by Anne Rainey
Squeezing her thighs tore another string of curses from him. She suckled his nipple and felt a sense of feminine satisfaction when Wade growled, “God, baby, I’m going to lose it if you don’t stop.”
The muscles in his neck were straining, and his sinewy arms were anchoring her to him, effectively keeping her in place, forcing her to submit. “Come in me, Wade. Now. Let me feel you fil ing me.” That was al it took. He drove into her fast and hard, pumping like a man gone mad. One last thrust, and he was there, pouring every ounce of his hot seed inside of her pussy.
Gracie let her legs fal to the bed, her chest rising and fal ing as if she’d run a marathon. Wade unlocked the handcuffs, but stayed inside her, staring down at her with fathomless eyes. Suddenly unsure of herself, Gracie looked away.
He cupped her chin and brought her gaze back to his. “You rock my world, Fiery Angel.”
Gracie smiled. Wel , okay then.
“Tel me about your parents.”
Wade felt Gracie stiffen against him. Shit, he’d known opening that can of worms would ruin the mood, but he was intensely curious about her. Gracie was so closed up, holding everything inside. It was time she learned that she could trust him with more than just her body.
“We just made love, and you want to chat about my mom and dad?”
It probably wasn’t the right time, but he couldn’t stop the curiosity. He wanted to know what had made her the independent woman she’d become. The woman he’d been lusting after like some lovesick fool. “Got a problem with that, Gracie?”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. Had Wade not been so attuned to Gracie, he would’ve missed the slight tensing of muscles. “What do you want to know?”
Ah, so she thought to make him play twenty questions. “Everything. And don’t give me an outline either. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, Gracie.”
She started to get up, probably wanting distance between them now. He tightened his arm around her, keeping her cuddled up next to his body. He wasn’t about to let her go. No way in hel . “Where are you going?”
She glared at him. “Isn’t Jonas coming over soon? I thought he was going over those e-mails today.”
“He’s waiting for my text message.” She started to speak, but he stopped her with a finger to her lips. “I know you didn’t have it easy growing up. I have a fair idea why, too. But I want to hear it from you, baby. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
She frowned, and Wade thought it was adorable. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“It makes you uncomfortable, though,” he pushed. He wouldn’t al ow any barriers between them.
She sighed and relaxed against him. “It’s not a pretty picture, Wade. No white picket fences. No cookies and milk waiting for me when I got off the school bus either. My mom was never in the picture. I have no memories of her at al . My grandmother helped raise me, and she was very kind. But she was sick a lot, and she could only do so much. She died when I was ten years old. That left me alone with Dad.”
The sadness in her voice tore a hole in his heart. “And he’s an alcoholic,” Wade inserted, remembering the bel igerent ass who’d shown up at the hospital. How could such an obnoxious fool raise someone as sweet and loving as Gracie? It boggled his mind. He ached for the little girl who had no one to love her, to read stories to her at bedtime. No mother to play dress up with or look up to. He could stil remember Deanna playing with his mother’s makeup and toddling around on heels five sizes too big for her tiny six-year-old feet. What had it been like for Gracie?
“Dad was manageable,” she said, her voice soft, faraway, as if caught in the past. “When Grandma was alive, Dad was actual y kind to me.
She would get on him, and he’d stay sober about half the time. Grandma tried to shield me from his . . . bad days.”
He coasted his hand down her back, soothing her the only way he could. “When she died the drinking got worse?”
“Yeah. He’d go on binges, be gone for days at a time. I did okay, though. Grandma taught me how to take care of myself. By the time I was seven I could cook, do laundry, mop, and do dishes. She even showed me how to balance the checkbook. Now that I look back, I think she was trying to prepare me. I think she knew she wasn’t going to be around forever, and she wanted to do the best she could by me. It was her daughter who left, after al . I think she felt guilty for having raised such a selfish person in the first place.”
Wade reached down and pul ed Gracie’s thigh over his. He needed her close. He needed her to know she wasn’t alone. Never again. “It sounds to me like your grandmother loved you. I don’t think it was al out of guilt. Some of it, but not al .”
She placed her injured wrist on his chest, her fingers playing with his chest hair. He didn’t think she was even aware of what she was doing; her mind wasn’t in the present. “No. You’re right. I’m not being fair. She did love me. She used to pray every night that Mom would come back.
That Dad would get better. She always believed his drinking was a sickness. She couldn’t admit the truth, not even to herself.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah. Grandma couldn’t bring herself to admit that Dad would never get better. That he liked wal owing in self-pity. He enjoyed making me feel guilty for ever having been born. As if it were my fault his wife left him.”
If he’d known what she’d gone through, Wade would’ve beaten the shit out of the asshole at the hospital. He wanted to make him pay for hurting Gracie. “We al make our own choices. He and your mom, they made their beds; they have only themselves to blame. But that doesn’t explain why you choose to keep bailing him out. Why not let him deal with the consequences of his actions?” Silence greeted him. Several seconds stretched by before Wade asked, “Gracie?”
“He’s the only family I have. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m not even sure I do. But, I don’t know, I guess I’m not quite ready to give that up yet, Wade.”
The sadness in her was heartbreaking. He’d thought he could handle anything after serving in the army. He and Jonas had seen some bad shit during their tour, but nothing had prepared him for Gracie’s unshed tears. And that’s exactly what it was, he knew with sudden clarity. Hel , he wondered if she’d ever al owed herself to cry. Always so strong, so cool and col ected. It kil ed him to see her like that. He wanted her blazing hot again. Moaning and writhing beneath him. The way she’d been before he’d opened his big mouth and touched the wounds of her childhood.
“Are you sore?”
She blushed and shook her head.
His cock hardened. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Her voice, so warm and sexy—the sound of it never failed to send his blood pumping hot in his veins. “I want you again.”
Her gaze snared his as she said, “Then take me, Wade.”
Without waiting another second, Wade slipped his hand between her thighs and delved his middle finger into her pussy, which was already wet. “You’re ready, aren’t you?”
“I always feel . . . ready when you’re around.”
Fuck, he didn’t need that image in his head. “You have no idea what that does to me, sweetheart.”
His thumb slid over her swol en clitoris, and he added a second finger inside her, fucking her with slow, gentle strokes. Wade heard her moan, her pussy tightening around his fingers. Gracie closed her eyes, as if reveling in the delicious torture. Christ, how he ached for his cock to feel that soft squeeze!
“You’re so tight, baby. Tight and wet and silky soft.” Al thought fled as Gracie began moving her hips, finding her own rhythm. Suddenly he needed her taste on his tongue. Wade pul ed his fingers free, then licked the slick juices off each one. “Tangy and sweet. But not enough.” He turned her to her back, then moved down the bed. He let his gaze travel up her body until he was staring into eyes the color of emeralds. “Is this my pussy, Gracie?”
She flung her head back and clutched the sheet w
ith her uninjured hand. “Wade, please.”
He gripped her hip, refusing to be swayed. “Say it, angel.”
“Yes, it’s yours!”
“Good girl,” he growled, and then he put his mouth against her slick opening and kissed her. Her hips shot off the bed, and Wade was forced to wrap his hands around her thighs to hold her in place as he teased her delicate flesh with his tongue. Gracie plunged her fingers into his hair and shouted out her climax. Goddamn, it came on so fast; Wade hadn’t been prepared. It staggered him to know how easily she let herself go with him. Gracie so wil ingly gave him her pleasure, with no reservations, no inhibitions. She was one hundred percent real, and she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
Wade kept his mouth against her pussy until the spasms subsided, then he slowly slid his index finger into her wet heat and wiggled. She moaned and gripped his hair in a stinging hold. He pul ed his finger out and touched the slippery digit to her lips, then demanded, “Taste yourself for me.” Mesmerized, Wade watched as Gracie sucked his finger into the dark cavern of her mouth. She closed her eyes and lapped up every drop. “Mmm, see how sweet you are?” Not waiting for an answer, he pried her hand out of his hair and brought himself over her body.
up every drop. “Mmm, see how sweet you are?” Not waiting for an answer, he pried her hand out of his hair and brought himself over her body.
He braced himself on his hands, placed at either side of her head, before positioning his cock at her cleft. “Open your eyes. I want you watching.”
Gracie’s eyelids fluttered open.
Unable to help himself, Wade leaned down and kissed her lightly. He slid his tongue over her chin to her throat, tasting her erratic pulse. Their passion mingled in the air around them. Wade made a leisurely path farther down her body until he reached one pretty nipple. He licked it before nipping it with his teeth. His name breathed past her lips. Succumbing to the needs rioting inside him, he opened wide and sucked the pretty raspberry bud into his mouth. He tasted perspiration, as wel as the addicting flavor of Gracie. This time when he lifted his head she had a smile on her face.
“What’s with the pretty smile, Gracie?”
“It’s you.”
He cocked his head to the side, confused. “What’s me?”
“The way you treat me, with such gentle care. You’re so attuned to every breath I take; every little move I make, you seem to notice. As if I matter. As if . . .”
She cut herself off, but he had a feeling he knew where she’d been headed with her little confession. “As if I care, you mean?”
She nodded.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, little red,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t care.” Wade hooked her legs over his arms and glided his cock slowly into her tight cunt. It was just the smal est amount, but he watched closely as she chewed at her lower lip and clenched her eyes tight, giving away just the tiniest bit of uneasiness. Discomfort from their earlier loving or fear over the fact that he cared about her? He didn’t know, but he did intend to find out.
He let go of her thighs and leaned down to lick at the wound she was causing on her lip, then very slowly pul ed out of her. She whimpered.
“You want me back, baby? Fil ing you, loving you?”
“Yes! Please, don’t stop.”
“Are you sore?”
“No, I swear it.”
She wrapped her legs around him and tried to pul him back, but he wasn’t budging. Not without some answers first. “Then why the frown?”
“You scare me, Wade.”
That hadn’t been at al what he’d expected to hear. “I’d never hurt you, Gracie.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean, the way you make me feel scares me. I have no defenses when it comes to you.”
“Don’t you think it’s the same for me? You could ask me to rob a bank, and I’d probably do it. You have me wrapped, little Gracie.”
She tried to speak, probably to deny his admission, but he stopped her with a hard kiss. The time for words was over. He needed to show her the effect she had on him. He kept his mouth on hers as he touched her swol en pussy lips with the tip of his cock. When he started rocking his hips back and forth, Gracie wrapped her arms around his head and sank into the heat of the moment. Wade licked the seam of her lips and growled low and deep when she opened for him. He control ed his every motion, licking at the inner recesses of her mouth, even as he waited for her tight pussy to open for his intimate invasion. It wasn’t easy, not when al he real y wanted was to thrust, hard and fast and deep. To fuck her the way he’d always imagined. But for Gracie, he would bring nothing but sweet pleasure.
He lifted a bare inch, her breath hot and sweet against his mouth. “You’re so fucking tight, Gracie, and you feel so damned good hugging my cock.” He kissed his way over her face and to her neck where he found that same jumping vein that he now craved. He bit down. Gracie groaned and started moving her hips, thrusting against his lower body, but he was bigger and a whole lot stronger. Wade held her down, keeping her from hurting herself.
“No, baby. Soft and sweet this time,” he whispered as he continued his assault on her tempting pulse.
He had to grit his teeth against the tempting sounds of her eager cries. “Shh, Gracie. You’re tender, and I could hurt you.” To his horror, he saw a tear trickle down her temple. He kissed it away. “Next time you can get on top and ride my cock. I’l let you run the show, I promise.”
Her eyes lit up. “Real y?”
He smiled at her excitement. “Yeah, real y.”
She capitulated final y, relaxing her flexing hips. “You said you liked to be in charge. You’d better not be lying, Wade.”
“Never, baby,” he swore, as he resumed his slow, torturous movements. He took his time, wanting to make it as pleasurable as possible. He feasted at her gorgeous tits, intent on building her passion. “I’m buying you a chain for these rings. And you’l wear it for me, won’t you, baby?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck,” he growled. He could so easily imagine it there. A slim bit of gold hanging between her round tits. “Would you wear it underneath your blouse? To work?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Son of a bitch.” No one but them would know that she wore his chain. That her tits were tied together by the jewelry he’d bought her. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m going to real y enjoy picking out jewelry.”
She smiled, and his world seemed suddenly brighter, warmer. That was Gracie. Light and heat and passion. God, it was fucking beautiful.
Wade thril ed when her inner muscles relaxed for him, and he moved farther into her. Watching for any sign of pain, Wade pushed deeper, fil ing her completely. Now their bodies were fused together, moving in unison. He braced himself on his elbows and watched the expressions chase across her face. Desire turned to blazing passion. With a gentle rocking motion, Wade made love to her. And that’s exactly what it was
—love. He’d never needed to be slow with a woman, never wanted to coax forth an orgasm with tender thrusts. Looking down at Gracie, her sweat-soaked red hair, the tenderness shining in her green eyes, Wade knew this moment would forever be etched into his soul. When he reached between their bodies and flicked her little button, her back arched, and her little moans turned to cries of ecstasy. He fol owed right behind her, fil ing her with his hot come.
He very nearly col apsed on top of her, but the thought of how sore she must be kept his muscles from going lax. He wanted to comfort her.
Give her nothing but sweet memories.
Sliding out of her boneless body, Wade went to the master bath and turned on the water to begin fil ing the tub. He looked around and realized he didn’t have any bubble bath. Shit. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo and dumped a good portion into the water. Bubbles started to appear. Satisfied, he went back out to Gracie. Her eyes were closed, and she had a dreamy smile on her lips. His body burned at the sight of her in his bed, so replet
e and at ease. As he bent down and wrapped his arms around her back and behind her knees, her eyes popped open.
“Time for a bath, sweetheart,” he explained. He took her to the bathroom and set her on her feet. She swayed a little, but caught herself.
Gracie looked around, then stared at the rising water in the Jacuzzi-style tub. “Does that thing have those massaging jets?”
Wade reached over and flipped a switch. The jets kicked on, and Gracie grinned up at him. “I’m real y going to enjoy this.”
He swatted her ass, and she yelped. “I plan on seeing that you do.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle, as if nervous al of a sudden. “Uh, you are?”
“Yep.” He winked at the heat fil ing her cheeks. “Just consider me your own personal bath toy. You can rub me al over your sexy body or just let me lie there in the bubbles while you wash. Either way, I’l be as happy as a clam. Besides, you’l need help if you want to keep the cast dry.”
She laughed, and her arms loosened a fraction. “You’re so outrageous.”
Unable to help himself, Wade leaned close and whispered, “You have no idea, baby.” Then he kissed her.
13
Wade watched her sleep. Damn, she’d been out for hours. After their bath, Gracie had cal ed the doctor about the pain medicine. He’d instructed her to take half a pil , which seemed to do the trick. Wade had tucked Gracie back into bed, then quickly slapped together a couple of ham-and-cheese sandwiches for the two of them. The instant Gracie had finished hers off, she’d started sawing logs.
Now, with her round bottom cradling his dick, he had to bite back a groan. He wanted to fuck her there. She’d be so damned tight. He wanted to see his come dribbling out of the tight pucker of her ass.
Shit, he wanted her again! His cock was as hard as a hammer. He’d always enjoyed sex, but he’d never been so damned hungry for a woman before.
As Gracie blissful y slept, unaware of the turmoil she caused simply by being Gracie, Wade had the terrifying feeling that he’d stil want her fifty years from now. A few times between her supple thighs should have been enough to ease his need. At the very least quel the urge for a few hours. Al it’d done was addict him further. He’d been such an idiot to think he could have sex with Gracie Baron and walk away unscathed. She lay beside him like Sleeping Beauty, so serene and at peace, and he had the insane urge to keep her that way. To slay al her dragons and make al her dreams come true.