by LuAnn McLane
Scooping her up in his arms, he headed to the master bedroom and put her down on the big bed. “You smell delicious. And now I need a taste.”
Arabella gasped when Grady tugged her to the edge of the bed and then, spreading her legs, hooked her ankles over his shoulders and buried his head between her thighs. He kissed her, licked her, used his tongue, his lips, and his fingers until she fisted her hands in the covers, arched her back, and cried out. He could feel her throb and pulse with his tongue while she rode out her orgasm, but instead of stopping he licked her oh so lightly, flicking where she was pink and swollen.
“No . . . it’s too much . . .” she pleaded. Pulling back, he parted her folds and let the cool air caress her while she panted and quivered. When she calmed down, he dipped his head and kissed her, letting the stubble of his chin drive her wild. “Grady . . . God . . .” She tried to push up from the bed but she couldn’t, and when he sucked gently he felt her come again. He could tell by her low, throaty cry that her orgasm was intense. She used to tell him that he could wring more pleasure out of her than should be humanly possible, not letting up until she all but melted into a pool of sizzling sensation.
Grady stood up and gazed down at her naked beauty, flushed skin, rosy nipples, full breasts. Her chest rose and fell with each intake of breath, and, unable to restrain himself, he leaned in and took one taut nipple into his mouth. Knowing she was sensitive from her orgasms, he licked lightly but then nibbled just sharp enough to make her whimper. She blindly grabbed at his shoulders.
“Get . . . naked,” she pleaded in a husky tone that sounded like velvet.
Grady made quick work of shedding his clothes. Thank God he’d brought condoms. Tearing open a packet with his teeth, he rolled one on and joined her on the bed. When he slid his body next to hers she sighed. Her warm, soft skin, the fullness of her breasts, pebbled nipples against his chest drove Grady wild with need. Every nerve in his body seemed to be on high alert. His hearing became more acute . . . their breathing, a sigh, a low moan, the whir of the paddle fan, the light rustle of his hand across the cover. Her sweet floral perfume mingled with the scent of woman and the spice of his aftershave. The aroma of vanilla candles wafted from the bathroom, curling through the air, swirling around them. When Grady licked her neck, Arabella tasted sweet, and the hint of peppermint candy on her lips had him dipping his tongue into her mouth for more.
Grady kissed her tenderly, wondering if she knew how much he still loved her. But he couldn’t say it aloud, so he showed her with his hands, his mouth. Knowing she needed a few minutes to recover, he toyed, teased, played until he was nearly insane with needing to be buried deep inside her body. He wanted her silky heat to be wrapped around him, squeezing his cock, but he held back, wanting the first time in this bed to last.
And when Grady’s fingers felt her silky and wet yet again, he came up to his knees, spread her wide, and then thrust deeply, fully in, as far as he could go. He made love to her slow and easy while he watched her. Beautiful. Enchanting. Sexy. Moving with his rhythm. He loved the jiggle of her breasts, and he watched while he pulled nearly all the way out and then slid back in, over and over into her slick warmth. She bit her bottom lip and pressed her hips upward until he was buried to the hilt.
Her eyes remained closed, and the rich color of her hair contrasted with the light blue bedspread. Her body was small but so lush, so gorgeous. Grady remembered her pleasure points, knew just which angle would drive her wild.
He knew the point when she wanted him to go faster, harder, but he held back, still wanting to keep her at the brink for as long as he could, until she needed to come more than she needed to breathe.
“Grady . . .”
Her soft plea was his undoing and he tilted her up, thrusting deep, pulling out to the tip and then giving her all of him, the way he knew she liked making love. Grady loved the elegant slope of her shoulders, the arch of her neck when she pushed her head against the pillows. Her hair fanned out all around her, rich, beautiful. Grady would forever have this sight, this picture in his mind to go back to and revisit over and over.
Arabella’s throaty cry of his name sent Grady flying over the edge, and he felt a hot surge that seemed to start at his toes and fly through his body. He shuddered at the fierceness, the powerful pleasure that only she could tear from him. With a low moan Grady stayed there, cupping her ass, possessing her, loving her, never wanting the exquisite moment to end.
And when she finally opened her eyes, she couldn’t hide the raw emotion there. Her breath caught, but when she would have looked away, Grady cupped her chin and kissed her, telling her without words how much he still cared. Finally, he pulled out and rolled to the side.
For a few moments, they remained silent. Grady tried to think, to process how intense it was when he was with Arabella.
“Why did you come here?” Arabella asked.
“Because you’re the sexiest woman on the planet.”
“Grady . . .”
“Because I had to see you,” he said simply. “To be with you,” he added, knowing it sounded like all he wanted was the sex. But how could he tell her that seeing her in this house was nearly too much for him to bear? How could he begin to explain that he’d needed her when his mother was at her worst? That she had gutted him when she hadn’t given him the chance to explain?
“Grady . . .” she said again, and being with her here, in the place where he wanted her more than anywhere else, was suddenly overwhelming.
“Sorry . . . I need to go to the bathroom . . . to . . . you know.”
She nodded silently, and he rolled to the edge of the bed and stood up.
In the bathroom, Grady looked at his reflection and then splashed cold water on his flushed face. Despite everything, he wished he could tell Arabella how much he loved her and that he couldn’t even bear to think about the day she was going to leave again. He wanted to spend the night with her in the house that was supposed to be theirs and not his. But he couldn’t hide out in the bathroom forever, and since he was nude, escaping through the window wasn’t an option unless he wanted to chance driving home naked. Damn. After a few more heavy breaths, he dug deep for courage and opened the door.
Arabella had changed into little cotton short-shorts and a pink T-shirt, which made her look cuter than imaginable. “Are you hungry?” she asked lightly, but he could tell she was feeling emotional as well.
“Starving.” He tugged his shorts on but left his shirt off, knowing she liked to see his bare chest. She might not trust him, but he could damn well get some satisfaction out of making her want him constantly. Even after all these years, he still knew what drove her wild. A kiss to the tender part of her neck, a nip at her earlobe, a featherlight caress up her legs. “Want me to fire up the grill?”
“I grilled the chicken earlier, but I drank a few glasses of wine in the bathtub instead of eating,” she said rather sheepishly. “How about a couple of salads with sliced chicken on top? I’ve got honey-mustard dressing. The kind we like,” she said, and then looked away.
“Still my favorite,” Grady said with a smile. They remembered so much about each other, and even back when they’d first been together, they’d tried to please each other with little, simple gestures, noting likes and dislikes. Grady knew her favorite flavors, colors, preferred brands. She feared heights and spiders, and could not watch horror movies. “Sounds really good. I’m sure it’s cooled off enough that we could sit on the back deck and hear the ocean,” he said lightly, but the unspoken words hung heavily in the air.
“Lulls me to sleep at night.” She smiled softly. “This house is just perfect. Did you have a hand in designing it?”
“Every step of the way, down to the last detail.”
“Well, you did an excellent job,” Arabella said brightly, but something flickered in her eyes, making Grady want to tell her that every detail, from the colors t
o the window placement, was meant to please her.
“Thank you. I’ll never sell it. This house means too much to me.”
Arabella nodded. “I feel the same way about my granny York’s little brick house. My father is getting remarried and is going to sell it,” she said sadly.
“In Cincinnati?”
Arabella nodded.
“Are you going to buy it?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I’ve invested all I have in Hip, Hop, Health. So . . . I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Grady knew how much she had loved her grandmother, and that house had been her sanctuary. He wanted to tell her right then and there that he would make a phone call and buy it, if she wanted him to. How would she react? Maybe if he just made a discreet call to her father?
“So, you’ll move back in here after the concert?” Arabella asked.
“What? Oh . . .” Grady shook his head slowly, still stuck on her grandmother’s house. “No, like I said, I just come here occasionally. And I enjoy having my brothers over to the family house by the pool. We’ve got so many memories there. Another perk of doing the reunion concert. Even though we live so close to one another, we didn’t really hang out all that much. This concert has brought us back together in more ways than one.”
“I get that, but it seems like such a waste to have something this pretty sit empty so often.”
“You’re welcome to stay here whenever and as often as you want to.” Like . . . forever.
“Thank you,” Arabella said, and looked at him for an unguarded moment. He saw such need in her eyes. . . . Could it be that deep down she still loved him too?
But what was love without trust? Didn’t those two things go hand in hand? He knew that her father had given her reason to be wary, but still. . . .
Grady walked closer to her, suddenly needing her to know the truth once and for all. “Arabella, about that . . . that night.”
CHAPTER TEN
IF YOU STAY
“No.” Arabella stood on tiptoe and silenced Grady with a gentle fingertip to his lips. “We can’t go there, Grady. There’s too much pain associated with that horrible night and I just can’t handle it. We’ve made our truce and it’s been working for us.”
“But—”
“No, I don’t want to complicate things between us right now and have it screw up the progress we’ve made and all the hard work we’ve put in. This concert means a lot to me too. I want it to be a huge success, so let’s just go downstairs and have a nice, quiet dinner. Finish up the bottle of wine.”
Grady gave her a long look, sighed, and then glanced away.
Part of Arabella wanted to hear what he had to say. Could he possibly have been innocent? With the tight security, it would have been nearly impossible to get into Grady Heart’s dressing room without his consent. Still, her heart thudded at the thought.
But she knew clinging to his guilt made it easier for her. Because if he was somehow innocent after all that, her running away, losing the baby . . . God. She put a hand to her stomach and swallowed hard.
“Need a peppermint?” he asked in such a gentle tone that she nearly burst into tears. He had the right to know that she’d been pregnant. But how could she tell him after all this time? What good would it do? The thought made her stomach lurch. “Arabella, are you okay?”
Arabella nodded. “I think maybe I’m just hungry,” she said, but she had no idea how she would even begin to consume food. “Let’s just drop this conversation and eat dinner. Or better yet, start with a glass of red wine.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “But only because I don’t want to make things awkward between us again. But once this concert is over, I want to have a long talk.”
“I don’t see the point in dredging up the past,” Arabella said, feeling panic rising in her throat. “We were young and—”
“No,” Grady interrupted with more bite than she’d expected. “Arabella . . .” he added in a pleading tone, but she couldn’t listen.
“Just stop!” Raising her hands, Arabella backed away and came up against the bedroom wall. She looked up at him, so close to tears that she needed to glance away, but he tilted her chin upward so that she had to face him.
“I was innocent that night,” he said. “I don’t know how the hell that girl managed to get into my dressing room, but I didn’t touch her. I didn’t want to touch her. I loved you. How in the world could you think otherwise?” The pain in his voice was difficult to hear.
Arabella’s heart hammered in her chest, and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he spoke the truth.
“I still love you,” he said. The tremor in his voice went straight to her heart and squeezed it. When a hot tear slid down her cheek, he gently swiped it away with the pad of his thumb. “Do you believe me?”
God . . . oh God. Arabella inhaled a shaky breath and gave him a small nod. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why didn’t you give me the chance to explain? How could you not return my calls? Didn’t you listen to the voice mails? Arabella, I pleaded . . . came close to begging you to listen to me.”
“No, I deleted them all.”
“Why?” he asked, and the simple question seemed to echo in the room. “Help me understand.”
“I wanted to.” But Arabella couldn’t tell him that she’d been too devastated to think straight. Now, looking back, she knew she’d been irrational and full of hormones, emotion, and fear. She’d been so young. Too afraid to see how he would take the news . . . so she’d fled, scared and torn apart. And then . . . “I just couldn’t. I didn’t even want to hear your voice. Don’t you get it? I was destroyed. And afraid you’d find a way to lure me back.”
“Look, I know your history, that your dad cheated and that trust was a huge issue with you. I also know it had to be so damned hard being the girlfriend of a pop star. I get all that. But, Arabella, our love for each other was so damned strong. I thought it could withstand anything. How could you just leave without looking back? How could you trust me so very little?”
“Fear,” she replied, but had to look away. “And what you did afterward.”
“Afterward?”
“Grady, I couldn’t walk past a magazine stand or tabloid without your face plastered on it—and you were never alone.”
“Tabloids?” Grady closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “Oh yeah, they’re credible. How many times did they have us secretly married? Broken up? You pregnant?” he said, and her heart skipped a beat. “Give me a break.”
“Well, you sure were in a seemingly endless amount of pictures with a new girl every week.”
“Seems like you took plenty of notice.”
Arabella shrugged. “I tried not to.”
“I wanted you to be jealous. I hoped you’d see the pictures and—”
“Be hurt?” Arabella said.
“Hell, I don’t know.” Grady raised his hands skyward. “I guess I wanted to prove to you that after you left I could go on with my life. Get past you. But I fucking couldn’t. Arabella, you thought I’d cheated on you with some random girl. That pretty much showed me what you thought of me and it hurt like hell. So yeah, I was trying to get you out of my system.”
“Yeah, but all those pictures just hammered home that I was right. And seriously, what would you have thought if you walked into my room and there was a smiling, naked guy in my bed? And if I were wrapped in nothing but a damned towel! Grady, the look of horror on your face was practically screaming that you were guilty.”
“I was horrified that she was there!” Grady paced across the room and then turned around. “Sure, I would have wigged out if I’d found a guy in your room. I’ll give you that. But I also would have given you a chance to tell your side of the story. I would have listened. I wouldn’t have run away and never looked back. And above all else, I wo
uld have believed you.” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “And I would have kicked his ass.”
“Oh God . . . I was . . . I was . . .” Arabella began, but she couldn’t reveal the truth. Not now, with the concert so close on the horizon. Maybe not ever. Arabella put her hands over her face, unable to look at him.
“Bella, you’re right,” he said in a softer tone. The use of her nickname made her want to fall into his arms, but she stood her ground. “It looked bad and, like you said, we were both so young, followed around by the paparazzi and put into situations that were difficult for us both. But when you didn’t take my calls, I acted out by becoming what you thought I was. And a lot of it was still hype. Devin encouraged me because it played up the bad-boy image that the girls loved. He fed into it. Fueled the fire to keep the gossip going. You know that teenage romance between Oliver and Belinda Beal? Completely fake and orchestrated to boost her career. If Mom had still been in control none of that would have happened, but she had to stay in Sea Breeze instead of going on the world tour. A tour we didn’t want to do, because we wanted to be with her, but she played her illness down and wanted us to get the chance to see the world, so we went ahead with it even though our hearts weren’t really in it.” Grady scrubbed a hand down his face. “I should have put an end to a lot of things back then. But at that point I really didn’t give a shit. And Arabella, without you, Heartbeat lost a lot of the energy, the fun. Devin could feel us losing our steam, and so he turned to the media to keep the popularity alive. Damn, I missed you. Needed you.”
“Oh wow,” she whispered. His admission squeezed her heart.
“My brothers missed you too,” Grady continued. “You were like a sister to them. And then Mom got worse. . . .” When his voiced cracked, Arabella rushed into his arms. “And we came home.”
“Grady,” she said against his chest. “I’m so sorry. I was so stupid, but I—”
“Shhh, I know,” Grady interrupted, nodding.
“I can’t even imagine. Losing both of your amazing parents . . .”
