Forever and a Day (Lucky Harbor) Read online

  She pulled back, and keeping a hold of his hand, led him down the hall to his bedroom.

  Bad idea.

  The worst sort of bad idea.

  Stop her…

  He had her by a good foot and at least seventy pounds. It wouldn’t be difficult to free himself, but instead he followed along after her like a lost little puppy.

  She turned off the lights, and darkness settled over them. Over him. In him. He was just about as on edge as it got.

  And he wanted her.

  Needed her.

  But he’d never been very good at asking. Not that she was making him ask…

  She pulled him into his bedroom, nudging the door shut with her foot. “Come here.”

  “You’re shaking,” he said, wrapping his arms around her trembling body.

  Her hands glided up his chest to cup his face. “Not me,” she said very gently, eyes shadowed. “You. You’re shaking.”

  Well, hell. He tried to pull back, but she gripped him tight and refused to budge. “Josh—”

  “I need to go—”

  “Honey, this is your place.” Her fingers slid into his hair, gentle and soothing. Tender. So were her eyes when she tilted his face down to hers to see it in the dim light. “No one’s going anywhere,” she said. “You’re already right where you need to be.” Then she locked the door and gave him a push that had him falling onto his bed.

  Shit, he was pretty fucking far gone if she could catch him off guard like that. He came up on his elbows, and there she stood in that shimmery top and leggings, looking like everything sweet and warm and caring. Too caring. He didn’t want that. He wanted her naked and sweaty and screaming his name. “I want to be alone,” he said.

  “You don’t need to be alone tonight.”

  “You don’t know what I need.”

  She stared down at the hard-on he was sporting, the one straining the front of his scrubs. “I think I have a pretty good idea.” She let the straps of her camisole slip to her elbows, and the whole thing fell to her waist. She urged it past her hips with a little wriggle, and it hit the floor. “You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

  Sitting up, he settled his hands on her rib cage, fingers spread wide.

  “It might help if you did,” she said.

  He took in her pretty pink bra. It was one of those half-cup things that gave him tantalizing peek-a-boo hints of nipples, which were already hard. They puckered up even tighter, and his mouth watered.

  “Josh?”

  “Sorry. I haven’t heard a word since you took off your top.” He closed his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Give me one good reason why not.”

  He didn’t have any logic skills in that moment. None. He searched for words. “I’m temporarily unavailable.”

  “Incapacitated, maybe.” With a hand to the center of his chest, she pushed.

  He fell flat to the bed and stared up at the ceiling, which was twirling. And there was something else. He badly wanted to roll her beneath him and take her. Take her hard and fast and dirty. “You need to go, Grace.”

  “Yeah? And why’s that?” she asked. “You might actually let your control slip? Or worse yet, an emotion?” She shook her head, a small smile curving her lips. “You’ve seen me reveal lots of emotions. Fear, sadness, anger…​You’ve seen me totally out of my element and freaked out. You’ve seen me everything. So I think I can handle whatever you’ve got, big guy.”

  He blinked. “Big guy?”

  She crawled onto the bed and then over him, letting her stomach brush over his erection. “Feels big to me.”

  Through his haze, Josh felt her hands stroke his thighs. And then higher as her fingers deftly untied and tugged enough to free him. “I’m not feeling gentle,” he warned.

  “I don’t need gentle.” She smiled at him. “Remind me sometime to show you my sexual fantasy list. It’s quite comprehensive. In fact, you in your scrubs are on it. Being not gentle.”

  He groaned.

  “We play doctor. And in a variation, I get to be the doctor.”

  Jesus. “Grace—”

  “Shhh,” she murmured, her warm breath brushing over him as she wriggled some more, right out of her leggings. At the feel of her bare legs entangled with his, he groaned again.

  “I have your attention?” she asked.

  “You always have my attention.”

  “Good to know.” As light and teasing as her words were, she made a little movement that rubbed her thighs together, and it occurred to him that she was as turned on as he was. He felt himself twitch at the thought. “Grace—”

  “No.” She covered his mouth with a finger. “You just sit there and look pretty.”

  His low laugh turned into a husky groan when she grasped him with her hands and let her lips slowly descend over him.

  “Oh, Christ.” He had to close his eyes after that, his hands fisted tightly in the bedding instead of in her hair, because she was right—he wasn’t at all sure he could control himself. Two minutes in, he was drowning in pleasure and hot, desperate need. “Grace—” he gasped, trying to warn her.

  She merely let out a hungry little murmur and tightened her grip, humming her approval, and blowing his mind right along with his favorite body part.

  He came fast and hard, and he figured he should be mortified—tomorrow. For now, all he could muster was a blissed-out exhaustion…

  When he woke several hours later to the alarm, he was all alone, leaving him to wonder—real or Memorex?

  The next day came too early, and Grace cursed her alarm. It’d been two when she’d left Josh sprawled out spread-eagle on his bed, eyes rolled back in his head. She’d been pretty sure he’d still been breathing.

  He must have been, because his car was already gone.

  She drove into Seattle for an interview at a second firm that had called late yesterday, and it went well. On her way back to Lucky Harbor, she got a phone call from Anna.

  “Toby’s school called. He fell into a mud puddle, and he needs a change of clothes.”

  “Okay,” Grace said. “I’ll be there in twenty.” When she got to the house, she went through Toby’s dresser and pulled out a pair of pants.

  “Don’t forget socks,” Anna said from the doorway.

  “Socks.” She grabbed those too.

  “And shoes. And a shirt. And a coat…”

  Grace looked at Anna.

  “Apparently, he’s quite the mess.”

  Grace drove the change of clothes to the elementary school, and Anna had been right. Toby was a mess, but a happy one.

  “I didn’t need new clothes,” he said, not quite so happy now that he had to change. Apparently little boys like to wear their mud like badges of honor.

  Grace handed him the clothes and gave his hair a tousle. Or tried. Her fingers caught on the mud in his hair. “What, did you bathe in the stuff?”

  He grinned, and she shook her head. “See you at the bus stop in a little while, handsome.”

  She left the school and met Amy and Mallory for a late lunch at Eat Me. Lunch was chocolate cupcakes, of course.

  “So sad about Mrs. Porter,” Mallory said. “We’re all taking it hard at the hospital. Especially Josh.” Her eyes cut to Grace. “You hear from him?”

  Not since she’d left him boneless and panting on his bed. She shook her head and peeled her cupcake from its wrapper.

  “He might need some TLC,” Mallory said.

  “Whatever you do, don’t call it TLC,” Amy said. “That’ll scare an alpha into next week. Just do him. That’s all the TLC he’ll need.”

  Grace, who’d just taken an unfortunate bite of her cupcake, inhaled it up her nose. By the time she’d stopped coughing and swiped at her streaming eyes, both Mallory and Amy were waiting, brows up.

  “Stop,” Grace managed. “You guys read far too much into everything. Must be all that TLC you’re both having. It’s making you think everyone else is having it too.”