Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(52)

Moments just like this.

She licked out against his tongue and he groaned his pleasure into her mouth as his tongue licked back. He made her smile, her rough and gruff farmer, even as she rocked her pelvis into his, his erection thick and throbbing against her slick skin.

But there was so much more of him she wanted to taste, to run her tongue, her lips, over. She rained kisses across his jaw, his five o’clock shadow scratching her lips in the most delicious way, then down beneath his jaw into the hollow of his neck where she had licked the rain from his skin just a week before.

The storm hadn’t only been brewing outside, it had hit both of them just as hard, just as suddenly. He said she made him forget, but he made her forget, too. Because one kiss, one caress at a time, Grayson had taken the place of every other man she’d ever been with—all of them nothing more than a prelude to the real thing.

To love.

She’d planned to run her hands over his broad shoulders, to kiss every inch of him, but the intensity of their passion for each other ran too deep for her to do anything but grab the condom he’d dropped onto the blanket, tear it open, and lift her hips up so that she could slide it onto his absolutely gorgeous erection.

Grayson’s entire body stiffened while her fingertips grazed his hard flesh, and she understood how hard he was working to keep himself in control for another few seconds—because she was doing the same thing herself.

“You’d better go faster than that,” he growled.

Lori was both grinning and panting as she decided to mess with him just the teeniest bit. “I’m going as fast as I can,” she said, even as she let her hands linger across him, her hips bump just a little against his, the tips of her br**sts slide over his rock-hard pecs as she fiddled with the condom.

“Like hell you are,” he said, and then he was taking the job away from her, his hands moving to her hips a moment later to hold her tightly as she finally took him inside, sliding down over his thick length one perfect inch at a time.

Her eyes fluttered closed, her breath rushing from her body as pleasure overtook her. When she finally figured out how to breathe again and opened her eyes, she found Grayson staring at her with such desire—and such wonder—that her chest clenched so tight that she could actually feel her love for him throbbing between them.

The only way she could keep from saying the words aloud to him was to cover his mouth with hers and focus every last cell, every last muscle in her body, on pleasure, on filling herself with his hard heat again and again and feeling him grow even bigger, even harder inside of her with every stroke.

“Grayson...” She couldn’t see anything but him, couldn’t think anything but his name, couldn’t feel anything other than the deepest pleasure she’d ever known in her life. And as the ocean waves crashed behind them into the jagged rocks along the coast, Grayson was her anchor as he held her so tightly on his lap that she could no longer move. She could only hold on as he thrust up into her again and again until she was crashing hard into a climax so beautiful she was nearly sobbing at the pleasure he gave her.

And as he called out her name, then exploded inside of her as she held him just as tightly as he’d been holding her, she didn’t have to wonder if her body had just told him of the love she hadn’t let herself speak aloud.

All that was left to wonder was whether he’d heard it, too.

* * *

The next afternoon, the sun was already starting to set by the time Grayson found her in the pigpen. “You’re just getting their stalls mucked out now?”

Lori remained amazed both by the way he managed to infuse each word with so much irritation, and by how cute she found it. Not rushing as she finished the final stall, she carefully washed off her rake and hung it up before saying, “I would have finished earlier, but someone made me late for work this morning by not letting me get out of bed.”

As she walked over to him at the gate, he made a face. “You really need a shower.”

“Well, you really are cranky,” she retorted even though she completely agreed with him about how nice a shower would be right about now. “Think a shower can wash that away, too?”

“You think this is cranky?” he growled as he took hold of her and dragged her around the side of the barn. “I’ll show you cranky.”

Before she knew it, he had her standing fully clothed under the outdoor shower. He stripped the wet clothes, hat and boots from her so fast that all she could do was stand there in shock and let him. Only to be doubly shocked when she realized his jeans and boots were already off, too, and he’d put a condom on.

A moment later, he picked her up and drove into her, both of them utterly ravenous for each other despite the fact that it had barely been eight hours since they’d last made love. She didn’t need foreplay, didn’t need anything but his strong arms around her and his fierce desire to drive her straight to the edge, and then all the way over as his lips landed on hers and he drove his tongue into her mouth just as he thrust his hips forward.

Later, when he soaped her up, then made her feel good all over again with his hands and mouth, Lori made a mental note to remember to call Grayson names more often than she already did.

* * *

A few days later, Grayson had just stepped in the back door when he heard Lori’s voice coming from the kitchen.

“Hey Soph, time for my daily check-in so that you don’t think an axe murderer has gotten to me.”