Hunger of the Heart Read online

And thank heavens.

  “I-it’s better in the dark.”

  “No, sugar, it’s not,” he drawled. “I’ll prove it to you.” Then, his face sobered. “Still not too late to change your mind, you know.”

  She took in a deep breath and shook her head.

  “Then be warned, I intend to look my fill of every inch.”

  Please don’t let him turn away. Please don’t let him care.

  He undressed her as carefully as if he were opening a gift, slowly removing each piece of clothing and kissing every part of her skin as he exposed it. When she stood in front of him naked except for a flimsy bra and her sandals, he stepped back and took a long look at her. His hot eyes traveled from her face down her body to her feet.

  She shut her eyes in anticipation of what was sure to come.

  “Erin? What happened to you? Were you in an accident?”

  “S-sort of.” She clenched her fists at her sides. “That’s why I wanted the lights out. You shouldn’t have to see my scars.”

  “They don’t look too recent.” He followed the line of one on her hip. “When did it happen?”

  ”A while ago.” But not long enough to stop turning my dreams into nightmares.

  “It doesn’t matter. You are so beautiful,” he breathed. “Every man’s wet dream, darlin’. I have to touch you everywhere.”

  She forced herself to relax as he traced the line of her jaw with his fingertips, the column of her neck, the slope of her shoulders.

  I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t have to be afraid.

  And then, unaccountably, she wasn’t. Everything disappeared—her father, T.J., Cal. All gone as desire swept through them both.

  When he reached her breasts, he cupped their fullness and chafed the nipples through the thin satin. She shivered as delicious sensations skittered over her. As his hands skimmed her ribs and slid down past her waist to her hips, tracing the line of their flare, she could almost pretend the past had never happened. When one hand moved to the thatch of curls covering her mound, she closed her eyes to savor the feel.

  One long finger—a musician’s finger—followed the line of her drenched slit, pausing to massage the swollen nub. The walls of her cunt quivered with hungry need. She widened her stance the slightest, and he slid the finger insider her hot channel, curling it to scrape the tip against her sweet spot. Desire and hunger shot through her.

  He continued to stroke in and out of her pussy until, clutching his shoulders for balance, she moaned. “Stop. I want to see you naked. Please.”

  He slipped his finger from her wet grasp and painted her nipples with the cream on it. “All right.”

  She opened her eyes again and watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, his gaze never leaving hers. The hard wall of his chest was covered with swirls of dark hair arrowing downward toward his waist. The jeans were next, the pop of the snap and the grate of the zipper very loud in the still room. He toed off his boots, carefully maintaining his balance, then pushed his jeans and boxers off together.

  Erin swallowed a gasp.

  He was perfection—lean and hard muscles, with a thick nest of curls surrounding a cock standing impressively at attention. Tentatively, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his shaft and stroked him from root to broad tip. A bead of fluid winked from the slit in the head, and her thumb rubbed it over the soft velvet. Her other hand reached down to cup his sac, lying heavy against his thighs, caressing the soft, fine hair. He sucked in a breath.

  She felt the tension radiating from his body, pleased he was willing to stand there and let her keep touching him without….

  No! Don’t go there.

  “Erin?” His voice was strained. “I need to get you on the bed, darlin’.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he scooped her up and laid her on the coverlet. Spreading her legs wide, he knelt and licked her cream, his tongue the brush of a flame on her hot, hot cunt.

  “Ohhh,” she sighed. “You don’t have to—”

  “I do.” He lifted his head. “Yes, darlin’. I do.”

  And he went back to his task, licking and nipping, tugging at her clit with his lips and his teeth, fucking her pussy with his tongue, fingers stroking over her labia. She was drifting on a cloud of pleasure, lost in sensation. But when one finger drifted down to touch the tight ring of her anus, the cloud dissipated, and she flinched.

  Grady stilled. “Erin? It’s all right, darlin’. We won’t do anything you don’t enjoy.”

  He returned his attention to her pussy, eating at her like a starving man, working her clit and her quivering tunnel until she was rising toward the peak once more.

  “Ohhhh.” The sound slipped from her mouth. “Oh, Grady.”

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue