Stone Kissed (8 page)

The spot he touched tingled and burned, and she took a large swallow of wine. She ate much too fast, wishing in vain the food would knock down the butterflies in her stomach. She drank much too fast, wishing in vain the wine would wash away her memory of his kiss.

After clearing most of her plate, they spoke of Steward House.

Actually, she talked. It was the wine, Delia decided. She seldom drank it—no occasion and no company. Two glasses in and she was a chatty as Mrs. Hansdorf’s granite gnomes.

“You know about Chase and Burton, right?” she asked, but didn’t even give him breath to reply. “Best reproduction wallpapers you will find. I suggest we go with a Craftsman aesthetic—it’s not the original period, but it suits the house. We still had a few rugs when we first moved in. I think, in retrospect, they were genuine William Morris.” She must have looked downcast, because he nodded sympathetically.

She shoved her dishes to the side absently to pull out her sketch pad, and he rose to clear them away. He was so graceful through the soft-focus haze of wine-soaked eyes. How could anyone so large be so fluid, especially after such a wonderful meal? She never wanted to get out of this chair again. She wanted to sit and watch him as he leaned over the sink, pulled open cabinets, and pivoted in those lovely, well-fitted dark trousers to close the refrigerator door. Thank God he wasn’t looking at her, because he would have surely seen the naked admiration on her face.

But then he did look at her, smiling easily as he pulled up his chair to look over her shoulder. She swallowed hard, gripping the sketch pad much too tightly. Grant reached for it and she pulled it away. “Let me.” She turned the pages carefully to show him her room-by-room list of walls to move, fabric and paper choices, and, naturally, basic sculpture recommendations.

“You changed the dimensions in the bath and kitchens.” He tapped one long, tapered finger on the cover of the sketch pad lying on the counter between them.

She swallowed. The architects had accepted her changes without a murmur at lunch. She’d felt Grant’s eyes on her during their talk but he hadn’t interrupted or asked questions.

“You have to plan for both present and future needs. Evans will give you a better idea, but by removing this section of wall—” feeling brazen, she brushed his finger away with her own, “—you can create wider paths for wheelchair accessibility.”

“My sister and I don’t need wheelchairs.”

She didn’t look up. “No, but your houseguests might. And you never know what could happen in the future.” She thought of her father, slumped in his hospital bed, and clamped her mouth shut.

“No. No, you don’t.” Grant placed one long arm across the back of her chair and leaned in to flick a swatch of dark green cotton velvet she’d taped to a page. “When have you had time to work this up?”

She forced a shrug, acutely aware of the warm muscle of his chest against her shoulder. “When I’m at the hospital, mostly. Father isn’t talking yet, though he has been making some sounds and movements.”

“I’m impressed. This is good work, Delia. What else are you working on?” He reached for the sketch pad, and she jerked it back. He placed his hand on top of hers. His palm was warm and callused, and her fingers spread apart to allow his to press between them. He tugged at the top edge of the paper and she gripped it, white-knuckled.

She couldn’t let him have it. She would die six times over if he saw what she’d drawn. Not just the sketches of her father, wounded and vulnerable—but the other drawings. The ones of him.

Finally Grant pulled his hand back and she felt the loss of it. She looked up into his face, and he was smiling again—that breathtaking grin that chiseled long dimples into his cheeks and carved the faintest laugh lines beside his eyes. “I was skeptical. But you are the right person to revive this house.”

What an apt word, she mused, as she stared at his firm, lush lips.
Revive,
as if he believed houses had thoughts, feelings, and souls.

Delia owed Steward House. She wanted to serve her, to
revive
her. The thought delighted her, and she smiled too. Grant took it for the invitation it was, and swooped in.

She came into being in her lips, in the hollow of her mouth where she was sealed to him, where his tongue explored and claimed every surface. She radiated out from there, lines of heat spiraling down her spine and pooling in her groin. She melted to his thigh. Where his hands touched her back, she became solid once more. Where her breasts pressed into his chest, she rose and grew. Her fingers found the curls at the back of his neck and she had hands again. Where Grant touched her, Delia came alive, became real. He made her glow.

Grant broke the kiss, leaned his forehead to hers.

“You want the tour?” His voice was ragged. She shook her head.

He lifted her out of the chair, pressed her to the dining room wall, and kissed her deeply, thoroughly, completely. She lifted her leg as she’d wanted to do since he’d handed her that stupid box of pizza—no, since she’d been a teenage girl with a magazine article about him in a hidden scrapbook, and the fountain cherub who guarded it had explained what happened when a girl wrapped her leg around a man’s muscled thigh.

Delia pushed her foot back to the floor and broke the kiss, panting so hard she feared she’d hyperventilate. What if it was bad? She’d had bad sex before. More often than not, in fact, and if sex with Grant Wolverton was mediocre—or
bad
—she would have to remain celibate until the end of her days.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. His scent enveloped her. “If you don’t want this, Delia, tell me now.”

“I want this.” The words came from the base of her spine, from the dark, hollow space below her collarbone, from the rushing flood of sensation in her deepest core. Nothing she’d ever said had ever been this true. “I want this.”

Grant bit down on the tendon in her neck, and she trembled. “Protection’s in the bedroom,” he growled.

Delia was different. Most women assumed from the moment he invited them to dinner that they’d end up in his bed. Delia had come to eat and to talk. They peeked out at him from expertly applied eyelashes and murmured double-entendres. Her eyes sparkled as she debated the merits of different heating and cooling systems. The others slid their forks into their mouths and sucked the crumbs off the tines, glancing sideways at him to see if he appreciated the none-too-subtle promise. She gulped down her bites, waving her fork as she described the drop-in tin ceiling in the kitchen. His other lovers saw their time with him as a transaction, every seductive move an investment in getting a piece of Wolverton International with the bonus of pleasure on the side. Delia thought only of Steward House.

She was intelligent, giving answers to questions he hadn’t yet raised. Her vision for the house rose organically from the stones themselves. Her impassioned words and her vivid drawings and the strawberry-sweet smell of her hair drew him in. He wanted to live in the Steward House of her imagination. He wanted her passion and intensity for himself.

“Do we need to discuss this?” he asked once more.

“Good Lord, no.”

“So you are putting a moratorium on discussion?”

“Shut up.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down into a soft, tentative kiss that burned through him like lava.

“Oh, no, Delia,” he whispered into her lips. “We’ll do this my way.”

He cupped her left breast and flicked a finger over the white cotton of the bra covering her nipple. She keened a cry into his mouth, so he did it again.

She tugged at him again, attempting to pull him to the bed. He empathized with her. He was doing his level best to keep from impaling her against the bedpost. The pressure of his jeans on his cock was exquisite agony, but he swallowed, breathed and lowered his mouth tease her nipple with his tongue.

“Grant,” she pleaded, and he reached up the back of her blouse to unhook her bra, releasing her breasts. He slid his other hand under the front band, cupping the silky flesh in his much-too-rough palm. She stood frozen at his touch, but as his hand squeezed reflexively she stepped back, her thighs bumping against the footboard.

She jerked from him in a sudden, awkward twist, dropping to her side on the bed. She looked at the wall as she peeled away her bra and blouse, and then she reached the button of her jeans, her face intent on the space beyond his right elbow. He took her hands to still her.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes, large and luminous in the moonlight, were dark with desire and confusion.

“My way,” he admonished again and spread her arms open like wings, pinning her wrists to the bed above her head. A glorious pink descended from her face, down her neck, her breasts. Her dark hair curled and danced around her face. She panted lightly, her breath smelling of sweet wine.

Delia was completely open, completely vulnerable. She exhaled with a shudder and he felt her wrists relax beneath his hand. She inhaled, and he saw something new in her eyes, a question, and then an answer. Whatever the answer was, she was pleased with it, because she arched off the bed, offering herself to him. He made to swoop down, but she twitched her head and twisted her wrists in his hands. He allowed her to slide free from his restraint. His skin caught fire when she slid her nails down the back of his jeans and grazed the top of his buttocks.

That wouldn’t work. The urge to thrust into her slammed though him with primal force. Grant pulled up and placed his hands on her thighs, shifting her so he could kneel over her. He steeled himself, forced himself to become as rigid as his straining cock. With deliberate slowness, he cupped her breasts and felt them swell in his palms. They were silky-smooth and as precious as her heart. He wanted to bury his face in their creamy softness.

That wouldn’t do, either. He could feel himself snarl, see his frustration mirrored by the alarm in her large eyes. Grant swooped in, sucking first one chocolate-dark nipple to a rigid swell, and then the other. She whimpered, her head rolling side-to-side.

He was not unkind. He laid her lengthwise on the bed so she might have greater comfort, and he might gain greater access. But all this consideration was wreaking hell on him and he knew if he didn’t do a better job keeping his control, he would come too soon.

Delia writhed beneath the ministrations of his hands and tongue. Her spine arched and flexed in fluid waves, undulating at his overeager touch. Sweat broke out on his brow and Grant sucked in a deep breath. He pulled his shaking palm away from the soft swell of her belly.

“What?” Her question was a quiet sob. “What’s wrong?”

“Shh. Nothing. Everything’s perfect. God, Delia.” The words kept coming, although his voice grated with his own resistance. “You’re perfect.”

Her belly contracted as he touched her, and he slid his fingers under the waistband of her jeans. He popped open the button and kissed her belly. She pulsed into the caress.

“Oh, boy.” She was breathless, her voice full of anticipation, as if they were at the crest of the hill before the rollercoaster took its plunge.

She was all there, every bit of her desire, her fear, and her creativity. In the moonlight, he could see the sinews in her neck as she swallowed. She had a wiry, deceptive strength hidden beneath her large-eyed vulnerability. He wanted to plumb her every depth.

“Delia, take hold of the headboard.”

Her eyes opened and she narrowed them at him. He waited, forcing himself not to stroke her until she obeyed. She wrapped her fingers loosely around two oaken slats.

“Harder.” Grant felt the last bit of his control slip out with the order. Her eyes darkened and she pulled back slightly, then clenched the wood as if her life depended on it.

***

If she died today this was the way to go. No sooner had she taken hold than Grant slid one finger into her and pressed his thumb to her nub. Her hips bucked him as if they meant to knock him off the bed. To her chagrin, she released a flood of moisture.

“Your bedspread.” She released the headboard.

“Shut up, Delia.” He was teasing her, damn him, his smile wicked and welcoming. She shook her head and placed her hands back in position.

His thumb began to stroke her in tiny, relentless circles. She tried to twist away. She tried to twist into him. “Oh, God,” she heard someone pray. “Oh, God!” she cried again. Her consciousness narrowed to one golden point.

“Hold on,” he ordered from a great distance, and she felt his fingers pull away. She looked down at him lowering his face between her thighs, and then she had to look away.
Never never never…

Delia went supernova. His large hands pressed her thighs into the bed as she thrashed and bucked up into his mouth. He kissed her deeply, relentlessly, working her without mercy, with teeth and lips and tongue. While she was still clenching deep, Grant slid one—no, two long fingers within her. Muscles she didn’t know she had gripped his fingers, and he sealed his lips over her, sucking hard.

“Mmm,” she moaned. Her entire universe coalesced into his mouth and hands. He drew forth from her shuddering waves of heat. She was drenched and exhausted and she felt glorious.

Mercifully, Grant pulled back. She released the headboard to reach a hand toward him.

“Delia.” His voice was low and hoarse.

She heard the rasp of his zipper and the soft thud as his pants hit the floor. She pushed up off the bed and wrapped her arms around the sinewy muscles of his back. She pressed her breasts up into the dark thatch of his chest.

“God, yes,” he breathed into her hair, his hard torso pressing her back down into the mattress. “Perfect.”

She lost all coherent thought when, with one endlessly deep thrust, Grant came into her, opening her, filling her so completely it was as if they’d been carved together from a single stone. She braced her heels on top of his calves as he thrummed into her over and over and over. His rhythm was relentless, and her head tossed back and forth on the covers, even as she gripped him deep with the internal muscles she’d discovered only this night, with and for him. With one last thrust he came inside her, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing to a quiet rest.

She stroked his back, marveling in the heat from his sweat-polished skin, sliding her fingers along his shoulder blades, fancying in her quiet euphoria she felt the vestiges of wings. He was heavy and pressed her into the damp bed. She shifted slightly and he slid until his chest was beside hers and his relaxed thigh nested between her own.

Grant turned his head and looked at her, his pupils dark and deep. “Do we need to discuss this now?” His voice was gentle, as if he welcomed the conversation, as if what she had to say mattered to him.

But Delia’s throat closed and she shook her head. Grant dropped his dark head forward once again, pressing his forehead to hers and looking searchingly into her eyes. She couldn’t stand his gaze, couldn’t stand to think of what he might see there, so she closed her eyes and turned her face to the side. He kissed her forehead and lifted away, stepping into the master bath.

Delia turned to face the wall, feeling cold. Moments later Grant joined her under the covers again, pulling her back into his chest and draping his arm loosely across her waist. Delia couldn’t help herself. She curled into him and tucked her head up under his neck.

If she were smart, Delia would peel out from under him, would refuse to indulge in his warmth, his scent, and the false sense of absolute peace she felt at this moment. Nothing this blissful could be real. She’d fallen for a fantasy of Grant Wolverton as a child, and replacing it with a new illusion was not only fruitless—it was insane.

But she could lie here, couldn’t she? Just for a few minutes longer. Just long enough to memorize the weight of his arm across her waist, the tang of musk from their lovemaking, the taste of his salty skin, and the fading exultation from having a dream come true.

She must have dozed off because she was still dreaming when his work-roughened palm cradled her breast. She was certainly asleep when he pulled her knee open and slid her leg back along his thigh, which explained why her buttocks rose of their own accord to accommodate him. As he pressed into her from behind, thick and solid and very, very real, Delia finally admitted she was awake.

Her pelvis rocked gently down into the mattress and back up, welcoming the length and heat of him. When his hand slid down from her breast to stroke the swollen wetness of her folds, she bit down into his pillow to muffle her moan. The urgency built slowly at first, a flicker of flame, a lick of heat. But Delia began to thrust back into his groin faster and faster. His long fingers stroked her open, pressed into her more deeply and rubbed her in hard, tight circles. She hissed and keened her desire, urging him on. His breath brushed across her ear in harsh pants. Without warning, she came hard, fast and completely.

His orgasm followed in response to her own, and she felt him rise up in triumph as he filled her, pumping and pumping. This time she knew what to do and squeezed down on him in response, draining him of every last drop of his essence. As he collapsed on her, she shifted the pillow for support, allowing him to blanket her.

Her fingers plucked a stray feather from the pillow. How long could she stay here, sated, peaceful and safe? If she twisted into him, burrowed into his chest, she could press her face against him and smell nothing but his skin, see nothing but slivers of light. He would absorb her completely, until she could no longer remember her own name. Twice this night he already had.

Delia took a deep breath, squeezed her muscles rigid, and then slid out from under him. Goose bumps popped out on her upper arms and thighs as she wrapped her arms around her stomach and slipped into the master bathroom.

She wrapped a thick brown towel around herself and sat on the toilet lid. She could climb back into bed, roll over in a couple of hours and see his blue eyes gazing into hers. He’d button her into one of his dress shirts, and take her downstairs to cook pancakes and smile at her. They would be domestic, casual, easy, sexy together.

But Wolverton seldom smiled, and Delia had never been sexy. She was awkward, and impulsive—and until Wolverton, she’d had her impulsiveness under control. A couple of orgasms wouldn’t change her into a sophisticated woman of the world; indeed, she feared the opposite. He’d released some force within her, a bright energy, which buzzed through, out of and beyond her. She feared the rising sensation of power and what it might mean.

Delia sucked in a breath as she remembered the stroke of his tongue on her neck. She’d never fantasized about that before. She’d never imagined that the touch of man’s fingertip on her collarbone or the heat of his breath behind her knee would radiate through her so, would thread into her nipples, her core, and her fingertips. No vibrating plastic tube had made her lose herself so utterly completely.

And therein lay the danger. Delia had lost herself long before his first caress. She’d been lost at the dinner table, when he’d looked at her drawings, asking questions about scale, about ornamentation, about line. Grant acted as if her ideas were valuable. Even when he disagreed with her choice of materials or the way she wanted to move a wall, he was respectful, considerate and gave full weight to every word she said. He paid attention to her, which was more seductive and dangerous than even the fire of his touch. Though his touch…

Too much too much too dangerous.
The panicked voice in her mind was hers and only hers, familiar in its shrill urgency.

It was time to go.

She needed a cab but her cell phone was in her purse, so Delia pulled her rumpled jeans off the floor and slid her T-shirt over her head. She watched Grant out the corner of her eye, afraid her gaze alone might awaken him. He lay on his stomach, the dark brown velvet comforter tangled between his long, powerful legs. He didn’t move as she slipped out of the room.

She pulled her shoes into her stomach and placed each foot carefully on the inner edges of the risers so the stairs wouldn’t creak on her way down. Moving slowly, she told herself she was trying to stay silent, but she was giving him time to rise up, to call her back.