She opened her eyes when he lowered her to the chaise. “I don’t want to be spoiled.”
Leaning over her prone figure, Griffin kissed the end of her nose. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to be respected as a grown woman, Griffin, and not someone who can’t think for herself.”
He folded his body down beside her. “You think I don’t respect you? If I didn’t respect you, Belinda, I would’ve taken advantage of you last night. You’d had too much to drink, and even though you claim you can beat me up with one arm tied behind your back I doubt whether your martial arts training would’ve become a factor.” He leaned closer. “Black belt notwithstanding, physically you’re no match for me.”
For a long moment, Belinda looked back at Griffin, mesmerized by the stubble on his jaw and chin and asking herself which Griffin Rice she liked better—the urbane attorney who wore tailored suits and Italian footwear, or the laid-back unshaven man who was visually delicious in a pair of jeans and T-shirt. Seeing him dressed down with the sunlight providing a backlight for his rich olive-hued face answered her question. She much preferred this version.
“I know. I just said that to scare you.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t have a black belt?”
“Oh, I have the belt.”
“Why, then, did you want to scare me?”
Belinda hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “I didn’t want you to get too close to me.”
“Why, Lindy?”
Her delicate jaw tightened. “Because the only man I ever let get that close hurt me physically and emotionally, and I swore it would never happen again.”
Griffin placed a hand on the side of her face. “What did he do to you?”
Belinda formed her thoughts in some semblance of order. What she was going to tell Griffin was something she’d never revealed to anyone, including her parents. The incident was branded in her memory for eternity, changing and making her into what she’d become.
“Joel Thurman and I started dating in high school, and when it came time to go to college he switched his first choice so we could be together.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
Belinda nodded. “My first time was the night of our senior prom. We both lived on campus, and he slept in my dorm room more than he did his own. But everything changed when I joined a study group and he thought I was cheating on him with another boy. We argued constantly because he wanted me to quit the group.”
“Did you?”
“No. The kids in the group were my friends, and if I’d left then it would prove I’d been cheating on him. One night he came to my room and found one of my study buddies sleeping in my bed. The boy had asked to lie down because he wasn’t feeling well. Joel told me he was going to the library to pick up a book. I should’ve known something wasn’t right when he said I’d better be alone when he got back.
“I woke Khaled and told him he had to leave. He’d come down with the flu and I had to get several guys to help get him back to his room. Joel returned, closed the door and told me that if he ever found me alone in my room with a man again he would kill me. He threw me on the bed, ripped off my panties and proceeded to rape me. I started to fight back until something told me not to move. When I went completely still, he pulled out, and all my martial arts training came back as if I were in a competition.
“What amazed me is that no one came to see what the noise was all about. I literally kicked his ass all around the room. It was the first and last time I ever felt like murdering another human being. Joel jumped out a second-story window to escape. After I came to my senses, I straightened up my room, then called Myles, asking him to come and get me. Three days later I went back to school, cleaned out my room and moved off campus.”
“What happened to Joel?”
“He broke his right arm in the fall, but told everyone he’d slipped and fell headfirst down a flight of stairs.”
“Did he move off campus, too?”
Belinda shook her head. “He stayed while I commuted. Every time he saw me he went in the opposite direction.”
Now Griffin had the answer to why Belinda moved back home. “You didn’t think about charging him with attempted rape?”
“No. If I’d told my brother that Joel tried to rape me he would’ve killed him. He took his role as older brother to three sisters very seriously. It’s a wonder that Grant was able to get close to Donna after my brother’s brutal interrogation.”
“That’s because Rice men don’t scare easily.”
Belinda lowered her gaze to stare at him from under her lashes. “Does anything frighten you?”
Cradling her face between his palms, Griffin leaned even closer. “Not having you in my life frightens the hell out of me.”
Her lashes flew up, her heart beating like that of a tiny, frightened bird. “But I am in your life, Griffin. We’ll be together for the next eleven years.”
“A marriage of eleven years isn’t that long,” he teased.
“It doesn’t matter because we’re not married.”
He nodded. “You’re right.”
They weren’t married and Griffin wondered if he or Belinda would ever marry. In eleven years they would be forty-eight and forty-three, respectively. Not too old to marry, but in his opinion a bit old to become parents. But with the advances in modern medicine, many forty-year-olds were giving birth to healthy babies.
Realizing he’d fallen in love with Belinda Eaton was an awakening and sobering experience. It left him reeling from a sense of fulfillment that graduating college, law school, passing the bar or negotiating multimillion-dollar contracts couldn’t match.
Griffin closed his eyes for several seconds. “Would you like to get married?” he asked, staring at the woman who unwittingly had captured his heart. The brilliant sunlight flattered her smooth skin, affording it the appearance of rich dark-chocolate mousse.
Belinda’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you proposing or asking a question?”
Griffin would’ve said proposing if he was certain Belinda was in love with him. Admitting that she liked him wasn’t tantamount to a marriage proposal or a commitment to spend the rest of their lives together.
“I was asking a question,” he said instead.
Belinda shrugged a shoulder. “I think I would one of these days. But it can’t be until the girls are legally emancipated. It would be unfair to bring a new man into their lives when they’re so attached to you.”
Now you’re talking, he mused. That meant she wasn’t going to marry Sunshine—at least not for the next eleven years. “I feel the same way about other women.”
“I thought you didn’t have other women.”
“I used to see other women.” He brushed a kiss over her parted lips. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe a little.”
“Now, why is that?” Griffin asked as he placed light kisses at the corners of her mouth.
“Because I like you.”
“I’m willing to wager that I like you more than you like me.”
Looping her arms under his shoulders, Belinda leaned into the man who made her ache for him. While she’d lain on the floor of the classroom, waiting for death, she thought about her parents, brother, younger sister and her nieces who’d recently lost their parents and could possibly lose their aunt. Then, when she least expected it, images of Griffin Rice had swept over her. She’d recalled everything about him: his face, smile, the attractive cleft in his strong chin, his melodious baritone, the natural masculine scent of his bare skin that elicited erotic fantasies and his touch that ignited a fire only he could extinguish.
“It doesn’t matter, Griffin, because I don’t gamble.”
He gave her a wink. “I do like you, Lindy Eaton.”
She returned the wink. “Why don’t you show me how much you like me.”
Griffin was about to finish what they’d started and stopped so many times. He wanted Belinda so much that he couldn’t remember when he didn’t want her. She’d become as essential to him as breathing was to sustaining life. Reaching out, he swept her off the chaise and carried her into the house. Aside from Cecil and Nigel, who were huddled together in their cage asleep, there was just the two of them.
Belinda buried her face between the neck and shoulder of her soon-to-be lover, closing her eyes. She needed him to take away the hurt and pain that marred the good times in her life. As the third child, and the second daughter of Dwight and Roberta Eaton, she’d grown up loved and protected.
Then there was Joel Thurman, the young man to whom she’d given her most precious gift—her virginity—who’d shattered her trust in men. It took years before she felt secure enough to become involved with another man. Her second foray into the dating game started well but ended badly. She learned to never date someone with whom you work.
She was no longer a virgin and she didn’t live or work with Griffin. He wasn’t looking to get married and neither was she. They shared custody of their nieces, which meant they would always share a special bond that would continue beyond Sabrina and Layla’s twenty-third birthdays. The bond was further strengthened because her sister had married his brother.
They were family.
Griffin concentrated on counting the number of steps that took him to his bedroom rather than think of the woman in his arms. His vow not to become involved with his nieces’ godmother was shattered the first time he kissed her. He knew he’d been attracted to Belinda during their first encounter, which now seemed so long ago. Yet his ego hadn’t allowed him to admit that a woman hadn’t succumbed to his so-called charm. What had worked with so many women was wasted on Belinda Eaton. Most times she looked past him as if he didn’t exist, or when she did meet his gaze he saw revulsion and indifference.
Annoyed because he liked her and she appeared to merely tolerate his presence, he thought she was stuck-up, a snob. What he hadn’t known was that if she hadn’t fought off her attacker, then she would’ve been a rape victim. If he’d known Joel Thurman at that time he would’ve sustained more serious injuries than a broken arm. Griffin would’ve broken his neck.
Belinda opened her eyes when she felt the firmness of the mattress under her body. She lay on a king-size bed with massive carved posts. Her gaze widened when Griffin moved over her, supporting his weight on his elbows.
Griffin studied her intently. “Let me know if you’re ready to do this.”
Belinda framed his lean face with her hands as a mysterious smile softened her mouth. “I was ready a long time ago, but I didn’t know it.”
She’d fallen in love with Griffin Rice on sight. She’d watched her sister with Grant, praying she could have the same with Griffin.
It was not to be. While she pined for him from afar he flitted from woman to woman like a modern-day Casanova. His rakish behavior had become a sobering awakening to her yearning for what she would never have, and in the end she concluded she hadn’t been in love, but just infatuated with her brother-in-law.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 9
Belinda felt a rush of desire, anticipation and a physical craving for the man who made her question why she’d been celibate and why she continued to deny the very reason she’d been born female.
Griffin’s hands slipped under her T-shirt, gathering fabric as he began the task of baring her body. Her breath quickened, her chest rising and falling as his fingers traced the outline of her breasts through the sheer white bra. With a minimum of effort, he released the clasp, freeing the firm mounds of flesh.
His heated gaze caressed bared flesh. “You’re more perfect than I’d imagined.” He’d only caught a glimpse of her naked body the night before.
Griffin had waited years for Belinda, waited while the world changed, he’d changed and she’d changed from a reticent nineteen-year-old college student into a sensual, confident woman who kept him off balance. She’d had a sexual encounter that’d left scars, and he knew he had to get her to trust him if they were going to have a fulfilling love life.
His hands traced the curve of her midriff, the indentation of her waist and the flare of her hips. Lowering his head, he brushed his mouth over hers, moist breaths mingling, tongues tasting and fusing as banked passions stirred to life. Griffin wanted to take Belinda hard and fast but forced himself to go slow.
“I won’t hurt you, baby. I’ll never hurt you.”
Belinda didn’t know whether Griffin was talking about physical or emotional hurt. She knew instinctually that if he did hurt her it would be unintentional. His hands and mouth were doing things to her she’d forgotten, and she resisted the urge to move her hips. But her body refused to follow the dictates of her brain when she arched off the mattress with the intent of getting closer to him.
Her need, the urgency to feel him inside her, communicated itself to Griffin. Sitting back on his heels, he released the waistband and zipper on her jeans and eased them down her legs, the denim fabric joining her shirt and bra on the carpet beside the bed. All that remained was her bikini panties. They, too, joined the pile of clothing, and Griffin was able to see what layers of fabric had concealed from his inquisitive gaze.
He smiled. Belinda Eaton’s body matched the exquisiteness of her face. Shapely calves, slender ankles and feet, flat belly, a narrow waist and rib cage he could span with both hands and a pair of firm breasts that didn’t require the support of a bra to hold them up. His hungry, heated gaze lingered briefly on her parted lips before journeying down the length of her body and then reversing itself.
Belinda closed her eyes as a slow, warming desire raced through her body. She couldn’t understand why Griffin continued to stare at her rather than make love to her. He knew she was waiting for him, that she’d been ready for him for what now seemed a lifetime ago. On the Friday or Saturday nights she’d sat home alone because she didn’t have a date or had turned one down, she pondered where would she have been if she hadn’t rebuffed Griffin Rice’s subtle overtures. Would she still be single and childless if she hadn’t declined his invitations?
She’d loved him from afar, but that love was bittersweet because she had gotten him by default. Fate had intervened and offered her a chance to be with the man she loved, if only temporarily. They were given eleven years to be together before going their separate ways to lead separate lives. But Belinda was facing a dilemma. After sharing her body with Griffin would she be able to walk away unscathed? Would she become an emotional cripple and not be able to let him go? Or would she revert to the woman who with a single hostile glare was able to keep men at a distance and out of her bed?
“Are you certain you want this?” Griffin asked Belinda. “Are you willing to do this for the next eleven years without asking for more?”
Belinda was too stunned to speak. So she did the next best thing. She nodded. Why would he ask her something like that? She lay in his bed, butt-naked, her body thrumming from a desire only he could assuage, and he wanted to ask her about eleven years from now. No one knew where they’d be the next day, so a decade was more than a stretch.
Reaching for the hem of his T-shirt, Griffin pulled it up and over his head. He felt as if he were in a hypnotic trance—that what was about to happen wasn’t actually happening, that he was dreaming and when he awoke he would be in bed—alone. He’d lost count of the women with whom he bedded or dated that had become Belinda Eaton in his fantasies. It took a long time for him to rid himself of the guilt that he was lusting after his sister-in-law, because they didn’t share a bloodline. His brother had fallen in love with her sister, and he, in turn, had fallen in love with her.
He smiled at Beli
nda. “I had to ask.”
His hands were steady as he relieved himself of his jeans and boxers in one, smooth motion. He glanced down when he heard Belinda gasp and saw the direction of her gaze. He was aroused. His erection so hard it was painful—exquisite, pleasurable pain.
What Griffin had hoped for wasn’t going to happen. He’d wanted making love with Belinda to be slow, but the inferno in his groin threatened to incinerate him. Leaning over, he opened the drawer to the nightstand and took out a condom. His hands shook slightly when he opened the packet and sheathed his tumescence in latex.
They shared a smile when Belinda raised her arms and opened her legs to welcome Griffin Rice not only into her life but also into her body. She’d had years to prepare for something she’d fantasized over and over. Instinctively, her body arched toward him, her arms going around his neck.
She was helpless to halt the gasps and soft moans that slipped past her parted lips when Griffin’s rapacious mouth explored the skin on her neck, shoulders, journeying down the length of her body to stake his claim between her thighs. Men had touched her there, but none had ever kissed her there.
Griffin’s tongue searched and found the swollen nub shimmering with moisture, his tongue worshipping the folds between the tangled curls concealing her femininity. Belinda smelled sweet, tasted sweet. The smell of desire became an aphrodisiac that threatened to take him beyond himself. He pushed his face closer while inhaling her essence. Now he knew what men meant when they claimed they wanted to climb inside a woman.
Passion pounded, whirling the blood through Belinda’s heart, head and chest. She was mindless with desire for a man she hadn’t planned to love, a man whom she’d never let know she loved him.
She was on fire! Griffin’s hands and mouth had started a blaze and there was only one way it could be extinguished.
Forever an Eaton: Bittersweet LoveSweet Deception Page 11