by Laura Wright
His fingers moved over her collarbone, slowly. “I know for a fact that the plumbing works in this house.”
At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. He couldn’t be suggesting what he was suggesting, right? She sniffed, laughed halfheartedly. “You’re crazy.”
“No. I’m serious.”
And he was. She swallowed hard and tried to slow the slamming of her heart against her ribs. “You’ve got to be kidding. We can’t do that. It’s not our house. It would be…”
“It’d be what exactly?”
She just stared at him, every nerve, every muscle in her body tense and ready to spring.
“Crazy? Impulsive?” He raised a brow. “Something our siblings would do?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “And we’re the responsible ones.”
“Maybe just this once we’re not.”
She stared at him, bit her cheek as waves of excitement, of sensual electricity rolled through her. She’d only done one irresponsible thing in her life and that was her secret affair with Grant. But of course, she’d never regret that.
“A bath you say?”
Grinning, Grant stood up. “Clawfoot and deep.”
“Wouldn’t a nice hot shower work just as well?”
“Well, sure, but a shower’s something you can do on your own.”
Heat pummeled her, and her legs were almost shaking. “And I won’t be on my own in the bathtub?”
He reached down, pulled her to her feet. “I thought I should be there, but only for a useful purpose.”
“And what would that be?”
His hand ran down her sides, pausing as the heels of his palms brushed the sides of her breasts. “Back home, and before people had money, the men—well, a man who was worth his salt at any rate—”
“Which of course you are,” she uttered, trembling with longing.
He grinned. “Of course. He’d bring the woman he was caring for pan after pan of hot water, then he’d bathe every inch of her.”
Anna pictured him, sitting in the tub, his sun-bronzed chest, heavy with muscle, his arms relaxed on the cool porcelain sides, his mouth and his manhood ready. She closed her eyes and exhaled. “I just want you to know something, Grant. From my heart. You don’t have to take me to an abandoned house to seduce me. You don’t have to invent reasons to touch me. You don’t have to be someone different to make love to me. My arms are open to you always.”
Grant closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and stared down at her. “You slay me, Anna Sheridan.” He leaned in and kissed her, soft and tender.
When Anna eased back, she gave over to the grin that pulled at her. “On the other hand, this being bathed thing does sound pretty good.”
Laughter erupted in his throat and he pulled her hard against him. “Then let’s go, my little vixen.”
Seven
Grant passed a hand under the faucet and tested the temperature of the water. Hot. Steam rushed to his face as he heard Anna step into the room.
“How’s Jack?” he said without turning around.
“Hey, how did you know I called?”
The sweet familiarity in her voice tugged at his dusty heart. “You’re a wonderful mother. Goes with the territory.”
She came to stand beside him, put her hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for that.”
“Just the truth, Anna.” When he did turn, when he looked down into her beautiful face and those large brown eyes, he couldn’t help himself. He pulled her to him. “Everybody knows it, and everybody sees how he loves you.” His hands settled on her hips. “It’s not an easy thing to take on someone else’s choices, but the rewards are endless, aren’t they?”
“They are.” She let her head fall against his chest. “We’re kindred spirits, Grant Ashton, you know that?”
He couldn’t answer. His throat felt oddly tight. So did his chest. But he knew she was right. God help them both, she was right. “The water’s getting too high.” He left her for a moment, turned back to the tub and yanked the faucet to the right.
When he returned to her, she was removing her wet dress. Her nipples strained against the white, wet fabric of her bra, just as Grant strained against the fly of his jeans. His gaze moved over every inch of her, from her long neck to the weight of her breasts, to her flat stomach to the curve of her hips, to her slender legs and tiny feet.
“You’d better get in the water,” Grant muttered, sweat breaking out on his forehead, “before I go in search of a condom.”
She smiled and unhooked her bra, let it fall to the floor. “Don’t you mean we’d better get in the water?”
“Sorry?” He hadn’t heard her. Not through the hazy red glow of full breasts and hard pink nipples.
“Didn’t you think I’d take you seriously when you suggested a bath for two?”
“Hell no,” he replied.
“So that was just a ploy to get me naked?”
“Hell yes!” he said with a grin.
Unable to stop herself, Anna closed in on him and started with the buttons on his shirt. “You’re taking a bath with me, farm boy.” She laughed at his raised brow. “And I’m taking your clothes off.”
For Anna it was a sure treat to strip this man bare. She’d thought about it from the moment he’d picked her up tonight. Flicking off button after button, pulling back the flaps of white cotton, hauling them over his powerful shoulders and down his muscular arms until he was bare from head to hips.
Then she took a tiny step back to admire him.
This was no puny, pale executive who sat behind a desk all day and never got his finely manicured fingernails dirty—no, this was a man who worked outdoors, worked with his hands, worked up a sweat as he pushed his body to the limit.
With her heart in her throat, she ran her hands down his chest. Tan, ripped and smooth, with just the perfect amount of hair. Before she did something crazy and far too erotic for a schoolteacher to even be thinking about—like, digging her nails into his chest while grinding her hips against the erection she felt pressing against her belly—she let her fingers drift downward, down to the waistband of his jeans.
“Need some help?” he asked, his tone raw with unmasked desire.
“No, I think I’ve got everything under control.” It was a lie. As she loosened his belt, unzipped his fly and yanked down both his jeans and boxers, she felt anything but controlled.
“I took the being bathed part seriously, you know,” she told him as she stepped into the bathtub, the hot water assaulting her skin as she sat down.
Grant followed, sat opposite her. “But there’s no soap.”
“We could pretend.”
He grinned, leaned toward her and started rubbing his hands together, as though he were gathering a mock lather. Leaning back in the tub, Anna waited, her heart thumping with anticipation. This was such complete madness. This whole thing. Where they were, what they were doing—and all as the rain pounded the roof like sodden bullets.
He started with her toes, massaging them long and slow until she released the breath she’d been holding. Up to her ankles and calves.
The hot water acted like a tonic, making her a little light-headed.
Up to her knees and thighs. First her outer thighs, then he shifted. He kneaded the flesh of her inner thighs, raking up, up until he was poised at the soft, swollen folds at her center. She sucked air between her teeth, wondering, hoping he would delve further, let his fingers part her, burrow deep and find the opening to her body. But he was hell-bent on teasing her before giving her the pleasure of release.
His strokes were slow and strong. So many times he came close to her. So many times he played, in her hair, with the concave and highly sensitive skin just below her buttocks.
Anna fairly burned with desire. She uttered a faint, “Please…” and thrust her hips up, trying to urge his fingers to do more than play.
Grant’s hot gaze traveled from her swollen breasts to her swollen labia just in
ches below the water. “I suppose you need to be washed everywhere.”
“Yes,” she muttered hoarsely.
“All right, sweetheart. Spread your legs for me.”
Anna gasped, her core throbbing as she opened her legs wide.
“Yes,” he said on a groan. “You are so beautiful, Anna.”
Her mouth was like cotton, her skin tingled as she waited. Then, finally, she felt him, felt him play with her woman’s hair, then slip his middle finger between her folds, searching and finding the entrance to her body. She cried out, let her head drop to one side as he entered her. Grant made her feel heavy and light and desperate. He knew what he was doing, no amateur when it came to a woman’s body. With expert precision, he caressed the swollen bud at her core as he flicked his middle finger deep inside her.
Anna opened her legs wider. “No more,” she managed.
“What?”
“No more of this. I want you.” She searched the water wildly, found him and fisted his erection. “I want this inside me.”
Finding a new energy as her body twisted and turned inside her hot skin, Anna rose up, pushed Grant back against the white porcelain and straddled him.
As the steam rose around them, Anna positioned herself over his erection and promptly sat down. She gasped as his hot, hard thickness filled her. Groaning, Grant thrust his hips upward. His hands found her hips and his fingers dug into her flesh as he hauled her back and forth. The movement was jarring and wonderful and Anna could hardly breathe.
Water splashed over the sides of the tub, but neither one of them noticed. Grant grabbed for her breasts, tugged and flicked at her nipples as she rode him. Sensation pounded in her blood. Her skin was hot, prickly and her womb ached and begged for release.
Grant didn’t waver. As she rose and dropped back against him, his fingers worked her nipples until she was beyond frustration. Pulsing heat grew and grew and she writhed and wriggled and smashed her hips against him. Then suddenly, from deep down, overwhelming spasms erupted. Sweat trickled down her face to her neck. She moaned over and over and over, and heard Grant curse, felt him grow impossibly harder inside her, then hot wetness spread through her core.
She dropped to his chest, her breathing labored, her gaze hazy, her hair as wet as her skin.
Grant wrapped his arms around her, kissed her neck and whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry, Anna.”
It took her a moment to hear him, understand him. “For what?”
“No protection.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. He didn’t know how okay, she thought as aftershocks moved through her sensitive body.
“No, I should’ve—”
“Stop, please.” The moment was lovely and delicious and she didn’t want to go where they were headed. But Grant was quiet and she could fairly feel him ruminating over what he thought he had allowed to happen. “Listen,” she sat up slightly, her mouth close to his. She kissed him and uttered against his lips, “It wouldn’t have mattered if you had worn something—”
“Of course it matters. We just talked about this and then I tossed all sense out of the window….” He cursed. “It’s you.” He nuzzled her mouth with his, nipped at her lower lip with his teeth. “You make me mad, weak and completely desperate. I want you every damn second of every damn day.”
“Grant.”
“What?”
Her hands went to his face. She took a breath and just told him the truth. “I can’t get pregnant.”
He took a moment to answer. “What?”
“I have endometriosis. The doctors say it’s virtually impossible.”
“Oh, God.” Grant’s arms tightened around her, his eyes filled with concern. “Anna, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I have Jack now…”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I don’t know.”
She did know. But how could she look at this man she loved and tell him she was embarrassed, tell him that sometimes she didn’t feel like a whole woman?
Grant placed a hand to the back of her head and gently pulled her down to lay on his chest once more. There was no more to say. He was still connected to her, and she felt protected and cherished as he stroked her back in slow, easy circles, and as the water slowly cooled around them.
When the rain let up an hour later, Grant and Anna grabbed their chance and hustled down to the car. The ride home was quiet, and Anna wondered if her admission had changed Grant’s feelings for her or made him uncomfortable in any way. But after a moment, he reached out and covered her hand with his. He held on to her all the way up the Louret Vineyard drive and as they walked the short distance from his truck to the door of her cottage.
“I had a great time tonight,” she said, her back to the open cottage door.
Grant folded his arms over his chest. “Not going to invite me in?”
A smile broke on her face. “Well, I suppose. Would you like to watch a movie or something?”
“Or something?” He stared at her intently.
“We could play Monopoly?”
“How about a sleepover?”
Her brows shot up. “But I don’t think I have a sleeping bag.”
“I’m staying all night,” he muttered tersely, “And I’m staying in your bed.” He picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder like she weighed little more than a sack of feed and stalked inside the cottage.
She was laughing almost to the point of tears when he entered her bedroom and dropped her onto the bed. But she quickly sobered as he started to peel off her clothes, then his own.
“I suppose my clothes were still a little wet,” she said breathlessly as he gently rolled her onto her belly.
“They aren’t the only thing,” Grant murmured.
Her breath hitched as every muscle, every nerve went on alert. “And everyone thinks you’re such a good, down-home boy, Grant Ashton. But you’re not.”
“No. I’m not.”
Excitement raced through her blood as she felt the delicious weight of his body on her, his chest hair tickling her back, his erection hard and ready against her buttocks.
His lips moved close to her ear, and she felt his tongue, felt just a slip of wet brush her inner ear. She moaned hungrily, wriggled beneath him hoping to entice him into her body where he belonged.
“Tell me what you want, Anna,” he uttered, his voice tight with restraint.
“You. Just you.”
He groaned. “You always have me.” He nudged her thighs apart with his thigh, eased his erection into her just an inch, then gripped her shoulders and sank deep into her core.
Anna could barely catch her breath, barely think. But instinct had her moving, had her following Grant as he pumped inside her, as he kissed her neck, his teeth grazing her skin. His hand left her shoulder and slipped downward, through her wet curls and to the aching center of her. Anna sucked air through her teeth as her nipples stiffened in response.
Slow and steady, he worked her, his thrusts making her wet, his caresses making her moan.
It didn’t take long for the response Grant wanted. Anna’s legs began to tremble, her skin went hot and prickly, and she cried out, came apart in his hand.
But even through her climax she pumped her hips back, and soon it was Grant whose breathing changed.
“What are we going to do about this?” he whispered in her ear.
“About what?” she uttered into the pillow.
“This. Us. You and me.” He thrust into her, hard and wonderful.
“Grant…”
But Grant was gone, flying. He called out, guttural, almost angry, bucking and sinking his fingers into her flesh. Finally he collapsed on top of her. His hands burrowed under her and held her tightly, as he kissed her back, nuzzled her skin.
“You are so amazing,” he said with a strange strain of melancholy to his tone.
She hugged his arms, loved the weight of his body on top of hers. “It’s just the afterglow talking.”
“No, it’s the truth. You make me weak, Anna. Like the day I found out Ford and Abigail were mine. Weak, and yet so powerful. And happy.” He buried his face in her neck. “Doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“Yes, it does.” Weakness was a disease they’d both caught. She’d just decided to give in to it.
“What are we going to do?” he said again, sounding soul weary.
“Not we, Grant,” she said gently. “You. It’s more than obvious where my heart is, who my heart belongs to. It’s scary, I know, but I won’t deny my feelings for you or what I want for us.”
Grant said nothing. He rolled them both to the side so they were spooning. For a moment, Anna thought to say something more, but she knew what she wanted to hear from him was nothing that could be forced. Time would tell.
They fell asleep that way, her back to his chest, arms wrapped, feet entwined.
The next morning they awoke with a start to the sound of insistent knocking on the front door.
Groggily Anna looked up and glanced at the clock. “Seven-thirty.”
From behind her, Grant muttered a hoarse, “It’s probably Seth and Jillian bringing Jack back.”
“This early?”
“Maybe he missed you.”
Panic sank into Anna’s bones and she leaped up, jumped off the bed and grabbed for her robe. Maybe something had happened. Oh, God, she’d never forgive herself if something…
No, she couldn’t even go there.
Grant was right behind her as she practically flew to the cottage door and hauled it back madly.
But there was no little boy with bright green eyes, calling, “Mama, Mama, Mama,” on the small porch. Lucas and Caroline stood there, their faces drawn and worried.
Caroline spoke first. “Sorry, Grant, Anna.”
“Is something wrong?” Anna asked quickly and without care regarding her and Grant’s mussed hair and skimpy attire. Clearly their affair was out in the open now. “Is it Jack?”
Lucas shook his head. “No, Jack’s fine. Having breakfast with Rachel and Seth.”
“We’ve come at a bad time,” Caroline said, trying not to look directly into the cottage in case she should see something from their late-night tryst.