Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,58

precious.

Like I was dirty, and he was too.

Sweet kisses on my nose and cheek, then he'd grind himself—big and hard and tempting—against me, whispering into my skin how delicious I was to him, how he knew, all along, that I would be. In turn, I ran my palm down the front of his jeans, arched my back when he filled his palm with the weight of my breast, still covered with cotton and lace.

It wasn't enough, not nearly.

And at the exact same time, it seemed impossible that it could ever get better than this.

"Bed," I gasped, when he tugged on my earlobe with his teeth. "We don't have to … do anything," I promised, leaning back so he could see my face. I dragged a finger down the line that bisected his ab muscles, and he sucked in a pained breath. "Or the couch. They'd be a bit more comfortable."

He watched my face, a flush covering his cheeks.

"My ass is going numb," I clarified.

His face split into a smile, and the booming laugh that came from his chest spread a warm, gooey glow of happiness over me.

Instead of moving so I could hop down, he merely hoisted me up, two hands under my butt. I smiled, keeping my legs tight around his waist, and my arms draped over his broad shoulders.

My fingers wandered along the seams of his shirt as he plopped back on the couch. In this position, my legs straddled his, but to my surprise, he didn't dive straight back for my mouth. He didn't rip my shirt off or try to peel off my shorts.

Again, he tilted his head, like the change in perspective would change something monumental. But this time, it was to study me with a lopsided smile on his ridiculously handsome face.

Tucker lifted his finger and used it to trace the edge of my nose, and even though I wanted to watch him, my eyes fluttered shut.

Following some invisible line, the tip of that finger touched the middle of my lips and down my chin, along the line of the front of my throat, and then the hard edge of my sternum, ending at the V of my tank top. Instead of pulling the tank down to reveal my bra, he spread his hand over my skin. I opened my eyes to look. Pinky to thumb, it spanned almost the entire width of my chest, and I studied him just as carefully as he studied me.

"Your heart is beating so fast." He leveled me with those eyes. "You still scared of this thing between us, Pretty Girl?"

A grin spread over my face. If I was any less scared, even one iota happier, I'd explode. "I've graduated nicknames, huh?"

"It's hard to call you angry when you're sitting there looking at me with such a sweet smile on your face."

My fingers crept to the edge of his shirt and toyed with the warm skin underneath. I could not stop touching him, and when he lifted his hips up at my touch, I smiled. He had no idea how not-scared I was. How incredibly sure, how settled, how certain, I was. "Aren't you scared of this thing between us?" I asked.

Tucker breathed out through his nose, a hard puff of air. "Not scared, Grace. No."

If my subtext was unclear, I decided to take the leap while we were in this post-first-kiss haze of honesty. My forehead wrinkled while I tried to decide if tact was wasted at this point, given what a harpy I'd been when I met him.

"You're thinking really hard about something."

I glanced at him in surprise, and his astute observation had the words tumbling out. "I don't want this to be a rebound. I don't want you to walk out of here tonight, relieved because you got something crazy out of your system."

His eyes searched my face and he tugged me closer. "C'mere."

I burrowed into his warmth, rubbing my forehead into the side of his neck, like a kitten might've. There was just so much of him. I was surrounded. So easily overpowered, if he'd wanted. But he wouldn't. Not ever. Tucker wrapped his arms around me and sighed as he rubbed circles on my back.

"Relief is only one tiny part of it, Grace," he murmured into my hair.

"Tell me." In my head, it was a politely spoken request, but it came out as a demand. One that made him chuckle.

"Only a few of the things I'm feeling right now are appropriate to say