CHAPTER THREE
Griffin
The silence in my cabin usually felt like a shield. Tonight it felt like a cage.
I’d stood in her driveway for two minutes after her lights went out.
I stood there, my keys in my hand, assessing the dark house like I was on watch.
Like if I left something would happen to her.
Like the house would finally give up on the losing battle it was fighting against gravity and weather and time, and I needed to be there when it did.
Of course, that just brought the differences between us right back into my face.
She should be dating someone her own age. Someone who slept through the night. Someone whose first instinct in a dark parking lot wasn’t to pin a woman against a car and reach for a weapon that wasn’t there.
I had no business wanting her.
I wanted her anyway. That gap—between what I knew and what I wanted—had been getting wider every night. I’d stopped waiting for it to close.
I gave up on sleep at four in the morning. I drank my coffee black, staring out the window at the peaks of Lone Mountain as the sky turned a bruised purple. By five-forty-five, I was pulling up to her curb.
The blue house looked even smaller in the morning light.
I made mental notes of all the things that had to be done.
Roof repair, porch repair. A cracked window at the side.
The grass needed mowing and the sidewalk was a fall waiting to happen.
I started a list. She hadn’t asked me to. She wouldn’t. That was the point.
At exactly six, the front door opened.
And like every other time I’d seen her, it felt like a punch to my midsection. One look and every careful argument I’d made to myself between four in the morning and right now was gone. Just like that. Every time. She was the best thing I’d ever seen.
Keely stepped out, looking like she’d had about as much sleep as I had.
She was wearing her diner uniform—a polo that pulled across her chest every time she shifted the bag on her shoulder, jeans that fit her the way jeans had no right to fit a woman.
My cock stirred with the inconvenient persistence of a man who hadn’t slept and hadn’t stopped thinking about her.
I was only human, and she was—fuck, she was a lot of woman. The kind of woman you didn’t forget. The kind that got into your head and stayed there, soft and warm and completely off limits.
Her hair was up in a messy knot, and she was balancing a travel mug, her purse and a heavy looking bag.
Her shoulders squared in that way she had—ready for a fight.
I got out and met her halfway up the walk.
“You’re early,” she noted, her voice husky from sleep. Not for the first time, I imagined her waking up in my bed, exhausted. From me.
“I’m on time,” I said. “Give me the bag.”
“It’s my books, Griffin. I can carry—”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. I took the bag from her hand. It was heavy—nursing textbooks no doubt. She was working twelve-hour shifts and studying this stuff. I felt a surge of admiration for her.
I walked her to the truck and opened the door. As she climbed in, the movement pulled her jeans tighter, just as they had last night. I didn’t look away then, and I couldn’t look away now, even when my control started to fray.
She had no idea what she did to me. None. She tugged at her shirt like she was trying to cover herself and I wanted to grab her hands and tell her to stop. That every curve she was trying to hide was exactly what was keeping me up at night.
I shut the door and got behind the wheel. The cab of the truck felt smaller than it had last night. It was filled with her—her energy, the sheer vibrancy of her.
I’d been alone for a long time. I’d told myself I preferred it.
Sitting here with her knee six inches from mine and her scent filling the cab I understood for the first time what a lie that had been.
I hadn’t preferred it. I’d never had a reason to admit before.
She was the reason now. She’d been the reason since the second night I’d walked into that diner.
“I called the shop,” she said, staring out the windshield. “They can’t get to my car until Friday.”
“I’m going to get you a new battery as soon as I drop you off.”
Her head whipped around to look at me. “No, you won’t.”
“Yes I will. How else are you going to get to work and school?”
I saw her hand tighten around her coffee mug. “I’ll find a way. I always do.”
Her voice was soft, but firm, and her words felt like cuts across my skin. I didn’t just want to help her, I needed to. “I know you could. But you don’t have to, Keely. Not this time.”
I turned toward her and our gazes locked.
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t.
She tugged at the hem of her polo, a small automatic gesture, like she was trying to cover ground she’d already given up.
I’d seen her do it before—that tiny pull at her clothes, the way she sometimes crossed her arms when she caught me looking.
She had no idea. None at all. I took that as a win but knew not to let that show.
She was twenty-three years old and already carrying more than most people twice her age ever would.
And here I was, thirty-five, with nothing to offer her but a quiet cabin and a whole lot of damage.
The math didn’t work. It had never worked.
I couldn’t seem to make myself care about the math anymore. I wanted to protect her. Care for her.
Those thoughts pulled me up short.
“Fine. But for the record, you are the most high-handed, overbearing man I have ever met,” she snapped, but there was no real heat in it.
In fact, she leaned back into the leather seat, a small, tired smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“Do you just decide how things are going to be and expect the world to fall in line?”
“Usually.” I glanced at her, my gaze catching on the pulse point at her neck, the soft curve of her jaw, the way she was determinedly not looking at me.
“Well, that’s not me.” She shifted and her knee brushed the center console.
I wanted to yank her over it, drop her onto my lap, feel exactly how soft she was against how hard she’d already made me.
“But I’m too tired to argue with you today.
So fine. You can be my personal mechanic. But I’m buying your breakfast.”
I kept both hands on the wheel. It took more effort than it should have.
My cock was thick and aching behind my jeans and she was six inches away talking about breakfast and I was completely out of my depth.
“I already had breakfast.”
“Well, today you’re having another one,” she said firmly. “The diner has the best breakfast burritos in the state, and you’re eating one.”
The sun was finally cresting the mountains, hitting the windshield and making me squint as we drove to the diner. I looked over at her, catching her watching me. She didn’t look away, just took in the scar on my jaw.
“Griffin?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you doing this? There are plenty of people in this town. Why me?”
I pulled into the diner parking lot and killed the engine.
I didn’t look at her. If I looked at her, I’d tell her the truth—that I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she felt pressed against me.
That I was terrified some other man would realize exactly how much she was worth before I figured out how to be the man she deserved.
“Because you’re the only one in this town who talks back to me,” I said, my voice sounding more like a growl than I intended.
I stepped out of the truck before she could respond.
I walked around, opened her door, and reached up to help her down.
She was soft under my hands in a way that made my grip tighten before I could stop it.
Soft and curved and warm and real in a way that cut straight through every argument I’d made to myself about staying away.
Her breath hitched, her hands landing on my shoulders to steady herself. We stood there in the early morning quiet of the parking lot, the tension between us thick enough to choke on.
I cleared my throat and stepped back as she gathered her things. I took the book bag without asking and she let me. I had to push down the need to haul her back into my arms and kiss her the way I was dying to. Instead, I followed her into the diner for a breakfast that I didn’t want.
The only thing I wanted was her. Plain and simple.