Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Honey
Suddenly I’m sliding down a deliciously firm and muscular body. A firm and muscular body with a suspiciously large bulge in a suspiciously sexy place, and oh my goodness, my body shivers just feeling him hard and pressed against me.
This—this—is everything I need. All the blood in my body rushes south so fast my head is spinning. Or maybe that’s due to the fact I almost died falling from the roof and Gryff has once again come to my rescue.
My toes touch the ladder just as a terrible growl reverberates through him. Claws prick my belly. Sharp teeth close around my throat. He yanks me close, and then we’re sliding down the ladder in a rush so fast it feels like we’re falling. I scream. We hit the ground with a jolt.
He growls again, louder. His teeth tighten, and I wonder for a moment if I’ve done something wrong. “Gryff!”
His jaws loosen. “Get down!”
He drags me through the front door and dives beneath the table, holding me against him, which would be exciting except the delicious bulge is gone and I’m getting a really, really bad vibe about this.
“Gryff?”
“Just stay down. Any movement could be detected.”
“Detected by what?”
“Drones. Didn’t you see that enemy drone fly over?”
Enemy drone? Oh! The war. He’s having some kind of vivid flashback.
I wriggle in his arms until I’m facing him, which is incredibly intimate given we’re still lying under my parents’ table and pressed up against each other. “Gryff, I think you’re hallucinating. It’s not real."
“You’re talking rubbish, Macguire. I’m going back out for the others. You stay here. Stay down.”
He tries to roll away, but I grab his shirt and cling to him, wrapping my legs around him. “Gryff! Listen to me. You’re home. You’re safe. We’re all safe.” I have no idea if this is the right move or if I’m about to get pounded into the floor by a scared and desperate werewolf.
“No, I—” His brow furrows, and he stares at me.
His shape has changed since he started acting strange, face longer and teeth sharper than before. His ears have lengthened into pointy wolfish ones on top of his head, and extra hair has sprouted on his arms. He still looks like Gryff, though.
Hesitantly, I reach up and put my hand on his face. As it settles against his cheek, he presses his eyes closed for a moment and the shape of his face returns to fully human.
He is quiet for a long time, then he shudders and seems to come back to himself. “Did I hurt you, Honey?”
“No. Of course not.” He scared me a little, but that’s not the same thing. Besides, I can’t imagine Gryff ever actually hurting anyone. Not on purpose.
He turns away, rolling to his knees and brushing himself off without looking at me again. I already miss the warmth of him all down my front despite the sweltering heat of the day and the unbroken storm that’s been threatening in the dark clouds all morning.
“This is why I keep away from people.”
“Wait.” I scramble from under the table as well and make a far less elegant rise to my feet. He probably catches a glimpse of my underwear too, but given he just climbed up a ladder beneath me, I’m guessing there’s a good chance that’s already happened once today.
I brush all my silly thoughts aside because right now it’s Gryff who needs me, and I can’t bear for him to walk out on me again like this.
“You didn’t hurt me, Gryff. And you don’t have to keep away from me.
You can even talk to me about it, if you like.
God, that’s the least I can offer when you’ve helped me out three times in as many days. ”
He opens his mouth, and for a moment I think he’s going to open up a little. Then something changes. Something closes in and presses his lips together in a firm line. “We’ll need to replace those tiles I broke getting you down. Storm’s coming.”
Broken tiles? I didn’t notice anything except the hot, firm press of his body on mine, but I guess I’m glad one of us is being practical. “Right. It’s fine. I can get someone out tomo—” A huge crack of thunder interrupts me, and we both look at each other for a beat.
“I’ll go get some new tiles. I should make it back before the storm hits.”
“I’m coming with you.” I snatch my keys from the kitchen counter.
Gryff shakes his head. “Just stay here.”
His expression looks so forlorn, so closed off. Despite my best efforts not to get emotional, my lip trembles. Something tells me it would be a bad thing for Gryff to be alone right now.
He lets out a long sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face and through his tousled hair. “I can’t do tears from you right now, Honey. Just get in the truck.”
I hurry to follow his instructions before he changes his mind.
The trip to the hardware store is made in silence.
I wish Gryff would talk to me, but I don’t want to push him.
I can tell he’s feeling embarrassed about what happened.
Well I guess that’s what he’s feeling, but he’s so rigidly silent and won’t even look at me.
I could be completely off. He might be angry, but the silence doesn’t feel to me like an angry one.
Not really. Or at least, beneath the anger, I sense something else.
At least he let me come with him.
Poor guy. Dad said he’s been through some stuff. I guess that didn’t really mean much until I got a tiny glimpse of it firsthand.
Imagine still having flashbacks after all this time.
The trouble is, the longer we sit in silence, the more opportunity my mind has to stray back to that moment on the ladder.
The moment when I brushed up against something so big and hard and impossible to miss that it’s challenging what I’ve believed about Gryff all along.
He said he wasn’t interested in me, but he was hard.
I mean, I guess there’s a chance it wasn’t related to me at all, but how likely is that when I was pressed up against him, molded to him in almost every place a man and woman can fit together.
All except the one warm and very wet place he could have—
I sigh and cross my legs, turning away from Gryff to look out the passenger window.
I hate that I’m thinking about that now.
Sometimes this side of me gets really old.
Besides, I didn’t feel the surge of power I would normally feel.
Brushing it off as my imagination, I resolve not to think about that anymore.
The moment he parks the car, I open the door and hurry out, desperate to put some space between us. These feelings aren’t good. Bad things always happen when I let this sort of pent-up energy build inside me.
I really should have made him wait five minutes while I got out the wand again, but just the thought of the look he gave me last time he told me to go inside and take care of myself has a little trickle of moisture sliding between my already wet lips.
Fantasizing about him while I make myself cum is probably not the smartest move until I figure things out.
I can tell it’s getting out of hand when I can’t sit next to him in a car for five minutes without getting dirty thoughts.
Besides, five minutes definitely wouldn’t have been enough, and there are already fat raindrops splattering on the windshield.
He follows hot on my heels into the hardware store, and I’m so flustered I turn down the first aisle I pass without really knowing where I’m going. When he talks, his words tickle the back of my neck and trail phantom fingertips down my spine. “You good, Honey?”
“Yeah. Me? Haha. I’m fine.” I’m anything but fine.
The quicker we get the tiles and get out of here, the better.
Then I only have to suffer through the car trip home, and since I’m apparently the only one affected by whatever this is sizzling between us, that’s fine.
I’ll just disappear with my wand for the rest of the afternoon. The rest of the week?
Oh god, why do I feel like I could masturbate myself into oblivion and never erase that little flutter of excitement I get when I think about him?
Right now it’s everyone else in the hardware store I’m worried about.
His low growl ripples over every single nerve. “You’re not fine, though. Are you?”
By this point my hurried steps have taken us to the bottom of the store where pallets of fertilizer and fake grass are stacked on enormous shelving units that reach to the ceiling far above us.
At least the pungent smell of the fertilizer might cover my growing problem for now.
“Look, let’s just find the tile section and—”
Gryff steps into my space, his warmth and raw masculine energy erasing the last of my self-control. I stop talking. I’m not even sure I could finish my sentence if I wanted to.
“How many times did you cum earlier?”
My cheeks heat, but I meet his gaze. “Three.” It should have been enough.
Ordinarily it would have been, but this man!
The more I’m around him, the more my attraction to him refuses to be ignored.
At first I was fascinated by him because he wasn’t interested.
It was exciting to be able to let down my guard around him.
But what if he really is interested and has been all along?
Does that mean there is a hope for me after all?
A hope of finding someone I actually like who likes me too and won’t be turned into a mindless zombie the second I touch him?
What would it feel like to touch Gryff? To tear apart the buttons on his shirt and shove my hands inside to rub against the rough hair that covers his hard belly.
I whimper, pressing my legs together around the need that throbs in my clit.
God, I’m so out of control. This is worse than normal.
Nothing like I’ve ever experienced before.
Is it getting worse? How am I supposed to be around other people like this?
His deep voice snaps me out of my spiraling thoughts. “Clearly not enough.”
“It’s fine. I’ll just—”
A strong hand closes around my arm, and he tugs me forward. “Follow me.”