Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (24 page)

Even as I lowered the cell phone from my ear, Carter's hands were already around me, sweeping me, up as he carried me away. "Took you long enough," he murmured in my ear before switching his attention to nibbling at my neck.

I barely managed to turn the key in the lock on the front door before Carter towed me away.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

*

I'd seen Carter's house before, but each time I returned to it, I still had to take a moment to reconcile it with my image of the man. Carter always seemed so cool and suave that I couldn't help but picture him in a classy, expensive penthouse apartment at the top of a downtown building somewhere.

Instead, however, he owned a small but comfortable house in the suburbs, surrounded by big, sweeping trees that were all well over a hundred years old, with an angular Victorian roof and perfectly painted wooden siding. The inside of the house looked just as clean and well-maintained as the outside, with immaculate rugs and furniture sets that looked straight out of a designer's photoshoot.

Normally, I'd spend some time inside marveling at Carter's sense of style - but not today. Today, Carter swept me inside, through the living room, and up the main stairs to the second floor without even giving me a chance to catch my breath.

"Carter! Where are we going?" I gasped out, as he half-carried me up the stairs.

"To here," he answered, pushing a nearby door open - and revealing paradise on the other side.

I gasped again as we stepped into the most incredible, awe-inspiring bedroom that I'd ever seen in my life, either in person or on television. "This- this is-" I stammered, unable to even make a full sentence.

He nodded, his arms once again sliding around my waist. "Yep."

Even between kisses, I kept on looking around in amazement. Carter's bedroom was huge, easily twice the size of my own. An absolutely gigantic bed stood in the middle, with a sturdy leather-covered, padded headboard and four posts rising high into the air at the four corners. Huge windows stretched across two of the four walls, flooding the room with afternoon sunlight even through the half-drawn gauzy white curtains. The floor had carpet down on it, but Carter had added several thick white fur rugs which looked deep enough to swallow most of my foot if I stepped onto them. A loveseat sofa stood near the windows, offering up the perfect place to relax and read a book.

But my eyes kept on returning back to the bed.

"California King," Carter told me, following my gaze. "With a memory foam topper. It's the most comfortable thing you've ever felt - go on, try it."

I stepped into the room, sinking down into the mattress. "Oh my god," I groaned out. "This is amazing." I flopped backward onto the bed, throwing my arms out wide as I landed on the surface. It felt like resting on top of a cloud.

A minute later, Carter dropped down onto the bed beside me, although the mattress easily absorbed the impact of his landing; I barely even felt him land. "I know that I'm not supposed to stay in bed, that I need to get up every morning and head off to work," he said, "but it's tough sometimes. I occasionally think that I need to make my bed a bit less alluring."

"No way, don't do it," I replied immediately, squirming a little on top of the wonderful mattress. I never wanted to leave here again. Maybe I could just insist on staying here, keep on ordering pizza to be delivered until my bank account ran dry...

Carter propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me with a smile. "Comfortable?"

I just smiled back at him, reaching out to wrap my hands around his neck. "Tell me that you like me," I begged him.

His smile widened. "I like you, Becca Grace. I like you very much."

"Good." I pulled him closer. "Now show me."

The smile never left his lips, but he did that trick with his eyes where they went, in an instant, from soft and warm to hot and smoky. Moving up further above me, he crouched above me on his hands and knees, leaning in to kiss me powerfully. I arched my back, my hands feeling the muscles in his arms and shoulders shift as he held himself up above me. I slid my fingers around to the buttons on his shirt, doing my best to undo them. Desire and lust made my fingers clumsy, however, and I had to struggle with the little buttons.

Finally, however, Carter's shirt dropped open, and I greedily ran my fingers down over the texture of his chest, feeling the swell of his pectoral muscles, the regular striations of his abs. Carter drew in his breath with a gasp at the shock of my touch, but then kissed me with renewed fervor, his hips pushing down against me. Inside his pants, I could feel his hardness throbbing, his need for me growing in intensity.

"God, Becca, I've wanted you like this for so long," he whispered to me, as he rolled sideways, pulling me with him, atop him.

I opened my mouth to answer, to tell him that I had dreamed about having him take me like this, but Carter's hands on my bare skin as he pushed my shirt up stole the words from me. Instead, I just writhed on top of him, loving how his big, broad hands easily moved my clothes aside, how he held me, squeezed me, caressed every inch of my body.

In a moment, my shirt was tangled up around my armpits. I sat up a little to slide it off, and Carter didn't waste an instant. His hands next went to my bra, which seemed to give up the ghost on its own at just the lightest touch.

"You don't know how much I've thought about this moment," Carter whispered up to me, his voice husky as he cupped my breasts. "How much I've imagined it."

I grinned down at him, although my smile was a bit unsteady as he slid his thumbs across my bare skin. My flesh popped up into goosebumps at his touch, like his fingers carried an electric current. He drew me in close, nuzzling against me as I leaned forward to smother him.

"As good as you imagined?" I asked him.

His stubble tickled my chest as he replied. "Better."

His mouth found my nipple, and he drew my breast into his mouth, biting down with just enough force to set me off. I almost cried out, and my hips ground down against his waist. I felt him beneath me, hard and pulsing and begging to be released, but he held back, taking his time and focusing on kissing me, tasting me, exploring every single inch.

I pulled off my clothes, giving myself over to him, but he kept on moving slowly, teasing me as he strayed towards my warmest and most intimate places - but then pulling back, just before he finally reached his destination. I growled down at him, even as he incited me towards mindlessness. He just smiled back, continuing to explore, to dangle the temptation of release in front of me only to pull it away at the last second.

Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. My hands slid down over his bare chest, down to where his belt still strained to hold back his erection. My fingers were clumsy with desire and need for him, but I wrenched the belt off, unzipped his pants, felt his hardness spring out into my pants.

This time, Carter was the one to gasp at the touch of my fingers around him. "Careful with that," he panted, even as his hands greedily grabbed for my pants, tugging them down and off of my hips. "It's dangerous."

"You're telling me," I answered, my eyes wide as I stared down at the blunt instrument in my hands. "I wasn't expecting quite so..." I wasn't sure how to finish. Carter certainly had every reason to be confident in himself!

I couldn't finish the sentence, however, as Carter's hand, hooked around my pants, pulled them further down until they tangled up with my knees. "Come here," he murmured to me, pulling me towards him even as his fingers slid in between my thighs, picking up on my readiness and preparing me.

We came together, my pants clinging to one ankle for a few more seconds before they gave up the ghost and slid from my body down to the floor. Carter paused for a second to kick his own pants the rest of the way off, and then pulled me up tightly against him. With nothing between us, he pulsed against me, hard and eager and strong. I could feel his heart pounding, just inches away from mine.

"So," he whispered to me, even as his fingers resumed their position in between my thighs, exploring and wiggling and making it very hard for me to focus on anything at all besides how much I wanted him. "What's this make the two of us?"

"Together," I panted back, my body shifting on its own to try and pull him in deeper. I wanted him to take me, drive himself deep inside me and use me! I reached down and tried to pull him closer, but he held back for a second.

"And this is what you want?" His fingers moved faster.

"Oh, yes!" God, I was so close!

"And what is it that you want most?"

Thankfully, these questions weren't too hard; I didn't have the brainpower to answer any more difficult ones! "You!" I moaned out, my body giving in to his moving fingers, on the verge of exploding.

But just then, he pulled back his fingers from between my thighs. Instead, he reached back to curl both of his hands around my ass, drawing me forward.

"Then come get it," he ordered me, as I opened myself up to him and felt him finally pierce me, plunge inside of me!

Oh god, he was so big! At first, I had to grit my teeth as his hands on my hips, on my ass, kept on drawing me in. Either I was out of practice - which was true - or he was just huge - which was also true!

"Hold on," I panted as he pulled me down, taking me, but he just grinned, kissed me, and kept going.

And then, just as I opened my mouth, about to scream, I felt myself finally move to accommodate him! Still moaning, gasping, I kissed him back. My hips moved on top of him, his big, strong hands guiding me back and forth.

We kept on moving together, Carter eventually letting me lie down, rising up on top of me with his big arm muscles flexing as he shifted his body back and forth. He kissed me as we came together, both of us breathing heavily, grinning up at each other. Neither wanted to be the first to give in, to let our brain lose control as our body took over and reached the climax, the crest of the mountain.

I cracked first.

"Oh god!" I felt my concentration, my movement in rhythm along with Carter, slip away as my orgasm swept up over me. My muscles gave one last shiver and then failed me; I slumped forward on top of him, my fingers instinctively squeezing and clutching at him. I needed to hold onto him as my rock, the one remaining point of reality as everything else faded into background, whiteness. He held me, whispered something to me, but I couldn't hear his words. It seemed to go on for ages, a nonstop crescendo that roared inside my head and washed away all of my worry and thoughts and everything except the inner core of me, of who I am.

It ran on and on, but just as I opened my mouth to scream, unable to bear it any longer as I teetered on the knife edge between pleasure and crushing pain, I finally felt the rush of ecstasy begin to ease off. I pulled in a deep breath, gasping like a near-drowning victim who had just received her first breath of life-giving air.

"God," I whispered, looking down at Carter's smiling face, just inches from my own. "That was-"

"Amazing," he finished my sentence for me, smiling back at me as his body gently began to move against mine once again. "Ready for another?"

I just clutched at him and held on for dear life.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

*

"I probably need to get home and feed Salem," I groaned out to Carter, some time later, "but I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to move."

"Too much pizza?" he asked, from where he lay next to me on the bed, one arm draped around my naked shoulders, casually reaching down every now and then to brush his fingers over my bare breast. "Need to work off those extra calories?"

"If you do anything more to me, I think you'll end up breaking my body forever," I told him, although I couldn't stop my skin from jumping up in little goosebumps at the thought of yet another round. We'd already managed to practically soak the sheets beneath us with sweat from our exertions, and Carter still seemed to have more energy! I didn't know from what well he drew this seemingly endless strength, but he was certainly putting it to good use.

After an hour or so, my stomach had started rumbling loud enough for even Carter to take notice. "I think it's trying to tell me something," he commented, sitting back.

I reached down and grabbed for him, drawing him back on top of me. "Ignore it. It's just annoyed that you keep poking it from below."

He smirked at the comment, but still rolled off of me. "How about pizza?"

"I'll say yes to anything that involves us not having to get up and get dressed," I answered, making his grin widen. He grabbed for his pants, dug out his cell phone, but didn't dial a number.

"Something wrong?" I asked after a minute of waiting for him to place the call.

"Oh. No, I just got caught up in reading all of these messages." He glanced up at me over the phone. "You really weren't kidding about the drunk and crazy thing, were you?"

I hit him with a pillow. "Ass. Order me some pizza, or you won't get to have any more sex for the day!"

In response, Carter put on a piteous, hangdog look that made my heart melt, even as I laughed and swung the pillow at him again. "Stop trying to guilt me!" I told him, laughing.