One More Chance (Rosemary Beach 8)

Grant

If Harlow cried out and made that whimpering, begging sound one more time, I was going to lose my shit. I swear to God, I had never been this worked up in my life. Every time I touched her, she trembled and writhed beneath me like she couldn’t get enough. I felt like I had some magical touch, and it was a f**king heady feeling.

With every swipe of my tongue, she cried out my name, and her hands were back in my hair as if she had to hold on to me to keep from falling. I loved it. I loved this power and knowing she was receiving pleasure at my hands. With my mouth. Fuck, this was mind-blowing.

“Please, inside me, please,” she said in a desperate pant, and I didn’t let my fears or any other thought stop me. I stood up and got rid of my jeans in one move, then slid back over her. She opened her legs to me so willingly and grabbed my arms with her hands as her body arched into me. I hadn’t even gotten inside her yet, and she was moaning. Holy f**k.

“Baby, you keep doing that, and I won’t last very long. This will be over way too soon,” I told her as I slid slowly into her. My eyes rolled back, and this time, the moan of pleasure was mine. She felt tighter and almost swollen inside. There was nothing in my life that had ever felt this good. Not even the first time I’d been inside her. This . . . this was it. The moment that changed your world. The moment that didn’t just show you heaven but walked you right inside it.

“Grant!” she screamed as she wrapped her legs around me. Her silky heat began to squeeze me hard. She clawed at my back and chanted my name. That was all it took for me to follow her. Throwing back my head, I cried out her name and filled her. Marked her.

Made sure she would never doubt that she was mine.

“Can we do it again?” Harlow asked after we both caught our breath.

Chuckling, I rolled over and pulled her over on top of me. “Not right yet. I’d rather put you in a bath and let you soak while I get us some room service. Then I intend to give you a foot massage and hold you on that big-ass sofa out there in front of the fireplace.” She needed pampering. Hadn’t she been listening to the doctor?

“I like foot massages . . . but I like sex better.”

“No overdoing it. You heard the doctor. Let’s take it easy on you, OK? Let me take care of you. Please,” I said, needing her to understand.

She let out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I guess I’ll let you bathe me and spoil me. Sacrifices.”

Laughing, I kissed her head and moved to get up. I couldn’t sit here with her in my arms like this and not get carried away. I only needed a little encouragement. “You stay put. I’ll go get your bath ready. Then I’ll come get you,” I told her before grabbing my jeans and tugging them back on.

She rolled over to watch me. “You could get into the bath with me,” she said, with her eyes on the zipper of my jeans.

“Not that strong, baby. I’ll have to settle for bathing you instead.” I headed for the bathroom before I caved in and did whatever she asked me to.

“Grant,” she called out after me.

“Yeah?” I turned back to see her sitting up in the bed with the sheet at her waist so that her beautiful, much larger tits were right there for me to drool over.

“I don’t have to get off for us to . . . do things. I can always take care of you. I like doing that.”

Grabbing the door handle before my knees buckled, I sucked in a deep breath. Holy hell. Gulping, I forced a smile. “Harlow, I’m not sure I’m strong enough for this. You’re gonna drive me crazy.”

She grinned and shrugged, causing her chest to bounce, capturing my undivided attention again. They were so beautiful, round, soft . . . f**k! I had to get away from her for a minute.

Jerking my head around, I looked into the bathroom. “Gonna run your bathwater now,” I said in a strangled voice.

Harlow laughed behind me, and the musical sound almost made the fact that I already had a raging hard-on again OK. She was happy. I wanted her happy. Even if it was at my expense.

Once I had the water temperature right, I added some of the bath salts the hotel had provided and turned to get her, only to find her standing there with the sheet wrapped around her and all that dark hair in a rumpled mess. I just stood and stared at her. She was beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. I’d known that the first time I met her. It was something you could see in her eyes. The beauty inside shone through.

But now . . . she was mine.

She was all mine.

“Sure you won’t get in with me?” she asked, letting the sheet drop to the floor.

“Harlow,” I said as my eyes took in her body. The small scar on her chest, which I had ignored before, jumped out at me now. In the bathroom lighting, it stood out, reminding me of everything I could lose. Of everything I would die to protect. My Harlow.

“Get into the bath and relax. Let me order you something to eat. Then I’ll be back to wash your back and anything else you’ll let me wash,” I said as she moved toward me.

She stuck out her bottom lip. It was so unlike Harlow that I was taken aback and a little speechless. My sweet girl had become a seductress, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. She could control me so easily. “If you insist, but I have several places I need washed,” she said, brushing past me and stepping into the tub.

Fuck me. “This new Harlow isn’t making things easy on me,” I told her.

She glanced back over her shoulder as she sank slowly into the water. “I’m the same Harlow. I’m just secure in the man who loves me. I have nothing to hide from you.”

That right there was the reason this woman owned me.

Harlow

Grant brought a tray of fruit and cheese into the bathroom, along with sparkling water. I let him feed me and tried not to tease him too badly. He was trying so hard to take care of me. If this made him feel like he was protecting me, then I would let him do it.

Once he finished bathing me and drying me off, he carried me to the living room and tucked us under a blanket on the sofa. The gas fireplace was lit, and he opened the window wide so we had a view of the Gulf.

We didn’t talk much. Instead, we just watched the waves crash on the shore and the people walking up and down the beach. When someone swam out into the water, I wondered if Grant’s thoughts went to Jace. I didn’t know him, but even mine did. It made me sad for everyone who had lost him, especially Bethy. Now that I had Grant, I couldn’t imagine what she was going through.

“We get to hear the heartbeat next week,” he finally said, breaking the silence. There was a pained sound to his voice, as if he weren’t sure what he thought about that.

“I know. I’m anxious,” I told him, but I didn’t look up at him. I couldn’t right now. I was excited and hopeful, but I knew his face would portray something completely different.

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t want a child with you. You’re the only woman on earth I want to have my baby. But I want you more. I just . . . I don’t think I can do this without you. If I lost you . . .” He stopped and swallowed hard. I could hear it.

I turned in his arms and laid my head on his chest. I knew what he was saying. If I died, he didn’t think he could be a father to the baby. I knew otherwise. It would take him time, but I knew he would become the world’s best father. “We’re going to be OK,” I assured him.

His arms tightened around me, and he held me close. The beating of his heart comforted me. Closing my eyes, I embraced the moment and decided I would create a vault in my brain to keep the memories of times like this one. Maybe even write some of them down. Yes, that was what I would do: I would write moments like this one down for our baby to read one day . . . just in case.

If I wasn’t around to raise the child, then I wanted our baby to know how much I loved it and that it was born out of love. Until a few months ago, I hadn’t known just how much love I had been born from. Seeing Kiro with Emily had changed everything for me. I had heard that he loved my mother, but growing up and watching him treat women as if they were nothing but toys made it a little hard to believe. Then I saw him with my mother. I saw him brush her hair, heard him talk to her so sweetly. She couldn’t talk back—she didn’t even know he was there—but he adored her. Even now. After all this time.

I wish I had known that as a child. It would have given me more security and trust. I wanted our child never to question that Grant and I loved each other.

But now wasn’t the time to tell Grant about my idea to write notes to the baby. He didn’t need reminders of the future. I believed I was strong enough to make it. I wanted him to believe that, too.

“Rush said that your dad doesn’t know about the pregnancy,” Grant said, threading his fingers through mine.

I hadn’t told Dad, because I knew he would be furious that I was going through with it. He had enough to deal with right now, protecting Emily from the world. Slacker Demon was no longer touring, and everything had changed for him in a few short months.

“I don’t think he needs anything else to deal with right now. He has his hands full,” I explained.

“He’s gonna find out. The doctor’s office today . . .” He trailed off.

I hadn’t thought about that. Would the media mention that I was visiting an ob-gyn? Would they say something about Grant being with me? Oh, crap. “Do you think they’ll even mention that? They didn’t get a photo of either of us.”

Grant let out a sigh and squeezed my hand. “Yeah, baby. I think they will. Right now, you’re hard to get any info on, and they’ve been trying. With your dad off the grid, they’re searching for anything. And they don’t necessarily need evidence to stir up some drama.”

I would have to call my dad. He couldn’t find out this way.

“I’ll call him tomorrow when we get home. Actually, are we going home today or tomorrow?” I asked, looking around the suite he had booked just so we could have sex. Did he intend for us to stay here tonight?

“I want you in my bed,” he said as he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip.

I wanted to be in his bed, too. I wanted to get back to Rosemary Beach, and I wanted to be with him. Seeing Blaire was a plus. There were things about pregnancy that I wanted to ask her about. And I wanted to see Nate.

“You ready to go?” I asked him.

A cocky grin touched his sexy lips. “Yeah, but first, I want something to eat.”

We had just eaten. I frowned, and Grant’s sexy grin stayed in place as he laid me back on the sofa. He leaned down over me and brushed his lips against mine. “I wasn’t talking about food,” he whispered.

I managed to grab onto the sofa and hold on tight while he moved down my body and began to love me with his very talented mouth.

“Ah! OK . . . you can’t . . . do this . . . Ah! Oh, God! But I get to do the same to you next.” I panted as his tongue circled my clit. He lifted his head to look up at me. Seeing his beautiful mouth right there, hovering over me, made me tremble. It was a breathtaking sight.

“You don’t have to bargain with me to get me to let you put that sexy mouth on me,” he said. He kept his eyes on me as he flicked his tongue over my swollen, aching bud. “Tastes so damn good. I missed this.” He placed both of his hands on my thighs and pushed them open farther. “Could eat this all f**king day and never get tired of it.”

His naughty words had me crying out things I wasn’t sure made sense. I was lost to the sensation. Nothing mattered at the moment but him. And this.

Grant

I had been woken up by two texts and a call from the job site in Sandestin. We had a condo going up there, and they had some issues I had to handle. Leaving Harlow curled up in my big bed like an angel wasn’t easy.

She had been asleep when we got home last night, and I’d carried her to bed and undressed her. All she had managed was a few mumbled sentences that didn’t make sense, but they’d been damn cute.

I fixed my thermos of coffee and swept up the mud that had piled up by the door, because I really didn’t want Harlow seeing that. I’d have to get someone else to come in and clean the rest of the place today. Glancing at my phone, I knew I needed to go, but I was waiting for Rush to wake up Blaire and get her to call me. If I had to leave Harlow, I wanted someone keeping her company today.

The screen lit up, and I sighed in relief at Blaire’s name.

“Hey,” I said, walking away from the bedroom door so I wouldn’t wake Harlow.

“Good morning. You’re back?” Blaire asked.

“We’re back,” I replied. “She needs sleep, but she’ll want to see you and needs a friend while I’m gone. I won’t be but a few hours. I wouldn’t normally go, but it’s a big client, and I need to fix some shit.”

“I’m dressing now. Rush is going to spend the day with Nate, and I’ll take care of Harlow. Don’t worry about her. I won’t leave her.”