"Stop." He didn't bother to open his eyes, but she halted anyway. "You cooked. You don't clean. I do." His head dropped even farther forward until his chin rested on his chest. "Tomorrow."
"All right." She settled back onto her pillow. In her wine- glass, guttering candles flickered hypnotically, caught in the fragile curve of glass, dancing. The song rolling quietly from the speakers was instrumental, bass, piano, tapping cymbals, a wave of background noise like surf crashing on the shore at a beach house. Ever-present, unobtrusive, calm.
She sipped her wine and held it in her mouth, letting the earthy tannins swell and burst on her tongue before swallowing. When she inhaled, she breathed the scent of the wine and intoxicated herself in the quiet.
The clink of the glass's base hitting the coffee table was loud in the still room. Tyler looked up.
"This isn't working," he growled, and stood in one smooth movement. Striding in two steps around the table to where she sat, he dropped abruptly to the floor at her side. Grace tensed. This was what she wanted, but she wasn't sure she was ready for it. Despite all her bravado, her sexual past was limited to a few fumbling, lukewarm encounters that had left her feeling untouched. Now her insides were trembling with nerves and she wished Tyler had waited for her to make some kind of move. She'd wanted that illusion of control so badly.
Tyler stretched his legs and body out on the floor, rolled onto his side, and put his head in her lap.
"Ah." Contentment colored the sigh. "Perfect."
Grace looked down at the man whose head rested gently in her lap, his eyes closed, the lids shadowed a purple the color of bruises, a visible symbol of the hours he gladly worked for his passion. As she watched, his breath slowed and deepened. He moved once, pulling one leg up to rest his knee on the floor at his side, and wedging a hand between his head and her thigh. But then he lay still, quietly sleeping, and she felt a peaceful calm creep over her. After a few minutes she began softly stroking his hair, running her fingers gently through the strands, down the line of his neck and across his shoulders. Comforting him, she supposed, although she didn't know why she felt that he needed it.
Another candle burned out and the light dimmed further. The music drifted further into the background and time slowed until each moment lasted an eternity. The sensation was so unfamiliar that it tugged at her. Grace realized that for weeks she'd been running, constantly moving or hustling, for a job, a solution, a tip from table three. She hadn't had time to simply sit still and breathe.
In the quiet room she sat and she breathed. A centering calm unfolded in her like a flower and spread balancing petals wide through her body, grounding her. She looked at Tyler and felt a surging wave of gratitude for the sanctuary he'd provided her, and the space he'd allowed her that had, in turn, let her give him this night of rest. Tenderness bloomed with warmth in her hands and she brushed them softly over his curled arm.
When her back began to ache and her eyelids grew more than a little heavy themselves, she stirred. Cradling Tyler's head, she managed to snag his pillow and drag it beneath the table to exchange her thigh for it as a headrest. His sleep was deep enough that he simply rolled over to curl up on his other side, facing her. Grace could see her shoes lined up neatly at the door, her leather bag propped up at the end of the couch, and knew she should leave.
The decision to eurl up next to Tyler on the thick pile of the Oriental rug was instinctive and undeniable. Without thought, she rested her head on the same pillow and settled comfortably on her side. She'd thought to control this evening, to take charge of a flirtation that would lead with a magnetic pull to something sexual, a release to the tension she carried around in her body like armor. Instead, the tension had seeped out of her so slowly that she hadn't noticed, until she found herself here, boneless in relaxation on the floor next to this man whose kindness and humor and desire were tugging her inevitably closer to him.
The warmth of another body next to his triggered an instinct in Tyler that had him curling an arm around her and tucking it under her side. He pulled her close, until his knees were tucked behind hers, her butt pressed against his groin. She was enfolded and, held so securely, dropped almost immediately into sleep.
When she woke, it was to darkness and silence. Darkness and silence and a low voice, from a man who'd noticed her sudden alertness, whispering in her ear.
"Please tell me this is Grace I've got curled up with me, so nice and warm. Because otherwise, I've been fantasizing about waking up the wrong woman."
Seven
Grace took a deep breath. And realized that the hand previously wrapping her waist was now cupped around her breast, a thumb rubbing almost idly across the hardening peak. She hadn't been able to wear a bra with the tank top, and the sensation of silk pulling gently across her nipple was exquisitely isolated in the still quiet dark.
A quiet that was broken by the sudden, uncontrollable sound that escaped her as Tyler's fingers curved and feathered lightly against the side of her breast. His breath moved the hair on her neck. Her voice broke audibly on a sigh.
"Grace?" A question.
"Yes." The answer to anything he was asking of her. His voice murmured again, questioning further, but she interrupted, "Shh, yes." A repeated whisper. "Yes."
Moonlight slid through the window, highlighting the edge of skin, a faint sheen of light on curves and flat planes. Her bare arm. The broken arch of his fingers wrapped around her. He pulled away, pressed against her shoulder to lay her back flat against the carpet. The dark shadow of him leaned above her, blocking out the moonlight, his mouth and eyes darker magnets. In the dark, there was feeling only to tell her that he dipped his head, one arm curved at the top of the pillow, fingers tangling in her hair. The other resting motionless on her hip.
The heat of his mouth held, hovering, just above her breast, radiated against her skin. An eternity, waiting, until she arched her back to press her breast against his mouth. Her shoulders scraped against the carpet, sharp rasping contrasting with the sudden damp heat of his mouth wetting silk and pulling gently at her nipple. She heard her own voice, soft breaking sounds in the stillness.
His hand moved at her waist, fumbling in the dark for the hem of her tank top and then sliding beneath it to skate his fingers across her stomach at the edge of her skirt. She opened her mouth on a gasp and he was there, plunging with sudden intensity into the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, and she wrapped her arms around him to pull him deeper into her. Behind her closed eyelids, flowers of light burst and faded and were reborn in glowing colors on her inner vision.
By the time he pulled away, they were both breathing hard. His leg was wedged between hers and she could feel herself rocking instinctively against him.
"You—" a hand skated up her bare side "—have entirely too many clothes on."
In response, she let her arms fall from his shoulders to the floor over her head, crossed at the wrist. She turned her head toward him, hoping he could read the permission she gave in the arc of her body.
He saw, and seeing, bent over her again, repeating her name in barely audible murmurs against her skin.
His hands pushed the fabric of her shirt up, stopping, when it bunched at her shoulders, to suck and tease, flicking his tongue against her breasts by turns, covering her with hard hands that molded her breasts to guiding the peaks to his mouth. He slid the shirt higher, over her head and up her arms until it tangled at her wrists, where he held it in place with one hand and paused to look at her laid out in front of him.
She felt his gaze on her skin and opened her own eyes. Adjusted to the dark, she could still only make out the faintest outline of her body, a slightly brighter shine where the wetness of his mouth had touched her. His body was motionless against hers as he watched her. Lifting a hand, he ran a fingertip down the side of her face, barely touching her as he skimmed past her neck, her collarbone, across the rise of her breast. Over the sensitive tip and across her rib cage, to fall softly off at her side.
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"You are so beautiful." He pressed a reverent kiss to the flat hollow between her breasts. "So perfect."
"No." She knew too well what she was, and that he did not know, and closed her eyes against the intrusions of the outside world. She wouldn't let it come here, between them, but she couldn't bear to let him say such things, when only she knew the truth. She whispered, "Not perfect. But here, now."
"And perfect," he said, and silenced her with his mouth, her hands still held above her.
His hand was hot, rising up the slit in her skirt, curling around her thigh to brush gently against her heat, sparking sharp, almost painful need. She barely noticed when he hooked his fingers in the skirt's elastic waistband and pulled, dragging her underwear down her thighs in the same movement. He bent her knees, pulled her legs toward him and tugged her clothes off over her feet without letting her arms up. Skirt and underclothes were tossed carelessly to the side.
The sudden exposure, as he trapped one of her knees beneath his while he lay at her side and used his free hand to push the other open wide, startled her into sudden awareness. Tyler was still fully dressed at her side. The hard seams of his jeans pressed into the knee he held against the floor. His T-shirt didn't conceal the heat radiating off his body where it pressed against the length of hers, hip, rib cage, arm, arching now in a reflexive instinct to cover herself.
"Lie still." His fingers slid achingly slow, up and down the sensitive skin of her thigh. "Just let me touch you."
His fingers skated across her stomach, connecting the ridges of her hipbones, before moving down her other thigh. Circling slowly around her lower body, spiraling in gradually, until hard cramps of desire seized her. Then he was skimming against her most sensitive flesh, barest touches that brushed again and again over her, through the wetness of her, tormenting. The building pressure was unbearable. She arched her head back. A weak voice cried, "Please, please," over and over again in the silence. And still he barely touched her. Unbearable. She thrust her hips up and pushed against his hand forcefully and the first crush of orgasm broke her apart in shards of colored light that shattered in front of her eyes.
She fell back, breathing hard with the sudden release, her body melting into the floor limply, hands freed from their temporary prison. In a moment, though, the world spun as Tyler pulled her to him and rolled over until he was fiat on his back on the floor and she braced herself above him, hands pressed flat on his chest. A hand tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck brought her in close for an openmouthed kiss that swept the lethargy out of her veins in a rush.
Sensations rushed over her from all sides, her body warring with itself to feel everything at once. The suction of his mouth against hers. The scrape of a tongue drawing wetly. Fingertips dancing slowly down her spine to the top of her butt. A hand curving around her hip to pull the heat of her closer. The hardness of him pushing heavily against her thigh through his jeans,
Suddenly it was as important to touch him, to feel his skin beneath hers, as it was to revel in being touched by him, and her hands raced over his body with greedy searching. She tugged and pulled, and in a minute had him as naked as she was. The sheer pleasure of his skin against hers, the warmth and softness and intimacy of it was mind-fogging. She tangled arms and legs and body with his, until to move in any direction felt like a separation from him. And still her hands sped over him.
Everywhere, his muscles were hard, tensed until they almost shook, and she realized that he was holding himself in check, letting her decide what came next. He touched her, but he didn't rush or insist, waiting instead to see what she chose to do to him.
She sculpted out the feel of him with her hands, dragging them exquisitely slowly over the planes of his chest, the flexed muscles of his shoulders and biceps. His breathing caught, steadied, and caught again as she painted his body with open-mouthed kisses. The skin over his hard stomach was baby-soft, suddenly stretched tight with a gasp as her hand dipped lower and wrapped around him. He strained against her with a cry as she felt him shudder.
It was his turn to beg.
"Ah, Grace." His voice was strained in the night room. "Please." A sudden hiss. "I need—"
"I know," she whispered, a finger pressed to his lips. He took it into his mouth and sucked fiercely. She slid her body up his and raised herself over him again.
His fingers pressed into her hips, steadying her above him as she eased herself down, slowly taking him inside her. She pressed herself against him until she could get no closer, and then stopped, motionless, focused, absorbed in the feel of him stretching her body wide. His hands reached up through the darkness to cradle her face gently. For a long moment he held her and she wondered if he could see her in the dark, watching him, overwhelmed with feeling for him. With the feeling of him.
And then the pressure began to build again and she lost coherent thought. Her body of its own will began to rock slowly against him, and then faster, moving instinctively in a mindless search for her own pleasure.
She felt, through the haze, when Tyler reached a hand between them to brush lightly against her where her body joined slickly with his. Heat exploded and the sudden lightning crack of ecstasy jerked a harsh cry out of her.
Once, twice, he thrust against her with his hips, her own still moving rhythmically on sheer momentum. His guttural cry tore through her and she felt his muscles spasm beneath her. His hands clenched her hips and pulled her hard against him, before falling limply at his sides. Her body's movements slowed, until she fell forward against his sweaty chest, her hair damp at her neck and against her face.
His chest rose and fell raggedly under hers, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, hugging her to him. Their breathing and the rush of her heartbeat in her ears were the only sounds in the silence.
He rolled her onto her side, legs tangled together, bodies still joined, and brushed the tangle of hair off her face. Then he pressed his hand briefly against the center of her chest, before repeating the gesture on himself.
"Just checking." At her wordless sound of query, "Making sure we're not dead."
She shook with silent laughter against him. Speech hadn't quite returned, but she was most definitely not dead. In fact, Grace couldn't remember ever feeling this alive. Every inch of her skin was aware, sensitive to the cooling feel of sweat drying in the cool air, the warmth of his body touching hers, the lingering tension where his body filled hers. She shivered.
"Cold?" He pulled away slightly from her.
"No, not—ah." Her breath hissed out, the aftershocks of their loving pulsing softly through her as he eased himself out of her. She felt him slide slowly from her body, leaving her feeling strangely hollow and empty. "Not cold. Just shivery."
"Shivery is good," he whispered, and kissed her face softly. "Shivery is very good."
She sighed and kissed him in return, trying to tell him without words how happy she was to be curled up with him on an Oriental rug in the middle of a dark living room, remnants of a meal scattered on a table next to them. Already she could feel the press of outside, daylight problems pushing at her thoughts and the rising tide of guilt and confusion threatened to break in on this moment. A moment where she could fool herself into believing that their world was as he'd seen her. Perfect.
"You know what I could do now?" Tyler whispered the words against her neck and bit her gently there.
"What's that?" She curved an arm around his neck, more than willing to be drawn away from her thoughts and back to the physical.
"Eat."
She yelped as his hand smacked her butt lightly. He rolled to his feet and stood in one motion, dumping her abruptly on the floor. She propped her head on one hand and glared up at him, knowing he couldn't see her face.
"For some reason—" she didn't need light to hear the laughter in his voice "—I am absolutely starving."
Her decision was already made. She braced herself in preparation.
"Race you to the kitchen." And ran.
A window with no shade or curtain.
She sprinted past Tyler to the shelter of the doorway and stood there, laughing at herself.
"I take it back. You win." She heard him snort. "Winner brings plates back to the living room."
"Sounds like the loser's job to me," he complained, but she heard him rattling the lids off pots in the fridge.
In the living room, she snagged his T-shirt off the floor and pulled it on. It covered her butt, and that was about all. She shrugged and sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. She certainly wasn't trying to hide her nakedness from Tyler. Just any neighbors who happened to look in the window.
He returned with plates piled high and she dove on the food, suddenly ravenous herself. They fed each other and ate off their own plates, licked each other's fingers clean and kissed between bites of their late-night feast.
By meal's end, they were kissing more than they were eating and Grace's only fear was that they would forget the plates of leftover scraps at their sides. Visions of her and Tyler rolling around in their dinners, as he'd suggested he would do earlier, made her smile.
Sitting next to her, Tyler paused between nibbling on her neck and shoulder to ask, "Ready for one more race?"
"Oh?" She put one hand on the floor beside her, ready to push off. "Where to?"
She knew the answer to her own question.
"Bed." As expected.
What she didn't expect was that Tyler, instead of streaking past her, would catch her up along the way and haul her over his shoulder, where she bounced roughly all the way to the bedroom.
"Wait—oof! Tyler—ow!" She shrieked loudly enough to draw the attention of any neighbors not already attracted by the sight of her naked in the kitchen.
At Your Service Page 11
