Grayson by Delores Fossen Page A

for his half-naked body. It’s a good thing it wasn’t.
    And he was pretty sure he believed that.
    She walked toward him, slowly, leaned down and touched the six-inch scar that started at his chest and ended on his right side. “How did it happen?”
    “I broke up a fight at the cantina on the edge of town. Didn’t see the switchblade until it was too late.”
    Another deep breath. “You could have been killed.” Her voice was suddenly clogged with emotion.
    Yeah. But Grayson kept that to himself. He also caught her hand to move it off his stomach, but somehow their fingers ended up laced together.
    And neither of them pulled away.
    Their eyes met. She was so familiar to him, but those eyes always held a surprise or two. Sometimes they were a misty blue. Other times, the color of a spring Texas sky.
    Grayson cursed that last analogy.
    He was a cowboy, and the last thing he should be doing was thinking poetic thoughts about the color of Eve’s eyes.
    His thoughts weren’t so poetic when it came to the rest of her.
    Grayson knew exactly how she looked beneath those winter clothes. He knew how much she liked it when he kissed her belly. And the inside of her thighs. He knew the way she smelled. The way she tasted. The sounds that she made when he was driving her hot and crazy. And it was because he knew all those things that he had to back away.
    But he didn’t.
    They stood there, gazes locked, as if paralysis had set in and neither could move. Eve’s breath became thin. Her face flushed. She glanced at his bed, and Grayson knew exactly what she was thinking.
    He’d made love to her in that bed.
    Things had been different then. Ten years ago they’d remodeled the house and turned all the bedrooms into suites. But the black lacquered wrought-iron bed was the same. It’d been his grandfather’s, and Grayson had staked claim to it twenty years ago after his grandfather had been killed. He’d gone through several mattresses in those twenty years, but the bed itself had remained unchanged.
    No telling how many times Grayson had sneaked Eve up to his room. To this very bed.
    In the beginning, neither had had a clue what they were doing. They had followed their instincts. Did the things that felt good. And plenty of those times, he’d had to kiss her hard and deep to muffle the sounds she made when she climaxed.
    Grayson could hear those sounds now echoing through his head.
    He couldn’t help but respond to those memories. To the touch of her fingers linked with his.
    Part of him, the part straining against the zipper of his jeans, started to rationalize that he could put her on that bed again. He knew how to get those sounds from her. Knew the delicious heat of her body.
    “Mercy,” she mumbled, but it didn’t have any sound. She shook her head. Moistened her lips.
    He wanted to hear her voice. Those sounds. But most of all, he just wanted to kiss her.
    “It would be a mistake,” Grayson said more to himself than her.
    “Oh, yeah. A big one.” But she inched closer. So close that he tasted her breath on his mouth. That taste went straight through him.
    Something inside him snapped, and he latched onto the back of her neck and hauled her to him. Their mouths met, and he heard the sound all right. A little bit of whimper mixed with a boatload of relief.
    Grayson knew exactly how she felt.
    Helpless. Stupid.
    And hot.
    “Should I close the door and give you time alone?” someone snarled from the doorway. It was his brother, Mason.
    Eve and Grayson flew apart as if they’d just been caught doing something wrong. Which was true. They couldn’t lust after each other. Sex against the tree to make a baby was one thing. But real sex would turn their status from it’s complicated to it’s damn impossible.
    “Well?” Mason prompted in that surly noninterested way that only Mason could manage. “You need time to do something about that kiss or what?”
    “Did you want something?” Grayson fired back at his