Chapter Thirty I’m Yours
Chapter Thirty
I’m Yours
Beverly
Griffin’s heart beats fast under my palm. I lean closer, ghosting my lips over his, breathing in his exhalations. He smells like the biting cold and a little bit like syrup. He smells a lot like home.
“I love your smile,” he mutters.
“Am I smiling?” I ask, but I can already feel it getting wider, so big it almost hurts my cheeks.
Griffin chuckles, curling his hand behind my head right as I tangle my fingers in his shirt. I tug him closer, and our lips touch.
The kiss is gentle. Nothing about it feels selfish or greedy or expectant. I stroke my thumb across the buttons of his shirt as his fingers shift down the back of my neck. A careful caress. I pull him closer. His low groan follows.
I sit up taller, crawling on my knees to him, tangling my legs in his lap. His hand presses into my waist, as his thumb strokes a line up to my ribs and back down. The bottom hem of my dress rides up as he grasps the fabric. That much closer to my bare skin.
With Beau, it was always go, go, go. With Griffin…it’s anticipation.
He taps my outer thigh and hums. “Hang on.” Then he shifts me to the side and gets up off the bed.
“Oh, now you come back here, Griffin Patrick Harvey.”
He chuckles, clutching the back of one of his boots and ripping it off, then doing the same to the other before gently placing them side by side. They are such a contrast to my haphazard boots I kicked off earlier.
I watch as he removes his jacket and hangs it over the back of Momma’s craft chair. Then he reaches to the corner of his black shirt and pulls it over his head.
Before me is a canvas of bare skin and tattoos.
I rarely see him in anything but long-sleeves, but now I see every line unfiltered over olive skin.
It’s his own constellation of black and white ink, coating both arms in washes of gray.
Monochromatic florals, vines, and birds, each trailing over his shoulders and down his forearms. And just where the cuff of a shirt would end, there’s that small bird, perched atop a curved branch.
I run my hands over the illustrations, tracing my fingertips across the flowers and over the bird’s head. Stroking over his wrist and up to his forearm. His muscle twitches on impact.
I blink up at him, and he’s standing still, jaw tense, as if gauging my reaction. I reach up, cupping his jaw and bringing him back down to me. He crawls onto the bed, brushing his palm over my waist and up to my ribs.
His bulky body hovers over me as he places kiss after kiss along my chest, nipping over the fabric and biting down along the lining of my dress. He trails his rough beard down my stomach and to my pelvis, then slowly lowers to his knees beside the bed.
I sit up on my elbows. “What are you doing?”
He looks up. His long hair is a mess, sticking out at odd ends from where my hands ran through it.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
He places a teasing kiss right at my knee.
I let out a soft laugh. “That. That right there.”
“This?” he asks with a sly smile, taking the fabric in his teeth and moving it aside so that the hem of my dress is hiked up my thighs.
I swallow. “You don’t have to…y’know. Do that. It’s just…I would understand if you didn’t want to.”
He narrows his eyes, as if searching me for answers. It crosses my mind at probably the same time he realizes it too.
“I’m not…used to it,” I say. “So you don’t have to.”
Griffin huffs out a chuckle. “I think I do, actually.”
He stares at me for a moment, long enough for me to finally breathe out, “Okay.”
I trust you.
Griffin gives the most wicked smirk and kisses my knee once more. I expect him to disappear under my skirt, but with each subsequent press of his lips up my thigh, he bunches the dress up with him. I can see every single sensual kiss.
My heart pounds harder the closer he gets to the center of my legs. Nerves spark under my skin, zipping around like a caged bird waiting for its release.
Finally, Griffin’s warm breath heats against me, he nudges my underwear aside, and his tongue touches between my legs. And I can see everything—the way his eyes close in bliss, how he pulls in a heady breath, and the moment his eyes flick open and meet mine.
My head falls back on the mattress. I grip the sheets beside me, steadying myself as he plants kisses over and over, just as he did against my mouth a few minutes ago.
Slowly and deliberately.
His forearms—veined with twisting vines and flora—snake out and band over my hips, holding me in place. Each roll of his tongue is another stroke of pleasure. Each touch coaxes my hips to buck up before he pushes them back down.
Long, gentle strokes turn quicker.
Pleasure becomes a tide rising, rising, rising.
Heat catches in my chest.
Breath chokes in my throat.
Until the crest peaks at my stomach and I’m crashing to the other side.
Crashing. Burning. Dying and being reborn.
Who knows?
Who fucking cares?
I’ve orgasmed before, don’t get me wrong, but that—that—
Griffin kisses my inner thighs as he leans back, but I’m already reaching for his shoulders, pulling him to meet me. He crawls over my body with his massive arms on either side of my waist. I fumble for his belt, dipping my thumb in the loops and then releasing it with clanks and rattles.
He watches as I undo his pants button and push them down. And he swallows with a low groan as I pull down his tight boxers next. I don’t see what’s underneath, but I don’t need to. I know how he felt at the award show.
And suddenly, this night feels so real. Intense.
Too familiar.
Beau was always on top, hovering over me, looking at the wall behind my head or thrusting with eyes closed. Even if I found my pleasure, I hated the feeling of being trapped—crowded by another person’s weight.
“Just so you know,” I say. “I’ve only been with one person. So…I don’t know how good I’m gonna be.”
Griffin strokes the back of his knuckles over my cheek.
“I don’t care who you’ve been with and who you haven’t. I haven’t been with anyone since…Robin.” His words fade, almost like that fact hits him as well.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
I nod. “I’m on birth control.”
I’ve never had to share that with someone before. Everything feels brand new with Griffin. New adventures. New possibilities.
And I don’t want to be on my back again. Not this time.
I push on Griffin’s chest. It doesn’t take any pressure for him to move. I shift from underneath him, crawling out until I’m on my knees.
“Sit,” I demand.
The corner of his mouth quirks up as he takes a seat, pushing until his back is against the wall. I swing my leg over him, sitting on his lap as he stares up at me with raised eyebrows.
“Okay” is all he says in response.
I smile and he returns it.
He adjusts himself underneath me, and I place my palms on his shoulders.
After a moment, he settles his hand on my waist and guides me.
Slowly, we sink together. I push down, inch by inch, moment by moment.
His fingers shift my dress out of the way before steadying my hips, helping me lower farther, watching as I fall and rise again and again.
At some point our breathing picks up, our bodies roll faster, the whines of my old mattress begin to creak under our weight.
I think I hear my notebook fall off the side table and snap to the floor.
Griffin grips my waist tighter, supporting me as I ride.
Eventually, his head falls back against the wall.
“Shit, B,” he groans, exhaling before leaning up and burying his mouth against my neck, placing a kiss in the dip of my collarbone. “I’m yours.” It’s a low murmur, but it’s just enough to make me go faster, only so I can hear this big man—tattoos and all—repeat against my collarbone, “Yours.”
I push up and down on my shins, letting the motion take us further, letting it sink into our bones and gather in our hands where we clutch each other’s hair and kiss each other’s temples.
Griffin buries himself inside me. Each stroke is intentional. Each whine and moan and sigh is in tune. He pushes my skirt to the outside of my thigh and rubs his thumb above where his pulsing cock slides in and out. A familiar feeling from earlier zips up my stomach again.
I’m tipping over the edge, spiraling to the other side.
Griffin wraps one arm like a vine around my waist, laying his forearm along my spine, splaying his hand over my shoulders, gripping and thrusting. He chokes out an exhale into my chest, releasing on a small moan.
I’m lightheaded, the type of cloudlike floating that feels like I’m on my back in a pool, blinking up at the sun.
Griffin strokes my cheek, directing my head down to look at him.
He kisses me, holding my face under shaking fingers.
And against his lips, I murmur, “How funny would it be if I used Bernie’s voice right now?”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
I bust out laughing, and so does he. And then we descend into kisses again.
Soft.
Gentle.
Perfect.