The muscles in his neck were straining, and his sinewy arms were anchoring her to him, effectively keeping her in place, forcing her to submit. “Come in me, Wade. Now. Let me feel you fil ing me.” That was al it took. He drove into her fast and hard, pumping like a man gone mad. One last thrust, and he was there, pouring every ounce of his hot seed inside of her pussy.
Gracie let her legs fal to the bed, her chest rising and fal ing as if she’d run a marathon. Wade unlocked the handcuffs, but stayed inside her, staring down at her with fathomless eyes. Suddenly unsure of herself, Gracie looked away.
He cupped her chin and brought her gaze back to his. “You rock my world, Fiery Angel.”
Gracie smiled. Wel , okay then.
“Tel me about your parents.”
Wade felt Gracie stiffen against him. Shit, he’d known opening that can of worms would ruin the mood, but he was intensely curious about her. Gracie was so closed up, holding everything inside. It was time she learned that she could trust him with more than just her body.
“We just made love, and you want to chat about my mom and dad?”
It probably wasn’t the right time, but he couldn’t stop the curiosity. He wanted to know what had made her the independent woman she’d become. The woman he’d been lusting after like some lovesick fool. “Got a problem with that, Gracie?”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. Had Wade not been so attuned to Gracie, he would’ve missed the slight tensing of muscles. “What do you want to know?”
Ah, so she thought to make him play twenty questions. “Everything. And don’t give me an outline either. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, Gracie.”
She started to get up, probably wanting distance between them now. He tightened his arm around her, keeping her cuddled up next to his body. He wasn’t about to let her go. No way in hel . “Where are you going?”
She glared at him. “Isn’t Jonas coming over soon? I thought he was going over those e-mails today.”
“He’s waiting for my text message.” She started to speak, but he stopped her with a finger to her lips. “I know you didn’t have it easy growing up. I have a fair idea why, too. But I want to hear it from you, baby. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
She frowned, and Wade thought it was adorable. “I’m not hiding anything.”
“It makes you uncomfortable, though,” he pushed. He wouldn’t al ow any barriers between them.
She sighed and relaxed against him. “It’s not a pretty picture, Wade. No white picket fences. No cookies and milk waiting for me when I got off the school bus either. My mom was never in the picture. I have no memories of her at al . My grandmother helped raise me, and she was very kind. But she was sick a lot, and she could only do so much. She died when I was ten years old. That left me alone with Dad.”
The sadness in her voice tore a hole in his heart. “And he’s an alcoholic,” Wade inserted, remembering the bel igerent ass who’d shown up at the hospital. How could such an obnoxious fool raise someone as sweet and loving as Gracie? It boggled his mind. He ached for the little girl who had no one to love her, to read stories to her at bedtime. No mother to play dress up with or look up to. He could stil remember Deanna playing with his mother’s makeup and toddling around on heels five sizes too big for her tiny six-year-old feet. What had it been like for Gracie?
“Dad was manageable,” she said, her voice soft, faraway, as if caught in the past. “When Grandma was alive, Dad was actual y kind to me.
She would get on him, and he’d stay sober about half the time. Grandma tried to shield me from his . . . bad days.”
He coasted his hand down her back, soothing her the only way he could. “When she died the drinking got worse?”
“Yeah. He’d go on binges, be gone for days at a time. I did okay, though. Grandma taught me how to take care of myself. By the time I was seven I could cook, do laundry, mop, and do dishes. She even showed me how to balance the checkbook. Now that I look back, I think she was trying to prepare me. I think she knew she wasn’t going to be around forever, and she wanted to do the best she could by me. It was her daughter who left, after al . I think she felt guilty for having raised such a selfish person in the first place.”
Wade reached down and pul ed Gracie’s thigh over his. He needed her close. He needed her to know she wasn’t alone. Never again. “It sounds to me like your grandmother loved you. I don’t think it was al out of guilt. Some of it, but not al .”
She placed her injured wrist on his chest, her fingers playing with his chest hair. He didn’t think she was even aware of what she was doing; her mind wasn’t in the present. “No. You’re right. I’m not being fair. She did love me. She used to pray every night that Mom would come back.
That Dad would get better. She always believed his drinking was a sickness. She couldn’t admit the truth, not even to herself.”
“The truth?”
“Yeah. Grandma couldn’t bring herself to admit that Dad would never get better. That he liked wal owing in self-pity. He enjoyed making me feel guilty for ever having been born. As if it were my fault his wife left him.”
If he’d known what she’d gone through, Wade would’ve beaten the shit out of the asshole at the hospital. He wanted to make him pay for hurting Gracie. “We al make our own choices. He and your mom, they made their beds; they have only themselves to blame. But that doesn’t explain why you choose to keep bailing him out. Why not let him deal with the consequences of his actions?” Silence greeted him. Several seconds stretched by before Wade asked, “Gracie?”
“He’s the only family I have. I don’t expect you to understand. I’m not even sure I do. But, I don’t know, I guess I’m not quite ready to give that up yet, Wade.”
The sadness in her was heartbreaking. He’d thought he could handle anything after serving in the army. He and Jonas had seen some bad shit during their tour, but nothing had prepared him for Gracie’s unshed tears. And that’s exactly what it was, he knew with sudden clarity. Hel , he wondered if she’d ever al owed herself to cry. Always so strong, so cool and col ected. It kil ed him to see her like that. He wanted her blazing hot again. Moaning and writhing beneath him. The way she’d been before he’d opened his big mouth and touched the wounds of her childhood.
“Are you sore?”