Winning With Him (Men of Summer #2) by Lauren Blakely

Buzzes with desire.

Kiss me, I want to say.

But I need him to be the one to do it.

Need him to finish what he’s starting.

This test.

It sure as hell feels like a test. Like he’s dipping a toe in the waters of his own desire, checking the temperature.

Come on in, rookie. The water’s nice.

He says nothing, but the noises he makes tell all. The low, velvety rumble from his throat sounds like coming home.

“Mmm. Want to kiss you so fucking badly,” he murmurs, and if death by desire is possible, it just happened to me.

Yes, some do say the world will end in fire, and that’s fine by me.

I am officially dead.

And I’ve gone to dirty heaven when Grant drops his lips to mine.

He kisses the breath out of me.

My God, it’s better than before. My memories didn’t lie. Time didn’t erase us. We are still fire.

That’s how he kisses me—like the world is burning down around us, and this is how he wants to go—up in flames, stoked by this passion.

His lips are greedy. His mouth explores mine like kissing me is the missing piece. Like this is what we’re falling back into.

This heat. This connection. All this possibility.

It’s like a whole new first kiss as his mouth takes over, owning my lips. A heavy warmth spreads in my body, along my thighs, down to my dick, where it sets up camp.

I’m aching with arousal. Hungry to get reacquainted with this man.

But I’ll take whatever he’s willing to give—and give he does. He kisses deep and hard, his tongue skating over mine, his lips feasting like we’ve never done this before and it’s all we ever want to do.

He groans as he kisses me, and his noises ignite flares of pleasure. Here, there, a spark, a flame, a fire. They make me moan too, and our mingling sounds are like jet fuel. This kiss is rocketing to the stratosphere, powered by harsh breaths and hot growls, and now . . . hands.

His hands cover me. Those big, strong hands that I’ve missed.

With one palm, he holds my head while his other snakes around my waist to my back, then covers my ass.

Curling over me. Squeezing possessively.

My entire head turns hazy.

Neon lights flash everywhere in my mind as my body becomes like Vegas lit up at night, blinking, broadcasting its wishes across billboards, blasting its desires on sound systems across the whole city.

He is all my desires.

And maybe, just maybe, I’m still his, I think as he yanks me against him, letting me feel what I do to him. The same damn thing he does to me.

Everything.

That’s when I take over.

With his back against the counter, I slam my body to his. I press and grind against him, grabbing his face, holding him tight, devouring those lips I’ve missed. Kissing him all night long sounds like exactly what I want to do. Rubbing my beard against his clean-shaven jaw draws out a wild groan from him. From me.

We kiss feverishly, in a hot frenzy of need, of want, of coming back together.

But soon, he slides a hand down my chest, gently pressing me away.

Breaking the world’s sexiest kiss.

And I want to whimper.

He runs his thumb along my beard. “I like this,” he says, all hot and needy. “A lot.”

“Good.” I let out a staggered breath as he strokes my jaw, and my gaze drifts to his hand on me. “I like that. A lot.”

A smile curves his lips for a split second, then his expression turns serious as his eyes meet mine. “I needed to know.”

My brow knits. “Know what?”

“If it still felt the same,” he says, lust coloring his tone, but a hint of sadness too. “Kissing you.”

“The verdict?” I ask, hoping his answer rocks my world.

“It’s better,” he says heavily. “That’s the problem.” He slides away from me, tips his forehead to the living room. “Let’s talk.”

Kissing was never the hard part, but talking has always been tough.

But it’s time to start.





17





Declan





As soon as Grant joins me on the couch, I dive off the cliff.

“My father is an alcoholic. He started drinking when I was in grade school. It got worse and worse. Arguing, fighting with my mom, lobbing accusations at her.”

It’s like an excavation, digging into this. It feels like a bulldozer is scooping out my insides. “He’d accuse her of cheating—which she wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him. If she was happy, he figured she was cheating. If she was sad, he figured she missed her boyfriend. She didn’t have a boyfriend; she was just trying to keep her shit together and to help him.”

“Ah, man. That sounds so hard,” he says gently, his hand inching closer to mine on the cushion.

I record that response, how his gut reaction is to touch me. To reassure me with contact.

“He started drinking more, even when he was coaching my baseball team. Like, I could tell something was off. He was boisterous.”

“He was coaching . . . under the influence?”

“Yeah,” I say, still embarrassed at the memories of those days when I started to understand the fine differences between tipsy, buzzed, and drunk. “Soon, he stopped coaching because he missed too many practices. Then he was just a dad. A dad who showed up at my games drunk.”