Five Days Grace

by Teresa Hill

  He lifted his head, giving her a steamy, satisfied look and said, "Baby, you are so hot. We're not going to take it slow this time, either, are we?"

  "Next time?" she suggested hopefully. Then, just to be completely honest, added, "Maybe?"

  He laughed and let one of his hands settle low on her belly, his pinkie teasing at the curls between her legs. She arched into that touch, too. He had the best hands. Strong and gentle and so warm. She felt absolutely safe in his arms and as turned on as could be. She'd been worried about being adventurous enough to satisfy him sexually, and now it seemed she was simply a woman desperate for his touch, for anything he'd give her.

  Wanting to push that thought away, she kissed him again, deep, scorching kisses until his hand dipped between her legs, just for a moment before he withdrew. He sucked in a breath and whispered, "You're burning up already. For me?"

  "Yes."

  He shifted her body until she was draped against him with her back to his front. She let her head fall back against his shoulder, so she could get to his mouth. One of his hands was splayed wide just under her breasts and the other eased her thighs apart.

  He broke the kiss, keeping the side of his face pressed to the side of hers, and whispered, "Look at us, Grace. You're so pretty. Your skin is so pale here, and you have these pretty little curls. Watch my hand, my fingers."

  She did. His arms looked so tanned and muscular crossing her body, his big hand resting low on her belly, teasing her curls, slowly sinking into her slick folds. He kissed her neck, while one hand rubbed her nipple, pinching it a bit, and another slowly explored her as he watched. With the big, blunt tips of two fingers, he circled her clit with maddening slowness, then furrowed down and did the same thing to the opening of her body.

  She moaned, ground her hips against his and then once again arched into his touch, still watching everything he did.

  "Tell me what you want, honey." He slid easily inside her with one finger. "Do you want this?"

  "Yes," she said.

  Then two. "Or this? Is this better?"

  "Yes."

  "What about this?" He stroked in deep and rocked against her with his whole hand, the base of his palm rubbing her clit with each stroke. "Do you like this better?"

  She could barely make sense of the words or anything else, hadn't a prayer of answering him. He'd ratcheted up the sensation to more than she could stand. It might have been the most exquisite thing she'd ever felt, at least before that fast, hard climax he'd brought her to the night before.

  She lay there helplessly, bonelessly, and felt those strong arms of his around her, watched his hand working on her so perfectly. She was moaning with every thrust of his fingers, rocking just a bit between his hips and his hand, desperate for release and at the same time wishing this never had to end.

  He was breathing nearly as hard as she was, she knew, and as her head pressed against him, she could feel his heart pounding. She was so wet, and his fingers felt so good inside her, so strong, that rocking sensation just killing her.

  "Oh, please," she begged. "Please, please, please."

  Then he did something with the flat base of his thumb on her swollen clit, just pure pressure maybe, a rocking, thrusting pressure when he was already so deep and hard inside of her.

  "That. Yes. All of that."

  She'd barely gotten the words out when the sensations built inside of her and then burst open, expanding outward from that connection to his talented hand. They rolled through her in waves, so perfect, so strong, blinding her for a moment, blocking out all sound, blocking out the whole world except him and what he made her feel. She buried her head against his neck and screamed—honestly, screamed—out his name, her body clenching down around his fingers like she'd never let him go. Heat burst inside her, and she could hear him murmuring appreciatively.

  "Oh, baby. That's so good. So, so, good."

  His hand rocked gently against her, riding through the climax with her in time with those little ripples still moving through her, those muscles clenching and releasing. He kissed her cheek, told her how beautiful she was, how much he loved being able to see his hands on her, how sexy she was, how perfect, how good they were together.

  She lay there in his arms, thinking her life was impossibly good right then and how hard it was to believe how much it had changed so quickly. All she'd done was show up at this cabin, and here he was, waiting for her, needing her as much as she needed him.

  Reaching up with one hand, she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him softly. He was grinning like crazy when he lifted his head. So was she. It was like the whole moment held a kind of supernatural glow that enveloped only the two of them, like they were the only two people in the whole world. Like the two of them, and the dog, this cabin and the lake, had made a little world of their own, separate from time and the normal world. Like it was a gift out of time.

  "I think I scared the dog when I screamed," she said, looking around and not seeing Tink anywhere.

  "Maybe." Aidan laughed. "I might have seen him take off into one of the bedrooms."

  Which made Grace laugh, too. Then she whispered, "You're so good to me."

  "I think you've figured out I really will do anything for you, and you are taking shameful advantage, Grace."

  "I'm not. I mean... I don't mean to. I'm not usually so impatient." In bed. It was like she was desperate for him, crazy for him. "Thank you for indulging me."

  He really laughed then. Threw his head back and laughed. He was looking younger and more carefree by the minute, and even more handsome than he already had been.

  "It's not like indulging you is any kind of hardship," he said finally.

  "Still, you had things you wanted to do—"

  "I want you to be happy and absolutely satisfied. That's my bottom line." He put a hand on her cheek and turned her face to his, so he could look her in the eye. "I'm sorry it can't be more. I hope someday it will be—"

  "I've never felt this way," she said. "So out of control, so desperate for a man—"

  "For more than I can do?"

  "No—"

  "Come on. You must have thought about it. I have. I want to be inside you. On top of you and inside of you. I want to feel like I'm filling you up completely and—"

  "Okay, yes, I've thought about it, but not for long. I guess we all have this idea of what sex is and what it isn't. But I've had sex with men who thought it was all about an erection and what they did with theirs, and I swear to you, Aidan, what you and I have is better."

  "Don't lie to me about this. Don't say something to make me feel better about it."

  "Did you hear the sounds I made? Feel what you did to my body? How out of control I was? Do you really think sex is normally like this for me? That it's always this good? I mean... I haven't been with a lot of men. Is this normal for you? Do all women react this way when they're in bed with you?"

  "Yes—"

  "Yes? They do?"

  "Grace, you asked me a half a dozen questions. I'm not sure which one to answer first. Yes, I heard you. I felt it in your body, and I loved it. It was perfect, and sex... Well, it's a lot of different things with different people. But it's never been like this for me."

  "Really?" Because she'd panicked for a minute, thinking this was the norm for him, nothing special. She needed to be special to this man.

  "Yes. Look, I said something earlier that I think now I shouldn't have said. When I told you I wasn't even going to say your husband's name and I wanted you to forget everything he said to you about sex... If you want to talk about him, if you have things you need to deal with and get past, you can say it. You can say anything to me. It just seems like he blamed you for a lot of his own shortcomings, and he lied, Grace. You know that now. I hate the idea of you giving any criticisms he had of you any time in your head."

  Grace took a breath, closed her eyes and forced the words out. "I don't think I satisfied him. In bed. I don't think I was enough for him."

/>   "You are a beautiful, generous, amazingly responsive woman. We've proven that."

  "With you," she whispered.

  "Oh, honey. Much as I love hearing that—and believe me, I do love hearing it—you can't think I've made any extraordinary efforts here. I've barely touched you, barely taken any time with you, and you were so ready, so soft and wet. You just come apart in my arms. It's beautiful and so satisfying."

  "With you," she said again. "I'm like this with you. Because I trust you. I feel safe with you. I know it's important to you... how I feel, what I want, what I need."

  "Of course, it is. It should be to any man you're with."

  Chapter 18

  That was where he lost her.

  She thought about it for a second, and then it was like she was very far away, even though she was still naked in his arms. And then she wasn't in his arms, either. She got up, wrapped her towel around her and said she needed a minute.

  Dammit.

  What had he said to take her so far away from him?

  That she should feel special? Feel safe? Feel like what she needed and wanted was important? To any man she was with?

  As if there would be men other than him in her future?

  Fuck.

  She didn't think that, did she? He hadn't meant that. He'd meant in the past. With that ass she'd married. Why give someone like that the pleasure and privilege of having her in his bed?

  He got up, pulled his clothes on, put their bed and bedding away, fought the urge to go pound on the bathroom door or just force it open and get to her, face-to-face, to tell her exactly what he'd meant. He really tried not to act like a caveman with women, although his feelings for her seemed pretty primitive and out of control at times.

  Still, he managed to wait her out, staying on the other side of that door. She came out dressed and composed, giving a little worried smile that he knew was a real effort for her at the time, but she did it. For him.

  "Ahh, baby, I'm an idiot," he said.

  "No, you're not.

  "I am. I said it all wrong. Grace, I know how special this is. You are. We are together. Believe me, I get that. I feel it. I'm amazed by it and so grateful. I'm going to try not to say much more than that, because we've only known each other for three days. That doesn't even seem possible, but it's really only been three days."

  She nodded.

  "Yeah, so I'm trying here. I don't want to scare you off. We both know I'm not in a position to make long-term promises to any woman right now. Because of me. Not you. I have things I have to do. I have to put my body back together, my head, my career. But I want it. I want it all."

  "Okay," she said softly, sadly.

  "Remember when I told you about my brother and how crazy it would make him if one day, in some other life, I took you home to meet him and my parents? I can see that other life, Grace. I keep seeing it. You and me, together and so happy. I keep thinking about how we can make it work. Because I want that. I want all of it. I just... need some time."

  Damn, he thought. Said too much.

  But it really looked like she was more happy than scared now. At least, a little bit more on the happy side.

  "You should do that. Take the time," she said. "All the time you need. We both should."

  And that had to be the last thing he wanted to hear from her, even if he wasn't nearly ready to promise her anything because his life was such a fucking mess at the moment. He was afraid to even ask, but couldn't ignore it, either. "What does that mean, Grace?"

  "I... That I... Can we take the boat out again?"

  "Sure. If that's what you want." He'd promised her: whatever she wanted. He'd meant it. "Right now?"

  She nodded. "Please. I liked it out on the water. It was nice. It was peaceful. I'm just... I need to think."

  Which to him sounded nearly as bad as a woman coming to him, looking uneasy, and saying, We need to talk. Nothing good ever came of a conversation that began with those words.

  But she needed to think, and she wanted to do it on the lake in the boat, so that's what they would do. Tink started whining the minute they headed down the path to the lake instead of up to the road. He whined like a baby, even worse than he had the first time, when they got within five feet of the boat, shooting them a look that seemed to ask how they could possibly betray him this way again.

  "You can do it, baby," Grace told him, rubbing his big, silly head and then giving him a kiss on the snout.

  And for her, he cried, but got in the boat.

  They'd been out on the water for about fifteen minutes, Tink huddled against Grace, who was lying back in the boat staring at the sky, a hand of hers over the side of the boat, trailing along in the water, when she finally started to talk.

  "I figured something out today. Did you ever know something, but not really know it? You had all the pieces to put it together, but it was something you didn't want to know or didn't want to believe? So you just kept going, not admitting it to yourself?"

  "Sure. Intelligence work is like that at times. The clues are there, and once you piece them all together, it seems obvious—what it all means—and you can't believe it took you that long to figure it out. But it did. The answer's only obvious after you finally have it."

  "Yes. Like that. I finally figured it out, and I feel so stupid."

  "Something about us?" He had to force the words out.

  "No. Luc. I thought I really knew him, because we were friends for so long. Three years before we ever fell in love. If that's what we even did. Honestly, I don't know anymore. I mean, I thought I loved him. I wouldn't have married him otherwise. But now, I just don't know."

  Three years, and she still didn't think she really knew the guy?

  She'd known Aidan for three days, so what kind of a chance could he possibly have?

  And what kind of a man could be nothing but friends with her for three years? How could a man look at her and not want her? Much less really know her, the way a friend of three years would, and not see what an amazing woman she was?

  The guy must have been a complete idiot.

  "What did you figure out, Grace?" Aidan finally asked.

  "It was like I was blinded by him. I only saw what I wanted to see, and I should have known better."

  "Blinded?"

  "He was perfect. Like a painting that you could study for hours, looking at every feature, every brush stroke, and thinking, it's perfect. His father was some kind of ancient French royalty, and Luc was just... dazzling, so sophisticated, completely out of reach as anything but a friend. But a good friend, funny, talented, charming. We were in art school together. I felt like such a silly American girl, who hadn't seen anything of the world, and he'd seen it all. He showed us all the quirky, amazing places that you only know about if you've lived in Europe your whole life. It was like he opened up a whole, new world to me."

  Fuck. Aidan took that like a kick in the gut.

  Gorgeous pseudo-French-royalty? Rich, talented and showed her the world? How the hell could Aidan hope to compete with that? Even if the man was dead?

  "I had a crush on him the whole time. He dated rich, aristocratic French women and models. Not just the ones who came and posed for our classes, but girls up on the runways in Paris and Milan."

  Aidan held his tongue, barely. He'd take her over any fake woman any day.

  "So, three years later, I was done with school. When we said good-bye, I thought I'd probably never see him again. But his mother's an American, and after she divorced his father and remarried, she moved back to the States. She's on the faculty at Windsor College. I hadn't been back six weeks when Luc called, from only a few hours' away, wanting to see me. And everything was different then."

  The idiot had finally realized what he had in Grace? Only took him three years.

  "He said he'd missed me, that he'd been an idiot and he loved me. It was like a dream come true. I was getting what I thought I wanted, and it didn't matter that we'd only been in love for a few months, bec
ause of the years we'd been friends. I thought we'd be together forever."

  "What happened, honey?" Aidan asked finally.

  "His mother was sick—cancer—and no one knew if she'd survive. Luc wanted her there for the wedding, and I understood that. I'd want my mother there, too. We got married right away. It was really hard on him, to see her sick. I don't think he'd ever faced anything that hard, and he needed me. I was glad that I could be there for him. My life had been perfect to that point, so easy, and I knew it. I tried to always be grateful for that, but maybe I wasn't grateful enough."

  "No, baby. No. That's not why." He knew enough about the world to know that, at least. "Tell me the rest of it."

  "His mother got better, but then his father died, completely unexpectedly, in a climbing accident in Nepal. Luc was stunned. Everyone was. On top of that, the man's finances were a mess. I didn't even think about money before we got married, didn't even ask. I didn't marry Luc for money. I just didn't think it would ever be an issue. Turns out Luc had been living off family money his whole life, and living very well. And it wasn't like he was poor after his father died, not by most anyone's standards. But it's never easy to earn a living as an artist, and it was a surprise to him, the idea of needing to earn a living."

  Aidan swore under his breath. Stupid, selfish, irresponsible little shit. "So, life wasn't easy anymore, and he just didn't know how to handle that?"

  "I guess so," she admitted.

  "And he blamed you, when he wasn't happy anymore?"

  She closed her eyes and said nothing.

  "Yeah, if you're not happy, it's probably your wife's fault," Aidan went on. "Probably never occurred to him that the problem was with him. So he went out and started screwing someone else behind your back?"