“WE SHOULD GET back to Maddie and Darin.” Lynn jumped up and walked over to peer around the cliff.
“They’re sitting right where we left them, right?”
“Yeah. Wow, you should see this castle they’re building.”
“I’ve seen more of them than I can count,” Grant told her, leaning back on his hands in the sand, his long legs out in front of him.
Drawing her attention to his fly.
She’d just talked about sex with a man who wasn’t Brandon. In her capacity as a nurse, she had no problem discussing any and all bodily functions. But she didn’t talk about hers, not with anyone. She had a handle on her emotions and on her physical feelings. And that was how she wanted it.
Until she looked at Grant and wanted him.
He was watching her. Checking out her breasts. Her skirt. She was wearing a pair of lace panties beneath the thin cotton. The air crept up her skirt, caressing her bare skin.
She grew moist.
“Come here.”
Grant had hunger written all over him, along with the confidence of a man whose hungers had been assuaged many times in many ways.
She sat back down next to him.
“I told you this was a real date,” he said, staring at her lips.
“I know.”
Did he think sex was the norm for a first date? Did he think she’d agreed to a roll in the sand with him?
The thought made her nipples harden. But that was only for her to know. For her to deal with.
Sliding his hand beneath her hair to cup her neck, Grant held her still with no force at all as he leaned toward her.
His eyes were open, watching her, pulling her toward him. Holding her gaze focused on him. He opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. She stared at those lips. Wanting to know how they felt.
And she was going to know.
His face was an inch from hers. She could have pulled away but she waited. Frustrated that he was taking so long.
And then he kissed her.
His lips touched hers. Held hers. Moved on hers. They opened and hers did, too, moving with his, staying with his, as their bodies came closer. His tongue touched her lower lip. A swift stroke. And then again. One more time.
He slid inside her mouth. Gently. Exploring more than conquering. As though he was interested in every single little thing there was to know about her.
And that was when she knew that every little thing about him mattered to her.
Lynn pulled back.
He couldn’t matter. Not that much.
She wasn’t going to have her happiness, her future, any part of her life, intertwined so intimately with another person’s again. She wasn’t going risk someone else having a change of feeling, or a latent self-discovery, that stripped her life away from her.
“That was…way better than nice.” His voice was gravelly in a bedroom sort of way. Being on the receiving end of it was almost more than she could bear.
It took her a moment to realize he’d used the word she used to describe sex with Brandon.
And realized he was completely, absolutely right. With one kiss he’d completely shattered her idea of what sex should be like.
Her hands were shaking. He took hold of one, turned it over and, with his other hand, he caressed her palm.
“I have a proposition for you, nurse.” His voice. The way he said her title. The look in his eye. The scent of him. He was flooding her with sensation. Overriding everything she knew to be true.
“What’s that?”
He was going to ask her to let him under her skirt. And, God help her, she almost pulled it up and spread her legs for him right then and there.
Darin and Maddie were going to be working on their castle for a long time. Kara was so far away she couldn’t get to her if she wanted to.
And she had needs. Heaven help her, she had needs….
“A partnership, of sorts.”
Her heart started to beat faster, if it were possible for it to beat any faster than it already was, and she waited for him to continue.
“I have no room and no time in my life for a committed relationship,” he said. He had her attention.
“Running my own business is a huge responsibility,” he was saying, as though completely undisturbed by their kiss. But she knew what the bulge underneath his fly meant.
It meant she could be patient and listen to him.
“But a lot of people own businesses,” he continued. “However, you add Darin into the mix, and some days it’s damn near impossible for me to keep track of everything I’ve got to do, let alone get it all done.”