Page 156 of Nutmeg + Mistletoe
I glance down just in time to see his fingers at the buttons of his own shirt—my shirt now—slipping them free one by one. By the time it’s fully open, his hands are sliding around me, cupping my breasts.
“Grant…”
“Shhh,” he hushes against my ear, one hand drifting lower, teasing until he finds that spot that makes my knees go weak. His fingers circle my clit, pressing, commanding. “I know I haven’t been the most gentle.”
I gasp, clinging to the counter. “Understatement of the decade,” I manage, but the words fall apart on a moan.
It’s been like this with him since the gala. We’ve made love in my apartment, in his penthouse, once nearly in the locker room beforewe came to our senses. And yet no matter how many times he takes me, he always finds a new way to unravel me. A new way to make it feel different. Better.
I guess experience really is the best teacher and it has certainly taught him well.
In one sudden, effortless motion, he scoops me up and carries me down the hall. My arms fly around his shoulders, breath caught in my throat. But instead of the bedroom, he stops halfway, pinning me against the wall. One arm holds me in place, steady and strong, while the other fumbles at his zipper with desperate need.
It’s reckless. It’s wild. It’s us.
His mouth claims mine, kissing me senseless as he holds me there, my body caged by his strength and undone by his hunger. Still, before he gives me more of the pleasure he’s been pouring into me all week, his eyes soften, searching mine like he needs me to hear this.
“You know what I’m most grateful for today, Eslin?” His voice is low, reverent.
I can barely breathe. “What’s that?”
“That day you sat next to me in Vegas. Because I almost talked myself out of talking to you.”
I feel him at my entrance, hot and ready, pulsing like he hasn’t already been inside me over and over the night before.
“What changed your mind?” I whisper, smiling.
He kisses me again, and this one tastes like love. “Your eyes.”
Another kiss, deeper, as he pushes into me, and I wince against the sweet ache of soreness.
“Your smile.”
His grip tightens, his hands sliding down to hold my thighs, parting me, lifting me, making me his all over again.
“Your heart.”
His movements start slow, a rhythm that feels like worship. “I’m sorry I can’t get enough of you, Es. I’m sorry you’ve made a ravenous monster out of me. But I love being inside you.”
My arms cling tighter around his neck as he glides me up and down, filling me until I forget everything else.
Potatoes be damned.
I bury my face in his shoulder, biting down against the tide of pleasure as it rips through me. But even as my body trembles around him, a single tear slips free. Then another.
Because I love this man. At least, I think I do.
And that truth aches almost as much as the release. Because I can’t tell him. I can’t shout it out or whisper it against his skin. I can’t let the secret of us breathe in the open air, not when it could shatter everything else around us.
So I cry quietly against him—half from joy, half from fear—hating that I can feel this much for someone I can never fully claim.
Because Grant Mills is amazing. He is wonderful. And he is mine in every way that counts. He feels like home.
By the time we’re both spent, my body a trembling mess against his, I can barely stand upright. He kisses me once more before dragging me into the shower, turning the water hot.
For a few minutes, it’s heaven—his hands soapy, slick, sliding everywhere. But when he presses his grin against my neck and mutters something aboutgoing again, I all but shove him away.
“Threaten me with another erection, Mills, and you’ll have to tell my friend Max why she is stuck peeling sweet potatoes!”
