by A. C. Arthur
It didn’t seem to matter to Garrek, because in the next moment he was turning her to face him, cupping her face in his hands and lowering his mouth to hers. Fireworks. Sparks. No, a complete explosion was set off the moment his tongue touched hers. His danced over hers, and hers followed in perfect harmony. Her fingers clenched in the material of his shirt, pulling him closer to her, because for some inexplicable reason, Harper could not get enough.
In the days since their first kiss, she’d branded herself an idiot for reacting so childishly. She was almost thirty years old and should have been able to handle a simple kiss. But as she was being so quickly reminded at this moment, there was nothing simple about Garrek Taylor’s kisses.
Now his hands were moving down her sides, pulling at her shirt. She clasped her hands around his neck and arched into his touch. His mouth still ravaged hers as his fingers finally found the bare skin of her torso. Harper moaned the moment those hands cupped both breasts. The sports bra she wore did nothing to protect her from the quick kick of desire as his thumbs moved over her nipples. In fact, that act spurred something so deep and primal inside her, she felt almost animalistic when she nipped at his bottom lip.
It was his turn to moan now and, encouraged by the sound, she sucked his lip into her mouth. He ground his hips into her, letting her feel the persistent growth of his arousal. She wanted it. And him. Now.
It couldn’t be that simple. Sex wasn’t a simple act. It wasn’t something to be taken lightly. It required thought and preparation and...
To hell with that, Harper thought as she lifted her arms and allowed him to pull her shirt up and over her head. This moment was all she needed to concern herself with; it was all that mattered. Not the before or after.
Once her shirt was off, his hands were quickly moving beneath the band of the sports bra. Pushing it up high enough so that his hand could cup one bare breast while his mouth closed over the other. Her modest B cups had always suited her just fine beneath the T-shirts that made up the majority of her wardrobe. Now, she wasn’t quite sure they were enough. Until Garrek moaned.
He switched from his hand to his mouth. “I can’t stop,” he said before taking her nipple between his teeth.
Harper sucked in a breath, her eyes going wide and then slowly closing as the quick jolt of pain, followed swiftly by the flash of pleasure, took over. She exhaled for fear that if she held that breath much longer, she might actually pass out. And that would be a shame. Missing out on the delicious feel of his tongue flicking over one nipple and his thumb moving sensually over another would be something akin to a crime.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, her hand holding his head against her breast. “Please, Garrek, don’t...”
He did move away then, and Harper couldn’t help but feel totally deflated. She lifted her hands and placed them over her face, willing herself not to beg.
“Look at me.”
His voice was steely and domineering in the quiet room, and her hands dropped from her face immediately.
In those few moments she’d been cowering, he’d already removed his shirt. Now he was unbuckling the belt at his waist. Her gaze stayed on his hands, watching the light hue of his skin, the long fingers as they moved over the button of his pants, the zipper and then his wallet.
“All you have to do is say no,” he told her while he pulled out a condom.
She had a choice.
Her eyes moved up his body to lock on his. He was staring at her. Once again waiting for an answer. She didn’t have to think about what she would say.
“I’m saying yes,” she whispered and then undid the button of her shorts.
He did not move from the spot where he stood, but instead let his pants and boxers fall around his ankles. His fingers moved over the thick length of his arousal, smoothing the condom into place. It was probably the most erotic thing Harper had ever seen.
“Come here,” he said, and the sound of his voice pulled her gaze from his waiting sex up to his face.
Handsome still didn’t quite explain him. He was standing there now in the stark light coming from the single bulb in the ceiling of the empty room. His goatee, brows and the hair on his head were so dark, making his skin seem even lighter. And that strong jaw was clenched as he waited for her to do his bidding.
She didn’t make him wait long.
She hadn’t removed her underwear, hadn’t gotten that far when he summoned her. It didn’t matter, because the moment she was standing directly in front of him, his fingers were moving along the band of the boy shorts she wore. He pushed them down past her hips and Harper did the rest, until she was stepping out of them. His hands were quick, sliding down her side and then around to the backs of her thighs.
He lifted her off the floor, and Harper sucked in a breath as her legs immediately went around his waist. Then his lips were on hers again, this kiss stealing her breath as his tongue thrust hungrily into her mouth, while his hands gripped her waist, settling her over the crest of his erection.
“Look at me, Harper,” he whispered when his lips finally left hers.
Harper couldn’t keep her eyes open. The feel of his hardness against the most intimate part of her was distracting to say the least. She wanted to move, to slam herself down over him and get on to the pleasure she knew she was in store for, but he held her still. Waiting.
She looked straight into his eyes that had grown darker with desire. Her hands gripped his shoulders; her ankles were clasped tightly at his back. They were really doing this.
“Garrek,” she whispered when he still hadn’t moved.
“Yes,” he said and nodded. “Yes.”
He eased her down then, pressing himself into her, stretching her, awakening her.
“Yes,” Harper moaned. “Yes!”
* * *
She was deliciously tight.
The feeling that she was milking every ounce of strength out of him was mesmerizing and, Garrek feared, possibly addictive. Already, only after a few strokes, he felt as if he wanted more and more.
He’d already noticed the athletic build of her body, the long, strong legs and subtle curves. Just looking at her had turned him on, to the point that all Garrek had been able to think about was this moment. The second he could finally sink deep inside her. But after their first kiss, he’d known he was moving much too fast for her. And to his credit, he’d decided to back off, to simply walk away. It was the smartest thing to do, all things considered.
But it hadn’t worked. The innocent picnic lunch that was intended to make up for coming on too strong in the first place had eased into an invitation for her to look at the house he’d inherited and to offer input on what he should do with it. Never in a million years would Garrek have imagined that he’d end up drowning inside her at the end of this day.
“Garrek.” She whispered his name and nipped at his ear.
Fresh waves of desire poured over him, and his thrusts inside her quickened. There was no other way to describe it, but he loved the moist heat of her tight walls that assisted in his ministrations. She fit so comfortably in his arms. He barely even noticed that there was no furniture in this room. He would ordinarily have never taken her in a place like this, but here, in his arms, it was just too good to resist.
So good that he hated for it to end, but with her legs trembling around him and her blunt-tipped nails pressing into his shoulders, he knew he was lost. With his eyes closed tight to thoughts he didn’t want to have right now, Garrek held her close and let go.
It took all of three seconds for him to regret what he’d just done.
Weak.
Irresponsible.
Stupid.
All these words played in his mind over and over again, even as he lifted her slowly off him, keeping his hands on her hips until her feet touched the floor. He wanted to curse. To rid himself of the condom, pul
l up his pants and walk out of this house. Just as he’d walked out of his apartment in Washington.
There was paper on the floor in a far corner of the room and an unused napkin he’d grabbed earlier at the restaurant when Mr. Simon had spilled some of his strawberry daiquiri. Gray had been drinking a beer and Garrek his favored rum and Coke—with more rum, of course. He could use one of those at this moment, he thought wryly.
With a shake of his head, Garrek cleaned himself up and adjusted his clothes before turning back to face her. He’d heard her moving around and figured she should be dressed by this point. He desperately needed for her to be dressed and ready to walk out of here, out of his life. Because it was a mess, he finally admitted. His life was in shambles and this...coming here to Temptation, and what he’d just done with her, wasn’t going to make it any better.
“Uh, well,” she said the moment their gazes met. “It was nice of you to show me the house, but I really should get going. If you decide to sell it, just let Gray know. I know some investors who would jump on the chance to purchase and restore this place. So, yeah, I’ll just get going now.”
She was talking fast and moving to the door at the same time. Garrek felt like an idiot. He knew he should say something. He should stop her. He should act like a man. He wondered if that was something his father would have told him.
He didn’t. Instead, he watched her go.
Clenching his teeth and fisting his hands at his sides, he cursed himself. Not only for what had just happened, but for the fact that it had been the second time in a year that he’d sped headlong into a fling, then inevitably crashed and burned. It would appear he hadn’t learned his lesson. Instead of using this time away from the career in the military that he’d always wanted to regroup and recover from one colossal mistake, he was certain he’d just walked right into the arms of another.
The fact that this time they had been soft and comforting arms instead of misguided and manipulating ones didn’t matter. At the rate Garrek was going, he was likely to lose his job and his self-respect.
Chapter 7
It might have been too little, too late, but Garrek was finally doing what he’d come to Temptation to do in the first place. For the past four days, he’d been holed up in his room at the B&B, poring over a mountain of papers. Most of them were copies of financial statements and memos that Gray had found in the boxes he’d had shipped to him from their father’s office in Syracuse. Others were new documents that Garrek had requested on his own.
None of them told him what had been going through Theodor Taylor’s mind in the years leading up to his death.
Garrek hadn’t known his father well, mostly due to the fact that he’d been seven years old when Theodor left them, and the visits after that had been few and far between. A small part could be attributed to the fact that Olivia didn’t talk about Theodor much, and neither did his brothers. Gray and Gage had fallen solidly on their mother’s side in the demise of the marriage. They hadn’t wanted much to do with Theodor when he showed up and weren’t as impressed as Garrek found himself when they became teenagers and he realized that his father had taken very good care of them, even if from a distance.
Still, that hadn’t brought Garrek any closer to the man. He recalled seeing Theodor at their high school graduation, but not again until Olivia’s funeral. Even then, there had been no words. The siblings had all sat together in the front row of the small Baptist church that their mother had attended during her years in Pensacola. Theodor had stood in the back. Afterward, when their father had tried to approach them, Gray had stood between them saying only, “It’s over. She’s gone. You can go now, too. Again.”
The look on Theodor’s face had been a cross of shock and sadness, but Garrek thought he was probably the only one to see the latter.
Now, Garrek was here in this town wondering why Theodor had left each of his children a chunk of money and who knew what else. He owed them nothing. He’d paid his child support and then some to Olivia during the years they were apart. He’d also divided his estate and business equally between the siblings. All this extra did not make sense to Garrek.
Neither did what had happened between him and Harper.
He sighed, dropping the papers on the table and rubbing his hands over his face. No matter what he did, his thoughts inevitably returned to her.
He hadn’t meant to have sex with her. Not like that. Not at that time. None of this was supposed to happen. He chuckled wryly as he realized he’d said all of this before.
But he hadn’t been able to stay away from her. They’d met purely by circumstances that he had neither planned nor had any control over. Then, as fate dealt another sneaky blow, he learned that she worked for his brother. Temptation was a small town, so there was no way they could avoid running into each other. Still, he could have simply kept it friendly. But he hadn’t. The odd pull between them couldn’t be explained—or ignored, apparently.
His instinct for handling this new dilemma was pretty much like what had motivated him back in Washington—run far away and forget. This time he could only get as far as his room, which had worked up till now, but the knock on his door said that time had probably come to an end.
Walking to the door, Garrek dreaded who might be on the other side. So far, the only people he’d seen during this hideout were Nana Lou and Otis, the older man who sometimes worked at the front desk of the B&B. From the way the man talked, he did a lot of odd jobs around town. He’d even offered to wash Garrek’s rental car, because Garrek had parked it under the huge tree in front of the B&B.
“Birds just love sitting their butts in that pretty black walnut tree. From the looks of your car, they love doing their business there, too,” Otis had told him yesterday.
Garrek had shrugged, and after giving the man twenty dollars, thanked him for taking care of the task for him. He hadn’t been worried about the car, hadn’t even been outside to see it, but if it gave Otis something to do instead of standing at his door trying his best to peer over his shoulder to see what Garrek was doing in his room, and most likely with whom, then so be it.
But it wasn’t Otis at the door this time.
“Hey,” Garrek said casually after opening it to see his brother standing on the other side once again.
“Hey yourself,” Gray replied. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Garrek answered with a shrug.
He moved to the side and let Gray walk past him before closing and locking the door.
“What’s going on with you?” Gray asked the moment they were both standing near the couch.
“Nothing” was Garrek’s immediate answer. “How about you? Is Jack’s swing getting better? Last time I saw him he was talking about playing for the Orioles or the Nationals one day.”
Gray’s stoic expression didn’t waver. In fact, his brother was now standing with his legs slightly spread, folding his arms over his chest as he continued to stare at Garrek. Years ago Garrek might have been intimidated by Gray’s serious look, just as all of his siblings tended to be when Gray was in a mood. All except for Gemma, who always handled her siblings with a firm hand and loving smile.
“Funny you should ask about your family when you’re doing your best to ignore us,” Gray stated evenly. “And before we go back and forth about this, remember I’m your brother. I know you’re holding something back. So when I ask what’s going on, I’d like you to cut the crap and give me a straight answer.”
And there it was—Gray Taylor, pissed off. It wasn’t a sight many got the opportunity to see, because Gray didn’t waste his anger on people he didn’t care about. None of the Taylor siblings did. They’d learned to depend on each other in their years growing up in Pensacola. They loved their mother and one another fiercely and knew that through anything and everything, they had each other’s backs. So why was Garrek taking a deep, steadying breath and preparing to lie to
his brother now?
“Tell me why you’re here, Garrek,” Gray insisted.
“Because I received your memo and all the other paperwork you sent. I got that envelope just like each one of us did, and I opened it. In addition to the money, he left me a house,” he said, feeling a small amount of relief that the words he’d spoken were true.
“Why are you just telling me this?”
“You came here and dealt with his requests to add that wing to the hospital and save the community center on your own. I’m doing the same thing.”
“No,” Gray said with a shake of his head. “You’re hiding. There’s a difference.”
Garrek turned away from Gray then, because it wasn’t easy staring him in the eye and not telling him the truth. It wasn’t any easier knowing the truth, either.
So he moved to the table by the window where he’d been set up with his tablet and all the papers.
“A week after he died, this house was deeded to me. The lawyer took care of all the paperwork and put it in a lockbox that went along with that bank account in Grand Cayman. When I closed the account, they sent me the contents of the box,” he said.
Then he held the deed out to Gray, who immediately moved closer and took the paper from him.
“This is on the other side of the lake,” Gray told him. “It sits up on that hill, and you can see it from the main road.”
Garrek nodded. “I know. I’ve seen it.”
“That’s why you asked if we knew anyone from the historical society. I was trying to figure out why Morgan invited Mr. Simon to dinner with us.”
“I told her I was interested in some property here,” Garrek admitted.
“And she thought you meant to buy for yourself. She was so excited when we got home that night, talking about how great it would be to have you here for good, that Jack and Lily loved having an uncle living this close. Are you planning to move into this house, Garrek?”
