His powerful hands turned her around and held her still with a possessive squeeze.Looking up would only catapult her farther into this alternative reality where Callum Hale was actively pursuing her.She’d gone her entire life wondering what it would feel like to have his attention.Her best guess had been wrong.This couldn’t be a tenth of his focus, and it was melting her into pieces.
“Grace.”
She tipped her head back and met his smoldering gaze.“You caught me off guard.”
He rolled his bottom lip into his mouth, staring at her as if it wereherlip he wanted to suck.“I messed up before.I didn’t say what needed to be said.I didn’t do what needed to be done, and it fucked me over.”
“I—What?” That didn’t make sense.
“I should have told you.”His lips quirked.“Or at the very least, kissed you years ago.Everything would have been different.”
She tried to understand—then everything came crashing down.“You think we would have got together?Stayed together?”She blinked, trying to read his expression.Be together, even now?
“I would have chased you,” he said.“You would have pretended to put up a fight.But we both know, if we’d admitted what was staring us in the face, if we’d gotten together, it would have been explosive.And that would have been it for both of us.”
“I wouldn’t have put up a fight,” she whispered.
She thought she saw him flinch at the history they could have had and missed.
Callum backed up, pulling her along until he dropped onto the chair next to the kitchen table.His hands moved to her hips and lifted her up and onto his lap, straddling her over his thick bulge.
Unconsciously, she rocked her hips—then caught herself.A fiery blush burned her cheeks.
“Explosive,” he growled against her neck.
A tornado of need spiraled in her core.Grace wrapped her arms around him.
“There you go,” he whispered.
The uneven cadence of her breaths seesawed.He teased her closer.She shifted against the hard length of his erection, watching his reaction, needing more of him.
He exhaled a heavy breath that stoked her confidence, flaming her arousal.“You absolutely know what to do when we’re together.”
Grace kissed him.
Callum groaned against her lips.“Fuck, baby.”
Her heart hammered.His hands clamped on her hips, rocking her against his cock.She swept her tongue over his lips, and their kiss ignited like she’d lit fireworks.Starved for him, she couldn’t be close enough.His kiss was desperate, as if he hadn’t touched a woman in years, and his hunger poured over her.
Arousal pooled between her legs.Her nipples beaded, tight and wanting.Adrenaline burned over her skin.He’d stolen her resistance and melted her restraint.
The rough skin of his palms smoothed under her shirt and up the bare skin of her back and down again, gliding over her sides, rocking her against him again.
Her phone blared.
His hands froze.
Their breaths raced, and she needed him to touch her more than she could understand.
It kept ringing.
She opened her eyes and met his.
“Fuck,” he finally let out, snatching Grace back to reality.
She couldn’t form words.Achy, heady need clouded every thought, but still she realized they couldn’t do this right now.
The phone finally stopped ringing, but her text message chimed.
