LITMIR.BIZ

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at what he knew he had to do.

      “Shhh, it’s all right,” she crooned. “You’ve drunk too much.”

      Beneath the concealment of his hands, Noah’s eyes narrowed in surprise. She should be slapping him, not petting him.

      “I’ll take care of you,” Grace promised, smoothing his hair with gentle hands. “Let’s get this sweatshirt off you so you’ll be more comfortable.”

      Noah dropped his hands and stared at her with red eyes and rioting emotions.

      Her sweet smile touched him in places he hadn’t known existed. “You’ll feel better in the morning,” she assured him, and to a man like Noah, a man who’d never been coddled, her tenderness meant more than the lust, knocking the breath right out of him.

      With no signs of shyness now, Grace came up on her knees and started to work on his sweatshirt. Entranced, Noah helped by raising his arms, but he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her adorable dimpled knees or the way her breasts swayed inside the tee.

      It was as if everything about her suddenly appealed to him. Shirtless, he sprawled back on the bed at Grace’s insistent push. She stared at the snap on his jeans, and Noah wondered if she’d be brave enough to continue.

      He’d about decided to spare her by removing his pants himself when she mustered up that iron resolve that had enabled her to deal with Agatha for three long years and tended to snap and zipper with competent alacrity.

      Noah lifted his hips to shove the jeans down, and Grace, with only a brief awed glimpse at his lap in snug boxers, slipped off the bed to tug them away.

      Voice quavering and breathless, she said, “There.” Her lips were parted, her eyes glazed. “Isn’t that more…comfortable?”

      Noah was so damn hard he could have been lethal. He was surprised his boxers didn’t rip under the pressure. Comfortable? Hell no, he wasn’t comfortable.

      But he was comforted. By Grace.

      He watched her through a cloud of sensual pleasures—lust, and other emotions that were somehow more potent. “Yeah.”

      “Up you go.” She turned down the spread for him and patted his pillow.

      She was such a nurturing woman. So domestic. Those qualities held a lot of appeal for Noah, but he wondered if they were countered by more basic desires, those of raw sexual need. Would Grace Jenkins be giving and nurturing in bed? Or would she be demanding, taking her pleasure?

      While he scooted up in the bed, Noah growled, “No way in hell can I sleep, Gracie.”

      “Why not?”

      “You’ll leave.” It hurt to make that admission, but damn, he didn’t want her to go. Noah figured in the morning, when sobriety hit, he’d regret his actions. But for now, keeping Grace close seemed more important than breathing.

      She tilted her head, her expression again hopeful—and uncertain. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”

      Just what he wanted to hear. Noah snagged her around the waist and tumbled her into the bed with him. “Yeah, stay. Right here next to me.”

      “Oh!”

      He snuggled her up close to his body, despite her gasp and the way she went rigid. “Relax with me, Gracie,” he murmured, nuzzling her temple, kissing her hair. “Sleep with me.”

      He pulled her half onto his chest until her head nestled into his shoulder and her hand rested tense and uncertain on his abdomen. He could feel the wild rapping of her heart—or maybe it was his heart—and then he felt lethargy drag at him.

      He hadn’t slept much since he’d discovered Kara with her lover. She’d ignored his advice to take a trip and instead had turned tearfully to her parents the very next day, spurring them into an indignant rage. Agatha had gotten the news from them, rather than from Noah himself, which in part explained her fury.

      She’d been taken off guard, embarrassed among her peers, and for a woman with Agatha’s pride, that was unforgivable.

      Noah understood Kara’s reasoning, putting all the blame on him, saving her own ass from as much grief as possible. But he was still nettled. He’d offered her an out, and instead she’d stabbed him in the back. He half wondered if her lover had put her up to it.

      And why.

      Grace’s hand opened and smoothed over his skin, tangling in his chest hair, petting him with a kind of wondering curiosity. Making him burn. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Noah.”

      Now that sounded good. As long as he wanted. Hell, maybe he could just keep her forever.

      He pushed thoughts of Kara and her parents and his grandmother from his mind. He concentrated on Grace’s touch, on her understanding. And all too soon, he felt himself drifting into sleep.

      At that last lucid moment, Noah could have sworn he felt Grace’s lips on his flesh, gentle, fleeting.

      And then he passed out.

      Chapter Three

      The harsh pounding in Noah’s head woke him. He opened his eyes, squinted in blinding pain, and saw nothing but blurry confusion. The room swam around him, his stomach pitched, and he went perfectly still, concentrating on not being sick.

      When the roiling of his stomach subsided to mere queasiness, he put his efforts to focusing. Something white was in his line of vision, something large. Noah blinked twice until the fuzziness cleared and the object took form. Noah realized it was a bra.

      He froze, staring in incomprehension.

      It wasn’t just any bra but a large one, made for a large woman. And surely a woman with impressive breasts.

      His brain seemed a vast wasteland, and the more he tried to think, the more it pulsed.

      While Noah stared at that sturdy, substantial bra, trying to figure out what the hell it was doing in his bedroom, a warm body next to him stirred.

      Alarm skittered through him, and he again froze. His heart punched into his throat, and slowly, so slowly it seemed to take forever, Noah turned his head.

      He found himself staring at Grace Jenkins.

      Grace Jenkins with the beautiful, bountiful breasts.

      Good God! She clung to him like a limpet, her smooth white arm over his chest, her small hand fisted, her fingers laced into his chest hair with a secure hold. Her head was practically in his armpit, her nose smooshed up into his side, and he could have sworn he felt her warm breath on his left nipple.

      A ripple of sizzling awareness rode though his muscles, starting at his toes and ending with a crescendo in his already befuddled brain.

      Damn, but Grace was smiling even in her sleep. A small, sexy, inviting smile.

      What the hell was she dreaming about?

      Her rich brown hair, impossibly long and thick, trailed down her back, over her shoulder, and onto him. It teased the arm he had holding her securely, his abdomen. Noah choked.

      What had he done?

      Like a small, chubby cat, Grace stirred again, stretching and making a sweet, feminine sound of awakening that caused all Noah’s most sensitive body parts to clench in response.

      It was at that moment that Noah realized her warm bare thigh was over his lap, rubbing against him.

      He was stunned, breathless, appalled.

      He was rock hard and getting harder by the second.

      Grace blinked her sleepy eyes open and looked at him. For a long moment neither of them moved. Noah had always thought her eyes incredible, but never more so than in that moment, when she looked so drowsy and sweet and…happy to see him.

      Heat shimmered between them. As Noah stared

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