Wiccan, A Witchy Young Adult Paranormal Romance (30 page)

After I toweled off, I
smoothed scented lotion into my skin and dressed in the pajamas I’d
packed, pajamas I was regretting now. It was a sleep short-and-tank
set in a thin pink cotton material. The hem of the shorts and the
top had a delicate lettuce trim that fluttered when I moved. But it
exposed
a lot
of
skin, which made me feel even more self-conscious than I already
did.

“
What were you thinking?” I
scolded myself under my breath as I dragged the comb through my wet
curls.

When I was finished, I smeared some
Chapstick on my dry lips and opened the door.

I heard the television so I knew
Grayson was back. I stepped out onto the carpet and turned the
corner. Grayson was sitting on the bed, his legs stretched out in
front of him, propped up on pillows piled behind his back. When I
came into view, his eyes turned to me and I saw the heat of desire
flicker to life.

The warm gold of his gaze traveled
slowly from my face to my chest and barely-exposed belly then down
my legs and back up again. I was captivated by his reaction so I
stood perfectly still and let him look his fill.

When his eyes met mine, they were
ablaze and my stomach clenched in anticipation. I felt a warm flush
spread across my chest and down my belly and legs.

With his eyes never leaving mine,
Grayson slid off the edge of the bed and walked around it to stand
in front of me. When he stopped, he was so close his thighs brushed
mine and the material of his shirt grazed my taut nipples. A shiver
worked its way through my body, chills spreading down my
back.

Bending down to scoop me up in his
arms, Grayson turned and walked to the bed, kneeling on the end and
laying me gently in the center. He looked at me for several
excruciating seconds before he spoke. Finally, he whispered, “I
won’t take off anything that you just put on.” And then his lips
were on mine.

For all the fire that was clearly
visible in his eyes, the kiss was very soft, almost chaste. And it
was short. All too soon, he pulled away from me and stepped off the
bed.

His eyes were trained on mine as he
began to unbutton his shirt. When the first three were undone, I
could see a little bit of dark hair on his chest. I raised myself
up on my elbows, unable to take my eyes off him as he continued to
expose more skin.

He tugged the shirt out of his pants to
finish unbuttoning it. When the front hung open, I could see his
chest muscles bunch as he shrugged out of the silky material. He
tossed the shirt to the floor and stood in front of me for a few
seconds, letting me enjoy the view.

His shoulders were wide and covered
with smooth, tan skin that traveled the length of his muscular
arms. His chest was the most perfect I’d ever seen with its dusting
of black hair and firmly rounded pectorals. They gave way to a
hard, flat stomach that carried the narrowing trail of hair into
the waistband of his pants.

When I realized what my eyes had
traveled down to, what I was staring at, I jerked my gaze back to
his. He smiled and I felt a bubbling just below my
navel.

“
I just want to feel your
skin on mine,” he said huskily as he knelt on the bed beside my
feet. I lay back down and tilted my head to watch him.

Taking one ankle in his big hand,
Grayson raised my foot to his mouth and kissed the inside of my
arch. His other hand came up to cup the bend of my knee and he
scooted up to kneel between my now spread legs.

He kissed a hot trail from my ankle to
just above my knee. He lowered my leg as he dragged his lips up the
middle of my thigh to the bottom of my shorts.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on
breathing, which had become increasingly difficult. When I felt his
tongue tracing the edge of my shorts toward the center of my body,
desire poured through me, pooling only inches from his
mouth.

His other hand slid up the inside of my
other leg, pushing it away, further spreading my legs. I could feel
his hot breath at my core and I thought I’d never wanted anyone to
touch me so badly in all my life. And then I felt him nip the
tender skin high on the inside of my thigh with his
teeth.

I was biting my lower lip to keep from
crying out, but even that couldn’t contain the breathless gasp that
squeezed out. When I looked down at him, he was looking up at me
from between my legs. His pupils were so big, his eyes were almost
black. And they were glistening with his passion.

He lifted his head and whispered,
“Close your eyes.” His voice was as velvety as his touch and I
didn’t hesitate to obey, despite the fact that I’d have loved
nothing more than to just look at his gorgeous face and
body.

I felt the bed dip as he
moved, but I didn’t open my eyes. I just reached out with every
nerve that was already highly attuned to him and I
felt.

The hair of his chest tickled my legs
as his body moved along mine. I felt the mattress dip on either
side of me and then he slid one hand beneath my hips and
lifted.

My back was arched off the bed just a
little and my knees automatically gripped his torso on either side,
holding him to me. I could feel his warm skin against mine from
ankle to groin. Then I felt the tip of his hot tongue start to
trace a wet path around my bellybutton. Around and around his
tongue went, making slow lazy circles. When it suddenly dipped
inside my navel, I thought I was going to explode. My eyes flew
open and I looked down. They crashed into his. He was watching me
again. And he was smiling.

“
Close ‘em,” he said
quietly.

So I did.

He scattered kisses all over my exposed
stomach, nipping at my rib cage with his teeth, until I felt him
lower me back down onto the bed. I unclasped my knees and relaxed
my legs and then I waited. I wanted so much to open my eyes and
watch him, to see what he was doing and what he was feeling. But I
didn’t. I just waited. And I felt.

He pulled his hand from under my hips
and I felt his lightly hairy arms as they moved up my sides and
under my back, stopping when his palms were flat against my
shoulder blades. Slowly he lifted me again, this time pulling me
straight up off the mattress and holding me tight against his
chest. I was straddling his hips and his face was at the dip in my
cleavage.

I could feel the scruff on his cheeks
as he rubbed his mouth back and forth between my breasts. My lungs
were tight with the breath I was holding, but I released it on a
moan when his hips began to move against me.

I reached up to grab his biceps,
needing to touch him, to hold on. I felt the muscles twitch beneath
my fingertips when I ran my palms over the smooth skin. With one
quick flex of those muscles, he pulled me in closer, crushing my
breasts to him. And then I felt his lips at my throat.

His teeth and tongue teased the
sensitive skin of my collarbone before making their way to just
below my ear. I could hear his ragged breathing and knew that this
was affecting him as much as it was me.

His lips burned a trail across my cheek
to my lips. When they finally met mine, I was already feeling
desperate and wanton. I drove my fingers into his hair and fisted
them in the short locks at the back of his head.

I heard him groan and then I was my
back on the bed again, Grayson lying between my legs, his body
pressed to mine from head to toe. He moved against me, his hands
roving over my sides and hips. He cupped the back of one knee and
brought my leg around him. He shifted his weight to his side and
slid his pelvis against mine, grinding our bodies
together.

Stars exploded behind my eyes. A loud
buzzing sounded in my ears, drowning out everything but the sound
of my own heavy breathing. Heat flooded me, radiating from the lava
gushing through my core.

When wave after wave of heat had
subsided to a pleasant lethargy, I realized that I was holding
Grayson in my arms and that he was perfectly still. He must’ve
sensed my return to reality, however, because he raised his head
and looked down at me. His lips curled into a satisfied grin that I
couldn’t help but return.

“
Welcome back,” he teased. I
felt blood rush to my cheeks and knew that I was
blushing.

I wanted to hide my face, but I
couldn’t so I just smiled sheepishly.

“
Wow,” was all I could think
of to say.

Resting his weight on his forearms,
Grayson scattered kisses across my face. From my lips to my nose to
my eyelids to my cheek and then back to my lips again, he showered
me with kisses. I’d never felt so treasured.

When his lips on mine began to fan the
flames of my desire again, the kiss deepened, but only for an
instant. Grayson leaned up to look at me.

“
Better watch that. There’s
only so much a man can take.”

“
Is that a threat?” I
teased.

“
That’s a promise,” he
said.

“
I hope so,” I said,
smiling.

With a throaty chuckle, Grayson bit my
chin and then pushed himself off me.

“
I’m thirsty,” he declared
with a wink. “Want some Coke?”

I nodded, more content than I could
ever remember being. I watched Grayson as he moved about the room,
the muscles in his delicious body shifting as he bent and twisted.
With a bottle of Coke in one hand, he walked to the side of the bed
where he’d been lying when I’d come out of the bathroom and he sat
down. He propped himself up on the pillows again and stretched his
legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. He lifted his
arm and looked down at me, tipping his head to the
right.

I crawled up and slid under the sheets
beside him and snuggled up under his arm with my head on his chest.
I raised my head to take a sip of Coke when he offered it, but that
was the last thing that I remember.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I woke to a finger stroking my cheek.
When I opened my eyes, Grayson’s face was hovering over mine and he
was smiling.

“
Wake up, sleepy
head.”

I stretched then sat up and looked
around. “What time is it?”

“
Quarter after eight,” he
said, walking to the window and opening the curtains. “Get dressed
and we’ll go get some breakfast before we head back to Scenic
Vista.”

“
Give me fifteen minutes,” I
said, scooting off the bed.

I could feel Grayson’s eyes on me as I
walked to the bathroom and I had to smile, memories from the night
before flooding my mind. I’d have to push that out of my thoughts
for the day. I needed to focus on the very important visit coming
up. It would be hard, though. All I wanted to do was think about
Grayson and his smile and his body and his wicked mouth.

Right at fifteen minutes later, I
emerged dressed, made up, packed and ready to go. Grayson was
standing in front of the window looking out. He was dressed in a
bronze colored polo shirt and chocolate dress pants. It was the
most casual attire I’d seen him wear and I thought he’d never
looked yummier.

We had pancakes at IHOP. Grayson got a
kick out of my rapturous consumption of the syrup-soaked treat. It
seemed he got more pleasure out of watching me eat and enjoy my
food than he did his own.

All morning, our rapport had been
lightly intimate and very playful, but as we neared the front steps
of the psychiatric facility, our mood sobered
considerably.

The dayshift crew had little to say
about Grayson coming with me to visit my mother, so we walked the
halls side by side behind the male nurse that took us to
her.

When it seemed we’d walked a lot
farther than I’d had to last night, I was about to ask the nurse
about it when a huge common room came into view. The nurse stopped
and spoke in hushed tones to an orderly that was standing watch
just inside the door. The orderly pointed and I followed his
finger.

My mother stood in one corner of the
room in front of a window. A shaft of sunlight was shining in on
her, setting her coppery hair on fire. It fell in one straight
shining sheet to her waist. She stood facing an easel and she
wielded a paint brush with the ease of someone long accustomed to
holding one. The look on her face was fierce, like she was thinking
of something unpleasant as she painted.

I weaved my way between tables and
around wheelchairs until I was standing in her line of sight, just
in front of her easel.

“
Debbie?” I said quietly,
uncertain how to address the woman who’d given birth to me, the
woman I hadn’t seen since.

Without looking up she said, “Who’s
your friend?”

I glanced behind me where Grayson had
come to stand. He was looking at her over my shoulder. His brow was
wrinkled a little. I didn’t know if it was the bright sun or this
situation that was working on him.

“
This is Grayson. We’d like
to talk to you if that’s alright,” I said in a cool monotone, not
wanting to upset her.

Her eyes left the canvas and locked
onto mine. “Don’t treat me like I’m crazy,” she snapped. “Or like
I’m an imbecile. I’m neither.”