One of his hands moved back to brush against her cheek before plunging into her hair, already drying from the heat of the fire behind them. With his other hand, he stroked down the hourglass of her curves, from the swell of her breast to the indentation of her waist, back out to the flare of her hips.
“Grayson.”
She’d sworn never to beg him for anything, that she’d earn with hard work every day on his farm and every night in the bedroom he’d given her. And yet, begging him to touch her, to take her all the way over the edge he’d already brought her to, was as natural as breathing. As natural as the path of his hand from her hips to her stomach.
She was trembling now with need for him, but when he slowly slid his hand down lower, and then lower still between her thighs, she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t find steady ground.
“So hot.” He groaned the words into her neck, where he’d buried his face. “And so goddamned wet. God, I can’t believe how ready you are for me.”
He slipped one finger, then two, into her, and she couldn’t think, could barely remember to breathe.
All she could do was feel.
The heat of him. The shockingly sweet slide of his fingers in and out of her. The press of his thumb over her clitoris.
The storm came to a head outside with thunder and lightning practically crashing down on the cabin just as the storm inside of her broke. She rocked into his hand and he crushed his mouth to hers again to drink from her cries of pleasure.
* * *
He couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t stop reveling in the slick softness between her legs. God, he wanted to taste her, wanted to drop to his knees and kiss every inch of her beautiful body. And then, after he made her come again against his tongue, he wanted to pull her down to the floor with him, her gorgeous legs wrapped around his hips as he took her fast and furiously.
The storm that was raging outside had raged just as powerfully inside him—until the moment he realized he didn’t have protection on him, damn it.
Why would he? He didn’t need condoms to head out into the field to work with his horses and cows, to fix fence, to rotate his crops.
But even as practicalities stopped him cold, he knew they weren’t the real reason why he wasn’t going to pull Lori down to the crude wood floor and take her. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want her, either. Lord, he couldn’t ever remember wanting to make love to a woman more, had never needed to know this badly what it would feel like to sink into her.
All these years in California he’d made sure to keep to himself, to feed a community without ever connecting with anyone beyond the food he grew for them. He couldn’t allow himself to fall in love again, refused to let anyone touch his heart, his soul, when he knew he needed to keep them both locked up and punished for the way his wife had died.
But even as Grayson reminded himself of all the reasons he couldn’t permit himself to feel anything for Lori, he couldn’t stop thinking about the moment she had finally stilled in his arms after her climax.
He’d felt every inch of her softness in his arms...and every bit of her vulnerability.
She acted so tough, put on that sassy act at every turn. But he’d seen the flashes of pain in her when she didn’t think he was looking, simply because he couldn’t look away. It was why he’d let her stay when he thought she’d be next to useless as a farmhand.
Because he’d recognized in her the need to heal that had been in himself three years ago when he’d found the farm.
And yet, even though he’d lived with her for nearly a week, and even though she’d just come apart in his arms and it had been one of the most beautiful things he’d ever experienced in thirty-five years, he still didn’t know a damn thing about why she was on the farm.
Or what she was hiding from.
Grayson knew what he needed to do. He needed to push her away; needed to lash out hard enough that she couldn’t possibly stay; needed to find a way to live with himself for adding more pain to her eyes, more tears on her pillow. He needed a way to forget that he had begun to respect her for turning out to be much stronger than he’d initially given her credit for, filled with a determination that couldn’t help but impress him.
And, most of all, he needed to remember that the last time he’d let himself fall for a woman, he’d ended up losing her.
Grayson couldn’t repeat that. Ever.
Lori’s fingers were moving to his belt buckle when he removed his hands from her and forced himself to take a step back as he said, “This never should have happened.”
Chapter Twelve
Five words were all it took for Lori to feel as if she’d just stepped out into the cold, hard rain, a complete one-eighty from the bliss Grayson had just given her, immediately making everything that had warmed freeze up again.
She knew he was right, that they shouldn’t be doing this, but it didn’t stop his abrupt rejection from hurting. Hurting like crazy, actually, as though his words had run a sharp grater across her already raw insides.
Lori bent down to reach for her clothes, but they were so wet she could barely peel them apart, let alone shove them on so that she could get away from a man she didn’t understand. A man she shouldn’t want to understand when he pulled her into him one second, and shoved her away the next.
She’d been there. She’d done that.
Never again—wasn’t that what she’d vowed?
Oh, how she’d loved being naked in Grayson’s arms, but now that he’d pushed her away, she hated her nakedness. She felt powerless, as if he could see all the way through her when he’d put every single one of his guards back up.
A sob rose as she tried to get her stupid clothes to come unstuck from each other, and she wasn’t quick enough at swallowing it down. It didn’t help when Grayson handed her a blanket from the couch.
“Wrap this around yourself.”
Why did he have to choose that moment to be kind? If he’d been gruff like he usually was, she could have stopped any tears from falling...but now all she could do was take the blanket from him and turn away to move closer to the fire as she wrapped it around herself, hoping he hadn’t seen them. Her years of dance training were what made it possible for her to hold her proud, straight stance even as another tear fell.
“Lori—”
She could hear the regret in the way he said her name and she hated it. Hated that he felt sorry for her for wanting him the way she did.