Rumor(15)

Sensation flooded her chest and arched her back on a soft “Yes.”

“So fucking beautiful.” His head lowered, and the warmth of his mouth covered one breast.

His name echoed in her head, lay heavy on her tongue, but she held it back, wanting more. Needing more. He sucked her nipple against the roof of his mouth with a growl of lust that vibrated along her skin, and she couldn’t hold back the sound that rolled out of her.

Pleasure washed her body, her mind, her soul. She groaned and arched. Rain tapped her face. Cold and hot spiraled through her body. So alive. So free.

“More,” she moaned, fisting his hair, lifting her hips against his. His mouth released one breast only to move to the other, freeing another bubble of delicious sensation at the center of her body. “Fuck… Josh…”

He paused. Exhaled heavily. Then pulled back, sucking her nipple from his mouth and making her shiver. He dropped his forehead to her chest. His quick breaths bathed her skin with heat. Her body ached and throbbed. She needed more. Needed him.

“Come home with me,” she whispered, combing her hands through his hair. “My place is close.”

He rocked his head side to side, then tapped his forehead against her shoulder as if banging it against a wall, his hands fisted in the back of her shirt. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His body had gone rigid, his muscles coiled, and an uneasy energy buzzed around him. A flash of panic burned a hole through her chest. This was a huge, huge step they should have taken a year ago. She wasn’t just going to let him run again.

She used his shoulders to drag herself upright and pressed her mouth to his neck. The hands in her shirt slid down her skin as he pulled the drenched fabric back into place. Even though her instincts told her to keep her barriers up, her heart opened. Hope swelled through her chest, but experience pushed tears to her eyes.

“Look,” she said, working for a teasing lightness. “We’re still alive. No lightning strike.”

His hands rested at her hips, his head on her shoulder, as if he were as much frozen in fear of moving forward as Grace was of him pulling away.

She eased kisses toward his ear, then along his jaw as she slid her hands down his chest, his abdomen, then lower, stroking his erection. His hips rocked into her touch and he groaned. With her free hand, she cupped his jaw and pulled his mouth to hers. She kissed him, licked into his mouth, then whispered, “Come home with me.”

With another groan, he pulled from the kiss with a shake of his head. “Can’t.” He pressed a hand to his face, rubbed his eyes. “Can’t, can’t, can’t.”

She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or trying to convince himself, but he was definitely pulling away.

Hurt flared, drawing anger. She stomped it down, drew on patience, and tried to drag his face up to meet her eyes. But when he lifted his head, his eyes were squeezed shut, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Josh—”

“No,” he murmured. Then his eyes opened, and the look there told Grace she’d already lost him. He was miles away. “No, Grace… God… I shouldn’t have…”

“We’re good together,” she insisted, her patience thinning. “We want each other. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

He stepped back, easing his wet body away from hers with a sucking sound.

“Goddammit.” She gripped his forearms and dug her fingers in. “I haven’t been Isaac’s wife for three years. You haven’t been his teammate for a year and a half. How much time has to pass before it’s okay?”

“I…don’t know.” His expression had gone flat and resolute. “I…just… I don’t know.”

He pushed away, leaned down, and picked up his soaked blazer from the ground. Grace hadn’t even remembered it falling. She wiggled off the fender and gripped his arm. Hurt and anger battled in her chest. “Josh—”

“I know you don’t understand.” His gaze drifted down her body, and the pain in his eyes stabbed her heart. He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

He turned toward the club, pulling his phone from his pocket.

She fisted her hands. “Don’t walk away from me again, Josh.”

He paused, hand on the door, head hanging.

Please turn around.

Please.

But he pulled the door open and disappeared inside.





Josh balanced his cell between his sore shoulder and his ear and jotted down Carolyn Ashby’s address. “Twenty-eighth Street? Isn’t that on the east side of Balboa Park?”

“You got it.” Pete was an information broker of sorts. Josh used him for background checks on employees involved in any consulting job. “And I must say, a much nicer neighborhood than where her daughter resides.”