“The year after you left I was like a zombie. Barely left my apartment except for school. I didn’t see anyone, didn’t go anywhere, didn’t eat. I lost so much weight I thought Mama was going to start force-feeding me.” She huffed out a low chuckle, but with the weight of that black time heavy on her, the soft laughter was void of humor. “I was…lost. And for a while I didn’t think I would get back to myself, find who I’d been before…”
“I left,” he murmured, his hand continuing its stroking.
She nodded. “Yes. After that year, I never wanted to be in that place again. Lose myself again. It was terrifying, and I needed my life back. Ineededto be me again. Tofeelagain.” To discover who she was without him. “So I forced myself to start dating. There was one man who I liked. And trusted enough to,” she paused, squeezing her legs, “have sex with.”
His fingers stilled. And for a second tightened. Her scalp tingled from his grip on the curls, and she inhaled, attempting to stifle the lust that spiraled through her at the tiny pricks of pain. His breath deepened, roughened, and hers lowered to match his rhythm. A moment later, his hold eased but the need didn’t.
“I went home and threw up. And again when I tried it a second time, thinking the first might’ve been a fluke. It hadn’t been. I didn’t bother after that. I couldn’t—” She shrugged. Bear to have anyone’s hands on me but yours.
“I’m fucking glad.”
Surprise sucker punched the breath from her lungs. She jerked her head up, meeting his narrowed, heated stare.
“You’re glad I’ve been lonely and unable have sex these past years?” she demanded, hating the slight tremble in her voice.
“Yes,” he stated. “No matter how much of an asshole that makes me.”
She curled her lip up in a sneer. “A hypocritical asshole considering you probably haven’t led the life of a monk.”
“No, I haven’t.”
Pain sliced her open, and she blinked against the agony of it. Stupid, so stupid to be hurt by his bald admission. She’d known as much. A man as sexual as him wouldn’t go with—
She flew back on the mattress, her head hitting the pillow as a big, hard body covered hers. Griffin loomed above her, his palms planted on either side of her head. Several shorter strands of his hair swept forward, glancing over his sculpted cheekbones and rigid jaw. Emphasizing the blaze in his blue eyes.
“Damn it, Griffin,” she snapped.
“You’re right. I’ve fucked women.” When she shoved against his shoulders, he clasped her wrists in one large hand and manacled them over her head. He gripped her chin with the other, forcing her to meet his gaze. “But I can only remember one thing about any of them. None were you.”
Her heart—the traitorous, foolish organ—pounded in her chest. Hadn’t it learned not to flutter and ache at pretty words? Didn’t it remember the agony of having it ripped out of her chest by the man whose stare pierced hers, whose hips wedged in between her legs, whose cock pressed to her sex, setting her on fire? Lust, desire, passion—they were reactions, chemical responses. But love… Love was sacrifice, trust, commitment. Forever.
They didn’t have that. At the end of his two weeks, Griffin would walk away from home, from her, again. She didn’t fool herself into believing he would stay, that he could promise her forever and keep it. She didn’t trust him not to hurt her. She didn’t trust herself not to serve her heart up on a silver platter to be shattered again. Not with this man. When it came to Griffin, masochism seemed to be her default setting.
Lowering her lashes, she wiggled her hands until he set her free. Her wrists tingled from his implacable grip, and she stifled the urge to rub her skin in a vain effort to trap the sensation like a memento for when he left again.
“Why did you come by?” Yes, she was deflecting. And judging from the tightening of his lips, he recognized that tactic.
“Because the dinner party was missing something.”
“What?”
“You.”
Damn, he had to stop saying things like that. For her sanity, he had to stop.
She huffed out a dry, strained chuckle. “Right. Knowing your mother, she had several women lined up to keep you entertained and occupied. Including Miss Texas Barbie.”
God, she needed to shut the hell up. Did she have a fucking off switch?
“Texas Barbie,” he repeated. A corner of his mouth kicked up. “Are you referring to Candace?” She shrugged. Damn that, she wasn’t saying one more word. Stupid shit seemed determined to fall off her tongue around him. “Yeah, she was there. Wait…” He cocked his head to the side. “Is she why you left the gala the other night?”
Hell yes. “No.”
He studied her, and she fought not to struggle under its sharp, way-too-damn-incisive power.
“She’s a beautiful woman,” he murmured, his scrutiny roaming her face. “But she doesn’t have unruly, chocolate curls that beg a man to tangle his fingers in them. She doesn’t have chameleon hazel eyes that can change from brown to green to gold depending on her mood. Doesn’t have skin that’s the shade of the purest honey and makes a man willing to sell his soul for just a lick. Doesn’t have a sinful body created for the sole purpose of sex and pleasure.” He brushed his thumb over her cheek, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. “Doesn’t have a wit that can draw blood or make me laugh like no one else can. Doesn’t have the ability to have me on the edge of coming just from her voice. Yeah, baby, Candace is beautiful. But like the others, she’s not you.”
Before she could utter a word—as if she could speak after that declaration—Griffin covered her mouth with his, lips molding and shaping hers to his will. His tongue thrust inside, taking immediate control. He bandied, teased and sucked, demanding she follow him, get wild with him. And she did. Every reason she should protect herself from him, place distance between them, evaporated under the erotic burn of their kiss. God, she’d always loved kissing him. Griffin did it like he fucked: at times hard, at time soft, but focused as if she were all he needed to exist.
