“I know.” She kissed me. “And I invaded your space, and I talk too much, I’m a terrible driver, I’m not good at painting, I spent too much on the new rug for the lobby, I spilled coffee in your nice clean truck—”
“What?”
She winced. “Yeah, I didn’t tell you about that. But when I took your truck to get groceries the other day, I spilled my coffee on the front seat. I cleaned it up, though!”
I groaned.
“Also, I might have hit a curb.”
I groaned even louder, but it was impossible to be mad at her.
“My point is,” she went on sweetly, patting my shoulder, “that I know I’m not perfect, but you make me feel good about myself. I’m grateful for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. And,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, as if someone might hear her, “you give me the best orgasms I’ve ever had.”
I lifted my chin. “Good.”
“Blow out the candle. Make a wish.” I blew it out, and she wiggled on my lap. “What did you wish for?”
“A million fucking dollars in my bank account, what else?”
She pouted. “I thought it would be something sexier.”
“That is sexy. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.” I kissed her, sliding my hands beneath her dress. Actually, I’d been careful not to wish for anything.
“Okay, your turn,” she said, a little breathless as my lips traveled along her jaw and down her throat.
“My turn for what?”
She laughed. “For telling me what this marriage has meant to you over the last two weeks.”
“Oh.” I untied the bow of her sundress with my teeth like I’d wanted to the first day she’d worn it. “Can’t I just show you with one of those orgasms? Maybe two?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I like to hear words too.”
“Mmm. Not good at words. Good at this.” I opened up her dress and tugged down the white lace of her bra before swirling my tongue around one perfect nipple.
“Yes, you are very good at this.” She put her hands in my hair. “But don’t you . . . hey, can we talk for a minute?”
“About what?”
“Maybe like . . . what you’re feeling? What comes next for us?” She tilted my head up so I was forced to look at her. “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”
“Then you’ll have to stop thinking.” I stood up with her in my arms and started moving toward the bedroom. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my feelings right now. I didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid.
“Wait, what about your cake?” she cried.
“I’ll eat it later. I want you for dessert.”
I tossed her onto the bed, pushed up her dress, and pulled down her underwear. “Here’s what comes next for us.” I spread her legs apart and buried my face between her thighs.
She moaned and clawed at the sheets, rocking her hips beneath my mouth. By now I knew how to make her come easily, but I liked to drag it out, work her into a frenzied state of desperation until she begged me to let her come.
But I didn’t tease her tonight. Within minutes, her hands were fisted in my hair, her cries echoing off the walls, her clit throbbing as I sucked it into my mouth.
When she’d released her grip on my hair, I stood up, whipped off my shirt and worked off my jeans. Naked, I pulled her into a seated position and lifted her dress over her head. Then she fell back again, taking me with her.
We kissed and groped and clung and rolled around in twisted sheets, skin to skin, flirting with recklessness. In the back of my head I knew I should stop and get protection, but I couldn’t find my voice. Just for a minute, I kept telling myself. I just want to feel her like this for one more minute, and then I’ll stop.
But I didn’t stop.
I put the tip of my cock inside her, and she moaned. “More,” she pleaded.
I gave her one more inch, both of us groaning in agonizing bliss. Her hands were on my back, inching lower. “Don’t stop,” she breathed, tilting her hips to take more of me.
Clinging to a rapidly fraying rope of self-control, I allowed myself a few playfully shallow strokes. But it was way too good—and then she was grabbing my ass and pulling me in deeper, crying out in frustrated need. Before I knew it I was all the way inside her, driving hard and fast and deep with nothing between us.
And I didn’t care. In that moment, I didn’t know fear or caution. I didn’t care about rules or consequences. I didn’t think about the past or the future or anything except this moment, this feeling, this woman, this relentless need for more, more, more.
She gripped me tightly and matched my rhythm with her own, our bodies rocking against each other, our skin slick with sweat. We raced toward climax together, spiraling higher and higher until we collided in the sky and burst into flames, then clung to each other as the embers drifted back to earth.
A slow, dizzying, inevitable fall.
After which I hit the ground with a hard, rude thump.
“Oh, fuck.” I pulled out, as if the risk hadn’t already been taken. “Fuck. We shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s—it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. You told me the other night it wasn’t safe, and I—”
“The timing isn’t as dangerous tonight. In my cycle, I mean. I think it’s fine.”
“You think?” I knew shit about timing and cycles, but her tone was not convincing, and the thought of an accidental pregnancy was scary as hell. “You can’t get pregnant, Blair. It would be a fucking disaster.”
“Griffin,” she said, obviously hurt.
Angry with myself, I got out of bed and went into the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind me a little harder than necessary. I was being a dickhead and I knew it, but she had me all disoriented and confused. I felt like I didn’t know which way was up. I had no rules left to break.
What the fuck was the matter with me?
I cleaned up and came out of the bathroom still unsure of what to say. Right away she got out of bed and went into the bathroom, without even looking at me. She shut the door with less force than I had, but with enough to make it obvious she was upset.
I didn’t blame her.
Lowering myself onto the edge of the bed, I hung my head. I had majorly fucked up. I’d gotten myself into a place I couldn’t get out of without hurting someone who didn’t deserve it.
She came out of the bathroom and went over to her suitcase. The bedroom light was off, but the hall light was still on, and I watched her pull on underwear and her Snoopy T-shirt.
“What are you doing?” I asked. She’d been sleeping naked every night—we both had.
“Nothing.”
“Come here.”
She closed her suitcase and came over to the bed, tentatively sitting on the edge a good three feet from me, her arms crossed over her chest, her knees pressed together. She stared straight ahead.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was a jerk about what just happened. It wasn’t your fault.”
She didn’t say anything, and I found myself groping for more words. I felt like I owed her a better explanation, and there was one, but it terrified me to think about unlocking that particular vault. Tearing down that particular wall. But I heard myself say it a moment later.
“She was pregnant.”
Blair looked at me. “What?”
“My ex, Kayla. She got pregnant right before I left for my final deployment. But I didn’t know until I was already gone.”
Silence. “Oh.”
“I was terrified, but fear was something a guy like me couldn’t admit. Couldn’t talk about. I’d grown up believing a man should be tough. I’d joined the Marines because they were the most badass. I’d been trained to be a killer ruled by self-discipline, and I was fucking good at it. I didn’t feel qualified to be a father yet, to raise a child. Not to mention there was a chance my kid wouldn’t ever know his dad. I knew plenty of guys tougher than
me who didn’t come home.”
Blair turned toward me slightly.
“But then, as it sank in over the next few weeks, I started to get really excited about it. The idea of this innocent little being who would need me to protect him or her. I pictured all the stuff I’d done with my dad—playing catch, building a treehouse, restoring an old car. Imagining the life ahead of me got me through my worst days.”
“So what happened?” she whispered. “Where’s the baby now?”
“She had a miscarriage.”
“Oh.” She reached over and briefly touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“I was shocked at the way the loss fucking gutted me. But again, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”
“You never told anybody?”
“No. There was no one to tell. The guys in my unit didn’t talk about their fucking feelings. We were busy trying to keep each other alive.”
“What about your family?”
“They never knew either. Kayla had made me promise not to say anything, because she hadn’t told her family yet. They were strict and old-fashioned, the kind of people who would have judged us harshly.”
“That must have been hard for her,” Blair said softly. “For both of you.”
I ran a hand over my hair. “The worst came later. She blamed me for losing the baby. She accused me of not wanting it. She said it was the stress of having to deal with the pregnancy on her own that caused the loss. She said if I hadn’t re-enlisted, we’d have been married already, and she’d have been able to carry the baby to term. She said it was my fault.”
Blair gasped. “Griffin, you know that’s not true.”
“I used to think it wasn’t. But then I started to believe it. You hear a thing enough times, it starts to feel real.”
She touched my shoulder again. “It wasn’t.”
“When I got home, I tried everything I could to make things right, to keep my promises. I just wanted to be able to fucking fix things, but I couldn’t. The damage was done. She finally told me she’d fallen for someone else while I’d been away, someone who’d been there for her when I wasn’t.”
“Griffin, she was hurt and angry. She wanted to punish you.”
“It worked. I was a fucking wreck of a human being until my dad and my friends sat me down and told me to quit being mad at the world because things didn’t go the way I’d planned. And I get it. Life is unpredictable, and shit happens. But I never wanted to be in that place again, so that’s why I have all the rules.”
“To protect yourself?”
“To protect everyone.” I stood up, grabbed my boxer briefs from the floor and pulled them on.
“But . . . what if the rules are keeping you from moving on? What if they keep you from being happy?”
“The rules keep me from making mistakes,” I said, standing as tall as I could, shoulders back. Walls in place. “At least, they’re supposed to.”
She wrapped her arms around herself again. “What does that mean?”
“It means what we just did was stupid and reckless.”
“Is that all?”
I forced myself to say the words. “And it means we need to stop screwing around with each other. Enough is enough.”
“Screwing around with each other?” Her mouth hung open. “Is that all this is to you?”
“What else would it be?”
“I don’t know, Griffin. I guess I kind of thought we had something special.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
Her eyes shone with tears that threatened to pierce my resolve. “Where is this coming from? One minute you’re apologizing for being a dick and opening up about this traumatic thing from your past, and the next minute, you double down on asshole. I have whiplash.”
I shrugged, tripling down. “I never made you any promises.”
“I never asked for one!”
“But you would have,” I said bitterly. “It was only a matter of time.”
“The only thing I was going to ask was to keep seeing you.” The tears dripped from her eyes, and she angrily swiped at them.
“No. When you leave, this is over.”
“Why? We’re good together, Griffin. At least we were up until five minutes ago.”
“And then what?” I asked, growing agitated, because I didn’t know how to make her understand. “We keep seeing each other, and then what?”
“I don’t know! We just see where it goes.”
“But there’s a limit, Blair. There’s a limit to how far we can take this. We don’t want the same things.” I pointed at her. “You want a fairy tale, and I’m no prince.”
“That’s not true!”
“Yes, it is. Your ten-year plan doesn’t look anything like mine.”
“But things could change,” she wept. “Couldn’t they?”
“No.” I started pacing at the foot of the bed. “See, this is why I have the rules. And if I would have fucking stuck to them and kept my hands to myself, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“But you created those rules for yourself when you were hurting—you needed to heal before you could move on.”
“I needed to be real about what I was capable of,” I said harshly, turning to face her. “And you do too.”
She shrank back almost as if I’d slapped her. “So it really was just about the sex for you?”
I looked down at her crying on the bed, and my hands clenched into fists. My arms ached to hold her. But all that would do was postpone the inevitable. “Yes,” I lied, knowing I’d never forgive myself for hurting her this way. “You were right all along. I was lonely, and you were here—I took advantage of it, and I’m sorry.”
“Liar!” she cried, jumping to her feet. “You’re not sorry! All your apologies are lies. I thought you were different, but you’re just like everyone else. I never should have trusted you.”
Her words cut me to the bone. She was right—I was a liar, but not in the way she thought.
And I didn’t have money or fame or status, but I had honor, and it killed me to let her think otherwise. But before I could defend myself—if it was even possible—she raced out of the bedroom and yanked the door shut behind her.
With a heavy sadness I hadn’t felt since losing my dad, I sank down onto the bed, head in my hands.
I was alone again.
But it felt terrible.
Eighteen
Blair
First thing I did was throw out that stupid anniversary cake, hurling it into the trash with all the might I could muster.
Asshole! How could you do this to me?
Then I spent the night curled into one corner of the couch, crying my eyes out. Bisou eventually found her way over to me and snuggled up in my lap, but it only made me bawl harder.
God, I was so dumb! So naive! Of course he was just in it for the sex! When had a guy ever truly felt something for me, felt it enough to commit to something that would last?
Never. That was the hard truth. Yet I’d been sucked into believing in the possibility, because deep down, Griffin was right—I was nothing but a little girl who wanted to believe in fairy tales.
“Maybe it’s time for some rules of my own, Bisou,” I whispered fiercely to the cat. “Number one—no more believing everything a man says, because they lie. All of them.”
The cat meowed in agreement.
“Number two—I will work and save, so that I am never dependent on a man again. I will always be able to support myself.”
The cat raised a paw, almost like she wanted a high five, so I gave her one.
Then I thought for a moment. “And number three—I will not get my heart set on anything, because it never ends well.”
Bisou was silent, and another sob worked its way up from my chest. Burying my face in a pillow so Griffin wouldn’t hear me, I cried until my eyes ran dry, and I fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, Griffin was gone. With a lump in my throat and horribly puffy eyes, I walked to the
bathroom, which was where I discovered I’d gotten my period.
Relieved that at least I didn’t have to worry about an unplanned pregnancy, I cleaned up, got dressed, and packed my suitcase. Then I sat on the bed and called Frannie MacAllister.
“Hello?”
“Hi Frannie. It’s Blair Beaufort.”
“Hey, Blair! How are things?”
“They’re fine.” I swallowed hard. “Listen, my plans have changed a little, and it turns out I can move up to Cloverleigh Farms sooner than I thought.”
“Oh.” A beat went by. “Are you okay?”
“Well, yes and no,” I said. “Physically, I’m okay, but something happened, and I need to leave Bellamy Creek.” To my horror, I started crying again. “I’m sorry, Frannie. This is so embarrassing. But if I can get myself up to Cloverleigh today, would the apartment possibly be ready for me now?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “But how are you going to get here? Is your car fixed?”
I’d told Frannie the story of getting stranded in Bellamy Creek during my interview. At the time, we’d thought it was funny. She’d guessed at my feelings for Griffin based on the way I spoke about him, and we’d laughed that if things worked out, we’d have quite the story for our grandchildren someday. Now it seemed ridiculous I’d even entertained the idea of a future together.
“Not yet,” I admitted. “Apparently the guy shipped the parts to the wrong address. But I have some cash saved, and I’m going to try to rent a car.”
“Listen. Let me call Mack at work and see how busy he is today. Maybe he can come get you.”
“No, please,” I begged, sniffing. “You’re so sweet to offer, but your family is doing enough for me already.”
“Nonsense. I’m calling him. If he’s in a meeting, he might not get back to me right away, but don’t worry, Blair. We’ll get you up here as quickly as possible.”
“Thank you so much, Frannie. I really appreciate it.”
We hung up, and I looked over at the closet door, where my debutante dress still hung. The sight of it brought a fresh round of tears as I recalled different moments—regaining consciousness in Griffin’s arms after fainting, his nervous fingers unzipping it later that night, putting it on and pretending to be the princess in the tower.
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