And now it’s the look right before he does.
This time, his lips close over mine with such soft determination that I feel it down to my toes—a kiss that doesn’t devour, but savors. It’s a paradox in every way: sure and searching, a question and its answer. Too good to be true and too true to be imagined.
I grapple for the doorknob and then we’re in my room, finally, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so elated to see my bed—but Grant pulls me into the bathroom instead.
Leaving me just for a moment to turn on the shower faucet, he returns and meets my curious look with such a tender smile that I forget to breathe for a moment.
“That river was disgusting,” he says, brushing a damp lock of hair off my face before leaning in again. “And I really,” he says between kisses, “do not want you … contracting”—his mouth sinks deeper against mine, lingering before pulling away again—“flesh-eating bacteria.”
I burst out laughing. My God. How can I want someone so badly, even when he’s talking about flesh-eating bacteria?
Of course, I realize with a little bubble of giddiness—if he were any other way, he wouldn’t be Grant.
I eye the streaming water with just a moment’s pause. I’ve had my share of unorthodox rendezvous locales—a gondola in the Swiss Alps, a lifeguard shack in Costa Rica, a painfully misjudged cactus grove in Joshua Tree. But I have never showered with someone before. It just seems so intimate, inviting someone into such a private, naked ritual.
Grant steps back, wordlessly telling me it’s okay if I’d rather rinse off alone. I only realize I don’t want to when my arm goes taut, refusing to drop his hand.
He looks at me for a moment, his brow lifting in question, then steps closer. He meets me in a slow kiss and his hands slide under the thin straps of my dress, following them around to where they cross intricately over my back. His fingers are light over my skin, unhurried, tracing paths to my sides and along my waistline.
“I have to warn you,” I manage mid-kiss, already breathless. “This dress is complicated. It was a feat to get into it in the first place.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” he says, smiling against my lips. “And I very much accept.”
He steps back, and the chill of the sudden distance between us is instantly heated away by his thoughtful gaze. And that’s nothing to the rush I feel when he kneels to gather up my hem. He does it the way he does everything—carefully, attentively—simultaneously lifting the fabric over me and gliding his hands up the sides of my body. He pauses for just a moment at my thighs, lightly laughing as he unfastens my phone holster. A shiver chases up my increasingly exposed skin—from the air or from Grant’s devoted attention, I don’t know. I raise my arms when he reaches my rib cage, and he pulls the dress away over my head.
The look in his eyes is a little hazy, stealing my breath with its earnest wanting.
“You areunbelievable,” he says.
“You are wearing too many clothes,” I say. I reach up to pull him to me, kissing him as I trail my hands over his damp collar, down over his chest and lower, unbuttoning as I go. I take mytime pulling the shirt off him, savoring the lean muscle of his arms under my hands.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him shirtless, but it’s the first time I’ve gotten to really, shamelessly admire him, to touch him. He’s slim but solid, built with the kind of quiet strength that has less to do with any particular fitness regimen and more with how comfortably he inhabits his body.
Then again, maybe his strength isn’t so quiet after all, because he suddenly hooks his hands around my thighs and hoists me up to sit on the vanity. It surprises me into something between a gasp and a squeal, which sets us both laughing.
Eye level with him, I’m at a much better angle for fully appreciating him. I pull him closer, my legs bracketing his hips, feeling the expanse of his back under my fingertips. His mouth drops to mine, then sweeps lower, trailing kisses over my jaw and down my neck. It’s enough to make me dizzy, to make it a little hard to breathe—although that could also be the steam filling the room.
“I think we left the shower running,” I gasp.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Grant says. “I’m not even sure where I am right now.”
We laugh again when we realize we’re not exactly at the best vantage point to continue undressing each other but not willing to stop or move—his fingers hooking under the sides of my underwear, mine reaching for the button of his pants.
It’s a strange mix of lust and giddiness, silly and clumsy in a way that somehow puts no damper on the attraction between us. If anything, it only draws it into sharper clarity, transforming this uncharted territory into something more familiar.
That thought steadies me even when we’ve shed all our layers and our laughter has faded. This is just us, I realize. I know us. I know this. So even though my heart is racing, even though this is new and a little scary, it’s the good kind of scary—the kindI crave. Like cliff jumping. Grant is both the rocky ledge and the ocean waiting to catch me below.
I kiss him again, and I’m swept away. I didn’t know it could be like this. I don’t know if it can, in real life. But right now, whatever exists between us is vivid and blazing, and I can’t believe I ever wanted to smother it.
He steps back and, with a glance at the shower, holds out a hand to me.
I smile and take it.
Later, when the night has become a blur of desire and sensation, wet hair and labored breath and hands clasped against bedsheets, I wonder if it’s like this for all the romance heroes and heroines—if somewhere, hidden in the ink and paper, they feel it all. Not the flipping of pages but the rushing of blood, the heat of skin on skin, the wanting, the needing. If all their pretty metaphors and similes can even skim the surface of what it’s really like.
Because what it’s like …
Well, it isn’t for me to describe or to read about this time. For once, it’s just to live and to feel. And what I feel defies description, overpowers thought, and sends me to a place where there are no words in my head except Him.Me. Us.Echoing over and over again, in every part of me.
