18. Griffin
CHAPTER 18
GRIFFIN
Shy Riley doesn’t come out to play often anymore, but the nervousness radiates from his hunched shoulders and downcast eyes as he shows me to his room.
There’s a dresser, an air mattress, a nightstand, and a shelf of neatly organized books, but that’s it. A couple of Riley’s personal items are scattered about, but otherwise it’s barren of any personality.
I drop the duffle bag by the door and take in the man with his hands shoved in his pockets and his freckled cheeks the same shade of red as his hair.
“It’s getting long,” I say, taking one careful step forward at a time until I can reach out and run my fingers through the strands of hair dangling around his eyes. It creeps down his neck and over his ears—longer than he’s ever kept it.
“Hasn’t been a priority, I guess.” He smiles with the smallest upturn of his lips.
“Maybe we should make it one.” I drag both hands through his hair and cup the back of his head, his eyes widening as the space between us dwindles until we’re a breath apart.
Every wisp of life in my body draws me to Riley, begging me to hold our mouths together until our hearts and lungs ache and their rhythms sync.
“You left me,” I say, because I need the painful truth off my chest.
Riley’s eyes flick away from mine, and I grip his hair to regain his attention.
“I did.” His voice is cracked and raw like sandpaper on concrete.
“You really thought I’d let you?”
I press forward so our chests collide, so his breath puffs hot against my face, and I can barely brush my lips on his.
“Griff …”
His mouth moves, and mine follows, my hands holding him in place.
“Say it,” I whisper, letting my lips trail his cheeks, his chin, to the sweet spot just below his ear. “Say what you told me on the phone.”
Nothing in the world is more heartbreaking than hearing your boyfriend admit how much he cares about you as he’s breaking up with you.
“Baby.” Finally his hands circle my waist, pulling me flush so our bodies hold every point of contact. “I love you so much.”
All of the passion, regret, and fear in this behemoth of a man’s body pours out with the words, and something inside of me cracks open.
It doesn’t matter that Riley is bigger, broader, and all around stronger than me. It doesn’t matter that I like when he lets loose and throws me around.
I dig my fingers into his neck, the others groping at his ass so I can feel every inch of him.
Two weeks where I haven’t kissed, touched, or held Riley, and now I need it all at once.
“Say it again.” I drag his lip between my teeth and swipe my tongue into his mouth, listening to the sinful, pleasured moans that pass between us.
“Griffin.”
I hold him tighter, harder, and he gasps when I roll my cock into his thigh.
“Say it, Easton. You owe it to me.”
His hands wrap around my shoulder blades, mouth leaving mine to scrape his beard along my jaw.
“I love you, Griffin Foster.”
“Damn right, you do.” I draw him back and slam my mouth into his hard enough it forces him backward.
Just a step, but then I push harder, and he goes another. I don’t stop until his back hits the wall, and I throw my hands up beside his head to cage him in.
“Unless you’re done with me,” I break away to gasp the words, “I won’t let you leave. Until there’s no part of you that wants to claim my body and heart, I won’t let you call this off.”
I pin his hips with mine and rock us together. I’m hard, and I want to feel the warmth of his hand, his mouth—hell, I’ll take rutting between his thick thighs or firm, round cheeks at this point.
Two weeks of no sex and being too damn depressed to jerk off is finally catching up with me.
“That’s it, baby.” Riley’s head thunks the wall as he groans out his breathless command. “Use me. I deserve it.”
“Damn right, you do,” I repeat the sentiment from before, angling my hips to find his own aroused length and grinding against it.
It’s like I’m not in control of my own movements, our bodies rolling together like ocean waves crashing and seeping into one another.
I grasp at his hair, his shoulders, his hips, thrust my hands under his sweater to claw at his ribs like a deranged animal because he’s right .
He deserves my frustration.
He deserves my desperation.
He deserves for me to love him so hard his soul quivers beneath my fingertips.
Our tongues find sanctuary in each other’s mouths, hands seeking to anchor, and chasing pleasure with every hitched breath we share.
I’ve never felt a need as strong, as overwhelming and bone deep as the need to fall apart in the arms of a man I love so damn much I’ve hidden part of myself away for two damn years just to have him.
Riley’s beard is slick with spit as it scrapes my cheeks raw, but I don’t part from his demanding mouth until the heat in my guts spills over. Until I’m pulsing like an overexcited teen in my pants, dropping my head to Riley’s shoulder as little orgasmic waves ripple along my body.
He doesn’t ask for anything in return, just holds me to him.
We stand there in silence as the cum dries, leaving a sticky residue in its wake.
We stand there as he softens, as he cards a hand through my hair and whispers into the electric air, “I’m sorry.”
This time, I believe him.
Standing half naked in my boyfriend’s family’s bathroom should make me a little self conscious, but in all fairness, he’s also half naked, so we’re in this thing together.
By ‘thing’ I mean the process of cutting and dying Riley’s hair despite his protests because I needed to do something with my hands other than lay in bed and rub them all over him.
One orgasm and a love confession aren’t going to fix my abandonment issues.
“This feels aggressive,” he mumbles as I scratch my fingers over his scalp, working in the bleach.
“You spent two weeks ignoring my calls and forcing me to take my repressed feelings out on the ice. You’re lucky that aggressively doing you a favor is my worst.”
His fingers close around my wrist, and I look up to catch his eyes in the mirror. There’s a towel draped over his shoulders, and the gray storm clouds watch me carrying a hurricane of emotions I can’t even begin to dissect.
“You could’ve been done,” he says soft and ragged. “You could’ve given up on us when I left. You should have.”
I shrug. “Do I look like someone who has any self-preservation? I’m a goalie; insanity is practically in the job description.”
He doesn’t laugh, but his smile settles deeper, like a piece of Riley I’ve never quite been able to reach is coming through.
“I mean it, Griff. I love you, and I want to want the people close to us to know it, but something isn’t right up here.” He taps his temple, and I make sure to snap the gloves I’m wearing a little extra hard as I toss them in the trash.
“Why tell me that you were ready when you weren’t?”
“Because you deserve?—”
“What I deserve,” I say, placing my hands on his shoulders and peering at him through the mirror, “is honesty.”
He drops his eyes, and I drape myself across his back, careful to keep the bleach off my face as I lean in close to his ear.
“We’re in this together, Riley. You can’t go off into your own head creating all these worries about us without talking to me about them.”
His fingers find mine as they walk down his chest.
“If I tell you, I’m afraid I’ll lose you.”
I bury my face in his neck, breathing in the chemical fumes and the musky smell of his skin.
“If you don’t, we’ll lose each other. Little by little. Piece by piece. I don’t want that for us.”
His breath hitches, and he squeezes my fingers.
“What do you want?”
I kiss up the prominent vein in his neck up to his jaw. “You want the cheesy answer or the honest one?”
“I don’t think there’s a difference with you.”
He turns his head, and our mouths brush. There’s no pressure, just skin on skin as we stare into each other’s eyes.
“Forever,” I whisper. “I meant it when I said you were it for me.”
“What if that scares me?”
I frown and pull back, but the earnestness in his expression keeps me close.
“What if I can never give as much of myself to you as you give to me?”
His fingers hold mine in a death grip, but I free a hand to grasp his face in it.
“It’s not a competition. This isn’t hockey. There are no scores. No W. Give me love and honesty, and we can fill in the rest.”
Riley’s hand comes up to the back of my neck, drawing me close and kissing me with all the determination of a player who’s been riding the bench all season itching for action.
I step around the stool he’s been sitting on and lower my weight to his lap while keeping us connected. His hands linger on my hips, and my arms around his neck tighten.
Without the urgency from before, I can focus on the feel of his lips moving against mine, the broad sweeps of his tongue that I meet with fervor, the warmth of our bodies that whispers home in a heavy sigh.
“I love you, Riley,” I gasp when we separate. “I fucking love you.”
That’s what it comes down to.
Love.
Fighting for it.
Proving that we’re worth that fight.
“What can you tell me about my brother?”
Parker plops beside me on the couch where I’m scrolling through holiday programming while Riley and his dad work on a nearly ten foot Christmas tree in the backyard. I offered to help but was informed it was a father-son bonding experience while Riley mouthed “Save yourself” behind his back.
“Other than that he’s a kick-ass hockey player afraid of a little tinsel?”
Parker snorts and peers around me to the back door.
“Usually Riley doesn’t get home until Christmas Eve, so Mom and Dad always wait to put the tree up and decorate so we can do it as a family. It’s a force of habit by now. Apparently we’ve had that tree since Riley was a kid, so no indoor present opening for us.”
The deadpan look this kid gives me nearly has me toppling over with laughter.
“I know loads about his hockey scores and his childhood, but as a person, I don’t know much about my brother.” Parker shrugs, and I pull out my phone.
“What do you want to know?”
“Huh?”
I chuckle as I add everyone but Riley to a group chat. “I’ve only been around two years, so I figure we could use some backup. What I don’t know, I can pass on to the guys and get for you.”
Parker’s face lights up, and it’s a look I’ve seen enough time on my sister’s face that I know exactly what I’m in for.
“Dad keeps asking him about girlfriends, but he’s never brought one home or talked about one. Is he a man-whore?”
The wide grin tells me he’s already having way too much fun.
“Absolutely not,” I laugh. “Your brother is very passionate and private.”
“You’re his roommate. You have to have seen him with someone.”
There’s that blooming ache that starts as a pressure around my heart and expands to a crushing weight on my ribs.
“That’s not really my business to tell,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to think girls are gross anyway?”
Parker rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “I think sex is gross, not relationships.”
Right. Perfectly reasonable distinction.
“That stuff is supposed to be important,” he mumbles. “Who you are with other people. I just want to know him.”
Before I went after hockey with everything I had, my sister and I used to wrestle in the mud. We’d chase each other down riverbanks, skip over train tracks, and pretend we were warriors on the lam. Only a few years apart, we were as close as two siblings can be.
These days, we make an effort to keep each other in our lives, and even though it’s only a handful of times a year, sometimes I wish I still knew the little girl with dirt in her hair and pride on her face as she proudly proclaimed her name from the treetops.
I can’t imagine never having that connection with her.
“Settle in,” I say, reclining back and throwing my arms over the cushions. “Because I’ve got stories.”