Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRIFFIN
An instant later, his mouth is on mine.
This time, there’s no danger, no pretense of adrenaline. This is pure want, and I’m kissing him back before my brain can even form a protest.
Beckett’s hands frame my face, thumbs stroking along my cheekbones as he deepens the kiss.
He nips at my bottom lip with his teeth, and I make a sound that’s part gasp, part moan.
His minty-sweet tongue tangles with mine, and I feel like I’m one of the balloons the little kids have been running around with all morning. I’m floating. Untethered to reality.
I’m not the Griffin who stared down at Times Square and imagined having it all. I’m not the Griffin who lost everything in one fell swoop. I’m not even the Griffin who literally can’t find his way into a pickle barrel. I’m just a beating heart, an aching chest, a creature of the here and now.
And I can’t get enough.
“Fuck,” I whisper when we come up for air. My head is spinning. “We—this is—”
Beckett growls, “I know,” but he doesn’t stop and—fuck, again—neither do I. In fact, I grab his shirt in both hands and yank him closer.
His mouth moves to my jaw, then my neck, and I have to bite back a whimper when he finds a spot just below my ear that makes my knees go weak. His teeth graze my skin, sending shivers down my spine, and I can feel the heat pooling in my groin.
For the first time, I realize we’re in some kind of enclosed garden. The big patio space is filled with empty wrought-iron tables and chairs, giant planters filled with late-season herbs, and fairy lights strung overhead that glint in the sunlight. A heavy-duty fire door leads into a building.
Beckett has me backed against the fence just like he backed me against the tree the other night. And there’s a part of me that thinks I should, at the very least, object to consistently being the back-ee instead of the back-er…
But another part is wondering if they make shirts with lumbar support—or lumberjack support—because I apparently have a latent fetish for this lumberjack backing me into things.
With Beckett’s body solid and warm against mine, I can feel how hard he is through his jeans.
The realization sends heat shooting straight to my dick, and I arch against him helplessly.
His hands slide down to my ass, squeezing and pulling me closer, the friction between us almost unbearable.
I swear I can feel every ridge of his cock through the fabric of our pants.
“Jesus, Griffin,” he breathes against my throat. “What are you doing to me?”
I want to tell him I have no fucking idea, that it’s him doing it to me, that he needs to stop because we don’t even like each other.
Instead, I slide my hands under his shirt and run my palms over the broad expanse of his chest.
Beckett’s skin is fever-hot and scattered with soft hair. When I brush my thumbs over his nipples, he makes a guttural, wounded noise, so I do it again… and again. Then I pinch them lightly, and his hips buck against mine.
“This,” I gasp. “I’m doing this.”
He growls again, low and rough, like the sound’s been pulled out of him. Then he kisses me, hungrier this time, and I give up all pretense of resistance. My hands map the muscles of his back, the solid width of his shoulders, while his hips press forward in a rhythm that’s driving me fucking crazy.
Crazier.
Whatever.
Beckett’s hands are everywhere, touching, exploring, claiming. One hand slides down to cup my cock through my jeans, and I let out a startled moan into his mouth.
“We should stop,” I manage to say when he breaks away to suck at the spot where my neck meets my shoulder again. “Someone could come out here—”
That’s not even number one on my list of reasons I shouldn’t be doing this, but all the real reasons are slip-sliding through my brain like water.
“I know,” Beckett groans, but his hand is still shaping me through my jeans. “We should definitely stop.”
I should make the call. Be the strong one. And any minute now, I will. Because I prefer my hookups uncomplicated and well-planned, with guys who know exactly why we’re there, so there’s no risk of messy emotional entanglements.
Beckett Axford is six-plus feet of complication.
A Gordian knot of entanglement. But with his mouth hot on my skin and his body moving against mine, I can’t remember why any of that matters.
All I can think is that, in my entire life, no man has ever made me feel as good as this man I shouldn’t want.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, arching into him. I thread my fingers through his dark hair and tug until he lifts his head to look at me.
Beckett’s blue eyes are wild, his pupils blown wide, and there’s something almost vulnerable in his expression that makes my chest tight… probably because I feel that same vulnerability in me.
His lips are a little chapped, like he’s been chewing them all day—probably literally biting them so we could solve clues without fighting. I find myself wanting to kiss them gently. To fix that small thing for him. To make him feel better, like he tried to do for me earlier.
And whatever this fever that’s gripping us is, it’s not that.
It’s not a let me make you feel better thing.
It can’t be.
“Griffin?” he says, like it’s a question or a plea.
In answer, I surge up to kiss him again, pouring all my confusion and want and frustration into it.
He responds immediately, one hand sliding up to cup the back of my neck while the other fumbles with the button of my jeans.
Then my zipper is down, and his hand is sliding inside, wrapping around my cock.
The feel of Beckett’s hand on my bare skin is so fucking electric, it’s like I’m a teenager having his first behind-the-gym frot again—totally primed, coiled, and ready to explode just from that one simple touch.
It should be mortifying. It’s not.
Because it turns out grumpy-as-fuck Beckett Axford—who’s also surprisingly intelligent, shockingly funny, and even unexpectedly kind in a way that isn’t sticky with pity—wants me badly.
Despite all the reasons he should, he can’t walk away any more than I can.
So for a second, I forget the last few months of heartache and bullshit. All the stuff that’s made me question who I am and what I’m worth and all the things I’ve done wrong. And I let myself feel powerful.
I reach for his jeans, my own fingers trembling as I undo his button, pushing the fabric down when his zipper won’t cooperate because I need to get my hand on him too. When I finally do, his mouth opens on a soundless groan.
Beckett’s fucking huge, which isn’t a surprise but is nevertheless a thrill. He’s hot and thick, his tip already slick with precum that I use to lubricate my strokes.
We start moving together, our hands working in tandem, tugging and squeezing… driving each other wild like we’ve been doing this for ages. Like we know each other. The sensation of his cock in my hand is like a drug, and I’m addicted to the way it twitches and throbs in time with my heartbeat.
But then Beckett nudges my hand away and wraps his larger hand around both our cocks, his grip firm and sure. He starts to jerk us together, his cock moving against mine, his strokes long and deliberate, driving us both closer to the edge.
Pleasure makes my whole body coil tight.
“Fuck, yes,” he moans when I bite down gently on his shoulder, and his hips stutter.
I’m right there with him, the pressure building low in my belly made so much worse by the way Beckett’s looking at me, soaking in every flicker of my reaction like he can’t look away.
“Beckett, I—” I start to warn him, but then his mouth is on mine again, and I’m gone, coming into his hand with a muffled cry against his lips. He follows a second after, his whole body shivering and shuddering as he buries his face in my neck.
We stand there reeling and clinging to each other, like we’ve just had a tornado blow over us.
Beckett’s hand curls around the back of my shirt in a tight fist, like he’s anchoring himself.
His breath ghosts over my skin in uneven, shallow bursts.
His heart hammers against my chest, and the smell of pine and sweat feels almost familiar. Comforting, or something.
And that—the sensation of comfort, the most innocuous thing in the midst of this whole… un-innocuous encounter—is what makes my brain plug back in and say, What the fuck, Griffin? Because comfort equals complication.
Of course, the universe decided my first real orgasm in months would come from a guy I—almost definitely—dislike.
I let out a shaky breath and aim for humor. “So. Have I, uh… convinced you that we should head to the community center yet?” It comes out raspy and wrecked.
Beckett lifts his head and looks at me, and then he laughs—not the bitter sound I’ve heard him make before, but one that’s warm and wraps around me like a hug.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says, and the affection in his voice makes my heart flutter.
Red flag. The reddest of flags. Danger, danger.
We both hear a scuffling sound, followed by the dull thunk of a lock being turned on the opposite side of the fire door. “Yeah! You can come over whenever, Robbie. Since when do you ask? Did you want me to— Oh, I see. No, of course she can. I mean, she’s your girlfriend, so—”
Beckett and I jump apart like we’ve been electrocuted, scrambling to right ourselves. Before I even register what’s happening, he shifts in front of me—his broad back suddenly between me and the fire door, shielding me from view as we fumble with our jeans.
The gesture is instinctive, protective, and somehow hits me as hard as the orgasm.
I tuck myself away, pull up my pants, and try to adopt a casual expression. I don’t know what Beckett’s doing to clean his hand, and I refuse to think about it.