38. Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
“ P ut the fucking phone down and get your ass out here, now.” Griffin’s gravelly command prickles my skin and has me turning to him slowly.
“I’m working for your best interests, asshole. You should be telling me what a good job I’m doing making sure your fans and sponsors are happy. And maybe I want to interact with strangers over the Internet than be told what to do by a caveman like you, anyway.” I manage to keep my voice sultry and almost playful, but the hint of fire at the edges serves to remind him that I am my own woman and I do not like being told what to do. Engaging with him like this gets me all riled up.
“Those fuckers can wait. I want you out here with me, now.” Griffin grabs my hand and hauls me out of the booth in the bar we hit up after the races. He pulls me against the length of his body and kisses me before I can retort .
I melt into his arms. I didn’t really want to fight with him. I just love it when he takes what he wants. It’s good to be reminded that he’s still in there even if there are stunning new changes. I let him lead me to the dance floor where the Smoke and Mirrors team is gathered, white boy dancing as they do. Paul has Marny turned in his arms, rocking their hips side to side in time to the music. She waves at me before leaning back against Paul with a content smile on her face. I watched Marny put back a few drinks earlier, so judging by her happy face, she’s feeling pretty good. Well, I know I am. I had a couple Mas Boost vodka cocktails myself and feel the buzz of alcohol and excitement fueling me now.
“I requested something special from the DJ. I think you’ll like it,” Griffin says close to my ear, sending goosebumps racing down my arms.
Before I can ask what song, he’s gripping my hips and pulling me against him as Pretty Ricky’s Grind with Me begins. He’s no Channing Tatum, but holy shit, he takes that slow beat and thumping bass as his cue to work me over. I relax my limbs and let him move me along, my hips swiveling with his as I wrap my arms around his neck and look up at his face. The confident, lopsided smile he gives me in return has me grinning like a fool. I can’t take too much of his direct stare, so I close my eyes and surrender to him. He parts my legs and moves me over his thigh, undulating with me so I quickly catch the beginning of pleasure.
“Careful, you didn’t want me coming without you,” I tell him breathily, combing my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He kisses my forehead softly and I melt further into his arms .
“I like watching your face when you get off. But I can wait. I’ll have you begging for more soon enough.”
I lick a slow path along his neck and feel him swallow. I gently tug his earlobe with my teeth and get rewarded with his hands splaying across my ass and pulling me closer to his body. “I think it’s you who can’t get enough, my love.”
“Hmm, my love, huh? Say it again.” His rich, gravelly voice caresses me in the same way his fingers do.
I look into his blue eyes, so intent on my face and cup his cheek. “My love,” I say slowly and with great reverence. “You know, we can take this back to the hotel anytime you want. We don’t have to stay here if you have other things in mind.” I swivel my hips into his, catching his excited state.
As a new song begins to play, Griffin leads me back to the booth he just dragged me from. I look at him curiously as he slides in next to me. I didn’t expect him to keep me here after that explicit “take me home” option was offered. His entire demeanor has changed, his confident swagger replaced by a tightness that has me evaluating exactly what I just said that would trigger this change. I just repeated what he asked me to.
“Why do you love me?” he asks, his voice a tense rumble, warning of danger. “You could do so much better. Why me?”
Is he trying to push me away? Seriously? Now he is asking why I chose him? At least I have a little experience with figuring out my answer. Instead of waxing poetic, all this is how I love thee, I hunt for a question that can guide my answer. “Do you want me to stroke your ego and tell you why I’m so fucking attracted to you physically? Or are you asking for something else?”
“Something else. I know you like all this.” He gestures to his body in his typical cocky way that makes me wonder how he’s able to fit all of the various segments of his personality into one conversation. It’s giving me whiplash, running a hundred miles an hour keeping up with the cocky badass only to be stopped dead by the brick wall of his sensitive side.
I level a stare at him, opting for direct and forceful to fully get my point across. “You’re the kind of fucker who would walk across red hot coals next to me, rather than carry my ass. You would hold my hair if I was puking but tell me that I brought it on myself. You would want me to follow my dreams, even if it meant we would be separated by that path. Want to know why I think that?” I watch his face as he takes in my words, subtly nodding along in agreement.
“I don’t think I have a choice. You’re going to tell me anyway.” He runs his fingers through his already messy hair and looks toward me with his riveting blue stare.
“Always with a dickhead comment like that,” I say, shaking my head. He’s already reinforcing what I am about to say and he doesn’t even know it. “You make me work harder than I ever have before to get what I want. Whether it’s to prove you wrong or to prove it to myself that I can. I like how you challenge me. I want you in my life because I know you won’t make it easy; you’ll make me appreciate everything more because it was a challenge I worked for. I don’t want easy, I want you. All of you.”
“What if I let you down somehow? Are you just going to leave when shit gets ugly? Because I’ll be the first to tell you I’ve got lots of ugly shit in here.” He gestures to his head and swallows. “What if I’m not everything you think I am?” The hesitance in his voice just about breaks my heart and has me reaching up to cup his face.
“You are everything and so much more. I can’t wait to know you deeper.” I squeeze his hand. “The very real truth is we will both let each other down over and over. That’s life when you are not perfect. We’re going to do lots of things that hurt each other until we figure out how to trust and love selflessly. I’ll take getting my heart broken by you over and over if it means we can come out of it together in the end.” I surprise myself when I say this, finding truth in the statement that was hidden before. “We’re not some fairytale love story; we are real, fucked up people with real feelings and hang-ups. I am choosing you to help me face my issues and hoping you trust me with yours.”
Griffin stares at our entwined fingers, his forehead creased in deep thought. “You really want to make this work? You’re okay with me not being perfect? What if I mess up?”
“I think you know I am far from perfect and have been the one messing this up from the start. God, I really suck.” I shake my head at myself. “Hopefully I’m not pushing you away with all of this.” I look around the bar and wish we were cuddled up in bed together, having this conversation without a shitty pop song blaring from the speakers while people spill drinks as they pass our booth. I think Griffin wanted to talk to me here so he could decide if I was serious about us or just playing a game with him. It would be easier to turn down my advances and get real answers without my clothes coming off. He’s a smart one.
As if reading my thoughts, Griffin says, “You want to get out of here? ”
I am already standing and pulling him out of the booth before he can finish the question. “Yes, please. I’m done with everyone else for the night. I’m all about you now.”
We say our goodbyes to the team and walk a few blocks to our hotel. It’s an easy decision to go back to my room—he’s sharing with Ryan. Once we enter, I lose some of my confidence and feel unsure of what comes next as we stand in the dark room, illuminated by the streetlights shining through the window and the bathroom light that peeks through the partially open door. Does he want to get down to business and fuck? What if he doesn’t want to get physical yet, since we are just feeling out this relationship from a serious side?
My racing thoughts are silenced when Griffin steps in front of me and cups my head in his big hands, his fingers threading through my hair, and leans his forehead against mine.
“Not much scares me, but when it comes to you, I’m freaked the fuck out.” The admission is said grudgingly, like I asked what his deepest, darkest secret is without saying a thing. He has more to say and it seems like he needs me to pry it out.
“Why, baby?”
His eyes close and his forehead creases. “I care too much. I know what it feels like to have you leave me. That fucking killed me.”
“I didn’t leave, but I was looking for a way out.” I close my eyes as my heart twinges in regret. God, I was so stupid. “I didn’t realize at the time what that would do to you. I’m selfish and was just thinking about myself.”
“Please don’t leave me,” he whispers against my skin.
“I promise I’m not going anywhere. I love you and I’m in this with you no matter what life throws at us. We’re a team now.”
This moment is all about us. It’s raw and vulnerable and it’s laying ourselves bare to each other. We have both come to an armistice in our competitive war. We are finally laying down our weapons at the same time and agreeing to stop trying to strike first so we don’t end up hurt. We are silently agreeing to terms that are yet undefined, but we know we have to think of our future and how our actions affect it before we act.
“Thank fuck.”
He reaches down and hauls me up his body, my legs wrapping around his hips as he walks to the bed. He lays me back and crawls up over me, his hands skimming my sides and working my tank top up. I raise my arms and let him pull it over my head, quickly returning my hands to his body where I return the favor. He settles his warm weight over me and skims his lips over mine and places kisses across my face.
He’s being so gentle and soft, and for once, I won’t ask him to change a thing. I’ll let him love me in the way he wants to. I’m so over talking about our feelings and what we see for us, or discussing the what-ifs that could go on forever. It’s nice to get away from all of the words and start dealing in action, which we both know speaks louder than any words ever can. And we just happen to be really good at getting physical.
I let him take the rest of my clothes off, for once enjoying his unhurried speed as he stands and removes his own. We spend a moment staring at each other, our eyes traveling over expanses of skin, his golden and colorful, mine fair and barely marked. The amber haze of the streetlight shining through the gauzy curtains lights him in angles, shadows pooling and slipping away as he moves sinuously back toward me. I arch my back and lift my knee to follow his hip as he once again settles on me .
His hands find my skin, his fingers the matches that ignite the fuse of my desire that has been soaked in gasoline. Fourteen days is nothing in the grand scheme of time, and yet it feels like an eternity since he has touched me like this. I writhe under his attention, from the simple grazing of my collarbone to the way his fingernails gently scrape over my nipples in his quest to map my body by feel. Maybe he’s missed this, too. His lips find my shoulder, sending chill bumps down my arm as his tongue darts out to taste me before he once again moves across my body looking for his next stop. He hasn’t even touched me intimately and here I am engulfed in flames and ready to smolder to a pile of ashes.
Oh, but when he does reach my pussy, his hand gliding through my folds, my hips buck and I moan. I fist the sheets as he places his hand flat against my stomach and pushes me back down with a rough chuckle.
“That’s my girl, so responsive. Always.” He holds me steady as his mouth follows the maddeningly slow trail his hands took until he places a soft kiss on my piercing that leaves me shaking.
Oh, sweet baby Jesus, I’m going to explode when he finally—the thought is wrenched from my mind as he sucks on my piercing and drives a finger inside of me. Goodbye slow, hello a frenzy of desire as he laps at me. My thighs squeeze his head, keeping him close as the rest of me reaches out from the intense burst of pleasure he’s evoked. I’m pulling a pillow over my face when he stops suddenly.
“Don’t cover your face. I want to watch you.”
Brushing hair out of my face, I place the pillow behind my head, propping myself up so he has a better view. I relax back and breathe in the quick interlude before he is once again licking and stroking me. He has me right back on the brink within a minute. My hands release the sheets, finding my nipples that need to be pinched. I feel Griffin groan against me as I twist and he strokes my spot just right. My hips fight his hand to jack off the bed as I find my release, moaning his name into the dark room.
I collapse back onto the bed, my limbs feeling heavy as my sated body floats back down to reality. The mattress shifts as he hunts for his pants on the floor and returns to the bed. The rip of foil is a quiet melody to my heavy breathing. I open my knees so he can move between my legs, his heavy erection hitting my thigh before he directs himself to my core. We come together slowly, my tightness easing open for him as our hips rock together.
I look up into his face, meeting his eyes as he catches his bottom lip between his teeth. I use my thumb to pull it out and bring his mouth to mine. Our tongues meet, a tentative dance that matches his slow rhythm as his hips drive into me, and then more forcefully as I bite that same lip he just had. I moan and push his shoulder, rolling over on top of him. He grips my hips and lets me rock on him. I tip my head back as his hand glides up and spans the space below my collarbones, his pinky and thumb reaching my shoulders and flexing into my skin as if to keep me from floating away.
He raises his torso up and shifts back so I am now straddling his lap and he can hold me against his chest as my soft moans grow more urgent. I hook my arms under his and hold onto his shoulders, my head dipping into his neck as he clutches my hips and moves me over him. My unintelligible words mix with his name and oh yeahs and Jesus’ as that delightful pressure builds and expands until I can no longer contain it. I bite into his shoulder as I come apart and feel him buck his hips into me and then stiffen, his cock pulsing as my body grips him tightly over and over.
“Oh, God. I love you, baby,” he groans into my hair.
I have no control over my voice to reply. My breathing sounds loud against his neck and shoulder as my awareness returns to the present. I pull my face back and place my cheek against his, the scratchy day old stubble sliding across my skin as he turns his face to catch my mouth. He kisses me deeply, then places several soft kisses against my mouth as he falls backward, pulling me down with him. I snuggle against his chest but know he will get up in a minute to clean up. I don’t want to let him go right now. I never want to let him go.
“I love you, Griffin,” I finally manage softly.