Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
GRACE
I pull Mack forward as I pad backward to my bed. Every part of my body tingles, lit up and waiting for his touch. This feels much different to our fooling around. We both know our relationship, or whatever it is that hangs between us, has changed. It’s deeper. More all-consuming.
My heart rattles in its cage.
I can’t get close enough.
The back of my legs hit the bed, and I break from the kiss, breathless.
He’s stunning. All angles and jawline. Dark hair, messed up. Blue eyes, darker still. His chest heaves.
He’s hard.
He’s strung out.
He swallows.
“Mackinlay . . .”
He closes his eyes and cants his head a little, as if his name on my breath is heaven. “Yeah, gorgeous girl?”
“I don’t want to have to ask for you every single time. Not anymore.”
Opening his eyes, he meets my gaze, his thumb brushing over my lips. “This will always be your choice, Grace. Every single damn time.”
“I know. It is. From this moment on.”
He nods and dots a kiss to my forehead.
“I trust you, Mack,” I breathe. Those words have been impossible for me to say, up until a short while ago. But with Mackinlay, they have never been truer. The mileage we have on our time together is more than most experience in one lifetime. We were both broken. Hell, he could barely tolerate me when I first arrived. Then he bent, and I saw a glimpse of who he really was. It was beautiful.
And now . . .
His jaw feathers. “Good. Because I have wanted to love you the way you deserve for weeks.”
I laugh and kiss his lips.
His forehead drops to mine. “Let me love you, Grace.”
“As long as it goes both ways.”
“See, you’re all heart, Gracie.”
“You love it.” I sink my mouth to his neck, kissing and nipping as I rise on my tiptoes and track a line to just under his ear.
Strong arms sweep me up and I squeal as his mouth covers mine. A heartbeat later, I’m dumped on the bed, and he rushes out the door. A ruckus echoes down the hallway.
“What on earth are you doing, Mackinlay Rawlins?” I call out, propped up on my elbows where I lay.
He returns, arms loaded, and flicks the light off on the way past.
“Close your eyes, gorgeous.”
“What for?”
“Just do it.” He chuckles.
I lie back, cover my eyes with my hands, and my breathing settles. Small thuds. Shuffling feet. A match strikes, and sulfur lances the air.
Oh . . .
A scent of rose fills the room. Something light and soft hits the bed. The bed dips by my hip. Warm hands pry the fingers from my face. I sit up and look around, my mouth agape and eyes wide. Candles on every surface. Pale pink rose petals are scattered over the bed, and across the floor.
“It’s the best I can do with”—he glances at the bedside clock—“four minutes notice.”
“It’s perfect.”
I move from the bed and stand. Mack does the same. I meet his gaze and slip one finger under the shoulder of my dress. Pushing it down, I slow my hand as his breath deepens. I bare the other shoulder and nudge the dress down my chest. Wriggling it over my hips, I let it drop to the floor. The yellow bra and panties are all that cover my trembling body now.
“Sweet Jesus, you’re beautiful.”
I wave my hands in an up gesture and his arms raise. I lift the hem of his shirt past his hard abs, and he tugs it over his head. I trace a finger over his collarbone. Then the other. Palming his neck before dropping my hand to his abs and reducing it to one finger again. I love the feel of him. He’s hard, warm. Sturdy. Grounding.
Home.
I slide my finger behind the button clasp on his jeans, and his jaw tenses. Eyes hooded, he studies my face. As if this is more about me than it is about him. I undo the button and lower the zipper. It’s not like I’ve never seen him naked. But, just like everything about tonight, it hits different. Like this matters so much more than it did before.
I pull the jeans down and he steps out. His boxers are tented. His legs are as tense as the rest of his body.
My panties are beyond soaked. The heat that’s been growing in my core has my clit throbbing. I need his hands on me.
“Please touch me. You don’t have to ask. Or be gentle. You won’t break me.”
He shakes his head.
He doesn’t want to touch me?
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m pacing myself, Gracie.”
“You want to go slow?” I wind an arm behind my back and work the clasp on my bra.
“I want it to last . I want you?—”
The clasp releases, and the bra falls to the floor.
“Fuck,” he growls.
The sound pulls a whimper through my lips. Taking the waistband of his boxers, I shove them to the floor. Slow is overrated.
This man in front of me is not.
Reining himself in to protect me.
Always, I’m at front of mind with him.
“My turn to give.” I make quick work of my panties and lower to my knees.
“Sweet Jesus . . .”
I grip the base of his thick, hard length and slide the tip into my mouth—my eyes trained on his face. I want to see it wrecked. To know I make him this way. He gathers my hair up into his hands as he cradles the back of my head. I take him in as far as I can, pulling back up, cheeks hollowed out. A deep growl rumbles from his chest.
Holy hell.
I send my tongue around the tip and sink back down. Mack tenses, hands turning to fists in my hair. There it is—the face he pulls. The one that takes my breath away. I repeat the action, and his head drops back, the veins in his neck pulsing. Good.
I release him with a pop and push to my feet. His head dips, eyes opening. “On the bed.”
I like it when he orders me, too. Like I’m strong and he doesn’t have to hold back. Like his control over this overwhelming pull between us is threadbare. Just like mine. Wanting him badly, I’ve soaked up every close contact. Every time his hands, lips have been on my body.
I’m done having to ask.
“Take what you want, Mackinlay. Because I will.”
I lie on the bed with slow movements. He rounds the foot of the mattress and wraps his hands around my ankles. With one quick tug, he slides me down until my legs drape over the edge and he’s wedged between them. Hot kisses dot up my inner thigh, and he skips over my hip bone and across to my belly. They continue until wet kisses are planted between my breasts. Over my collarbones. I push my hands into his hair with a giggle, as he trails soft pecks that litter my neck.
It tickles a little. Goosebumps flood my skin.
He nips my ear. “Come on my face, my girl.” Warm lips wrap around my nipple next, and I arch off the bed. He flicks his tongue around one and then the other. His teeth graze one breast with the lightest touch, one hand caressing the other. Planted on the other hand, his arm flexes with his weight as it shifts.
I can’t form a coherent response.
My heart is literally in my throat.
How have people not suffocated from this much love and affection?
With quick, brief kisses trailing their way back down to my belly and then further still, his hands grip my thighs as his knees hit the floor. I cling to the bed, desperate to anchor myself before I’m so high I can’t find my way back down.
His tongue circles my clit. Whimpers fall from my lips with every stroke he takes. He runs two fingers through my center.
“So wet for me, Gracie.”
“Always.”
One long, earth-shattering stroke of his tongue through my pussy that ends with him sucking my clit steals my last breath. I shoot up off the bed, sinking my hands into his hair. “Mack!”
He stops and lifts his head up, raising an eyebrow.
I fall back onto the bed. Hands desperate for contact, I fondle my breasts. Heat roils in my core. Growing like it did last time his mouth worked me over.
“Goddamn, Grace.”
I track his gaze. It’s on my chest, following my hands as they move. I roll my nipple through my fingertips and can’t help the moan that follows.
He groans, sinking two fingers into my center.
I moan again, my ragged breaths burning with every pass now. But I don’t care. His knuckles bend as they pump in and out of my wet core, and he bites down on my clit playfully.
“Come for me, Gracie.”
I arch from the bed again as he tugs at my clit with his teeth and lightning floods my body.
“Ah . . . Mackinlay.”
My hips rock with each wave he pulls from my body with his tongue, his lips, teeth, fingers.
I’m empty.
I want more of him.
I’m so damn desperate for him to fill me up. To wake me up.
I tumble back to earth as the orgasm fades, and I sit up. Mack is still on his knees, my release all over his five o’clock shadow. His hand a mess with it. I take his hand and pop two of his fingers into my mouth. Eyes closed, I suck them clean. Evidence that I’m putting the pieces back together every time we do this. Every time he loves me.
This good man fixes what one before him obliterated.
When he absolutely didn’t have to.
The candles flicker as the soft night breeze slips past the curtains. The angles of Mackinlay’s face are ethereal in this light, his body something akin to a man carved of marble. I know how hard he worked to get back to this place. From a broken soldier to this incredible cowboy.
Mack stands, pulling me onto his hips and stepping around the bed. I cover his neck, jaw, and shoulders with kisses as we travel. He sits at the head of the bed and swings his legs over, abs flexing.
I cup his face. “I can’t get close enough,” I whisper.
He reaches for the drawer.
“Do we have to? I had a checkup when I arrived in Montana.”
He draws my face to his with both hands. I sink into the kiss, raising on my knees. His tip brushes my entrance. Velvety soft and so warm. I am desperate to sink onto it.
“Mackinlay, I can’t wait a second longer.”
“Slow, gorgeous.”
I pull away a little, hands on his face as I sink an inch. “Ah, oh my?—”
The air in my lungs burns, disappearing, leaving my chest in cinders.
Lord above, he feels so incredible. So big.
The stretch is delicious. My body vibrates, limbs trembling and hands shaking from the contact. And he’s only given me the tip.
“You alright, Gracie?” He brushes a strand of rogue hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear.
“Uh huh, I want more.”
“All of it?” he rasps, eyes burning into mine. Hunger has captured those dark blues whole now.
“Please . . .”
Gripping my hips, he slams up into me with a raw growl. His chest plunges, deep cycles swallowing each inhale.
“Ah, Ma—” I whimper. My mouth waters. It’s bliss. I can’t breathe.
My forehead drops to his. “Again.”
Body trembling too much to have any control over it, he lifts me from his lap and slams me back down.
A whimper mewls through my parted lips, long and breathy.
His hard stomach brushes over my clit with every pass. He picks up the pace and our breaths smash into each other’s—waves over a rocky shoreline in the darkest storm.
My body is electric.
With every move he makes, it wakes up a little further.
My heart and soul were dormant.
Until this moment.
This man.