Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
VIOLET
For a man with a split lip, he kissed like he couldn’t feel the injury at all.
I hadn’t expected him to actually cross the line. And I definitely hadn’t expected my entire body to light up the second his mouth touched mine.
No hesitation. No tentative bullshit. Just pure, raw demand that burned through every thin excuse I’d ever used to keep him at arm’s length.
My mind screamed warnings—Julian, the team, Hazel sleeping just feet away—but they were useless against the blood roaring through my veins as his tongue pushed past mine.
I scraped my teeth hard over his lower lip, hitting the cut, drawing a groan that vibrated against my mouth, straight down to that molten ache pulsing low in my belly. My hand fisted in his damp, dark hair, hauling him so close I could feel the drum of his heart through our skin.
Blindly, my fingers fumbled to open the damn door. It swung inward and he barely stumbled. He carried us into the dark room, kicking the door closed. Thankfully, it shut with barely a click.
My back hit the mattress, and he followed me down, caging me beneath his body, his weight settling perfectly between my thighs.
“Griffin,” I gasped against his mouth, his name half warning, half plea.
He ignored me, trailing scorching kisses down my throat, teeth grazing on my collarbone, sucking a mark that would bruise.
I moaned, arching helplessly into the pain-pleasure, my fingers raking down the sweat-slick planes of his shoulders.
My body had a mind of its own, responding to him in ways I didn’t understand.
“Fuck, you smell like fucking victory,” he growled against my skin. He smelled like rubber, hot metal, sweat, and something purely masculine. It was intoxicating.
Days of tension, of stolen glances and something I refused to name detonated between us. His hand shoved roughly under my thin cotton sleep top, calloused palm rasping over bare skin, setting fire along my ribs and making my stomach muscles jump.
I should stop this. Push him away.
Instead, I pulled him closer, swallowing his groan as our hips aligned, the hard ridge of him pressing exactly where I needed.
My legs tightened around him, heels digging into the backs of his thighs.
Heat bloomed low and fierce in my belly, fanned by the rough drag of his stubble against the curve of my neck as he worked lower.
“Oh, you feel that?” His voice was a thick growl against the damp skin of my collarbone. The rumble vibrated straight to my already throbbing center. His hips rolled, grinding the hard proof of his desire against mine. “That’s a week of you fucking around in my head, making me want you.”
The raw honesty in his voice caught me off guard. I captured his mouth again, tasting blood and victory and something uniquely Griffin that made my head spin and my heart race.
Whatever line we’d drawn between us had just gone up in flames.
I’d spent days ignoring the heat in his gaze, the way my pulse jumped when he got too close. I’d told myself it didn’t mean anything. That he was just another driver. That I knew better.
Apparently, I didn’t know a damn thing.
Griffin pulled back, his eyes nearly black in the dim light, pupils blown wide with desire. He studied my face like he was memorizing every detail, thumb tracing the curve of my lower lip.
“Last chance to stop this,” he murmured, his voice strained with restraint.
My answer was to tug his shirt up, fingertips skating over the hard planes of his abdomen. “Take this off.”
His laugh was low, choked with lust as he yanked the shirt over his head. He tossed the fabric aside, revealing skin taut over sculpted muscle, the faint scars from past crashes telling stories I suddenly ached to trace.
My palms pressed flat against his skin, feeling the thundering of his heart beneath my fingers. His muscles jumped at my touch, a shudder running through him that fed the molten heat building between my legs.
Griffin captured my hands, pinning them above my head with one of his.
“My turn,” he said, his free hand sliding beneath my sleep shirt, pushing it up to expose my skin inch by agonizing inch.
The cool air hit my sweat-slicked belly for a second before his touch left trails of fire across my ribs, my breasts, the sensitive curve where my neck met my shoulder. Every nerve ending sparked to life, my body arching helplessly toward him.
I gasped as his tongue rasped against the sensitive bud, circled it, flicked it mercilessly. His teeth scraped lightly, making me cry out and twist my hips, seeking relief where the ache was becoming a desperate throb.
My hands strained against his grip, desperate to touch him again, but he held firm, the restraint somehow making each sensation sharper, more intense.
“Look at you,” he breathed, watching the peak harden visibly under his touch, under his gaze. “Fucking beautiful.”
He blew cool air over the wet, sensitized peak, making me shiver before his mouth descended again, suckling harder. I bucked against him, my hips grinding instinctively against his erection. He responded with a roll of his own hips, the friction exquisite, maddening.
He released my hands only to slide lower down my body, fingers tracing the defined edge of my hipbone, dipping low.
“Patience, Princess,” he murmured, hooking his fingers into the waistband of my sleep shorts.
“I’m not feeling particularly patient,” I hissed, lifting my hips to help him remove the last barrier between us.
He chuckled, the sound vibrating against my inner thigh. “No? What happened to that famous Carter restraint?”
Cool air washed over my flushed, bared skin, but it was fleeting. His heat descended lower still. He slid down my body, settling heavy between my sprawled thighs, his broad shoulders pushing my knees wider apart. The sudden exposure made me shiver, even as heat flooded my face and core.
“It disappeared when you—” My retort died in my throat as his mouth found me, tongue tracing a path through my lower lips. My head fell back against the pillows, a strangled cry escaping before I could bite it back.
Griffin’s hands gripped my thighs, holding me open to his assault. He worked me with devastating accuracy, finding every spot that made me tremble, drawing me closer to the edge with each stroke of his tongue.
“Fuck, Vi…” His breath was hot on my slick folds. “Soaked.” The observation sounded like pure masculine satisfaction, laced with awe. He pressed a soft kiss to my inner thigh, his stubble scraping deliciously.
One big hand spanned my hip bone, holding me steady. His thumb swept lazily through the slickness gathering at my entrance. He rubbed slow circles over my clit, the touch feather-light but deliberate. The pressure was exquisite torture, building slowly, making my breath hitch.
“Griffin, please,” I gasped, my body wound impossibly tight, hovering on the precipice. “Stop… teasing…”
He glanced up, eyes meeting mine over the plane of my body, his expression almost predatory. “Say it again.”
“Please.”
“My name,” he growled, pressing a finger inside me as his tongue circled my clit. “Say my name when you beg.”
“Griffin,” I breathed, the word a prayer and a curse wrapped together. “Griffin, please.”
He hummed his approval and dipped his head again and licked, a slow, flat, broad stripe through my drenched center. My cry ripped through the quiet room, sharp and needy. He repeated it, seeming to savor me.
He pressed the flat of it firmly against my clit, rubbing slow, grinding circles that had my toes curling into the sheets, my heels digging into his back.
“Yesss…” The hiss escaped through clenched teeth.
He responded by sealing his lips over the swollen bud and sucking, hard. It was almost too much. I bucked wildly, but his hand on my hip kept me pinned as his mouth worked relentlessly. He released me for a second.
“Please…” The word was a ragged exhale, barely audible. “God… please don’t stop…”
He growled low in his chest, the sound vibrating against my clit, then plunged his fingers inside me while his mouth clamped back down on that bundle of nerves.
The double assault shattered coherence. My cries devolved into mindless choked sounds lost to the sheets.
He curled his fingers upwards, finding that rough spot deep within.
He hooked and pressed as his tongue flicked ruthlessly over my clit.
Unbearable. Perfect.
The pressure built like an overwound coil, trembling on the edge of snapping. He added a third finger, a deep, stretching burn that only intensified the overwhelming pleasure. He sucked harder and my body tensed, every muscle locking tight, suspended on a razor’s edge.
“Griffin!” My voice broke raw on his name. “Griffin, I’m—”
He sucked harder. Pressed deeper. Held my gaze even as my back arched off the bed. The coil snapped and white-hot pleasure detonated, shattering my awareness into a million glittering shards.
He worked me through it, drawing out every aftershock until I pushed weakly at his shoulders, oversensitive and trembling. Tears streamed down my temples, lost in my hair.
Only when the last tremors subsided did he lift his head. His green eyes were nearly black, pupils blown wide with dark satisfaction and unspent desire.
He crawled back up my body and braced himself on his forearms above me, his gaze raking my flushed, sweat-drenched face.
“Like I said, fucking beautiful.” He smirked, his expression one of pure male satisfaction.
I should have found it irritating. Instead, I pulled him down, tasting myself on his lips, feeling the hard length of him pressing insistently against my thigh.
My own desire, momentarily stunned by the force of my orgasm, was already roaring back to life, fanned by his touch, his scent, the solid heat of him pressed against my leg.
My hand snaked out, palming the thick bulge straining against the front of his joggers.
He hissed, hips jerking involuntarily against my touch.