Always On My Mind (The Sullivans #8)(57)

Damn it. Couldn’t a guy declare his love to a girl without getting twenty questions thrown back at him, not to mention heaps of disbelief?

Not trusting himself to speak this time—he’d yell at her and then she’d yell back and then the next thing you knew, there’d be doors slamming, and none of that would be fair when she was still sad about the cat—he picked her up and headed toward the bedroom.

“Where are you going? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to prove to you that I love you, damn it,” he said between gritted teeth.

He tossed her onto the bed. Hard enough that she caught air.

“I just bounced.” She looked utterly amazed by it.

He ripped his clothes off and then came at her. “You’re going to bounce again if you’re not careful.”

Damn it, this wasn’t the sweet, careful wooing that he should be doing to prove that he loved her. But she drove him so crazy he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t stop himself from yanking her shirt and jeans and boots off, too.

“I love you,” he said as he threw her boots across the room, where they hit the wall and fell with a satisfying thud to the floor. “So that means you’re going to have to love something again. I know you hate doing anything I say, but this time you’re going to have to. Because you’re going to love me back. I’m going to make sure of it.”

She only had on her bra and panties now, but suddenly it was irrelevant that he was naked and she was nearly there when she said yet one more time, “You really love me?” as if it couldn’t possibly be true. But behind the disbelief, he heard something else.

Fear.

She’d always acted so sure about everything, even when she wasn’t. His chest clenched at the thought of his proud, brave girl ever being afraid again. He wouldn’t stand for it, wouldn’t let her be scared of anything just because she’d made some crappy choices about men before she met him.

Lori Sullivan had been born to face life down, to laugh, and to dance.

And to be his.

“I’d say it again if I thought you were finally going to believe me,” he said as he pounced on her. He threaded his hands into her incredibly soft hair. “Now be quiet so I can prove to you that I love you. And that you love me, too.”

Of course she opened her mouth to say something, so he covered it with his and kissed the words away.

No more words. He wasn’t any good with those, anyway.

But by the time he was done with making love to her, she’d understand exactly how he felt about her.

He’d make absolutely sure of it.

* * *

Lori remembered the first dance lesson she’d ever had. Her mother had taken her to the studio in downtown Palo Alto and she’d been afraid. She hadn’t let on, of course, that she was scared. Not even when her legs were shaking so hard she was afraid she’d embarrass herself in front of the beautiful teacher. Because one day when she grew up, she wanted to be just like Madame Dubois, tall and slim and proud, her hair pulled back into a bun, her limbs so graceful simply crossing the room to shake hands with her mother. Madame had smiled down at her, then reached out a hand and drawn her into the middle of the room. There were other girls, older ones, stretching along the barres that were placed in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

“Dance for me, Lori,” was what Madame had said, and then, suddenly, she hadn’t been scared anymore. Because dancing was who she was, the very core of her. She’d started leaping and twirling, closing her eyes so that she could dance to the music in her head, a symphony of emotion and beauty.

Now, as Grayson drew her into him and kissed her so sweetly, so perfectly, she remembered that little girl who had danced because she loved it. She hadn’t been trying to please anyone, hadn’t danced for any other reason than because it made her feel whole and perfect and beautiful and so wonderfully alive.

It was just how Grayson made her feel, even in those first days when she hadn’t wanted to feel anything at all.

He loved her.

Disbelief had come first, but that was because she hadn’t been expecting it. And also because he so loved being cranky, even when he was saying he loved her.

But then, there had been fear. Such big fear it threatened to swallow her whole.

Fear that she couldn’t love right this time, fear that she didn’t know how to put love in its place and keep it there safe and pretty and simple, fear that she’d just end up making all the same mistakes she always had.

Lori clung to Grayson as he kissed her and she spun deeper into him, into everything he’d given her without ever wanting to.

She felt so raw from losing Sweetpea, and she knew she would for a long time, but she could also feel Grayson’s kisses already healing her where she was torn and hurting.

He rained kisses over the rest of her face, her eyelids still damp from her tears, and then her forehead and the curve of one ear, before taking her lobe between his teeth. She shivered at the sweet pleasure of the small bite, and then the slow swipe of his tongue over the sensitive skin on her neck.

He was so big, so strong, so tough, and yet no other man had ever been this gentle in bed, this intent on drawing every ounce of pleasure out of her. He moved lower then, his tongue dipping into the hollow of her throat, and she moaned aloud as he laid her back against the pillows so that his hands could follow the devastating path of his mouth and tongue and teeth all along her skin. She arched into his kisses, his caresses, gasping at every perfect kiss.