style="font-size:15px;"> He grabbed a compress from the freezer and carried it back to her. She was stretched out, her hands folded across her chest, eyes closed, snoring softly.
He very gently set the compress across her forehead and she didn’t rouse. If she was anything like him she didn’t get more than five or six hours of sleep a night, so every moment of rest counted and he didn’t wake her. Or climb on the couch beside her—which would have carried the very real risk of getting slapped. Instead he went upstairs to take a shower. And considering the ache in his groin, it would probably be a cold one.
Despite his attraction to her, she was a Winchester, and the running feud between himself and her family would always be there. Gracie was very close to her sisters and parents, who all despised him. He’d seen the expression on Eve’s face last night when she looked over at him. Indignation. Raw and fresh. They would never accept him, and he would never do anything to alter their family dynamic.
But if it was just sex...
The only problem was that with Gracie, it had never been just sex.
Roman shaved, showered and pulled on a pair of boxer briefs. Having lived alone for so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that he should have shut the bedroom door. Not until he heard a breathy “Oh my God” and looked up to see Gracie standing in the doorway.
* * *
“You have tattoos,” Gracie said, her eyes so fixed on the ink branding his arms that she barely noticed he was in his underwear.
Okay, yeah, that was a lie. She’d noticed. And though he’d always been in great shape physically, now? He was ridiculously buff.
On his enormous left biceps, spanning from the edge of his shoulder to the crook of his arm, he had a very scary-looking skull and crossbones. The skull wore an army helmet, and the bones were actually military rifles. The right biceps bore a flowing American flag with red barbed wire for stripes.
She wanted to touch them. His biceps and his wide shoulders. And every other inch of his body.
“You like tattoos?” he asked, though the words barely made it through the fog that had settled in her brain. And he didn’t look the least bit scandalized that she was seeing him this way. He’d never been shy about his body.
He had nothing to be shy about.
Transfixed, she nodded. But the real treat was when he said, “There’s more,” and turned.
An American eagle in flight spanned the entire width of his back, the tips of the bird’s wings flirting with the edges of his tattooed arms. In its razor-sharp talons it clutched a banner that said Death Before Dishonor.
She couldn’t stop a very breathy-sounding “wow” from escaping her lips.
Wearing a slightly crooked smile, he looked back over his shoulder at her. “See something you like?”
Did she ever. The bird was so lifelike she imagined she would actually feel the silky softness of the feathers if she touched Roman’s back. Then he was getting closer, but he wasn’t the one moving. Her feet were carrying her across the room to where he stood, then her hands were reaching out.
She felt possessed. And she was—by lust. By a need so intense her breasts ached and her heart pounded. She flattened both hands against his skin at the level of the eagle’s breast and she could swear she felt Roman shiver. She slid her hands upward, across the wings to his shoulders.
“Gracie,” he said, in a voice gravelly and low. “If you keep that up...”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence; she knew exactly what he was going to say, and she was already too far gone. Now that she had touched him she couldn’t stop. The ache pulsed downward and settled between her thighs and she could feel herself getting wet. His skin was hot and smooth against her palms as she slid them upward across the eagle’s wings.
Over his shoulders.
Down his arms.
He moaned softly and uttered her name, and all she could think was mine. She wanted him, and nothing was going to stop her from having him this time.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his wide back, threading her fingers through the thick, crisp hair on his chest, his hard nipples tickling her palms.
His head fell back and he cursed under his breath as she hugged herself close to his body, but it wasn’t close enough. She wanted to crawl inside of him, be a part of his being. A part of his soul.
He had always been a part of hers. Maybe that was why his betrayal had hurt so much.
“Last warning,” he told her. He was still holding back, but he was wasting his time. She dragged her nails down his chest to his stomach, gently, so it was barely more than a tease, then slipped her hands under the waistband of his shorts. He groaned as she wrapped one hand around his erection. He was solid and hot in her hand. She stroked him, gently at first, then she squeezed.
With a throaty growl he spun her around to face her, then wrapped his arms around her and lifted her right off her feet. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and when their lips met and their tongues tangled in a desperate kiss, it felt just like it had that first time so many years ago.
They fell onto the bed, Roman on top of her. He grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head. She moaned as he buried his face in her cleavage and tugged the cups of her bra down.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, teasing the tip of one breast with his tongue, then nipping just hard enough to make her gasp. After all this time he still knew what to do to drive her crazy. He did the same to the other side, then he unfastened her bra with an adept flick of his fingers, pulled it off her and tossed it somewhere over his shoulder. Then he kissed her again, the hair on his chest tickling her nipples in the most tantalizing way.
She yanked his shorts off over his hips and used her feet to push them down his legs, desperate to feel him inside her. There was a fire building at her core, an ember burning hot on the verge of igniting.
He rose up on his knees, stripping her out of her pants and underwear in one swift motion, and grabbed a condom out of the drawer of the bedside table. Tearing the packet open with his teeth, he wasted no time rolling the condom on. Then he was back on top of her, his weight sinking her into the covers. He teased her first, sliding his erection against her. She was so slick and sensitive she probably could have climaxed just like that. But then he stopped, pulling back slightly. If he stopped now she was afraid that she actually might die from the ache building inside her.
She grabbed his muscular backside, and though she had never been one to beg she said, “Please, don’t stop.”
He grinned down at her, eyes glazed, his lids heavy. “Not a chance in hell.”
His eyes locked on hers as he slowly entered her, giving her just an inch or two before pulling back again. Slow and gentle and sweet. But she didn’t want slow. She needed him inside her now.
Digging into his buttocks with her nails, she thrust her hips upward against him. She cried out as he sank as deep as he could go. Roman moaned and buried his head in the crook of her neck as he cursed and told her with gritted teeth, “Slow down.”
But
