Chapter 6
A Wet and Wild Ride to Pound Town
My girl Layla was a lot of incredible things—most of them brash, brazen, loud, and wholly obnoxious.
After we were gunned down in the high school gymnasium, and Griffin outed our love to our friends, I would have never guessed that she’d be the one to look for ways to be considerate of our budding relationship.
But when Hunt borrowed Bonnie and stomped off for his talk with Zoe, Layla convinced Brady to join her in chilling at their house while Griffin and I took “a wet and wild ride to Pound Town.”
Even while revealing unexpected thoughtfulness, subtle she was not, and never would be.
While I’d blushed, wondering since when the fuck blushing was a regular activity for me, Griffin hadn’t.
He’d taken me by the hand, led me to Clyde, and driven us to his place.
He hung a Do Not Disturb sign on his bedroom door he made when he was eight, locked the handle, and drew the blinds—as if that would afford us actual privacy.
But there was no preventing the superspy, pervy lie-rents from getting an earful, and possibly an eyeful too.
Abstaining from whatever wonders I’d experience with Griffin, when I’d believed I might have truly lost him, wasn’t an option.
My crew was fighting on the daily to survive the mother of all perilous shitstorms. He was one of the reasons fighting so hard was worth it. If we had an invisible audience to whatever would come next, so be it. I’d do my best to forget we weren’t as alone as we should be.
We lay sprawled on his queen bed, relaxed, as if we were still just friends.
Our socked feet touched, our fingers laced together like we used to do about the time he created his door sign, when friendship truly was all that was on our minds—when Ridgemore was a safe haven, our parents were supportive, and our houses were homes.
I told him silently.
He rubbed his thumb along my hand.
I slid my head closer, until our temples dipped together.
He hummed contentedly.
He chuckled softly.
I snorted.
A laugh rumbled through me.
It wasn’t all that outrageous of a thing to say, especially when Brady and Layla practically lived for dick jokes and sex talk. But my stomach warmed. My skin became suddenly hyperaware of how close Griffin lay to me, the few places our bodies already touched …
I swallowed.
Atop the pillow, I turned my head toward him.
he went on.
I prodded, though I damn well understood what he was talking about. How could I not, when I’d been drooling over his body for longer than I should have?
My breathing sounded loud to my own ears, wishing for him to continue, greedy for more.
Griffin didn’t open up very often, but the rare times he did, it wasn’t like this. He was cleaving himself down the middle and exposing all his insides for me.
I’d never been so glad we had these secret telepathic abilities.
His confession belonged to me and me alone.
I would have set the lie-rents on fucking fire if they’d been able to eavesdrop on this conversation.
Instead, I tucked his precious words away near to my heart for safekeeping, where I could revisit them later—when I’d allow myself to simmer in the feeling of how very much they meant to me, when I’d let myself squeal and giggle and celebrate how the boy I’d loved since forever had fallen in love with me too.
I asked in a whisper, unwilling to disrupt whatever magic held us in its thrall and wanting him to explain every last thing he’d mentioned.
He rolled onto his side, wrapping his leg around my thigh and sliding me closer. He lowered his face to mine, stopping just far enough away that our vision wouldn’t blur.
He lowered his forehead to mine. I scooted closer atop the comforter, nestling my body into his. Automatically, his arm draped around my waist.
he said.
I answered right away, too loud. I softened my inner voice.
I loved a hell of a lot more than that. Did he remember that we’d already swapped I love yous, or was that wiped out in his most recent reboot?
I could be chickenshit and wait to find out, or I could—
I discovered my eyes closed when I realized I was feeling—not seeing—the warmth of his smile. More like a grin, probably, but I didn’t want to look yet. Didn’t want to pull my forehead from his.
“Yes,” I whispered aloud while my heart fluttered excitedly. I inched my lips closer to his.
Memories of Clyde erupting into a ball of fire that climbed toward the night sky. Then, of the slide of gravel and the groan of metal knowing Clyde was catapulting over the cliff.
Both times, Griffin had been snatched away from me without warning, without a chance to protect him, to fight for him.
As if Griffin understood where my thoughts had veered, he drew me closer, until my breasts brushed his chest and our hips were lined up.
again I whispered into our minds.
He laughed.
He laughed again.
Griffin tipped me onto my back and rolled on top of me, propping himself up on his elbows to keep some of his weight off me, the rest of him pressed along the length of me—mmmmm.
Griffin rumbled in that deep, sexy-as-fuck voice of his. It sounded the same inside my mind as it did aloud.
My breathing and heartbeat were stuttering, or maybe they were coming too fast, I couldn’t tell. My legs melted open, carving out room for his body as if all on their own, drawing him closer to my center. The outline of his dick was hard against me. I clenched with anticipation.
Griffin’s lips lowered to mine, and instantly my mind went blank.
At first they were a light touch, as if it were the first time we’d ever kissed and his mouth were still a stranger to mine.
But I kissed him back with the pent-up ferocity of someone who’d seen the love of her life murdered in front of her very eyes and had been given a second chance—a miraculous, wondrous second chance—at loving him.
With the phantom fear of believing I’d lost him battering at the edges of my awareness, I kissed him with everything I had.
With every bit of love I hadn’t yet expressed to him.
With the force of every fantasy I’d ever had about him, with every wish and hope and dream and fucking desire I’d ever conjured around wanting—so desperately wanting—a moment with him exactly like this one.
He matched the intensity of my kiss with a savage wildness of his own that suggested some of the things he hadn’t uttered.
His lips, his tongue, the way our teeth were sometimes bared almost ferally …
they told me he loved me beyond words. Just as he said: like we were meant to be together.
Like every sick, twisted, and mega-fucked-up thing that had ever happened to us had been steering us toward this.
Toward us.
A love powerful enough to move mountains and create worlds.
Or maybe that was just how it felt.
My hands were running through his hair, scratching at his neck, shoulders, and back. They tugged on his waist, holding him against me. Squeezed his ass through jeans that were entirely in the way.
I tried to pull from his kiss to speak and couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me get away. I didn’t want to anyway.
Even through our thoughts I panted.
His tongue swirled along mine, consuming me with heat I never wanted to escape.
I nipped at his lower lip and he startled, then let loose a rumbling laugh that was one of the sexiest things I’d ever heard.
I said.
He panted and jerked his hips against mine as if on instinct alone.