I Love How You Love Me: The Sullivans (11 page)

As she blinked up at him through eyes gone blurry with lust, while he ran his hands over her face, shoulders, and then the full lengths of her arms until he reached her hands, where he threaded their fingers together, she thought she knew why. Dylan wasn’t stopping because he didn’t want her. She could see, could feel, just how much he did.

The reason he’d reined them both in was because he was afraid of pushing her too far.

Because he
cared.

He could easily have continued to seduce her with kisses and caresses until she was too mindless to be able to think at all. Until she wasn’t able to make choices, only soak in sensation. Until it was too late for her to realize that they were crossing the line between feeling blissfully alive and feeling regretful.

But the truth was that stopping here, stopping now, when they hadn’t gone any further than two teenagers necking on the couch—that
was something she’d
definitely
regret. Especially if this was her one and only chance to allow herself the wonder of Dylan’s touch.

She didn’t want to break the sexy spell, but she needed to be completely honest with him right now, or moving forward wouldn’t feel right for either of them.

“I can’t have sex with you tonight.” Because for as good as it would be, and she had no doubt that her body would rejoice, her mind and heart weren’t even close to being ready for such intimacy. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that again. But—” She licked her lips, watched his hungry gaze shift momentarily to her mouth before they locked on her eyes again. “I do want this. I want you. I want your body against mine. I want your mouth, your hands on me. I want—”

It was scary to say all of these things, scary to even think them after she’d put herself into a safe freeze for so long. But Grace knew with utter certainty that it would be far worse to turn back rather than take a risk. And no matter what happened after tonight, if they decided to keep slowly moving forward or agreed to step all the way back from each other instead, she refused to regret rediscovering pleasure. Rediscovering
herself.
Not when she’d only just realized that here was yet another thing her ex had tried to take from her—her confidence in her natural sensuality, her healthy feminine responses to being touched, kissed, wanted.

She wouldn’t let her ex keep taking that from her.
Couldn’t
let him.

“I want to feel like a woman again, Dylan. I want to remember what it’s like to feel sexy. To be desired. To let myself go, even just a little bit, for a little while. And I want to go there with
you
.”

She had barely finished speaking when his mouth covered hers again. In his kiss—one so sweet, yet dangerously sexy all at the same time—she felt his promise to give her everything she needed.

* * *

For all that Dylan loved his boats and the ocean, women had always trumped both. He loved hearing a woman laugh. Loved seeing the flash of fire in a strong woman’s eyes. But nothing he’d ever experienced came close to how good it felt to have Grace in his arms, her heart racing in time with his, her mouth sweetly seductive against his as they kissed.

He’d wanted her at first glance. He’d liked her as soon as she’d stood in his boathouse and tried to persuade him to do the interview. And now, from nothing more than a handful of minutes making out with her on her living room couch, he knew that he’d crave her for the rest of his life.

Their hands were still linked as she slid his beneath her shirt, over the soft skin of her stomach, past her rib cage, finally stopping at her bra. “Touch me,” she breathed against his mouth barely a beat before she laid his hands over her full breasts. “I need you to touch me.”

He could feel the heat of her through smooth silk and only barely restrained himself from tearing it from her. Her nipples were hard against his palms, and though he tried to be gentle, he couldn’t control the urge to stroke, to tease.

She felt like heaven, but it wasn’t enough just to touch. He needed to see, too. “I want to touch all of you.”

She didn’t hesitate to reach for the hem of her T-shirt. But he had one hell of a fantasy that he was dying to see come true. So he moved his hands to hers again and lifted them to his mouth for a kiss before setting them above her head.

“I want you to hold still for me and let me have the pleasure of undressing you. Can you do that for me?”

Her eyes widened, and he watched her throat move before she answered. “
Yes.
”

It was, he found himself thinking, like unwrapping a much-longed-for gift. He was torn between tearing off her shirt or drawing it out slowly to savor the anticipation. Overpowering desire made the decision for him, and seconds later her T-shirt was on the living room rug next to his.

Lying before him wearing only a simple white silk bra, she stole his breath. “You’re beautiful, Grace.”

“I’ve always been curvy,” she said in a soft voice as she looked down to follow the path of his tanned hands up over her rib cage until he was barely stroking the undersides of her breasts through silk. “But since I had Mason I’m even curvier.”

“Yet another reason to love that kid,” he murmured as he shifted his palms to fully cup her. “Your body, your breasts, every part of you is perfect.”

“I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. Not since I found out I was pregnant.”

It meant more to Dylan than she would ever know that she was trusting him to be with her, not only since having Mason, but also since being so horribly betrayed. He felt the weight, the responsibility, of earning her trust, even as he gave silent thanks to the universe that he was being given this chance to prove that he was worthy of her.

Even if he couldn’t find the right words to persuade her to see just how beautiful she was, he could do it with a kiss. Slowly, as he loved her mouth with his own, he felt her relax again beneath him and knew right when she forgot to be shy because she twined her arms around his neck and arched up into him.

It was a crime for Grace to believe, for any reason, that she was “shut down.” All Dylan wanted tonight was to make her feel good. So good that she’d never be able to question her innate sensuality again.

Of course he wanted to protect her. Of course he would never do anything to harm her. But at the same time, he respected her too much to treat her like porcelain. Grace had already proved again and again that she wasn’t breakable.

Remembering the way her breath had gone shallow and her pupils had dilated when he’d asked her to keep her hands above her head while he undressed her, he lifted his mouth from hers. “It’s time to move your hands back over your head.”

Again, her breath quickened and her eyes darkened. He could read the thoughts that crossed her beautiful face: Did she dare trust him? Not only with being her first after such a long drought…but with
this?

But then, just as he’d expected, the brave and determined expression that he’d already come to know so well returned. Slowly—and so seductively that he knew it didn’t matter who was giving the sensual commands, she would always be the one in charge—she untwined her hands from around his neck and lifted them back up to the arm of the couch.

“Whenever I touch you, your skin flushes,” he murmured as he grazed his fingertips over her, teasing both of them. “Did you know that?”

Watching the path of his hands over her, she said in a slightly breathless voice, “All you have to do is
look
at me and I heat up all over.”

He had to kiss her again, then, so that she’d know how much he liked hearing it. Knowing it.

“It’s the same for me,” he told her, shifting just enough so that she could feel how much he wanted her. How hot, how fast his blood was pumping, all for her. “You have no idea. No idea how much I want you.”

“Then show me, Dylan. Please, show me
now
.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Permission granted, Dylan didn’t let himself overthink his instincts or his fierce need for her—he simply took two handfuls of silk and tore. But in the end, she wasn’t the one left most stunned, he was...by the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen.

His hands beat his mouth to her by a split second, and then he was touching, stroking, kissing, licking. First at the sweet, soft flesh, and then the hardened tips again and again and again. He was starved for her, desperate for more, filled with a hunger that was like nothing he’d ever known.

Grace moaned his name as she arched her back so that he could have more of her. He had her jeans off within seconds and would have torn her panties in two just as he’d shredded her bra if he hadn’t needed to stop to take a mental picture of how pretty she looked. He covered the damp silk between her legs with his hand and let out a low curse as he realized how hot, how ready she was.

“Don’t stop,” she urged him. “Please don’t stop now. I need you to touch me, Dylan. I need it so badly. I’ve never needed like this.
Never.
”

“Neither have I.” It was the honest-to-God truth. Watching, feeling Grace come apart was going to
destroy
him.

Dylan was torn again between teasing and taking. But he also knew that the higher he took her before he let her go, the better she would feel, so he forced himself to shove back the animalistic urges that she stirred up in a way no one else ever had, and sway back toward building anticipation. So instead of shredding her panties, he stroked her through them instead.

“Dylan—” He loved hearing her breath hitch. “Oh God…just like that. Keep touching me just like that.”

She was gripping the arm of the couch behind her for dear life as she worked to push herself even harder against him, and it was hands-down the sexiest thing Dylan had ever seen in his life. Watching her get herself off against him, still wearing her panties, her full breasts bouncing with every breath, he grew so hard beneath the zipper of his jeans that he figured it would bust open soon.

She’d obviously loved it when he’d had her keep her hands above her head. Something told him a little dirty talk would go over just as well. “Come for me, Grace. Just like this, riding my hand. Let me see how beautiful you are when you let me help take you over the edge.”

Her lids finally fluttered shut, the wet lips she’d been licking opened slightly, and her body bowed in sweet surrender to pleasure.

Dylan had never seen anything so mind-blowingly beautiful in all his life as Grace shuddering against him in climax. How he’d gotten lucky enough to be the guy here with her, the guy she was trusting to give pleasure back to her, he’d never know. All he knew was that he would be thankful for it forever.

He didn’t wait for her to come down, couldn’t wait one more second to touch—and taste—her bare, wet, heated skin. Silently vowing to buy her new silk to replace this set, the animal inside of him finally came completely unleashed as he tore her panties off.

When he found her with his lips and tongue, she made a sound that he thought might have been his name, but he could barely hear over the roar of his pounding heartbeat in his ears. Where she’d been on the verge of going soft and boneless at the end of her first climax, as soon as he flicked his tongue over her, Dylan could feel her begin to rise again. Maybe it was too much to ask for tonight—for her to come out of a cold front straight into the burning heat of multiple orgasms—but Lord, he wanted it.

Wanted it for both of them.

“Again,” he urged her as he slicked his fingers, first one, then another, into her. “I need to feel you let go again, Grace.”

He looked up her body as he played over her with his hands, one between her thighs, the other on her luscious breasts, and nearly lost it when he saw how close she was to giving him another sweet release. She wasn’t fighting him, wasn’t fighting herself. On the contrary, it was just as she’d said and just as he’d hoped: She was reclaiming her sensuality by letting herself go with him tonight, straight to the edge of the limits she’d set just a little while ago. Limits he would never disrespect no matter how badly he wanted her. He would never hurt her.
Never.

Dylan lowered his mouth back to her sweet skin at the same time as he thrust two fingers in. He curled them against her sensitive inner flesh just as she shattered, her muscles gripping tightly at his fingers as she rocked into his hand again and again.

After, he kissed the insides of both thighs, then made his way slowly back up her body while she worked to catch her breath. “That was...”

She broke off when he ran his hands up the lengths of her arms and threaded his fingers back through hers. He loved how soft, how relaxed she looked now as she blinked up at him.

“I’m a writer. I’m supposed to have words for the way you just made me feel. But I don’t.”

“You just did,” he told her right before he leaned in to kiss her, gentle again despite the unquenched fire raging in his blood. “And I’m right there with you, completely stunned and speechless by how beautiful you are.”

So beautiful, and so trusting, that he knew he needed to do the most difficult thing in the world.

“I should go.” He kissed her again. “Soon.” One more kiss and he forced himself to draw all the way back, bringing her up with him, naked and soft in his arms. “Now.”

“But you haven’t—”

He kissed her again before she could tear away the very thin thread of control he was still managing to hold on to. “And I won’t. Not tonight. Not until you’re ready for more.”

“I’m still not ready to have sex,” she said softly. “But that doesn’t mean you need to leave right now. So soon. Not before I touch you, too.”

He was tempted. So damned tempted that his hands shook as he picked up the blanket from the other arm of the couch and wrapped it around her. “When I said I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else, I meant it. That’s why I’m not going to stay. Not tonight. Not until you can swear to me without even the slightest hesitation that you’re ready for more. Because when that day comes, you’d better believe I’m not going to walk away. Or stop. Not until both of us are so overfull with pleasure, with each other, that we’ll be raising the white flag together.”