“Dance with me, Grayson.” Love was forever, but not everything else could be. So she’d take now...and she’d hold on to it for as long as she could. “Please, dance with me.”
Their bodies were poised to come together, and any other man would have been beyond frustrated with her for wanting to get up on their feet. Fortunately, Grayson had been frustrated with her from minute one, so at least he was used to it.
She climbed from his body even as he swung his feet to the rug beside his big bed. She loved that he’d built nearly everything in this room, that she could feel his touch in every surface, in the wood posts of the bed, in the welded ironwork of the head and footboards.
And then she was in his arms and they were dancing. There wasn’t much space on his bedroom floor, but they didn’t need it. Not when it was enough to just to be in each other’s arms and to sway to the music she was sure they both could hear.
Tears came again, falling as fast, as thick as they had before and, for the second time in one morning, he let her cry against his chest.
“It will be okay, sweetpea,” he said into her hair, using the same name for her that she’d used for the cat. “I promise it won’t hurt like this forever. One day you’ll feel better.”
But didn’t he know? “You’ve already made everything better.”
His mouth captured hers, and then he was lifting her up off the floor altogether so that her legs were wrapped around his hips and he was pressing her back down onto the bed and coming into her with slow, perfect heat.
“So have you,” he told her as he thrust into her and she met each thrust with the press of her hips against his. “Everything’s better now. So much better than it’s ever been. So much better than I ever thought it could be.”
His cheek was pressed up against hers and that was how they loved each other, with her smooth skin rubbing into his stubble, her hands holding onto him just as tightly as he was holding onto her.
Lori had always been loved by her family. She had seen the love between her siblings and their husbands and wives. She knew how it was to hold a baby niece and nephew in her arms and stare into pure wonder.
But it wasn’t until she was in Grayson’s arms, and he was kissing away her tears and caressing her so gently, so sweetly, until they were both shuddering with pleasure, that Lori finally learned what love truly was.
Addicting.
Selfless.
And entirely without bounds.
Chapter Twenty-two
Two days later, Lori still couldn’t believe Grayson had agreed to come to Sunday lunch with her. They’d dropped her rental car off first, and now, as she sat in the front seat of his truck, she couldn’t sit still. Taking him to meet her family was a really big next step for her. All the men she’d thought she’d been in love with before—now she knew none of them had ever meant anything to her because she’d never once been tempted to bring them home to meet her family.
When Grayson put his hand on her knee, she told him, “You don’t have to worry with my family,” even though he hadn’t said anything about being worried. “They’re amazing.”
“From everything you’ve told me, I’m sure they will be,” he said, but the muscle jumping in his cheek betrayed his obvious reservations.
“They’re going to love you,” she insisted.
“They’re going to take one look at me and instantly see that I’m not good enough for you,” he countered. “And six older brothers means I’m going to have to let each of them get at least one punch in.” He rubbed his jaw as if he could already feel the pain. “But don’t worry,” he said as he squeezed her knee and gave her a lopsided grin, “I won’t let them damage any of the good parts.”
She knew it was his way of telling her everything was going to be okay, but for the first time, she didn’t feel like teasing him back.
“They’re all good parts, Grayson.” She covered his hand with hers. “And I would never let anyone hurt you.”
* * *
Grayson couldn’t imagine actually wanting to have lunch with one’s family once a month. His father had always been busy with his career, his mother equally so with her charities. As a kid he’d learned not to count on them being there for much more than the requisite recitals and graduations. And the formal meals they did have together had been full of long silences and awkward questions about school and girls.
But evidently Lori and her ridiculously famous and successful siblings willingly met up all the time. Grayson had been a cynical bastard before she’d barged into his life and now that cynical voice inside him was telling him that there had to be some family dysfunction Lori hadn’t mentioned. Like jealousy. Or competitiveness.
Only, whenever Lori talked about her family, she was always happy. Laughing. And full of nothing but love.
Still, that didn’t explain why she hadn’t gone home to them when her world had fallen apart, rather than driving out into the middle of nowhere and insisting that a grumpy stranger put her up.
Lori directed him to a ranch house on a suburban street in Palo Alto. He could feel her excitement growing with every mile they got closer to her mother’s house.
“I can’t wait to see how big the babies are.” She’d told him all about one niece from her brother Chase and a niece and nephew from her sister Sophie. “They’re so cute, it’s crazy. And Summer is the perfect older cousin for them. She even changes diapers,” Lori added with a scrunch of her nose at the thought of it. “The three dogs take it up to the perfect level of craziness, just like when we were kids.” Her smile faltered slightly as she said, “I wish Sweetpea could have come with us today. She would have loved being in the middle it all.”
He reached up to stroke a hand over her hair. “I wish Mo was here too, because then I could have used her as a big furry shield.”
She smacked his hand away in mock irritation, but she was laughing again as they got out of the truck. Walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, he could hear the laughter and conversation coming from her mother’s yard. Lori sped up and pulled him toward the front door. She didn’t ring the doorbell, just walked in. The living room was empty and the French doors out to the back were open wide.
Of course, the second they walked into the backyard, every eye in the place turned to them—the babies and animals sensing something big was up, too—and Grayson was glad for those stressful years on Wall Street where he’d learned not to let anyone see him sweat, no matter how bad the pressure.