43. Griffin
M y heart is pounding in my chest, and I’m not sure if it’s the anger pumping through my blood stream or the lust running through my veins.
When Harden texted us to say he was taking Aurora to The Underground, pride flooded through me at them finally enjoying some one-on-one time together.
Sure, they’ve been doing the movie nights, but that’s just kid stuff, they needed something more.
Something to push them together and make the tension between them snap.
I just never imagined that something would be Jason fucking Miles.
That low life piece of shit, who would have fucking raped our girl if we didn’t get there and stop him.
I still relish the way his bones felt snapping beneath Harden and me, before we dragged his body to the back of my car and dumped him at a hospital outside the city.
He deserved to be left in the fucking mud to rot, but that would have drawn too much attention to us, and Aurora wanted to forget anything ever happened.
So per her wishes, we dealt with him and swept the fallout under the rug.
Now as I lead Harden upstairs to my room, I realize we didn’t tidy it up as well as we thought.
When the two of them walked through the door it was obvious something had happened between them.
From their lust-dazed eyes to their swollen lips, and the smudges of blood shared between them, it was written all over their bodies.
And fuck, I don’t think I have ever gotten an erection so fast in my fucking life.
I wanted to take them both to bed, and spread them out until I no longer knew where they started and I ended.
A thought that still plagues my mind as I drag Harden into his ensuite.
I force him to take a seat on the side of the bathtub while I bend down, rummaging through the cupboard for his first aid kit.
When I find it, I start taking out all the things I need, putting them on the counter.
Grabbing a cotton ball, I douse it in ointment and then move my focus back to him. Reaching for his hand, he flinches slightly, something I’ve come to expect even after all the nights we’ve shared a bed together.
Still, I know he’s trying, and he clears his throat to escape the awkwardness he feels.
“I’m fine,” he whispers beneath his breath, sounding tired, and I mildly wonder if he’s still processing whatever happened with Aurora.
“You don’t have to do this,” he adds, the sound of his voice so gravelly and perfect that it sends a jolt down my spine.
“Will you just let me look after you, please?” I don’t wait for his response, just pull his hand toward me and start cleaning it off gently.
He doesn’t flinch as the pad grazes across the split skin of his knuckles, even though I know it must hurt like hell, and all it does is remind me of the countless nights he must have spent like this, forcing himself not to react.
“Are you okay?” I ask, desperate for more of his voice, more of him, but he just nods wordlessly.
So I work in silence, cleaning off his first hand before moving onto the next. It isn’t until I am adding a small butterfly stitch to one of the deeper cuts that he talks again.
“We were having fun tonight,” he starts slowly, shaking his head as if he can’t quite believe it. “She was getting along with the guys, they were looking at her as if she was mine, it felt normal. I felt normal.”
“You are fucking normal,” I bite back, fucking hating the way he sees himself. I wish I could replace his view of himself with mine.
“You know what I mean,” he replies, trying to placate me, but I’m not fucking having it.
Tossing the last cotton ball aside, I drop to my knees before him and reach out to cup his face. It’s the boldest I’ve ever been, which is funny considering we jerk off in his bed almost every night, but apparently he’s not getting the memo.
“You’re the best person I have ever fucking met, Harden, and what that fucking piece of shit did to you, doesn’t change that. You’re not your fucking trauma, so don’t let it consume you, because you are the strongest person I know, and I’m so fucking proud to call you mine.”
Harden stares at me a little stunned, before pulling me toward him and sealing his lips to mine.
He kisses me, but it isn’t like the other times we’ve kissed.
It’s not rushed, it doesn’t have impending lust behind it, no, it’s a kiss that has my heart racing and stomach fluttering.
It’s a kiss that tells me he finally gets it, he finally understands that this bond between us goes so far beyond friendship, that I’m not sure we ever were truly just “friends”.
When he pulls back and drops his head to mine, I breathe him in, relishing in the way he’s letting me touch him, the way his body feels so close to mine. “You’re the best person I know too, Griff,” he whispers, and fuck if that’s not the best thing I’ve ever heard.
“I know, baby, now be a good boy and get in the shower,” I reply gently with a wink, forcing a dazzling smile to his face that has my knees feeling weak when I push back to my feet.
I move to leave, but his hand comes out and snatches mine. When I turn back to him, his eyes are pleading. “Will you…Can you…Will you stay, please?” He asks, and I have to swallow thickly before I nod, and that’s all he needs to get himself moving.
Leaning back against the counter, in the same position he put me in when he sucked my cock, I watch with roaming eyes, as he stands up and slowly begins to strip.
First his shirt, he pulls it up over his head, then moves to his jeans, unbuttoning them slowly, pushing them down his legs, my eyes snagging on the wet patch clearly evident on the fabric of his boxers.
My stare snaps back to his, a desperate need yearning inside of me, to know what made him come in his pants, but I won’t break this moment.
I hold my breath as he shoves down his boxers, revealing himself to me in all his naked glory.
His body is perfect, something I’ve always appreciated over the years, and I won’t stop now.
Not now that he’s mine, and not when he’s finally trusting me with every part of him.
My eyes drag down his ripped torso, his abs flexing beneath my attention, before landing on his cock.
It’s at half-mast, jutting out from his body and still glistening at the tip.
My throat burns with the need to taste him, to give him the feeling he gave me and worship him between my lips, but he turns away, giving me his back.
His muscular broad shoulders ripple as he reaches to turn on the shower, and my eyes can’t help but devour the perfect globes of his ass.
Fuck. I thought Aurora’s ass was perfect when I was slamming into it, but his might just rival hers.
It’s round and thick, and I want to drop to my knees and fucking feast on him, like I did her.
When he finally steps under the hot spray, my eyes track every water droplet, wishing I was each one, cascading down his body to nirvana.
I lick my now dry lips, dreaming of erasing every drop with my tongue, and when he reaches down and cleans off his cock, my own becomes a fucking rock beneath my shorts.
I’m sure he can see the outline of it, but I’m past caring, or pretending, that I don’t want fucking everything with him.
Forcing my eyes back to his, I find him watching me as fiercely as I’m watching him. Cock hard and chest heaving, and I know that jerking off tonight won’t be enough. It can’t be, not when I feel like the tension between us is about to explode.
When he finally turns the shower off, the room goes so quiet that all I can hear is my thick, panted breaths.
Harden Haze looks good every day, but stepping out of his shower, naked and wet, he’s like a fucking dream come true.
I blindly grab a towel from the rack, holding it out for him, and he takes it with a smirk, as my eyes feast on every inch of him.
“Like what you see there, playboy?” he asks, with a teasing lilt to his tone, and I grunt a laugh.
“Like?” I scoff, shaking my head and pushing up off the counter.
“No, baby, I don’t like it, I fucking love it.
” I wait until the towel is wrapped around his waist, before tugging on the knot keeping it in place, pulling him toward me.
“Now, I think you’ve caused enough trouble tonight, and it’s time to go to bed. ”
Harden’s hands find my hips, tugging me against him and leaning in to press another kiss to my lips. “That’s gonna be hard considering I’ve got trouble sleeping in my bed every night,” he murmurs against my mouth, pushing me toward the door.
“Oh, that’s not the only thing that’s hard,” I grunt back, before ripping my mouth from his and pushing into his bedroom, only to freeze when we find Aurora sitting on the bed.
She’s clearly had her own shower, because she is no longer covered in blood. Her hair is wet and her face bare of makeup. She’s wearing a simple black camisole with matching shorts, and has never looked more tempting than she does right now.
Harden comes from behind me, taking in her presence on his bed, as I ask, “You okay sweetheart?”
Her eyes are wide, moving between the two of us but lingering on Harden’s bare and still wet torso.
“Yeah, I’m okay, I just…” she trails off, no doubt distracted by the beauty of him, before she shakes her head.
“Is it okay if I stay with you tonight?” She asks him, surprising us both, and I can’t help but wonder how she managed to swing this by Everest.
Knowing it’s not truly up to me, I turn my attention to Harden, who nods without even looking at me. The two of them are caught in a stare off, and suddenly I feel like I’m intruding.
“I can go to my own room,” I say into the silence, stepping away toward the door, but Harden’s hand snatches out to grip mine, at the same time Aurora turns to me.