G
rant hated the nerves that took over after closing. He and Tasha had had brunch and everything had gone fine between them. They’d worked as usual which meant they’d flirted whenever they crossed paths. Why the unease now?
He glanced at her over his laptop screen. Her back was to him. He stretched his neck to try to see what had her attention.
“You know I can see you in the mirror, right?”
He straightened, his face heated. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing if we need more cranberry vodka. You?”
He debated with himself for only a second about telling the truth. “Trying to figure out if you’ll be coming back with me to the B&B. I can’t read your mood.”
She turned around, an iPad crooked in her arm. That distracted him long enough he missed her smile. Then he smiled back.
“Does that mean yes?” he asked.
“It means I think you’re cute right now.”
“Cute?”
She rounded the counter, walking straight for him. He tried to keep the smile from turning into a shite-eating grin, but it was very hard.
When she was close enough, she tipped his head back with her forefinger. “I think it’s cute you are worried I won’t want to go home with you. How long were you thinking about this?”
“Ever since Mia and Kincaid left.”
“You’ve been sitting for an hour in indecision?”
“Aye.”
She leaned down, barely pressing her lips to his. He stayed still, giving her the reins to make the kiss more or less as she wanted. He wanted more. He wanted…everything.
Tasha pulled back. “Why are you so honest about emotional shit that can kick you in the teeth?”
“I’m not sure I understand what you are asking.”
She dropped her hand. “It’s like you have zero fear of rejection.”
He fisted a hand in her shirt to pull her closer. “Rejection stings, but I’ve found you are more likely to get what you want when you simply tell the truth.”
“But there’s a difference in getting something, like an object or a company, and putting your feelings out there.”
That gave him a thought. “What feelings are you hiding from me because of fear of rejection?”
She scoffed. “That—I hate when you do that.”
He tugged lightly on her shirt. “Let me kiss it better then.”
“Later, when we get back to your B&B. I have to finish inventory.”
He loosened his hold, and she retraced her path behind the counter. He noted but didn’t point out she didn’t answer the question.
Felt like forever but was probably only thirty minutes before she put up the iPad and collected him so they could head back to his room. They had nothing but silence again as they walked down Glasgow streets. He shouldn’t have felt safe or something akin to comfort, but something about the simple fact of walking beside her centered him.
What the fuck was that?
Before he could even contemplate an answer, they were in his rooms. She didn’t dart for the dresser for safety. Don’t hope. Don’t think. She shucked off her jumper and tossed it on a chair in the corner. The boots came next.
Took him a moment to realize he just stood there watching her before he shed his winter clothes. He waited until she peeled off her shirt to do the same. Next with their pants. She bit her lip and it made her smile crooked as she undid her bra. He tossed off his boxers. Her panties came off next and he could only stare.
Her breasts were a little more than a handful, full and low with brown nipples that were already taut. Her thick thighs had been wrapped around him and all he could think of was having them pressing against him again. So soon. A small patch of hair framed her pussy. He would have fallen to his knees and begged her to meet his mouth, but they had time to do everything. They didn’t have to be quiet. They could lose themselves in each other for a little while.
He hated to break the silence between them, it was thick and expectant, but already he missed the sound of her voice. “Tasha, ready for a good night’s sleep?”
She strolled passed him. “Before or after you do every dirty thing you’re promising in your eyes?”
He had to follow the sway of her hips. “We may need nap breaks, if I’m going to be honest.”
She turned and plopped onto the bed. “Oh, so we’ve finally reached a point where you drop the humble and just brag.”
He reached the end of the bed and closed both hands on the backs of her knees. Because he knew how much she liked it, he used his nails to lightly drag his fingers up to her waist. His mouth was on hers before she could moan at the touch. He picked her up, and without his having to say a word, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Turning, he sat on the edge of the bed, pulling her close so they were skin to skin.
They continued to kiss forever, and it simply wasn’t long enough. His cock grew thick between them, but they both ignored the need to jump right into fucking. She was definitely wet enough. She let her pussy rest at the base of his dick and her arousal warmed his balls. He could fuck them daft from that turn on alone.
But they had time.
He caressed every bit of skin he could reach and she dragged her nails up and down his back. He wanted more. Everything. He wished he knew what everything meant. Then maybe his gut could loosen. His scalp wouldn’t feel so fucking tight. He’d stop kissing her like it was the last thing he would be allowed to do before dying. Grant didn’t want to find out what happened when you kissed a woman like that.
Grant tore his mouth away, working his way down to the spot that drove her wild. He pressed his lips to the sensitive flesh then whispered, “Play with your clit.”
She moaned and shifted so she could work her hand between them. “I’m so wet, Grant.”
“Look at me while you play with yourself.”
Her lashes fluttered as she met his gaze, her focus on him hazy. This wasn’t any better for him than kissing her. Her legs tightened around him as she squirmed, her hand moving faster. He took turns plucking her nipples.
“Aye,” he rasped. “Make that pussy come. Get it ready for my cock.”
The fingers of her free hand wrapped around his wrist and dug in.
“Are you dripping? Is your arousal sliding down between your arse cheeks?”
“Yes. Yes.”
He glanced down and had to groan. She was using her index and middle finger to roll her clit.
“Let me see. Dip your fingers inside so I can see just how sticky and wet you’ve made yourself.”
Her nails rasped against his forearm and he didn’t mind the sting, especially when she did as he commanded. Not. At. All. Better. Than. Kissing. Her.
“Fuck,” he murmured. “Put your fingers in my mouth so I can lap you up.”
And that did it. She let out a soft sob, and he talked her through the orgasm, somehow managing to keep his sanity as she bucked, burying her fingers into her pussy over and over. After a minute she melted into him.
“Tasha, that was beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
She chuckled, turning her head until their gazes caught. “You’re sex drunk.”
Maybe. “Ready for more, lass?”
She placed her mouth along his and nipped his bottom lip. “Fuck, yes.”
That’s all he needed to hear. Took him less than twenty seconds to grab his pants off the bed, find the condom, and put it on.
She barely waited for him to slide it all the way down before sitting on his cock. He gritted his teeth, but a groan still escaped. When he was nestled deep inside her, he had to hold her still by the hips and just breathe. She clenched around his cock, and he lost whatever control he had on his need to fuck her. Before he knew it, he had one arm around her waist and a hand cupped behind her neck.
His mouth searched for her bared skin, kissing and licking what he could. She arched into the light, frantic caresses. Her moan vibrated from her throat strong enough he could feel it beneath his fingers.
“I’ve never been this wet.”
He dropped both hands to her waist and slammed their bodies together. Her pussy clamped down on his cock. He would swear time slowed as she shuddered, squeezing his cock with every stroke. His dick and balls felt fused from pleasure, but she was so fucking soft and wet gripping him, milking him. His spine felt dipped in fire. He came as she screamed his name.
She leaned into him, still trembling from the aftershocks of her orgasm. He held her close. What else could he do? He’d come, but he wanted to climb into her skin just to get closer.
Some part of his brain that wasn’t drowned in spent lust sent up a warning bell. He could barely hear it. Sex with this woman was something else. Something he doubted he could ever get tired of. He pulled her with him as he drew back on the bed.
She reached up, her fingers tangling in his strands of hair, and said, “Okay. You weren’t lying. Nap time?”
“Aye, lass. We’ll catch our breath, and then we’ll see if you can grind my pelvis into dust.”
Her laugh was huskier than before. “Volunteering to be a bottom again?”
“Have you seen yourself? I will forever be bottom if that’s what you want. Now, if I survive it, then I’ll be on top. Don’t let me survive it, or you’ll pay dearly.”
She cupped his jaw, her eyes bright, her expression soft. God. God. Had a woman ever looked at him like that? Had he ever wanted one to? And all he could do was stare down at her feeling…so dramatic in his need to kiss her again.
This was not braw.
But, fuck, he kissed her anyway.
“You are quite terrible at this.”
Grant’s gruff voice woke Tasha. With her back to him, only her butt made contact with his skin, his thigh to be exact, but the heat of him warmed her.
He snorted. “I’m not telling you that.” Pause. “Or that.”
She tensed. His fingers brushed against her, a soothing touch. Caught, she turned to face him. His brows slashed down, his gaze filled with a question. She narrowed her eyes at the phone. He shook his head before reaching down again to grab her hand. He brought the limb to his mouth, placing a kiss in her palm.
Tasha didn’t want to be swayed by the gesture, because who was on the phone? Why did it feel like they were talking about her? She tried to pry her hand free, but he held on, and then nipped at a fingertip.
“Violent,” she whispered.
He only did it again before saying into the phone, “Order out and put the meal on plates. Otherwise, I fear you’ll kill your wife.”
She tried to run through her knowledge of him to suss out who he must be talking to. It wasn’t one of his siblings—none were married to her knowledge.
Grant laughed. “She’s currently eavesdropping.”
She pressed her heated face to his chest and laughed.
“Clearly I taught you nothing. I would be disappointed, but my brother and the Baird are giving me enough grief.”
He went quiet for long enough she adjusted her bonnet for an excuse to get a peek at him. The good humor had left his expression. His muscles tightened beneath her. Sensing the change in mood, she tried to put space between them, but he closed his hand around her wrist, shaking his head.
Finally, he said into the phone, “Bollocks.” Another pause. “Bye, you fuck face.”
He stabbed a button on the phone’s screen then cursed under his breath.
Then a thought finally dawned on her—a friend. Grant must have been talking to a friend. Why hadn’t she thought of him having a friend, one close enough they could sour his mood in a few words? He seemed so solitary if she discounted his siblings.
His expression softened when he looked at her. “What?”
“Does your friend live in London where your company is?”
“America, some town in California that doesn’t have a beach. His name is Marcus. His uncle is the Baird. We worked for Scotland, International together for many years, and then he went to America for some convoluted scheme and fell in love, the manky bastard.”
His tone of voice had warmed and lost its sharp edges of irritation. She really liked this side of him. “Did the scheme work out?”
“Aye, but he had help.”
He was the help, Tasha had very little doubt of that. “Do you do that often? Drop everything and come to the rescue for the people you love?”
He widened his eyes and said in a dramatic tone. “Pot, meet kettle.”
She smiled. “Apparently this is our one true flaw.”
“Who says? I think it’s a strength. I get to be there for people when they need me.”
Weeks ago she would have assumed he did that to have something to hang over that person’s head. He could call in the favor later. She wouldn’t say what you see is what you get with Grant or that he wasn’t slicker than shit on a rainy day. He just wasn’t twirling a long mustache treating everyone in his life like marionettes while he was the puppeteer.
But what did he do when no one needed him?
He flicked the tip of her nose. “I don’t know if I like that expression. Spells trouble for me.”
“I don’t even want to know why you came to that conclusion.”
“You wore that expression when I first saw you.”
“Because I was getting the 411 on the whole Davina situation.”
“No. Not then.”
“I’m confused.”
“I caught sight of you when my brother and Mia first met. At the time I didn’t know you and Mia were friends. All your attention was on my brother.”
She hated how her heart thudded with…She didn’t know what emotion ruled between curiosity and excitement. “I did look at you. I mean, my friend had dragged over a stranger and went to go drink with two white dudes. I was memorizing your faces in case I had to tell the police later.”
“And what did you think of me?”
Yeah. She hated that about him. He could so easily read between the lines and find the one thing she didn’t want to tell him. “You did not look like you were there for fun.”
“I dragged my brother to a wedding of people he barely knew. In a fair trade, he dragged me to a fan convention happening nearby and made me dress like Sherlock Holmes. I looked like an absolute arse.”
They shared a laugh that somehow turned into a kiss. It was probably him who initiated. He couldn’t seem to stop pressing their mouths together. She couldn’t stop wanting him to, but he was naked, getting harder with each passing moment.
She broke the kiss to brush her mouth along his collarbone. Because it was Grant, when she looked up to meet his gaze, he wore a knowing smile then he locked his hands behind his head.
Was it normal to want to thump someone in the forehead and fuck them? Probably not, but she still stuck her tongue into his belly button and was rewarded with his stomach muscles flexing and his hiss of breath.
She spent some time there, loving the way Grant kept shifting as though he wanted her to lick him lower and what she was doing was already too much for him to take. Eventually she licked her way down to his pelvis.
He groaned and chuckled. “Were you a masochist in a past life?”
In answer she closed her fingers around his dick and placed a soft kiss along the underside of his cock. She took her time kissing up and down his shaft, avoiding the tip. Nothing but gratification filled her when she tasted the precome that had spilled out.
To end the torture, she licked her way up then sucked him into her mouth. He moaned, his legs pulling up to hold her in place. She pressed back on his thighs with her palms. Her mouth rode down his cock until she couldn’t take anymore of him in.
“Just like that,” he rasped.
That became her rhythm—slow and as deep as she could take his cock, which wasn't far, but he didn’t seem to mind. She felt like a goddess when his legs trembled beneath her hands and his groans grew deeper. He was prisoner to her tongue wrapping around his cock, flicking the slit and the sensitive skin along the head while she sucked him.
Her pussy throbbed and wept knowing how turned on he was. As though he could sense it, Grant gripped her nape and pulled her away and reached for her leg, directing her wordlessly so he could get to what he wanted. His hand rose between her thighs. When his thumb met that wet, warm place he pressed his thumb inside her.
She clenched around the digit, wishing for more. He used the long-webbed flesh between his thumb and index to rub her clit as he fucked her with his finger. It was more than enough for her to close her eyes and to take him back into her mouth with a vengeance.
He fucked her to the rhythm of her sucks. Faster and faster. She moaned as the taste of his precome changed and his dick flexed, each one making him harder than the last time. He curled his thumb downward and shortened his thrust. She had to stop to press her face against his thigh because the pleasure that slammed into her left her breathless.
“No,” he growled. “Don’t clench. Open up for me. Aye. Like that. Just like that.”
All she could do was cup his balls and try to massage him as her body lit on fire. Her pussy had never felt so raw and open and sensitive. God. She was shaking.
“I’m about to…” She bit softly on his thigh.
Her face heated as she felt the small spurt of come drip from his hand down between her legs. The orgasm rocked her in waves until she was sure it would never end.
“I’m about to come,” he warned.
She closed her mouth around the tip of his cock. Unlike before, this time he pumped his hips fucking her mouth as deep as she could take it. A white, heady rush took over her when she tasted him, truly tasted him, and he groaned her name.
Once he caught his breath, he let out a string of curses, extremely inventive. She flopped onto her side and just sprawled on him.
Tasha didn’t know how long they stayed half dead like that waiting for the world to not feel surreal. Eventually he bundled her up and pulled her to lay on his chest. She only had one thought before falling deep into sleep—she was going to have to walk away from him, from this, soon.