by Layne, Ivy
With a groan, Griffen gave me what I wanted. Rolling on top of me, settling between my legs, he moved my hand aside and pressed into the soft heat at my core.
I gasped at the burning stretch of him. There wasn’t a sharp pain like I’d expected, just a slow burn as he pushed in and in and in. Slow. So slow. When he was seated to the hilt he stopped, propping himself up on his elbows and brushing the hair out of my face.
A tear trickled from the side of my eye. I didn’t know why I was crying. It didn’t hurt that badly. It wasn’t that, it wasn’t pain. I was so full. My body. My heart. So full of Griffen, and it was more than I’d imagined. Better. So much better.
He kissed the tear from my cheek. “Hope. You feel so fucking good.”
Then he started to move. Slow, steady thrusts, his hips rocking between my legs, his hand where we were joined, and suddenly, I didn’t feel the burn. Suddenly, I was on fire. Rocking up into him, my fingers sank into his shoulders, holding on with everything I had as we moved together.
This orgasm was nothing like the one from the day before. That one had left me dazed and drunk on sensation. This one blew off the top of my head. All I knew was pleasure, rising, drowning me until I was no more than the points that connected us. Griffen inside me. My hands on his shoulders, his chest pressed to mine. My mouth on his skin, teeth sinking in as stars exploded behind my eyes and bliss washed over me, sharp and sweet and perfect.
Griffen went still, his breath harsh, his lips pressing, kissing, soothing as the pleasure ebbed slowly, leaving me limp and sated.
I didn’t think I could move. Not just because Griffen was pinning me to the bed. Every muscle in my body was wrung out, too happy to do anything more than just lay there. Alice and Lily were right. I didn’t have to do anything but put on the lingerie.
Griffen took care of the rest, and wow, did he. I blinked up at the ceiling, idly appreciating the delicate vines carved into the woodwork, my mind drifting, when Griffen slid to the side and rolled us. I splayed over him, my backside suddenly cold.
Griffen’s head popped up, and instead of the lazy satisfied expression I expected, his eyes were stark.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Griffen
Fuck. Don’t move. Fuck.”
Goddamnit. I hadn’t just fucked up. I’d fucked up big. She was a virgin, for fuck’s sake. Bad enough I’d taken her hard and rough with little warning and almost no foreplay, I hadn’t used a goddamn fucking condom. I had no excuse. I had them, right there in the bedside drawer.
Hadn’t I thought about this already? I’d decided. Despite that stupid fucking will and Edgar’s warning, I would not get Hope pregnant. Not until she was ready. Not until she wanted it as much as I did. Then I took one look at her holding up that scrap of pink silk and all my good intentions went out the window.
I slid her off of me, my cock sliding free of her body, the friction a painful pleasure. Fuck. I’d only just come and I already wanted back in there.
In the bathroom, I grabbed a washcloth off the neat stack and ran the hot water. The least I could do was take care of her. Fuck. She was still laying there, one knee cocked up, hugging the pillow, a little smile on her face despite the shadow of concern when she looked at me.
She didn’t look pissed so I couldn’t have fucked up that badly.
Don’t fool yourself, asshole. You know you fucked up.
She’d be sore. She needed a bath. The sun streamed through the un-curtained windows, a spotlight on her beauty: those long limbs spotted with cinnamon freckles, the indent of her waist, the curve of her hip. She tried to squeeze her legs shut, throwing an arm over her breasts.
Gently, I eased her legs apart, pressing the warm cloth between her legs, soothing and cleaning her at the same time. I nudged her knees apart, pressing the washcloth more firmly to her sweet, well-fucked pussy.
“Don’t. Let me. Fuck, Hope. I wasn’t planning on this. Not yet. We didn’t use anything. Tell me you’re on the pill.”
The happy, sated smile fell from her face. Her eyes drained of heat and affection and contentment. “Oh, no. I’m not on the pill, Griffen. I never—I didn’t think I’d—” Her eyes slid shut, her face twisted in a grimace.
Fucking fuck.
“I’m sorry, baby. I thought we’d wait. I was going to wait and I saw you with that pink thing and all those freckles and I fucking lost my head. I’m sorry.”
“It should be okay,” she said, staring past me at the ceiling. I imagined she was doing calculations with the calendar in her head. More confidently, she repeated, “It should be okay. It’s a little late in my cycle for me to get pregnant. I think. I’m not exactly up on the details of conception considering, you know, I hadn’t done this before.”
Fuck me. I might have just screwed up both our lives and she was being cute. I should have been relieved that Hope had cute in her at this moment. Perversely, I wasn’t.
It’s not that I didn’t want a baby with Hope. I was starting to think that might be one of the things I wanted most in life. A family with Hope. But not like this. Not ever like this. Not so she would think it was a ploy. A way to trap her and save myself.
I didn’t want her with me for a baby or the will. Not for guilt or duty. I wanted Hope to want me for me.
Not sure what to say, I helped her to her feet, ushering her into the bathroom. I pulled her under the warm spray of the shower, careful to keep her hair clear of the water. “A bath would be better,” I said, smoothing my hands down her arms and around to cup her breasts. “But Savannah’s going to ring the lunch gong any minute, and I’m assuming you don’t want to explain why we’re missing the meal.”
Hope’s teeth sank into her lower lip, her cheeks flushed pink. She shook her head, unable to meet my eyes. So shy, even after what happened in that bed.
“You’re okay?” I had to ask. “I didn’t hurt you?”
Another shy shake of her head. “It was good,” she whispered. “Really good.”
“I wasn’t too rough?”
I’d lost control. Not completely, but enough. More than I ever had before. I didn’t know why. It was just… Hope. She was so responsive, so in the moment, and her passion was so real. She’d wanted me enough to give me something she’d saved her entire fucking life.
She seemed fine. A little sore, a little shy, a little shaken about the condom thing but otherwise, fine.
I watched her step out of the shower and grab a towel, self-conscious in her nudity. Probably not wanting to tip off Savannah, she grabbed her discarded jeans and sweater from the closet floor and got dressed after smoothing on her apples and cinnamon lotion.
I didn’t watch, I swear.
I mostly didn’t watch.
I was pulling my shirt over my head when the lunch gong sounded. I’d forgotten that thing until I came home. Some long-ago Sawyer ancestor had brought it over from the Far East, a big brass disk hanging from two leather straps in a wooden frame. It had been used for generations to call the Sawyers to the dining room.
Hope looked up at me with a grin. “I forgot about that thing. It’s loud.”
I grinned in agreement and followed her out of the bedroom. I was stuck in my head, in my heart, all of me turned inside out by Hope and the gift she’d given me. She practically skipped down the stairs, sending Savannah a brilliant smile as we walked into the dining room and took our seats at the end of the table.
You should be glad she’s not freaking out, I reminded myself. And I was. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want her scared. If forgetting the condom meant she ended up pregnant, we’d deal.
I didn’t want her scared or hurt, but I wanted her to feel… something. Hadn’t she been in love with me for most of her life? She’d just given me her virginity. Now she was sitting down to a turkey sandwich like nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
For me.
Maybe not for her. Maybe this was just scratching something off her bucket list.
Finally fuck Griffen. Check.
I never thought I’d end up married to Hope. Never thought she’d be in my bed. She’d been a kid when I left. At best, my friend, and at worst—at worst she’d been the architect of my exile. Except she hadn’t been. In truth, at worst she’d been an occasional nuisance.
I hadn’t been planning to sleep with her. Not yet. I’d planned a lot more foreplay, a lot more teasing and kissing and touching. But she’d been so hot, right there with me, her moans when I kissed her and the heat of her body impossible to deny.
She’d given me a gift. Not just her virginity, though that meant so much more than I’d expected it would. It wasn’t that I cared if she’d slept with other men. I didn’t have any hangups about purity. That would have been pretty hypocritical considering my own past.
It was her trust that meant so much. She’d spent her entire life protecting herself, never sharing her body with anyone. Until me. She’d trusted me with that, known I’d take care of her, that I wouldn’t hurt her.
I hadn’t been looking for this. Hadn’t expected it. But Hope was the most precious gift life had ever thrown my way and it killed me that what we shared didn’t seem to have touched her beyond the pleasure of it.
My world had been rocked, turned upside down and inside out. I didn’t want a fucking turkey sandwich. I wasn’t hungry. I wanted to drag Hope back up to the room, to pull her into a warm bath, to kiss her and make her come again and again.
I wanted the world to be just the two of us until she was right there with me feeling everything I was feeling.
That wasn’t going to happen. Not anytime soon.
We ate in silence until Hope said, “Are you okay about seeing Vanessa?”
I looked up sharply, “Vanessa? Sure. Are you? Okay?”
“I guess. It was a little weird. She’s mean, but she’s never paid much attention to me.”
“You’re a threat.”
“What?” Hope looked confused.
I clarified, “She thinks you’re a threat. The hair, the new clothes. You want to be seen and she sees you. What she sees is a threat.”
Hope tilted her head to the side as if examining this new idea. “Am I a threat?”
“No,” I said, without thinking.
Her face fell. “Oh.”
I realized my mistake. “To say you’re a threat to Vanessa implies that she has a piece on the board. She doesn’t. She has no position to threaten. She’s nothing.”
“What?” Hope still looked confused. She’d lived her whole life in the shadow of her uncle Edgar, and even Prentice and Ford. Doing their bidding and letting them push her aside. She didn’t realize she’d always been important. Now, with them out of the way, everyone else would realize it too.
“Hope, you are so far above Vanessa she doesn’t even factor. She’s been sitting around wasting her life, probably alienating half the town while living off alimony from Ford. She doesn’t have any skills and she probably doesn’t have any real friends. Now she’s running out of money, and the best she can do is come here in some halfhearted attempt to seduce some cash out of me. She’s nothing like you. You’re so far out of her league she shouldn’t be able to see you.”
“She didn’t like that I was wearing this ring,” Hope commented, staring down at her hand where the Sawyer ruby burned among fiery diamonds.
“Of course, she didn’t. Even back then she was never going to get that ring. It didn’t even occur to me to give it to her, to be honest. Obviously, it didn’t occur to Ford either.”
“Prentice used her. To punish you and keep Ford on a leash,” Hope said, taking a sip of her iced tea, her eyes sad.
“I guess he did. She didn’t seem to mind.”
Hope looked down at her finger again, turning her hand so the ring caught the light. “Not much has changed. At least I got a nice ring out of it.”
A direct stab to my heart. “That’s not what this is,” I protested. “That’s not what you are. Prentice isn’t using you to control me.”
“No, he isn’t, is he? He used the town to control you. I don’t know why I’m even here.”
The bitch of it was I didn’t know why she was here either. It still didn’t make sense. Prentice didn’t need Hope to get me to stay. Starving the town of funds was enough to do that. In fact, he’d used the town against Hope as much as me.
Edgar must have had something on Prentice, some way to strong-arm him into putting Hope in place as my wife. But if so, why did the prenup leave her with nothing at the end of our marriage? Why put a time limit on it at all?
I didn’t know the answers, and I was starting not to care.
It didn’t matter why Hope was here, I was just glad that she was.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Griffen
It looked like my siblings were keeping their distance until the last possible moment. Hope and I ate dinner alone—again—in the formal dining room. It should have been romantic. The great iron chandeliers were working, but Savannah had found candelabras somewhere and we dined by candlelight, sitting diagonally, me at the head of the table and Hope just to my right.
Hope was reserved. Distant. I couldn’t tell if she was shy, or worried, or pissed off at me and not sure how to tell me. She could have just been exhausted. We’d spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening plowing our way through my father’s inbox. Reaching out to business connections on the phone and by email, setting up meetings, and just trying to get a picture of the modern version of Sawyer Enterprises.
When I’d been involved in the company it had been made up of a collection of traditional industries. Sawyer Enterprises had owned a logging company, several quarries, furniture manufacturing, and commercial real estate all over the Southeast. Back then, the Inn at Sawyers Bend had been our only investment in the hospitality industry, and more about legacy than profit.
Prentice had sold off the quarries, the manufacturing, and the logging company. These days, Sawyer Enterprises was made up of the Inn at Sawyers Bend, Quinn’s guide company, Avery’s brewery, and all the commercial real estate we owned in Sawyer’s Bend and across the Southeast.
Beyond those interests, Prentice had invested the profits from logging, manufacturing, and the quarries into investments in various companies. Overall, it was a smart move. We were far more diversified than we’d been in the past, better able to weather changes in the markets. If one of our interests was down, another would be up, and at the core, the Sawyers maintained an iron grip on the town Alexander Sawyer had founded over two centuries before.
While Prentice’s strategy for Sawyer Enterprises was a good one, it meant we had a lot more moving parts to track down. While my siblings oversaw the real estate, Inn, brewery and guide business, Hope and I were still digging into the investments, seats on various boards, and all the other ways Prentice had his fingers in businesses across the country.
If I had to read another email or look at another quarterly report I thought I’d go blind. Once I had a handle on everything, I knew I’d love the challenge of tweaking and changing, searching for new investments to make our portfolio thrive. That was later. Right now, I had a mountain of paperwork and communications to put in order and the headache to go with it.
Hope squinted down at her plate. I was reading too much into her mood. She probably wasn’t mad at me. She probably had the same pounding headache I did.
“Tired?” I asked.
With a look of relief, she nodded. “My head is killing me.”
“Me too. I have a plan for that.”
Hope raised an eyebrow. I only smiled in answer.
Dinner finished, I caught Hope’s hand in mine and led her upstairs. Savannah, with brilliant foresight, had pl
aced bath salts and scented candles beside the clawfoot tub. The tub was massive, and for once, I didn’t fault Prentice for his need to have everything bigger and better. The tub would fit both of us easily and it was exactly what I needed.
I started the hot water, lit the candles, and added the scented bath salts before I went looking for Hope. I found her at the window in the sitting room looking down into the courtyard below. When Hawk arrived, I was sure he’d whip the scraggly bushes and overgrown weeds into shape. For now, all I saw was neglect. I hoped it was only the sight of the abandoned property that had put that sad, strained look on Hope’s face.
Catching her hand with mine, I tugged, drawing her attention from the view outside. “Come on,” I said. “I promised you a bath.”
Pulling her hand from mine, she leaned closer to the window, squinting into the darkness outside. “Hold on,” she murmured, swatting at my questing hand.
“What?” I gave up trying to drag her away and joined her at the window.
“Did you see that?” Hope shifted, then backed up and crossed into the bedroom, looking out the window there. I glanced out of the sitting room window, saw nothing unusual, and followed her to the bedroom.
One hand pressed to the glass, Hope stared down into the courtyard. “I wish we had lights out there. I swear I saw someone.”
“Someone or something?” It was night, and we were deep in the woods. Who knew what was roaming around the estate in the dark? It could have been a deer, fox, even a bear. It had been years since anyone had sighted a mountain lion this close to civilization, but they were out there.
“I thought it was a person, but it’s dark. I guess it could have been a deer. Or just the shadows.”
“Do you see anything now?” I asked, stroking a hand down her hair.
Hope leaned into me, letting out a long sigh. “No. And my head is killing me. It was probably nothing.”