Slow Agony (16 page)

I even remembered what Griffin had said.
It’s like music and dancing is all about shutting off your inhibitions, or whatever’s in the way, and letting your body move.

It was my influence that had led him to that conclusion. He’d never have danced if it hadn’t been for me. And he was a good dancer. Griffin was big and burly, but he was a physical person. He spent time working out—lifting weights and jogging in the mornings. How I remembered the way he teased me about my couch potato ways. Dancing was a natural fit for him, once he allowed his body to move, like he said.

The music was upbeat and quirky. We danced together, but with a foot between our bodies, swaying and bouncing, both grinning. The music made us lively and buoyant. We wound our way between the other dancers, and we were happy.

But then the song ended, and the strains of the next song were quieter. Slower.

Griffin and I both stopped moving, and the smiles slid from our faces.

He swallowed, gazing at me.

I peered up at him, searching his expression.

He reached for my hands and pulled me close.

Our gazes still locked, we began to move together. His hands slid over my waist, settling on the curve of my hips. I snaked mine up and around his neck. The music was soft and slow, but the African beat of the drums spoke to my hips, and I found myself undulating them.

Griffin’s fingers dug into my skin.

I let my fingers travel over his shoulders.

Distantly, I could hear that the crooner had started to sing the words to the song, and that it was a song of lost love, a lament for a lover gone away. But Griffin was so close that the music seemed further away. He loomed, blocking out the rest of the world.

My chest felt tight.

His fingers shifted. One of his hands went to the small of my back, and he pushed me closer to him. Our bodies were practically touching.

His other hand moved up my body, cupping me behind my neck.

I moistened my lips.

His gaze had grown thick with intensity.

We were barely swaying to the music anymore. We’d been slowing down, as if we couldn’t be bothered by it anymore.

I stopped moving entirely.

Griffin’s head dipped down.

I tilted my chin.

Our lips met.

His lips were soft and warm. His kiss was sweet and thorough. My body sank into his, and I thought of the sun going down, the stars appearing in the sky. Their bright spots in the darkness were my desire for Griffin, still burning brightly through the smothering night of our separation. The kiss made my desire brighten, come back as strong as ever.

And then it was over. He pulled back.

He touched his lips. “Doll...”

I looked at the ground. “I know. I confuse you.”

He drew in a breath. But he didn’t say anything.

I went back to our table. Someone had left the check for us. I shuffled cash into the black leather folder.

Griffin was behind me. “I was going to get that.”

I turned to him. “It’s okay. It’s not like this was a date or something.”

He furrowed his brow. “Wasn’t it?”

I straightened, smoothing out my skirt. “Should we go back to the hotel?”

He sighed, sounding frustrated. He seized my hand and dragged me out of the restaurant. “Let’s walk.”

It was much warmer at night here in Austin than it had been in West Virginia. I let Griffin lead me up the sidewalk. I looked at the shops we’d visited earlier in the day. Most were closed now.

“I don’t know how to start talking about this,” said Griffin.

“Talking about what?”

“I don’t think you’re a murderer.”

Oh. That. I felt my stomach turn inside out. “I’m glad you don’t. But maybe we shouldn’t talk about it anymore. It only makes us angry and ugly.”

He didn’t say anything. “All right. Fine. Let’s go back to the hotel.” He let go of my hand and turned around on the sidewalk.

I caught him by the shoulder. “Wait.” He seemed so defeated. I didn’t want to cut him off if it was important to him. “Do you have something you want to say?”

He cupped my cheek with his palm. “I don’t know. I wanted you to know that I don’t think that. You yelled it at me right before I ran off, and we haven’t talked since then.”

“But you said I killed your child.”

His jaw worked. “That was how it felt. To me, it felt like something... something that I was supposed to protect... died.”

I pulled away from him. “And you blame me.”

He grabbed my arm and forced me to face him. “No. No, doll, I blamed myself.”

There was a lump growing in my throat. My face twisted as I fought tears. “But you said I was selfish, and you called me names—”

“I never should have done that. I was angry at myself, and I took it out on you.”

I tried hard not to cry. He was apologizing? He was taking it back? He didn’t think I was selfish?

He craned his neck up at the sky. “I hate Jolene French with every fiber of my being, but sometimes some of the things she said help me. We had to become efficient at killing at Op Wraith.”

“And she taught you to turn off,” I said. I’d seen Griffin hard and emotionless. It was terrifying. “But you weren’t turned off. You were angry.”

“If the turning off didn’t work,” he said, “then she taught me other mind tricks. She said that it was hard wired biologically into men to want be protectors. If I had trouble killing people, I had to reframe the action in my mind as a protective action.”

At least this was distracting me from crying, but I didn’t understand why he was telling me this. “Okay.”

He shrugged, meeting my gaze again. “I think that’s why I freaked out. Because I’m hard wired to try to protect my own offspring. It’s biological.”

“So you get a pass?” I couldn’t believe him.

He rubbed the top of his head. “I’m not trying to make excuses for myself.”

“It sounds like it.”

“I’m saying I wasn’t thinking rationally. And then... with you in danger all the time it was very confusing. Because I still want to protect you, Leigh. Like with every fiber of my being. Because I’m in love with you. But I didn’t know how to reconcile that feeling with my anger and distrust.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You know, Griffin, you’ve really got to stop sneaking in how much you love me into things that sound like veiled insults. And you’ve got to stop doing it on the street at night too.”

He smiled. A careful smile. “Was that a joke, doll?”

“You remember how you told me that you loved me the first time?”

His smile widened.

“No man likes to see the woman he loves dancing naked in front of drunk people,” I said. “Or something like that.”

“No man does,” he said, his arm going around my waist, pulling me close.

I put my palm against the firmness of his chest. “Griffin...” I murmured softly.

He kissed me again. He nudged his tongue into my mouth and teased a moan from my lips. He kissed me the way he knew I liked it. His kiss was like coming home.

“If you’d been there, I don’t think that...”

“If I’d been there, things would have been different. But I wasn’t there. And that isn’t how things went.”

“No,” I said.

“I won’t leave again,” he said. “I swear. I won’t leave unless you throw me out.”

I smiled.

“As long as you still want me, that is.”

I kissed him.

Griffin pushed me back on the bed in our hotel room. Next to us, the polka dot wallpaper cheerily looked down on us. I reached up for him, and he settled against me, his body pressing into mine, my hips cradling him, my arms holding him.

“Doll,” he rasped, his lips finding the hollow just beneath my jaw.

I sighed. That spot always got me. I closed my eyes. “Maybe I
was
selfish, Griffin,” I whispered.

His mouth closed over my earlobe.

I choked on breath. It felt too good.

“You weren’t selfish.” He rained kisses over my neck. “You were alone. You did what you had to do.”

“But—”

He silenced me by kissing me long and slow and deep.

I drowned in the sweetness of it, clinging to him, kissing him back eagerly.

He pulled back. “Doll, you are the least selfish person I know.”

“No, I’m not.” I reached down for the edge of his tight t-shirt and pulled it over his head.

He let me do it, offering no resistance, and then he was beautiful and shirtless in front of me, all his skin bared to me.

I placed my hands on his pecks, trailed my fingers over his sturdy chest and stomach.

He sucked in breath, closed his eyes. “You’re open and accepting and patient.”

I kissed the rigid clefts of his muscles. I put my mouth against the ugly tattoo in the center of his chest. I peered up at him.

“You’re good to me,” he breathed.

“I put myself and what I wanted ahead of the idea of being pregnant, though. That’s selfish, isn’t it?”

“No.” He took me by both hands and pulled me to my feet. “It’s not.”

“I think it is.”

Griffin gathered the skirt of my dress into his fists and tugged the dress up and over my head.

It wasn’t the kind of dress that I could easily wear a bra with. Suddenly, I was naked except for my panties.

He raked his gaze over me. “You’re beautiful.”

My insides melted.

He cupped my breasts, one in each hand. “Listen to me. The definition of selfish is caring about yourself more than you care about other people. But the way you care about me is the opposite of selfish, doll. I’m sorry I ever said it. I didn’t mean it.”

I moaned at his touch.

He ran his thumbs over my nipples, and they stiffened.

Pleasure jolted through me. I moaned louder.

He continued to toy with my breasts. “But me, on the other hand... I don’t deserve you. I’ve put you through too much.”

“Griffin, that’s not true.”

His hands faltered. “I think it is.”

I reached for the button on his pants and undid it. I unzipped him and pushed his jeans over his thighs. He stepped out of them. There. Now, we were even. We were both only wearing underwear.

I could see his erection straining against the fabric of his boxers. I had to touch it. I stroked him through the thin cotton.

He gasped.

“Bad?” I said. I always had to be careful when I touched Griffin here. Sometimes, he didn’t like it.

“No,” he said breathlessly. “Good. It’s good.”

My hand moved rhythmically around him. “I don’t know where I’d be without you. You’ve saved me so many times. From myself as much as from people trying to kill me.”

He captured my wrist, stopping my hand. “But it seems like there’s always people trying to kill you. Or me. And right now, it’s because of me that you’re in danger.”

I climbed back onto the bed, my hand still wrapped around him. I pulled him down with me that way.

He grunted, slamming his eyes shut.

I started to drag my grasp against the length of him again, but he lowered his face to my breast.

When he drew my nipple into his mouth, I forgot to do anything but cry out. Bliss washed over me, warm and wonderful. “Maybe I like danger,” I managed.

His hands were on the inside of my thigh, moving higher. “Oh really?” he murmured into my breast.

“Maybe it turns me on.”

His fingers went under my panties, gently probing me. “You seem turned on.”

I groaned.

He yanked my panties out of the way and his fingers were back between my legs. “Don’t I owe you, doll?” His lips closed over my other nipple.

I couldn’t answer with words. I tried to moan out something in the affirmative, but it was too tough to speak when he was assaulting me that way. His fingers were expert, gently flitting against me, stroking, swirling—slow at first, but recognizing the signs my body made and increasing to a frenzy.

I writhed under him, thrashed, screamed.

He’d always been good at that, but months of practice when we’d been dating had perfected his technique. And I was tense and ready from everything that had come before. My body was begging for release, and he gave it to me.

The spasm of my orgasm ripped through me, powerful, shattering. I rode it, calling out his name as it rolled over me, swelling and ebbing back until I was nothing more than a mess of twitching on the bed.

Griffin kissed me.

I was jelly in his arms, liquid and loose. “You’re amazing.”

He tugged away. “No. As if any amount of making you come could ever make up for the way I left you.”

“Griffin, it happened,” I said. “We can’t change that.” I tugged at his boxers, pulling them off.

“Everything that happened was my fault.”

I took him in my hand, stiff and thick and long and ready. I caressed him. “No. It’s all been far too complicated to be anyone’s fault.”

I wrapped my legs around his body and guided his member to my opening. “Can’t you see how perfect I think you are?”

And then he was inside me.

This time he was perfect. He fit into me wonderfully, and if I felt stretched, it was in a thrilling, delicious way. I felt complete, filled up, satisfied.

He drew out of me slowly, gazing down into my eyes, and then he pushed his way back in.

I gasped.

“You’re perfect,” he breathed.

His slow rhythm continued, dragging almost all the way out of me, and then plunging in so deep.

I shook my head, my breathing shallow, my pulse racing. “You.”

“Us,” he said, burying himself in me again, piercing me.

Chapter Ten

“So,” Griffin was saying, his body curled around mine in bed, “you’re coming to Morgantown to go to grad school, right?”

It was morning, but our hotel was still a dark cocoon. I didn’t think there was anything nicer than feeling his naked skin against mine, than being so close. “That’s the plan. If we don’t die, that is.”

“I won’t let you die,” he growled.

His voice did things to my insides. I closed my eyes and snuggled even closer to him. “You better not.”

He chuckled low and deep. “I want you alive for some time yet, doll. I have all kinds of plans for you.”

“I want you alive too.”