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He'd tried so hard to keep his mother's secrets, fearing that he would lose both his parents if he wasn't care?ful enough. He'd been convinced if they ever split, his father would be lost to his books and his judicial bench, and his mother would go off with her lovers, and then Gray would be alone. Nightmares about being left behind in dark, public places where strangers were cruel had plagued him for years.
The dysfunction, the treachery, the lying had seemed a small price to pay to avoid making his disturbing dreams a reality.
And hadn't all that training in deception been put to good use? His career in politics was based on everything he'd learned about hiding emotions, shading the truth, thinking ahead so you didn't get caught with your ass in the breeze.
The suspicion had seemed so natural. Until he'd been with Joy.
Forcing himself to slide the pass card into the lock, he opened the door slowly. Silence. Only silence.
No foreplay giggles or eager sighs. No grunts of a man getting off.
He let out his breath and wondered if maybe Joy hadn't come to town at all. He'd been unable to reach her at the suite, because she didn't know how to get the mes?sages off the phone, or she hadn't wanted to return the ones he'd left.
Then again, it was only ten-thirty. She might still be out.
Unable to help himself, he went over to the second bedroom. There was a hair brush on the bureau. A scarf on the back of a chair. On top of the bed, there was a neatly folded skirt and a silk shirt.
Probably the clothes she'd worn during the day and had changed out of before going to dinner somewhere.
He walked to his own room, putting down his travel bag and peeling his suit jacket off. He let the thing fall to the bed and removed his tie and cuff links while kick?ing off his shoes. He wanted a shower. He wanted some food. He wanted a drink.
But he wanted Joy most of all.
God, he just wanted to go back to the moment when she'd held him against her body. When he'd babbled about disillusions and she hadn't scorned him for not being the tough guy he should be.
He undid his belt and dropped his trousers. Took off his boxers and socks.
His body was tight from travel and stress and sexual deprivation. As he stretched his arms over head, his back cracked and his skin ached.
A shower. Start with the shower, he thought. And while you're at it, try to ignore the fact that you're wait?ing for Joy to burst into this suite with Charles Wilshire. Or some other man.
Gray pushed the door to the bathroom open and frowned. The overhead lights were on dimly. There was a bathrobe thrown casually across the sink. And the air was warm. Moist.
Moving slowly, breath caught in his throat, Gray peered around into the alcove.
Joy was asleep in the Jacuzzi, her long, lithe body stretched out in the water. Her neck was arched, her head back on a towel, her hair flowing in strawberry-blond waves across the creamy marble. The tips of her br**sts were just breaching the top of the water level, and with every slow, even breath she took, the rosy peaks popped out and glistened in the dim light. As she exhaled, they sank beneath the surface.
He stepped forward, drawn by her.
At the same moment, her lashes fluttered open and her sleepy gaze slid over to him.
“Gray!” As if she forgot she was naked, she sat up, one of her legs bending to give her leverage. The sight of the water sluicing down her pale br**sts jolted him, but that wasn't the worst of it. Through the undulating surface of the bath, her core was revealed and hidden by turns.
And then her eyes latched on to his body.
Her lips parted as she watched his erection go rock-hard. He couldn't be sure whether she was horrified at his undisciplined reaction or hungry for him.
Hell, maybe it was his size. He was a big man, big all over. Maybe she was surprised at what had fit inside of her.
He knew he should grab a towel and cover up. He knew he should make some casual comment to put her at ease. He knew he should leave.
He could do nothing of the sort. He barely had the will to stay standing.
“Joy...” he breathed.
It was a question. And as good as he could do consid?ering he could hardly speak at all.
Her eyes widened, as if she knew what he was ask?ing for.
Her answer was to reach out her hand to him.
He closed his eyes at her trust. He'd done so little to deserve it, in his actions and his words and the thoughts he'd kept to himself. How in the hell could he ever have thought she'd be banging some random guy in his suite?
God, the lessons he'd learned from his mother were too good. Too ingrained. If the past could make him doubt someone like Joy, he was too broken ever to be fixed.
When he looked at her again, she'd dropped her hand on the edge of the tub and was staring straight ahead. As if trying to figure out how she could get to her robe with?out going past him. The hurt on her face made him wince.
As he put one foot into the warm, soothing water, she glanced up in surprise.
Sinking down on to his knees, the size of him dis?placed gallons of water, kicking the stuff out over the gunnels of the tub and on to the floor. He didn't even hear the splashing. He was reaching through the gentle water for her body, bringing her close against him, wrapping his arms around her.
She was so soft, flowing over his skin and his bones, until he was convinced it was her, and not the bath, that warmed him. He kissed the first part of her that hit his mouth. Her neck. And then he worked his way up to her earlobe, nipping gently at the tender skin.
“Joy...” Her name left him on a sigh. “How I've missed you.”
His hand swept down her spine and brought her lower body in full contact with him. His arousal folded up be?tween their bellies, pushing against her soft skin. He was desperate. Insatiable. But very, very willing to wait.
As he rolled her over on top of him, the water rising up and soaking into his hair, he framed her face with his hands. He wrapped his legs around hers, holding her down against his body when she would have floated up.
“Slow,” he said, before he kissed her. “This time, it will be slow. This time, I'll do right by you.”
He slipped his tongue into her mouth and was re?warded by a return caress that sent his senses reeling. She kissed him back with a hunger that nearly undid him, her hands grabbing onto his biceps and squeezing.
When he released her mouth, he loosened his hold on her legs and gently urged her up so she was straddling him. Her ni**les were tight from passion and the chill of being free of the bath and he sat up, licking droplets of water from them. Taking one of the buds into his mouth, he stroked his tongue over the taut flesh and then flicked her quick once, twice, many times. As she gasped, he changed the loving, suckling her tenderly.
He pulled away, wanting to see her. Her head was tilted back, her hair trailing over her shoulders and down into the water. Her br**sts were full, the nipple he'd had in his mouth reddened from his attentions. He went to work on the other one.
Her hands dove into his hair and he relished the way she was dragging him closer still to her breast. It was as if she couldn't get him near enough and he knew exactly how she felt.
They stayed in the bath for a long time, kissing and touching, but there were things he wanted to do to her that the water made impossible. So in one giant, messy mo?tion, he lifted her out of the tub and carried her from the alcove. He held her against him, kissing her, as he reached over and grabbed a towel. He started drying her at her neck and moved down to her shoulders. As he blotted her br**sts, he kissed them both and then worked his way down her taut stomach and her graceful hipbones.
The juncture of her thighs enthralled him, but he dropped to his knees and dried her feet and then her an?kles. Moving up her calves, he rubbed her gently with the soft towel and then kissed her skin. When he got up to her thighs, he slowed.
Her breath was ragged, her eyes shimmering with heat as she stared down at him. He kissed her outer thigh. And then licked a small, pale mole. He tested her flesh with his teeth ever so delicately.
And then he ran the towel up the inside of her legs.
He didn't want to rush her. In spite of the pounding lust in him, he waited to see if she would open herself to him.
Her weight shifted. Her thighs parted a little more.
Joy swallowed through a dry throat.
Seeing Gray's dark head at her thighs, his long, ele?gant fingers working a towel over her skin, was nearly all she could handle. But she wanted him to touch her even more intimately.
Especially as his tongue came out and he licked that mole again.
He shifted, his head coming higher and moving in be?tween her legs. She widened her stance a little further.
His hair was soft on her inner thigh.
“I want to be in your heat,” he said against her skin. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes....”
There was a low grumble of satisfaction and then his hand urged her legs apart a little more.
But it was his mouth that made contact where she ached, not his fingers.
“Gray!” Lightening ripped through her, snapping her spine into a straight line.
He nuzzled her, pleasured her, his lips and tongue hot and slow and delicious. She watched him when she could, amazed that this big, aroused man was on his knees before her, adoring her body as he was.
And adoring was the right word because his expres?sion was one of pure bliss. As if he were getting as much out of the experience as she was.
When her knees gave out, he caught her easily.
“I'm not finished,” he said, carrying her to the bed. “Not by a long shot.”
He laid her down and went right back to where he had been. Her body was transformed by his loving, a bloom of heat starting where he was kissing her so thoroughly and spreading through every part of her.
And then without warning, he changed his tempo, speeding up, intensifying the caresses. She jerked under his mouth and thrashed her legs around until one flopped over his back. And then the world exploded and she called out his name, her breath stopping, her heart stop?ping, her thoughts stopping. She dissolved away, and when she condensed once more, he was lying beside her, nuzzling her neck, his tender words praising her.
Blindly, she turned onto her side and moved her body against his. His breath went in on a rasp when her stom?ach rubbed over his erection.
“I don't want to stop,” she said. “I want more.”
He laughed, a deep, masculine purr. “And I'm happy to oblige.”
He rolled her onto her back and kissed her br**sts, starting to move down her body again.
“No.” She stopped him. Pulled him back up. “I want you... inside.”
His eyes closed, his face tightening. “Joy, we don't have to.”
“You're so hard, I can feel the beat of your heart on my hip.”
Gray's lips peeled off his teeth as if her words excited him to desperation. “I'll be fine. Hell, I deserve this.”
“No, you don't. Make love with me,” she whispered, stroking his back. “Make love with me until we don't know which part of us is you and which is me.”
His eyes flipped open. He gently stroked her face. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, capturing his nape, urging his mouth down. He kissed her long and slow, and when he pulled back, she heard the sound of that drawer opening. Through heavy lids, she watched as he sheathed his length, wondering how he was going to fit inside of her, reminding herself that he had once before.
Parting her thighs with his knee, he settled his weight on top of her, propping his shoulders and chest up with his elbows. Stroking her hair back, he kissed her fore?head, then her temple, then her cheek. Her body moved under him of its own accord, straining, trying to get close.
One of his hands disappeared between them. His weight shifted and she felt him positioning himself against her.
And then in a slow, sweet movement, he pressed in?side, stretching her, filling her. There was no pain. Just an incredible rush of pleasure.
His head dropped down to her shoulder as his body started to tremble.
