“I’ve spent all afternoon thinking about you.” His lips went to her chin, then traveled lower.
He rotated between kissing and licking a path down her throat. Each touch of his mouth against her skin sent a new rush of heat pumping through her. Her breath caught and she fought for air, but all she really wanted was his mouth on hers.
Her fingers curled into his soft shirt, gathering the cotton in her fists. “Were we doing this in your daydreams?”
“Fantasies.”
That sounded so hot. So forbidden and naughty. She loved him like this, when he didn’t hold back. When he abandoned control in favor of losing himself in her body.
She brushed her lips over his hair as her fingers went to the buttons of his washed-out oxford. One by one she unbuttoned them, unveiling the thin gray T-shirt underneath. “Tell me about these sexy dreams.”
“You were naked.” With a finger hooked on the neckline of her sweater, he pulled down, revealing the tops of her full breasts and dropping kisses there.
“Oh . . .” She couldn’t say anything else. Couldn’t form another word.
He nipped at her skin. “And I was inside you.”
“That’s pretty specific.”
Moving his head back and forth, rubbing that rough chin stubble over her chest, he applied just enough pressure to start her heartbeat hammering in her ears. She gasped as her fingers slipped through his hair and held him against her. The position brought back a flood of intimate memories. All those times rolling around in bed and watching bad science fiction movies. The heat of their bodies as they rubbed all over each other while they were watching gave way to more touching.
She leaned her head back against the wall. His scent and hands, that mouth, it all made her dizzy and excited. Ready to throw off all her shields and dive back in with him again, talk or not.
“I almost crashed the damn car on the way here because I was remembering what you tasted like.” The rumble of his voice vibrated against her collarbone.
“Okay then.” She lifted his head so she could see those sexy eyes. “You’re thinking we should—”
“Stop talking.”
His mouth covered hers as soon as the words left his lips. The kiss overpowered and conquered. He backed her into the wall and held her there with his hips as his hands skimmed over her breasts and around to her back. He was over her and around her. Sensations bombarded her and she felt wild and free and beautiful.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him in closer. The kiss deepened and his hands lingered on the small of her back. One minute her feet touched the ground and the next her legs wrapped around his slim waist.
He held her there, high on his body, as he kissed and caressed. His mouth slanted over hers and his palms balanced on her ass. A low hum from the television rumbled in the background, but all she could hear was the heavy push of his breath and the mumbling groan inching up her throat.
The room spun as he walked them to the bed. The white ceiling whizzed by and the heat gathered inside her. He rubbed his palm up and down her thigh as his other hand dipped past the elastic of her waistband to touch bare skin.
His mouth went to her neck as her butt hit the mattress. Balancing on his elbows, he pushed her down and hovered over her, fitting his body to hers while his mouth drove her to distraction. She felt teeth and lips. His hot mouth traveled over her until the top of the sweater dipped down and he kissed the thin fabric of her bra.
So sensitive and lost in a haze of need, her back arched and his mouth fit over her nipple. Sucking and licking, he had her squirming on the bed. Her heels dug into his back as she stripped his shirt off his shoulders. Her fingers touched the cotton of his tee underneath and his skin almost burned her through the fabric.
When he broke away and sat back on his heels she thought she might pass out. Need drove her as she sat up and undid the top button of his jeans. Her lips went to the tee covering his chest and his hand touched the back of her head.
She’d missed this. Missed him. The closeness, the wanting. Desire pulled at her until any possibility of thinking or talking left her head.
This was about touching. About feeling. About pushing away all of those lonely days and replacing the pain with new memories. She’d work the rest out later, but for now she needed him, over her and thrusting inside her.
His zipper ticked down and his chest rose and fell on rough breaths. But he never stopped touching her. His hands brushed over her hair and shoulders. He nuzzled her hair. He unleashed a constant barrage of sensations that had her fingers fumbling as she reached inside the opening of his jeans and closed her hand over his erection.
She dipped her head and took him into her mouth. Her lips closed over him and she felt and heard his sharp intake of breath. In the next moment, his stomach clenched and she slipped a hand under his shirt to felt the hard ripple of muscles toned by hard work and time in the sun. Her mouth worked him, up and down, until his hips shifted in time with her sucking.
He was all man, hot and bawdy. Strong and sexy. He didn’t think about things like clothes or being pampered. None of that was on his radar. The calluses on his hands spoke to his connection to the land. His earthy scent and knowing way around a woman’s body—she loved it all.
“I can’t wait another second.” With a gentle push against her shoulders, he put her back on the bed and came down on top of her.
His body was alive with movement. He kicked his pants off and stripped her leggings down. When he reached to lift her sweater and uncover her stomach she caught his hand and pressed it to the very heat of her. Fingers slipped against the crotch of her panties. Back and forth, the friction making her wet and snapping every muscle into a tight clench.
Music rang out in the background as he lowered his mouth to her. That expert tongue licked along the seam, separating her leg from the cloth. As he nudged the material aside, his lips and fingers went to work. Dipping inside, pressing and thrusting, first one finger, then a second, he had her writhing on the bed with sweat gathering between her breasts.
It was a moment of pure abandonment. She didn’t care what he touched or how much he knew. The feel of him, all of him, driving her to the edge had her thighs falling apart and her hands grabbing to pull him up and over her. Anything to get him inside her.
As if he could read her mind, his mouth broke away. Those warm lips traveled across the tops of her thighs, then over her sweater as his hands tunneled underneath to her breasts.
It was a sensual assault that had released something wild inside her. She’d been longing for this for months. Craving him.
Before she could think or react, she heard a ripping sound and his mouth covered hers. She held on to his shoulders as her legs twisted and shifted until they found his hips again.
She felt his tip pressed against her, then he drove into her in one long aching push. She heard a growling rumble, unsure if it came from him or her. He filled her, owning every inch and sending her tiny internal muscles into a frenzy.
After all the touching, all the wanting, her body was primed and ready. His thrusts rocked the bed and their harsh breaths mixed. Her hand skimmed down his back to tighten on his ass and bring him in closer.
With one hand on the headboard and one supporting her back, he kissed her and pumped into her. There was nothing sweet and lingering about them coming together after all this time apart. This was the kind of long, deep mating she loved. Nothing left over and every need fulfilled.
The pressure built inside her. Each push in and slow pull out, only to dive in again, had her muscles shaking. Everything inside her tightened as she silently begged him for more. When one of his hands snaked down between them and his fingertip slipped over the spot that made her eyes close and her mouth drop open, she no longer worried about sound.
“God, Callen. Now.” She grabbed at his shoulders and tugged on his hair. Anything t
o bring the madness to a shuddering climax.
“You feel so fucking good.” His words were ground out against her neck as his body kept up its steady rhythm.
Then his control snapped. The rough slide of their bodies mixed with the heat pulsing through the room. Her thighs tightened against his hips and the screaming in her head gave way as her body bucked. From one second to the next the orgasm tore through her, leaving her panting and raw.
Waves of pleasure crashed over her as she moaned against his lips. Everything inside her tingled and her body’s clenching finally let go. While he continued to push into her, her body went lax. Exhaustion swept through her and her hands fell to the bed beside her.
It was a total surrender. A culmination of all those months and all those lonely nights.
When he buried his face in the crook of her neck, she grabbed on to him again, holding him as the orgasm blasted through him and his body shook. When the last of the tremors subsided, his body pressed down onto hers. It was as if his elbows and shoulders had given out and he could no longer hold his weight above her.
He was too heavy, and she needed him to move, but the heat and his body felt so right. She closed her eyes and let the moment sink in and the doubts fall away. For this short instant, he was hers. Not arguing or accusing. Just quiet and loving.
She wasn’t sure if she had drifted off, but she knew time had passed. The world outside the window was now cast in shadows as night began to fall.
Before she could come up with something brilliant to say or even kick-start her brain into forming words, he pushed up and off her. Slipped out and shifted until he sat on the side of the bed with his hand laying on her stomach.
It was as if he knew . . . but he couldn’t. She’d kept her sweater on and they’d been so lost in the moment. Even now she couldn’t get her mind to unscramble.
But he stared. Spread out his fingers over her and looked at his hand. Didn’t say a word. Just sat there with his pants off and crumpled in a pile on the end of the bed.
“Callen?”
He pulled away, dragging his hand across her until it fell against the mattress. Seconds passed before he finally met her gaze. “I need to go.”
Those intense green eyes bored into her, stark but unreadable. Something played in his mind. Probably all the regrets about sleeping with her. She silently begged him not to apologize or write off what happened as nothing.
“At least you got your pants off.” She went with half a joke even though she didn’t feel like laughing.
His fingers traced the bottom edge of her sweater where it lay against her upper thighs. “Missed a chance to strip you bare, though.”
“You did fine.”
He didn’t meet her gaze this time. “Thanks.”
He didn’t have to say what he was thinking. She could guess. In his head he wrote the last hour off to hormones and nothing more. She was a ready and willing body. With his shoulders stiffening and his drawn expression, it was as if he were stacking row after row on the mental wall he built against her.
She recognized this part. She hated this part. “But now you’re running.”
“I’m sitting here.”
In body, maybe, but his mind had already sprinted for the door. “Then come back to bed.”
He shook his head as he looked around the room. “I need to get home.”
“Since you don’t have an office to go to or cattle to feed in the morning, that excuse is pretty lame.” She tried to sit up, but he’d caught the edge of her sweater under his leg. She settled for grabbing a pillow and holding it in front of her, both because she needed something to hold on to and because in some small way it might block the body blows she sensed were headed her way.
He shifted until both legs were over the side of the bed and his elbows rested on his knees. He glanced at her. “How about the excuse that I need some space?”
The words slammed into her stomach and her arms tightened on the pillow. “Not my favorite lame line, but at least I think it’s honest.”
“Honesty . . .” He gave her a rough laugh. “Huh.”
Looked like he’d set up another speech on her trustworthiness—or lack of it—and was ready to launch. Ducking sounded tempting, but she decided she was done with that. “Now what has you upset?”
He shook his head. “Nothing has changed between us.”
That verbal knife dug in a little deeper, past bone and straight to the heart of her. “Everything has. The months we were together and the time since has all been a slow shift bringing us toward each other again.”
He stared at his hands. Flipped them over and kept studying. “I still don’t trust you.”
She had to move. Had to put a few inches between them.
She shifted, and her feet hit the floor. Tugging on the edge of her sweater, she stood there on the opposite side of the bed with nothing but a bra and the sweater covering her. And she told him the truth. “There are times you make it hard to like you.”
In a slow, deliberate move he uncurled his body and stood up. His clothing matched hers, because all he had on was a T-shirt, and that didn’t cover much.
“But you still love me.” He wasn’t evading her gaze now. He stared right at her.
About time. “Yes.”
She didn’t lie, because it would be useless. She’d made her feelings clear. More than once she had declared her love for him, only to have him bat it away like it meant nothing. But that didn’t mean the words rang hollow to her. They meant everything, and she’d shout them if she had to.
Or she would until he trampled on them enough times that she gave up trying. She wasn’t there yet, but his indifference was pushing her in a dangerous direction.
“So, what happens with us now?” she asked, more because she had to put the words out there than because she wanted to hear the answer.
He shook his head as he grabbed his jeans form the end of the bed. “I don’t know, Grace.”
“We do need to talk.” This huge piece of news loomed between them. Her hand went to her stomach and she debated just blurting it out. Maybe she would have if he’d bothered to look up while putting on his pants.
For the first time she wondered if what just happened was a mistake. Inevitable in some ways, but the cause of a growing divide on the other.
“We should have talked before . . .” She glanced at the rumpled sheets and balled-up comforter. “Well, that.”
“Soon.”
“But not now because you need space.” The words actually scratched against her throat as she said them.
All the life and energy had seeped out of her. If she looked down she half expected she’d see her insides on the floor. She wanted to sit on the bed and curl into a ball, but not with him there. She would not break down in front of him or let him know how his cold scowl broke her.
“I need some air.” With his pants unzipped and his long-sleeve shirt in his hand, he nodded.
“Air at your house. Not the air here.”
“Exactly.” Then he was gone.
***
Callen stood in the motel hallway with his back tight against the wall and his breaths slamming in his chest.
It couldn’t be. It absolutely fucking could not be.
He knew Grace’s body as well as his own. He’d touched her, licked her, kissed her everywhere back then as often as he could without looking like he had some sort of problem.
She was long and lean with curves he’d memorized and could almost feel when he closed his eyes. She worked out but refused to skimp on food. He found her love for french fries and refusal to starve herself with crappy salads and pretend she didn’t eat when they were together so sexy.
Maybe she’d gained weight, which wouldn’t matter to him at all. But this felt different. He’d sensed it when his hand slipped under her shirt. The subtl
e way she froze, then shifted her body.
The bump, not soft but firm. Not small, but defined in a way that suggested more than a lifelong love affair with chips.
She was pregnant. No question about it.
And she didn’t make a move to tell him. She stood there, half naked, and kept her mouth shut. Though, to be fair, he suspected from the other side of the bed but didn’t ask. Not then.
The timing had been wrong. He couldn’t discuss this until he could think the situation through and be ready to have a conversation. Though part of him wondered if that time would ever come. He sure didn’t feel civilized enough to engage now.
But now he understood why she stopped him the first time he made a move on her in that motel room. The early comment about not needing condoms fell into place, even though he’d used one tonight.
She said this newest secret without saying it. But he needed to know why she didn’t just spit it out.
His mind spun until he had to lean over with his hands on his knees and inhale deep breaths to keep from throwing up. This was the nightmare. His gene pool unleashed on some poor kid.
The second he’d found out about his mom not being his biological mother he promised this very thing would never happen. He’d enjoy nieces and nephews and spoil the shit out of them, but his fucked-up bloodline would end with him. But now Grace was pregnant, so he barely kept that vow for three weeks.
The bile rushed up his throat.
He stood straight again, gulping air and trying to get his mind to shut off. His muscles went soft and weak. His body fought off symptoms that matched the nasty flu he had last year.
Shit, he was in trouble.
He had to get out of there. To get home and lie across his bed until the waves of nausea and pounding dread left him. Then he could talk to Grace, because she was right—they had to have a conversation. A serious one.
He pushed off from the wall, surprised his legs could carry him. He got the whole way to the staircase before he glanced back at her closed door again.
Her words came back to him with a slap: But now you’re running.
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