Always on My Mind Page 0,64

deeper still, Lori couldn't remember ever feeling so safe. So incredibly good.

Grayson gathered her even closer to bury his face in the damp crook of her neck, and after the force of his climax triggered yet one more beautiful release for her, too, he rolled her over so that her head lay on his chest and her legs were entwined with his.

The last thing she was aware of before she fell asleep was the soft press of his mouth against her forehead as he kissed her good night.

Chapter Nineteen

It was the first time in three years that Grayson had slept past sunrise.

Sunlight was streaming in his bedroom window as Lori slept in the circle of his arms. Actually, it was more that she was sprawled completely over him so that he was both her mattress and pillow. But even though he'd always preferred to have plenty of space to himself in bed, he found he didn't mind the way she'd unconsciously claimed his entire bed - and his body - as her own.

Lori Sullivan wasn't just Naughty, she was a force of nature.

He'd tried like hell to push her away a dozen times this past week, but she was still here. Even last night, when he'd asked her for so much more than he deserved, she'd not only given it to him without reserve, she'd made love to him with a wide-open heart, too.

"You're an awesome bed," she said as she slowly flexed and stretched her limbs one at a time over him, which brought every inch of his body completely awake. "I make a pretty good blanket, don't I?"

He loved the way she woke up with a smile. "Not just good. Amazing."

"I know I am," she said with a teasing grin as she rested her chin on her hand and gazed down at him from where she was perched over his chest. "Now tell me, is it my sparkling personality, my wicked hot moves in the sack, or my deft hand with pig feed that's got you in raptures this morning?"

He knew he should just grin back, continue her teasing. But he hadn't awakened with a woman in his bed in three years - especially not one this beautiful, this giving - and he couldn't think of one thing he'd done to deserve it now.

"How can you forgive me again and again for what I've said to you? For the way I've acted?" In his experience, forgiveness was the hardest thing of all.

Her hand immediately moved to stroke his cheek, her eyes softening as she looked down at him. "My brothers and sister and I fought a lot when we were kids. Most of them were stupid fights about dolls or the last brownie or who won the race. But sometimes, we went too far and really hurt each other. Not just with bruises and black eyes, but with words that we didn't know how to take back." She smiled, thinking about her family. "When my mother'd had enough, she'd take us by the scruff of our necks like we were unruly cats, and then she'd lock us in a room together."

His eyebrows went up. "Wasn't she worried you'd keep pounding each other?"

"Oh, we definitely did that. But even that got old after a while. Eventually we would both realize we were stuck in a room with the one person we hated." She laughed out loud at the memory of those lock-ins. "With eight kids to keep in line, my mother had to have plenty of tricks up her sleeve. And her genius was in knowing that no matter what we said or did, no matter how deep the arrows had gone, nothing had actually changed. We still loved each other and always would. It was just that, for a little while there, it was easier to lash out and be nasty than it was to actually work through whatever was really making us feel bad. By the time she came to let us out, we were usually too busy playing some silly game we'd made up to want to leave the room. And we'd forgiven each other without ever needing to say the words, because we'd never meant to hurt each other in the first place."

She grinned at him, the sunlight streaming in over her head giving her a temporary halo. "Just in case you haven't already figured it out, my mother is amazing."

"No wonder."

She cocked her head. "No wonder what?"

"No wonder...you."

"That's another reason I forgive you,"