Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel (32 page)

Broad male fingers tightened on her hip, the other hand slid back to her breast, that incredible pinch and tug at the tip returning to sear her sensitive nipple with sensation.

Tearing her lips from his, Grace moaned at the pleasure, her lips running along his jaw, then his neck, to his hard chest. Licking at the tough flesh, nipping at it, she moved slowly downward, her fingers still stroking the pulsing length of his cock. She wanted to taste him again. She needed to taste him again. Needed the hard flesh filling her mouth, the taste of him making her drunk on the eroticism that built by the second.

“Dangerous, baby,” he groaned as her lips slid over the muscles flexing just beneath his wide chest. “Control isn’t my strong suit right now.”

“Hmm. I have faith in you,” she murmured, her rear meeting the mattress and placing her in the perfect position for what she wanted.

Her tongue slid over the engorged crest, licked over the wet bead that collected there, and relished the subtle salt and male taste of him.

“Grace, baby.” Strangled and intense, the sandpapery sound of his voice sent a flush of feminine power rushing through her as his fingers slid into her hair, holding her head in place as he pushed forward between her lips.

Gripping the base with one hand, she stroked up the shaft until her fingers met her lips, then down to the base again. Slow, firm caresses, the pulse of blood beneath the ropy muscles pounding beneath her grip as Zack’s thighs tightened with each downward stroke.

He enjoyed her touch—he couldn’t fake that. Harsh, guttural groans rumbled in his chest, subtle sounds of male pleasure that assured her he wanted more. That she was important to his pleasure.

As her mouth tightened around the crest, it pulsed warningly as another of those strangled groans sounded above her. Tension filled his body, the hands holding her head, the tight sac of his testicles in her other hand.

“Ah hell. Hell, Grace.” Something wild filled his voice as his hips bucked just enough to drive the thick head into her mouth, retreat, and thrust again before he stilled.

The fierce, barely leashed control was evident in the sound of his harsh breaths, in the fingers kneading her scalp.

“Sweet Grace,” he rasped. “Fuck, I love your mouth. Love it.”

Sucking the hard flesh with firmer draws of her mouth, Grace swirled her tongue beneath the head, licked, lashed at the spot that never failed to make his thighs tighten, his breath catch with the pleasure of it.

She needed this. Needed to touch him, to pleasure him, to learn each caress, each stroke of her tongue that would induce the most pleasure for him.

“I’m losing it, Grace,” he groaned, the tension in his body increasing by the second now.

The head of his cock clenched, the blood rushing through the veins pulsing harder.

“Enough. Ah God, enough.” Before she could stop him, Zack pulled back, his fingers gripping the base of his cock as his expression tightened in borderline ecstasy, a grimace on his lips.

Leaning back as his gaze focused on her, Grace pushed herself along the bed, staring up at him from beneath her lashes as she came to her knees.

“Lie down,” he ordered, watching her closely, intently. “Let me love you, Grace.”

Her laugh, a teasing laugh, had his eyes narrowing on her. “Let you love me?” she murmured suggestively. “Are you asking for permission, Zack? How very unlike you.”

Heat flared in his gaze, his expression tightening once more with the sensual, erotic awareness of a sexual challenge. Delivering the challenge heightened her own awareness as well. Grace’s flesh was more sensitive, her need for him hotter, burning brighter through her body.

“Asking for permission?” he chuckled, the low, confident sound sending a rush of moisture easing from her body. “I was trying for more romance.”

“Romance?” Her brows arched as she ran a hand slowly from between her breasts, watching as his gaze tracked the path her fingers took. “How … very…” She slicked her lips slowly as he forced his gaze back to hers. “Sweet…”

His lips twitched. “Sweet?”

“Definitely sweet,” she assured him.

Her lashes dipped as her fingers slid between her thighs, easing into the thick, heated moisture coating the folds there. His eyes jerked down once more, his jaw tightening when she lifted her hand and brought her fingers to her lips, where she painted the lower curve with her slick essence.

He moved so fast, she couldn’t have anticipated his next move. Before she could do more than gasp, he had her on her back, one hand immobilizing her head as he caught her lower lip between his teeth and licked the sheen of her juices from it.

“Sweetest pussy I’ve ever tasted,” he breathed out, his voice rough as his lips moved from hers to the tight, hard peak of one breast. “Pretty, hard little nipples.” He sucked one into his mouth, drawing on it with strong pulls of his mouth.

Flashes of sensation tore from her nipple to her womb with each hard, moist pull, each lash of his tongue. His fingers stroked the curve of her breast, creating a contrasting, softer touch that only increased the intensity of each.

Forcing her eyes open, needing to watch him, just for a moment, to see his lips on her flesh, to take in the intimacy of the act, Grace found her eyes locked with his instead. Held by the demand in his gaze, by the power of his need that she could see reflected in it.

Heavy-lidded, the gray shifting, first darker, then lighter and back again, like thunderclouds, like the storm raging through her senses. His expression was savage with pleasure as well. He wasn’t just pleasuring her, he was finding pleasure in the act.

As she watched, he released her nipple only to move to the other, capturing the dark pink tip between his teeth as he watched her. The flare of instant, electric pleasure had her gasping. He kept drawing the hard point into the heat of his mouth and sucking it, the tip of his tongue stroking at it, and Grace couldn’t help but moan.

With each draw of his mouth, her own need increased. Silky heat spilled from her inner depths, coating the swollen folds beyond and sensitizing her flesh further.

She needed him.

The desperation and overwhelming need to once again experience those moments when she was no longer a part of reality, existing only for the chaotic storm whipping through her was only growing. She needed to lose herself in him. Losing herself in the emotions and pleasure that whipped through her, that overtook her each time he touched her.

“That’s it, Grace, just let it feel good,” he crooned, his lips lifting from her breast, smoothing a trail of fire along her midriff to the center of her body. “Just let me have you, baby.”

Her head fell back to the pillow, eyes closing. Fisting her fingers into the blankets at her side, Grace forced herself to wait, to relish every nuance of each sensation as Zack made his way lower.

As he pushed her thighs farther apart, his broad shoulders sliding between them, a brush of air wafted over the sensitive flesh between her thighs. A jolt of aching need slammed into her clit before echoing to her vagina and spilling more of the slick heat to the swollen folds.

“Are you ready for me, Grace?” the crooning temptation of his voice had her moaning brokenly.

She’d never been so ready in her life.

The feel of his tongue rasping through the sensitive folds brought her hips up in a jerk, the need to suddenly get closer, to have more, more instinct than just pleasure. Licking up, circling the straining bud of her clit, a rumbled growl of pleasure left his lips and tightened the tension straining at her senses.

One hand went to his head, threading through his hair to find an anchor, any anchor in the storm she could feel brewing through her. Each touch, each lick, each caress of his tongue to her swollen folds sent such pleasure surging through her that all she could do was cry out with the need for more. By time his lips surrounded the hard bud of her clit, she was crying out for him. Helpless pleas fell from her lips, the sounds ragged, the need whipping through her body like a vicious hunger she couldn’t fight back.

She needed him. She needed this.

Forcing her eyes to open, Grace stared down at him, seeing the pleasure in his face as he devoured her, watching his tongue circle her clit, his lips pursing to deliver a hot, suckling kiss.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t keep her eyes open.

“Yes, oh please, Zack,” she panted, the tension building, multiplying until she didn’t know if she was being pleasured or being tortured.

“I’m right here, baby.” Delivering one last erotic kiss, his head lifted and he was moving up her body, dropping heated kisses along his path until he reach her lips.

The broad, heated head of his cock pushed between her thighs, parting the swollen flesh and lodging at the entrance of her sex.

She could feel it, pulsing with heat, ready to burn her with the most incredible pleasure. As his lips took hers in a deep, tongue-thrusting kiss, he pushed inside. Slow, aching inches parted the flesh of her vagina, pumping back and forth, taking her slow and easy as her cries built in her throat and he caught each one with his lips.

It was the most pleasure she’d ever know. She was flying in his arms, each stroke, each kiss, each hard lash of ecstasy throwing her deeper into chaos. And still, he held her with him. Clasping her close, he rode her through the storm, his big body arched over her, his hips moving fiercely between her thighs, his heavy and hot cock spearing into her and lashing her with sensations so wild, so strong, there was no way to fight them.

She didn’t want to fight them.

Her nails bit into his shoulders, the distant realization that they were damp with perspiration, that both their bodies were slick with it quickly forgotten. Nothing mattered but this.

Zack.

Until chaos built, until lightning licked over her body, over her senses. Her back bowed, her legs lifting, knees holding tight to him, and when the explosion came, she swore she lost part of herself to him. Not just her heart.

It went far deeper than her heart.

She knew she’d given the very essence of herself to him. A part that could never be returned, but if she lost him, she knew she’d lose herself as well.

When it was over, when Zack managed to collapse against her and draw her into his arms, Grace felt sleep taking her, stealing her from the consequences of what she had done, what she had given to someone she feared might well walk away in the end.

If she’d expected that sleep to be calm and easy, she was wrong. It was plagued by nightmares, by dark dreams. The pictures she’d stared at for so long becoming collages, images moving from one frame to the next and making little sense, though she knew they should.

Through the darkness, into the nightmares, Zack was there, though. Holding her, taking the fear, and letting her focus on each picture that formed in her dreams, each bit of information and each hint of betrayal.

Until the truth, when her subconscious found it, was too much to take, too horrifying to contemplate, and she came away swallowing tears that no longer made sense and fighting a fear that when awake, she could find no reason for.

chapter twenty-two

Grace couldn’t shake the hollow fear and sense of discord that overcame her when she awakened. Despite the fact that her father was alive, she had a sister, and Zack wanted her to stay with him. Still, she couldn’t forget that sense of horror, or the images she was slowly remembering from her dreams.

Breakfast and most of the afternoon were spent in Zack’s office. She ignored Zack when he came to check on her and ignored her uncle when he stood at the door, watching her. It wasn’t until her father entered the room, dragged a chair next to her, and started going through the files that she focused on anything but the pieces of information she was gathering.

“I’m busy,” she stated, pulling another file on the laptop and scanning each page. “I don’t need any help.”

Except, she probably did need some help and just didn’t know what she needed.

“The two years before the explosion are so blurred, I can barely remember any of it,” he stated, rubbing his hands on his jeans before opening one of the files. “I’ve been over every file, every picture, and can’t seem to remember why I even took them.” His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

“You were searching for the conspiracy,” she told him, pulling bits of information from the file she was reading to the one she’d made herself. “You knew it was family, just like I do.”

He stilled beside her. “Vince suggested that, but it doesn’t make sense. Destroy the family, and you destroy the power we hold in this area.”

“What if the one attempting to destroy it wants just that?” She shrugged. “The information is sellable, the location of the arms and gold would fund generations, or a lifetime of excessive spending. Or it could enable control of the Kin themselves, if enough of the Clan follows you.”

“They wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Take the family out, and this area is cut off from the Kin in general. No one but a member of the family knows enough to know how the hell to even use the power it would bring.”

“A grudge…” She closed the file she was in and started going through others. It was there. She knew it was there.

“What grudge?” he asked.

Grace shook her head. “I don’t know.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched as he went through pictures, piling them much as she had the first time she saw them, but using a very different order, though he didn’t seem to pay attention to what he was doing. Most of his attention was focused on her.

“You were three,” he said a few moments later. “Brightest little thing that ever was.” That couldn’t be pride she heard in his voice. “We were at the park, and you told me one of your friends’ mothers was spending a lot of time with another friend’s father, and that maybe the father wanted to be the first friend’s daddy.” He chuckled at the memory. “Three years old. No one knew Mack Ronce and Delilah Day were having an affair, even me, and Mack was one of my men, until that day.

She paused. “It gives me a headache, having to watch everyone all the time, tracking their expressions and shifts, and noticing what’s none of my damned business!” she snapped, leaning back in her chair, though refusing to look at him. “All my life, all I’ve ever heard is how regretful it was that I didn’t do this like my father, that like my father.” She trailed off, the pain she’d wanted to keep hidden returning. “I guess they weren’t the only ones who wished I could be more like you.”