Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
An hour had passed since Griffin revealed that her late husband had saved his life. With Griffin’s permission, she’d phoned Jesse’s new burner to let him know she was okay, then decided to sit on the balcony and try to read. The temperature had dropped a few degrees as evening settled in, and it really was too chilly to be wearing the bikini she had on.
Considering all the sexy lingerie and bikinis among the clothes purchased for her, she had a sneaking suspicion that a man had done the shopping. A woman would have gone with comfort, especially knowing Savanna wasn’t actually there on vacation. But then again, maybe that was the cover story Carter put out there.
Savanna laid Griffin’s phone on the dresser and peered at her reflection in the mirror above it. Her breasts were dangerously close to spilling out of the bright blue triangles of the bikini top, but the tiny black bottoms tied precariously at her hips were kind of sexy. She did a little spin and noticed her ass looked pretty damn good in the thing.
“I’m losing my mind,” she mumbled under her breath. “I’m not on vacation.” But she needed to distract herself from the chaos. To not focus on the past for once or get lost in the fear of unknowns. So many unknowns. Particularly the possible ramifications of Nick’s actions.
She considered reading again. Slipping into bed and back into a fictional world where she’d be safe. It was a smoking hot mafia world too. But while she was reading on the balcony, it’d been hard to focus on the fictional man living on the pages because she longed for the flesh-and-blood man who was literally somewhere in this fancy safe house, half-naked and dripping wet.
“Screw it.” Maybe she couldn’t have Griffin, but she could imagine it, right?
After slipping off her bikini bottoms, she pulled down the blue cover on the bed and slid between the cool sheets, then pulled the top sheet up to her hips. She closed her eyes and allowed her hand to slowly wander over her top, down the smooth skin of her stomach, and finally between her legs. It seemed she’d become some sex-crazed woman the moment Griffin had walked into her life not even two days ago.
A hell of a lot had happened in those two days, not the least of which was an indescribable connection with Griffin, one that went beyond desire. But the man seemed to be honor-bound by his history, brief though it was, with Marcus. And he was doing his best to deny that connection and keep himself from giving in to the desire she knew he felt. So for right now, her only recourse, short of throwing herself at him, was to get herself off like she’d done back at the cabin.
Only now she could call up the memory of his mouth devouring hers, his tongue slipping between her lips, and his fingers pinching her nipple. But best of all, the way he’d brought her to a shattering orgasm.
She strummed her fingers over her clit, finding her sex already soaked at the idea it was Griffin’s hand instead.
Her nipples strained against the small triangles attempting to contain her breasts, and she bit into her lip to stifle a groan as she imagined Griffin taking her over his knee and spanking her for touching herself instead of waiting for him to do it.
She wasn’t sure why that fantasy popped into her head because she wasn’t even into that . . . or was she? Because the thought of Griffin spanking her ass, demanding that she take her punishment, made her even wetter.
His large palms rubbing soothing circles over her stinging bottom afterward, telling her how well she did, then tossing her onto the bed and bracing himself over her naked body.
Bringing his lips right against her ear and hissing, You belong to me, and only me, as he settled the crown of his cock between her thighs and pushed into her in one shockingly swift movement that’d have her back arching off the bed.
Damn, she was close to coming just thinking about Griffin dominating her like that. Pleasuring her. Owning what Savanna wanted to be his.
She rubbed harder and faster, her breathing accelerated but then . . .
She stopped on the cusp of her orgasm, one she was dying to have, and cursed under her breath. “I want you,” she whispered. “I want it to be you touching me.” She swallowed and opened her eyes. Talking to myself. Great. But she needed to feel a man’s hands on her. A man’s touch. Griffin’s touch.
Savanna lifted her hand from her oversensitive sex and got out of bed, washed her hands, and put her bikini bottoms back on.
She cinched the tie of a short silk robe she found hanging in the bathroom closet—and wow, they really did think of everything—then opened her bedroom door to go search for Griffin.
One of Carter’s men stood at attention across the hall. Of course, Griffin wouldn’t just leave me alone.
Smiling, she asked, “Do you know where Griffin is?”
The man’s gaze quickly skated from her face to her bare feet and then back up to her face. “I believe he’s at the pool. I’ll escort you there.”
“Thank you. And how long have you been with Carter?” she asked as they walked, curious if he’d be tight-lipped or willing to shed some light on the mysterious Carter Dominick.
“Two years, ma’am.”
“Military?” she asked, noting the polite but serious tone in his voice and his deference toward her.
“Air Force previously,” he said while stealing a quick look at her before returning his attention to the frosted glass door on approach. The hours of operation were still printed on the door from when the place had been a hotel.
He stepped aside and held it open for her. “Thank you. And thank you for your service,” she added, and he nodded before turning away to give her privacy with Griffin.
Did he suspect there was something going on between them? How?
And is there something between us? She let go of her thoughts as she spotted Griffin swimming in one of the lanes, alone inside the room with a decent-sized pool in it, and a hot tub off to the right.
She let go of a nervous breath while unfastening the robe, then tossed it onto a chair. When she looked back toward the pool, Griffin stood in the middle, swiping his wet hair back with both hands and staring as though surprised to see her there.
Water rolled down his bruised chest, and his broad shoulders arched back when he dropped his palms onto the surface of the water. She hadn’t yet had a chance to really study the ink wrapped from shoulder to elbow on one side, but her fingers itched to touch him there.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Will that thing fall off in the water if you do?” He tipped his head, dark brows drawn together as he pinned his gaze to her breasts.
“Blame whoever went shopping for me. Carter clearly didn’t know the size of my breasts.”
Griffin scowled and opened his mouth as if he were about to say, He sure as hell better not , but then slammed his lips together into a hard line.
“Are you a peach or a cherry man? Which is your weakness?” she blurted as she watched his eyes laser-focused on her breasts. “My guess is cherries.” She sent him a playful smile, hoping to cover up her what-the-hell-was-I-thinking moment.
He tipped his head to the side and dropped his focus lower as if trying to check out her ass. “From where I’m standing, both.” The seductive way he spoke sent a flare of heat through her body and down into her toes. “Sorry,” he said with a shake of the head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I started it,” Savanna reminded him in a soft tone.
“Easton see you in that?” He stalked toward her, revealing more of his magnificent body as he moved into the shallow water.
“Air Force guy?” She turned toward the door as if she expected to see him standing guard there, but it was closed, and when she shifted around, Griffin’s palms were splayed on the concrete of the pool’s edge.
“Did he?” Griffin repeated in his growly voice, the one he used whenever he mentioned Shep. Jealousy?
“Just in the robe.” She took a step closer to the edge of the pool and looked down into his eyes, the dark lashes appearing thicker now that they were wet. She was two seconds away from becoming lost in those deep brown irises when he popped up from the water in one quick movement, taking her by surprise.
“I don’t like that, either,” he rasped before circling his arms around her body and falling backward into the pool, taking her with him. Another shock.
“You’re going to hurt yourself,” she scolded after whipping her wet hair back from her face. Her eyes landed on his bruised torso, but he didn’t seem to be feeling any pain at the moment. His gaze was solely focused on her body. “Also, you’re lucky the water isn’t cold.”
“Yeah, and why’s that?” he teased, his voice laced with desire.
She peered at Griffin’s large hands patting the top of the water at his sides, splashing a little water in her direction. But she was caught up in the view of the vein in his forearm that ran up his bicep. So damn sexy.
And now, she couldn’t help but think about that hand spanking her. She just might come undone right there in the water with him inches away, all wet muscles and sexy hair.
She fingered her own wet locks and rolled her tongue over her bottom lip, doing her best not to reach out and run her hands over the hard wall of muscles gleaming before her.
“I heard you, you know. When you were touching yourself.”
Well hell, this wasn’t what she’d expected.
And also . . .
What?!
“How? You were already in the pool and?—”
“Sugar, were you touching yourself before you came out here?” he asked in a low, sexy voice.
“I . . . I thought that’s what you were talking about,” she stammered. “Wait . . . you heard me at the cabin?” When he nodded slowly, the devilish look in his eyes bolstered her nerve. “What’d you do after?” she whispered.
Tell me that you stroked your cock while you pictured me touching myself, and I’ll suck you off right now.
“You know what I did,” he muttered, then turned his hand palm-up on the water, inviting her to take it.
And when she did, he clasped their hands together and yanked her closer. Her free hand landed on his chest while his slid around to the small of her back.
Griffin pulled their linked palms under the water as she silently counted his rapid heartbeats pounding beneath her fingers. But she wanted to feel her nipples pressed against him instead.
Apparently, he did, too, because his hand traveled up her spine and untied the knot at her back, then swept up to her neck and did the same, allowing the little triangles to drop free from her tits and fall into the water between them.
“Looks like I have only one weakness, Sugar,” he said as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and guided her hand away from his chest. “And that’s you.”
Griffin let her hand drift free from his under the water, then firmly cupped her ass with both palms. Dark eyes pinned to hers, he gave her a little boost and guided her legs to wrap around his hips, all the while never breaking eye contact. The way he was looking at her made her a little speechless. Like he was finally seeing her as a woman and not just Marcus’s widow.
She linked her wrists behind his neck as he moved into deeper water, keeping her back to the door, probably worried someone might walk in on them. The man didn’t like to share—that much was obvious. And it was a hell of a turn on.
Once her breasts dipped below the surface of the water, he leaned in and skated his tongue along the seam of her lips, demanding she open for him. A demand she was more than willing to comply with. Butterflies took flight in Savanna’s stomach when a deep moan vibrated from Griffin’s chest as their tongues met, and he reached up to caress her breast.
She groaned against his mouth and wriggled her pelvis closer to him, feeling the bulge in his swim trunks fighting against the material.
“I need to fuck you,” he rasped between kisses, which he was basically doing, just with his tongue. In and out. Rough with intensity, followed by a slow dance. If his kisses were any indication of the rest of his skills, well, heaven help her, she’d probably set off the security system with her moans. “I have to be inside of you,” he added in a low, husky voice as if the world depended on it. As if the walls would crumble around them if he didn’t take her right then and there.
He cupped the nape of her neck as he continued to hold their mouths close and tortured her now with slow, sweeping movements of his tongue. Licking her lips like he was separating the folds of her pussy instead.
“You have no idea how badly I want you,” she confessed, then realized maybe he did have a clue based on the hardness of his cock she couldn’t help but rock against.
“Not here,” he hissed. “I can’t have someone seeing you naked while I fuck you into?—”
“No, don’t stop. Keep going. Tell me what you want to do to me.” Her nipple hurt as he pinched her, but the best kind of hurt that went straight to her clit.
Griffin nipped her lower lip and pulled her back with his grip on her neck, then broke their mouths apart to peer into her eyes.
He released her breast and slipped his hand beneath the fabric of her bikini bottoms. They were in the water, but she knew he’d be able to tell the difference between that and the slickness between her legs. She was beyond ready for him.
“I’d splay you on your back and spread your legs wide before kissing my way down your body until my tongue found the tight walls of your pussy,” he said while breathing hard, his chest rising and falling against her body. “I’d eat you like you were the sweetest dessert. Until you fluttered around me and begged me to fuck you. Only then would I slip my cock between your pussy lips, just the tip, just for a moment before ramming into you in one?—”
“What the hell?”
Griffin had let go of his words at the voice booming from behind her, and Savanna wanted to cry. Not because they’d been caught.
But damn it, because now Griffin wouldn’t finish what he’d started. And she needed to hear more. Needed for him to follow through on his words and give her what she desperately wanted. Him.
Savanna unlocked her legs from his hips and found the pool floor, but Griffin kept her body pinned to his to protect her near nakedness.
She couldn’t believe Natasha’s brother had caught them wrapped in each other’s arms in the pool. Would Griffin get fired?
“I have news,” Gray said a moment later when neither she nor Griffin managed to formulate any type of explanation as to why they were in the pool together, and she was topless. Oh yeah, and she had been on the brink of riding his hand to get herself off. “Meet me in the lobby in five.”
She waited for the door to click shut before her shoulders dropped, and she searched for her floating bikini top in the water.
“Are we . . . is he going to . . .?”
“Fire me?” Griffin finished for her while securing her top, but he didn’t give it back to her yet. “No, I’ll be fine.”
She reached for her top, but he shook his head. “It’ll take only seconds to dry off. A minute to walk there.” He threw the top toward the steps of the pool. “But I like to be on time, so that leaves us with a little more than three minutes to make you come. And guessing by how wet you are, I’ll need less than two.”
Holy hell. Not what she expected. But damn, it was what she wanted.
He pulled her back into his arms and hoisted her up, his strong arms holding her as he strode through the water. He set her on the ledge of the pool, hopped out for a second, grabbed a towel, then set it on the floor before directing her to lie down.
“What if someone else walks in?”
“They won’t.” And the man seemed confident because like hell would he let someone else see him going down on her.
She wordlessly watched as he followed through on his promise, taking control of her the way she wanted him to do.
He peeled her bikini bottoms down, pausing for a moment to stare at her smooth, aching pussy, then he tossed the bottoms over his shoulder. She sat up on her elbows, needing to watch this man’s face dip between her legs, a visual she’d never forget for as long as she lived.
His scruff teased her inner thighs as he set his mouth on her sex, eyes lifting for a moment to catch her staring at him before resetting his gaze to her center. And when he flicked his tongue against her clit, she couldn’t help but moan his name.
She desperately wanted to slip her hand through his hair and guide his movements, but she couldn’t stop watching this man devour her. Because wow. Wow, wow, wow.
His tongue stroked up and down in soft, fluid movements. It was slow and sweet and painfully teasing. And just when she was about to beg for more, he thrust two fingers inside her and curled them up, stroking against that bundle of nerves while sucking on her swollen nub.
Two minutes with his mouth on her? She wanted a lifetime. But today, she’d be lucky to last one minute.
She captured her bottom lip between her teeth to resist crying out his name—or calling out to God—and her head tipped back and her arms went lax as the orgasm started to crest. She landed on her back, careful not to bang her head on the cement as she let the ecstasy take control.
Her body trembled, and she squeezed her thighs together, unable to handle him between her legs anymore. The pleasure was almost too much to handle. She’d never . . . this was . . . unbelievable. And new. And she wasn’t sure how to untangle what that meant, so she chose not to.
“You okay?” Griffin asked while rising to his knees a moment later, and she sat back up on her elbows, her focus falling to his shorts, and she realized he’d be the one suffering now.
“I’d be better if you could slide inside of me and screw me like you wanted to.”
He leaned down and set his lips to her belly button before kissing up to her mouth. “Tonight, sweetheart,” he said after pulling back slightly and pinning her with a look filled with desire.
“You promise?” She was scared he’d remember those lines he insisted were there, and he’d change his mind. Now that he’d had his mouth on her and knew he was capable of obliterating every thought, worry, or problem with only a kiss, how could she not want more?
He shot her a devilish grin. “The only one capable of stopping me from taking you tonight,” he began while bringing his mouth against the shell of her ear, “would be you.”