Too Much Temptation by Lori Foster

soften him.
    He’d learned to cover it up, but he’d never conquered it, and now, with Grace standing before him, her body soft and warm and timid, he felt every single rising surge of that primitive past. “These things?”
    His tone brought out her wariness. “Drunken men, sex talk, the combination of the two. It doesn’t mean anything.” She shrugged and again retreated. “It’s okay, Noah, really. If I’d been thinking, I’d have realized…well…” She glanced up at him, then away. “I’d have known you didn’t want me.”
    There were a thousand and one reasons why he couldn’t get involved sexually with Grace Jenkins. None of them mattered in that moment. “You blind, Gracie?”
    “I…what?”
    “You know what a boner looks like?”
    Her face went comically blank, then she shook her head so hard her hair whipped over her shoulders. “Not exactly, no.”
    Noah damn near smiled. Honest, silly Grace. She forever amused him at the most surprising times.
    Noah dropped his arms to his sides and braced his feet apart. “If you’re feeling adventurous, I can drop the towel and show you.”
    Her back straightened. Her gaze crept down his body with agonizing precision until she stared at the way his towel was now tented. “Oh.”
    “Whatdya say, Grace?”
    She reached out and flattened a hand on the wall for support. “I need to sit down for this.”
    “I want you, Grace. Never doubt that.”
    With her eyes still south of his navel, she swallowed hard, licked her lips, nodded. “I already said okay.”
    “It’d help,” Noah ground out, “if you’d demand an apology or something.”
    Grace snorted. “I’m not stupid.” She forced her chin up and met his gaze squarely. “Besides, I want you, too.”
    Drawn against his will, Noah moved to stand in front of her. She made him feel savage, but she also made him feel protective. “Everything is a mess right now, Grace. No way can I get serious with another woman, no way do I even want to.” Her big eyes were direct, unblinking. “All I want, all I really need, is sex.”
    “Okay.”
    Noah squeezed his eyes shut. “I wasn’t finished.”
    “Sorry.”
    He looked at Grace and saw heated anticipation in the way her eyes had darkened and dilated, in how her cheeks flushed. In how hard she breathed. Signs of arousal, and damn but he felt them, too. The woman could make him insane.
    “Grace, I’m not a refined man.”
    Her lips curled, her eyes got heavy. “You are the best of men.”
    “No, damn it!” Her faith humbled him, but he had to make her understand. “I was raised more on the streets than not. I’m hard, inside and out.”
    “I know.” She gave his chest and arms a telling look. “Your body is…well, I’m speechless. You’re magnificent.”
    His hands curled into fists; the little witch was seducing him and he had to make her understand. “I like to work hard, play hard, and I like to fuck hard.”
    Her mouth slowly fell open.
    “I can pull my punches in a lot of ways when it comes to dealing with others, to fitting in with my grandmother’s world.”
    “It’s your world, too,” she insisted fiercely.
    Noah wrapped one arm around her waist and covered her mouth with his free hand. “Quit trying to defend and protect me and just listen to what I’m saying.”
    Eyes rounded, Grace curled her hands onto his shoulders for balance, but she nodded.
    “You’re right that what happened last night only happened because I was drunk. No, damn it, don’t start looking embarrassed again. If I hadn’t wanted you all along, it wouldn’t have happened. But I did, and then you showed up here and…I was just drunk enough to stop thinking about what I shouldn’t do and start thinking about what I’d like to do instead.”
    “Noah.” Her lips moved against his hand, igniting him. “We both want the same thing.”
    He pressed his fingers more firmly against her mouth. “I want sex. Hot, wet, grinding sex. I want a woman who’s