Noah prided himself on his ability to analyze situations, to calmly make sound decisions. He couldn’t analyze Grace or how she made him feel.
Without another thought, Noah bent and kissed her.
Grace leaped back so quickly, she lost her balance and landed on her butt.
Dazed by her reaction, Noah frowned, bent to haul her upright, and lost his balance, too, almost landing on her. She stiffened her arms against him until he’d regained his equilibrium and straightened back up.
“Noah, really!” Grace sputtered from her position at his feet.
Hoping to sound gentle rather than predatory, Noah stared down at her and said, “Out of those wet clothes, babe.”
She lumbered upright in graceless haste and clasped her hands together over her sweater, as if to keep it on her person.
What? Did Grace think he meant to attack her? Hell, he could barely keep from falling on his face. Not that the idea of having her under him didn’t appeal. It did. In a big way. But Noah doubted he was up to the performance. Gracie was the type of woman who deserved to be treated special.
She was not a woman for a quick lay.
Still, he noticed the frantic rise and fall of her magnificent breasts. Unable to stop staring, wondering how she’d look buck naked, Noah asked, “What’s wrong, Grace?”
Noah actually heard her gulp. It had been a long, long time since he’d had to deal with a timid woman. He kind of liked it. Before becoming engaged to Kara—and even a few times after—women had come on to him with blatant confidence in their skills. Even Kara, though reserved in her genteel nature, had never doubted her appeal or her influence.
Grace, however, looked like a bewildered rabbit, ready to bolt if he said boo.
She hadn’t looked like that earlier, when she’d vehemently defended his abused honor. Noah grinned. Yeah, he liked it; he liked her, a lot.
“There’s no reason for me to change my clothes,” Grace muttered, “because I’ll just get wet again when I leave.”
Noah was drunk, no two ways about it, but he wasn’t dead. Grace felt like a balm, like a ray of warm sunshine in the middle of the storm, and he wanted her.
He waited till she looked up, then snared her gaze. Her dark eyes widened warily. “I don’t want you to leave, Grace.”
“You don’t?”
Noah felt himself sway and squared his shoulders. “Will you stay with me, Gracie?”
Her gaze skipped to the bed behind him. “Here?” she squeaked.
That single word sounded like a suggestion, a seduction. His gut tightened. “Yeah.”
Grace looked scandalized and…maybe full of yearning? Damn, Noah wished his head wasn’t so foggy with drink. He had the feeling that dealing with Grace would prove tricky. Especially since at the moment he wasn’t even sure of his own mind, much less hers. He only knew he wanted, and the wanting was somehow tied to Grace.
For now.
“Why?” Grace asked, still holding herself and still very uncertain.
“I need you.”
He said it without thinking about it, and Grace appeared to melt right before his eyes. Her knees went weak and she leaned on the dresser while devouring him with her deep dark gaze. Her lush mouth relaxed, her face softened, her entire expression became one of tenderness and acceptance and love.
Noah hadn’t known he was starving till he saw everything he wanted so clearly in Grace.
“Oh, Noah,” she whispered.
Metering his pace so she wouldn’t run from him, Noah approached her. He slung the T-shirt onto his shoulder and, still holding her gaze, began unbuttoning her sweater.
With a gasp, Grace looked down, away, everywhere but at him.
“Hey.”
She swallowed and shook her head, quivering—from cold or nervousness?
“We…we should turn out the light.”
“It’s not on.” But the curtains were drawn wide, and despite the rain-dark weather and low purple clouds, there was enough gray light coming through the windows that Noah could see her clearly. A good thing, since he wanted to visually explore her whole body, inch by luscious inch.
He pushed the drenched sweater off her shoulders and inhaled sharply. Her breasts were more than a handful, full and heavy and so sexy his cock strained in his jeans.
Her bra was the sturdy type, white cotton with an underwire, necessary to support a woman of her endowments. But it, too, was wet, making it transparent. Noah could see the outline of her rosy nipples showing through.
He was busy staring and trying to rein in his lust when Grace jerked away, turning her back on him and hunching her shoulders.
Because he’d drowned his anger in drink, his damn reflexes were slow, and Noah stood there a moment trying to decide what had happened. By the time he realized she was actually hiding from him, it was too late. Grace reached behind her and flapped an impatient hand. “Give me the shirt.”
There was a strange quiver to her tone, what sounded far too close to embarrassment to suit Noah.
Somehow, he’d find a way to make her understand her own appeal.
He handed her the tee and said, “Get rid of the bra, too.” Yeah, all of it. He cleared his throat, but even to his inebriated ears, he still sounded far too turned on. “You’re soaked down to your skin, Grace, and I don’t want you to catch cold.”
And if she believed that, he’d sell her a bridge.
Grace froze, clutching the T-shirt in her small fists. Then, with a contortionist’s dexterity, she pulled it over her head without losing her fragile grip on the sweater. Beneath the cover of the tee she stripped out of her bra and finally removed the wet sweater—without showing Noah a single speck of additional flesh. She dropped the sweater and her bra over the arm of a bedside chair.
Noah quirked a brow, amused and also disgruntled that he hadn’t gotten to see her. He felt drunker by the moment. And hotter. “Now the skirt.”
Grace peeked at him over her shoulder, and he saw her cheeks were hot with color. But she had guts, his Gracie. She kicked off her shoes, then bent to pick them up and place them neatly by the door. With her bottom lip caught between her teeth, she reached beneath the skirt and peeled out of her panty hose. She folded them and put them with the shoes.
Unknowingly, she provided Noah with a tantalizing strip show that nearly did him in. His testicles tightened, and his blood surged.
Noah locked his knees and said, “Go on.”
Because he was so much taller, his T-shirt hung to mid-thigh on her, half covering the long loose skirt. She’d put it on over her wet clothes and now it was damp, too. It also molded to her breasts, and the second Noah noticed that her nipples were pressed tightly against the cotton, he nearly lost it.
Grace walked to the other side of his bed, where Noah couldn’t see the bottom half of her, and reached back to slide down her zipper. She watched his face while he watched her body. Her movements thrust her breasts forward, made her nipples even more noticeable. He could almost taste her in his mouth, feel the texture of her against his tongue.
In a growl, Noah asked, “Why are you hiding from me, Grace?” He had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear her say it to be sure.
She pursed her mouth and shimmied the skirt down her fleshy thighs. Soft, silken, fleshy thighs. Noah wanted to feel those thighs high on his shoulders, or better yet, against his jaw while he tasted her….
“I’m