She nodded, shifting without hesitation to slide off her flip-flops and move to the center of the featherbed. Greyson shucked his boots, joining her a second later, massage lotion in-hand.
“Turn,” he said, his blood heating when, rather than arguing over being bossed around, she followed his command. But then Marley lifted her T-shirt over her head to reveal a thin, lacy bra with delicate straps crisscrossing between her shoulder blades, and Greyson realized his error, too late.
He could flirt with her, and he could fuck her—hell, he could even get as crazy as to fall for her—but when it came to this woman, so fierce and headstrong on the surface, yet breathtaking and beautiful underneath, he didn’t have any control at all.
“You okay?” she asked over her shoulder, her tone teasing just enough for him to know she knew the effect she’d had on him.
“I’m very okay. And you”—he pressed a hand to the back of her rib cage, biting back a moan at the silk of her skin under his rough, callused fingers—“are goddamned gorgeous.”
“You like it?” Marley grinned at him, only half of her peach-colored mouth visible from Greyson’s vantage point behind her, and he leaned in, closing the space between them, chest to back, until his lips were a scant inch from her ear.
“The lace is nice and all, but I like you, darlin’. Now lay back and let me show you what Southern hospitality really looks like.”
Marley’s grin became a soft gasp, but again, she did what he’d told her to. She stretched out on the featherbed, front-first, and Greyson took a second to warm some of the massage lotion between his hands. The stuff smelled pretty good, not too frilly or overpowering, and Daisy had promised it would work wonders on the aches and pains he collected like baseball cards around the farm. Swinging one leg over Marley’s lower back, he took care to balance the bulk of his weight between his shins so he didn’t hurt her, then angled forward to place his hands on her shoulders.
“Ahhh,” she sighed, arching into Greyson’s touch. His cock, being the greedy, impulsive thing it was, instantly perked to life, but he kept himself (mostly, because let’s face it, he was still a guy, and Marley was definitely hotter than homemade sin) in check. Her muscles were knotted up pretty good, but lucky for her, he knew just how to loosen that tension. Starting with the tops of her shoulders, he pressed slow circles over her skin, using his thumbs to unravel the tautness there, bit by bit. She softened into the featherbed, her breaths deepening.
Every pass of his fingers relaxed her body further, each sigh in response making him harder and more desperate to do away with his jeans and her jeans and every other barrier that stood between them so he could sink into her, good and hard. Greyson bit his lip in an effort to resist—Marley deserved better than some rough, graceless fucking.
But then she shifted her hips up and back, just enough to create the space she needed to flip over beneath him.
“Greyson.” Another lift and lower of her hips, and Jesus God, she was trying to end him. “Do you want to touch me?”
She had to be kidding. The way her nipples were pressed against that tissue-thin lace that was barely covering her breasts to begin with had his hands begging him to turn her bra into scraps.
He flexed his fingers before curling them in tight restraint. “Yes.”
She looked up at him, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. “Here?”
Marley brushed the index and middle fingers on one hand over her collarbone, then dipped them low between her cleavage, and need spread out, hot and low between Greyson’s hips.
“Yes,” he grated, still holding back. This was supposed to be about the experience. About making her feel good and being right here for her, like he’d promised. He couldn’t just brazen his way through it like he did with everything else, all deep, dark attitude and uncut intensity.
Marley, however? Not one to be deterred. “What about here?” Her fingers glided over the midline of her belly, not stopping until they reached the top of her jeans.
“Yes.” Greyson scraped in a breath. He could do this. He could go slow. He fucking would go slow, even if it killed him.
“And…here?” She skimmed the seam of her jeans, and his already fraying control snapped by another thread.
“Yes.” He caught her wrist, stilling her movement and bringing her stare up to meet his. “But I don’t want to go fast.”
“Bullshit.”
The challenge was so unexpected, yet so brashly hot, that it turned Greyson on as much as it stunned him. “What?”
“You heard me,” Marley said, levering herself up so they sat face-to-face, even amid the tangle of their legs. “I know you’re holding back. You’re wound so tight, you’re practically humming. So if you want me, take me. I’m right here.”
“I want to.” Hell, it was the biggest understatement Greyson had ever uttered in his entire twenty-nine years. Her mouth was so close, her chest right on his, and Christ, he wanted her. “But if I touch you right now, it’s not going to be slow or sweet. If I touch you right now”—his cock jerked, the impulsive part of him he’d been trying to keep under control pushing the words past his lips like a promise—“I’m going to rip those clothes off of you. I’m going to fuck you, hard and deep and fast, and I’m not going to stop until the only name you know is mine.”
Marley cupped his face between her palms, and as crazy as it was, Greyson felt the touch everywhere.
“Don’t you see?” she whispered. “I want you like that, Greyson. I don’t want pretenses. I want you. Just as you are.”
She kissed him then, just a light brush of her lips to seal the words into place, and he was no more good. Knotting his fingers in her hair, he pushed her back to the featherbed in a rush, bracing his free arm behind her just in time to absorb the brunt of the impact. Marley arched in encouragement, her tongue meeting his in greedy strokes as they deepened their kiss in equal measure.
His hands moved to the straps of her bra, grasping tight. “This is pretty,” he said. “But it’s seriously got to go.”
“It does,” she agreed. But the infernal thing was a complicated web of teeny little straps, each of them keeping him from what he wanted, and Greyson couldn’t help it. He pulled. Pulled again, and then…
Rrrrrrip.
“Sorry,” he murmured, actually feeling a stab of remorse, albeit a small one.
Marley laughed. “I can get another bra, cowboy. Now are you gonna take off the rest, like you promised, or what?”
His fingers were on the button of her jeans before she’d even finished the question. Greyson did away with his T-shirt and his own jeans next, stopping for just a second to admire Marley’s delicate pink thong before yanking his boxer briefs off to join the laundry scattered over the bed of his truck. The only thing he wasn’t rushing was making sure he got the condom right, but that only took a few seconds, and then he was nestled right where he wanted to be, between Marley’s thighs.
“These are pretty, too,” Greyson said, running his finger along the inside edge of her panties, his pulse moving faster as he registered their dampness. She murmured his name, followed it up with a honeyed “please”, and the reckless part of him took over. Shoving her panties aside but not off, Greyson pushed two fingers into her heat, letting his thumb slide over her clit in a firm stroke.
“I don’t care if you rip them, too.” Marley punctuated the claim with a sexy, want-filled moan. “In fact, if you don’t take them off and put your cock where your fingers are right now, I’m going to rip them off myself.”
Oh. Fuck. Yes.
“Far be it for me to keep a lady waiting,” he drawled, slipping her panties off and readjusting his body to fit his hips over hers. God damn it, she was wet—he nearly lost his breath just from brushing against her entrance with the head of his cock. But Marley hadn’t exaggerated, apparently, about wanting him hard and deep and fast, too, and she reached between their bodies to guide him into the snug space between her legs.
“Jesus, you’r
e—” So many words ricocheted through his head, yet his mouth couldn’t form a single goddamned one as he thrust all the way inside of her. Her inner muscles gripped his cock, the tight resistance easing slightly after a breath, and Marley curled her fingers around his waist.
“Oh, God, so are you.” Planting her feet on either side of his legs, she used the leverage to rock her hips higher. Greyson let her set the rhythm with her hands, too, a dirty thrill moving through his chest as she pulled him closer, seating his cock deeper inside her core. He answered every request with a harder thrust, moving faster and with more purpose every time.
“Greyson.” Marley’s grip changed, her nails turning in to his waist to produce a sweet sting.
“Tell me,” he demanded, knowing it was brash and not giving a shit. “Tell me how you want it.”
She moaned, her sex so hot and slick, Greyson nearly lost his focus. “Harder. Please, harder.”
No known force in the universe would’ve kept him from obliging. Leaning forward to brace one hand by her shoulder and press their bodies flush from hips to chest, Greyson kept the steady pace of his movements while increasing their pressure. He was hazily aware of the bed of the truck biting at his knees through the featherbed, of the burn in his muscles as he thrust, again and again. But he didn’t care. Marley gasped, her body quickening beneath him, her breaths shallow and her inner thighs splayed wide in a wordless plea. She began to shake, her body taut with the force of her climax, and Greyson rode her through every moan and sigh and cry before she finally went lax. He fought the urge growing at the base of his spine, the one daring him to keep thrusting and taking until his own orgasm had had its way with them both.
Marley looked up at him, eyes bright. “Don’t stop,” she said, soft yet oh so sure. “I meant it, Greyson. I want you. No holding back.”
He didn’t. Gripping her shoulder with one hand and her waist with the other, Greyson pumped into her, quickly reclaiming the rhythm they’d built. The change in angle allowed him to thrust deeper, his cock sliding forward and his body following until no space remained between them. Marley knotted her legs around his hips to keep them joined as they rocked together, and the move was like a flame touching kindling. Need combined with the dark, dirty want already coursing through him, his balls tingling and going tight with the signal of imminent release. Greyson didn’t fight it—in fact, he let it have him, let Marley have him, coming deep inside of her with a call of her name.
And right there, under the stars and in the haze of release, Greyson realized that he wasn’t in danger of stealing Marley’s heart, after all.
He was in danger of her stealing his. And the worst part was? She’d already gone and done it.
24
Marley was content to stay exactly where she was, doing exactly what she was doing, pretty much indefinitely. A little weird when she considered that she was naked in what could technically be considered a public place, but she and Greyson really were out in the middle of nowhere, and anyway, his arms felt far too good around her to move, indecent exposure or no.
“You alright?” Greyson murmured into her hair. They’d adjusted a little post-sex, with him grabbing a thin blanket from the duffel and tucking it around them and her finding her way into the crook of his arm. The nighttime air was cool around them, something Marley hadn’t really noticed in the heat of the moment with Greyson. But now that they’d settled in, she felt perfectly comfortable, the air balancing out the warmth of Greyson’s body beside her and the stars glittering overhead as if the whole world was in front of them.
“I’m great,” she said with a laugh. But Greyson didn’t return the favor, the small smile he gave over instead totally not cutting it in the I’m-great-too department, and Marley pulled back to look at him more fully.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” He must have known she was about to call him on the untruth, because he shrugged and amended, “I’m not unhappy.”
“I’m not unhappy, either,” she said slowly, trying—and failing—to interpret his expression.
Greyson’s dark eyes glinted in the shadows, the intensity he always wore like a second skin thrumming beneath his warm, bare skin. “That’s the thing, though. We’re both happy, right here. Just like this.”
Marley pulled her brows together, now thoroughly confused. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“Look, I know better than to tell you what to do,” he said, his voice quiet even in the hush of night around them. “That’s not my place, and you take to being bossed around about as well as I do. But this, what we have together? It feels too right for me not to stand up for it. I know you never planned to stay in Millhaven, and that you have reasons why. But there are reasons to stay here, too, and I want to be one of them. I want you to stay.”
For a second that might’ve lasted for ten, all Marley could hear was the thump-thump-thump-thump of her own heart threatening to beat its way out of her chest.
“I like being with you, too,” she finally managed. God, it was so true, it nearly hurt to say. “I don’t want to leave. I mean, not like I did before. I like working at the storefront, and spending time with you, like this, is…” She trailed off, trapping the word everything between her teeth before it could betray her by escaping. “But I can’t stay here once my bills are paid, Greyson. You don’t understand.”
He shifted to his side to face her, pinning her with a stare. “Then help me understand it.”
“I can’t,” Marley said. But her voice quaked, turning the claim uncertain, and Greyson lifted her chin with the tip of his index finger.
“Hey. When I said I had you, I didn’t just mean it in bed. I meant it for this, too. Help me understand, Marley. Let me in.”
Whether it was the way he hadn’t let her keep him at arm’s length despite all her defenses or the fierceness in his tone that told her he meant it, he really had her, she didn’t know. But the dam burst inside of her, walls she’d taken so much care to build and reinforce and build some more crumbling down in a swift, unexpected burst.
“My mother got sick suddenly. One minute she was fine, living her life and going to work and having dinner with me on Sunday nights, and the next, she felt nauseous and lost her appetite, like she had some sort of stomach bug. Less than a week later, we were sitting in her doctor’s office, hearing phrases like large, malignant mass, and aggressive chemotherapy, and highly invasive cancer.”
The re-telling, even though it was all factual, scraped at Marley’s throat. Greyson didn’t interrupt, simply put a hand on her arm, and the simple contact anchored her, giving her the power to continue.
“Everything happened in a blink. The chemo, the radiation, the move to hospice care. Six months after that day in the doctor’s office, she was gone,” Marley whispered, the tears she always tried so hard to fight pricking at the backs of her eyes, and God, she was so tired of fighting. “My mother was the only parent I knew, the one person I cared about more deeply than anyone else, and I lost her, just like that, over something I couldn’t control.”
Greyson’s hand moved from her arm to her face, and it was only then that Marley realized, yep, those tears had breached her eyelids to slide over her nose and cheek.
Still, she didn’t stop talking. “I took care of things—funeral arrangements, boxing up her belongings, insurance paperwork—but grieving was hard. Dealing with those first few months of loss nearly wrecked me, so many times I can’t even count them. God”—Marley let out a joyless laugh—“I still have days where I’m so sad, I up and start crying just because I miss her, and it’s been a whole year since she died.”
“That’s understandable,” Greyson finally said. “She was your mother, and you were close.”
“Exactly. We were close. I don’t even know how to do that anymore. When people get too close now, I panic, and when I panic, I put everyone at arm’s length.” Dread claimed Marley’s chest, crowding between her ribs.
But, once again,
Greyson was right there, unyielding. “Not everyone. You don’t do that with me. Listen, I know you miss your mother. I do. I miss my uncle, too. But you can’t let the past dictate the present. Or the future. Your mother sent you here for a reason. She didn’t want you to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone, either,” Marley said, the confession leaving a hole deep inside of her from where she’d kept it buried for so long. Holding her brothers, and even Tobias, at arm’s length for this long had been exhausting, and fighting the closeness they’d tried so hard to create with her had hurt, not because she hadn’t wanted it, but because she had.
Greyson thumbed away another tear from the bridge of her nose. “You don’t have to be. You don’t have to put everyone at arm’s length, Marley. You can stay.”
The possibility burned bright, beckoning. But then Marley shook her head, her defenses slamming into place. She couldn’t go through the pain of losing another parent. She couldn’t.
“I can’t stay. If I let Tobias care for me, I’ll care back. A lot. So, I can’t be his daughter, and I can’t let him be my father. If I stay, and something happens to him…if he dies…”
“He’s going to.”
Greyson’s words sent her pulse skyrocketing. “Excuse me?”
“Tobias is human, Marley. He’s going to die one day, just like you and me and everyone else in the world,” Greyson said quietly. “But the question isn’t really ‘what if he dies’.”
“It’s not?” Marley couldn’t help the sarcasm mixing with the emotion in her voice. Of course it was the question. It was exactly why she’d kept Tobias—hell, everyone—at arm’s length for so long.
But Greyson said, “No. The question is, what if he dies and you never knew him. What if he dies, and you never let him know you, even though you’ve got the chance to.”
The words stunned Marley so completely that all she could do was listen as he continued.
“Do you want to know the first thing I thought about you, when we were stuck in that jail cell? I thought ‘damn, that’s a Cross’. Not because your hair is dark and your eyes are blue, although, yeah, there’s a resemblance. But it was your spirit. The thing that makes you, you. And you can fight that as much as you want, and you can be scared of it, too, but neither of those is gonna change the truth. You belong here.”
Crossing Hope (Cross Creek Series Book 4) Page 23