Beach House No. 9 (17 page)

Then she made a new, urgent sound, and his head shot up. Her eyes were half-closed, her plush mouth pursed, her body rigid, as if she was poised on a precipice.
Sweet God.

“Are you about to come?” he demanded. With just his play at her breasts?

Her fingers had dropped to the sheets, and now they curled into the fabric. “I’m…working on it.”

“That’s it,” he muttered, rearing up from the bed. “You wait,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You just better damn well wait.” Next he stripped off the rest of his clothes and tossed the condom he carried in his wallet on the bedside table.

Then he dropped back to the mattress and crawled between her legs, pushing them apart as he drew closer to her outrageous undergarment. With an elbow on either side of her hips, he stared down at that pretty ribbon lacing up the two halves of fabric. The panties were a metaphor for Jane herself, he decided. There were two sides to her: the steely governess and the soft woman. Both laced together and tied off with a sturdy yet feminine bow. The whole shielding the vulnerable, unknown heart of her.

Then Griffin groaned, realizing he was intellectualizing again. Once more he was letting Jane into his head and under his skin when he only wanted her
against
his skin. When he only wanted inside her body. “Get ready,” he said in a dark voice as he gave a ruthless pull to the ribbon. “I’m going to make you see stars.”

Her hair was soft here too. When he opened her with his thumbs, he discovered her pretty flesh went from shell- to fever-pink as well. He stared down at her as he traced the petaled contours and then circled the wet opening he’d explore next.

“Griffin,” she said, sounding strangled.

“Hush.” He toyed gently with her clit and heard her breathing hitch. “Patience,” he said. “I’m getting there.”

Still wanting to tease her, his thumb pressed the little button again. Then he placed two fingertips just inside the entrance to her channel. And Jane, stubborn, intractable, infuriating Jane, shoved her body down the sheets and took those fingers deeper. Took him to the palm.

Like that, took her own orgasm.

He watched her face as she rode it out, the sweet surrender to bliss that caused her dark lashes to sweep across her cheeks and her tender mouth to tremble. Then her body calmed, and he watched her eyes open. “Hey,” she said.

His mouth was too dry to speak. With one hand she stroked his shoulder. With the other, she reached for the condom. He swiped it away from her. Then he kissed her, thinking that maybe this was the answer. Maybe he shouldn’t go forward. Maybe it should be good-night now, and he wouldn’t let this go any further.

But her hands were insistent and her mouth greedy on his. He found himself donning the rubber, then sliding inside her. “Aaah.” God. Soft. Hot. Sweet.

Her legs clamped over his hips. He let his weight drive him deeper into her, and she tilted her hips again. He knew where this was going. He knew what she was doing.

But he didn’t object this time. He just swept her up into the rhythm, and when he felt her reaching, when he was hanging on by a single thread, he put his hand between their bodies and found hers already there instead. It was her own touch that nudged her over before he could protest.

As she contracted around him, he felt the pleasure gather in his belly. Just as he took off, he lifted his head to take in Jane’s flushed cheeks, swollen mouth, silver eyes. Then his squeezed shut as release pulsed, pulsed, pulsed through him.

When he came back to himself, he was flat on his back. A boneless Jane was lying across his chest. He didn’t shift away, even though he generally didn’t like being tangled with a woman in the aftermath. He always figured it was because of the nine months he’d shared the confined space of a womb with his twin.

He lifted his head from the pillow to see if Jane was sleeping. She must have felt his movement because she turned her cheek, their gazes meeting. Her eyes were sleepy. “Thank you,” she said, her voice drowsy. “That was nice.”

Nice?
“Oh, yeah?”

“Mmm.” Her lashes drifted toward her cheeks. “Nobody’s ever tried to put me first.”

On a soundless groan, he dropped his head to the pillow. Nobody had ever tried to put her first.

Would he ever get that—
her
—out of his head?

CHAPTER TWELVE

S
IPPING
AT
ROOM
service coffee, Griffin listened to the sound of the shower and calculated how long before he’d be back to real life—his other real life—in Beach House No. 9. If Jane didn’t stop to dry her hair and he put her own caffeine in a to-go cup, they could be in secure environs in approximately seventy minutes, he guessed.

He couldn’t get out of the hotel suite soon enough.

His glance caught on the tumbled pair of sandals he’d slipped off Jane the night before. Pooled just a few inches away was the silky fabric of her dress. From there it was just another heartbeat before a memory of those ribbon-and-wishes panties made his palms itch.

“God,” he murmured to himself, then strode over to the discarded articles and snatched them off the floor. The shoes he placed on a small table beside the door leading to the bedroom. The dress didn’t cooperate as well, but he managed to fold it into a slithery bundle that he balanced on top of the sandals. “All tidied up,” he told himself.

Could it be that easy?

We’ve escaped, just for the night. A single night,
she’d said. Now that it was morning, could they return to their previous relationship? Which was no relationship at all, he hurriedly assured himself.

There was a knock on the suite’s outer door.

On the other side, he discovered, stood his agent, Frank De Luca. The man was dressed in a coat and tie and carried a supersize manila envelope that rivaled his belly in the bulging department.

“Uh, hey,” Griffin said and had a sudden image of Jane walking out of the bedroom clad only in a towel, or maybe even less. With a glance over his shoulder, he stepped to block the gap in the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I got a text this morning,” Frank replied, his gray brows beetling over his pudgy boxer’s nose. He was half Irish and half Italian, which made him a perfect advocate for his clients. He loved to fight. “From Janie.”

“Janie? You call her Janie?” Ian Stone had called her Janie.

The other man waved a hand. “I’ve known her since she was a kid. Her dad was a client of mine at one time. Aren’t you going to let me in?”

Letting Frank in could complicate matters. And also postpone Griffin’s return to the cove. He glanced at the envelope. “If that’s for her, you can hand it over and be on your way. I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“This is yours,” Frank said. “And I’m here to talk with you too.”

What could he do but open the door? “I thought you said Jane sent you a text,” he muttered as the other man passed him on his way inside.

“To say she was sorry she missed me last night. But when I found out you were both still in town, I decided to drop by.”

“Wonderful. Terrific. Always a pleasure,” Griffin lied. Thank God he’d picked up Jane’s fallen clothes. He wouldn’t have wanted to explain them away, he thought, watching the other man toss the envelope onto the table in front of the couch. “What’s that?”

“Stuff the magazine was holding for you. They forwarded it to me since you went missing.”

“If I went missing, how come the book doctor, my sister and my agent all find me so damn easily?”

“Why are you so damn set on being hard to find?” Frank countered.

Griffin pasted on a smile. “How are the wife and kids?”

Frank hitched up his pants at the thighs and then settled into one of the room’s armchairs. “Spending about twenty-three hours of the day in the pool. Raeanne is teaching Tim how to dive. Amy can almost swim one whole length underwater.”

Pride puffed Frank’s chest so that it nearly matched his belly. Still, since marrying Raeanne, he’d dropped about twenty pounds and his face wasn’t quite so unhealthily florid. “Have you been watching your blood pressure and eating better?” Griffin asked, sitting on the couch across from the older man.

“Sure. Raeanne insists on all that organic age-free crap.”

Griffin bit down on his smile. “I believe you mean free-range.”

“Free-range, age-free, what’s the difference? She made something for dinner last night with tutu.”

“Tofu.”

“It wasn’t sirloin, that’s all I know. But it makes her happy, so…” He shrugged. “She’s been good to me. Marriage has been good to me. I highly recommend it.”

Griffin thought of Tess, who’d run from her husband to the cove. Of David, sleeping in his kids’ sleeping bags on the beach. “Glad to hear it.”

“You know what I’m not glad to hear?” Frank asked, crossing one ankle over his knee. “Janie says you’re not making much progress.”

Shit. “There’s an office. Whiteboards. Sharpened pencils.”

Frank just looked at him.

Double shit. “I’ve never missed a deadline. You know that.”

And still Frank looked at him.

Griffin shifted his gaze. Outside the window, the sky was that flat blue of summer, as if it had been ironed by the heat. This time of year in Afghanistan, the temperature was brutally hot, matching the increasing violence as insurgents climbed over the mountain passes to engage the troops. It was a deadly season that might only be mitigated if the previous year’s lousy crop yield forced the other side’s fighters to focus more on growing poppies and wheat than killing their enemies.

It was the kind of detail that belonged in his book. And if it was just a succession of those kind of details, he’d have racked up the pages by now. But Jane was insisting on emotions too, which meant writing about Erica and Randolph and all the other young and innocent cherries who’d stepped off the Chinooks as rookies and had been exposed to death within thirty seconds.

Which made them feel so damn alive. So damn alive until they went home…or weren’t alive at all anymore.

If he wrote about all that, would his calm last?

Maybe he should raise the idea of not completing the project, Griffin thought. Though it was true that he’d never missed a deadline and he didn’t want to start now, when each morning came, he couldn’t dredge up a shred of motivation. Backing out was going to be a pain in the ass, and he wasn’t happy about how it might affect him professionally, but waiting for the will to begin work became less viable an option with every passing day.

Torn, he pushed both hands through his hair. “Look, Frank. I’ve not completely made up my mind, but I need to tell you I’m considering—”

“You should cut Jane loose if you’re not going to get serious,” Frank said.

Grimacing, he leaned forward on the cushion. “I said I’m only considering—”

“This is about her, Griff, not about you.”

Griffin stared at the other man. Then he glanced toward the bedroom door, not sure if he wanted Jane to step out and interrupt the conversation or if he wanted Frank to finish. “I—” he started, then stopped, resigned. “What are you getting at?”

“Ian Stone.”

The name made him want to spit, even though Ian Stone was exactly why Jane had ended up in bed with Griffin last night. Knowing she was still hung up on her literary superstar had made it safe for him to even consider sex. And it was clear why she’d accepted—she’d been willing to take her night out of time because a little self-esteem boosting had been in order after coming face-to-face with that ass and the other woman.

“I know about all that,” Griffin said.

Frank raised an eyebrow. “Then you’ll understand me when I say it’s not right to fuck with her.”

Griffin twitched. Jesus! Did it show on him? Was there a sign on his forehead that read I Boffed Jane? He frowned at his agent. “I don’t think it’s right to call it fucking, either.”

That word implied callousness. He hadn’t been uncaring. To the contrary, he’d
wanted
to pleasure her. Was it his fault that she hadn’t trusted him to make that happen? His own ego had taken the blow last night, but next time he was going to tie her up—

No, of course there wasn’t going to be a next time.

“That’s what it will be, though,” Frank said, “if it gets around that you reneged on your obligation when you were working with Jane.”

The words took a minute to sink in, because Griffin’s mind had spun away on images of Jane bound by soft rope. Blinking, he came out of his brief reverie to focus on Frank once again. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

The agent narrowed his eyes. “She told you about working with Ian?”

“Yeah. Heard all about that.”

“And that she left him?”

“Because he two-timed her,” Griffin protested. “Hell, any thinking person would walk away.”

“Ian Stone hasn’t turned in a book since. He’d been a blockbuster well, and without Jane it dried up.”

“Serves him right.” He was supposed to feel sympathy?

“But the blame has fallen on Jane’s shoulders. Ian claims to any who’ll listen that it’s her fault. That her defection eroded his confidence.”

“What a pussy,” Griffin said, disgusted.

“But a talkative, loud one. Loud enough that she hasn’t been able to find more work. He’s dragged her good name through the mud. Spread it around that she’s willing to leave a writer in the lurch.”

Griffin froze. While he’d been loath to ditch his deadline because of the ding to his rep, he could see how much harder Jane would take the professional hit. He heard her voice in his head on the day she went to visit her father:
success is the only option.

“You said you know her dad?”

“Brilliant guy. Cold as a fish.”

His legs suddenly restless, Griffin popped up from the couch, crossing to the window, then circling the room. There on the table were those girlie shoes, that slithery dress, the evidence that he’d held a naked Jane in his arms.

Nobody’s ever tried to put me first.

“So you see, Griffin, if you’re not going to get serious on this project, you need to cut her loose, quick, so she can find another client. Have a real success. Reputation and word of mouth are everything in her line of work.”

The information tumbled through his brain and roiled his belly. Before he could answer Frank, before he knew
how
he would answer Frank, the bedroom door snicked open. Carrying her small duffel bag, Jane wore a straight khaki skirt, a white T-shirt made like mummy bandages and a pair of glossy flat shoes the color of new money. Her color was high, and her mouth was swollen. If you looked closely—he did and found himself shifting forward before he stopped himself—you could see that the edges of her lips were blurred by the slight burn his stubble had left behind. Her glance flicked to Frank and then transferred to Griffin.

Their gazes locked. This could end now, he thought. Right this moment he could tell Jane he wasn’t going to write the book, and Frank would pack her up and take her away. He would never have to see her again, not those too-clear eyes, not her crazy shoes. Never again would he have to wonder what decadent underwear she wore.

Never let himself think that if he hadn’t been a part of ruining her career, he sure as hell hadn’t been involved in saving it either.

Nobody’s ever tried to put me first.

He crossed to her and snatched her small bag out of her hand. His decision had been made. Self-aware enough to acknowledge the ice inside him had been compromised and what came next would risk further damage, he gritted his teeth as he stalked toward the door. He didn’t know how he was going to do it without getting screaming ugly, but real life back at the cove meant writing that goddamn memoir. “Let’s go, honey-pie. We’ve got work to do at Beach House No. 9.”

* * *

J
ANE
AND
G
RIFFIN
were stuck in traffic on an infamous stretch of the 405 freeway, but she finally felt as if she’d made some progress. Things were going her way professionally. And on the personal side, her Ian-related demons had been banished. Last night’s escapade between the sheets had been good for her ego.

Only two things kept her from bouncing in her seat. One, she was a little tender in certain places, and two, she didn’t think her driver shared her good mood. He sat, silent and still, behind the wheel of his boxy vintage BMW.

Nevertheless, it appeared the tide had turned in her favor. When she’d ventured from the bedroom this morning—a little uncertain, she’d admit, since she’d woken alone and the only evidence he was still in the suite was the scent of fresh coffee—he’d been standing on the other side of the door, an unreadable expression on his face. “We’ve got work to do,” he’d said, and she might have disbelieved the seriousness of the statement if Frank hadn’t been in the room as well. Griffin wouldn’t have made the declaration in front of his agent unless he meant it.

Darling Frank.

“He looked good,” she mused aloud, then darted a glance to her left. “Frank, I mean.”

Griffin grunted. “He told me he’s been eating tutu.”

“Huh?”

A smile hitched the corner of his mouth. “Tofu.”

She laughed, even as she stared at that small curve of his lips. He hadn’t shaved, and dark whiskers peppered his jaw and chin. It would have made for a prickly kiss if he’d woken her with one.

She wouldn’t have turned away from it.

No, no! She
would
have turned away from it. That was their agreement, right? They’d decided that what happened that night in the hotel room would stay in that hotel room. Meaning she wouldn’t have let it happen again this morning.

She wouldn’t let it happen again, period.

He looked toward her as if he’d heard her little sigh. “You know Frank’s wife, Raeanne?”

“Sure. I’ve babysat for Tim and Amy on occasion.”

“Nice of you.” His attention turned out the windshield as the line of cars started to move.

“Nice of them,” she said, her voice light. “I needed the extra cash.”

Griffin muttered darkly.

“What’s that?”

His gaze slid right again, and she felt it like a touch. Then, as the cars in front of them came to a stop, he did just that, he touched her, his hand sliding beneath her hair to cup the nape of her neck. His thumb stroked her cheek, and her belly clenched. Between her thighs there was an instant swelling heat. Tingling.