The Billionaire's Christmas (A Sinclair Novella) (9 page)

“Baby, I already hurt, but not from the damn sutures. I want to be deep inside you right now. I want to be buried in you, in your heat, until I burn.”

Stepping back, she ran her hand down his chest, savoring the flex of muscle beneath her fingers. “You’ll have to settle for this,” she told him in a sultry voice as she followed her hand and dropped to her knees on the tile.

“Emily. No,” he said in a husky, tortured groan.

Her hand continued to stroke up and down the shaft as her tongue flicked out to lick the velvety head. “No?” she questioned.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he panted harshly.

Smiling, she took him into her mouth and did one long suck, bringing a strangled groan from Grady as she repeated it again. She moved her tongue down his long length, and then took as much of him as she could manage. Her hands moved, needing to touch his body, finally settling her palms on his ass and gripping it hard as she devoured him.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he groaned. “That feels so damn good. I won’t last.”

His hips thrust, and one of his hands came down to thread through her soaking-wet hair, guiding her head as she opened her jaw as wide as she could, trying to take his cock deeper. Her throat squeezed tight with every entry, massaging the front of his shaft, bringing a strangled groan from Grady with every thrust. Her fingernails dug into his tight ass, pulling him to her with every stroke.

“Sweetheart . . . Fuck . . . I can’t . . . I’ll come in your mouth,” he growled incoherently.

That was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to taste him, and her hunger for him was ferocious. Sucking harder and faster, she felt him shudder before his hot release flooded the back of her throat, flowing warmly into her as he gasped, threw his head back, and released a satisfying groan of ecstasy.

He tasted tangy, slightly salty, and so completely like Grady.

She protested when he hauled her up before she could get to her feet, not wanting him to lift anything. He brushed off her concern and kissed her passionately, and then pulled her against his chest. He rocked her again, just like he’d done when she’d climaxed.

Emily didn’t know how long they stayed wrapped together, their bodies humming and their souls singing. All she knew was a feeling of total happiness, and the sense that in Grady’s embrace, she was exactly where she needed to be. She thought she had come home to Amesport, but with Grady, Emily felt like she had finally found her real home.

“Do you want to tell me what happened to you at the party?” Emily asked quietly in the dark, her body spooned with Grady in his huge bed.

“I got shot,” he answered gravely, his baritone vibrating against her ear.

She knew that he was hedging. He knew exactly what she was talking about. “Before that. Your panic attack,” she said patiently.

“I don’t like parties,” he said hesitantly, stroking his hand along her hip absently.

“It’s more than that. But if you don’t want to share it with me, it’s okay,” she told him softly.

She might have ended up going to business school for her MBA, but she’d done her undergrad work in psychology. She recognized social anxiety when she saw it.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to share everything with you. I’m just not really sure how to explain it,” he admitted reluctantly, letting out a long, masculine sigh. “When I was young, I stuttered pretty badly.”

“Lots of kids do. And you obviously outgrew it.” But she knew it probably hadn’t been easy. “Kids can be brutal sometimes. They teased you?”

“Yeah. But it wasn’t so much the teasing at school. It was at home.”

“Your siblings?” she asked, confused.

“My father,” Grady said, his voice rough. “I was a Sinclair, and no Sinclair is supposed to have any defect. I could never get my words out, and my father thought I was stupid. He never let a day go by without reminding me that I wasn’t the son he wanted. I was supposed to be social, one of the Sinclair elite. I wasn’t. I was a computer geek. I didn’t really like business. And I had no desire to play the socialite games. None of it was real.”

Emily’s heart felt like it was in a vise, seeing visions of a young Grady feeling like he never measured up to his father’s rigorous standards. “But you’re a genius,” she argued. “Look at all you’ve accomplished.”

“Didn’t matter. I wasn’t like him. And he didn’t think I was smart. He thought I was defective. Even though I did eventually outgrow my stuttering, he never saw me as anything but an idiot.”

Not sure if she wanted to know, she asked hesitantly, “And the party thing?”

“We had the Sinclair annual Christmas party every year, an event that every Sinclair had to attend. My father was an alcoholic, and he got even more verbally abusive when he was drinking. Since he couldn’t claim me or accept me as his son, he did his best to humiliate me every year, showing all of his rich friends that he shunned me, making me the family joke. And almost every one of them went along with it, laughed it up with him about me being the Sinclair moron. I guess it’s okay to have one of
those
, but he couldn’t exactly claim me as part of
his
family. I was nothing to be proud of.” Taking a deep breath, he finished, “I was always . . . different.”

“I’m glad you’re different. It’s better than being a carbon copy of a mean drunk,” Emily said fiercely. “No wonder you learned to dread Christmas. Did you celebrate at all as a family?”

“Only the party,” Grady admitted. “We were Sinclairs,” he said, as though that explained everything. “We decorated because of the party.”

“Where are your parents now?” she asked, wondering if she could strangle his father for putting those kinds of fears and insecurities into an innocent boy.

“My father is dead. He passed away right after the Christmas party when I was eighteen. My mother remarried and moved to Europe. We almost never see her. I think we were a part of her life that she wanted to forget. I don’t think she was ever happy,” Grady mused.

Emily breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to commit murder, and if she were in the same room as his alcoholic father, she might have been tempted. “Are you close to your siblings?”

“As close as we can be considering we’re never together,” he answered quietly.

She had a feeling they had all suffered from being brought up in a home with very little love and an alcoholic father with a short fuse. “How did you ever turn out so special?” she queried softly.

“You mean different?” he asked, confused.

“No . . . special. Extraordinary. Incredible.”

“You think I am? I’m odd,” Grady said nonchalantly.

“You are not odd. You donated a ridiculous amount of money to the Center when a much smaller amount would have saved it. I know you won’t admit it, but you care about the programs there. You’re the kind of man who sends Lord knows how many men out just to find one man who stole from a charity. You made the effort to get me a Christmas tree even though you don’t like Christmas. You’re incredible,” Emily answered emphatically. “And don’t you ever say you aren’t. You’re the most unique man I’ve ever known.”

“Is that good or bad?” he questioned, sounding slightly amused. “ ‘Unique’ sort of sounds the same as ‘different.’ ”

“It’s not. And I think you’re wonderful,” she answered decisively. “You are special, Grady. You just don’t see it. You’re brilliant, kind, giving—”

“Ornery, antisocial, irritating, and the Amesport Beast?” he added.

“None of us is perfect, and the only reason people said that is because they didn’t know you,” Emily answered with a delighted laugh. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with your good deeds now because you’re the local hero.”

“I only care about you. I want to be your hero,” he answered hopefully.

She turned carefully, trying not to put any pressure on his wound. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stroked his hair, her heart flip-flopping as she rested her cheek against his rough jaw. Grady was so much more than her hero. He was becoming her everything, but she simply answered, “You are. Believe me . . . you definitely are. You probably saved my life.” She kissed him lightly on the forehead, wishing she could take away the pain of his childhood. She couldn’t, but she could try to teach him that his past didn’t have to define his future.

“You know the old Chinese proverb . . . If you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for it forever,” he answered contentedly.

“Don’t worry. I won’t hold you to that,” she commented lightly.

“I want you to hold me to it. Forever,” he said sleepily, wrapping his arm around her waist just a little bit tighter.

Emily wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Her heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t want to read too much into what he said. He was hurt, exhausted, and under the influence of the pain pill he had taken before they’d crawled into bed.

It’s better if I don’t say anything. Then I won’t get hurt. Again.

It was cowardly, and she knew it, but everything was so real and so incredibly intense with Grady. She wanted to be prepared, because the pain of losing the fragile relationship they were forming would probably kill her.

Exhausted, they fell into silence, and finally slept.

Grady discovered quite a few new things about Emily Ashworth over the next several days. He learned that she loved Christmas carols, and she sang along with them completely out of tune. But her enthusiasm made up for her being a little off-key, so he found it pretty adorable. Her Christmas cookies were out of this world, and she couldn’t make them fast enough to keep any around for long. She’d tried to hide some, but Grady had managed to ferret them out almost immediately, sneaking into the kitchen when she wasn’t looking and wolfing them down like he’d never had Christmas cookies before. He had . . . years ago . . . but they hadn’t been anywhere near as good as Emily’s. He’d also learned she cried over Christmas movies that were her old favorites. She professed to love them, but they made her cry. What she called “happy tears” weren’t really something he was familiar with. Why would someone cry when they were happy?

The laceration on his side was healing, but not quickly enough. Grady relived that first night in the shower with Emily over and over in his mind, his need to bury himself inside her and claim her nearly an obsession. He walked around with a constant erection, but Emily refused to let him do anything she considered physical, so he was in a continual state of frustrated lust.

Still, they were the happiest days he could remember. Doing the simplest of things with Emily was special. And the more time she spent in his house and in his life, the more he knew he was never letting her go. He couldn’t even think about not having her with him anymore. He thought of her as his own Christmas angel. And she had landed on
his
doorstep.

Mine!

She was his . . . she just hadn’t realized it yet. Hell, she even had him loving Christmas. It was now his favorite holiday, the memories of the past being obliterated by Emily and all the things she did just for the joy of doing them, never expecting anything in return.

Grady lifted his eyes from his computer for a moment to watch Emily, sitting on the floor of his office, sorting out boxes of paperwork. In a pair of worn jeans and a bright red sweater, she was absolutely mesmerizing. With Emily, it wasn’t one single feature or personality trait that drew him . . . It was the entire package. There wasn’t one single thing about her that didn’t have him completely fascinated. Okay . . . her stubbornness drove him crazy occasionally, but even the annoyed looks she gave him were pretty damn cute. He watched her face as various emotions changed her expressions: irritation, confusion, concentration, and finally elation when she figured something out.

He had to clench his fists on the desk to keep himself from getting out of his chair behind his desk and taking her right there on the floor. He’d had a small taste of her sweetness, but it wasn’t enough. And she’d refused to let him get any more than a kiss since that afternoon, her fear of him hurting himself making her back away every time. There was no sweeter sound than the arousing little noises and moans that escaped from her lips when she was climaxing. Watching her had been the most satisfying experience of his life, and he wanted to see her face when he was deep inside her heat, losing himself in her softness while he pounded her into orgasm.

Grady wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait. Watching her like this was torture, and work was impossible, although he was trying to get some stuff done on his current project. If she was close, he wanted to watch her. If she wasn’t, he wanted to seek her out. He was pretty much screwed either way.

“How can a billionaire possibly be so disorganized?” she said distractedly, sifting through another box of papers, her brows drawn together in disapproval. “And why do you create these awesome businesses just to sell them off?”

Grady smiled, knowing his filing system drove her crazy—basically because he didn’t have one. “I like creating them, but I don’t like managing them. Once I’m done putting everything together, I’m ready to start another project.”