Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(46)

But right now, with need roiling around inside her, Lori didn’t feel grateful at all.

On the contrary, what she felt was a clawing need to claim—and be claimed by—Grayson, once and for all.

Only, once she finally got his shirt on and was sitting in her seat, instead of starting the engine and burning rubber so that they could continue where they’d left off, he just sat there and glared at her. Three back-to-back orgasms with no big finale in sight made her ornery as she glared back.

“What’s your problem now?”

“I’m waiting for you to put your goddamned seatbelt on.”

She started at his tone, and the hardness of his gaze that had been so full of hunger just seconds before, and was opening her mouth on a sarcastic retort when she remembered what she couldn’t believe she’d almost forgotten: he’d lost his wife in a car crash. No wonder he was so adamant about her putting her seatbelt on, even in the wake of what they’d just been doing with one another.

With trembling hands, she snapped her seatbelt into place, at which point Grayson pushed the gas pedal down hard enough that gravel sprayed out from his tires.

* * *

Minutes felt more like hours as Grayson forced himself to take the dark farm roads just barely above the speed limit. And then—finally!—he was pulling into his drive.

Lori was about to jump out onto the gravel when he caught her in his arms. “You left your shoes at the dance.”

“You had no problem with me walking around in bare feet on the gravel before,” she reminded him.

He nuzzled her cheek and breathed in her sweet, wild, oh-so-feminine scent. “That was before I liked you.” Grayson was stepping on his porch and was about to kiss her again when he realized she was pushing at his chest.

“I think all the excitement has made my ears go wonky,” she declared. “What did you just say?”

God, he could hardly think at all with her soft and warm in his arms, his long-sleeved shirt falling open over her beautiful br**sts. He kicked his front door open and tried to remember, but all he could come up with was, “I don’t want you tearing up your feet on the gravel.”

“No,” she said, “after that.”

He’d had so many fantasies of Lori naked and begging for him to take her here in his bedroom, that as he carried her into it, her question was instantly forgotten. He laid her down on the covers, pulled the shirt he’d given her to wear in the truck all the way open, and slid it from her body.

Sweet Lord, he wanted to start all over from the beginning, wanted to make her come another three times with his hands, his mouth.

Just as he was lowering his mouth to her br**sts, she said, “Did you even mean it?”

Reluctantly moving his mouth away from her chest, he cupped her br**sts in his hands and teased the ni**les with his thumb and forefinger instead until they were sharply aroused points. “Did I mean what?”

Now she was the one losing hold of their conversation. “That—” She arched deeper into his hands. “You—”

He took advantage of her confusion to lick across one tip and then the other, loving the way she gasped with pleasure as he tasted her. He was just sliding one hand down her flat stomach to the bare, slick flesh between her legs, when she finally got all the words out.

“You said you liked me, Grayson.”

Again, it took him longer than it should have for her words to actually make it all the way through to his brain. Especially when he had his hand cupped over her sex and he could feel how wet, how ready she was for him.

But when he lifted his gaze to hers, and he saw the surprising vulnerability in them, he finally understood what she was asking: Was he just making love to her tonight because he wanted her body?

Or had they, against all odds, developed a deeper connection than that?

Grayson knew he shouldn’t have let her stay on his farm all week, and that he definitely shouldn’t be taking her to his bed now. He also knew that he should be working overtime to keep tonight to nothing but sex.

But knowing all those things hadn’t made a damn bit of difference so far, had they?

“I do like you, Lori,” he admitted in a low voice. “More than I should.”

“I like you, too,” she whispered as she reached out to gently touch his face. “More than you know.”

Her eyes were full of such sweet emotion that his heart stuttered in his chest.

For three years he’d sworn to himself that nothing—and no one—would ever touch him again. But he’d never counted on Lori Sullivan blowing past every wall, every fortress in less than one week.

And it scared the hell out of him.

Chapter Eighteen

Grayson knew what he needed to do. He needed to stop them from going any further, just as he had in the cottage. He needed to turn his back not only on desire, but on affection as well. Because while he hadn’t been a monk these past three years, there hadn’t been any risk at all of emotional connection with the women he’d slept with.

But with Lori, everything was at risk.

“Grayson.”

His name on her lips had him refocusing on her, and when he did, he was surprised to find her smiling as she gazed back at him. He could still see desire in her beautiful eyes, but more than that, he realized there was understanding.

Understanding he’d done nothing whatsoever to deserve.