3. Hannah
— ? —
Hannah
Griffin proves it that night.
We barely make it through the front door before his hands are on me, urgent and desperate, like he’s trying to pour everything he can’t say into the press of his body against mine. The car ride’s tension dissolves into heat the moment the lock clicks behind us.
“I need you.” His voice is rough against my throat. “Right now. Need to show you.”
“Show me what?”
“That you’re mine.” He presses me against the wall of our entryway, his body caging mine, his hands finding my hips and pulling me against him so I can feel how hard he is already. “That I’m yours. That nothing else matters.”
I should push him away. I should tell him that sex isn’t a substitute for the conversation we need to have.
But his mouth finds that spot beneath my ear that makes me shiver, and his hands are sliding up my thighs, pushing my dress up, and God, I want him.
Even when I’m angry. Even when I’m hurt.
I want him so much it scares me sometimes.
“Griffin…”
“Just let me have you.” He’s already working the zipper of my dress, tugging it down my back with hands that aren’t quite steady. “Let me make it up to you. Please, Hannah. I need this. I need you.”
The dress falls to the floor, and I’m standing in our entryway in nothing but my heels and underwear. His eyes rake down my body, hungry and possessive, and I feel the heat of his gaze like a physical touch.
“Beautiful,” he breathes. “So fucking beautiful. How did I get this lucky?”
He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist instinctively, my back hitting the wall again. The rough texture scrapes against my bare skin, but I don’t care. His mouth is on mine, and his hands are everywhere, and I can’t think about anything except how good he feels.
He carries me to our bedroom without breaking the kiss, which shouldn’t be possible, but Griffin has always been coordinated like that, athletic, a man who treats his body like one more asset to maintain.
He lays me on the bed and stands over me, breathing hard, his black eyes burning in the dim light from the window.
“Tell me you know,” he says. “Tell me you know there’s no one else.”
“Griffin…”
“Say it.” He strips off his shirt, and God, the sight of him never gets old.
Broad shoulders, defined abs, that V of muscle disappearing into his waistband.
He’s been beautiful since the day I met him, and he’s only gotten more so, like he’s aged into his looks, grown into a man who commands attention just by walking into a room. “I need to hear you say it.”
“I know.” My voice comes out thready. “I know there’s no one else.”
“There never will be.” He crawls over me, caging me with his arms, and I feel surrounded by him, his heat, his scent, his want. “You’re it for me, Hannah. You’ve always been it.”
When he kisses me again, it’s slower. Deeper.
Like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my mouth, the taste of my tongue.
His hands work the clasp of my bra, and when he pulls it away, he just looks at me while the seconds stretch, my breasts rising and falling with each rapid breath, my nipples already hard and aching for his touch.
“So fucking perfect.” He traces the line of my collarbone with his lips. “Every inch of you. I don’t tell you enough.”
“You tell me plenty.”
“Not enough. Never enough.” He cups my breasts in his palms, thumbs brushing over my nipples until I gasp. “I’m going to spend all night making sure you know.”
He’s true to his word.
Griffin takes me apart piece by piece, with his mouth and his hands and words murmured against my skin like prayers.
He kisses down my body with agonizing slowness, pausing to suck marks into my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my breast. When he reaches my stomach, he spreads his hands wide, spanning my waist, and looks up at me with eyes so dark they’re almost black.
“Mine,” he says, and the possessiveness in his voice sends a shiver down my spine. “Every part of you. Mine.”
He hooks his fingers in my panties and drags them down my legs, tossing them somewhere behind him. Then he spreads my thighs and just looks at me, wet and wanting, open to him completely.
“Christ, Hannah.” His voice is reverent. “You’re so fucking pretty. Here, especially. The prettiest cunt I’ve ever seen.”
“Griffin…”
“I could look at you all night.” He traces a finger through my folds, feather-light, teasing. “But I’d rather taste you.”
He lowers his head and licks a slow stripe up my center, and I moan so loud I’m sure the neighbors can hear. He doesn’t seem to care. He just settles in like he’s got nowhere else to be, licking and sucking and fucking me with his tongue while I writhe beneath him.
He sucks bruises into my inner thighs. He slides his tongue inside me and curls it in a way that makes my back arch off the bed. When he finally focuses on my clit, circling it with the flat of his tongue while two fingers pump inside me, I shatter within minutes.
“That’s one,” he murmurs against my oversensitive flesh. “I’m aiming for at least three more.”
“Griffin, I can’t…”
“You can.” He crawls up my body, his cock hard and leaking against my thigh. “You will. I’m going to make you come until you can’t remember any name but mine.”
He fills me in one slow, deep push that pulls a groan out of both of us. The stretch is everything, how he fills me completely, how his body covers mine, how his eyes never leave my face.
“Look at me.” His command is soft but absolute. “Hannah. Look at me.”
I force my eyes open. His face is inches from mine, sweat beading at his temples, his jaw tight with restraint.
“This,” he says, and rolls his hips in a slow, devastating rhythm. “This is everything. You are everything.”
He sets a pace that’s almost cruel in its restraint, long, deep strokes that drag against every nerve ending, that hit spots inside me that make my toes curl. Every time I try to speed things up, rolling my hips or reaching for him, he pins my hands above my head and slows down even more.
“Patience,” he murmurs against my ear. “We have all night.”
“Griffin, please…”
“Please what?”
“Please, I need more. I need…”
“I know what you need.” He rolls his hips in a slow circle, grinding against my clit, and I whimper. “But I’m going to make you wait for it. I want you desperate. I want you begging.”
He fucks me like that for what feels like hours, slow and deep, building me up and backing off, building me up and backing off again. By the time he finally relents, I’m nearly crying with need, my nails dragging down his back hard enough to leave marks.
“Griffin, please…”
“Not yet.” He pulls almost all the way out, just the tip inside me, and holds there while I whimper. “I want to hear you beg.”
“I’m begging. I’m begging, please…”
“Please what?”
“Please make me come. Please, Griffin, I need…”
He slams back in, and I scream.
He flips me over, drags my hips up, and takes me from behind, harder now, rougher, the slap of skin on skin echoing through the room. One hand fists in my hair, pulling my head back. The other reaches around to find my clit, rubbing tight circles in time with his thrusts.
“So fucking tight.” He groans. “So fucking perfect. Made for me, Hannah. This pussy was made for me.”
“Yes…” I’m barely coherent, face half-pressed into the pillow, hands fisting the sheets. “Yes, only you, only ever…”
“That’s right.” His pace increases, brutal now, and I can feel the pressure building, coiling tighter and tighter. “Come for me. Come on my cock, Hannah. Let me feel you.”
I shatter. The orgasm rips through me so hard I see stars, my whole body clenching around him. He follows with a groan that sounds like my name and a curse and a prayer all at once, spilling inside me in hot pulses.
We stay there, both of us trembling, trying to remember how to breathe.
He pulls out slowly and collapses beside me, gathering me into his arms, pulling the covers over our sweat-slicked bodies. We lie tangled together, his chest against my back, his hand splayed possessively over my stomach.
“After the Myer project,” he murmurs into my hair. “I mean it. We’ll try.”
I stare at the wall, cataloguing every time he’s said those words: after Austin, after the rebrand, after this launch, after that acquisition, after one more quarter of growth.
“You said that before.”
“I know.” He presses a kiss to the back of my neck. “But this time I mean it.”
“You meant it every time.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and I wonder if I’ve pushed too far. If I’ve finally said the thing that can’t be smoothed over with sex and promises.
“I want a baby with you, Hannah.” His voice is soft and sincere.
“I want to watch you grow round with our child. I want to argue about names. You’ll want a classic and I’ll want a ridiculous one, and we’ll compromise on something neither of us expected.
I want to build a nursery. Paint the walls some color we’ll both hate after a year.
Buy too many stuffed animals. Do all of it. ”
My chest aches. This is what I want. This is what I’ve wanted for years.
“Then why do you keep putting it off?”
“Because I’m scared.” The admission comes out rough, like it costs him something to say.
“Because having a kid means everything changes. And right now, with the company, with Myer, there’s so much that could go wrong.
I want to give you everything, Hannah. I want to give our kid everything.
And I’m not sure I can do that if I’m spread too thin. ”
I turn in his arms so I can see his face. He looks younger in the dim light, vulnerable in a way he rarely lets himself be.
“I don’t need everything,” I say. “I just need you. Present. Choosing us.”
“I know.” He brushes a strand of hair from my face. “Three more months. Let me finish this thing with Myer, and then I’m yours. Completely. We’ll try for a baby. We’ll take a vacation. We’ll do whatever you want.”
Lying in his arms, warm and sated and loved, it’s the easiest thing in the world to believe him.
“Okay,” I whisper. “After the Myer project.”
“After the Myer project.” He kisses me softly, sealing the promise. “I love you, Hannah. More than anything.”
“I love you too.”
He falls asleep quickly, like he always does, like consciousness is a switch he can flip at will. I lie awake beside him, watching the shadows move across the ceiling, listening to his breathing slow and deepen.
His phone lights up on the nightstand.
I turn my head, reading the notification banner even though I know I shouldn’t.
Julie Myer
Had such a great time tonight! Can’t wait to work together more ??
My whole body goes cold.
Griffin doesn’t stir. His breathing stays even, deep and steady, already asleep. He doesn’t see what I see. He doesn’t know that I’m lying here with his come still inside me, reading a text from another woman who can’t seem to stop touching my husband.
I stare at the ceiling and try to parse the words. Can’t wait to work together more. It’s innocent enough. It could mean anything. Colleagues send enthusiastic texts all the time. A champagne emoji doesn’t mean she wants to fuck him.
Except I watched her tonight. I watched her hands find him over and over, watched her lean into him, watched her look at me like I was an obstacle to be removed. I watched my husband fail to notice any of it, or worse, notice and not care.
Work together more. What does that look like? More late nights at the office? More Myer events that replace our anniversaries? More moments where I fade into the background while she shines in the foreground?
I could wake him up. I could show him the text and ask why Julie Myer is messaging him at midnight after a business event. Why she’s using champagne emojis like they’re friends, not colleagues. Why she seems to think she has some claim on his time and attention.
But I already know what he’d say. She’s just like that. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re overreacting.
Maybe I am overreacting.
I close my eyes and try to sleep, but every time I start to drift off, I see Julie’s hand on his arm. Julie’s laugh. Julie’s smile, sharp and knowing, like she can see exactly how this story ends.
The room slowly lightens as dawn approaches, pink and gold creeping through the curtains, painting stripes across our bedroom ceiling. Griffin shifts in his sleep, pulling me closer, his arm tightening around my waist.
“Love you,” he mumbles, not quite awake. “My Hannah.”
I should feel comforted. Instead I feel hollow.
I lie there and take inventory of my marriage like I take inventory of his calendar.
Assets: a man who wants me, a man who provides, a man who says I love you like it’s punctuation.
Liabilities: every promise with a project attached to it, every apology delivered through my body instead of to my face, and a blonde woman with a champagne emoji and my husband’s undivided attention.
The math doesn’t come out how it used to.
When the sun comes up fully and Griffin reaches for me again, morning-lazy and smiling, half his face still buried in the pillow, I go to him.
Of course I go to him. His hands know exactly where to touch and his mouth knows exactly what to say, and my body answers him the same way it has since I was nineteen years old, easy and helpless and his.
But this time I keep my eyes open. This time, while he moves over me and murmurs that he loves me into my hair, I watch the ceiling brighten behind his shoulder and wait for the words to reach all the way in, and they never quite do.
I let him inside my body while my heart stays locked up tight, and after, when he kisses my forehead and rolls out of bed already reaching for his phone, I pull the sheets up to my chin and stare at the space where he was.
A fault line has opened in me. I just don’t know how to name it yet.