“You’re so fucking gorgeous, Jules. Your face, your body, your everything.”
He came down over her, taking her in a long, passionate kiss, the head of his cock pressed against her center. He gripped her waist with both hands, holding her still as he feasted on her mouth, sending anticipation sparking through her. She tried to lift her hips, but he held her there, teasing over her wetness until she was so consumed with need, she was barely breathing.
“Feel good, baby?”
She couldn’t talk, could only pant as he rocked the length of his shaft along her sex, making her dizzy with desire. The base of his cock rubbed against her clit, sending pulses of need through her core, taunts of the connection she craved. He knew just how to drive her wild. She dug her heels into the mattress as his tongue made love to her mouth, making her writhe in desperation. The anticipation was agonizing and exquisite at once. He ran his rough hands down her outer thighs and lifted her knees, spreading her wider for him.
“Yesss.”
She kept her legs spread wide, pressing the sides of her knees into the mattress. He cradled her head between his hands, angling her mouth beneath his. He drove into her in one hard thrust, and she cried out, electricity scorching through her. The world careened on its axis as bone-deep pleasure crashed over her. Their mouths met in urgent, messy kisses, their bodies thrusting and grinding. Their hands were everywhere at once, desperate for more.
“Deeper,” she cried.
He reared up on his knees, driving her into the mattress, thrust after powerful thrust, his beautiful muscles bulging and flexing with his efforts.
“Fuuck, baby. I want to live inside you.”
“God yes.” She pulled his mouth down to hers, feeling the same fierce love, like a drug she needed to survive. Even when they tried to go slow, they were like addicts. They needed that initial hit to take the edge off their yearning. Only then could they find a slower rhythm.
“Baby…” he said in a gravelly voice against her neck.
The emotions in his voice sent her heart into a frenzy. She never knew she could love so much. She wrapped her legs around his waist, wanting to be as close as two people could be. “I feel all of you. So good.”
He cradled her beneath him as their bodies moved in perfect harmony, taking her higher, passion stacking up inside her. He quickened his efforts, and she dug her fingers into his back, struggling to hold on to her fracturing thoughts as pleasure prickled up her limbs and her thighs went rigid.
“Oh God…Grant…”
“I’ve got you, baby. Let go,” he gritted out, demanding and loving at once.
She clung to him, her eyes slamming shut as mind-numbing sensations exploded inside her. Her hips shot off the bed. “Grant!” flew from her lungs at the same time “Jules…baby…” sailed from his. His hips pistoned in quick, powerful jerks as they rode the waves of ecstasy crashing over them, until they finally collapsed, blissful and sated, to the mattress.
He held her tighter and rolled them onto their sides without withdrawing from between her legs. He did that a lot, savoring their connection as much as she did. These were some of her favorite moments, when they’d given all they had to each other, their bodies felt like one being, and neither wanted it to end. When all the stress of work and life felt like they were miles away, and nothing but their love existed.
“I love you so much, baby,” he whispered against her lips. He pressed one hand to her lower back, keeping their bodies flush, and caressed her cheek with the other.
“I love you, too.” Their bodies were slick with a sheen of perspiration, their hearts hammering frantically, but she’d never felt so at peace in all her life.
The bottomless emotions she felt were mirrored in his eyes as he said, “You haven’t just changed my world, Pix.” He touched his lips to hers. “You’ve become my world.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DECEMBER BROUGHT A blanket of snow to Silver Island, but the bright sun reflecting off the window ornaments Jules had hung up told Grant that the weathermen might actually be right for once, and they’d have clear skies for the Christmas tree lighting later that evening. In the two weeks since the flotilla, he and Jules had hung out with friends, double-dated with Jock and Daphne, had dinner with his parents, and had breakfast with Jules’s family. Life was wonderful, and Grant was looking forward to spending the day preparing Majestic Park for an onslaught of activity with the community he once again appreciated. He’d even wrangled some of his buddies into helping.
He put food and water in Crash’s Christmas bowls—one red, one green, thanks to his beautiful pixie—and spotted the cat fast asleep under the Christmas tree by the window seat. He was curled up around one of the naughty-elf ornaments Jules had bought from some girl in her book club who owned a Christmas shop. It turned out that Christmas really was her favorite holiday of all. Jules had swapped the welcome mat for a Christmas mat, made a beautiful wreath for the front door, and hung three stockings from elf hooks on the mantel—one for Crash, of course. She came home with a new decoration every few days, like the elf-pixie he’d found on the coffee maker this morning and the miniature artificial tree she’d put up on the dresser in the bedroom, from which she’d hung picture ornaments of the two of them and Crash. She was turning the bungalow into a home, and they were becoming a family. He imagined New Year’s wreaths and Easter decorations, and he had a feeling that he and Jules really would be like Saul and his cookie-lady wife, unable to keep their hands off each other even after a lifetime together.
Grant had surprised Jules with a trip to New York City last weekend to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. They’d taken the ferry and spent the day admiring decorations and shopping in Times Square. They’d found the cutest baby shark for Hadley, a camera for Joey, and presents for most of their family members. They’d taken a carriage ride through Central Park and had dinner with Sutton, who had come in from Port Hudson, Leni, and Indi, and then he’d taken Jules to see The Nutcracker. Neither of them had ever seen it live. Jules had been mesmerized by the show, but Grant had been captivated by her. It was the first of what he hoped would be many trips to come for them.
He picked up his coffee mug and took a sip as he went into the studio by his easel. They’d bought an armchair last week and put it in the corner of the studio so Jules could read in there when he was painting. As he set the mug on a table, he noticed a new ornament hanging on the easel beside the painting of Paris he was making for his father for Christmas.
His pixie was at it again.
When he’d told Jules he wanted to give his parents tickets to Paris with the painting, she’d suggested they wrap the painting and put it in a box on his mother’s porch Christmas morning—since both of his parents always spent Christmas morning there—along with painting supplies and the tickets and a note that said It’s never too late to live your dreams. He couldn’t think of a better way to give them the gifts.
He heard the bathroom door open as he reached for the new ornament, a naked painter sitting on a stool in front of an easel with a tiny paintbrush in his hand. When he turned it around to see the front, he filled to the brim with love. The painter had a prosthetic leg and was very well endowed.