“You told her I’m okay?”
“Yeah, and I answered a lot of questions. Damn, she’s nosey.”
Jenny smiled. “She’s just making sure you’re not a bad guy. I’ve had a couple near misses lately.”
“Close your eyes. I want you to sleep a couple more hours then we’re going to get your car.”
“I need to get moving.”
“No you don’t. Today’s your day off.”
“How did you know that?” she asked.
His leg was against her. She could smell him again. He’d handed her his T-shirt full of crumbs earlier and the scent of it, with his cologne solidly ingrained, was addictive. She’d held it up to her face and breathed in the muskiness. He probably thought her crazy.
“Katy told me when she called.”
“That girl has a big mouth.”
“Yeah, but I like her.” He lifted her legs and slid back into the couch, draping the sleek skin across his lap. “Go back to sleep.” He rubbed her legs softly until her eyes drifted closed. When she thought she couldn’t get more comfortable, she felt him slip his arms under her and lift. Seconds later, her head sank into the softness of a wonderful feather pillow filled with his musky cologne. A blanket draped over her shoulders and she fell asleep, dreaming that Grant was spooned against her. His lips trailed down her shoulder, pushing the fabric aside. She sighed and arched her neck to give easier access.
“Jenny,” he whispered against her neck, “we’re not going to do this while you’re half-asleep.”
She groaned and pulled him into her. “I’m not asleep.” She thought he laughed softly.
“Yeah, you are.”
Okay, maybe I am, but keep doing that.
Hours later, she blinked her eyes open to find her nose smashed against Grant’s Adam’s apple. She sucked in an enormous gulp of his scent then sighed. He was warm. Fantastically warm. And she was in his bed, wrapped up in blankets.
Wait! She was WHAT?
How the hell did that happen?
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just me, Jen. You’re fine.”
“I’m fine? I’m in your bed with no pants on. What the hell?” She shoved against him, sat up, and pulled the covers against her.
“I had nothing to do with the pants. You took them off yourself. And all we did was sleep. Both of us. We slept.” His eyes bore into hers. “You remember me carrying you in here?”
She looked away. “Yeah.”
“Okay then. We slept.” He sat up too. “Nice panties though.”
She peeked under the blanket and saw the turquoise cotton with black lace that covered her hips. Silently glad she had on something fairly nice, she suppressed a grin.
“Yours aren’t too bad either
.
”
Sure, I looked. I’m not stupid.
He put a hand out and rubbed her arm with his thumb. His hands were warm, big, and a bit on the rough side. “So, you were checking me out on the couch? Jenny Madison, you’re a bad girl.”
“Yeah, well that makes two of us,” she teased. She could barely see him in the darkness. He had drawn the blinds so the dark engulfed them like a hotel room into pseudo-night.
“God, I hope so,” he whispered. His grip on her arm tightened and he yanked her against him. He was an early morning person, she realized. In many ways. He was up, really up, in the morning. She used to be like that but with the new business, now, her internal clock had flipped its axis.
Who cares?
He could be from a completely different planet and she’d still want him — right now. The guy was gorgeous. Okay, maybe gorgeous wasn’t the right word for a guy, but she wasn’t sure what else to use. Not cute, apparently. All she knew was that every pore in his being was against her and the feel of it was just about to drown her. She gulped a breath then trailed her lips against his neck. Did he kiss her forehead? Did he really whisper against her ear, ‘Jenny, you are so damn beautiful’? Was that his tongue flicking against her ear … grazing her lips, her eyes, and her nose? This was so out of control. She was sleep-deprived. That was it.
“Jen, I’ve got to touch you. Really.”
Did he say that or did I imagine it?
She shook her head.
Grant drew back in the dark. The scent of him pulled away too.
She clutched her fingers into his sides. “No.”
“No?” He was asking.
“I didn’t mean no, don’t touch me. I meant no, don’t pull away.” She hesitated. “Am I asleep? Wake me up, dammit.”
“No. God no. Don’t wake up. Just keep going. I like this dream. I want it. Holy shit, I
need
this dream, Jen.” His mouth smothered hers, sucking her lips until they felt chapped.
Then, he did the strangest thing. He sank his head down to her belly and rested his face against her stomach with his lashes fluttering on her ribcage. It tickled. And it turned her on. His arms wrapped around her waist in a cocoon. He groaned into her skin, a hot rush against the coolness of the sheets. He started lifting the fabric of her shirt and pressing lips against her skin.
Jenny wasn’t sure when or how it happened, but a few moments later her shirt was on the floor, along with the black lace of the bra and panties. She thought she remembered muttering, “Oh hell” as she threw them there, but maybe that was him. The black boxers she’d stripped him to during the night joined her garments, wrapped together as if they wanted to be permanently attached. He still had potato chip fragments tangled into the hairs surrounding his naval. Sexy was all she could think of. Jenny couldn’t form a lucid thought. Was she still asleep? Did it matter? Damn he was hot, and his kisses melted into her collarbone as he ran a hand down her neck and trailed it along the underside of her breasts.
“Jen. I can’t — ” He sounded pained as he spoke into her cheek. She ran a hand down the feather sprinkling of hair that lined his torso, brushing the crumbs aside, and reaching deeper still. Grant moaned a long, painful exhale. “Don’t make me — ”
She drew back. “Don’t make you do this?” she asked incredulously.
He laughed. “Don’t make me stop. Please don’t make me stop.” He grabbed her hand and steered it where he wanted her to go then he laced his fingers along her thigh, then up to where she ached for him to touch. He worked his fingers gently until she shuddered. The spasm came suddenly. So suddenly that she stopped breathing for a second. Lights exploded in her peripheral vision as the first wave hit.
“Holy shit! Holy … lightning … hell!”
Did she really say that?
She rose off the bed and clutched into him as he touched and caressed. He stared into her eyes. Or at least she thought so. It was too dark to really tell. She felt his hand on her backside, squeezing into her skin as his mouth worked over her neck, her jaw line, and her breasts. Then, he lifted her to his lap and hugged her tightly to him, skin on skin. He was warm and engulfing in his embrace.
Grant murmured something against her collarbone but she didn’t grasp it, then he eased her onto her back. She could hear his stilted breathing. She probably should be glad for the dim light; it hid any imperfections of her less than perfectly sculpted curves. Unfortunately, she wasn’t glad. She wanted the lights on. She wanted the blinds open. She wanted to see his face and know what he felt. He took care of the protection thing then slipped into her, a thrusting motion that glued them deep together.
“Stay with me Jen,” he whispered. As if she would do anything else. His hands splayed hungrily across her back. She couldn’t help but work with it, rocking into him as he moved. And he moved. God, did he move. He lifted up and cradled into her neck with his forehead. She rolled her head back and let him take her with him into the deep pit of his pleasure. His fingers dug into her hips as she cascaded in rhythm with his body. She arched toward him.
Was she really doing this? His lips licked and sucked their way over her neck and down to the dip between her breasts before returning to her face. In rhythm with his thoughts, his touch, his mouth, his never-call-it-cute body. When the wave hit him, she was right there with him. Every muscle in his smooth, hard body strained to enjoy the moment as much as she did.
“Damn, Jen. Holy … lightning … hell, you’re beautiful.” He repeated himself and was practically panting when he said it.
They lay quietly for a stretch before he said it again. “Jen, you’re beau — ”
“It’s completely dark in here, Grant. Everyone looks good in this light.” She sucked in a gulp of desperately needed oxygen and turned to roll onto her stomach. She lifted her feet to cross them at the ankles.
“Come on Jenny, don’t do that shit.” He took advantage of her position and lowered his head to pillow it in the small of her back. As he trailed fingers lightly up her spine, he added, “Don’t try to ruin it for me. I know what I see.”
“You see nothing.”
“I see you. And everything about you. I don’t need the lights on to know the details.”
She started to argue. “You can’t possi — ”
Grant groaned and snaked a hand up to the back of her head. He palmed her hair like a basketball and shoved her head straight down into the mattress, muffling her words.
“Can’t you just let me enjoy this for a few more minutes before you start throwing barbs at me?” he asked.
“Okay,” she murmured into the pillow-top.
He let go of her head and returned to her back. Jenny decided words weren’t necessary. He was doing just fine without them. Really fine. Holy. Lightning. Hell. Fine.
Sleep deprivation, no matter how it comes about, always catches up with a person. Maybe it wasn’t the lack of sleep. Jenny had lived with that for months now without problems. Had to be the sex. She was out of shape.
“Man, I need to get to the gym,” she mumbled with one eye open. The room was still dark; she had no idea what time it was. They’d both drifted off this time. His head was cradled against her spine. She could feel the soft breeze of air from his open mouth on her skin. Regular little sighs. He rolled off and bear crawled to her side.
“I never pictured you for the gym type,” he said. “Especially after seeing the way you inhaled that bag of chips.”
His mouth pressed against her shoulder. It was damned intimate and made her uncomfortable. She wasn’t very good at the intimacy thing. What was it he said about kicking her out after?
Jenny reached to the end of the bed and tugged the sheet until it rested gently below her chin.
“It’s a little late to cover up, don’t you think?”
She couldn’t see him but she knew he was grinning. She sighed. “I’m cold.”
“Yeah, and I’m a radiator.” Actually, that part is true, she thought. “It’s time to go get your car. If we don’t get moving, they’ll be closed.”
“Really? Good grief, what time is it?” She slid her feet onto the floor, wrapped the sheet around her three times, and padded toward a light under the door. Bam. She hit her shin on something and cried out. Grant laughed. The flicking sound of a switch echoed after his chuckle, and a light by the bed gave her the visibility needed to find the bathroom, which, by a woman’s standards, was pretty nasty. She looked in the mirror and panicked.
What the hell am I doing? This isn’t me.
“I really appreciate what you did for me,” Jenny said when they stopped at the tire store. Her car sat out front, waiting. He grinned.
She backhanded his arm. “Not that! I meant coming and getting me. Helping me with the car. It was nice.”
“Nice,” he mocked. “Right up there with cute. Not what a guy wants to be called by a woman he’s just burned the sheets with.”
She raised a finger. “Stop. Can we just not talk about that, okay? It’s bad enough I had to call you for help. I’m probably not going to live it down. You don’t have to rub it in that I
— ” I attacked you. I was half-asleep.
“You yell out ‘Holy. Lightning. Hell’ in the heat of the moment?” Grant teased. “I like it. I like it a lot. In fact, I think I’m going to start saying that all the time now. I like it so much.” He yanked on her hair.
“I don’t usually do that.”
“No kidding? Then I like it even more.” He grinned. “And no, we can’t just not talk about it. You’re not getting off that easy. Okay, maybe you did, but — ”
She backhanded him again and stepped out of his car to the store. A warning frown let him know she didn’t want to hear another word. She expected him to drive off. After all, she had her car now. He didn’t need to stay. Instead, he parked and followed her. When she finished paying, he tossed her his keys and slipped hers from the counter.
“I’ll drive it to your place,” he said over his shoulder as he pushed out the door into the afternoon sunshine. “Just to make sure everything’s okay. You can take mine and follow.”
“You’re really going to trust me to drive your convertible?” She squinted into the brightness.
“Sure. Why not?” He hesitated as if questioning the decision. “You follow me. Okay?”
“Got it.” As soon as they hit the freeway, she zipped into the passing lane, gassed it and took off.
• • •
By the time Grant arrived at her apartment, Jenny had backed the audi into a nice spot and was sitting on the hood with her arms around her knees.
Nice car. No wonder he kept it.
“What happened to following me?”
“I’m not too good with orders or following.”
“Yeah, I see that.” He walked around his car as if checking for scratches and stopped in front of her. “You’re crazy.”
“So are you.”
“I guess so. Good thing your car didn’t break down on the way here.” He grinned.
“What are you doing with the rest of the day?” He slipped his hands into his pockets and kicked the tire.
“Why do you want to know? Haven’t you got something to do?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I’m supposed to be in the bar at the Beverly Hilton in an hour to meet with a client. You want to go? We could eat dinner after.”
She slipped from the hood and moved around him toward her apartment. “I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and I look like I’ve been run over by a truck.”
“You look fine.” He started to close the distance she tried to put between them.
“Word of advice, Grant. Remember how you said grown men don’t like to be called cute or nice? Well, while we’re schooling each other on terminology, grown women don’t like to be told they look
fine
either. That’s just a polite way of saying ‘you look like shit but I don’t mind’.” She posted her hands on her hips and frowned.