Remembering what Dad said about the men who thought they knew her body better than she did, I hesitated, not wanting to move too fast and freak her out. So what was I supposed to do?
Her eyes shifted to the kitchen and her hips tilted away from me.
“I have a confession,” I blurted out. Her wary eyes found mine. “I didn’t expect to like being Santa, but the kids’ reaction was worth it, seeing their eyes light up with joy. I’ll do it again, whenever you ask. But Grace …” I let my hand fall from her bicep to rest lightly on her waist, “Your coworkers were right. I only volunteered for the second time to kiss you again.”
Her eyes widened and she let out a shaky breath. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I said, weighing how much to reveal next and deciding to go for it. “I wasn’t pretending in the sensory room. You were right to stop me, but I was only thinking about how beautiful you looked.”
“After you teased me to my coworkers, I thought …” She lifted her top hand to run over her open mouth in surprise. The flush of her cheeks spurred me on.
“And I wanted to kiss you at the tree farm last night … until Mallory pelted me with that snowball. Aside from my sister’s face being an instant boner killer,” I complained and her full smile appeared, “I wondered why you two were yelling about dogs.”
Her laughter resonated down to my groin. “It’s from Elf.”
I ignored all my negotiation training about playing my cards close to my chest. If I was going to strike out, I’d go down swinging.
“I can't tell if you want to kiss, and I don’t want to overstep. So the ball’s in your court.”
Her smile faltered. Her gaze dropped to my mouth, then roamed back to my eyes, testing my sincerity. While she considered, I didn’t mind having my hand at the swell of her waist against the soft fabric of her tank top. Her hands tensed to push me away, and I braced for rejection.
Then her hand rose up to my neck, and she leaned forward to skim her lips over mine. Her kiss was sweet and sensitive, cautious but curious, tentative yet tender. Just like her.
Chapter 18Grace
This was unbelievable. Alexander Clarke was kissing me.
When he arrived last night, I thought he’d been motivated by worry tinged with pity. When he settled in for the movie, curling me into the crook of his arm, I thought he was lonely on a Saturday night. When he held me tenderly while I cried, I assumed I’d wake up alone.
But he stayed.
I’d woken abruptly, startled by his snoring. Once I’d settled my racing pulse, assuring my overactive amygdala that there wasn't a freight train in my apartment, I’d appreciated his face in the faint beams of moonlight sneaking through my curtain. His skin was smooth, the tight worry lines around his mouth less pronounced.
His long eyelashes fluttered softly as he slept, and I wondered what a man like Alex Clarke would dream about. Would he be steeped in memories, focused on his future, or caught somewhere in the ether?
I drifted back off with his arm wrapped around my waist, enjoying a night of the safety and warmth of not sleeping alone.
When he woke, I’d expected him to make an excuse and leave right away, but he’d lingered in my bed. He’d coaxed me to join him and confessed that he wanted to kiss me … but he didn’t know if I felt the same. How could he not know how completely kissable he was?
So I kissed him.
I ran my hands through his thick mane of hair, brushing it off his forehead like I’d wanted to do when I first laid eyes on him. I let my hands rest at the nape of his neck, twirling the hair there, as my tongue danced over his lip, causing a quick inhale of his breath. I did it again, eliciting a low moan.
His hand gripped tighter in the fabric of the shirt at my waist, showing his restraint. I’d leaned on him the whole way out of the tree farm last night, and he’d carried me to bed … I wondered if he thought I was fragile.
Did he think I couldn’t handle more?
He would be wrong. I wanted more. Needed more.
He tilted his head and I used the opportunity to slip my tongue between his lips, which he eagerly parted to welcome me. I quickly brushed his tongue then retreated, and when his chased after mine greedily, I laughed softly. I smiled against his mouth and when I felt his lips curl up in reaction, I wanted to pull away, to finally get a glimpse of that elusive smile …
But that desire was outpaced by the need to be closer. When I touched my toe to his shin, he winced at the cold before wrapping his top leg over mine and pulling me into his warmth. My hand at his neck tugged him closer and he leaned forward for a firm kiss, flattening his palm over my ribs to close the gap between our bodies. I reacted eagerly, my nipples skimming his chest.
“Alex,” I moaned, still disbelieving that he was here in my bed. I lifted my hand from his neck and met his palm on my ribs, sliding it up to rest over the swell of my breast. Through my yoga shirt, his thumb flicked my pebbled nipple and my back arched into his hand, pressing my hips forward into his, feeling his firm erection through his boxers. When he groaned at the contact, I shifted my hips again, opening my eyes to watch his head tilt back, his mouth panting.
My hand returned to his cheek and his eyes opened, looking wild. “Shit, Gracie,” he breathed, squeezing my nipple between his nimble fingertips, causing my hips to buck into his. “You’re so fucking hot, it’s unbelievable.”
Then he was kissing along my jaw. I tilted my head back to give him access to my neck and after lingering on my pulse point, he shifted down to kiss along my collarbone, trailing the hem of my tank top.
Annoyed at the built-in bra blocking his path, I pulled the strap down to reveal my breast. He took it as a welcome invitation to palm the mound while his mouth licked and sucked my nipple, his moans sending vibrations straight to my core. I arched into his warm touch, wrapping my hand around the back of his head as my whole body thrummed with desire.
My pulse beat in my ears, breathing between desperate sweeps of his tongue, gripping his shoulders, and holding his head in place at my chest. The room filled with my whimpers, ringing with the melodious chirping of —
“Shit,” I breathed, releasing my palm from his hair as I turned to the kitchen when the oven timer insistently beeped.
He removed his lips from my breast with a coy grin. “Did you just swear?”
“The eggs are going to burn,” I moaned, ignoring his teasing.
“Fuck the eggs,” he said against the sensitive skin of my chest as he wrapped his mouth back around my breast and flicked his tongue over my nipple.
“We have to eat before class,” I moaned, nearly breathless.
He licked along my skin and murmured, “I’ll do intermittent fasting today.”
I laughed and tugged his hair slightly to pull him back, then raised the strap of my shirt back up my shoulder and slid out from under the covers.“Well, I have to eat before teaching. So I guess I get all your huevos rancheros,"
