by Stacy Dawn
“Wh-when did you get the new trailer?”
Grey grinned at her breathy undertone and paltry attempt at casual conversation. The lift of her chin allowing him better access only proved he wasn’t the only one losing the fight to play cordial.
“Just last month, actually,” he chuckled, with a nip to her collarbone.
She leaned back and her blue eyes glistened with barely-restrained passion. Her gaze drifted to his lips. She bit hers and wrapped her legs around his waist. “It sure is a lot bigger.”
“Wait till you see what else is bigger.”
She glanced down between their bodies and grinned. A little pulse of her hips almost took him out at the knees.
“Yeah, that too,” he rasped. “But I was talking about the bed.” He turned her toward the back bedroom where a queen-sized bed peeked through the opened doorway.
She raised a brow. “Okay, I think that’s enough small talk.”
He growled and kissed her soundly. “More than enough...for now.”
Grey stumbled toward the bedroom. Lizzie’s gasped laugh tickled his lips as they ended up against the fridge, her back to the compact door. Taking advantage of the leverage of stability, he wedged a thigh between her legs to free his hands. Generous curves filled his palms as he explored beneath her jacket; they couldn’t get enough of her.
He devoured her mouth and she parried with her tongue in a game that drove a hot rush of blood straight through him until his jeans became painfully tight. Grey clasped her shoulders where silky hair caressed his fingers. He caught the strands, fisting them in his eager hands.
When she squirmed, rubbing her crotch against his thigh, he couldn’t stop his groan and instantly dropped his hands to her jean-clad ass. He squeezed and lifted, held her tight and aimed for the bed. All he wanted was to feel her skin under his. Like a drug he’d been denied, Grey fell off the wagon and dove back in with glorious abandonment.
Somewhere, his brain tried to remind him what happened the last time and warned him to stay distant, take it slow, be wary. But his body knew differently. The way she fit in the curve of his arms, the way she knew just how to kiss a path to the sensitive spot behind his ear as she was doing now. It was all he could do to keep them both upright as his shoulder banged off the narrow doorway into the bedroom.
When his legs unexpectedly stopped short against the wooden frame of the bed, Grey twisted in time to land with his back on the mattress. A high pitched, “Oh,” preceded a thudded gasp as Lizzie’s luscious weight landed atop his chest. He winced slightly at the pressure blow to his ribs, already pounded on this afternoon.
“I’m sorry.”
Grey wove a hand into the long hair draped over her shoulder and urged her head down. “I’m not,” he whispered against her lips just before taking them.
To his heated delight, Lizzie took full advantage of their new position. Eager hands roamed up and over his chest to push the jacket from his shoulders.
Grasping her waist, he pushed them both upright, making quick work of the jacket and the shirt her impatient hands already had halfway up his chest.
Her hands on his bare skin were like adding gasoline to the fire, and he quickly added her jacket to the accumulating pile on the floor.
Grey grinned at the chest heaving through the delicate pink fabric. “Pretty shirt,” he panted. “It’s not one of your favorites is it?”
One exquisite brow quirked over smiling blue eyes. “No—”
The word barely left her lips before he snagged the collar and opened the blouse with one swift tug; a couple buttons flew off into the compact room.
Surprise and undisguised excitement lit Lizzie’s beautiful face as she stared down at herself. Grey couldn’t help staring himself. The rose lace on her bra did little to hide the rounded mounds begging for his lips. Who was he to argue?
He tested the glistening skin with dips and swirls of his tongue. Persistent hands clasped the back of his head, holding him in place. Echoes of soft moans vibrated through her chest, their begging tone urging him on. With the need to have more, he slid his fingers up her arms, fisted the thin straps and dragged them down. Full, heaving breasts burst out of their confinement.
Heaven never tasted so sweet.
Chapter Five
Elizabeth arched her back as cool air puckered her nipples. She gasped as the cool turned to hot fire when Grey’s tongue teased them into tighter peaks.
If this is a mistake, then it’s the best damn mistake I ever made.
Not once from the moment his lips touched hers did it occur to her to stop him or even slow down. With his large hands pressed into her back and his mouth bringing true all sorts of erotic fantasies over her breasts, she didn’t even have the urge to deny herself. For the second time in her life, her body called the shots over her head. They had this night, and she planned to make the most of it. Starting now.
Elizabeth pulled her hands from his hair, reached down and gripped his belt buckle. Her fingers read the metal like Braille, roaming over the form of a bronc bucking in the ring. She pressed her palm against the solid mass below the buckle and grinned as it, too, bucked against her hand. A wicked smile curled her lips and she worked his belt and zipper loose.
Twice her fingers fumbled when his teeth clamped teasingly over her nipples. Finally, she managed to find her own path to victory and pulled at the waist band of his jeans until she could wriggle her hand into the briefs to cup him.
Grey’s mouth flew off her chest. His breath drew heavy against her cheek where he held her pressed tight against him as she fondled the full sac.
“Lizzie...God.”
A growl pierced her ear seconds before she found herself shoved to a standing position.
His jeans were gone in a flash. Elizabeth’s eyes fought to take in every inch and her knees trembled with weakness before the large, solid form of Grey Wulfsen, naked.
An arm shot out and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her up against him, chest to chest, skin to skin. Her breath escaped her, unable to catch up with the blood racing hot through her body. The steel eyes held hers, creating a vacuum that sucked out the rest of the world in a silent rush of wind and sparks of silver light. His mouth came down over hers, kissing her into insanity.
The arm at her back loosened and she was left to stand on shaky legs as he knelt. Elizabeth couldn’t keep her hands from roaming to the thick blond waves of his hair. The soft strands wove through her fingers as, with his avid insistence, she stepped out of her jeans.
One large hand easily circled her bare ankle and caressed up her calf as his lips touched the small round of her belly.
Elizabeth’s fingers stiffened in his hair. Panic seized her for the first time. Though she had worked hard, this body wasn’t the same one he had made love to before. This one bore war wounds of pregnancy and labor, stretch marks and an extra inch or two on the backend and belly she’d never managed to shed.
Embarrassed, she urged him to stand so he wouldn’t have a bird’s eye view of her less than perfect body. Not that it was anywhere near perfect before but now…
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he whispered against her ear. His lips proceeded to nibble down to the curve of her neck.
She tried to pull back, the hand she attempted to cover over her fuller hips and faded stretch marks getting caught against his solid form. “It’s...been awhile and...”
She couldn’t finish the words through both insecurity and the crazy sensations his tongue made to the sensitive spot at her neck.
Grey stopped and rose to his full height. His hands framed her face and gave her no choice but to look up into his. “You are beautiful...every stunning inch of you.”
The words, spoken slow and firm, were enhanced by a sure smile and startling truth in his beautiful eyes.
She swallowed back the sudden thickness in her throat and telltale burn behind her eyes. Another small piece of her heart lost.
Grey kissed her, urging her forward as he s
tepped back. With a brush of her hair against her cheek and a wicked grin, he sat on the edge of the bed, pulled her forward and wrapped a hand around her thigh.
The sure hand disintegrated the doubts and sent a surge of excitement straight to her core. Eagerly, she set first one knee and then the other on either side of his thighs. Her desperate center sat perfectly over the top of his hard member. She moaned aloud at the wonderful sensation, arching her hips back and forth in a slow, pulsing motion until his groans matched hers.
“Lizzie,” he rasped. “Not yet...protection.”
“It’s covered,” she purred, leaning in next to his ear. And for once, she was glad of the little problems she’d had with her cycles in the past year that kept her on birth control. This was one feeling she didn’t want to cover up.
Wide hands raised her slightly until the tip of his hard, rounded shaft pushed at her damp center.
With a hitch to her breath, Elizabeth gripped the taunt muscles of his shoulders as she took over and lowered herself slowly onto him, raising then lowering inch by glorious inch. He was so large, so hard. The stretching sensation almost overwhelmed her and the air released from her lungs in small gasps.
Brows dipped over smoldering gray eyes and beads of perspiration revealed Grey’s efforts to let her control their joining. The strained muscles of his jaw grazed her palm as she stuttered one trembling hand to cup his cheek. His passion-darkened eyes held her pinned to the planet when all she wanted to do was soar into the oblivion of the universe...with him.
The hands on her hips tightened as he completed the union, nestled tight and high within her. Pulled toward him, she met his lips and grasped at the need to taste him, to be one with him, to lose herself within this man.
His lips grinned beneath hers as his hands tightened not quite painfully on her hips. Grey took over fully, thrusting up, then slowly pulling out only to thrust again in a rhythm that gained momentum with every sensually repetitive motion.
The scrape of her nipples against the coarse hair on his chest only intensified the sensations until she had to pull her mouth from his on a breathless cry. Small gasps tore from her throat as his energy fused with hers and coursed through her body like an electrical storm out of control.
Elizabeth grasped his shoulders as the sensations tightened and coiled into one erogenous spot.
Grey buried his face into the side of her neck, quickening the rhythm, each thrust jarring her body erotically against his.
Beneath her hands, his shoulders seized just as lights exploded behind her eyes. Her whole body erupted in the most exquisite rapture, released in a long breathless cry. With each continuous thrust, she held on, riding the glorious waves of their climax until her name was torn from his lips.
Chapter Six
The soft strum of a guitar woke her. Even before she opened her eyes, Elizabeth lay there and let the soft melody surround her, entwine and call to her, the song as sweet as a lullaby. The low undertone of Grey’s voice, barely audible, as if he was trying to stay quiet or singing to himself crept into her heart.
She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to break the spell. Too many times she had woken to his voice only to find a dark, lonely, empty room.
With a hand spread on the empty space beside her, she frowned and opened her eyes. The room was lit by a soft glow coming from the doorway.
Elizabeth curved her head down on the pillow and let her eyes adjust to the light and distance. A smile tugged at her lips. Beyond the narrow hall, a small lamp cast a gentle light upon Grey’s face as he slouched back on an overstuffed couch. The glow caressed his serious brow and closed eyes, revealing his concentration on the music. No, not concentration, it was more as if he was lost in the lyrical forest of notes his fingers coaxed from the instrument.
God, he was gorgeous with the light lazily lying over the hard planes of his bare shoulders. The guitar was cradled over his denim clad thighs and she grinned at the bare foot propped up on the adjacent chair.
Absently, she held the sheet to her chest as she rose and shimmied to the end of the bed. Pulling a knee up, Elizabeth rested her arms atop and listened, stealing the intimate moment.
He hummed softly for a few more minutes then stopped, though his fingers continued to strum the tune. His head turned and he smiled at her, the trailer becoming quiet as the last chord died off.
“Don’t stop, please,” she whispered into the silence. “I love listening to you.”
His smile grew and he readjusted his fingers on the arm of the guitar and strummed his others over the strings as he watched her. “I was trying to be quiet. I didn’t want to wake you, but I didn’t want to lose the melody that began in my head.”
Elizabeth shook hers. “You didn’t wake me...and it was beautiful.” He continued to play and she settled her chin onto her hands. “Does it have words?”
“Still working on them.” He dropped his gaze to focus on his hands. “But this one does.”
A more haunting melody filled the slender space. Grey stood, not missing a note as he walked toward her and sidestepped through the narrow doorway. He leaned back against the built-in chest of drawers and put a foot up on the bed. The guitar rested on his thigh as his low voice filled the room...
“I never climbed the heights of mountains,
Or felt the wind grasp moon-cast sails,
Left a mark upon this life,
Or lived to tell the tales.
But if the world came to an end
I’d die a happy man
‘Cause I got to spend
One starlit night...with you.”
Elizabeth held her lips together against the thickness that clogged her chest. Unable to meet his gaze, she stared at the shiny surface of the guitar. She’d never heard anything so beautiful in her life.
“Wow, that’s a zinger.” With a wag of her finger, and a desperate attempt to cover emotions far too close to the surface, she forced out a laugh. “I can just imagine the tissue sales after women get a load of that one.” She cleared her throat, hoping she came off sexy and aloof rather than weepy and wimpy.
It took a moment before she trusted herself enough to look at Grey. When she did, she rested her head on her hand and narrowed her eyes to a serious level. “I still think you are depriving the world by not sharing your songs.” His hand came up and mouth opened as if to argue and she held her own hand up. “I know, I know. Something about Nashville not wanting dusty cowboys. But I’m telling you, Grey. You are so wrong.” She sat up on her knees, ardent in her belief. “You are an amazing man. An intimate songwriter. Think about it, okay? Even if you don’t want to be on stage, your words could bring so much to so many people.” Just like they do to me.
Grey propped an arm on the bow of the guitar and rested his chin on his hand. “It’s nice to know you still care.”
“Of course I care.” I never stopped caring. “You’re too damned good to be singing to a trailer every night.”
“Maybe.” He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Then again, maybe I took the advice of a beautiful muse awhile back...and now owe her my undying gratitude.”
The large, warm hand and earnest eyes were distracting, and Elizabeth fought between focusing on the conversation and dragging him back to bed. She gazed back with a quizzical brow.
Grey chuckled and brought his hand around to tap her nose. “A few months after this beautiful muse told me the world needed to hear my songs, I found myself laid up for a few weeks with a couple busted ribs—”
Elizabeth’s gaze instantly flew to his chest. “Were you okay? Oh no, I fell right on top of you earlier! Maybe we shouldn’t have—”
His fingers pushed gently against her mouth and he laughed. “That was almost two years ago, Lizzie. The ribs healed up just fine. And you didn’t fall, I pulled you down. And yes, we definitely should have.” He leaned forward and kissed her soundly. “Now, can I finish?”
She nodded, contrite and horny as he
ll.
“As I was saying,” he continued with a wink. “While laid up, I started thinking that maybe this sexy lady was right. What could it hurt to give it a try? Besides, unable to ride, I was going a little stir crazy.” He smiled down into her eyes.
“Oh, Grey, that’s wonderful.” Elizabeth flopped back on her butt, the sheet tangling around her chest and legs. He’d called her sexy, and he’d taken her advice to heart. He not only saw her, he listened to her, too. Chest full of pride she smiled up to the handsome face. “Well, what happened?”
Oh God, what if they didn’t like his music? Not that she could believe anyone wouldn’t, but still, she’d heard that industry was a hard one to get into. For every one dream that came true, thousands were shattered. She bit her lip, praying that she hadn’t convinced him to do something that ended up breaking his heart.
He folded both arms over the rim of the guitar. “Turns out, the lady was right. A buddy up in Nashville let me sit in on a couple jam sessions. A few of us got to talking and, next thing I knew, I had a manager and a couple hours in a studio to record a demo.”
She blew out a relieved breath and rose on her knees again. “Oh, Grey, I’m so proud of you! This is good, right? What happens with your demo now?” Excitement for him coursed through her belly.
Grey rubbed his chest where a funny pressure point expanded. He couldn’t help but chuckle at Lizzie’s enthusiasm, and naivety. Bright blue eyes smiled up without a clue and he preened a bit to be the one able to enlighten her. “That was almost eighteen months ago, darlin’. Already sold three, and have a couple artists interested in a few more.”
“Really?” Lizzie shimmied on her knees to the very edge of the mattress and grabbed his arm. “I knew you could do it! Which song? Would I know it?”
He twined his fingers in hers. “Heard of a song called ‘Amarillo Angel’?”
“Who hasn’t?” she said matter-of-factly. “It hit number three here in town and...Oh, my God! That’s yours?”
