The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,105
she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. She kissed him like she was drowning in everything. Like she was drowning in all these feelings that were rolling through her. Because she was. And he was like a lifeline.
And he was the tide.
Her temptation, her salvation. Her danger and her rescue all at once. This man.
He was everything.
What would it be like to be everything?
She felt so small and dirty even considering that. So sad and silly. But it didn’t change those thoughts echoing inside of her. So she kissed him. To silence them. To silence herself.
He wrenched her T-shirt up over her head, out there in the open, in this half built house that had been started for someone else. But he had her in here instead. And he’d said so many things. So many beautiful, flowery things, and she was certain that he believed them. Certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Griffin thought everything he said was true. Because he was a good man.
That was the problem.
If he’d been a liar, if he’d been manipulative, it would be easy to walk away. If he’d been any of those things, she wouldn’t be clinging to him. She wouldn’t be kissing him. She wouldn’t be trying to lose herself in the pleasure that only he could offer her. Only him.
So when he unsnapped her bra, she didn’t stop him. No, she clung to him, to his shirt, to his broad shoulders, as they kissed each other deeper, longer. Rough, calloused hands roamed over her body, his large palms cupping her breasts, his thumbs teasing her nipples. It was everything. And so was he.
This brilliant, singular moment in time a gift and the glory that she would never take for granted.
Because Iris Daniels had waited her entire life for magic like this.
But she should have known that it would cost more than she had to give. Eventually it would, that was the problem. Eventually she’d fail him and she’d see how thin it all was.
She’d felt this already, with her mother. And she just couldn’t stand it, not anymore.
She should have known.
She pushed her hands beneath his shirt, her fingertips skimming the hair roughened ridges of muscles on his abdomen, all the way up to his broad, perfect chest. She made quick work of his T-shirt so that she could look at him, so that she could drink him in hungrily. So that she could marvel at him. He wanted her, that much was true. Needed her in many ways, she knew that too. She could glory in that. Because the fact remained that while she might have reservations about the way that he cared for her, he did want her, not anyone else.
You were the only one that came up the mountain.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them again, because she would keep her eyes open while she did this. Because it didn’t matter what he felt deep down, not right now. It was about what she felt. And she did love him.
Oh, she loved him with everything she was.
She had never been in love with another person. And she didn’t know if she ever would. She had never even wanted another man before she’d met him. He held a claim on her. Body and soul. Like a shackle that she had no hope of escaping. And she hadn’t wanted this. No. Finding her way to him... No.
It was supposed to be about the bakery. It was supposed to be about sex. It was supposed to be about growth. And it wasn’t about any of that. The most important part of this entire road seemed to be Griffin, and there wasn’t anything that she could do about that. There wasn’t a damn sorry thing that she could do to make anything else loom larger than the mountain that loomed before her now. All muscle and heat and desire. Everything.
To her.
And so she clung to him, her hands resting on that chest, feeling his heartbeat rage against her palms.
She clung to him.
And she kissed him. With everything that she had. Everything that she had ever been before, everything she ever would be. She kissed him.
Then she moved her hands down to the buckle on his jeans, undid it slowly. She teased herself, tormented herself with the revelation of his body. He was so beautiful. There had never been a man this beautiful. She was sure of that.