“Sleep.” Despite how loving he’d sounded just a minute before, his face looked tense and tight.

“What?”

“I waited for you almost all night. The doorman said Henry went upstairs with you, and he never came back downstairs.”

“You waited all night?” I asked, my heart contracting.

“Yeah, more or less. Uh…were you with Henry?” he asked.

I could tell he wasn’t trying to accuse me, and I felt so terribly bad for not calling him.

“No. He tried to kiss me, and he tried to force me to let him stay.” I shuddered at the memory. “But he had a room in the same hotel. That’s why he never left.”

It was like a weight he had been carrying around all week had suddenly been lifted. I brought his hand to my lips and softly kissed it.

“I love you, Grant. We might have been in an argument, but I would never do that to you.”

“I know,” he said at last. “I know. I love you, too.”

And the sigh out of his mouth showed how utterly relieved he was.

When Grant finally pulled up in front of his place, he eagerly escorted me out of the car, inside, and up to his bedroom. He kicked the door closed behind me and removed the jacket he had given to me. My fingers worked just as quickly, stripping him out of his own jacket and reaching for the button on his jeans.

His lips found mine again, and all the gentleness from earlier was gone. He kissed me with primal desire. He wanted me, and nothing would stand in the way. His hands tugged on the new dress the girls had gotten me to wear tonight. I found the zipper and tugged it down to the base of my spine where Grant then dropped the material to my feet.

His hands grasped my breasts, and he massaged them. He rolled the nipples around between his fingers, causing me to squirm, but he kept kissing me. He dragged my bottom lip between his teeth. My eyes fluttered closed at the practiced ease with which he ignited my body.

Soon, he released my lip and dropped his mouth to the hollow of my throat. Then, he replaced his hand with his tongue. He circled my nipple and then lightly tugged on it. I shook with desire.

God, how did he do that so well?

My mind was having a hard time coming up with any logical thoughts, except that Grant was pretty amazing at this and my body had missed him.

Grant pushed me backward, so I was lying on my back on his bed. He grasped my panties and tugged them to the ground, and then he hitched my legs up onto his shoulders. There was only a second before his tongue touched my clit, and I was arching off the bed. His fingers probed inside me, and then I felt the world spinning.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

With Grant, I had learned to just let him have his way with me. He liked to get me so worked up that I thought the world was going to shatter all around me. I already felt as if I was reaching that point.

“Are you going to come for me, Princess?” he murmured between my legs.

“Come with me,” I pleaded.

I dug my fingers into his hair, hoping to coax him upward, but he just flicked his tongue across my clit again and again.

“Please…”

But he didn’t listen to my begging. He worked on my body until I was soaking wet, soaring through my climax, and panting on the covers.

Grant dropped his pants and then crawled onto the bed, lying down flat. His dick was hard and throbbing, and I got to my knees, reaching out and grasping him in my hand. He groaned and grabbed me by the hips, positioning me on top of him. I slipped against him, coating him with the wetness he had created between my thighs, before slowly dropping down on top of him.

“Fuck, Princess.”

I lay there for a minute without moving, feeling how deep he was inside of me. A few months ago, I hadn’t felt this comfortable in my own skin. But how could I not be when Grant was staring up at me as if I were a real-life princess? I was one who he had properly deflowered, and he was ready to make me into his own sex goddess. It was enough of a boost of confidence to make me forget about clinging to my apprehensions.

Grant’s hands slid up my bare back, and he drew me down to rest lightly on his chest. I ran my fingers up into his hair. He cast soft butterfly-light kisses all over my face, and his right hand brushed the hair out of my eyes.

“I love you,” he murmured in a sexy dazed voice.

“I love you, too.”

Then, he started moving. Slow, languid movements were in direct contrast with the way he normally took me. He wanted to take his time. He wanted to feel us skin-to-skin—my breasts against his chest, my fingers in his hair, his dick slipping in and out of my body. Our eyes locked, and I knew then that Grant wasn’t fucking me. Our bodies might be meeting in time, but this wasn’t just sex for him—or for me.

We were making love. Our hearts were connecting. And if the world ended in that moment, we would be at peace.

The orgasm that rocked through my body made me cry out and clutch on to Grant for support. He came with me, burying his head in my neck. I rocked back onto him one last time and then collapsed as if I’d just run a marathon.

He groaned in pain. “Ari, can’t…I can’t breathe.”

I sat up immediately. “Are you okay?”

In the midst of our sexual encounter, I’d forgotten that Grant was in pain. Oh God, had everything we done made it worse?

“I’m fine, Princess. Go clean up, and we’ll talk.”

I stared down at him, concerned, but he nudged me off of him.

“Go on.”

I dutifully cleaned up in his bathroom. When I returned, Grant had a soft light on in the room, and it was the first time I got a glimpse of his body.

I gasped in horror, and my hand went to my mouth. “Oh my God! What happened?”

He looked bruised from head to toe. His arm was bandaged. How had I not noticed his arm was wrapped up? Jesus, I must have been so desperate that I had let this go on while he was injured.

A phone rang loudly from under the bed. Grant scrunched up his features. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What?”

“I thought I’d lost it on the embankment.”

My eyes widened. “What embankment?”

“Can you reach down and get it for me?”

I glared at him. I was so pissed that he wasn’t giving me a straight answer on anything. If he was this injured, then we should never have had sex. He looked like he needed medical attention.

But I dropped to the ground, grasped the phone, and held it out to him.

He stared at it. “Another unknown number.”