by Shayla Black
I set the chair aside and grab her hand. “I’m not the same man I used to be, I swear.”
She searches my face. “Let go.”
If I do what she asks, I’ll only give her time to build a taller wall between us before I’ve even begun chipping away at the one she’s already got in place.
I cup her hand tighter. “I was a bastard. Three years ago, I didn’t value you the way I should have. I didn’t love you the way I meant to. I…” Finding the right words is harder than I imagined. “I never meant to hurt you. But I know I did.”
She’s had a long time to lovingly craft creative curses to rain on my head for the shit I did to her. I’m expecting to hear a litany of them. Instead, hurt flashes in her eyes. “What do you want me to say, Griff? What are you looking for? Absolution?”
“Be mad. Yell at me. It’s okay. I’ll answer your questions. I’ll stand here and take your anger. Whatever will prove I’m serious. Whatever you need to feel better.”
“I don’t feel anything at all.” She wriggles free and turns to retrieve another chair.
Liar.
So she doesn’t want to talk? Well, some situations call for more than words. They’ve never been my strong suit anyway.
I take the second chair from her grip and set it in the corner beside the first. Then I wrap my fingers around her elbow and give a gentle tug. She stumbles against me. Our chests collide. She gasps. Her head snaps back. I pull her body closer to mine. Our eyes meet.
“Angel,” I whisper as I cradle her cheeks in my hands and drop my head. She barely has time to draw another breath before I settle my lips over hers.
Then I’m kissing Britta again after three long fucking years.
A million sensations hit me at once. I inhale her familiar jasmine scent. I caress the velvet of her face, her nape. I hear her rapid intake of breath. Heat burns my veins. I’m melting. Her touch feels so electric. I’m dying. Holding her again is so stunning. Arousal hammers me—heart pinging, breaths sawing, cock hardening. But my feelings aren’t the same as before. Now they’re desperate. They’re so yearning. So deep.
They’re the feelings of a man who finally understands love—and has been given a second chance to give it back.
Touching her is also a comfort, like coming home after a long war. I feel as if I’ve fought myself and exorcised the demons of my past. I’m unshackled but I’m so chained to her that I’ll never be free. I don’t want to be.
Memories of the hundreds of times I stripped her bare, physically and sexually, and left her blushing and smiling and panting my name bombard me. I’m haunted by the times she told me she loved me and I said nothing in return.
Against me she’s frozen in shock. Her body is tense. Her fingers are splayed wide on my chest where they landed when she tried to catch her balance. She’s not moving her lips against mine. And goddamn it, I crave her response. I have to know I’m not the only one willing to give us another try.
With a groan, I brush my lips over Britta’s again. If anything, she goes stiffer. I breathe against her and try like hell to coax her. I almost back off. But…she’s not yelling at me. She’s not shoving me away.
I try one more time, giving her a suede-soft slide of my lips over hers. Then suddenly, she trembles under me. Her fingers begin to curl into my shirt. I sense that she wants to give in…but is trying so hard not to.
“Kiss me.” I nudge her mouth open and hover. “Just once. I’ve missed you like hell.”
The still moment hangs, suspended. Then finally she exhales and closes her eyes. Her arms curl around my neck. A little moan escapes the back of her throat as she tilts her head, parts her lips for me…
And she invites me in.
With a low groan, I fuse our mouths together and taste that something sweet, elusive, and addictive that’s purely Britta. She softens against me and pours herself into our kiss. Every breath, every crush of lips, every slide of tongue—she’s with me. She curls her fingers into fists, grabbing my shirt before she uses it to drag me closer. But there’s already no air between us.
Emboldened, I dive deeper inside her. One kiss bleeds into the next, endless and urgent. Right now, I don’t give a shit if we ever come up for air.
With seeking palms, I slide my way down the bare skin of her waist until I’m gripping her hips and grinding her pussy against my aching cock. Tingles ignite and explode, and I groan into her mouth. I want her to know how much she affects me. She should never again feel less than confident about how desperately I want her. I also realize one other undeniable fact.
I. Am. Hers.
My hands slide down from her hips to cup her pert backside. In one grunt, I lift her against me, spread her thighs around my hips, and rock against her. She turns frantic, eating at my mouth, pulling at my hair, like she’s looking for some way to be closer, let me deeper inside. She climbs my body and wraps her legs around me, trying to wriggle against me for friction.
My heart is racing so fast I swear it’s going to explode. And I don’t care. I keep at her. The only thing that will stop me now is if she says no. And the way our chemistry feels…I’m not sure that word is in her vocabulary anymore.
Holy fuck. This is hotter than anything I’ve ever felt.
I break away from the kiss to look at her. But I can’t stand any distance between us. I brush my lips over her neck. My teeth nip at her lobe. I breathe across her skin. She shivers, opening her eyes just enough to reveal her heavy lids and dilated pupils.
“Griff…” She tilts her head back and shifts restlessly over my erection again with a groan.
In the back of my head, I realize the boyfriend must not be satisfying her, because she’s acting like a woman who needs pleasure. I hate thinking of that snoozer-loser touching her at all, but the realization that he’s inept in the sack makes me smile. If she’ll let me, I’ll give her all the orgasms she can handle every single day before I heap more on her each night.
“That’s it, angel. Fuck, you feel so good.”
I slide one hand up to her hair and unwind the messy bun. The blond skeins fall like silk over my fingers as I wrap my hand around them and tug until her neck is totally exposed to me. Then I run my tongue from the hollow of her throat to the tip of her chin.
She shudders in my arms, gasping and panting, kissing a path across my jaw. “Griff…”
Her pleading is so pretty. “You liked that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That’s how I’m going to eat your pussy, angel, with long, thorough licks until you feel me all the way through your body.”
She whimpers in answer before she lays her lips over mine again, asserting her desire, demanding more of mine.
Oh, she can have it all. Right now. For-fucking-ever.
I spin to my left and dive down onto the waiting bed. I cradle Britta in my arms as she falls under me. Once I’m on top of her, possessing her mouth once more, I unzip the little white sports top with one hand while I work my other into her spandex shorts. When I touch her pussy, something savage pulses through me. She went bare for me when we were together. She’s still bare now.
Like she’s just been waiting for me.
With a soft swipe, I reward her. She cries out. For a moment, I tear my mouth from hers so I can look at her, pink-cheeked and writhing and lost to desire. I want her so damn badly I’m blind and crazy with it.
At once, I suck her nipple into my mouth as I curl my fingers into her cunt. I suckle and rub her, gratified when her whole body jolts like I’ve hooked her up to a live wire. She’s so wet, her every fold is slick.
Fuck yes.
The bead of her breast is tight, but her clit is even harder. She can’t stay still under my touch. Hips rolling, back arching, lips parting…
God, I want to make her come in the next two minutes. I could. All the signs are there. But I’ve waited too long to be with her again to rush. I’m going to savor every sigh and every groan as she pleads with me to fill her, fuck her, claim h
er once and for all.
I lean over her slight body and Hoover her other nipple into my mouth. Her breasts are fuller now, but she still responds exactly the same—losing her mind when I get my mouth on these sensitive tips and torture them lovingly.
After another nip to the nub, I tongue my way up the side of her breast and still my busy fingers over her needy clit. She gasps in protest and wriggles, hips shifting, thighs spreading. “Griff…”
This is every fucking fantasy about Britta I’ve imagined. It’s mind-blowing that she wants me, too.
I can almost taste our tomorrows.
“You want me to make you feel good, angel?” At her whimper, I smile. “Say the word. I’ll strip you down and get deep inside you. Possess you. I’ll give you the kind of pleasure neither of us has had in three years. I’ll—”
“No.” Suddenly, she heaves a shuddering breath and frantically pushes at me. “No. Let go. Get off!”
She’s panicked.
I frown, lifting myself to my knees and easing my weight off her. “Hey. Everything’s okay. If you need me to go slower—”
She pushes me away, and I see tears pooling in her eyes. “I don’t need you to touch me at all. God, I never meant for that to happen!”
She’s trembling and guilt-ridden. I’m confused. And frustrated. Britta was totally and completely kiss for kiss with me. Now, she’s scrambling to get away from me as if I’m a leper.
Or like I’m the man who utterly devastated her once upon a time.
I roll to my feet as she turns her back to me and zips up her top. I offer her a hand to help her up. The fingers of the other are still slick with her moisture.
She yanks away from me, scooting to the end of the bed and standing on wobbly legs without my assistance. “Get out.”
“What? Tell me…” What spooked her? What is she thinking? What does she need from me?
“Why I’m saying no?” She scowls as she winds her hair back into a messy bun, then drags the back of her hand across her mouth, as if wiping away my kiss. “That’s so typical of you, Griff. Never imagining for a moment why any woman would say no to you. Yes, you’re great in bed, but I know at least a half dozen places that’s been.” She glances at my stiff cock shoved in my shorts.
I’m certainly not about to tell her six other women are a drop in the bucket. “Britta—”
“No. I had a stupid lapse of judgment, but there’s no way I’ll ever trust you as a lover again.”
Her words hurt more than I thought possible. “Angel…”
She brushes past me and reaches for the first of the dining room chairs I stacked to one side. As she curls her fingers around the spindles, I barely manage to stop myself from wrapping my hands around her waist and bringing her back against me until she melts. But she’s said no very clearly. I have to fall back on verbal communication.
“I’m so fucking sorry. I was wrong.”
She stiffens but doesn’t stop or turn back. She just keeps walking. “I want you out of my house.”
“Don’t do this.” I’m all but pleading.
“You did this,” she reminds me, voice warbling. “You live with it.”
“I’ve missed you.” I dare to sidle closer and cup her shoulder. I wish she’d look at me, but at least I know she’s listening.
“I don’t care.”
“I love you.”
I’ve never said those three words to her—or any woman—in my life. And I mean them now more than I can possibly express.
She freezes, then whirls around and gapes at me, blue eyes wide with shock.
Way to ease her back into a relationship, dumb ass.
“You did not just… No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “All you’ve ever done is things to make me want you and then to make me hate you. It’s too late.” She lifts the chair as I stand still, lashed by her fury. “Fuck off. And don’t touch me again.”
“Britta?” I hear another man’s voice call down the hallway. It isn’t Maxon’s.
The fiancé must be here.
I bite back a curse. Terrible fucking timing.
“Hi, Makaio. I’m here.” She smooths her hair, looking flustered, then picks up the chair and marches out of the bedroom. “I’m getting the dining room put together now that the table is back.”
“Maxon told me,” Makaio says. “Why is he sitting on the front porch? Why are you flushed? What’s going on?”
“I’m just moving the chairs.” Her voice trails down the hall as she glides toward the man she’s planning to marry.
Fuck.
I close my eyes. I know how much she hates to lie. Maybe kissing her now was a stupid-ass move. I wanted to remind her of all the passion and yearning between us. I never meant to put her in a position to either wear a hair shirt or confess her “sins” to Mr. Boring. I don’t know Makaio well, but if I were in his place, I’d beat the shit out of me.
Since she wants me gone, I have to respect that—for now—and figure out my next step. I know her too well not to understand that she needs time to process what’s happened today and decide what that means for her engagement. On the other hand, if I leave now, she’ll only be harder to reach on Monday.
Double fuck.
I smooth out the bed, take a deep breath, then lift a chair and shoulder my way to the door.
“I didn’t have to use my key to get in. You have to remember to lock the door,” Makaio scolds.
The fucker has a key?
“I know. We’d just moved the table into the house and I…forgot.”
I grit my teeth. Because I was too busy trying to seduce your fiancée and remind her of all the reasons she and I belong together, so locking it slipped her mind, tool.
With sarcasm echoing in my head, I silently shove my way into the hall.
“Hey,” I greet Makaio.
It’s the most I can speak civilly to the man without sounding like either a jealous prick or the big, bad wolf.
He blinks at me. “You’re here, too?”
“Her table was in my office.” I sidestep him and carry the chair to the dining room, setting it beside the one Britta just positioned.
She doesn’t look at me, simply heads back to grab another chair. I want more time with her, to help her understand that I was serious when I said I loved her. Whatever might help her hate me less.
I just don’t know what else to say or do to convince her.
Makaio taps my shoulder as Maxon appears in the doorway, shooting me a questioning glance. “Why don’t you and I talk outside? Your brother can help Britta finish up in here.”
Oh, Slow-Dick McGraw finally wants to warn me away?
“Sure.”
He takes me out back to a couple of cozy Adirondacks on the lanai overlooking the lush backyard. A cluster of palms sways in a cerulean-blue sky. When he gestures me to one of the chairs, I sit. This ought to be interesting…
“I don’t know you well and nothing I’ve heard is good. But I’m also willing to understand that Britta is, perhaps, too colored by her resentment to separate your romantic past from your future as Jamie’s father.”
I could admit to this guy that I was a prick. But I’m not giving him any leverage to use against me later. I don’t know what his angle is, and I’m a little surprised he all but called his fiancée hysterical before he threw her under the bus. I need to feel him out more so I can best determine how to work around him.
“Agreed.” I choose the safe topic he’s already raised. “I want to be a part of my son’s life.”
He nods. “When I was a kid, my parents divorced for a few years. They ended up together again, but one of my greatest