Page 87 of Bourbon and Lies

I kiss her palm again and soften my voice. “I’m pretty sure I started falling for you the moment you flipped me off.” I try to smile, but it’s labored. My chest is heavy and adrenaline pumps through me, making my hands shake as I tell this beautiful woman exactly who she is to me. “But I am, honey. I’m so fucking in love with you. This is it for me.”

Chapter 38

Laney

I’ve felt it.Hell, I’ve felt it for a while now. I haven’t even been in Fiasco for all that long, but holy shit do I feel it with this man. Hearing that declaration as he draws small circles along my wrist, I blow out a shaky breath. I want to believe it, because I feel it too. “You’re in love with me?”

“You have to know that. And I guess if you didn’t, then I wasn’t clear. I love you, Laney Young.” He kisses my lips, stealing any words from me that could outweigh his. “A little more every day.”

His thumb rubs across my lips, and I inch closer as I run my fingers up his chest and over the place that’s beating so fast. All for me. “This is the part where you’re not supposed to leave me hanging.”

“Shaw,” I tell him, smiling at the curiosity dancing in his eyes.

His thumb slows its movement.

“Laney Shaw. You need to say, I love you, Laney Shaw.”

His mustache quirks. “You first.”

With a smile and an exhale, I go first. “I’m in love with you too, cowboy.”

With a smirk at hearing his nickname, he moves my hair away from my shoulder. His touch always feels possessive and strong, but right now, it feels like appreciation. Grant cups the back of my neck, driving his fingers into my hair. “I love you, Laney Shaw.” And then he erases any space left between us. When his lips meet mine, it’s as if we’re making a promise—sealing the words with the pull that exists between us. His tongue licks along the seam of my lips and rolls with mine, setting a deep warmth in my core that flickers out across my skin. A small groan escapes his lips as we both take a breath. And anything that felt soft or simple turns into a desire to express with our bodies the way we feel for the other. His fingers sink deeper into my hair and pull tighter, shifting me on top so that I’m straddling his cock. The hard length of him pressed up against me is only separated by a few thin layers.

I sit up, and as his eyes rove along the curves of my body, it feels like the most wicked game of foreplay. Rolling my hips forward, I peel my tank off. He folds one arm behind his head and the other he reaches up, drawing a line from my navel to between my breasts. The kind of confidence I’ve found just by the way this man looks at me is something that I hadn’t expected. I tilt my head back as he continues moving his hand along the same path to my neck.

The grit of his voice drags along my skin when he says, “You’re so beautiful like this—trying to take what you need. That’s my girl.” Craving the friction, I roll my hips again. I hold his wrist and bring his fingers to my mouth, kissing the rough pads.

“That’s it, honey. Eyes on me.”

I flick them with my tongue, wetting them and guiding them around my lips. I keep my eyes on his and pull them in my mouth. His cock jumps at that, and I can’t keep myself from smirking at the response.

“He wants a turn,” he laughs.

I yelp out laughing as he quickly flips us both over, my back hitting the mattress and Grant hovering over me. When he settles between my legs, my smile falters and the mood moves back to the intensity from just a few moments ago.

My eyes water as I gaze up at him, the low, gravelly whisper only making them blurrier. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I like looking at you. You’re very handsome, you know.” I smile, trying to lighten the moment to keep him from seeing how I’m cataloging everything. The weight of him. The way he breathes in, smelling my hair. The scruff of his beard as it tickles me just right. How his eyes soften when they’re looking at me.

“Don’t look at me like you need to remember. I’m yours, honey.” I search his eyes for more, the caveat or the exception. But it doesn’t come. It’s a calm, quiet promise. An offering. He’s mine, if I want him. And god, do I want him. To keep him. To stay. To love him.

He places a brief kiss on my lips first, then my forehead, before he buries himself in my neck. His forearms hold him above me just enough and nestled between my legs. I want him. In every single way, I want him.

“Make love to me.”

The request is instantly answered as his teeth drag along my shoulder. He kneels back, pulling my legs up to rest on his shoulders. Tucking his fingers in the waistband of my pajama shorts, he rolls them off as he turns his head to kiss my ankle. Once he moves my legs back down, he spreads my knees wide, his thumb gliding up and down my pussy. He doesn’t say anything, only watches his thumb play from my pussy to clit andback as quiet moans leave my lips. He kneels up and pulls down the boxer briefs that he’d worn to bed, his thick and hard cock showing exactly what it wants.

Same.I let a whimper escape.

He runs his thumb through me again—one, two, three, strokes before he leans forward and swipes that thumb across my lips, drawing my arousal around them. Hovering above me, he licks my mouth, kissing the wet away. “Better than bourbon.”

I smile against his lips. Before I can say anything, his cock rubs where his thumb had, hitting my clit at just the right pace and pressure to pull the gasp from me. When he kneels back again, he starts to bury himself into me and swipes in small, measured strokes along my clit.

“Grant . . .” I breathe out.

Like I’ve ignited something, he wraps his arms around me and lifts me up to him, kissing me. A punishing kiss with lips and tongues lashing and consuming as I sit against him, rolling my hips and pulling him into me deeper with every thrust of his hips. The sweat that’s slicked our bodies and the way he moans has my orgasm waiting patiently to let go.

“Laney . . . fuck.”

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