Mad World: Fall From Grace Part 17

"Do you have any idea what you do to me, Grace?" His voice was low and husky, and he gazed at me, ice blue eyes concentrating hard. It took my breath away. "Just one. Grace..."

His slow deliberate hands moved over my skin, fingers trembling. It unleashed an inferno that coursed through my body. Every move he made was so freaking erotic.

"Just one," I whispered. Then his lips touched mine. It was barely a kiss; his lips hovered over mine, taking the briefest of moments to savor the intensity.

I told myself, just one, a little one, then that would be it. I would stop myself from going too far.

"Grace," he sighed and his lips devoured mine. I fell completely apart in his arms, his touch unraveled me, and his kiss brought me back together; complete. I wanted all of him; I wanted to taste every inch of his body. I moaned desperately into his mouth and he pulled me closer.

He clasped my hands above me and yanked the tee s.h.i.+rt over my head. He tilted his head back appraising me, and then let out a long faltering sigh. He trailed kisses over my neck and shoulders, and across my torso, leaving a burning sensation in their wake. Gently, he grazed my skin with his teeth, biting me softly. Every place he touched me echoed in my groin, making me breathless.

Yanking the cup of my bra down, he licked me in circular motions; my nipples hardened, I could feel the moist sensation all the way in my groin. He touched me as if he couldn't get enough, like I was the first woman he'd ever touched, I shuddered in response to his fingertips.

My fingers ran down the lean muscles of his chest and settled on the b.u.t.ton of his jeans, undoing them with the snap of my fingers. His hands slid over my legs up to the b.u.t.ton of my jeans and I did the same. He leaned back and grinned wickedly, which made the deep parts of me ache with want even more. Thick hot desire burned in my belly.

Watching me, he laid his hand flat against my belly, dipping his fingers slowly between the material of my panties and my skin. My body hitched up towards him with longing. His fingers kept traveling down, ever so slightly, and my body throbbed for them. I quivered and his breath faltered again, as he watched my breathless reaction. Our breathing amplified in the small confines of the Jeep. He dug his teeth into my bottom lip and moaned; I rocked against him.

I slipped my hands past his waistband and tugged gently as my hands grasped his smooth hard skin. He closed his eyes, his breathing caught. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was scorching, wanting, needing. I felt his legs tense under me; he throbbed in my hands.

His lips touched mine again, breathing me in I like was his air, then he tore his mouth from mine; panting. "Please, Grace, whatever it is you're going after, please try to find it here in me. I will try my best to be the man that you need me to be." His words brought me back to earth, and sent me reeling, as I realized where our hands were. I pushed against him and leaned back.

I cupped my hands over my swollen lips and tried desperately to get off him. I was astounded by what I had almost let happen, what I still wanted to happen. "Shane, I'm sorry." I felt my eyes go wide and filled themselves with tears. I looked out the window, I looked up, down; I was frantic. I started the engine and blasted the heat; ice-cold air filled the small s.p.a.ce. My body convulsed and raged against my decision to stop kissing him. I squeezed my hands around the steering wheel just to keep them off him.

Shane lightly placed his hand on my chin and pulled my face towards his. I flicked the heater even higher. The noise from the vents was a welcoming distraction from the hunger in Shane's gaze.

"I lost myself in you that night, lost myself somewhere in that kiss," Shane said.

"I told you I can't do this. I told you I was in love with someone else."

"An ex-boyfriend, right? Not Tucker or Ethan or Blake?"

I nodded my head and wiped the humiliating tears from my cheeks. I wasn't crying about the kiss, because my G.o.d, that was freaking amazing. It was the fact that he could make me forget something that I've been after for thousands of years with just the tips of his fingers. Oh my, what would the rest of his body do to me? It's killing me that I want to find out!

"Let me help you erase his memory," he whispered.

I almost threw up on him. In fact, I know I definitely would have if there were any food in my stomach. I literally dry-heaved. Then I smacked him across the face. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to punch him with a fully closed fist.

He didn't even flinch from the slap. He just arched his stupidly perfect eyebrow at me, as if I was a joke to him.

"You cold f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What will you erase it with, your d.i.c.k? You really think sleeping with you is that f.u.c.king awesome? I love someone, Shane, with my whole heart. Don't you understand what that means? Do you even have a heart inside that body of yours?" I cried. Hot tears poured down my face. They came down to defend my angel, the one I could never seem to find.

He drew his hands back and leaned against the door, looking right into my teary eyes, expressionless. "No, Grace. I don't have a heart. I did once, but I gave it to a girl and I let her keep it when she died. That's why I am the way I am, why every girl is just another piece of a.s.s to me. No one has ever come close to making me feel the way she did. But s.h.i.+t, Grace, I would do anything to erase her, to not feel that f.u.c.king hole in my life."

I couldn't look at him any longer. I would have bet my life on him lying to get me to have s.e.x with him right there out of pity. Like I would be the one that could tame him. I wondered how many poor girls got their heart crushed by those words. I'd burn in h.e.l.l before I became someone's piece of a.s.s! "Let's just keep trying our cells, so we can finally get out of this box, forget everything that's happened, and move on with our lives. You can go back to your adoring Pieces of a.s.s, and I can go back to being alone. Everyone gets to live happily ever after."

"Holy s.h.i.+t, Grace! Do you not listen to anything? Grace, that's not a kiss I'm ever going to forget. Looking at the way I f.u.c.king make you cry, I wish like h.e.l.l I could forget it, but I freaking can't! I want you!" He grabbed my hands and pinned them together.

"Don't do this, Shane."

"Why? Lie to me and tell me you don't f.u.c.king feel that need between us," he yelled.

"Really, Shane? You want to go there? What are you asking me for exactly? You just want me to spread eagle for you right here, let you have your way with me, get me out of your system? Then we get out of this and you get to treat me like nothing but a PIECE OF a.s.s? You can have a great story to tell the guys-all about how you tapped that a.s.s stuck in a snowstorm."

He had nothing to say, because I was right. "This is a nightmare, Shane, me and you. I woke up crying the other night thinking how you kissed me!"

"Really, Grace? Why don't you go ahead and ask me what wakes me up sweaty and trembling every freaking night! Go ahead, Grace, ask me!" he demanded. He pulled me closer.

"Get away from me, Shane!" I moaned, moving away. I clawed his hands off me and I yanked open the Jeep door. It wouldn't budge, so I s.h.i.+fted my body and kicked at it until it opened enough for my body to climb out. All the while, Shane was screaming, cursing, and pleading for me to listen to him. I pressed the mute b.u.t.ton and yanked my s.h.i.+rt back over my head. "I'm a f.u.c.king novelty to you, just because no other girl has ever had the self-esteem to say no to you!"

I pulled myself out of the car. The snowdrift we were parked in was so high that I was able to climb right onto the roof. Underneath the hardtop, I could feel Shane kicking the pa.s.senger side door open to come after me.

The roof lurched beneath my feet and Shane grabbed my flailing arms, dragging me off the Jeep and into the snow. "Get away, Shane!"

He lifted me up and tossed me over his shoulder, forcing all the air from my lungs. Carrying me, he climbed the snowdrifts, as I pounded my fists against his back. When he found an area sheltered by a tree, he eased me off his shoulder, sliding me down the front of his body. Oh, holy horror was that freaking hot!

I tried to wrench free, but he held me tight against him with one hand on the small of my back and the other grasping my neck through a fistful of hair.

He gently tugged my hair back and pulled his head down to mine, kissing me once on the lips. He brushed his lips along my cheeks to my ear and whispered with the heat of his breath, "Go ahead, Grace, ask me what dreams I wake from at night." He pulled his head back and his eyes a.s.saulted me with his fierce intensity. "I wake up with you as the last thought in my dreams. I dream about your lips, the smell of your skin and hair, and the freaking fire that burns inside of me to be inside you. I want to bury myself inside you and never climb out, my sweet death. Grace, I'm f.u.c.king in love with you."

I stopped struggling and let him hold me. One, I was freezing because I had left my coat in the Jeep and two, well, for a minute; I so badly wanted this to be my real life.

I blinked back tears. "In another life, Shane, if I was anybody but me, I would have loved to be loved by you."

Shane stood there holding me, eyes pleading, when we heard the roar of the snowmobiles. Finally, one of our messages got through!

Shane stepped away from me and raked his hands threw his snow covered hair. Two snowmobiles appeared out of the blinding whiteness and skidded to a halt in front of us.

Tucker lifted his visor to exclaim that my Superman was finally here, giving me a wink.

Blake lifted his visor and rolled his eyes. He jumped off and reached out his hand out to me. I took it and he helped me straddle the snowmobile, then he got on behind me.

Rage shadowed Shane's features and his hands balled into fists.

Tucker looked rejected. I cared about neither at that moment. All I cared about was Blake.

With a disgusted sigh, Shane waded through the deep snow back to the Jeep and yanked the pa.s.senger side door open. I watched him effortlessly pull our packs and jackets out and sling both our guitar cases over his shoulders then climb back over the snowdrifts to our waiting snowmobiles.

Glaring angrily into my eyes, he handed my jacket to me when he pa.s.sed, "Here you go, wouldn't want you to get any colder than you already are."

The words stung, because I knew he wasn't talking about the temperature. He was just stating how cold of a person I was. He was right, but I had no other choice.

After I pulled on my coat and zipped it up against the wind, Blake wrapped one strong arm around my waist and the other on one end of the handlebars. He took off without even waiting for Shane to jump on Tucker's snowmobile.

Chapter 15.

Blake skidded to a stop near an enormous wrap around porch where Lea, Conner, Ethan and Brayden sat together waiting. When I climbed off Blake's snowmobile, Lea flung herself into my arms, "Oh, thank G.o.d, you're okay!"

I looked back toward Blake, "Thank you," I said.

He grinned back at me. "Get inside and warm up, we'll talk later. Then we can think of a way you can properly thank me." What?

"Come on, let's go inside. We'll get you warmed up and changed, and then we're going to the bar at the resort. I need a drink," Lea said, moving me away from Blake.

I was shuttled away from Blake as he drove away blasting snow out of his path. Lea dragged me by the hand through the front entryway of an enormous log cabin style ranch. When the warmth of the inside hit me, I realized how wet and cold I was. My jacket was soaked through, and so was the s.h.i.+rt and jeans I wore beneath it. It felt as though a layer of ice was forming on my skin. I began shuddering uncontrollably.

Shane strode in after us and looked far worse than I did. He dropped all of our belongings in front of him, closed his eyes, leaned back and rested his head against the wall. "Lea, get her out of those wet clothes."

"I'm fine," I shuddered. I was lying through my teeth. I could barely move and icy chills rocked my body.

His eyes snapped open and gave me a challenging glare. "You're impossible!" He stomped towards me, picked me up with one hand, and flung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, again. "Bring the bags for me, will you? My hands seem a bit full," he said to Lea.

He marched with me through the house, down a long hallway and into a dark room. Lea switched on the lights for him and he threw me down on a beautiful king-size four-poster bed. "Get out of your clothes!" He walked through another door and came back with an armful of soft white towels. He lifted his eyebrow at me, "Do you know what hypothermia is? Get out of your clothes!"

I gritted my chattering teeth and began taking off sneakers and socks. My eyes never left his harsh stare, but I did notice when Lea quietly slipped out of the room. Oh, was I going to kill her for that!

Shane tore off his s.h.i.+rt and pants and stood in his boxers, leaning over his bag, searching through it for dry clothes.

With my bag slung over my arm, I slowly walked through the door where he had gotten the towels. I didn't care if it was a closet or a bathroom, it was where I would be getting changed so I wouldn't have to do it with Shane's eyes on me.

When I changed into dry clothes and blew dried my hair, I walked out of the bathroom into an empty room. My guitar was in its case, propped up against the bed, but all of Shane's things were gone. Throwing my bag on the bed, I walked out of the bedroom and into the rest of the house.

The entire house was filled with bright lights hanging decoratively from high vaulted ceilings. The walls were made of deep cherry colored timber. The smell of pine needles and wood chips filled the air; it was a real log cabin. Walking into the living room area, I discovered Lea, Conner and Ethan sitting on soft brown leather sofas; antique wooden furniture lay sporadically throughout the room.

"How are you feeling?" Lea asked.

"Fine. Thanks by the way, for leaving me in there alone with Shane. Remind me to pay back the favor one day," I sarcastically sneered.

"I guess I got the wrong idea about the whole situation, sorry," she pouted. "If you feel up to it, everyone is snowmobiling down to the resort bar for some drinks. Blake, Tucker, Brayden and Shane are already there."

"Yes, I'm definitely in need of a drink, although I have no dry coat to go outside with."

Ethan bundled me up in his gigantic coat and stood back to laugh at me. "Let's go get drunk, shall we?" He hooked my arm in his and curiously smiled down at me, "And you must let me know what you did to get Shane all fired up, so I can repeatedly tease him about it."

I shook my head, "Oh, I'm sure he'll forget all about whatever it is I did or didn't do once he finds someone to occupy his time. I think I just got on his nerves on the long car ride here." I didn't like how easy it was getting for me to spin a lie.

He tilted his head down towards me and tightened his lips. "I hate that you think that you need to lie to me."

I jumped on the back of the snowmobile and I sighed, "Well, hurry up. Now I really need a drink."

There seemed to be a good size crowd in the resort bar, despite the blizzard raging outside. People were dancing to someone horribly singing karaoke, the bar was lined with people ordering drinks, and every table was full with laughing noisy patrons.

The inside of the bar had the same sort of ambience as Tucker's house and any other time, I would have probably stopped to appreciate the atmosphere, but Blake was waiting for me at a crowded table. His beautiful blue eyes locked onto mine and didn't let go; a sweet smile beamed across his face.

Shane sat across from him and watched our exchange. We walked up to the table and Blake's smile beamed brighter. Shane tipped his head back, draining the last of his beer and then he slammed the bottle on the table. Everyone at the table stopped their conversations at the jolting noise it made. He stood up and grabbed some girl's hand that had been sitting at the table with them. His eyes watched mine as he led her to the dance floor. The girl looked back at her friends as if she'd just won the lottery.

I watched them walk away and practically have s.e.x with each other on the dance floor. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away. It hurt like h.e.l.l, but I needed to remember that was the exact reason Shane was not a good choice for Grace, if Blake wasn't who I wanted him to be.

Blake stood up and smoothly slid next to me. He held out a shot gla.s.s for me and I grabbed it, gulping the golden liquid down. He tilted his head towards Shane and his friend on the dance floor, "I bet we could put them to shame," he smiled wickedly. Leading me to the dance floor, we grabbed onto each other like there was no one else around, like there was a thousand years since we'd seen each other last.

Everyone at the table swarmed us on the dance floor. Immediately, the temperature rose and sweat glistened on our bodies. Blake held me close and I danced with my arms wrapped around his neck. I closed my eyes and melted into his body, we danced close and hot until the music turned slow. Someone started singing Karaoke to Adele's Someone Like You, and Blake roughly grabbed my chin and pulled my lips up to his. His tongue attacked my mouth like a hungry animal, and then he spun me around to face the crowd.

I whirled in his arms to stand face to face with Shane. He looked like a stone statue, frozen in the middle of a crowd of slow dancing bodies, eyes wide; staring right through me. His lips parted as if he meant to say something, but thought better of it. The girl he was with had stopped dancing along with him and just waited beside him for his next move, as he stood waiting for mine.

Blake pulled me closer against him and kissed my neck, pulling my hair back, trailing a thick wet tongue along my skin.

Shane swallowed hard, intently focused on every spot of my skin that Blake touched.

Blake slid his hands around to the front of my s.h.i.+rt. He lifted the fabric, placing his hands on the bare skin of my stomach and dug into my skin roughly.

Shane's eyes dropped to watch Blake's hands and back up to my eyes. His lips pressed tightly together and shaking his head, he held his hands up to wave me off. He turned around and melted into the slow dancing shadows of the crowd.

When the music ended Lea, Conner and Ethan lugged me up to the microphone. My mind reeled. Blake stood in front of the stage cheering me on with them. Shane's beautiful back was walking to the door with the girl he had danced with in tow.

Lea talked to the Karaoke DJ and the pop beat to Katy Perry's The One That Got Away thumped through the speakers. How appropriate.

The first word I sang caused the entire crowd to stop and stare, and the rest of the words had them looking at me dumbstruck. When I got to the chorus, Shane stopped at the entrance to the bar and clenched his fists and raked them through his hair. I sang the song right to him. The crowd screamed over my voice and when the song ended, they chanted for me to sing more, but Blake walked up on the stage and carried me off.

He carried me through the crowds who were yelling for more and booing Blake for hauling me off the stage.

"Put me down!" I snapped.

"I haven't seen you in lifetimes, and you would rather sing for a room full of sweaty strangers?" My heart thudded to a stop. His features were taut and set, and then after a few seconds, he nodded his head and a smile radiated on his lips.

He walked me to the table, picked up his coat, and left Ethan's, the one I wore there, on the back of the chair. He nodded to Tucker who was sitting down talking with a pretty redhead. "I'm taking her back to the house. See you tomorrow!"

Tucker's jaw hit the table as Blake put his coat on me.

Blake took a full shot gla.s.s that was sitting in front of Tucker and gulped it down, and then he drank the redhead's, who wore a disgusted look on her face. I just laughed. His eyes watched me, sheer naughtiness danced in them when he heard my laughter. He took hold of my hand and ran with me through the bar, right out the front door.

Giant snowflakes still fell in heavy white sheets making an eerie silence surround us. He swept my feet out from underneath me and sat me on the snowmobile. He leaned over me and covered my mouth with his, thrusting his tongue in almost painfully.

He ripped his mouth from mine and smiled a slow s.e.xy smile down at me. "Selah," he called me, making my heart pound hard against my chest. My name.

He straddled the snowmobile and offering me a sly smile, gunned the vehicle until we were practically airborne. We catapulted across the great white expanse and glided into the front area of Tucker's porch, almost colliding with the steps.

Blake jumped off his seat and helped me off and into the cold knee-deep snow. He kissed me again and tugged me up the stairs, unlocking the front door with his lips still attached to mine.

Shane's brooding dark expression was the first thing I saw when I stumbled in. He sat next to his friend from the bar on the couch, elbows resting on his legs and his hands dangled between them. He glowered at Blake and jumped to his feet.

Blake laughed as his eyes darted from Shane to me. "c.r.a.p, I thought we'd have the house to ourselves," he sneered.

Shane stormed over and stepped between us. "I want you to come with me, Grace."