Griffin: Bad Boy MMA Romance

by Ashley Hall

  The roaming hands turned to massaging, caressing, devastating motions with fingers and mouth and then he was inside me again.

  Too many times to count.

  Despite having just won one of the fiercest MMA matches in the entire goddamn country, the man seemed to have unlimited energy reserves. If this was his winding down, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle whatever his winding up would be.

  By the time he finally gave me a moment to gather my wits, I was thoroughly exhausted.

  Stretched out over the completely desecrated sheets of his large bed, I tried to catch my breath as he sat at the edge of the mattress, gloriously nude. I waited for prude Sadie to return but it was more than a little difficult when Griffin sat literally inches away from me, looking good enough to eat.

  I should have pulled the blankets over myself and slunk to the corner of the bed in shame. Instead, I raised my head and bit at the decadent curve of the man’s ass. Griffin jumped slightly, looking over his shoulder at me with a widening smirk. “Are you asking for more, sweet Sadie? Or can you still stand?”

  I think I might have blushed less than was normal—for me, anyway. “I…could use a drink,” I finally managed, wondering what on earth Stella would say if she heard the mincemeat I’d made of my vocal cords.

  Reaching down in a surprisingly tender gesture, Griffin smoothed a hank of blonde from my cheek, his eyes searching mine. “Booze or no?”

  That drew a soft laugh from me. “Booze. Please.”

  “You got it.” With that, he rose from the bed to stride, still completely naked, from the room.

  Leaving me alone for the first time in several hours.

  God, what was I getting myself into?

  After he was gone, I did take the luxury of covering myself with the sheets as I stretched out over the man’s bed, my mind a whirl of activity.

  What had changed? How had I gone from a woman who was excited to leave her apartment in the morning to this strange dare devil pining for one of the most dangerous and desired men in the world. I was literally no one. One day I was planning to be an influential journalist, but just now, compared with any of the women in the world Griffin could have, I seemed pretty low on the totem pole.

  And yet here I was.

  There I had been, in the locker room, ready to throw myself at his feet, willing to do almost anything to simply be with him again. The frightening part of it all was that the feeling wasn’t entirely sexual.

  Griffin was dangerous. I knew that.

  But suddenly, what people thought of him didn’t seem as important as how he appeared to me. The worst thing he’d visited on my person was a sore throat and rubbery legs.

  He was a force of nature, to be sure, but I hadn’t seen him lash out at innocent people or hit women. He’d hit the photographer the night I interviewed him, but in hindsight, the man had gotten in his personal space in a big way.

  Not to mention mine.

  As horrified as I’d been to watch him punch another man, and to see said man go down under the force of that incredible punch, there had been something inside me that was secretly, horrifyingly, thrilled. That someone cared enough about me to defend me like that.

  Though, in Griffin’s case, it wouldn’t be genuine caring. I was his flavor of the week, month, whatever you wanted to call it. Someone touching or mocking me was like impugning upon his masculinity. Of course he would react.

  The thought made my stomach turn slightly.

  How many women had there been in the VIP section with me at the match? Fifteen? Twenty? And that was only one of the VIP sections in the arena. Who knew how many other women were clamoring after him? The man was a hot commodity.

  And I just happened to be the lucky one.

  I sighed, running hands through my mussed hair. For all that Griffin could make me forget my inhibitions in bed, the moment the intimacy ended, all the problems started.

  At least for me.

  “You look like someone just pissed in your soup.”

  My head jerked up as Griffin edged back into the room carrying two glasses of what looked like whiskey. Two weeks ago, I would have thought the man was incomparably crass. Now I just found myself suppressing a laugh at the particular way he had of phrasing things.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I arched a brow at him, clutching the sheet to my bare breasts in a way that made him scowl in disappointment.

  I tried to keep my gaze above his shoulders but, good Lord, the man had a magnificent body. And he was half hard to boot. He strutted across the room, past the foot of the bed, and towards the balcony off the master suite. “It means,” his eyes gleamed dangerously, “that you should get your sweet ass over here to get your drink and forget about what ever’s bothering you.”

  I gave him a flat look. “You want me to come stand in your window, stark naked?”

  The smile he gave me was positively wicked. “No. I want you to come stand on my balcony stark naked. And drink with me.”

  I stared at him. This man was absolutely out of his mind—and he had my goddamn drink.

  “Come on.” Shifting both glasses dexterously to one hand, he opened the balcony door to let in a rush of cool night air that made me shiver as the tips of my breasts perked up. “You wanted your drink, here it is.” He slipped halfway out of the door and I groaned, shaking my head.

  “I’m going to go get water from the kitchen.”

  “Sadie, you don’t get that ass right out here in five seconds, I’ll tan it so hard you won’t walk for a week.”

  Somehow, the words both terrified and aroused the hell out of me. I didn’t doubt that he was capable of such a thing. Indeed, a man like Griffin probably had a drawer where he kept his bullwhip.

  I took a moment to consider. We were on the thirtieth floor in one of the tallest buildings in the city, and none of the neighboring high rises were so tall. The chances of anyone seeing me were relatively slim, and Griffin obviously didn’t give one good goddamn. This was probably a nightly routine for him.

  If I were in my right mind, I never would have done it, but it was long established that Griffin made me do crazy things.

  Taking a deep breath, I reluctantly left the sheet and hurried out onto the balcony to join him.

  For a moment, I found myself totally awestruck.

  The view was incredible. I could see the entire city and to the coast beyond, thousands of tiny lights beneath us in the darkness, each and every one representing the life of someone different.

  “Not so bad, right?” I inhaled sharply as Griffin breathed against my neck before his mouth brushed over my shoulder hotly. While I’d been admiring the view, he came up behind me, one arm encircling my waist to offer me my drink. As he did so, the chill glass brushed the underside of my breast and I shivered before taking it. “Cold?” His voice was rough and, despite all of the evening’s ventures, no less hungry than when I’d first seen him in the locker room.

  A breathless laugh escaped me before I sipped at my whiskey, letting the liquor burn its way down my gullet gratefully. “Aren’t men supposed to have a threshold or something?”

  “No man in his right fucking mind thinks of thresholds when he sees you, Sadie.” He nipped at my neck again and I turned to face him before my knees could turn to complete mush. Griffin was looking down at me with that passive, dangerous expression of his that warned that I was about to find myself in a compromising position or else defending my ideals. My lips quirked slightly.

  “Do you tell that to all your lovely conquests?” I clinked my glass against his before taking another drink. My statement was meant to be casual but I couldn’t help the butterflies that winged through my stomach at my own boldness. “I’m sure they appreciate it.”

  I didn’t let myself look at Griffin’s reaction. That would have been too much. Instead, I turned back to the lovely view as I leaned against the railing of the balcony. I didn’t need to be looking at him to feel the daggers he glared at the back of my hea
d.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” He fired my own words back at me in a low snarl and I steeled myself. I had always been a rational person and I wasn’t about to start with the delusions now, despite whatever confusion Griffin made me feel.

  “Griffin, I know what kind of man you are. You’re not the settle down and get married type. You’ve got a different woman in every major city over the globe and you leave a string of broken hearts in your wake. You don’t have to worry about breaking mine.”

  For a moment, a tense silence hung between us and I let my drink fill it. I took a long swallow that warmed my stomach but did nothing to help steady it.

  I didn’t think I’d ever been so nervous in my life. Through job interviews, examinations, and everything else under the sun, I kept my cool. And now, here I was, on pins and needles for a man I knew would only hurt me.

  “Sadie…look. I know I’m no fucking saint.” Griffin’s arms rested on the balcony on either side of me, the heat of his body caging me in. A he spoke, his voice was low and rough, but not with desire. Something else. Almost as if he was having trouble forming the words. “I fight for a living. I’m a thug and I’m not good with all that intellectual crap. But I care about you…and not just a passing fuck care.”

  High, nervous laughter escaped me. “Griffin, you don’t have to—”

  “Yes.” He cut me off curtly, his tone firm. “Yes, I fucking do. Sadie…when I was flailing around in the goddamn ring…when I was losing, it was because I was pissed. Pissed at you.”

  The statement was enough to make me whirl, my eyes wide. “At me? What the hell did I do?”

  “You…you didn’t fucking want me.” Griffin ground out the words almost as if his teeth were clenched, his green eyes bright with some unreadable emotion. “I wanted you…more than anything else in the fucking cosmos I want you, and when you pulled out that ‘professional’ bullshit…God, it messed me up.”

  I stared at him, somewhere between shocked and confused.

  “I couldn’t train right…couldn’t think straight. There was only you. And then, when I saw you in the VIP section, when I was about to get my ass handed to me and I saw that you were watching…you can bet your sweet ass I knocked Desmond out. Like a fucking light.” His gaze softened slightly as he cupped my face, stroking over my jaw lightly. “I didn’t give two shits about any of the other women there. I can’t…even if it’s as out of character for me as it is for you to give back-seat blowjobs.”

  I flushed, at a complete loss for words.

  Was Griffin Webb trying to tell me that he had feelings for me? Like actual, honest-to-god human emotions? Lust was inherent of course, but the way he looked at me when he said I helped him win the match…

  His expression was so earnest that I was inclined to believe him.

  I wanted to believe him.

  “You’re pretty fucking good at those by the way.”

  I was breathless when I answered him. “What?”

  His gorgeous mouth quirked in a smirk. “Blowjobs.”

  “Griffin!” I smacked a hand over his mouth to keep him from spewing delicious filth. He was turning me into a degenerate for God’s sake. “Hush.”

  In response, he wrapped an arm around my waist and left both of our glasses outside to drag me into back into the bedroom. He tossed me onto the bed and was on top of me before I could escape.

  Not that I really wanted to.

  How was the man so consistently hard? When he slipped inside of me, I groaned at the sensation. I didn’t think anything had ever felt so right.

  “Sadie,” he growled darkly against my ear, one hand curling firmly into my thigh. “Say it again.”

  “What?” I gasped, almost delirious before the man had even started moving.

  “My name.” He kissed me, uttering his next demand against my mouth. “Say my name.”

  As if I could refuse him. “Griffin.”

  ***

  “What happened to your face?” Much later, I lay beside him, stroking over his chest leisurely. I reached up to touch the freshly stitched laceration on his left cheek and, immediately, he frowned deeply. Catching my hand, Griffin returned it to his chest, his brow knitted into wrinkles of displeasure.

  “Accident,” he finally grunted, his eyes sliding across briefly before he turned onto his side to look at me, his gaze searching my face. “What happened here?” He touched a small, old scar at the junction of my neck and shoulder, rubbing it almost fondly and sending an electric thrill through me.

  I covered the imperfection self-consciously. “I, uh…fell out of a tree. When I was fourteen. Had to get stitches.”

  Griffin smiled—actually smiled—at my profession. And if the man was gorgeous when he scowled, when he smiled, he was breathtaking.

  “Sadie climbs trees?”

  I rolled my eyes, hiding my own smile. “Climbed. Past tense.”

  “So was there some point in your extremely uptight life that you climbed trees, jumped off cliffs, fucked foreign guys—”

  “I have never fucked a foreign guy.” I immediately nipped that in the bud. “And the tallest thing I’ve ever jumped off is a high diving board.”

  “That’s a damn shame,” he murmured, brushing my hand away from my scar so he could speak against it. “There’s this spot in the Greek Isles that’s pretty fucking primo for cliff diving. Clear blue waters, great seafood, nice little cottage with a big bed and an amazing view…”

  “Even more amazing than your apartment?” I inquired skeptically.

  “Way more. But if I take you, you gotta jump.”

  I laughed softly. “I am not jumping off any cliffs, Griffin.”

  He was silent for so long after my profession that part of me suspected that he’d finally fallen asleep.

  “You know, Sadie…you’ll never get anywhere if you don’t jump.” His words were so low that I could have missed them, but the impact couldn’t have been more poignant if he’d screamed them in my ear.

  Very soon afterward, Griffin did fall asleep. He snored softly against my shoulder, an arm slung about my waist, and I was alone with some very intimidating thoughts.

  What had I ever really done with my life? I’d always known that I wanted to be a writer, to be a reporter in journalism. But, there had been a time when I’d imagined that it might take me all over the world. I’d write about my travels and live the dream of seeing every country on the globe. It would be the ultimate adventure.

  But somewhere along the way, I’d given up on it.

  It was safer, I’d decided, to stay in the city. To work my way up the ladder at an already established publication. It would mean more in this dog-eat-dog world. I had, after all, always been the safe one. The calm one. The level headed one.

  Well, now I was the one in bed with Griffin Webb, worried that I was very possibly falling for him.

  Griffin

  I didn’t know how long I slept.

  All I knew was that I couldn’t remember the last time I slept so well. I didn’t wake up once. I didn’t worry about a fight, or training, or getting up the next morning. Riley knew I would be fine. I usually disappeared for a few days after matches to unwind—with women, booze, or whatever else caught my fancy.

  But this time was different. I didn’t really want to drink. I didn’t want to eat all the foods that had been denied to me in the week leading up to the match. I didn’t want to contemplate what unnecessary bullshit I was going to buy with my winnings.

  All I wanted was her.

  And I had her all fucking evening. For me, who was used to having a woman and making myself scarce, it was pretty fucking strange.

  But there was nothing else I’d rather be doing. I could barely finish with Sadie before I wanted her again; when I wasn’t inside her, I had to be touching her.

  Maybe Desmond had hit me harder than I thought, but I found I didn’t really want her out of my sight. Not that night and for maybe a few days after.

  I embarras
sed the shit out of myself trying to explain that to her, I knew. I’d never been good with words—something Riley didn’t hesitate to remind me of anytime he could. It had been a long time since it was words that women wanted from me anyway.

  And Sadie didn’t want them. Didn’t expect them.

  But I sure as hell gave them to her. Staked my claim. I’d already made up my mind that no other man was going to touch her for as long as I was around.