All of Me (10 page)

“I really don’t think I need to tell you what that something more is, Charlie.”

With his other hand, Grant cradled Charlie’s face and brought her lips to his. The gentle brush of her mouth against his almost overwhelmed him with the rush of sexual electricity that passed between them. The current was both familiar and different. Still holding the side of her face with one hand and trailing the other hand to the small of her back, Grant pressed Charlie closer to him. When she let out a small moan into his mouth, he temporarily lost control.

Grabbing her closely, he swung her on her back without breaking contact with her mouth. He pressed his body on top of hers and began to deepen the kiss to a feverish pitch. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth, probing, and he was exhilarated when she opened for him. As his tongue slipped in he began to explore the inside of her mouth. He also began to move a hand under the top she wore. Grant skimmed his fingers across her taut belly and to her full breasts; he let out a feral groan when he felt the underside of her lush breasts.

Lifting his head, he looked down into her flushed face and wasn’t surprised to see her staring back up at him. When she shifted to allow for her shirt to be lifted higher, he gave her a sexy grin. Using her new position to his advantage, he pulled her shirt completely off. The sight of her breasts still in their bra caused him to moan with appreciation. He had loved her breasts before. Full and heavy, with their brown tips like chocolate treats, but what he saw now blew him away. He knew their increased size and fullness was because of breast feeding, and he wondered if it would be okay for him to indulge his desire to suckle as he had done so in the past. As if sensing his apprehension, Charlie spoke.

“It’s okay. You just have to be a bit more gentle.”

With her husky voice and hand gently brushing back fallen hair on his brow, Grant didn’t wait for another invitation. As she arched her back, he quickly unhooked the simple white cotton bra she wore. Pulling it away from her body and tossing it aside, Grant drank in the view before him.

“God, you’re so beautiful.” He shuddered.

Giggling, Charlie guided his mouth to her left breast. When he began to lick and nip around her erect nipple, she let out little panting noises of pleasure. Gently squeezing the swollen breast, he licked her nipple and nipped it gently between his teeth. When she cried out his name, he couldn’t think about anything but burying himself so deeply in her that she would never want him out.

Chapter Nine

As Grant did incredible things to her breasts, Charlie kept thinking she hadn’t meant for it to go this far. Well, at least for a second, before her sex-saturated brain told her to shut up and enjoy. Every nerve ending in her body was on high alert. With each stroke of his tongue on her highly sensitized flesh, Grant was sending her into orbit. Alternating between clutching her hands in his hair and sliding them down his impressive back, Charlie was finding it hard to breathe at times.

What she could focus on was the fact they had way too many clothes on. She wanted to feel Grant’s tongue on every single inch of her body. She wanted to explore his body to see if it was the same as she remembered, and she wanted to feel him throbbing inside her, pushing her to heights she had only ever experienced with him.

As if sensing her desires, Grant drew his body up and balanced his weight on one hand while he began to unbutton her jeans. Charlie’s brain told her she should help, but her body wasn’t listening. She kept trying to pull him back down for another of his soul-scorching kisses. Laughing, he obliged but tried to continue with his previous endeavor.

“Honey, as much as I would love to make out with you right now, I’ve waited far too long for this. Please help me get us undressed so I can kiss some of my other favorite parts of you.”

As if to emphasize his point, Grant sat up on his knees and began to unbutton his jeans. Charlie quickly sprang into action. Scooting back, she began to undo her pants and pull them down her legs. With Grant’s help, she had them past her ankles and off. Charlie lay back and began to pull at the waist of her low-rise red bikini panties when Grant stopped her with a strained no.

“No. Not here. I want you in the bed where I can roll you and explore you and not have to worry that you are going to have nasty rug burns.”

Getting to his feet, Grant stood over her with his hand stretched out to help her stand. Taking his hand, Charlie got to her feet and let out a little yelp when Grant gathered her into his arms and began to carry her to the back of the house. As they walked down the hallway, she planted butterfly kisses along his neck and gently suckled at the pulse throbbing in his throat. Growling slightly, he walked into her room and dropped her onto her bed. The wrought-iron headboard banged against the wall.

Smiling mischievously at her, Grant began to push his jeans down and step out of them. From her position on the bed she could see his erection straining through the soft cotton of his black boxer briefs.

She felt the hot rush of liquid pool in her panties when he pulled his underwear down and stepped out of them. Charlie hadn’t realized she had spread her legs until Grant climbed between them. When she felt him hot and hard pressing against the thin fabric of her panties, a warm burning of sexual desire began in her stomach and moved down to the most sensitive center of her body. When he began to move rhythmically above her, Charlie let out little cries of pleasure. Reaching between them, she took him in her hand and smiled with a feeling of female possession when he cried out softly against her mouth. She wrapped her hand around the velvety softness, her greatest desire to feel it lodged firmly inside her. As if anticipating the action, her inner walls began to clench.

When Grant’s thumb began to play at the edges of her panties between her legs, she let go of him and guided him to her wet, eager body. When he slipped under the damp fabric, she gently bit down on his soft bottom lip. With his touch, Charlie lost the last vestige of rational thought she had and began to buck wildly against him.

“Dear God,” Grant gasped, planting fiery kisses down her neck, across her chest, and lower.

When Charlie’s short-circuited brain began to realize where he was heading, she couldn’t form coherent thoughts. All she could do was run her fingers through his thick hair and try to keep air going into her lungs. Pulling her panties off her hips and down her legs, Grant made his way back up her body. Teasing and arousing her at the same time, he began to blow softly on her aroused bundle of nerves. Arching her back up, Charlie moaned out his name. Leaning until his mouth was barely inches from her clit, Grant breathed out a request.

“Tell me how much you want this, Charlie. Tell me how much you have been waiting.”

“Oh, God, Grant. Please, I’ve waited so long,” Charlie rasped on a choked sob.

When Grant lowered his mouth to her and began to run his tongue along her sensitive flesh, she saw stars. The rush of sensation was almost overwhelming, and she was momentarily concerned she was going to faint.

“Easy, baby. Easy, baby.” With soothing tones, Grant went back to his task of providing Charlie with intense pleasure.

With each stroke of his tongue, she felt as if she were going higher and higher. A soft sheen of sweat had formed on her skin, and her hands had left Grant’s body to dig into the mattress at her sides. Panting and moaning, Charlie had stopped trying for coherent thought. Instead she let the waves of pleasure from Grant’s actions wash over her. Which at that exact moment hit a new level as he pushed his fingers inside her.

Between his tongue and his fingers, Charlie pushed even faster toward her crest of completion. When she fell over the cliff, it was like no other sensation she had ever felt before. With his mouth completing covering her as she was racked with her orgasm, she had never felt closer to Grant. He had brought her to orgasm during their time in Italy from oral sex, but it had never been quite like this. As he moved up her body and held her tight, she was consumed with the waves of pleasure.

***

Grant couldn’t believe this was happening. He had waited so long for Charlie that he had started to think he was just following a pipe dream. But as he placed small kisses on her inner thigh and began to make his way back to her mouth, he knew his dream had become a reality. Capturing her mouth with his, he began to possess it with savage kisses. Moaning, Charlie opened to him and used her tongue to duel with his in an erotic dance of passion. God, he’d missed her so much. He was quickly becoming intoxicated with the taste of her.

“Please, Grant. I need you inside me now.”

Pressing his body closer, as if he wanted the two of them to become one, Grant spread Charlie’s legs wider in preparation for him. As if sliding home, Grant surged into her tight sheath and nearly lost it.

“Oh, God, Grant.” Charlie moaned.

Almost destroying the last bit of control he had, she raked her nails down his back and began to buck beneath him.

“Baby, please, you’ve got to give me a minute. I don’t want this to end when we’ve just started,” Grant said, clenching his jaw to make sure he didn’t explode.

“Please, Grant, I need you so badly.”

With those words, he wasn’t able to maintain the control he had fought so hard to keep over the last months. Pulling out of Charlie slowly and thrusting completely back in, he began to piston in and out of her body. With each thrust, he wanted to make sure that he was marking her as his. Even though she had carried his child, he’d never really felt as if he had a true claim on her, but with each thrust, the same word kept playing through his head.

Mine.

She was his even if she didn’t want to admit it. And after tonight he was never going to let her go.

***

Charlie was becoming overwhelmed with the intensity of their lovemaking, but it wasn’t in a claustrophobic way. As she flew higher and higher toward what she knew was going to be an earth-shattering orgasm, she looked into the eyes of the man who was giving her the most pleasure she had ever had. Grant’s expression was one of pure pleasure, and she ran her hands along the muscles in his powerful back, arching to allow him more access to her body. With the shift in her body, Grant slammed into the most sensitive part of her inner walls, and she felt a wave of ecstasy crash into her. Still not letting up, Grant increased his speed, which caused the waves of pleasure to continue.

Charlie’s body clenched and unclenched, doing its best to pull him farther into her. His hot mouth and even hotter hands were the aphrodisiac she needed to claim one more orgasm. Grant gave one more powerful thrust and shouted her name, and she bit into his shoulder as she was swamped with intense emotions. His murmured words of “beautiful, so beautiful” caused her heart to clench. She wanted to believe him. She wanted this to be more than just a release of tension. She wanted so many things, but one of the first was not to worry, as Grant rested on his side and tucked her into his arms, that they hadn’t used a condom.

Chapter Ten

Grant rolled over and collided with a warm, soft body. As he hadn’t been accustomed to sharing his bed for some time, he startled awake at the sensation. His eyes adjusted to the early morning light, and he sighed with contentment at the sight of Charlie curled up on her side. He indulged his need to touch her and ran his fingers gently along her smooth hip. She stirred a little, but instead of waking up under his ministrations she pulled the covers up around her shoulders. The movement was so similar to what she had done back in Italy he resisted the urge to laugh. Instead he lay back and stared up at the ceiling.

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted this until he found himself in bed with Charlie again. Last night they’d indulged in each other over and over again until he couldn’t feel his legs. Each time he tasted her, or pressed deeply into her body, it felt like it was the first time. He abandoned himself so completely in the sensation of being skin to skin with the woman he loved that nothing else mattered. In the early glow of morning, he now realized he needed to move beyond the hedonistic coupling they’d experienced and strategize how they would make what they had a reality.

Charlie had been open and receptive last night, but he didn’t want to chance that what they’d created was only sexual tension. He was tired of tiptoeing around his feelings, and last night further illustrated the absurdity of their current arraignment. She belonged with him, in their bed, where they would go to sleep and wake up next to each other. Stella deserved to see his face the first thing in the morning, and not from a monitor screen. They were a family, and as much as they’d tried to make it work the other way, this was the way it was supposed to be.

As if sensing her father’s thoughts, Stella let out a wail, announcing she too was awake. Charlie stirred from sleep, but before she could fully awaken, he kissed her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “I’ll handle it.”

He didn’t wait for the sleep fog to clear from her brain before he jumped out of bed and quickly put his pants on. Grant stopped briefly at the bathroom to wash up and walked into Stella’s room with a huge smile on his face. When he leaned down into Stella’s crib, her cries of discontent stopped abruptly. He watched as her tear-filled blue eyes blinked in confusion before a gooey smile blossomed on her face. Grant felt his heart clench at the sight of his child recognizing his being there was something different. He was sure others would tell him there was no correlation, but he felt deep in his bones she knew something was different, and if her smile was any indication, she thought it was better.

He picked her up and rocked her gently as he checked to see if a soiled diaper was what woke her up. Confirmation in the affirmative had him placing her on her changing table and quickly changing her diaper. He knew Charlie wouldn’t stay in bed much longer once her brain registered he’d taken over a task she’d done for so long, and he wanted to make sure everything was in order before she woke up. Stella was changed and redressed with speedy efficiency, and he carried her to the kitchen to warm up one of her bottles. Grant hummed with contentment as he got everything ready, and as he stood in the middle of the kitchen feeding Stella her bottle, he didn’t think life could get any better.

“Daddy is so happy,” he cooed to his daughter.

She smiled around the nipple of her bottle, and he knew she understood him.

“I wonder what has Daddy so happy this morning?”

Grant smiled at the sound of Charlie’s voice. She stood in the door, disheveled and lovely. He wanted to see her like that every morning for the rest of their lives.

“I’m sure Mommy knows just why Daddy is so happy.” He waggled his brows at her.

She smiled briefly before shuttering emotions from her face. Grant felt worry begin to burn in his chest. He hoped this wasn’t going to be a recap of what happened the day she woke up after they’d brought Stella home. He watched her silently as she pulled pans from one of the lower cabinets. As she pulled ingredients from the refrigerator, he held out hope she was still recovering from waking up.

“You don’t have to make breakfast.”

“It’s the least I can do after you let me sleep in.”

Grant focused on feeding Stella her bottle because it was far easier than trying to decipher the reserved nature of Charlie’s tone. “You deserve a break,” he replied neutrally.

She made a noncommittal sound and began making breakfast. The room wasn’t large enough for both of them, so he went out into the dining room and sat at the table. Stella continued to smile at him as she sucked down the contents of her bottle. It was refreshing to know there was one female in his life whose affections he didn’t need to worry about.

“You are my precious girl.”

“She’s going to be incorrigible because of all your spoiling.” Charlie chuckled as she brought dishes of food in.

“I can’t help it we made such a perfect baby,” he teased back.

Charlie gave him an odd look before she reached for their daughter.

“Are we not going to talk about what happened?” he asked as he handed Stella over.

“Grant…I…”

His heart sank as she stumbled for words. She held their daughter tightly and looked everywhere but at him. It hurt. Most importantly, it picked at the scab of anger he carried from her shutting him out from the very beginning.

“You what, Charlie?”

He cursed under his breath when she flinched at his cold tone. This wasn’t how his morning was supposed to be. This wasn’t the conversation they were supposed to have, and he had no one else to blame for breaking the serenity of the moment. Scrubbing his hands through his hair, he sighed with frustration.

“I don’t want this.”

He stared at her with shock at her words. She blushed and began shaking her head furiously. “That didn’t come out right. I don’t want us fighting.”

“I don’t want that, either. Charlie, I…”

“Don’t, please.”

He blinked at her interruption to his confession. He was going to tell her that he loved her, that he had started falling in love with her back in Italy, but her expression made him hold his tongue.

“I want to hear those words. You don’t know how bad I want to hear them, but right now I can’t believe them.” Charlie choked back a sob as she made her statement.

“Baby.”

He moved to gather her in his arms, but she held up her hand to stop him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she cradled their daughter to her chest.

“We didn’t use a condom, Grant.”

He froze at her words.

“You didn’t even realize it, did you?”

“Honestly, no, because it doesn’t matter to me.”

“How can you say that?”

“Easily. I’d welcome another child.”

Grant watched emotions flitter across her face at his confession. He needed her to believe that he knew they were a family. That’d they’d been a family since they held their daughter for the first time in the hospital. He also needed her to understand that he’d felt more for her than any other woman since the first time he’d kissed her in Italy. He needed her to know all of that because, if she was carrying his child again, he wasn’t going to wait patiently on the sidelines. She was his, and there wouldn’t be another.

***

Charlie chewed at her lip, finding it hard to maintain eye contact with Grant. Stella finished the last dregs of her bottle and fussed in her mother’s arms. That was something she could focus on, so she placed the bottle on the table before putting Stella in position to be burped. Grant didn’t move or falter in his penetrating stare, and she felt more tears streaming down her face.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she told him.

“When will it be better? As you’re giving birth to our second child?”

His sharp tone wasn’t helping her emotional state.

“Can you dial it back a little? I have a right to a meltdown.”

“Why does there have to be a meltdown? I love you. Period.”

Charlie blinked as more tears blurred her vision. Rocking a gurgling Stella, she fought to form the right response but couldn’t find the words.

“Or is the problem that you don’t love me?”

Charlie cried more at the look of dejection on Grant’s face. She wanted to tell him of course she loved him, but the words wouldn't come. It was completely neurotic, but she didn’t really trust that he loved her, Charlie the individual versus Charlie, the woman who could give him beautiful babies.

“Is that it, Charlie?”

His question was a whispered plea, and she wanted to reassure him, but the fear and anxiety she’d developed since her pregnancy paralyzed her.

“Will you please answer me? Can you at least give me the courtesy of an answer?”

“How do I know you love me? We don’t even know each other. The only thing that links us is Stella,” she finally confessed, putting her daughter in her high chair. She was starting to shake too much, and she didn’t want to risk Stella’s safety because she was becoming unglued.

“Is that what you think?”

She shrugged and pulled at the hem of her shirt.

“Do you love me, though?”

Charlie chocked back a sob and nodded her head.

“Okay, I can work with that.”

Charlie barked out a laugh at his response. It was such a Grant thing to say, and it calmed some of the anxiety that was threatening to overwhelm her. This time when he moved to gather her in his arms, she didn’t stop him but instead soaked in the warmth of his embrace as she cried.

“I’m such a mess. Are you sure you love me?”

“Every day.”

The conviction in Grant’s voice soothed some of her fear, but doubt still niggled at her resolve to give herself completely to him.

“I’ll just have to prove it to you, that’s all.”

She laughed into his chest and hoped he’d be successful.