Heron's Landing: The Complete Series

by Iris Morland

  Grace sighed. A headache threatened to erupt, and she rubbed her temples. “Are you jealous or something?”

  He flinched, then turned toward her. “What?” he asked.

  “You don't get to dump me or whatever it is you did and then get mad that some other guy showed interest in me.” She leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. “It’s dumb. And I don’t have time for it.”

  Jaime didn’t reply, but when she felt him stop the truck, her eyes flew open. He was clenching and unclenching his hands from the steering wheel.

  “I know it’s stupid,” he said in a low voice, “but everything about you makes me feel stupid.”

  She frowned. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “No, I’m telling you that you make my life harder and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Uh, I’m sorry…?”

  She watched as something seemed to snap inside of him. With a curse, he pulled her across the leather bench seat of the truck before sealing his mouth against hers.

  She knew she should push him away. She knew how this would end. We can’t do this. And yet, kissing him, tasting him, feeling his arms around her? It felt like home. His tongue slicked inside her mouth, and she held onto his shoulders.

  He was warm and solid and safe, and she had missed him.

  “I told myself I’d stay away from you,” he said on a groan, unwinding her scarf and kissing her bare throat. “I said we couldn't do this. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you all this time. You’re like some kind of disease.”

  She gasped in outrage before laughing. “And you give the worst compliments!”

  “If it makes you feel better, it’s a disease I don’t want to be cured of.”

  “Why are you comparing me to something like herpes? If I’m herpes, you’re…” She thought a moment. “Athlete’s Foot.”

  He looked up at her. “I’m a foot fungus?”

  “Yes, and one that keeps coming back.”

  He smiled, and her heart melted. “My darling herpes, you drive me insane.”

  Grace didn’t know if she should laugh, moan, or cry. Maybe all three. But when he began to unbutton her coat, his fingers trailing down her torso, she decided biting her lip to keep from moaning like an idiot was her best option.

  “Let me touch you,” he whispered against her mouth. “Let me touch you, Graciela. I need you.”

  Like she was going to say no to something like that.

  She smoothed her fingers through his hair as his hand drifted down her legs, inching up the skirt of her dress. She wore cotton leggings underneath, and as he danced his fingers across her hip, stroking her upper thigh, she felt like she was wearing too much clothing.

  He looked up at her, his eyes dark. He kissed her just as he found the waistband of her leggings, and then he was touching bare skin.

  “You’re so soft and sweet. You drive me crazy.”

  You drive me insane, Jaime.

  He kissed her harder. She gasped and moaned and wiggled against him, wanting him to touch her lower. Touch her all over. She’d never gotten this far with any guy, and she wished she’d worn something other than white cotton panties today. But Jaime didn’t even notice, and when his fingers brushed low on her pubic bone, she shuddered.

  He kissed her neck. “Are you as blonde down here? I bet you are. Blonde and fair and pink and silky soft.” His words entranced her, made her heavy-eyed with desire. She could feel herself getting wetter, begging for his touch. Her entire body was on edge. She could only grip his shoulders and hope against hope that he’d touch her where she needed it most.

  When he slicked a finger through her folds, she cried out softly. He captured the sound with his mouth. Her entire body shaking, he touched her with such gentleness that she wanted to cry. He murmured more words against her neck, about how wet she was, how much he wanted her, how beautiful she was. She moved her hips against his finger, which played with her in the lightest of strokes.

  Her body tensed. She tried to find that perfect angle. “Jaime, Jaime,” she whispered. She buried her face in his shoulder, suddenly too embarrassed to have him look at her.

  He slowly pushed a finger inside of her, and then they both groaned. “God, you’re tight.”

  She bit his shoulder to keep from screaming.

  “Graciela, I want to see you. Look at me. I want to see you when you come.”

  She shook her head. He brushed a thumb over her clit, and she could feel herself getting close.

  “Yes, look at me.” He tilted her face up from his shoulder, and their gazes met. It was dark except for the light of the truck’s dashboard, but she had a feeling he could see everything on her face. He licked at her bottom lip. “Come for me.”

  He inserted a second finger, and it was almost too much, but somehow as he lightly rubbed her clit and thrust his fingers inside of her, it was perfect. Something spiraled in her belly, and she didn’t even realize she was moving in time with his thrusts until she felt her body melting.

  “That’s it,” he murmured against her mouth. “There you go.”

  A moan and a scream and a hoarse cry coalesced in her throat until her body seized and she was coming. She felt Jaime’s thumb against her clit as he drew out her orgasm, and she stared into his eyes as it happened.

  It was too much. It was all too much. She buried her face in his shoulder again, still riding the wave, and wondered if someone could break your heart just from touching you.

  He slipped his hand from her body, but not before kissing her, hard and deep. Desperate. All of her nerve-endings were electrified, and she couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think about the implications of what they’d just done.

  Finally, he pulled his mouth away from hers, his forehead against hers.

  “I’ll take you home,” he murmured.

  She almost blurted out the words. I love you. But she bit her tongue until it bled, hoping that Jaime didn’t see the tears in her eyes as he drove her home.

  10

  “Y ou, Jaime Alejandro Martínez García, are the biggest piece of shit in the entire world.”

  Jaime looked at himself in his bathroom mirror, and sadly, his reflection didn’t feel compelled to agree or disagree with this announcement. He turned on the faucet and splashed his face with cold water until it seeped into him and maybe, just maybe, would cool off the rest of him.

  Not fucking likely.

  He just had to stop and pick Grace up, didn’t he? He just had to have her in his truck. And then he just had to stop said truck and touch her like that and get her off and hear her breathy moans as she orgasmed, and Jesus Christ, he wasn’t sure if he hated himself more than he felt stupidly pleased with himself.

  It had been a grand total of two hours since their…encounter. The encounter where Jaime had kissed Grace Danvers, touched her, and oh, put his hand down her pants—or leggings, in this instance—and made her come with his fingers.

  Looking at himself in the mirror again, he had half a mind to punch his reflection and shatter it.

  The worst thing? He didn’t feel guilty. Not really. He felt guilty that he didn’t feel guilty, which merely made him feel even more tangled up in whatever this whole thing was. Their relationship? Is this what this was? If you got a woman off, did that make you a sort-of couple?

  He groaned. Leaving the bathroom, he picked up the bottle of wine sans glass he’d been nursing, but when he took a swig, the alcohol settled in his belly like a lead weight. If it weren’t dark out and snowing, he’d go for a run. He considered it. Maybe he would go for a run. The worst that could happen was that he fell in a ditch and no one found him until morning, and at this point, he probably deserved something like that.

  He laughed, the sound bitter in his small house. Going to his room, he put on his warmest running clothes, laced up his shoes, and was looking around for a hat when someone knocked on his door.

  He stilled. He almost wondered if he’d imagined the sound. Then: anothe
r knock.

  Opening the door with a “what the hell?”, Jaime found himself face to face with the one woman he had had no intention of seeing anytime soon. If ever.

  “Grace?”

  Her hair was down past her waist, and she wore pajama bottoms with her snow boots. She hadn’t buttoned her coat up, and he could see that she wore a thin tank top underneath.

  He pulled her inside. “Is something wrong? What happened? Did you drive here in the snow?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Are you going running? At midnight?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “I could ask you the same question. Why are you knocking at my door—at midnight?”

  “I realized after you dropped me off, I had your glove. In my pocket.” She pulled out the gray glove and handed it over.

  Jaime didn’t take it at first, but stared at it, like she’d tried to give him a dead squirrel. “You drove here, in the snow, to give me my glove?” He blinked. “At midnight?”

  “It stopped snowing,” she said with a little shrug.

  He pocketed the glove and then, seeing that he couldn’t very well send her out into the snow again, sighed. He took off his running shoes and his coat and went to the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

  He didn’t listen for a reply. He dug through his fridge, pulling out eggs, and began making Eggs Benedict because it sounded good and he could do it in his sleep. Discovering that he had some leftover bacon, he began frying that up, and his house soon filled with the scents of breakfast food, calming his pounding heart.

  Cooking allowed him to think when he needed to, or it allowed his mind to drift into another place. Tonight, he concentrated on the meal, poaching the eggs at the exact temperature to create that delectable runny yolk when you cut into the egg. As the eggs poached, he mixed up the hollandaise sauce, the English muffins crisping in the toaster.

  He heard Grace into the kitchen. “What are you making?”

  “Eggs Benedict.”

  “At midnight?”

  He laughed, working the sauce. “That seems to be the theme for tonight, doesn’t it?”

  “You need help with anything?”

  He pointed a finger to the living room. “You sit your butt down and let me cook. This is a very delicate operation.”

  He heard her snort as she left him to it.

  After placing the bacon on the muffin, he delicately put the poached eggs on top, then covered both with the hollandaise sauce. For some added color, he fanned out orange slices on the side and then sprinkled the Eggs Benedict with a little parsley. He came to the living room bearing the plates and set one in front of Grace before sitting down beside her with his own plate.

  “I hope you like eggs,” he said, “because I’m not making anything else.”

  She gave him a look. “Good thing I do, in fact, like eggs.”

  He smiled, cutting into the poached egg and sighing in satisfaction. “Excellent. Now eat before I change my mind about letting you stay.”

  They ate in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt…homey. Like they’d been doing this for years, and afterward, they’d talk about their days and maybe watch some TV. Go to bed.

  Jaime became overly aware of Grace sitting beside him, wearing that thin tank top and her pajamas with dancing bears on them. She seemed both infinitely young and absurdly mature; sometimes he didn’t know how to look at her.

  When they finished, Grace lay on the couch, her hand over her stomach. “That was amazing. I could go to sleep right now.”

  Jaime took the plates to the kitchen, setting them on the ledge, before returning to Grace. He sat down by her feet and propped them on his lap. She opened her eyes, surprised, but when he started rubbing her feet, she moaned a little.

  As he massaged the balls of her feet, encased in purple socks, he asked, “Why are you here, Graciela?”

  She didn’t open her eyes or answer. He tickled her feet, which caused her to shriek with laughter.

  “No, don’t! Stop! I told you, I came to return your glove.”

  He stopped tickling, but he gave her a look saying that if she lied, he’d continue the tickling.

  “No one comes out in the middle of the night to give someone a glove.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I do.”

  He made a move like he was going to tickle her again, and she pulled her feet up under her butt with a laugh.

  “Fine! Fine, you win. Jerk.”

  He just waited.

  She didn’t look at him as she murmured, “I didn’t—I didn’t want what happened, to end. Like that.” When her gaze collided with his, his entire body heated. “Because I don’t think it should end. No matter what you think everyone will say.”

  They watched each other, assessing. Jaime wondered if this was a dream. Was he going to wake up again with her name in his mouth and his entire body aching? But this wasn’t a dream. She’d come here—for him.

  “Graciela…” He touched her calf.

  “Don’t.” She sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Don’t give me your excuses. You can’t tell me all the reasons why this is bad and wrong and stupid when you touch me like you did in your truck. You can’t pretend like you're going to take the higher moral ground when everything you do contradicts what you say.” Her voice was breaking, and she was breathing in pants. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  He gently pulled her legs toward him and settled her on his lap. She widened her eyes at him.

  As he tangled his fingers in her hair, he said, “Just so you know, I wasn’t going to say anything like that.”

  Then he kissed her.

  He should’ve known that the second Grace had decided she wanted something—wanted him—that he’d be powerless against her. As he touched her soft hair and kissed her and inhaled her scent, he didn’t remotely care that he’d lost this battle.

  He leaned her backward until she was underneath him on the couch. A flush had gathered in her cheeks and spread to her chest, and her breasts pushed against her top. Seeing her nipples peaking through the cloth, he realized with a groan that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “Is this what you want? Tell me now if it's not and I’ll stop.” He didn’t touch her, but waited. He scanned her face.

  She breathed—in and out. Then she sifted her fingers through his hair and murmured, “Yes, I want this.”

  Before she finished speaking, he kissed her. He inhaled her gasp and slicked his tongue inside her mouth, tasting her, claiming her. His hands roved down her body, cupping a breast, feeling the nipple beneath his palm. She shuddered.

  The moment intensified. This wasn’t just a kiss, this wasn’t just touching, it was like they’d finally discovered each other and it was a revelation. Jaime could barely comprehend what was happening. His mind seemed to stop, and it was only Grace, beneath him, soft and silky and sweet.

  He kissed her chin, kissing down her neck and across her collarbone. He marveled at a few freckles on her left shoulder before he gently pulled down the strap of her tank top. He looked at her face, to make sure she was enjoying this, and the desire in her expression punched him in the gut. God, he’d never get tired of that. He kissed her shoulder as he pulled the strap down her elbow and off of her arm.

  He did the same to the other strap, and then her breasts were bare to him. They were small with pale pink nipples, and he touched each one, delicately tracing the blue veins he could see shadowing underneath. She hitched her hips against him.

  “So pretty and pink,” he marveled. He brushed his thumb against one nipple, and he just watched as her chest rose and fell in quick gasps. He continued to circle her areola, loving how her nipple continued to pucker, like it was begging for his touch.

  Grace touched his face. She shifted her legs. “You’re driving me crazy,” she admitted.

  He looked up. Her eyes were wide and glassy. He brushed hair from her forehead, tender and gentle. As his fingers moved across her lips, she ki
ssed them, her eyelashes fluttering.

  That spurred him on. He kissed across her chest, on her sternum, inhaling her scent. He cupped one breast in his hand, plumping it, and then he swirled his tongue around its straining peak. She made a sound that was between a cry and a squeal.

  “So sensitive.” He kissed her breast; he plucked at her nipple. He played and played, driving her wild. When she began undulating her hips against him, he took the nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard. She yelled, pulling on his hair, clutching at his shoulders.

  She tasted like flowers and honey and he couldn’t get enough. He licked at her and when he let her nipple go, he could see that it was now a dark pink, almost red, and it was his turn to groan. He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, and she hadn’t even touched him.

  He played with her other breast. But it wasn’t enough. He remembered how she’d felt underneath his fingers, and he pulled her pajama bottoms down her legs. She wore white cotton panties that only made him harder.

  Grace tipped her head back on the pillows as he traced her mound through her panties. He could feel she was already wet. It would only take a second and he could be inside her. He shuddered at the thought.

  But he forced himself to slow down. She deserved that. He started trailing kisses up her pale legs, finding tiny moles and freckles, and even a scar on her knee that he couldn’t help but love. When he spread her legs, he found more freckles.

  “How do you have freckles even here?” He traced them, the explosion of tiny dots.

  He could feel her shrug. “It’s a white girl thing, I guess.”

  He laughed, drawing patterns on her thigh.

  As he moved upward, he kissed her hip, finding a pale white scar about the size of a dime. “What happened here?” he asked.

  She looked down. “Oh, that? Fell off my bike when I was six onto some gravel. I was alone and I walked all the way home, crying.”

  “Poor Graciela,” he said, kissing the scar.

  “Don’t worry: I got back up on my bike the next day.”

  He shook his head. Of course she did. Brave, headstrong Graciela.