... I can’t even muster up any sadness over it. And...and that’s been it for me. No wild one...afternoon stands.”
“Well, I’m sort of coming off a...uh...marriage.”
She froze. “Oh.”
“I’m not married,” he said. “It’s just... I was . And that kind of ate up my wild one-night-stand years.”
“I bet.”
“That was information you didn’t need,” he said, looking down. She examined his profile, his square jaw, the rough whiskers on his chin. He was embarrassed now. It was sort of adorable. It made her heart do very strange things. “See?” he said, looking up at her, his forehead creasing, the light from the bedside lamp casting shadows over his muscles. “I’m bad at this.”
Well, so was she. Because, suddenly, she didn’t want to tear herself away from him.
“Well, me, too. But I promise I won’t boil your rabbit or anything similarly inappropriate.”
“What about my fox?”
She wrinkled her nose as she wiggled back into her skirt. “Think I’ll keep him. Maybe he’ll be worth something someday.”
“Like after I cut my ear off and die?”
She laughed. “Well, I killed you so...the market value on your work will have gone up exponentially in just the past few moments.”
“I’ll alert the media. Or rather, I’ll tell Marsha to.”
“Great. Sounds like a...thing. So... I’m going to go.”
“Don’t forget your phone,” he said.
For a full thirty seconds, she had no idea what the man was talking about. Then the memory trickled in slowly. Her phone. What she was there for. The thing she was addicted to. That didn’t seem to matter so much now.
“Right. Phone.”
He rummaged around the bedsheets. “Here it is.”
“The things it must have seen,” she said, holding her hand out, her stomach lurching as he placed it in her palm, his fingertips brushing her skin.
“Yeah, true. I feel like maybe it didn’t see quite enough.”
That made her stomach free fall into her toes. “Oh. Well. I...”
“Just a second.” He got up and walked out of the bedroom, totally unconcerned with his nudity, then returned a moment later with his phone, then he handed it to her. “Call yourself. With my phone.”
She typed in her number with a shaky thumb and hit the call button. A second later, her phone started playing a piano riff. She hit Ignore.
“Now you have my number,” he said. “If you want...something...again, call me.” He took his phone back and threw it on the bed. “If not, don’t. No pressure.”
“Right,” she said. “No pressure.”
“This was good,” he said.
That was the understatement of the century. “Yeah.”
“Maybe I’ll see you.”
“Sure. Maybe we’ll grab the same cab.” She wouldn’t call. She wouldn’t be that weak.
“Stranger things have happened,” he said.
“They certainly have.”
Like her whole day. Her whole crazy day. A day that she had a feeling had changed something in her forever.