30. Grace
Grace
I lifted on my tiptoes and met his mouth on its way down.
The kiss wasn’t soft. Wasn’t hesitant. He kissed me like he was done holding back, done fighting whatever had been keeping him at arm’s length.
His free hand came up to cup my other cheek, tilting my head back so he could take more.
His tongue stroked mine, teeth catching my bottom lip on the way out, his breath hot and uneven against my mouth.
I wanted everything. I’d been wanting this since the train, since Jean’s cottage, since the moment I first saw him walk into my café with Tristan.
“Garrett,” I breathed against his mouth, and he groaned in response, a sound that vibrated through my entire body.
His hands slid down my back, found my hips, and pulled me flush against him.
He was hard, and the press of him through his jeans drove a hot ache right between my thighs.
He growled—actually growled—and the next thing I knew, my back was against the wall and his mouth was on my neck.
Kissing, biting, sucking his way along my throat, scraping his teeth where my pulse hammered and then soothing the sting with his tongue.
Yes. God, yes.
I tugged at his shirt, and he pushed back to yank it over his head.
Broad shoulders, defined chest, abs that belonged on a magazine cover.
I let myself look in a way I hadn’t been able to that night at Izzy’s, when I’d been too stunned and too embarrassed to study him.
There were small scars here and there, but the one on his forearm stood out because I guessed every time he saw it, he was thinking of his father.
And his left shoulder—it was a mass of tattooed colors hiding more than one long, jagged scar.
I wanted to ask about the shoulder, if it was all from his father, but stopped myself.
Because you’ve got other priorities right now!
I raised my hands over my head, and he pulled my shirt off slowly. Slow enough the cotton glided over my skin and made me hiss.
His eyes tracked over me, and the hunger in his gaze made me feel beautiful. Wanted. Before I could say anything awkward or weird, he reached around and unclasped my bra with one hand—how did men do that?—and stripped it off to let it fall.
For a moment, I wanted to cover myself, but then his mouth was on me, and I forgot why I’d ever been self-conscious about anything.
He started at my collarbone this time and moved lower.
When his mouth closed over my nipple, I gasped and arched into him.
He sucked, then flicked his tongue across the tip and sucked harder, and the tension inside me pulled tight from my chest straight down between my legs.
He took his time. Lavished attention on one breast, then the other, while his hands found my ass and squeezed, fingers digging in hard enough to test the line between yes and oh my god, yes, please.
I was going to lose my mind. I was going to combust right here against the wall. “Garrett. Bed. Now.”
He lifted his head, grinned at me, and picked me up. My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, and the sound that came out of me wasn’t even a word. Two seconds later, he laid me down and stood over me for a moment.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m enjoying the view.”
“Well, stop enjoying and start”—I gestured vaguely—“something.”
He laughed. A real, honest laugh. Who was this man who was suddenly smiling and laughing? Or was this what sex did to him? He unbuttoned my jeans, pulled down the zipper, and curled his fingers around the waistband. “Are you sure?”
“Are you?”
His eyes darkened. “More than anything I’ve ever been sure of in my life.”
I sucked in my bottom lip. How was I supposed to respond? How was any of this real? Just say something, Grace! “Yeah. I’m sure, too.”
“Good.” He peeled off my pants and underwear.
Slowly. So slowly. The cotton dragged down my hips, my thighs, the backs of my knees, and every inch he uncovered, his gaze followed.
When he was done, he tossed my clothes over his shoulder, then stripped off my socks.
“I hadn’t believed you could get any more beautiful, Grace, but here you are. ”
Those words sent another jolt through me. “Guess you shouldn’t have turned me down so many times.”
He knelt between my legs, lifting one of my ankles to his lips. “You wouldn’t have wanted me before tonight.”
I stifled a laugh instead of admitting the truth of how long I’d been fantasizing about him.
“I was too distracted.” His next kiss was on the side of my calf, then my knee, then the inside of my thigh. “Fortunately, I’m officially not on duty tonight.”
Energy pinged around inside me, knocking rust off the areas only I had touched in too long. “You’re killing me, Garrett.”
“Not much of a bodyguard if I do that.” He glanced at me from between my thighs, licked a slow stripe up my inner thigh, and blew gently against the damp skin. The cool of his breath against me was electric.
Goosebumps erupted everywhere, and I twisted my fingers in the sheets. “Garrett, please.”
He pressed a kiss right at the crease of my thigh. Then the other side. Slow, deliberate, and somehow more intense than if he’d gone where I needed him. Then, finally, his mouth found me.
I made some other noise I didn’t recognize.
His tongue was hot and clever, running through my folds, finding my clit and circling it with exactly the right pressure.
I’d fantasized about this—in my bunk on the train, in the shower at Jean’s, every time I’d looked at his mouth and wondered what it could do—but the fantasies hadn’t been this detailed.
They didn’t include the heat of his breath, the rough catch of his stubble on the inside of my thigh, the wet, hungry sound of his mouth on me.
He slid a finger inside me, and my whole body clenched around him. Slow. He was being impossibly slow, drawing in and out of me while his tongue traced lazy circles around my clit, as though he had nowhere else in the world to be.
“More,” I managed.
He added a second finger and crooked them, pressing up against a spot that made me cry out. My hips lifted, and his free hand pressed flat against my stomach, holding me down.
This was why I’d denied myself on the train, because the want had been worth keeping. Because the real thing was always going to be worth it.
And god, it was.
His mouth sealed over my clit and sucked, and I nearly came off the bed.
He held me steady, his fingers working inside me, finding a rhythm that built and built.
Each curl pressed exactly where I needed him, each pull of his mouth drawing louder and louder noises from me.
He was watching me from between my legs, too.
I felt his eyes on my face, gauging every gasp and twitch, so he could use them against me.
I took hold of his hair, anchoring myself so the ecstasy never ended. “Oh god! Right there! Don’t stop!”
He did the exact opposite of stopping. He doubled down, fingers curling relentlessly inside me while his tongue matched the pace, sucking and dragging until the pressure in my core wound so tight I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except grip his hair and hold on.
The orgasm didn’t crash. It detonated. Every nerve ending in my body lit up at once, and I arched off the bed with a cry that probably carried through the walls.
Who cares! It was physically impossible to have cared.
Wave after wave rolled through me while Garrett’s mouth gentled but didn’t leave, coaxing out every last tremor until I was boneless and gasping and quite possibly dead.
He pressed a kiss to my inner thigh. Another one, higher. Followed by another on my hip, my stomach, the underside of my breast. Soft, unhurried kisses that let me float back down while my heartbeat thudded in my ears and his fingers slid free from me.
When I finally opened my eyes, he was lying next to me with his head propped on one elbow, looking at me with an expression I’d never seen on his face. Satisfied. Almost smug.
“Hi,” he said.
I started laughing. Couldn’t help it. “Hi.”
“You liked that?”
“Come here.” I reached for him, and he leaned over to kiss me, the taste of me still on his mouth. My leg instinctively rose, hooking around his hips to pull him closer. “I want you inside me.”
“I’d fucking love that.” He traced my nose with his. “But I don’t have any condoms.”
I darted my tongue out to touch his lips. “Good thing I do.”
His head jerked back slightly. “Don’t tease.”
“Not teasing.” I pointed toward my suitcase. “Side pocket. I took them from Jean’s bathroom before we left for Zurich.”
He stared at me. “You what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” My cheeks began heating for the tenth time, at least. “It was just in case.”
“In case?”
I swatted his chest. That strong, muscled chest I’d dreamed about, cried against, and that had shielded me when Dmitry showed up at the cottage. “Do you want to debate this, or do you want to get one?”
“Are they expired?”
“No. I checked.”
“I didn’t think Jean was that kind of guy.” He shook his head and got up to retrieve them, allowing me to admire the view of his back and broad shoulders, his ass in those jeans, and the way his muscles moved when he bent over my suitcase.
“You are so sexy, Garrett.”
He turned around and tossed the condoms onto the bed. “You think so?”
“Oh, I know.” I gave him an obvious once-over and bit my lip. “Although you’re wearing a bit too much clothing.”
“Am I?” He flicked open the button on his jeans. “Is it the socks?”
“Yeah, lose the socks.”
He slid his zipper down instead, revealing black boxer briefs and the thick ridge of him pressing against the cotton. “Only the socks?”
“You’re killing me again.”
“I’m such a bad bodyguard.”
“Awful.”