by Ruby Laska
“Hence the hotels,” Junior guessed.
Griff laughed. “Guess I’m a little transparent. Yeah, when I’m trapped in a hotel with my laptop, I can’t even do laundry for distraction. And I get stuff done. Make my editor happy. Maybe I should have stayed over at the Sunrise after all.”
Junior regarded him with her chin tilted a little off center. When she finally spoke, it was without hesitation.
“Well, to hell with your book, then. I’m glad you’re here.”
She got out of her chair, and came to stand at the counter next to him.
“But what about all the people out there waiting to get their hands on Missouri Highways and Byways? You know, my adoring fans?”
Junior edged a little closer, and he detected the warmth of her scent.
She shrugged. “Guess they’ll have to take a number.”
“Oh? Do I have a prior commitment?”
Junior nodded, and reached up to brush the hair off his forehead. He caught her wrist, held it, and just looked at her for a minute, wanting to taste every freckle from her hairline down past her chin.
“Griff?” she breathed, and he could feel the warmth against his skin.
“Mmmm?”
“I’m thinking you ought to ask that fancy barber for your money back.”
The next thing she knew she was airborne.
“You think you’re funny, Junior Atkinson?”
Junior grinned and nodded. Griff was holding her as though she were no heavier than a basket of laundry, and his fingers were spread wide on the skin of her thigh. Warm—she could feel his warmth through her skirt, and it was burning hotter by the second.
“Think you call the shots?” he went on, beginning to make his way through the kitchen, the hallway.
“Mmm-hmm,” she purred, snugging herself a little closer into his arms.
“Think you’re in charge?” he challenged, arriving at the foot of the stairs. He paused and looked down at her, the sadness erased from his face, hunger and anticipation replacing it.
“Not only do I think I’m in charge,” Junior said slowly, lifting a languid hand and unbuttoning the pearl buttons of her Mexican embroidered blouse one by one, exposing her bare breasts beneath, “I know it. Know what they used to call me?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Junior Asskicker. Get it? Atkinson, Ass-kicker—”
“I get it,” Griff growled, and then he bent slowly and very deliberately and, just as she was getting ready to give in to his kiss, just as she was parting them in anticipation, he pulled back. “But no more. You’re in my hands now, Junior.
“And I’ve changed my mind. I think I’m going to have you right here, in your front room.”
“Oh.”
Oh, my. He swung her around, her bare toes brushing against the banister, and waited as he took his time surveying the living room. Finally he settled on the ancient huge armchair, the one with the lumpy ottoman, and headed for it.
“I’m going to make love to you right here, Junior,” he whispered as he settled her into the chair, resting her head against the down pillows, sitting on the ottoman with her long legs in his lap, surveying her appreciatively.
“What if somebody looks in the front window?” Junior demanded, but the very thought sent a delicious shiver down her spine.
Griff shrugged. “It’s almost dark. Besides, I don’t know any of these people, and I don’t have a reputation to protect.”
He slid his hand slowly up her calf, pushing the filmy silk of her skirt along her skin, sending ripples of pure hot sensation pulsing through her.
“Come to think of it,” he said lazily as he bent down to kiss the insides of her knees, “you don’t have much of a reputation to protect either.”
That made her laugh. He was funny. Damn Griff Ross, not only did he turn her insides all melty every time he looked her way, but he made her laugh.
There was no resisting him.
He kissed his way slowly up her thighs, cupping her skin in his hands and squeezing, relishing. He was right, the light was nearly gone, but what was left illuminated his inky hair, his broad shoulders and strong forearms.
“Mmmm, get up here,” she breathed.
“Whoa, Nelly, I’ll be there when I’m damn ready,” Griff muttered against her, and then he found the zipper at the side of her skirt and expertly unfastened it.
He slid it down and out of the way and then he eased her knees apart and got comfortable and teased the edge of her panties with his fingertips. The sensation was just this side of ticklish, as he brushed her thighs lightly.
“I must say I’m a little disappointed in you, Junior,” Griff reproved in a voice that sounded anything but.
“Why’s that?”
“Underwear.” He gave the elastic a tug, let it snap gently. “You’re wearing it.”
“Oh.” She giggled, felt her face flush. She was blushing. Blushing!
Junior couldn’t remember the last time a man had made her blush, but there was something incredibly delicious about the way Griff looked at her and spoke to her and touched her that made her feel… different.
Like she wanted to please him. Wanted to touch him and pleasure him. Like she was a little afraid of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing.
Being the wrong woman for him.
“I liked it when you weren’t wearing any,” Griff said hoarsely, but then his fingers dipped between the thin silk and her flaming skin. “But I like this too.”
And Junior’s doubts receded like the tide, noiselessly vanishing into the dark as Griff found the place that radiated heat and sheer pleasure throughout her entire body.
He kept up a running commentary while he teased and rubbed, but Junior was so swept away by the sensations that she heard not words but just his voice, raw against her face, hot and hungry. She moved against his hand, slowly and sinuously at first. The need in her rose to nearly unbearable heights and she pressed against him, finally growling in frustration against his neck, nipping his skin with her teeth.
“Griff,” she moaned. “Please, Griff, I need…” But Griff didn’t wait to hear what she needed. He slipped his finger inside her, felt the hot wetness, rubbed his thumb against her and felt what he hungered for, her satisfaction, her ecstasy. She shuddered against him and he drank in her release and her pleasure but it only drove his own need to nearly unbearable levels.
She bucked against him, her voice falling to a low, guttural moan and then she opened her eyes and looked at him and formed words, slowly, painstakingly as he felt her pulse pound against his body.
“Now,” she managed. “Now, please.”
Griff saw that her hunger for him was barely dampened and it drove him beyond reason, beyond his carefully maintained control. He dragged his hands, hot and damp with her passion, along her body, taking her in his arms and twining his body with her own.
Their fingers worked feverishly at his shorts, and he tore his shirt off and dropped it to the floor. Once naked his skin against hers was almost more sensation than he could absorb, her silky dampness against the dry heat of his longing.
When he slipped on the condom Junior didn’t even seem to notice, much less object.
Last time she hadn’t waited, last time she’d taken him inside her like the tigress she reminded him of. But this time was different.
As he bent to kiss her he saw that she waited almost shyly, her lashes lowered over her deep green eyes, her breath caught in her throat. She was still, except for the pounding of her heartbeat, which Griff almost thought he could hear in the stillness of the room.
He wanted to wait, to look at her like this forever, but he couldn’t; he was sliding into her, losing himself in her, before he could do more than lock the image away for later.
She was hot and velvet around him and when he shuddered with pleasure and slowly slid out, only to plunge even deeper, she met his thrusts with her own. Her hesitation was gone, and she wrapped her legs around him and
held him and held on, even as he went faster and harder over the edge than ever before, and then she was there with him, tumbling, falling, crying out until they lay together spent and exhausted.
He could have stayed forever in her arms, his fingers having somehow made their way into loops of her hair, but he was afraid his weight was too much for her, and he shifted to the side and eased onto the ancient boucle fabric of the chair.
Junior shifted too, almost without thinking, following the warmth and comfort that was Griff’s body. She snuggled down into his arms, tucking her face into the hollow of his throat, and held on.
“I’m pretty sure only two or three people saw us,” Griff said eventually.
Junior giggled against his skin. He was tracing patterns on her back, lazy loops, and she wished he would do it forever.
“I like this new side of you,” Griff added.
“Which side would that be?” Junior murmured against him.
“The side that thinks I’m funny. The side that seems to dig me.”
Junior smiled next to his skin. Yes. “You think so?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“But you still have to pay rent.”
Griff sighed theatrically and circled his hands slowly lower along her body.
“Dang. I guess I’ll just have to try harder.”
To her amazement, he proceeded to do just that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Griff turned on his laptop. The familiar whirring sound filled the silence as it came to life. In the darkness, the screen’s glow drew his attention like a bug to a light bulb.
He liked this cramped little office, Junior’s diplomas thumbtacked and curling on the walls, bookcases overflowing onto the wood floors with books and papers and notebooks. Ordinarily, Griff worked in ascetic surroundings, not even a coffee cup on his desk. But he liked having evidence of Junior all around him.
At the moment, though she was sound asleep upstairs, he still wore her musky scent. Their loving had been long and lazy. It was past midnight now, but Griff couldn’t sleep.
So here he was.
Idly, he opened the file of the chapter he’d been working on and let his gaze slide down the familiar words. Uninspired, he clicked over to email, and sat back to scan his incoming messages, clasping his hands behind his neck and running his tongue over the smooth surface of his crown.
It has become a habit. She’d finished the job a week after he’d come barreling into town, as promised, and nearly two more weeks had passed since then. At first the crown had tingled, but that had stopped. Now it was just a reminder of Junior that he carried around everywhere he went.
Griff felt the blood rush to his cheeks at the thought. Sentimental. Corny. Ridiculous.
He clicked open the new messages. One from his mother, of course. He must have missed the obligatory monthly phone call. Or could he have really forgotten two months in a row?
Griffin Dear:
Once again you have seen fit to roam the planet without bothering to tell your mother where you were going. Honestly, would it be so very difficult to keep me informed? I need to know if you are going to Margaret’s wedding. Your cousin is beside herself trying to work out the tables. Besides the fact that your reply is past due, if you wait much longer you will find yourself seated at the misfits’ table. And you know every wedding has one.
Love, Mother
Griff sighed loudly. He could envision the reply card where he’d left it on the kitchen counter. Of course he wasn’t going to the wedding, but he’d intended to wait until the last possible minute to break it to his mother, who was relentless about trying to get him to family occasions, where his absence presumably embarrassed her no end.
He would have sent the card back in the nick of time, of course. He always did, just as he always sent the same Tiffany’s vase. The woman at the store had assured him it was the perfect gift. It had better be. By now, just about every one of his cousins had one of the mind-bogglingly expensive monstrosities collecting dust in their china cabinet.
China cabinet. For some reason, the phrase rolled around in his brain, as alien to him as something out of a Hindi phrase book. It was one of the things you had to have when you settled down. Along with a minivan, a food processor, real pajamas, a lawn mower.
The thought always made him extremely uncomfortable, and now was no exception. Except—
Except, damn it, Junior kept somehow popping up in the parade of images in his fatigue-addled brain. Junior behind the wheel of a minivan. Junior wearing his pin-striped cotton Brooks Brothers pajamas.
Just the bottoms.
“Sheesh—”
Griff shook his head hard, then slapped himself for good measure, a good hard one-two punch, broadside on each cheek. It made him feel a little better. Not much.
Margaret had actually been his favorite cousin, one of the only Ross relatives with a trace of a sense of humor. His mother was right. He was a jerk, and a stupid vase wasn’t going to buy him out of it.
What if he actually did, for once, attend a family event? What if he brought a date?
After his relatives, and most particularly his mother, picked themselves up off the floor, they’d be all over Junior like flies on pie. First of all, she’d wear something utterly ridiculous—probably a burlap halter over a tin foil skirt or something—and never notice that the entire wedding party had been shopping at Talbot’s. Then she’d insist on making friends with everyone in sight. She’d never understand the sad truth of it, which was that you could know a Ross for years, even be related to him or her, and never really call them a friend.
It was a crazy train of thought, anyway. Junior wasn’t going anywhere with him. She was hell bent on kicking him out the minute she found out if there was a baby.
A baby—
Griff shuddered. That was a subject he had no intention of considering, especially in the wee hours of the morning.
He considered his mother’s email once more, narrowing his eyes at her thinly veiled threat. Too bad the reply card was hundreds of miles away. No doubt there were bills in that stack, too. He really had to figure out when he was headed back.
It was only two more days, by Junior’s calendar, until they would know. And then—
Griff pushed the thought out of his mind and clicked open the next email.
Griff,
This isn’t like you. Your deadline is next Tuesday and you haven’t even sent me a draft. Don’t take this the wrong way, honey, but I do like to get my hands on your work and give it a thorough once-over before the editorial meeting.
Griff, you’re a hell of a guy, but this time I don’t know if it’s going to make up for forgetting who signs your checks.
Get your ass back here,
Gloria
Great, he’d managed to piss off Gloria. It was true that Gloria was generally always pissed off about something, but you didn’t want to get in her way when she brought out the big guns. The fact that they’d been friends for years wouldn’t stand in the way of her tearing him to shreds with her well-manicured fingers.
And it was true that he’d been holding out on her with the book. But why? The thing had been ready to go for a week and a half. He’d edited and re-written and polished until it was his most refined, if not his most inspired, work. Besides, sheer momentum would sell out the print run; Griff had plenty of loyal fans who’d buy his book even if it was a travelogue of the South Pole.
So why was he sitting on it? Why didn’t it feel done? Or was it done, but he was just using it as an excuse to stay? That was way more likely, wasn’t it?
Griff groaned, and let his head loll back on the chair. He was exhausted, but the effort of not thinking about the one thing that was pressing down on him like a ton of rocks was keeping him awake.
Junior.
Junior in a Cubs baseball cap with her hair spilling out the back, screeching with delight to see the first sweet corn of the year at the vegetable stand.
Junior leaving for
work, bringing him a cup of coffee at his computer, brushing her lips along the back of his neck and ruining his concentration for a good half hour.
Junior in his arms at night. Every night.
Junior’s stomach, round as a basketball.
Yikes!
Griff shook himself, rolled his shoulders a few times, and cleared his throat noisily. These late nights were doing strange things to him. What he really needed to be thinking about was Junior, all right—Junior in his rear-view mirror.
Griff jammed the power button with his index finger, causing himself a sharp pain. Still, doing something decisive made him feel a little better. He stood, plunged now into near-darkness, and stretched.
His problem, he decided, was that he’d been sitting on his ass for far too long. His little house projects hadn’t been enough to keep his mind from running overtime and jamming him up. What he needed was something big—really big. A project that a man could throw himself into, that required big, heavy tools and generated gallons of sweat. He needed to work and scowl and cuss and drink beer for lunch.
To hell with women!
To hell with looming deadlines, the future, the past, the book, his relatives, the burning questions that he was not going to devote one second to in the next twenty-four hours!
It only took him a minute to decide.
Tomorrow he was going to knock down a wall.
Junior pulled her blouse over her head while she raced down the stairs.
“Griff, damn it Griff, where are you!”
In the kitchen she found her sandals where she’d slipped them off the night before, and stuffed them into her purse. Later, she’d get them on her feet; for now the most important thing was to get moving.
There he was. On the couch, hugging a pillow to him like a lover, one leg dragging the floor, his breathing deep and even.
Junior sat unceremoniously down on his thigh and shook his shoulder while she started to brush her teeth.