by Eden Bradley
“That’s why I spent so much time with your family once Brandon and I met each other. Why I went on every camping trip with you guys, ate dinner at your house every week, spent Christmas Eve over there. I imagine your family got pretty sick of me, but they never turned me away.”
But in their grief they’d turned away from Summer Grace. He knew what that felt like. Too well. And damn it, he should have been there for her. His stomach clenched. He’d do better now. It already felt like an oath.
“I was never sick of you, Jamie,” she said quietly.
He took one of her hands and kissed her soft palm. “Not until last year, anyway.”
One corner of her lush, lovely mouth lifted. “This is the second time you’ve said that. I thought you understood.”
“I did. I do. But I didn’t say I liked it. I didn’t say there wasn’t a bit of stomping and brooding because you’d given up on me. But I deserved it.”
She shrugged. “You did—I can’t argue with that. But it wasn’t an easy decision. I think in a way you were the only thing that held me together for a long time. You have to have something to hang on to, you know, Jamie?”
“Fuck, Summer Grace. And I let you down. I was supposed to look after you—”
“And you did. You were so there for me right after he died. It was you at the hospital letting me cry all over you, letting my mom do the same. And my father, that first night out in the hall. I couldn’t let either of you know I was there, but I’ll never forget that. I saw his tears. I saw you pat him on the shoulder, which was the only comfort he ever allowed, I think. From anyone. And then when I was in high school you chased off all the bad boys I would have dated—oh yes, don’t think I didn’t know the whole time it was you. But that only made you seem more like a hero to me. And then . . .” She paused, sniffed. “You used the Rae name when you branded your shop, which has always felt like it was as much for me as it was to honor Brandon’s memory, and I don’t care if I’m wrong about that. It’s comforted me. But I’ve come to understand things, Jamie. We were both grieving. We were surviving. If I’d slept with you before now, before you really wanted to, it wouldn’t have been good for me in the end, either.”
It broke his heart a little to hear the words come out of her mouth—the way she’d put him on a pedestal, when he was so fucking fallible. To hear the pain beneath the words as she remembered those awful days after losing her brother. And to know he’d let her think he didn’t want her. For years. He’d had to—or he’d thought so until recently—but still, it left a dark, burning hole in his heart. “Ah, sweetheart. If you only knew how badly I wanted you the entire time.”
“You did?”
She gazed at him with wonder and trust in her eyes, in the softness of her features. So damn pretty, this girl. Prettiest girl he’d ever seen. It had been true back when she was only fourteen—in his reprehensibly perverted mind—and it was even more true now. But he could let it be. Because Summer Grace was no longer forbidden. How had it taken him so long to come to this place? How had it even happened that they were there together, finally? Talking in a way they should have a long time ago.
He understood how vulnerable she’d allowed herself to be with him just now—maybe even more than when they’d played, when they’d had sex. So had he. It was the connection between them that had allowed him to open up to her. But he didn’t want to think of what they’d discussed—not right now. No, now he wanted to touch her. Take care of her. Because something in those beautiful blue eyes told him she was as raw as he was.
He swept her hair back from her cheek, loving the way she blushed when he did it. When had Summer Grace Rae ever blushed? Only once or twice in all the years he’d known her, and both times recently, with him. But it spoke even more deeply about the space she was in at that moment.
“Hey, sugar,” he said softly. “You know what I want to do? I want to run a bath for you and let you soak in the hot water. Maybe get in with you. Then I want us to order some food and feed my growling belly. Then I’m taking you to bed.”
Her eyes widened. “What happens then?”
He grinned at her. “Baby, if you need to ask then you don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”
Her face sobered. “I think I know you better than anyone.”
“Yeah, you do. Come on.”
He picked her up and she was like a doll in his arms—that small, that delicate. He carried her to the bathroom, where he set her carefully on her feet. She started to move toward the big, old-fashioned claw-foot tub, but he put a hand on her arm.
“I’m running this bath, sugar.”
“Bossy, bossy.”
“Damn right.” He turned the knobs, adjusting the temperature. “Bath salts?” he asked.
“If you’re asking my preference, yes, but unless you want to smell like a girl we’d better skip it.”
“I won’t mind smelling like you. It’ll be like wearing you all over me.”
She laughed. “That was a little Silence of the Lambs.”
He shook his head. “Stop sassing me, girl. Get your bath salts.”
She grabbed a jar from a standing shelf next to the tub, opened the top and held the jar out. “Have it your way. Smell like a girl.”
He took the jar and whipped her blanket off in one deft move, smacking her bare bottom.
“Hey!”
“Are you complaining, Summer Grace?”
She smiled, batted her lashes, then she turned around and bent over a little, making him laugh. “Only at your insistence on using my middle name.”
“You are really asking for it.”
“Yes, but you like that about me.”
“I do, indeed.” Opening the jar, he discovered where that scent of violets came from. He dumped a handful of the salts in the running water, then picked her up. “In you go.”
* * *
SUMMER HUNG ON to his hand as she lowered herself into the filling tub, the hot water feeling wonderful on her bare skin. “What about you? Aren’t you coming in?”
He smiled and began to unbutton his shirt, and she found her entire system aching with need as his beautifully muscled body was revealed inch by inch. He took off the shirt and she nearly sighed over the breadth of his shoulders, the light gold of his skin, the way his pierced nipples hardened as they met the damp evening air. Even the simple line of Latin script tattooed down his right side was like some sort of fetish to her. He kicked off his boots, then unbuttoned his jeans and she sat back to watch her private strip show with the hottest man ever born. The only man she’d ever felt this driving, burning need for.
He pulled the worn denim down over his strong thighs, his thick, half-hard cock springing free. She had to swallow another sigh. He really had the most beautiful cock she’d ever seen, so long and thick, the flesh such a lovely pale golden color, the head so perfectly shaped. She squeezed her thighs together beneath the warm water. He moved toward the bathtub, then knelt down on the bath mat beside it.
“Aren’t you getting in?” she asked, disappointed.
“In a bit. But I need to take care of my girl first.”
Her stomach knotted, partly with barely restrained joy and partly in stark fear. His girl? That had come out of his mouth all too easily. Or maybe she was reading too much into it.
Relax. Just enjoy this.
She leaned back in the tub, watching him as he took the giant sea sponge she’d hung over the spout on its attached cord and dunked it in the water. He picked up the bottle of liquid soap and sniffed it.
“Violets, too.”
“Is that good?”
“Oh, it’s very good.”
He squeezed the soap onto the sponge and lifted one of her feet out of the water. And ever so gently he began to wash her. His face was a study in concentration as he smoothed the sponge over her toes, up her leg, and she
couldn’t remember any man focusing so purely on her. It made her heart beat faster, the desire simmering with some emotion she couldn’t find a name for. It was some exotic blend of comfort and excitement. And some part of her could barely believe this was happening to her—it was like something out of a foreign film, with the bathroom light touching the hair on his forearms, the muscled curve of his shoulder, and all of it softened by the steamy air. She wanted to cry. She wanted to come. She must be losing her mind.
He lowered her foot into the water, lifting the other. His tender ministrations began again, and once more she was in a state of awe at the way he handled her. When he lowered her foot, she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Jamie. Please get in with me?”
He grinned, his dimples flashing, then he stood and climbed in facing her. His legs were so long he barely fit, but the old tub was enormous—she’d always felt a little lost in it by herself—and with his knees bent, he managed. He pulled her to him, turning her body so her back rested against his chest, and she let her head fall back against his strong shoulder. He remained quiet as he washed her, one arm around her waist possessively while with the other he ran the sponge over her arms, then her neck, his touch slow and sensual. When he slipped the sponge over her breasts, she moaned.
“Feel good, sugar?”
“Oh yes.”
He moved the sponge down over her ribs, her stomach, then lower.
“Spread for me,” he whispered next to her ear, his cock growing hard behind her, pressing into her back.
“Mmm, yes, Jamie.”
She did as he asked, and was rewarded by the silky slide of the sponge over her mound. Desire was a sharp ache deep in her body—where she wanted him to be—but his slow, lovely assault continued. He moved the sponge down, then up again, over and over her aching clitoris. Sensation was something soft and sultry, undulating like the bathwater through her body. His other hand came up to cup her breast, his wet fingers slipping over her nipple. She arched into his touch, and he palmed her breast, squeezing, releasing, then squeezing harder.
“Ah, yes, Jamie.”
“So beautiful, my sugar girl,” he murmured.
The sponge kept moving over her needy sex, stroking her pussy lips, pressing against her tight clit. She sighed as pleasure spiraled inside her. When he added his fingers around the edges of the sponge, catching her clit between them, she groaned. He pressed her nipple between his fingertips and she arched into him—her breast, her body—and he rubbed the sponge and his fingers over her clit, harder and harder.
“Come,” he whispered.
Just that one word, and her body shattered. She cried out, shaking in his arms, her body convulsing, sensation hot and liquid.
“Good girl,” he murmured, making her shiver all over.
Small tremors of pleasure still washed over her body, and she undulated against his hard cock at her back.
“Mmm, you do that for long and I’m gonna have to take you to bed and ravish you, sweetheart.”
“Yes, please,” she said.
“Oh, yeah—that’s it.”
He pressed her forward and got to his feet, pulling the plug in the tub as he did so.
“Stay there,” he commanded her as he quickly dried himself with a towel.
It was tough holding still, trying to do as he asked—as he demanded—when his beautiful cock was right there in front of her. If she reached out she could touch it. Take it in her hands, in her mouth.
Oh yes. To taste him. To please him.
She shifted and knelt in the tub, needing the porcelain surface hard against her knees to keep her in line—that little bit of punishment. But finally Jamie pulled her to her feet and quickly dried her body before lifting her in his arms.
She looped hers around his neck. “You sure do like to carry me around.”
“I like to do everything with you.”
She leaned in and breathed in his neck. “And you do smell like my bath salts. Like me.”
“I’m about to smell a lot more like you. Your pheromones. Your sweat. Your come, sugar girl.”
“Mmm, I like it when you talk sweet to me.”
He set her down a bit roughly on her bed. “Sometimes you’re the same old Summer Grace. Someone needs another spanking.”
“Don’t be a tease! And would you still make me come, then carry me naked to bed to do what I have no doubt are unspeakable things to me if I were still the same old Summer Grace?” She leaned back on her hands, arching her back just enough to raise her breasts, blinking up at him.
“The unspeakable things are a given, but I am hardly being mean, my little kitten in heat. I like that you’re still who you’ve always been. That you haven’t let life change you to the core. That you don’t put it on for me. I just like you. Better gird your loins, sweetheart—I’m about to show you how much.”
“Mmm, dirty talk,” she murmured as he lowered his body over hers, pressing her down on the bed.
“I thought it was sweet talk?” he said, leaning in to kiss the hardening tip of first one breast, then the other.
“It’s all the same for me.” She grabbed his head, urging him on. “Anytime, anywhere. Don’t you know that by now, Jamie?”
He laid his head on her chest, then dragging it lower he gently bit the tender flesh just below her ribs. “You are a most unusual woman.”
She lifted her legs, wrapping him up in her thighs until his solid shaft pressed against her pelvis. She shifted until it hit just the right spot, pleasure surging through her. “We’d both be bored to death if I weren’t.”
“True. Now I’m going to do all sorts of dirty things to you. And I’m going to do it very, very slowly.”
“Mae West said anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.”
“She was a wise woman. And it’s no surprise you’d quote Mae West.”
“No it— Oh!” she cried out as he slid down and put his mouth on her.
Then she couldn’t manage more than gasps and moans as he began an assault—it couldn’t be called anything else—on her wet, needy pussy. He licked her slowly with the flat of his tongue, long, even strokes that drove her wild with need. He paused to suck just the tip of her clitoris, biting into the tender flesh until she squealed in pain and indescribable pleasure, then licked and kissed his way lower, pushing his whole tongue inside her for a moment before working his way up again.
He must have felt her body tightening as the need to come bore down on her like a heated tide. He pulled back.
“Don’t come yet, sweetheart,” he told her. His tone was gentle, but it was a command—there was never any mistaking it with him.
She drew in a deep, gasping breath. “Jamie . . .”
“Shh, my sugar girl. Hang on.”
He pushed off her, but she was relieved to find it was only to grab a condom from her bedside table. She watched, her body clenching all over as he slid the latex down over his gorgeous cock. So big, with a pearly drop of pre-come at the swollen tip.
Inside me, yes. Now!
He placed both his big hands at her waist and turned her over onto her hands and knees. She arched her back, waiting for him. It was several moments before he ran a fingertip down her spine, and she waited for him to spank her, to enter her from behind. But he just continued the gentle stroking—with one fingertip, then all his fingers feathering over her skin, down her spine, then up to sweep her hair aside and stroke the back of her neck, making her shiver. When he placed his flat palm on her back, leaving it there for long, breathless moments, need shivered over her skin.
What was he doing? She tuned in to his breathing, which was a bit labored but not entirely with desire. There was more there—she wasn’t even sure how she knew it. When she turned her head to look over her shoulder and saw his face, she had to bite her lip not to say something. Not to melt into him.
Not to cry. Not to run.
She started to shake her head, and he grabbed her and turned her gently in his arms, one hand behind her head as he slowly lowered her onto her back once more.
“Ah, God, Summer Grace.” It was a slow whisper that escaped his lips with words nothing more than a part of his breath. Except that they were more.
She blinked at the tears burning her eyes, the beauty of the moment something so completely unfamiliar it was as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands. So she waited, lying quietly beneath him. Staring up at him—at his eyes gleaming like dark emeralds, their expression open to her. And what she saw there was . . . love?
No. It couldn’t be. Jamie cared for her—of course he did. And she’d always thought he loved her, but she’d never meant it the way his eyes seemed to at that moment.
You must be mistaken.
Every cell in her being was screaming that she wasn’t. Her heart hammered.
“Jamie?”
With his brows drawn together as if he didn’t quite understand what was happening, either, he stroked her hair from her cheek, pausing to rub a long strand between his fingertips. “Shh, Summer Grace,” he said very quietly. “Don’t talk now. Just be here with me.”
She bit her lip. Nodded. And felt something inside her breaking down. No, not down. Breaking open.
He sat back on his heels, pulling her up with him and onto his body until she straddled his thighs on bent knees. Then he lifted her, his gaze on hers, still misty with that same confusion as he settled her slowly onto his cock.
She swore she felt every single inch and ridge and taut vein as his rigid flesh pushed into her body—every inch exquisite. She wrapped her arms around his neck, sighing her pleasure, breathing in his gasping breath as he tilted his hips, his cock pressing deeper. When he was as deep as he could go she ground down onto him until it hurt a little. She didn’t care.
