Embarrassment now made her hot all over. “Stop that.” She started to scooch away from him, except he caught her arm. “That was some weird aberration.”
“Is that what they call it these days?” Griffin drew her closer. “C’mon, honey-pie. Birthday girls shouldn’t lie.”
“Just leave it alone, Griffin.” She’d decided to pretend it had never happened, that frantic set of kisses in the restaurant storeroom. “Leave me alone.”
“Then you’ll go to your room and sit around feeling sorry for yourself. I bet you’ve been doing that all day, isn’t that right?” He lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. “We need to get out of here.”
All at once, his mood felt dangerous. He wasn’t squeezing her arm, exactly, but when she tried to get loose, he didn’t release her. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
His eyes were glittering. Tension was oozing from him. And then he smiled, and that was scarier, because it wasn’t a lighthearted expression. It looked as serious as a heart attack. “The birthday girl at least deserves a birthday kiss.”
“Absolutely n—” The last word was smothered against her lips as Griffin fixed his mouth to hers at the same instant that he released her from his hold. She might have retreated then, escaped the man and his dangerous mood, but instead she stayed where she was. A sound worked its way from the back of her throat. It wasn’t a protest or a plea; it was, strange as it seemed, an acknowledgment.
Yes. Here’s what I want for my birthday.
His kiss was like a switch. A key. It lit her up, it opened her up, and she felt as if she was in bloom when he touched her. She radiated heat and need, and just like before, her body clamored to imprint on his. With a little sigh, she moved into him.
His forearm clamped like a bar at the small of her back, lifting her into his hips. Her fingers went nerveless and limp as the front of her molded to the front of him. All the starch in her was gone. Were her feet on the ground? She didn’t know.
His tongue pressed heavily into her mouth, and she opened for him, taking the thrust and twining her own tongue around his. His arm yanked her even closer, but he still managed to get a hand between them. He used it to cover one breast, gently molding, a stunning counterpoint to the aggression of the kiss.
Her whole body was quivering, her skin supersensitized. She pressed into that caressing hand as she tilted her hips to push against the thick ridge behind the placket of his jeans. His mouth lifted, and she gasped in air, then goose bumps raced everywhere as he slid his wet lips across her cheek to her jaw.
“Griffin.” This explosive reaction was new to her, desire so bright and demanding it made a heady, impossible-to-resist experience. “God.” She clutched at him now, bringing his head back so their lips were once again aligned.
He said something. Maybe “shh” or, knowing him, probably “shit,” but she wasn’t worrying about it. His hand left her breast, and she started to worry about that, until he ran his palm over her rib cage, her twitching belly and then down to her thigh. Still kissing her like a madman, he rucked up her skirt, and then his hot hand was on the triangle of her panties.
And then he was in her panties.
Two long fingers insinuated themselves between her plumped lips to brush the throbbing knob of nerves.
A hot shiver speared up her back. His fingertips rubbed her again. Another molten shiver set her quaking. Pleasure was rising, hot and fast.
His fingers stroked once more, and not knowing if she’d have the chance again, not knowing if she’d ever feel such need again, she didn’t hold back. Jane pushed into those stroking fingers once, twice. Sweet bliss swooped high. Splintered. At the mercy of her orgasm, she bucked with the undulating pleasure while sucking on his tongue and clutching his shoulders. When it was over, she buried her face in his chest.
Griffin was very, very still for a long moment. Then he removed his hand from her panties and tugged down the hem of her skirt. A palm stroked the back of her head. “Jesus Christ, Jane,” he said after a moment, a note of surprise in his voice. “You should warn a man about that hair trigger.”
Someone should have warned her! It must be the margaritas. Or the fact that she was another year older. But this kind of gift deserved a reciprocal one, right? Her face burning, she said, “I guess…you…uh, would you like to…?”
He was already shaking his head, his expression flat. “I think that would be a very lousy idea.”
Which should have been her line. Mortified all over again, Jane stepped back. “Of course. Anyway…” She made a vague gesture behind her. “I’ve got to go.”
His eyes narrowed. “Go where?”
“You know,” she said, shuffling back. “There.”
“Jane…”
But she was already on the move, hastening out the back door. She’d go for a walk, inhale some of the chilly, fog-laden air. Take fifteen minutes, twenty, a couple of hours maybe, to sober up. Whatever time she needed away from Griffin to get the tequila and the sex out of her system. Still in a rush, she stepped over the waist-high back fence. Rex Monroe wouldn’t mind her taking a shortcut through his yard. He’d understand her need to get away from his neighbor.
She glanced at the steps leading to the elderly man’s front door.
Then she was whirling around, dashing back. “Griffin! Griffin!”
He met her at the back entrance, grasping her arms. His touch brought instant comfort, though she knew she shouldn’t count on him. He’d said it himself, and hadn’t every other man in her life let her down? His grip tightened as her voice went throaty with fear. “Something’s happened to Mr. Monroe.”
CHAPTER NINE
THE WOMEN WERE hovering. Griffin tried ignoring their chatter, but they weren’t just talking among themselves. No, Jane, Tess and Skye were also talking to him—offering up advice on how best to shore up Old Man Monroe’s stair railing. Pestering him with questions about what he thought had happened the night before.
Why the old coot had fallen.
“How the hell should I know?” he muttered, but the funny thing was they didn’t appear much interested in his answers anyway. With barely a pause, they moved on to some other angle. Always talking, talking, talking.
“I need water,” he announced, rising to his feet. He left his tools on the wooden porch and didn’t bother taking his cell phone, which he’d tossed on top of the T-shirt he’d left on a cushioned patio chair. Rex Monroe’s screen door squealed as he pulled it open. It banged behind him as he headed for the small kitchen.
He was filling a glass when he heard his neighbor’s voice. “Skye?”
“It’s me,” he called out, then stepped to the small adjacent den where Monroe was reclined in a ratty chair. The night before, when Griffin and Jane had run to the crumpled form on the porch, the man had already been rousing. Though they’d wanted to call 911, he’d refused any help beyond getting him back to his feet. As of this morning, he claimed no lingering side effects besides a knot on the head and an ache to go along with it. “You want me to get her?”
“You’ll do,” Monroe said. “Come here.”
Griffin hadn’t been in the room in ages, if ever. It was small, holding the recliner, a TV-and-cable setup and rows of bookshelves. One wall was paneled and covered with framed photographs. Some of them were clearly shots of the reporter from his foreign correspondent days. Others looked to be—
His glance darted to the old man. “You have Gage’s work in here.”
Monroe shrugged a thin shoulder covered in a plaid shirt that must have been straight from the dry cleaner, it was so sharply pressed. “He sends me some from time to time.”
“Huh.”
“Those leather albums? Got tear sheets of your articles in them. Only the better ones, of course, which means they’re few and far between.”
The insult didn’t surprise Griffin, but the fact that his neighbor had collected any of his pieces gave him pause. He ran a finger over a binder and noted it was the
same style as the one in Beach House No. 9 that contained his stuff from Afghanistan. “You like me,” he said dryly. “You really like me.”
Old Man Monroe snorted. “It’s sad how your standards lower when you get to be my age.”
“Well, clearly your fall didn’t soften your tongue any,” Griffin noted. “And not that I care, but the females are twittering like you wouldn’t believe, so I have to ask. Are you sure you’re okay?”
He waved a liver-spotted hand in the air. “Beyond a few minutes I can’t account for and the little people with the hammers inside my head, I’m fine.”
“It was a good thing that Jane saw you when she did.”
“True. And that you were there to pick me up.” The old man narrowed his gaze on Griffin. “She said it was lucky—you hadn’t been home long. Something about visiting with a man from the platoon?”
“Yeah.” He turned to inspect one of his twin’s photos. It showed a shirtless soldier from the back, ball cap on his head, army issue on his lower half, strapping a weapon at his hips. His head was bent and across his shoulders was inked a wicked-looking tribal tattoo. A line of barbs circled one thick bicep.
Under the shirt collar of Brian Hernandez, the man he’d met at LAX the day before, Griffin had glimpsed the devil tattoo that crawled up the former soldier’s neck. It had been bright red, new-blood red, cherry-red. “Remember when we were cherries?” the kid had asked, touching the thing and using the common term for inexperienced soldiers. “Once I made it to the outpost, I think I was cherry for like thirty seconds.”
“Less,” Griffin had said. Immediately upon climbing from their Chinook transports, they’d been mortared. A welcome from their adversaries across the valley.
“Griffin?” The old man was speaking again, his voice sharp. “You hear me?”
“Sure,” he answered. He’d heard Monroe talking, just hadn’t taken in the words.
“I was wondering why your friend came so far for such a short visit.”
Griffin shot him a look over his shoulder. “Why the hell would you care?”
“Because I’m nosy, obviously. All good reporters are. You should know that. Of course—”
“I’m not very good, I get it, I get it.”
“I was going to say of course I can guess what he wanted.”
“Yeah?” Griffin said. “You’re a mind reader now? How could you possibly know?” He’d had no clue himself going in, but the agitated tone in the kid’s voice when he’d called had taken hold of his insides and wrung them like a washcloth.
“Because it’s what everyone who’s been in theater asks themselves, wonders about, fixates over.” The old man paused. “He wanted to know, what now? We’ve all asked ourselves some version of that. After the brutal thrill of war, what comes next?”
A long moment passed, then Griffin realized he was holding his breath, waiting. Jesus Christ! Waiting for the effing Ancient Mariner to share the secret of life. Death. War.
Whatever.
“I’ve got to finish up outside,” he said, brusque. “The ladies wouldn’t forgive me if your rocky railing means you take another fall.”
“Help me out of this chair, then,” Monroe ordered. “I like to get some real sunshine on me every day, just in case it’s my last.”
“We could only get so lucky,” Griffin said, crossing to give his neighbor his arm. Then they walked together to the front porch. To free up the extra chair for the old man, he tossed his shirt and cell phone to his sister.
The women, predictably, gathered around Monroe, and Griffin didn’t have to check to know that he ate up the attention. Skye, in particular, couldn’t stop peppering the coot with questions. Was he certain he was well enough to be sitting up? Had he remembered anything more about the incident? Why had he gone onto the porch at that time of night anyway?
Rex replied in versions of yes, no and he couldn’t remember. It was possible he’d heard some strange noise, perhaps a scuffling outside his front door.
Skye’s voice rose. “You think someone was trying to get inside?”
Hammer in hand, Griffin looked over from his seat on the first stair only to find Jane was seated beside him. He jumped, dropping the tool. When he reached for it, so did she, and their fingers tangled.
Their gazes met.
He’d been avoiding that, looking at Jane. The only thing worse would be—
“We should talk about it,” she said.
—would be talking about it! His fingers convulsed on hers. “Why? I get it. Your defenses were down because you’d been drinking. My libido was up because I’m a guy.”
Her fingers jerked away from his to clutch the hem of yet another of her maddening, floaty skirts. Gauzy and delicate, they made his palms itch to rip, to reveal, to ride between her slender thighs. “I don’t know what you mean by me drinking.”
He rolled his eyes. “Last night you tasted like tequila and lime, honey-pie.” Feeling sorry for the birthday girl, he hadn’t rubbed it in.
She swallowed. “I turned another year older. So…”
“You don’t have to explain.” What the hell was the point of discussing it? It would only serve to bring it all up in his mind. He’d been in a hell of a temper himself, on edge from his meeting with Brian, from the memories that were intruding more and more often.
Bright red. Cherry-red. The red of new blood.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way! He was cold inside, desensitized, but nobody would leave him alone. All this talk, talk, talk kept rattling him.
Jane’s mouth primmed.
That mouth.
He wrapped his fingers around the hammer and turned back to the task at hand. Nail pierced wood, and he sank it deep, as deep as he wanted to put all the thoughts that kept hammering at him day after day. The war. Erica. Bright red, cherry-red, the red of new blood, Brian.
“Griffin…”
And Jane. Who could have foreseen the fire under that governess guise? And why the hell did he want to touch it so very much? Gage was the real risk taker in the family. But Jane made Griffin want to put his hand in the flame and hold it there.
The burn would make him feel so damn alive.
But he didn’t want to feel at all!
“Look,” she was saying in her librarian voice. It was hushed but impossible to ignore. “I know that I… Uh, that I…”
“Came like a rocket at the flick of my finger?” He could feel her blush, even with his back turned. “Don’t be ashamed, honey-pie. I suppose some men would find it gratifying.”
She made a strangled sound. “Do you have to be so…so crude?”
Yes. Because it would be effective in pushing her away, and he needed to do that, he’d decided. Jane was so much sweet damn trouble under her frothy skirts and prim blouses. While he admittedly ached to get into her body, she’d use it as an excuse to get into his head. And though the explosive chemistry between them could knock her straight out of her crazy, girlie shoes, and while he was more grateful than he could say to know that he had a working cock again, he’d learned some lessons through war.
He’d never been armed during his embed year, but weapons had surrounded him all the same. One slow afternoon the soldiers had convinced him he needed to know how to handle every weapon at the outpost. He’d actually touched them many times already—moving a grenade someone inadvertently had left on his pillow or handing a platoon member his M4. But that day he’d learned to load and shoot and had been fascinated by the power in his hands. Maybe it was a man thing, a testosterone-driven interest in a tool, a gadget, but whatever the seductive lure, touching them like that had set his heart hammering. That’s when he’d thought better of what he was doing. That’s when he’d set down the rifle he was holding and backed slowly away, aware that keeping it too close would change him as a man.
Jane was like that. With her in his hands, he’d be changed…he could see her cracking him open like a nut, and he couldn’t risk any of what was in there leaking out.
“You want a conversation?” He swiveled on the step and pinned her with his gaze. She’d been standing out in the sun long enough for the tip of her nose to turn pink. He curled his fingers into a fist so he wouldn’t touch her there. Or anywhere. “Jane, here’s the bottom line. I don’t want you in my bed.”
She blinked those silvery eyes and he glanced away from the—what? Surprise? Hurt? Hell.
“It would be bad for me,” he continued. “And a disaster for you, because I can’t give you what you need….” Her helpless climax of the night before flared across his mind, but he dashed water on it, cooling the heat. “What you really need.”
“Oh.” Her voice was small. Or perhaps insulted. “Thank you for being clear about that. Now I don’t need to apologize for leaving you…unsatisfied.”
He swallowed his groan. “Jane—”
“Griff!” Tess called his name, and she held up his phone, waving it to indicate there was someone on the line.
“Can you take a message?” he called back. Then he put his hand on Jane’s knee. “Look…”
She did, and their eyes caught again. It was like gazing across the water toward the horizon just as the sun left the sky. No obstacles ahead. A silvery slide to forever.
“Griff.” The strange note in his sister’s voice caused him to jerk. He looked up. She was coming across the porch, a tense expression on her face.
His heart jolted. “Gage?” He jumped to his feet. “Something’s happened to Gage?”
“No, no.” Tess put both hands out. “Not that. It’s your friend. That young man you met yesterday.”
“Huh? Brian?”
“That was his mother. She thought you’d want to know….”
Griffin froze. His tongue felt thick. “Just tell me,” he ordered his sister. “Say it quick.” Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“He’s going to be all right, but…”
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