“You’re so beautiful, Emma,” he said gruffly, running his hands over her arms and then up to frame her face. “I thought so the first time I ever saw you. Who, I wondered, is that? She’s stunning.” He kissed her neck, making her knees go weak. “And then I got to talk to you and found out that you’re as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside.”

She wanted to touch him everywhere, beginning with the muscular hills and valleys of his chest and well-defined abdomen. “You’re rather beautifully put together yourself.”

“I got nothing on you.”

“We can agree to disagree on that.”

“I want to ask you something, and if you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

The statement cut through her buzz of arousal, bringing her back to reality. “Okay…”

“Have you done this since Simone was conceived?”

Mortified to have to admit that she hadn’t been with a man in so long, she tried to pull free of his embrace.

Grayson held her close. “There’s no shame in it, Emma. I only asked because I want to be careful with you.”

She trembled from the strength of her desire for him. “I haven’t.”

“If you want to stop, all you have to do is say so, okay?”

Nodding, she forced herself to look up at him, to meet the gaze that was looking at her with only care and concern, and not judgment.

He lifted the tank, watching her as he skimmed his fingertips over the skin he revealed.

Emma held her breath until the shirt cleared her head and her naked breasts were crushed against his chest.

“Ah, God,” he whispered. “Feels so good.”

“Mmm.” She couldn’t talk or think or do anything other than feel—everything.

He unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and dropped to his knees to help her out of them, his hands gliding over bare legs that quivered in response to his touch. Then he cupped her bottom and drew her even closer to him so he could press his mouth against her silk-covered core.

Emma cried out from the shock and the heat that zipped through her body.

He turned her so she could back up to the bed, but before she sat on the edge where he wanted her, he removed her panties, leaving her bared to him in every possible way.

She wanted to memorize the hungry way he looked at her, but then he demanded her full attention when he dropped to his knees and made himself at home between her legs. Emma didn’t have a chance to tell him she’d never… Not like this…

He used his fingers to open her to his tongue.

Oh my God. This must be what it was like to have a heart attack, she thought in the seconds after his tongue stroked her clit for the first time. Dear God…