by Tawna Fenske
When she tensed in his hands, he knew. It was crazy fast, but that was hardly a problem. He let go of her hip and dropped a hand between her thighs. As he slipped one finger inside her, Willa exploded.
“Grady!”
Yes.
He drove two fingers into her, feeling for that spot. The one he knew would take her to the next level. When he pressed against it, she shrieked and clutched his head.
“Oh my God—”
Her tight walls clenched and pulsed around him, squeezing his fingers as he fluttered his tongue over her until she went still in his hands.
Holy smokes.
He started to kiss his way up her body, to pull her against him for a breather. He was a helluva good snuggler, and pulling her soft and warm and pliable body against his chest sounded like a damn fine idea. He’d let her come down slowly.
But that’s not what Willa wanted. She sat blinking at him through lust-crazed eyes, lips bee-stung and parted. She didn’t bother bringing her legs back together, and Grady feasted his eyes on her, memorizing every curve, every ripple of muscle, every glorious, naked inch.
He’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.
Willa smiled, and his heart damn near melted.
“Tell me you have a condom,” she breathed. “Because I need you inside me right now.”
Chapter Four
I need you inside me right now.
She sounded like a porn star. Willa couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, couldn’t believe what she’d just done with a guy she barely knew.
But she couldn’t stop doing it. Couldn’t ignore the desperate need still plucking at her insides like fingers tugging threads from a sweater.
“I have a condom.” Grady slid a hand into his back pocket to pull out his wallet.
A flush moved through her body as Willa realized she was practically buck naked, save the tank top shucked tubelike around her middle. Meanwhile, Grady was fully clothed. Even his shirt was unrumpled.
Better fix that.
Grabbing the hem of it, she pulled him down like a spider reeling in dinner. Grady laughed and let her tug the shirt up.
“I dig that you know what you want,” he said as he helped her strip the shirt over his head. He handed her the condom and dragged the shirt over his arms, then reclaimed the prophylactic and tore it open.
“You’re sure?” He held her eyes as he reached for his belt buckle.
Willa grabbed his button fly and yanked. “Do I look like I’m fighting you off?”
Still grinning, he helped her push the jeans down over his hips and toss them aside. “Just checking,” he said. “Enthusiastic consent and all that.”
She wrapped her legs around him as he rolled on the condom. “Is this enthusiastic enough for you?”
Digging her heels into the backs of his thighs, she drew him to her slippery center. He hovered there for a moment, the thick tip of him brushing her swollen folds.
“Willa,” he groaned. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
You don’t know me now, she thought as she pulled him inside.
He filled her in one slick stroke, and she gasped. He was big. It hadn’t been obvious until he buried himself all the way, and she cried out from the shock of it.
“You okay?” he breathed and held still.
“Don’t stop.”
She gripped his shoulder blades to make sure of it, holding him to her as he moved in and out, setting a slow rhythm. He felt so good. It had been so long—
“Grady,” she gasped as he stroked something incredibly sensitive inside her, and her body responded with shock waves of such intensity, they pulsed all the way to her toes. She bit down on his shoulder, so filled with pleasure, she thought she might burst.
This wasn’t like her at all. Yeah, she’d had lovers. Not a lot, but enough to know a good one from a not good one.
Grady was more than good. He was…holy fuck.
Her subconscious fought the urge to think of him as different, special. He was just another guy. That was the point of the two-date rule. No attachment. Just no-strings fun, the way it should be.
So why was she here, gasping and groaning and writhing against him, feeling this unexpected base-level connection?
She dug her nails into his back, willing herself to get out of her head and into her body. There was too much sensation here to waste it, to spend even a second dwelling on scary thoughts.
The way he moved. And the things he was whispering in her ear, words she couldn’t make out but understood on some primal level.
He drove in deeper, and Willa felt the tension building inside her, with every nerve in her body preparing for the inevitable. Already?
“I’m close,” she gasped, as surprised by her own words as she was by the sensation itself. Christ, who was this wanton woman with a hair-trigger orgasm switch?
“That’s it,” he groaned. “Yes, Willa.”
She cried out. Eyes closed, full-throated screaming with her head thrown back and white-hot flames blazing behind her eyelids. Sparks burst in the center of her chest as she clenched her thighs around him and screamed. “Grady.”
He thrust deeper with a groan, and she realized he was right there with her, the same rhythm as the pulsing deep inside her. He drove in again and again as the waves of pleasure rippled outward like a brick tossed in a pool of molten lava.
She clung to him, and he carried them through the inferno and out the other side, both of them breathless and panting.
Then he went very, very still.
Willa breathed in. Out. In again. She lay there beneath his motionless body, wondering if he’d fallen asleep. Or died. Was he breathing? Definitely breathing. Should she check his pulse?
Grady drew up on his elbows and looked down at her. “What are you thinking?”
“Wondering if you’d died.”
He laughed and rolled onto his side, pulling her with him so they faced each other on the couch. “I’m very much alive,” he said, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Thank you for that.”
“Thank you.” She sounded like a restaurant patron accepting a soda refill, not like a woman who’d just had the best sex of her life. “Thank you very much.”
Grady grinned and shifted away from her for a second, getting rid of the condom. She’d have to remember to toss that pizza box before one of the pets got to it.
He reached behind them and found the crocheted afghan she kept folded on the back of the couch. It was one of the few things Willa owned that her mother had made, one of the few precious mementos from her former life.
It felt like a hug as Grady wrapped it around them.
“You warm enough?”
She nodded and rested her head on his biceps. “Perfect.”
They lay there together in silence for a long time, and Willa let her eyes drift shut. Somehow she synced her breathing with his, not even aware she was doing it until her breasts pushed forward at the same time that his chest moved into hers. As her heartbeat slowed, she decided this was as close to bliss as she’d been in a long time. Maybe ever.
“So you never make an exception?”
She blinked her eyes open, wondering if she’d drifted off and missed part of a conversation. “What?”
“To the two-date rule,” he said. “You said at dinner that it’s an ironclad rule, but I wondered if you ever let it slide to three or four or—”
“No,” she said a little too abruptly. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Never.”
She cringed at her own words, sure she’d offended him.
But he didn’t look offended. Just curious. “How come?”
“It’s easier that way,” she said. “Less complicated when no one gets attached.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “So you’ve never had a long-term relationship.”<
br />
She hesitated, then gave him a ridiculous combination headshake and shrug. Sort of an unsure negative, which got a reaction.
“Seriously?” he said. “Not once in your— How old are you?”
“Thirty-one,” she said, smacking him on the shoulder. “Didn’t your mother tell you it’s rude to ask a lady her age?”
“Since I just had sex with the lady, I’m thinking we’ve crossed into age-asking territory.” He stroked a hand down her arm and back up again, making her shiver. “But really, you’ve never had a long-term relationship?”
“Once,” she said, not sure how much to volunteer. Wasn’t it bad manners to talk about other guys while lying naked with a man? “In my early twenties, way before I set the rule in stone.”
He stroked her arm again, calling the goose bumps to the surface. “What went wrong?”
A shank of hair fell over one eye, and she blew it off her sweaty forehead. “Why do you assume something went wrong?”
And why did she feel defensive all of a sudden? She ordered herself to relax, to enjoy the pillow talk while she could.
“Well, you’re not still with the guy,” Grady pointed out. “So either you broke up for some reason or you lopped off his head with a cleaver and stuck it in your hall closet.”
Willa glanced toward the foyer, which saved her from having to look him in the eye. “I told you not to look in there.”
He laughed and stroked her arm again. “All right, I’ll take the hint. You don’t want to talk about old boyfriends.”
“It’s not that.” She lifted her head off his arm, putting a tiny bit of distance between them. “I guess I just felt myself getting derailed.”
“How?”
“By dating,” she said. “By relationships, I mean. One or two dates and you can move on with no hard feelings. But take it beyond that, and things get messy.”
“And you’re not a fan of messy?”
“I’m not a fan of losing myself,” she said. “Of losing sight of my goals or losing track of what I want out of life.”
I’m afraid of becoming my mother.
I’m afraid of dating my father.
I’m afraid of the unstable life their love created.
She dropped her gaze from his so he couldn’t read what she was thinking.
“Fair enough,” he said, brushing the hair off her forehead. “I’m okay with the two dates.”
“Good,” she said. “Thanks.”
The word sounded hollow, much different from the sex “thank-you” only a few minutes earlier.
“We’ve got one more to go. Better make it count.” He planted a kiss on her forehead, then shifted against her. That’s when she felt it. That slow thickening between them, the sign that Grady was ready to go again. With a start, she realized so was she.
I should push him away, she thought, even as she drew him to her. How the hell could she want him again?
Thank God she had condoms upstairs.
“So we’ll make the most of our two dates,” Grady said, kissing his way down her throat. “And then we’ll shake hands and say goodbye.”
“Perfect,” Willa said, almost able to believe it.
…
“So you slept with the hottie firefighter.” Kayla smirked as she reached across the table and swiped two of Willa’s truffle fries. “Tell us everything.”
“Don’t leave out any details.” Aislin grinned and stabbed her Caesar salad. “Especially the sex stuff.”
“I’m not giving you details.” Willa ignored the heat in her cheeks and swatted Kayla’s hand away so she couldn’t grab another fry. “I can’t believe I even told you he spent the night.”
Which was odd… Well, not odd that she’d told her girlfriends about knocking boots with Grady. Kayla lived just two blocks away, and the route for her morning run zipped right past Willa’s house. Since it happened to be a morning Aislin had agreed to run with her, both ladies had been treated to the sight of Grady’s truck pulling out of Willa’s driveway at an hour that left little to the imagination.
She couldn’t believe she’d let him stay over. That was the odd thing. While it wasn’t one of her rules, it also wasn’t something she usually did. Neither was first-date sex. None of this was like her.
So why the hell was she smiling?
“It was a good first date,” she said carefully, taking a sip of her iced tea to cool the flames rising in her face.
“Which is why he’ll get a second one.” Kayla nodded her certainty, but Aislin’s brow furrowed.
“And then what?” she asked.
Willa shrugged and picked up her burger. She took a big bite—ridiculously big—so she wouldn’t have to answer right away.
But her friends weren’t letting her off the hook. They sat watching her, Kayla with her chin in her hand and dark hair framing her face. Aislin’s blue eyes stayed fixed on Willa, like she thought she might miss her response if she blinked.
Willa took another sip of iced tea. “So I was thinking if I get this RFP together for Tranquility Villa, maybe the two of you could help me out with—”
Kayla smacked her palm on the table, jostling the ice in their glasses. “Oh no you don’t. What happens after the second date?”
Willa sighed and reached for her burger again, but Aislin caught the edge of her plate with one manicured nail and dragged it out of reach. “Come on, Wills. When was the last time you let a guy stay over?”
“Or let a guy get past second base,” Kayla added.
“Or got this moony look in your eyes when—”
“Stop.” Willa grabbed her plate back, and Aislin didn’t fight her. “Come on, you know the rule.”
“Does he?” Aislin picked up a napkin and dabbed the ketchup Willa had dropped on the table without noticing.
Blame it on distraction. Blame that on Grady. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since—
“I made it pretty clear,” Willa said. “He knows I don’t get involved.”
Kayla leveled her with a look. “Yeah, that part where you shagged him silly totally underscored how uninvolved you are.” She swiped another fry, expertly dodging Willa’s smack. “Way to hammer the point home.”
Aislin snickered, while Willa did her best not to blush again. She had made it clear, right? And even if she hadn’t, it wasn’t a big deal. Most dudes saw the upside of not getting tied down. They seemed relieved when they learned she wouldn’t be hounding them with texts or turning clingy. This was good for everyone, right?
Possibly recognizing Willa’s need for a break—or maybe just hell-bent on trying another tactic—Kayla changed the subject. “His band is playing again on Friday night at Boyton Ballroom,” she said. “I saw it on the schedule. I’ve heard they’re pretty good.”
“That wouldn’t count as a date,” Aislin put in. “Just a bunch of girlfriends going to see a concert.”
“It wouldn’t count as a date,” Willa agreed. “But I’m not going, so it’s a moot point.”
Both women scowled at her.
“Why wouldn’t you go?” Kayla demanded.
Willa sighed and picked at her fries. Salt seeped into the paper cut on her pinkie finger, but she made a point not to flinch. “Because I have three proposals to finish before next week,” she said. “This isn’t a good time for me to be risking potential business.”
Kayla and Aislin exchanged a glance. Willa knew that look well. It was the look that preceded these two dragging her to yoga or breathing classes under the pretense of needing to relax. She knew damn well they were only doing it for her.
“What?” she demanded, ready to get it over with. “Are you going to lecture me again about working too much?”
Aislin held up her hands in mock surrender. “Far be it from us to tell you how to run your life,” she said. “But do you ever t
hink there will be a point where you can ease up a little?”
“You’ve said yourself that you might be at max capacity with clients,” Kayla added. “That you already have enough work to keep you plenty busy.”
“And keep a roof over your head,” Aislin added more softly. She stretched a hand out, and for a second, Willa thought she was going for the fries, too.
But she touched Willa’s hand instead, offering a squeeze. “We’re proud of you, Wills.”
“For work stuff,” Kayla added. “But also for boning the smokejumper.”
Aislin grinned. “Especially for the smokejumper.”
Willa tried not to show how much her friends’ words meant to her. Not the stuff about shagging Grady. The part about her childhood. They knew where she’d come from—maybe not the depth of the poverty but the gist of it. They didn’t know specifics about her mom. No one did.
She’d kept that secret to herself.
But they knew she’d grown up motherless. Penniless. Scared.
Which meant they understood why her career mattered so much. Mattered more than anything.
“So Friday evening.” Willa sighed, already regretting throwing them a bone. “What time are we going to Boyton?”
Both women bounced in their chairs, excited as kids on Christmas morning. “The band goes on at seven,” Aislin said. “If we get there early, we’ll be able to ogle the smokejumpers from the front row.”
“Grady plays lead guitar, right?” Kayla asked.
“Yeah,” Willa admitted. “And sings. The rest of his bandmates are smokejumpers, too.”
“Yummy.” Aislin grinned. “So we’ll go and hear some music and have a few drinks and keep it simple.”
“Absolutely.” Kayla nodded.
“All right,” Willa said, wondering if she was already long past the point of keeping it simple.
Chapter Five
Grady was halfway through the bridge of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” when he spotted her.