Too Much Temptation

by Lori Foster

  Her gaze darkened more and darted to the bathroom sink, where his wet toothbrush lay. “I, ah, I found baking soda in the kitchen and made do.” Holding up a finger like a toothbrush, she demonstrated. “But thank you.”

  “Grace, about last night…”

  She tugged on the hem of his shirt, trying to bring it farther down her thighs and distracting him from what he wanted to say.

  “Are you feeling better?” she asked when he didn’t continue. Her voice had gone all soft and sympathetic, putting Noah on edge.

  It was bad enough that he’d slept with her, that he’d had all those luscious curves under him and couldn’t remember a thing about it; the idea that he might have been a whiny ass, too, was intolerable.

  Through his teeth, Noah said, “I’m fine.”

  “Good.”

  He needed to get back on track. By the second, Grace became more appealing. He almost wished she wasn’t such a sweetheart, in which case he’d already have her panties off her and apologizing would be the last thing on his mind.

  Resigned, Noah gulped down the last of the coffee. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “No need.” Her smile now was genuine. “I didn’t mind. I even…” She blushed. “Well, I enjoyed myself.”

  Noah could only stare. Grace was a lady, always. Not a priss like Kara, but just as proper. Surely more moral. Yet she’d enjoyed herself?

  He heard himself say, “Well, thank God for that.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head and decided a few admissions were in order. “I was so damn drunk, I had no idea if I’d embarrassed myself.” Noah could just imagine how much more awkward this would be if he’d fallen asleep in the middle of things, leaving Grace unsatisfied.

  But God, he wished he could recall her satisfaction.

  Grace frowned. “You don’t ever have to be embarrassed with me. Besides, you were justified.”

  His head started pounding again. Noah set the mug aside and caught her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have touched you, Grace. Drunk or not, whether you liked it or not, that was out of line. You should slap my face, not make excuses for me.”

  She appeared to be holding her breath and staring at his mouth.

  “Grace?”

  “You didn’t,” she gasped out, and her breasts heaved, drawing his attention.

  “Didn’t what?” Noah asked, even as his brain began an erotic fantasy with those bountiful breasts as the focal point.

  “Didn’t…” She gestured between their bodies. “…do what you’re thinking.”

  Noah had meant to make amends, to promise Grace it’d never happen again. He should have been relieved that things hadn’t gone quite as far as he’d feared.

  Instead, disappointment weighed him down.

  “That’s…good, then,” he said. It was better this way, he knew that, but the feel of her under his hands, so smooth and warm, made him forget his resolve. She was close, and she stared up at him with blatant invitation—whether she realized it or not.

  He wanted her now, more than ever.

  “Noah,” Grace murmured in a hesitant whisper, “are you saying you didn’t really want me?”

  The question threw him. “I want you all right.”

  “You’re not drunk this morning?”

  “Dead sober.” He’d never be drunk again.

  “Then…” She shifted, looked up at him. “Okay.”

  His knees almost gave out. Was Grace trying to kill him? He tightened his hold on her upper arms and tugged her the smallest bit closer. “Okay? What the hell does okay mean?”

  “Yesterday you were so drunk, I knew I couldn’t take advantage of you.”

  “You couldn’t…” She left him speechless.

  “I especially wanted to touch you. Leaving you in your boxers wasn’t easy. But I promise, I behaved.”

  She behaved? “Grace, are you saying we really didn’t do anything? As in nothing? As in not even kissing?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Not much.”

  “Oh.” That one word held a wealth of disappointment. “You, uh, well you did kiss me a couple of times. It was…really nice.”

  The timid way she confessed that made Noah want to kiss her again. He had to kiss her. As he leaned down toward her, Grace went on tiptoe to meet him halfway. He took her mouth without his usual care. But then, at the moment, he could barely think, much less summon up any finesse.

  Grace’s lips parted at the first touch of his tongue and he sank deep, groaning and then feeling the responsive bite of her nails on his shoulders.

  Oh yeah. He loved the bite of a woman’s nails.

  Her mouth was hot and sweet and his body tensed with razor-sharp hunger. “Grace…” He kissed her throat, beneath her ear; he drew her skin against his teeth, marking her.

  “You said you wanted me,” Grace admitted on a soft moan. She clung to him, her head tilted to give his mouth free access to her throat. “But I figured it was just the alcohol talking. I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret this morning.”

  Very slowly, awareness sank in. Though it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, Noah forced his hands to open and he released her.

  Christ, he hadn’t touched Grace last night in a drunken stupor, but he was about to lay down with her today, when he wouldn’t even have the excuse of being drunk.

  He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Grace.”

  Silence.

  Noah wanted to kick his own ass. He turned to face her and saw her ravaged expression. Her face had paled, and her arms were crossed defensively.

  Her pain twisted in his heart. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt her. “Gracie…”

  “No, I understand.” She took two hasty steps back—away from him. Her eyes glistened wetly but she didn’t cry. She tried a small laugh that fell flat. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Dumb.”

  Noah had been through the emotional wringer, and none of it had anything to do with his grandmother or his canceled wedding plans.

  It all had to do with Grace. He narrowed his eyes and firmed his jaw. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m twenty-five.” She laughed again. “I should understand these things better.”

  He took a purposeful step forward, crowding her, stalking her. For sixteen years he’d lived on the edge, growing harder each day in order to survive. That hardness was now ingrained in his psyche, and even his grandmother, with all her refined living and influence, hadn’t been able to soften him.

  He’d learned to cover it up, but he’d never conquered it, and now, with Grace standing before him, her body soft and warm and timid, he felt every single rising surge of that primitive past. “These things?”

  His tone brought out her wariness. “Drunken men, sex talk, the combination of the two. It doesn’t mean anything.” She shrugged and again retreated. “It’s okay, Noah, really. If I’d been thinking, I’d have realized…well…” She glanced up at him, then away. “I’d have known you didn’t want me.”

  There were a thousand and one reasons why he couldn’t get involved sexually with Grace Jenkins. None of them mattered in that moment. “You blind, Gracie?”

  “I…what?”

  “You know what a boner looks like?”

  Her face went comically blank, then she shook her head so hard her hair whipped over her shoulders. “Not exactly, no.”

  Noah damn near smiled. Honest, silly Grace. She forever amused him at the most surprising times.

  Noah dropped his arms to his sides and braced his feet apart. “If you’re feeling adventurous, I can drop the towel and show you.”

  Her back straightened. Her gaze crept down his body with agonizing precision until she stared at the way his towel was now tented. “Oh.”

  “Whatdya say, Grace?”

  She reached out and flattened a hand on the wall for support. “I need to sit down for this.”

  “I want you,
Grace. Never doubt that.”

  With her eyes still south of his navel, she swallowed hard, licked her lips, nodded. “I already said okay.”

  “It’d help,” Noah ground out, “if you’d demand an apology or something.”

  Grace snorted. “I’m not stupid.” She forced her chin up and met his gaze squarely. “Besides, I want you, too.”

  Drawn against his will, Noah moved to stand in front of her. She made him feel savage, but she also made him feel protective. “Everything is a mess right now, Grace. No way can I get serious with another woman, no way do I even want to.” Her big eyes were direct, unblinking. “All I want, all I really need, is sex.”

  “Okay.”

  Noah squeezed his eyes shut. “I wasn’t finished.”

  “Sorry.”

  He looked at Grace and saw heated anticipation in the way her eyes had darkened and dilated, in how her cheeks flushed. In how hard she breathed. Signs of arousal, and damn but he felt them, too. The woman could make him insane.

  “Grace, I’m not a refined man.”

  Her lips curled, her eyes got heavy. “You are the best of men.”

  “No, damn it!” Her faith humbled him, but he had to make her understand. “I was raised more on the streets than not. I’m hard, inside and out.”

  “I know.” She gave his chest and arms a telling look. “Your body is…well, I’m speechless. You’re magnificent.”

  His hands curled into fists; the little witch was seducing him and he had to make her understand. “I like to work hard, play hard, and I like to fuck hard.”

  Her mouth slowly fell open.

  “I can pull my punches in a lot of ways when it comes to dealing with others, to fitting in with my grandmother’s world.”

  “It’s your world, too,” she insisted fiercely.

  Noah wrapped one arm around her waist and covered her mouth with his free hand. “Quit trying to defend and protect me and just listen to what I’m saying.”

  Eyes rounded, Grace curled her hands onto his shoulders for balance, but she nodded.

  “You’re right that what happened last night only happened because I was drunk. No, damn it, don’t start looking embarrassed again. If I hadn’t wanted you all along, it wouldn’t have happened. But I did, and then you showed up here and…I was just drunk enough to stop thinking about what I shouldn’t do and start thinking about what I’d like to do instead.”

  “Noah.” Her lips moved against his hand, igniting him. “We both want the same thing.”

  He pressed his fingers more firmly against her mouth. “I want sex. Hot, wet, grinding sex. I want a woman who’s willing to give me her body in any way I want it. But until I get everything else squared away, that’s all I want. No commitments. And God only knows how long that’ll take.”

  She gave an exuberant nod.

  Noah dropped his forehead to hers. “Grace, you don’t know what you’re offering.”

  She caught his wrist and gently freed her mouth. “I’m offering you anything you want. Anything.”

  An explosion of lust made him tremble. He felt on the verge of violence, his need was so strong. “So if I tell you to get naked, to sprawl on the bed, you’ll do it?”

  She blanched, but after a few seconds she said, “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

  “And when I tell you to spread your thighs so I can kiss you?”

  It took a moment before she understood, and then hot color flooded her cheeks. “You don’t mean…” Her voice was a croaking whisper.

  “Yeah, I damn well do mean it. I want to kiss you everywhere, Grace, especially between your legs.” Then, just to push her, he added, “I’ll want you to kiss me everywhere, too.”

  “Oh.”

  She sounded intrigued.

  Noah gently shook her. “I told you I don’t play nice with sex, Grace!”

  Her breath came in small pants as she purred, “We can play however you want.”

  Sweat broke out on his forehead, on his back. His muscles all rippled with tension.

  Through his teeth, he growled, “I’m not going to be satisfied screwing in the dark, under the covers. I’m not going to be satisfied once a week, maybe not even once a day. When I take you…” What the hell was he saying? “Grace, I’ll want to hear you yell and moan and see you squirm and feel you with my hands and my mouth and my tongue, all of you, inside and out. And then I want you to beg for more, until we’re both too damned tired to move or even breathe. I want—”

  She launched herself against him and kissed his chin, his neck, his chest. “Noah!”

  He caught her up and headed for the bed, ready to self-combust. Grace squirmed against him, touching him everywhere, as fierce in her hunger as she’d been in his defense.

  They fell across the bed together. Noah caught her mouth and plunged his tongue deep, tasting her, stealing her breath. His hand closed over her breast and they both froze, groans echoing between them.

  “Grace,” he rasped, feeling her taut, swollen nipple with his fingertips. Her back arched hard.

  And the phone rang.

  He easily ignored it—until the answering machine picked up and his grandmother’s strident voice sounded over the line. “Noah, you’d better be there. Something has happened to Grace.”

  Something was about to happen to Grace.

  Agatha continued. “We argued yesterday—thanks to you—and now she’s not here when she’s supposed to be and no one can locate her. You know she’s never late, and she absolutely never misses work without notice. I’d appreciate it if you’d give me a call. If she doesn’t show up soon, I’m notifying the police.” The line went dead and the machine began rewinding.

  Grace stiffened beneath him and Noah, feeling sluggish, levered himself up. “Grace?”

  “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! What time is it?” She twisted beneath him, looked at the clock and fairly exploded off the bed. “I was supposed to attend a meeting over an hour ago!”

  Noah watched her with narrowed eyes. “Forget the damn meeting.”

  “I can’t!” She shoved her long hair off her face and frantically began gathering her clothes. “You heard what Agatha said. She’ll call the police.”

  “So?”

  Grace looked amazed that he didn’t understand. “So I’d just die if I caused that kind of fuss!”

  The tee was now twisted, Grace’s nipples were ripe and pointed and Noah needed to come, damn it. He needed that a lot.

  Grace stepped into her worn, wrinkled skirt. Apparently, despite their new agreement, she intended to leave. Right now.

  Noah sighed. So much for her accommodating his sexual whims.

  “I’m dying here.”

  “Oh Noah.” She snatched up her bra and began struggling into it—once again beneath the T-shirt. She looked emotionally pained and deeply sincere. “I’m sorry. Really.” She turned her back, whipped off the shirt and yanked on her sweater in record time. She sat on the side of the bed, but when Noah reached for her, she reached for the phone.

  He propped himself on one elbow and took it out of her hand. “What are you doing, Grace?”

  “My car broke down last night, remember?”

  “Honey, if I don’t clearly remember coercing you out of your clothes, you can be certain I don’t remember squat about your car.”

  “Oh.” She tucked in her chin. “Sorry. But my car died on me last night, which is why I arrived here soaking wet and why you coerced me out of my clothes.”

  He nodded slowly, his memory jogged. “Yeah, now I remember telling you that.”

  Her brows rose high. “You’re saying you made it up?”

  “I’m saying I wanted you out of your clothes. Them being wet was a good enough excuse.”

  “Oh.” Grace looked bemused for a moment, then pleased. She leaned down and gave him a smacking kiss. “I’m going to love having sex with you.”

  He groaned, caught between tenderness, amusement and lust so hot he should have been br
eathing fire.

  Grace rose from the bed and again reached for the phone. “I have to call a cab.”

  “The hell you will.” Seeing she wouldn’t be swayed otherwise, Noah forced his tensed muscles to bend and sat up beside her. “I’ll drive you.”

  “But…” She shook her head. “Noah, I’m going to your grandmother’s.”

  “Yeah, I gathered as much.” And from what he’d just heard, no way would he let her face Agatha alone. His grandmother claimed they’d argued last night—thanks to him. No doubt Grace had been busy defending him, and no doubt his hardheaded grandmother had taken exception to her opinion.

  “But Noah…”

  “I’m taking you, damn it.”

  She stiffened. “Don’t take that tone with me! I may have agreed to do whatever you say in the bedroom, but I never said you could boss me anywhere else.”

  Noah grinned as he pulled on his jeans. She agreed to do whatever he said in the bedroom. Life suddenly looked pretty bright.

  “My little sex slave,” he teased, and watched her blush. “Hell, Gracie, the bedroom is the only place I want to direct you, so we’re in agreement.”

  She looked suspicious but finally nodded. “Okay, then.”

  “But,” he added, not about to let her have the last word, “I am taking you to my grandmother’s. And afterward I’m bringing you back here, and we’ll find out just how obedient you can be in bed.”

  Rather than put her off with his autocratic tone, Grace nodded. Her eyes bright with anticipation, she said, “I promise I’ll try my best.”

  Well, hell. She had the last word after all.

  Noah was too busy trying to breathe to argue.

  Chapter Four

  Agatha stepped around Kara, whose lashes were still damp from her most recent crying jag. Annoying, that. Agatha never could tolerate all that whining and whimpering. Of course, the girl had cause. Noah had crossed the line this time, dumping Kara so suddenly. Agatha had to find a way to make him change his mind. It’d be best for everyone, but especially for Noah.

  She had to fix things.

  Funny, but whenever she’d said as much to Kara and her parents, Kara had only cried that much more. Fickle girl. She probably assumed there was no chance; she knew as well as Agatha did how unbending Noah could be once he’d made up his mind about something. His iron backbone proved he was a Harper through and through.