Chapter Eight
Veda
Was having sex with a man I barely knew the most intelligent thing I’d ever done in my life?
Probably not. Thing was, I didn’t really care.
I could have died at several points along the way over the last months, but most especially since the night of the fire.
Had it really been less than two days? Felt like an eternity.
I’d never had a man lay any kind of claim to me.
For any reason. Mostly because I could be…
prickly. Up until now, I’d been too off-balance to do anything but blindly follow where Griffin led, but hearing him tell that Steel Serpent asshole I was his woman did something to me.
On the inside. I actually thought that, maybe, I’d claim him right back.
I straddled Griffin’s hips, my hands clamped down on his shoulders hard enough to leave half-moon crescents under my nails. I didn’t care. He didn’t seem like he did either.
Griffin lay back on his elbows, watching me with those deep green eyes, his breath coming nearly as fast as mine.
The room smelled like him. Leather and motor oil and a clean, woodsy combination of pine and cedar underneath.
The single lamp on the nightstand threw shadows across the planes of his chest, and I could see the ink crawling over his shoulders, the old scars I hadn’t had a chance to map yet.
“You good?” His voice came out rough, scraped raw. “You here? With me?”
“Yes.” The word came out a sharp hiss. I needed this.
Not just the act as a primal way of feeling alive, but I needed the man.
Griffin. The fact I didn’t even try to fight this sudden and all-consuming need tugged at my brain like a snag on a sweater.
I knew I needed to slow down, but I didn’t think I wanted to.
If I decided I’d made a mistake later, I’d deal with it.
I didn’t want to deny myself at least one night in this man’s arms.
I shoved him flat against the mattress and he let me. That was the thing to seal my fate. A man built like Griffin, two hundred and some pounds of solid muscle, and he let me push him down like I had any kind of power over him instead of immediately rolling us and taking control.
I ground down against him through the rough denim of his jeans as I touched his bare chest, trying to memorize everything at once.
If I never got to fuck him again, I would do everything in my power to remember it forever.
All the lust, desire, and desperation coursing through me settled between my thighs.
His cock -- already hard -- put much needed friction against my clit.
I shuddered, whimpering and making sounds I didn’t mean to make.
The half growl / half moan sounded almost mean.
Or at the very least, like something was most decidedly wrong with me. Maybe there was.
“Veda.” His hand came up and caught both my wrists, gentle but immovable. “Look at me, honey.” I looked. His face was tight with restraint, but his eyes were steady as he held my gaze. “You here with me?”
“Don’t.” The word came out like a slap. “Don’t treat me like glass, Griffin.”
Something flickered across his face. Like I’d just confirmed something he’d already figured out. A slow smile curled one corner of his mouth. “All right, little wildcat.” He let go of my wrists. “You take what you need.”
I went for the button on his jeans, my fingers steadier now. His hands settled at my hips, warm and heavy and grounding. He didn’t try to slow me down or take over. Just held on while I dragged the zipper down and shoved the denim out of the way.
He lifted his hips so I could get him free, and the second I had his cock in my hand, I forgot how to breathe. He was thick and hot, and I stroked him once, watching his face. His eyes hooded, but he held my gaze.
“Off,” he grunted, tugging at the loose joggers and my underwear. “Get these off.”
I slid back off him long enough to shove them down my legs and kick them across the room along with my T-shirt.
He took me in with a long, slow perusal that should have made me self-conscious and want to cover up.
With the bruises across my ribs and the road rash still healing on my face and the bandage hanging loose off my palm, I wasn’t exactly desirable.
I looked like I’d been dragged through hell, bruised and battered.
But, as I saw Griffin watching me like nothing else in the room existed, the band squeezing my chest loosened.
He gripped my hips, kneading gently, and I let the touch anchor me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again and saw the raw hunger tempered with restraint on Griffin’s face, I surrendered completely to the moment and decided to just do what felt good.
I moved down his big body, dragging my mouth down his chest and across the ridges of his muscled stomach, following the trail of ink and old scars at his pelvis on one side of his cock until my cheek brushed the open V of his jeans.
His breath hissed between his teeth as I breathed next to his cock.
In reward, it twitched, the length brushing against my nose.
Good. I wanted him undone. I needed something I could take apart with my hands, something I could reduce to raw, helpless sounds, because everything else in the world had been doing that to me for months.
But I wanted it on my terms and serving my interests.
And I wanted to please this man with every fiber of my being because I knew without a doubt this man would move heaven and fucking earth to do the same for me.
I pulled his jeans the rest of the way down his thighs so he could kick them off the bed. Wrapping my hand around the base of his cock, I took him into my mouth and sucked. I wanted to draw this out, but the more I tasted of him, the hungrier I became.
Griffin groaned, long and low, his dick pulsing like mad between my lips. “Christ, woman!” He bit out his words between clenched teeth. Good. I wanted him to need something to anchor him, too. And I wanted that something to be me.
I took him deeper, hollowing my cheeks. The rough groan torn from him sent a thrill through me. I loved hearing the sounds he made, especially knowing I caused them. I also wanted to know how far I could push him before he turned into the Alpha male who’d killed that fucking prospect.
His hips rolled up toward me and he hissed out another breath. I pulled back just enough to make him work for it with a soft, punishing drag of my lips along the underside of his cock. I traced my tongue along the vein there until he gave a harsh, snarling growl.
“Veda.” My name sounded like both a warning and a promise.
I liked that. I liked it a fuck of a lot.
I sucked him back in, deeper this time, and his hand fisted in my hair. A tremor moved through his thighs where they bracketed my shoulders, the careful, deliberate way he held himself still while every muscle in his body argued for something else.
His grip in my hair tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me who I was dealing with.
Then he let loose a defeated groan. “Jesus fucking Christ.” The words seemed like they’d been torn from him.
Like he’d fought and fought but something inside him finally snapped.
“That mouth, Veda. You keep doing that and I’m gonna lose my Goddamn mind! ”
I pulled back just enough to look up at him.
His head had dropped back against the pillow, the cords of his neck standing out, jaw clenched like he was fighting a war with himself.
I dragged my tongue slowly and deliberately up the length of him just to watch his cock twitch and the rest of his body flinch back, like he was over sensitized.
“Don’t fuckin’ stop.” His voice dropped an octave, rough and commanding and absolutely ruined. “Don’t you dare fuckin’ stop.”
I took him back in, and he let out a sound that didn’t have a name, low and guttural and barely human. His hips surged up, driving his dick down my throat with an almost merciless power. I gagged and he stopped, but he pulled me off him by my hair almost immediately and forced me up his body.
“Fuck,” he bit out, letting go of my hair. “I’m sorry. I --”
With a snarl, I shimmied back down his thighs and sank my mouth back over his cock, this time gagging myself and holding him as deep and as long as I could before I had to come up for air.
“Mother fuck, Veda! Fuck! FUCK!” Griffin’s hands shot out and bunched in my hair again before he seemed to catch himself and let go like he had hold of a hot potato.
So I did it again. When he didn’t take the hint, I flailed my hand up at him until I found one thick wrist. I pulled his hand back to my hair and curled my hand around his, indicating what I wanted.
“I’m goin’ to fuckin’ hell,” he muttered. I must have found his tipping point because the second Griffin’s fist closed around my hair, he took over. It was exactly what I needed.
He fucked my mouth like he hated himself for needing to be rough, like every thrust was a punishment he was doling out equally between us.
Deep and relentless and real in a way nothing had felt real in days.
Fuck that. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt as alive and true to myself and my feelings than I did in that moment.
“That’s it.” His voice was hoarse, like his throat had been scraped raw. “Take it. Take me, Veda.” He sounded as desperate as I felt. The wild hunger in his gaze as he held my hair only made me want to give him more.
I took everything he had, concentrating on relaxing my throat as he continued to fuck my mouth. Tears streamed from my eyes that had nothing to do with anger or sadness. I needed this. Needed the primal handling.
“Fuck, you’re so --” The sentence collapsed. His thighs shook. “Christ, you feel so good. You feel so Goddamn, motherfucking good!”