Chapter Fifteen Ruby #3
We were both laughing, his arm warm where my shoulder brushed against it as we walked.
I kept my arms crossed over my chest, staying behind the booths and games so that we could remain out of sight—him so that we didn’t get stopped, me because I wasn’t trying to win any wet T-shirt competitions.
Since the sun had gone down, there was a chill in the air I hadn’t felt all day, and I shivered.
Griffin laid a hand on my back, and the warmth of his palm had my eyes falling closed.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, jogging off toward the parking lot.
After I wrestled with the key, the door to the high school opened with a creak, and I waited just inside, leaning against a cinder block wall until Griffin approached with some dry clothes in hand. I fixed a smile on my face and pushed open the door for him.
“Thank you,” I said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking around like this.”
He handed me the shirt, lifting his chin in a nod. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”
My hands tightened around the soft cotton, and it served as an effective visual shield to my see-through shirt. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Not gonna leave you alone in here, Ruby.”
I sighed quietly, slightly relieved by that. “Okay.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Just around the corner.” I swallowed tightly, the absolute stillness in the big, empty building reminding me of us being together in my office.
Maybe me and Griffin and empty buildings should be avoided at all costs, because there was something sinful about it, the warm pulse of temptation filling in the space between each breath.
He walked a few steps with me, and I kept his T-shirt pressed against my chest, lest he get an eyeful of nipple. It was distracting enough seeing his.
Instead of going all the way into the bathroom, I simply walked around the corner of the cinder block wall until I was out of sight, peeling my wet shirt off and tossing it onto the ground, where it hit with an audible slap.
The sound was loud enough that I winced, because immediately following was a sharp inhale from Griffin.
It was all so unbearably and unintentionally sexy.
I was holding the shirt so tightly that my fists trembled. Even though my bra was damp, too, the warmth from his shirt—probably from sitting in a hot car—was practically narcotic. It smelled like him too.
Instead of quashing anything, I sucked in a deep, fortifying breath and let the flutters go wherever they wanted.
“I wish I was the type of person who knew how to take advantage of these moments,” I said, the words out before I could stop them. In truth, I didn’t want to stop them.
I didn’t want to stop whatever this feeling was, because it was powerful, sleek and strong and addicting.
“What moments?” he asked, voice just around the corner from where I stood.
With my eyes pinched shut and my forehead pressed against the cool cinder block, I let out a shaky exhale. “Moments of opportunity. I’ve never really known what to do with them. And this is . . . this is one of them, isn’t it?”
“God, Ruby,” he groaned. “It is.”
The sound of his voice, rough and desperate and so very, very close, made me tremble all over.
Everything was getting jumbled in my head—what we were doing, what we shouldn’t be doing, and what I wanted to do. None of it was clear anymore, and somehow, in all that confusion, the only thing that seemed straightforward was that I wanted him.
“Griffin,” I whispered, not even sure if he could hear me.
“Look at you,” he whispered.
I froze, head snapping up as he caged me in completely. The heat of him—tall and broad and impossibly warm—swamped my entire frame, even though he wasn’t actually touching me yet.
Yet.
My eyes fluttered shut, my breath coming in embarrassingly loud pants as I waited for the yet to turn into something else. It was a word filled with so much promise, wasn’t it? A vow of action that hung thick in the air between us.
With his hands braced on the wall on either side of my head, Griffin inhaled slowly, his nose brushing over the crown of my hair, his chest lightly brushing against my naked back.
For a few seconds—impossibly long and delicious—we stood there, simply breathing in the moment and letting it expand into something else. If he was waiting for me to pull away, he’d be waiting a long time.
“Please,” I whispered.
Griffin let out a rumbling groan, his hands curling into fists on the wall. One dropped down, and I stilled, the anticipation yanking goose bumps on my arms while I tried to guess where he’d touch me first.
My back.
The brush of one finger along my spine, like he was closing a zipper, following it all the way up, up, up, dancing over the clasp of my bra until he reached the base of my skull.
For a brief, breathless moment, his hand curled possessively around my neck, his nose dragging along the edge of my ear while he held me anchored in place.
It was that firm hold that had me melting, forehead resting against the wall again. His hands coasted over my skin, one down my shoulder and along the length of my arm, the other following the line of my back until he ghosted his fingertips over the curve of my ribs.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, his mouth brushing over my shoulder, laying soft kisses over the side of my neck.
I was holding his shirt so tight to my chest that I feared my fingers might snap, and no matter how badly my more rational brain screamed that I should do exactly that, my throat lost the ability to make sound, my tongue the capability of forming speech.
No, I didn’t want to tell him to stop.
And it was the first time in my life where I wanted to ignore all those responsible thoughts and good-girl tendencies and let this moment fray at all my usual impulses, my typical responses.
When I didn’t say anything, Griffin eased himself against me, his towering height and absurd muscles against my back in a way that had me pushing my hips against his.
He was hard.
So hard. And holy shit, so big.
His hands curled around the sides of my hips, tugging me back against him more firmly. “That’s it,” he groaned. “That’s how much I want you, baby.”
My eyelids fluttered shut at the nickname, that these mindless moments were the only time he allowed it to slip. I wanted to do so many things: Grip his wrist and push it down beneath the waistband of my shorts. Push it up and feel the blunt tips of his fingers pluck at my aching nipples.
I just wanted him to touch me, wanted to allow this moment to unspool into something bigger than both of us. Bigger than him and me and the whole blissful world that we’d constructed the last week. We were the only ones who existed in it, and I found a selfish satisfaction in that.
No one knew we were here. No one knew it was like this between us.
That he did this to me, and I did this to him.
Griffin licked at the line of my neck, nosing at my jaw until my head turned in his direction. His hips rocked against me, and he dipped at the knees, his hardness rolling between my backside in a way that had me whimpering helplessly.
The sound had him swearing into my skin, his hands demanding that I turn in his arms with firm, sure movements.
The moment I did, he slid those hands underneath my ass and boosted me up against the wall, pressing me into place with his unyielding strength.
My legs wrapped around his waist, my hands still clutching that shirt trapped uselessly against the wall of his chest while Griffin slanted his mouth over mine.