Holding Out: Returning Home Book 4

by Serena Bell

  “Who are you looking for?” Alia had materialized from nowhere at her side. Or, probably not from nowhere. Becca’s attention had just been focused on her search.

  She hesitated, and that split second was long enough to arouse Alia’s suspicions. Her eyes narrowed. “Who?” she demanded.

  “Griff told me he’d teach me archery,” Becca said.

  Alia’s expression relaxed. “Oh, yeah, Griff will take any opportunity to evangelize.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “If you can’t find him, try the range.”

  Becca wandered in the direction Alia pointed her. As she approached the range, she saw him with the big bow in his arms, slinging arrow after arrow into the center of the target so they stuck out like bristling porcupine quills.

  She hung back, watching. He wore a plastic chest guard and a leather arm guard, which made him look a little bit like some medieval hero. And she wasn’t sure which was more mesmerizing: the clutch of muscle in his back and shoulders, the cords in his forearm, or his absolute laser focus.

  She imagined what it would be like to have all that intensity and concentration turned toward her. That precision. That devotion to his task.

  Her body warmed and softened in appreciation. Which was unusual for her. She didn’t get turned on looking. She didn’t get turned on that easily, period. She usually needed a lot of warming up.

  Except, apparently, when it came to Griff Ambrose.

  He reached into the quiver hanging across his body and came up empty.

  “Hey,” she called.

  He jumped. When he turned, the expression on his face was dark. Angry, she thought.

  “Sorry—I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’ll do it.”

  “What?”

  She’d heard the words but couldn’t make sense of them.

  “If you still want me to. If you haven’t already enlisted CJ or some other boy. I’ll—take your V-card.”

  She felt a huge smile threaten to break out all over her face, but her gut told her to play it cool. She shrugged. “CJ wants to take me out for dinner. He was actually quite the gentleman about asking me on a date.”

  His expression darkened further. “No. No dates with CJ. That’s the deal. If I’m going to do this—”

  She raised her eyebrows at his grim tone. God, he was making it sound like a household chore. “It’s not like you have to. I told you, I’ll find someone else—”

  “God. No. I’ll do it. I said I’d do it. I don’t want you to pick some random guy. Then Nate would really kill me.”

  “It’s sex with a virgin—a friend, even—not a death march,” she snapped.

  She was aware of an ache in the center of her chest. For a minute there, she’d thought—

  But he was just doing her a favor, of course.

  He shook his head. Closed his eyes. Then opened them again. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. It’s not a hardship,” he said, then gave a short dark laugh. He took a step forward, touched his hand to her cheek, his thumb moving over her mouth without touching it. An unfamiliar stab of heat shot through her. She wanted to lean forward and take his thumb between her teeth.

  That wasn’t her, either.

  He took a step back, dropping his hand. “I know you don’t want to make a big deal of it. So I’ll just say this. It’s an honor, okay?”

  For some stupid reason, that made her eyes fill up with tears. She blinked, and luckily none of them fell, though he blurred in her vision.

  “I guess we have to figure out when?” she said. “And, um, where?”

  “Does this Saturday work for you? I can come to Seattle.”

  She nodded.

  “In the meantime, until then, no dates. Especially with CJ.”

  “What do you have against him, anyway?”

  “I just don’t think—he’s not the right guy for this job.”

  That made her smile. “And you are?”

  “You obviously thought so when you asked me.”

  His eyes were dark, his gaze intense. She felt that same deep pulling sensation, like something opening and flowering low in her belly. If he thought he was Jondalar material, she sure as hell wasn’t going to argue the point. “If you must know, I was trying to figure out how to get out of the CJ thing anyway. He seemed nice but—he asks too many questions.”

  One corner of Griff’s mouth lifted, which dug a dimple in his cheek and made her own mouth go dry.

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  She hid her own smile. “I was thinking of the truth. That I have a date to lose my virginity and the guy who’s in charge of that wants an exclusive till the deed’s done.”

  Griff hooted with laughter. “That should go over well.”

  “Truth is stranger than fiction. No, seriously, I’ll just say I’m not interested.”

  “Okay, then.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “So, um—We should have some ground rules.”

  “Okay.”

  “The first rule of Operation V-Card is, there is no Operation V-Card.”

  “My lips are sealed.” That didn’t bother her. She already knew Nate wouldn’t like the idea of her messing around with Griff—or vice versa—and telling Alia would be as good as telling Nate. She could mention the situation to her roommate, though, without getting into details. Jenina didn’t know her family or Griff and wouldn’t mention it to anyone else who mattered.

  “And it’s one and done. Just to keep things simple. And clean.”

  “Well, yeah,” she repeated. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ambrose.”

  That made him laugh. “Oh, honey. Just you wait.”

  “Arrogant bastard.”

  But the truth was, his teasing had licked under her skin, like so much else about him.

  The moment stretched to awkwardness, and she looked away. When she turned back, he was examining the string of his bow.

  “You still offering that archery lesson?

  “Hell, yeah. Walk with me. We’ll collect the arrows.”

  She fell in beside him.

  “When you approach the targets, you always need to make sure no one’s shooting. It’s easy right now because we’re the only ones here, but sometimes it gets a little more complicated.”

  He tapped the target at the base of one of the bristling arrows. “You want to grab the arrow close to the target face, down low on the shaft,” he said.

  She wasn’t someone who heard double entendres everywhere. Or at least she hadn’t been, before playing Taboo the other night with Griff. Something about him wrapped everything up in sex. Add to that the fact that he’d actually agreed to have sex with her—

  Yeah. She was thinking about shafts. And grabbing them down low. She could feel her cheeks getting pink, and she cursed the fact that she blushed so damn easily.

  Were words supposed to do that? Creep under your skin, down your spine, along your nerve endings? Were they supposed to light you up like a Christmas tree?

  While she’d been getting wet over skinny sticks with feathers on the end, Griff had pulled the arrows from the target, collected them in a fist, and turned back up-range.

  She followed him back, suddenly wishing she’d said something. Some brilliant sexy teaser about how she always liked to grab low on the shaft. Something provocative enough to make him drop the arrows, take her in his arms, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe.

  She’d never been kissed till she couldn’t breathe, but she suspected Griff could have that effect on her.

  “Stand here,” he said, toeing a sandy spot on the ground. “This is the foot marker.”

  He gave her an arm guard and showed her how to strap it on. “You don’t really need a chest guard. It’s just to make sure the string doesn’t catch on your clothes. If you were hunting or fighting it would be a bigger deal.”

  He stood behind her. “Is this okay?”

  “I
s what—?”

  He wrapped his arms around her so that the bow was in front of her and lifted her left hand to the grip. She was hyperaware of his body behind hers, solid and hot.

  He showed her how to nock the bowstring into the cleft at the end of the arrow shaft.

  Cleft.

  Not a word she’d ever heard used. Or used herself. Or contemplated. Not a word she would have said was sexy. But with him standing just behind her, his breath against her ear, his hands guiding hers, it was a word that could lick itself right into every last cleft on her body.

  If she turned around right now—

  But she couldn’t. The way they were standing, and the bow in her arms, froze her in place.

  “And then you draw it back, tight—”

  He wrapped his hand around hers, drawing her fist back, and the string with it. Now she made herself focus on the bow and arrow, because it was taut in her arms, and it didn’t feel like something to mess around with. Its contained energy was fierce.

  Like the man behind her.

  “See this?” he said, and he drew the arrow back a little further, until his fingers brushed her mouth.

  It was difficult to breathe.

  “This is called the kisser button. For obvious reasons. You use it to get alignment with your mouth at full draw. You line up on the gold—that’s what we call the center of the target. You sight it over the top of the grip. Right where the arrow head is aimed, see? And then you let it fly. Release it. Okay. I’m going to let go. You keep the tension on.”

  He unfurled his fingers from around hers and stepped back, taking his body heat with him and leaving the full strength of the bowstring in her fist. Her arm muscles trembled—maybe from the pull of the string, or maybe not.

  “Let go,” he said.

  She released it. The arrow flew and lodged itself with a hiss in the target. Not anywhere near the center, but still.

  She stood there a moment. Her hands and arms still felt shaky. Hell, her whole body felt shaky.

  “Nice,” Griff said. When she turned to look at him, his gaze was steady on her face. His eyes seemed to bore into hers.

  “Now you just need practice.”

  9

  “What is up with you, man?” Nate asked him.

  He and Griff were replacing cracked boards in the jumping dock down at the lake. They’d cut them ahead of time, so all they had to do now was pry up the old ones and nail down the new, which was easier said than done. After two hours of work, Griff’s splinters had splinters.

  He set a rotted board aside, grabbed a fresh one, and knelt to pound in the bright new nails from the tub Nate had set between them. “What do you mean, what’s up?”

  Nate shrugged. “You’re a million miles away.”

  “Nothing’s up.”

  He bent a nail, swore, and tossed it into the discard pile.

  “You can tell Uncle Nate.”

  “Seriously, nothing’s up.” That was the biggest, most bald-faced lie Griff had probably ever told. He was a million miles away, or at least a couple hundred, his mind constantly jumping ahead to this weekend. He hadn’t looked forward to anything this much since . . .

  Since he’d been waiting for Marina’s parents to head out of town so the two of them could be alone in her childhood bedroom.

  Ugh, he didn’t want to think about that. Not about Marina or her virginity or where all that happiness and anticipation had landed him in the end.

  He apparently was bad at learning from his own mistakes. He should not have let Becca talk him into taking her virginity, rules or no rules.

  And yet? The truth was, he was glad she had. Because bottom line?

  He wanted to do it.

  He wanted to do her.

  He’d spent several very restless nights imagining exactly what he’d do, from the moment he’d finally tease his tongue along the seam of her barely-there secret smile to the moment he’d—

  In fact, he was so enthusiastic about his role that he was starting to wonder if he’d missed his calling as a sexy escort. Maybe he could do this for a living: hang out his shingle as a hired dick.

  “Well, when you’re ready to fess up, I’m here,” Nate said.

  “There’s nothing to confess.”

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Suuuuure.”

  But he dropped the subject. Griff was grateful for the reprieve, but he figured he’d have to do a better job of covering his distraction, or Nate—and all the guys—would be on him.

  They worked on the dock until they put down all the new planks, then hauled the materials back to the main toolshed behind the central building.

  Griff went back to his room. He had a couple of phone calls to make.

  He dialed.

  “This is Becca.”

  “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it right.”

  She laughed, a fat, round, lovely sound. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “Dinner, a hotel room.” One of the things he’d decided last night—between bouts of abusing himself, which only barely took the edge off—was that he wanted Becca to remember her first time for the rest of her life.

  “We said simple. That’s not simple. That sounds—over the top. I wouldn’t want you to get any ideas.”

  He chuckled, then instantly sobered up. “I am not going to take your virginity in my dumpy little room. Or your sister’s guest room.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Becca said. “God. That’s—awful. But what about my place up here?”

  “Do you have a roommate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she have somewhere to go for three or four hours?”

  “Three or four hours?” her voice rose, incredulous.

  “Look, sweetheart. If you hire Griff Ambrose for a job, he’s going to do it right.”

  She giggled.

  “Dinner and a hotel it is,” he said.

  “It’s just—aren’t you worried one of us will get the wrong idea?”

  “I don’t have the wrong idea,” he said. “Do you?”

  “No,” she said quickly.

  “Then we’re good.”

  He hung up feeling ridiculously cheerful. Also, he was hard. It seemed to go with the territory lately where Becca was concerned.

  “Soon,” he said aloud to his dick, and then rolled his eyes at himself and tapped his phone to wake it up again.

  He had a lot of money saved up. Jake paid him well and he got free room and board. Plus, aside from burgers and beers, he bought almost nothing.

  The Edgewater Hotel it was.

  And no fucking “cityside” room for Becca, either. Bay view.

  He almost swallowed his tongue when he saw the price, but he clicked, entered his credit card number, added a bunch of notes in the “special requests” field, and made it so.

  You only lost your virginity once. And unless he did go into escorting, he wasn’t going to get another chance to do this in style.

  Next up, dinner reservations.

  The Met. Best steaks in Seattle. He ran his eyes down the menu, spent a moment contemplating the idea of Becca eating oysters, and then got a grip on himself.

  He hung up with the restaurant and stared out the window of his room, which overlooked the lake. One of the perks of his job.

  A guy he didn’t know walked out to the end of the dock, jumped off, and set out across the lake with strong strokes. He was wearing two swim prostheses, one on an arm and one on a leg.

  Griff had the satisfaction of knowing that his work on the dock that morning was for a damn good purpose. Another perk of the job.

  He looked down at the notes he’d scribbled on a piece of scrap paper about the coming weekend.

  It felt like something was missing.

  Today was technically his day off, and since he’d spent a good portion of it fixing the dock, no one would fault him for going on a shopping trip. So he did.

  First stop, North Coast Candle Company.

  The women who ran th
e shop gave him a funny look, but he didn’t give a shit. He picked up candle after candle, sniffing them. Patchouli? No. Lemon? No. Chocolate? No, that would make them hungry and there were other things he wanted to put in his mouth.

  He chose a combination of vanilla and cinnamon candles, the squat ones that wouldn’t tip over and light the hotel room on fire. He and Becca would do that without any help, thank you very much. He flashed back on the way she’d felt in his arms and found himself instantly hard again.

  If he hadn’t pulled away—

  If he’d stepped in closer—

  Would she have turned in his arms and let him have his way with her?

  He wanted to find out what would happen when the chemistry between them had a chance to play itself out.

  It could be epic.

  When he was suitable again for human interaction, he carried his candle purchases up to the front of the shop and checked out.

  “Big weekend?”

  There was a smirk on the face of the twenty-something blonde behind the checkout.

  “Nah,” he said. “Power got turned off yesterday for non-payment.”

  “Oh, geez, I’m sorry—”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  She laughed. “Well. Have fun, whatever the candles are for.”

  “I plan to,” he said, and winked at her.

  She blushed. He waited for his body to react, but nada. Apparently, it was only Becca’s blushes that had the power to drop him to his knees.

  Next stop, the lingerie shop nestled into the back corner of Tierney Bay. For, um, party favors.

  The middle-aged proprietor, a slim gray haired woman, greeted him cheerfully. It seemed she was accustomed to male visitors. “Buying a gift?” she asked.

  “What if I said for myself?” he teased.

  She grinned. “I’d say, let’s look at some of the larger sizes.”

  Damn, he hated to disappoint her. “Gift, yes.”

  “Something practical? Or impractical?”

  “As impractical as you’ve got.”