“Not yet,” he growled. “But you will be by the time we’re done here tonight.” The promise in his words and the playful gleam in his eyes shone as brightly as the North Star. He was just as much my guiding light in the dark. My direction. My affirmation that everything was going to be okay—and soon, maybe he’d even help me find the way home.
The lights flicked off in the cabin behind us, so we knew the crew had finished their nightly duties and were calling the day complete. They were moving about so early that morning, so they had to be exhausted.
“It’s so dark out here,” I whispered up to him.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of anything. Not anymore.”
“What does that mean?” He ran his fingers over the curves of my brows and then my cheeks, studying every detail of my face while he waited for my answer.
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “It feels like the worst has already happened. I’ve already felt the worst pain a woman can feel, apart from losing a child, I suppose. And clearly, that will never be in the cards for me now, so I can put that one up on a shelf somewhere.”
Grant’s ordinarily bright-blue eyes turned dark with sadness, and I wanted to recall every word I had so selfishly let pass over my lips.
With both hands, I reached up and tugged his thick hair. “Please don’t be sad for me. I can’t stand that look of pity on your face right now.”
“It’s not pity, Blaze.”
“No? Are you sure?” I pressed, not convinced, and tried so hard to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“It’s empathy,” he answered and then kissed me once more. “And there’s a big difference. I don’t want to talk about my shitty childhood right now.” He rolled his eyes dramatically toward the moon. “I mean, talk about a hard-on killer, but there’s a lot about me you still don’t know. So, for now, you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that I know about heartache. I know about survival and how hard it can be to learn to trust love again.”
For a few moments, he just stared down at me, and the air was charged with something more intense. Something lusty and primal that was nearly palpable. I felt like a rabbit in the middle of circling, ravenous coyotes. Except I didn’t mind being the rabbit in this situation, and there was only one coyote. A very tall, very sexy coyote.
“Blaze,” he rasped, stretching his entire body out above mine.
“What?” My voice was needier than I intended, but Grant’s next comment quickly took away any concerns about showing all my proverbial cards to the man. Or about anything else.
“I have to be inside you.”
Trouble was, I was unable to do anything but stare back at him. Luckily, my body seemed to have the answer though. It took the wheel without input from me or my brain, and I gladly let it. I parted my legs to let him settle there, and slick arousal rushed to my core.
“Such a good girl,” Grant rumbled from low in his throat, and the sound resonated in my chest too.
I wanted to protest immediately. The praise that many women fell all over themselves to receive had the exact opposite effect on me. I fought most of my life to be an individual. I didn’t need another person’s approval of anything I did.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?” I whispered.
“The war you’re having with yourself over a few simple words.”
“I’m not—” I began to explain but stopped the moment Grant sank his teeth into my bottom lip. With his blue eyes boring into my mahogany ones, he kept the pressure on the tender pad until I whimpered.
“I think you’re stunning when you hand your body over to me.” Finally, he soothed my throbbing lip with a slow swipe of his tongue. “If praising you is part of the process of enjoying it for me, that doesn’t change who you are fundamentally.”
I continued staring up at him and memorizing the details of his beautiful face. The man had the bone structure of a Greek god and the swagger of a Hollywood A-lister. It didn’t go unnoticed how quickly he offered that answer and how polished it sounded when he did. Way back in the corner of my mind, a nagging voice told me this wasn’t the first time he’d recited that answer to a woman—and likely wouldn’t be the last.