My eyes want to roll, but they refuse to leave his face. “I did my research before I took the position.”
For a moment, that grin flashes into a genuine smile. “‘Course you did.”
Then that smile disappears and the shell moves, crossing over my neckline and onto my shirt. He pauses there, flipping the shell, so that its blunt edge presses into my skin through the fabric.
Then he starts to drag it.
The gentle scrape iswicked,tracking down, down—ohmygod.The abrasive edge passes directly over my nipple, and my chest arches up before I can smother the instinct.
“You wonder if I know my way around,” he drawls, looping low across my belly with the shell, and starting a track up toward my other breast. “But the thing is—” he pauses as the edge passes over my nipple, and my chest jerks again— “I farm oysters for a living.”
That wicked scrape draws a track down the center of my chest, past my belly button, pausing just above the juncture of my thighs, where I’m already soaked. Helplesslydrippingwith need, and he hasn’t even touched me with his hands. “Which means I’m exceptionally good at finding pearls.”
The shellflips again, and he presses the rounded exterior to my throbbing core.
My entire body jolts, and yet a small laugh still manages to escape my throat. “No way you just used that line out loud.”
His fingers increase their pressure, and my breath catches. “Like you once said, I only know how to speak in shellfish.”
Another laugh bursts from my gasping lungs.
There’s some sort of witty remark waiting in my head, I’m sure, but I’ll never know, because the shell disappears, and the next sensation I feel is his rough fingers at the edge of my shorts. My laughter dies away.
The only thing that exists in my head—in the world—is his strong body engulfing me, the smell of his hot skin, and those fingertips playing at my thigh, inches from where I burn.
His eyes are molten gold when they meet mine, and he dips his head, speaking his next words against my lips. “Tell me, Eliza.”
Tell me.
Permission. He’s asking for permission. To touch me, to cross the line we’d etched in permanent marker when we first met.
I nod, incapable of coherent words.
Grayson doesn’t delay.
Like he needs it as much as me, his fingers slip under the fabric and bury themselves beneath my panties, slipping against me.
“Fuck, you’re soaked.” The curse is low and strained against my lips, his fingers stroking long and slow.
My hips tilt up, needingmore—pressure,speed, words, for the life of meI don’t know—just whatever will get methat release that’s wrapping bands around me, threatening to explode. I’ve never been more turned on my life and I just, Ineed?—
“There it is, that pretty little pearl,” he murmurs, grazing my clit with two fingers.
Ego be damned, Imoan,eyes squeezing shut. Those fingers become knuckles, rubbing, again and again, eliciting more moans from my chest.
“And those are some pretty sounds,” he grits out. His knuckles trap my clit and squeeze. Lightning shoots up my spine.
Not skipping a beat, two fingers slip into me, stretching me, while his thumb continues circling. “Should’ve expected it, with how fucking pretty everything else about you is.” His voice is stiff, strained, the words like gasoline to waiting flames. His hips meet my thigh, a long, rigid bulge pressing into me. His fingers rub, and stroke, and flick.
Within seconds, I’m gone.
A cry shoots straight from my throat as I come all over his fingers, harder than I think I’ve ever come before. His fingers stay there, caressing me, until the last trembles drain from my body and awareness begins to seep in.
I pant, feeling the sand beneath my head, the breeze washing over my cheeks, as his fingers slip from my shorts. Maybe I should be embarrassed, self-conscious about how desperate I just was, but Grayson appears just as affected as me, his face pulled in tense lines, his erection grinding against my side.
He’s looking at me like I’m the only thing that exists in this salt pond, like I’m some kind of wonder, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves, caught up in some kind of spell.
Then, in one smooth motion, he threads a hand into my hair and kisses me.
