Just That Easy (6 page)

“Then however long it takes you to get to my place after
that. Come hungry.”

“You might want to include some directions with that. And
uh, hungry for what?”

Arching an eyebrow at him, she took a scrap of paper and
scribbled an address and her cell phone number. “Google it. I’m sure you can
manage to find me.”

“No chance of that not happening, lady. I need more of you.
Before I go, though, I have a question. It’s kind of stupid, really, but I need
to know.”

“What?”

“Last night, you just went with me without any fear at all,
and now you just gave me your address without even a thought. I’m damn glad you
did and you don’t seem to regret it, but I’m wondering how someone as skittish
as I know you can be didn’t run screaming, because I was pushing you kind of
hard. How did you know I wasn’t some psychopath who was going to take you home
and kill you?”

“Because you’ve already been checked out.”

“Come again?” His eyebrows shot up, a little shocked.

“Al. I’ve known him a long time. He does extensive
background checks, this I know. Plus, that damn library is his life. If he
hired you and left you alone in that sacred space you don’t have a freaking
crumb of a criminal record or any chance of being a psychotic killer. Earning
his trust is like becoming the damn president. So I already knew if he trusted
you, I could.”
In my bed, anyway.

“And here I thought it was my sparkling personality. You get
more interesting all the time, you know that?”

He kissed her quickly before climbing out and jogging into
the building, throwing one last grin her way before the door closed behind him.

The day flew by as she bounced between nervous excitement
and apprehension. Once alone, the full weight of every single second she’d
spent with him descended on her. It wasn’t that she’d been in his bed—or on his
table rather—within barely more than an hour of meeting him. This wasn’t the
needy Teryn of old seeking out solace with a stranger. She’d gone willingly,
eyes wide open, even while completely unprepared for the mind-blowing sex that
followed. No, the gratification of his talents was gratefully accepted.

It also wasn’t that he looked as if he should be on the
cover of some men’s fitness magazine. His temptingly sculpted physique unnerved
her a bit but she wasn’t holding it against
him
that she wasn’t used to
anyone who looked like that paying attention to her. Or that she was just
insecure enough to have trouble accepting it. No, it was neither of those and
it wasn’t his incredibly direct way of voicing exactly what was on his mind—
that,
she found invigorating. Neither was it his sharp way of sizing her up, of
reading her easily as if everything was transparent when he looked at her. No,
that was also stimulating even if a little scary. A bit of a challenge to step
up and meet him at his own game. None of those by themselves was setting off
her alarm bells.

Aside from him quite obviously seducing her as hard and fast
as she would let him, was that he
needed
it. Within that short first hour
of meeting her he had not only professed the growing desire for her, she’d
sensed it. More than once. It was exactly what she’d called him. Weird.

Men generally didn’t do that. Stalkers did that. Gold diggers
did that. Desperate women who latched on to any man who paid attention to them
did that. Men who looked like Grant, all raw and sexy ruggedness with handfuls
of thick black hair waiting to be tangled in her fingers, deep-blue eyes to get
lost in, firmly molded muscle made for her lips to travel, and the most
sinfully hot piece of male anatomy she’d ever had the pleasure to touch—men
like him got what they wanted and then some. They didn’t need to crave it from
someone else. They did however, crave the thrill of attention. Until it wore
off.

Not that she was even close to ready to think about anything
other than the fact that it would be only hours before she was facing him
again, and the almost certainty she’d be facing his delicious naked body as
well. While it all swirled in her mind, the one thing she decided for sure was
that she needed to remember this was likely going to burn hot, fast, and end
just as quickly.

* * * * *

The humming of her thoughts ran along with her the entire
day, living in her head as she tried to settle into her routine. She distracted
herself by taking care of things she needed to do, making sure her smallish one-and-a-half-story
converted farmhouse was at least relatively clean, deciding what to feed him.
She cruised the grocery store and bought way too much food as she always tended
to do when she had the chance to feed another human being besides herself,
which wasn’t often. But the annoying thoughts stayed there, just beneath the
surface, a constant reminder that she was just desperate and needy enough to ignore
them. Pretending they didn’t exist because the payoff would be way too good to
give in to them and think this through a little better.

By the time six o’clock rolled around she was tense with anticipation.
No idea what to expect since their encounter had ranged from the extremes of
intellectual conversation, to ravenous sex, then back to sweet and
attentive—what would the evening bring? Conversation? Just more sex? Did it
matter? Her limbs felt tired just from the nonstop muscle spasms of her
strained emotions.

Then he pulled into the driveway, waving to where she stood
in the doorway, making herself a landmark so he’d know he was in the right
place. The instant his feet hit the porch and his lips touched hers again,
everything washed out of her like a spring rain.

* * * * *

Grant walked into the neat, comfortable little house, not
sure what to expect but pleasantly surprised by the eclectic collection of
things that surrounded him. Odds and ends of things from her books, trips she’d
obviously taken, mix-and-match pieces of comfortable furniture that made the
place homey, not sterile and designed to stick to any specific decor. Huge
shelves built into the walls were filled to bursting with books, pictures,
collections of all kinds of little things. But it all fit together. Just like
the crazy jumble of confused emotions she sent his way when he was with her.

It felt warm. It felt comfortable. It felt real.

The day at the library had been typically quiet, typically
uneventful. Untypically difficult to endure. He was used to shutting down,
pushing out whatever situation he needed to get his head away from. It was an
excellent advantage to him in the adventure racing. It didn’t seem to help one
damn bit when it came to her and waiting to just touch her again. The all-consuming
desire to just be next to her felt unsettling and it baited his resolve to try to
gain some control over this fire she’d started in the pit of his belly.

That same control he’d tossed out the window as soon as he
saw her, leaning there in the doorway, waiting. His lips had found hers before
he’d been able to remind himself this was not how he planned for the night to
go, come hell or high water. The problem was, he wasn’t sure why he wanted to
control it when he’d spent so long thinking about getting exactly where he was
now.

Once inside, he resisted the urge to follow her to the
kitchen where she went to get the iced tea she offered him. Instead he settled
himself onto the comfortable couch, pulling one of the throw pillows into his
lap as if it would act as some kind of shield against her power over him when
she came back.

Amazingly it did. Or at least, he could say it was the
pillow. Likely it was more his determination to keep his eyes unfocused on her
and focused on everything else instead.

“I like your place,” he said, examining the long table just
behind the sofa that held a collection of photos from her various trips.

“Thanks. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to it.” She climbed onto
the sofa next to him, tucking her legs up underneath her and leaning close. Not
even remotely mindful she should be at least a little nervous about him being
in her house for the first time. “Interior decorator, I am not.”

“It’s you. All of it. It’s exactly as it should be.”

His comment brought a genuine smile that lit up the room. “Yeah,
it kind of is. No sense at all, just like me.”

“Stop saying it like that’s something bad.”

His voice was rougher than he’d expected, the words too
sharp. She visibly flinched, smile gone.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

Her eyes still clouded she crinkled her brow at him.
“Forgiven. Is… I mean, are you okay?”

“Long day, sorry.” Very long. Achingly long.
Stop
thinking about your dick.

“No big deal. Hungry?”

“Starved, actually.” Relief flooded him at the mention of
food and a change of direction.

“Good, I always make too much food. C’mon, you look like you
need to be fed soon or you’re going to bite me.”

She had no idea.

Following her to the kitchen, he took a seat across from her
at a small, old wooden farm table she said she’d picked up at a flea market.
Like most of the things in her house, it was unique, aged and wore its history
on its surface. Comfortable. Inviting. Miles away from the world he had left
behind. The kind of place he could get used to.

Once they started eating, he didn’t stop putting food in his
mouth long enough it seemed to even breathe. He looked up over one of the
endless forkfuls of grilled chicken, saw the look on her face and laughed.

“I’m kind of being a pig.”

“I was just wondering if you had eaten since you got to
town, you look like—I don’t even know. Don’t you have any food at your place?”

“Not much, besides the chocolate and the coffee.”

“I thought you said you could cook?” Her eyebrows arched
accusingly as if she had finally found something to fault him on.

Leaning back in his chair, he swallowed. “I can. I just
don’t bother when it’s only me. I eat constantly. Actually the training just
makes me always starved. So do you.”

That little flit of fire passed through her eyes again. It
reminded him of that look he’d seen her get last night. When he told her what
he wanted or said something particularly provoking, her lids slid down slowly
and her eyes widened, then her lips would open as she licked them
unconsciously. The fact that she didn’t even know she was doing it made it all
the more mouthwatering. He leaned back, stretching his legs out he folded his
arms across his chest and looked at her intently. He watched her wriggle in her
chair, but her face snapped back to the conversation.

“So what do you do when you’re not either ravishing me, or
training, or pretending to be a book nerd.”

“Who says I’m not a book nerd?”

Another bright smile from her, dimming the sexual heat a bit.
“Yeah, well, I’ll give you that one, but that doesn’t answer the question.”

“Honestly, not much. Before I came here it was train all
week, race all weekend. That’s been it for about six months. Before that, well
besides college, then the string of boring jobs and trying to figure out what
to do when I grow up, my life was a little messy. Kind of like you said yours
was. And just like you, I’m not going there either.”

“Fair enough. So, no fun at all?”

“You fishing for info on significant others?”

“Duh.” Her grin flashed at the comment but she did pink up a
bit again.

He couldn’t help the chuckle. “No, and I wouldn’t have been
with you if there was. Hasn’t been for a long time. Why do you think I need you
so bad? Fun? Ha, I haven’t had this much fun my entire life. And no, I’m not
kidding”

Something like sympathy mixed with
“bullshit”
crossed
her face.

“You bring things out of me I didn’t even know were there,
Teryn, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how or why. I find myself just
blurting out crap I never tell anybody. Like right now, for one. Then once I
touch you, I just can’t stop. It’s kind of unnerving, if you want the truth.
And I’m pretty damn straight about things like that.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” A new pink flush crawled up her
neck to her cheeks, egging him on.

“Like hell. So why is it when I say things like that to you,
sitting here across dinner, you pink up and get that scared-rabbit look? But
when I’m buried in you up to my balls, you are the exact opposite.”

The pink flush turned deeper, and he saw a little sheen of
perspiration appear on her upper lip. A small grin curled her mouth into that
enticing shape he wanted to kiss. Just as every time since he’d laid eyes on
her, he couldn’t resist the fire that flared up in her instantly behind those
long lashes when he baited her like that. He knew his words were rough, he did
it on purpose to see what she would do. She didn’t back down, instead it seemed
to spur her on. It wasn’t taking him long to learn how to coax that inner sex
goddess out into the world of the living.

Most women would feign some kind of surprise, pretend they
weren’t as hot as he was, even if it was a total lie. Try to play the
being-a-proper-girl game, hide what they felt, which he thought was just plain
stupid and a waste of time.

Not Teryn. He’d watched her sit there in that bar, size him
up, weigh what he was telling her, decide how she felt about it, and go for it.
Even for all her nerves, there was no hesitation, no coy pretend
I’m-not-sure-what-I’m-doing games. She wanted it, and she owned it.

Seeing her eyes dance with the same need that was shooting
straight through him and his cock as hard and ready as it had ever been, he
stood abruptly, leaned over the table and grabbed a handful of her hair,
yanking those soft lips into his. The dishes on the table clattered as he fell
toward her but she didn’t seem to notice, reaching up and sliding her hands
around his neck as she opened her mouth to his searching tongue.

“Christ, Teryn, I promised myself I wasn’t going to do this
again,” he growled into her neck as he swung himself around the table, reaching
around and scooping her right out of her chair and into his arms. “Where the
hell is your bed?” His mouth closed back over hers.

With her lips crushed under his she couldn’t very well tell
him, but he saw her pointing in a general direction. He didn’t care if they
ended up on the floor, which if he didn’t manage to find her bed fast, they
would.

Carrying her down the hallway, he stumbled into the walls
more than once, too consumed with her mouth to look at where he was going. He
got the impression of a room he’d love to spend a lot of time in as he finally
made it through the door with her. Interesting-looking things were everywhere
in here, like the rest of the house, but this room was more personal. It was
her. All her. It smelled like her. The bed was unmade and that didn’t surprise
him at all. It was perfect. It was what he needed. Someone who didn’t give a
shit about making everything in her house perfect, everything was here because
she loved it, period. Someone who couldn’t care less if you were supposed to
make your bed every morning. He carried her to it, falling in it with her.
Losing himself in a cloud of her, her smell, her bed, her most private space.

Not even twenty-four hours.

He looked down at her, the smoky look in her eyes, the need
there. The lack of worry there. Nothing but the two of them. This was the best
place he’d been in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

What the hell was going on in his head?

He slid his hands beneath her shirt, needing to feel those
soft, warm breasts. He squeezed them hungrily through her bra. He kissed her
again, hard. Not rough, but a devouring kiss, one designed to make her feel how
deep his need to have her was. Pushing her made her push back, and he liked it.
She bit his bottom lip. He nipped her back and she twisted beneath him, her
chest pressing harder into his hand. That fire. Those eyes. If he weren’t
careful, he was going to find himself drowning in needing her.