I Love How You Love Me(The Sullivans)(26)

Kissing Dylan wasn’t about weakness, wasn’t about not having enough self-control. On the contrary, it was about being strong enough to let herself have what she wanted.

What she needed.

Her heart jumped in her chest and she lost her breath as he loved her mouth so tenderly. So seductively. Locking her arms around his neck, she all but melted against him, and knew from the low groan he gave just how much he liked having her pliant and aroused against him.

“Soft.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then more down across her cheek. “You’re so soft.” She lifted her chin so that he could nibble at the underside of her jaw. “You smell so good.” He ran his lips down the sensitive skin of her neck, nibbling at her between kisses. “You taste so sweet.” His hands were warm on the small of her back, warmer still as he slipped them just beneath the fabric to rest on her bare skin. But instead of taking the next step and pulling her shirt off over her head, he said, “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”

She loved that he was a man of such deep contrasts. So sweet, so gentle…and yet so full of passion and desire. Desire that she could feel him barely holding back, barely controlling.

All because he wanted her with the same ferocity as she wanted him.

“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

Grace felt hot and tingly beneath her clothes. And from the first moment she’d seen him, she’d wondered about what he had beneath his. Any woman with a beating heart would have. Now was her chance to stop wondering and find out.

Forcibly pushing away any lingering thoughts that she was forgetting all of her hard-won lessons and the vows she’d made not to repeat her mistakes, she reached for the hem of his shirt and quickly pulled it up. He was more than happy to help, drawing back and lifting his arms so that she could take it all the way off.

Grace obviously wasn’t a virgin. Not even close, if that slightly wild year she’d had back in college counted. But…oh my…there wasn’t a man alive who could have prepared her for the way Dylan Sullivan looked without his shirt. Tanned and muscular. Lean and honed from daily sails and woodworking.


Perfect.

She didn’t think, couldn’t think anymore, could only lay her hands flat on his chest. His skin was so warm and his muscles jumped beneath her fingertips as she explored his incredible male beauty. She was a terrible painter—putting words together was the only art she’d ever been good at—but if she could draw, she’d want him to model for her.

But it wasn’t enough just to look, to touch. She had to put her mouth on him, too. Her lips had only just touched his shoulder when a low, rough sound rumbled from his chest. She barely had a chance to slick her tongue against him when she found herself lying back against the arm of her couch with Dylan’s hands in her hair and his kisses stealing her breath.

Every taste she took of him, instead of sating her the way she’d expected, only made her more ravenous. Every kiss they shared only made her want more. More of his tongue tangling with hers. More of his teeth nipping into her lower lip. More of his heady need for her.

She’d been wanted before, but never like this. And never by a man so beautifully put together or so in tune with how to give a woman pleasure. It was perfectly natural to fall deeper and deeper into his kiss, and to relish how good his hands, big and rough from working with wood and rope and tools all day, felt moving over her skin. The way he was gentle and yet powerful all at the same time—barely skirting that edge of control—made Grace melt into his touch.

Loving the heavy weight of his body over hers, she instinctively wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer. She wanted more. More. More. But then, suddenly, she felt him shift farther away, rather than closer.

As she blinked up at him through eyes gone blurry with lust, while he ran his hands over her face, shoulders, and then the full lengths of her arms until he reached her hands, where he threaded their fingers together, she thought she knew why. Dylan wasn’t stopping because he didn’t want her. She could see, could feel, just how much he did.

The reason he’d reined them both in was because he was afraid of pushing her too far.

Because he cared.

He could easily have continued to seduce her with kisses and caresses until she was too mindless to be able to think at all. Until she wasn’t able to make choices, only soak in sensation. Until it was too late for her to realize that they were crossing the line between feeling blissfully alive and feeling regretful.

But the truth was that stopping here, stopping now, when they hadn’t gone any further than two teenagers necking on the couch—that was something she’d definitely regret. Especially if this was her one and only chance to allow herself the wonder of Dylan’s touch.

She didn’t want to break the sexy spell, but she needed to be completely honest with him right now, or moving forward wouldn’t feel right for either of them.

“I can’t have sex with you tonight.” Because for as good as it would be, and she had no doubt that her body would rejoice, her mind and heart weren’t even close to being ready for such intimacy. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that again. But—” She licked her lips, watched his hungry gaze shift momentarily to her mouth before they locked on her eyes again. “I do want this. I want you. I want your body against mine. I want your mouth, your hands on me. I want—”