by Fallon Hart
Griff leaned against the dresser. “Not really. I thought I would. I guess knowing the commitment isn’t real made all the difference.”
“Right.”
He studied me with his lids lowered over his eyes in a smolder I felt between my legs. I wished, that if he wasn’t going to make a move on me, he’d use the door to the adjoining room and leave me alone already. “I’m glad it’s you. I never thought I’d feel anything but satisfaction that my plan was coming together. Yet I do find myself feeling relieved that it was you taking those vows. And admittedly pride that my bride, fake though she may be, is so stunning it was hard to look away.”
My breath caught at his compliment. Emotions, overwhelming emotions, flooded me and I strove to control them. So I teased him, “Well besides my dress meeting your approval… are you saying you might actually trust me?”
“With this, yes.”
I rolled my eyes but I guessed it was better than nothing.
“Well.” He pushed up off the dresser. “I think I can safely sneak into the adjoining room.”
Disappointed and relieved all at the same time, I couldn’t speak.
If he wasn’t going to touch me I needed him to leave so I could breathe properly again.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Griffin.” I stood up and walked over to the dresser because I didn’t want to watch him leave.
The adjoining door opened and closed. I bent forward, my hands pressed to the dresser as I glared at my reflection. What had I expected? That he’d be so overcome with lust and emotion that he’d say ‘fuck it’ and rip my goddamn wedding dress off and ravage me on the bridal bed?
I bit my lip at the imagery.
Yes, that’s what I’d imagined.
Body burning with unfulfilled desire I peeled off the straps of my wedding dress and carefully shimmied out of it. Cool air brushed across my naked breasts, turning my nipples into hard pebbles. As I hung up the dress and rifled through my things for the silk nightgown Amelia had made me buy, my enflamed body only grew hotter as the silk caressed my skin.
I stared in the full-length mirror as I removed the pins from my hair. The nightgown was stunning. Ivory silk cut with lace at the breasts so the dark of my nipples were clearly visible. The neckline plunged. On someone with smaller breasts the v would sit beautifully. On me, the v strained slightly against my breasts so that my inner curves were revealed.
The nightgown was foreplay itself.
And Griff was missing it.
As I readied for bed, fantasies of Griff barging back into the room to fuck me played through my mind. What surprised and unnerved me was that in none of the fantasies had he made gentle love to me. Instead they all involved him fucking me hard while he whispered dirty sweet-nothings in my ears.
Beyond wet, I slid into bed and immediately slipped my fingers beneath my lace panties. As I circled my throbbing clit, I squeezed one of my breasts with my other hand, strumming the taut nipple with my thumb. Eyes slammed shut I fantasized that it was Griffin’s hands on my body. I strained to stay quiet, my breaths low and shallow, but the fantasy aroused me so completely I felt myself losing control. When I climaxed, I stifled my cry of release into my pillow so he wouldn’t hear me.
Then I drifted to sleep wishing I hadn’t let Amelia get my hopes up. That I hadn’t let myself get my hopes up.
I should have known that when Griff was really determined he’d stubbornly stick to his guns.
***
I was awoken by a knock on the adjoining door before it abruptly flew open.
Blinking against the light flooding into the room it took me a minute to realize Griff had barged in. His shirt was wrinkled from having been slept in and he threw his waistcoat and jacket on the chaise at the bottom of the bed.
“What time is it?” I grumbled.
“Five-thirty.” He scrubbed a hand across his hair and slumped into the armchair. “I heard our hostess moving around and thought I better get out of the other room.”
“Oh. Right.” God, I felt like I’d barely slept. “Well I suppose we better get ready for breakfast then.” I threw back the covers and slid out of the bed, hoping my hair didn’t look like a rat’s nest. Just in case, I grabbed up a band I’d left on the bedside table and pulled my hair up into a knot on top of my head. When I turned to Griff I froze at the look on his face.
His expression was angry mixed with a heavy dose of lust as his eyes glued to my chest.
And that’s when I remembered what I was wearing.
My nipples hardened under his dark gaze.
Griff’s nostrils flared at the sight. “What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
I swallowed the sudden thickness in my throat. “Amelia made me buy it.”
“Did she make you wear it?” he bit out angrily.
I flushed with annoyance at his accusatory tone and crossed my arms over my chest which only pushed them up further. Crap! “It’s a pretty nightgown, okay.”
“Pretty?” Griff stood up and I held in a gasp at the sight of his erection straining against his suit pants. “You might as well be topless.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He took a predatory step toward me. “What game are you playing, Scarlett?”
Now I knew what to say. “I’m not playing any games!”
“No?” his face darkened with anger. And possibly frustration. “What about last night?”
“What about last night?” I hadn’t done anything remotely untoward last night!
“How about making me listen while you masturbated?”
I gasped, my cheeks no doubt blooming red to match my hair. “You heard?” Embarrassment practically floored me.
Griff relaxed a little, his expression softening somewhat. “You didn’t know I could hear you?”
Not brazen enough to be able to handle this situation without feeling mortified, I swiftly pulled the complimentary dressing gown out of the wardrobe and pulled it on to cover myself. “I thought I was being quiet.” God, I couldn’t look at him.
“The walls are thin. I heard you come.”
I shivered at the coarse rumble of his voice. “I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately I couldn’t take care of myself without making a mess of the sheets so I went to sleep with a raging hard-on, now made worse by that fucking get-up you’re wearing.”
I whipped around. “It’s not my fault you’re attracted to me so stop making it out like it is. It’s horrible and it’s what men who don’t understand the word ‘no’ use as an excuse for their behavior.”
Griff flinched at my words and we just stared at each other with baleful expressions. Finally he turned away, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck, you’re right. I hate when you’re right.”
I stifled a smile.
“I know it’s not your fault that I’m attracted to you,” he said as he stared out the window. “And you should be able to wear and act however you like without inciting my erection.”
My lips twitched at his word choice and tone. He sounded like a petulant schoolboy.
“But I would ask,” he looked over at me, “That you try to torment me just a little less.”
Ashamed because that had actually been my intention yesterday morning, I couldn’t meet his eyes. “You know the solution, Griff.”
“No. I… I have to believe that you and I are above our base animal instincts and that we can see this marriage through without complicating it with sex. For now, the solution is a cold shower for me and a change of wardrobe for you. Yes?”
I nodded.
But as he was striding toward the bathroom, a thought that made my stomach turn occurred to me. “Griff.”
He glanced back at me impatiently.
Attempting to remain cool, I said, “You obviously… well…”
“Spit it out, Scarlett.”
“You obviously need sex.” I gestured to his still raging hard-on. “
Am I to believe that you’re not going to look elsewhere for that?”
“It’s maybe more of a problem than I first thought.” He was honest. “But if I do look elsewhere for satisfaction, I promise I’ll be extremely discreet.”
Hurt and yes, rage, flooded me at the thought of him having sex with someone else. It made me want to lash out. Coldness crept out of me. “In that case I promise to do the same.”
He gritted his teeth. “You told me you haven’t had sex in years before me. Now you’re telling me you can’t hold out for the length of our arrangement?”
“What can I tell you, Griff?” I managed with a casualness I was proud of. I even managed to contain my blush as I continued, “You broke the seal. It might be hard for me to hold out now. But like you said… I’ll be discreet.”
He’d braced a hand around the doorjamb of the bathroom and his knuckles turned white he clenched it so hard. Even I, who found this man difficult to read on any given day, could tell the thought of me sexing it up with another man made him want to break something.
He was jealous at the thought.
Good.
At least he knew how it felt.
Without another word he moved into the bathroom and slammed the door so hard it actually shook on its hinges.
I tutted, feeling smug. All was fair in love and war, right?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Okay, spill. We all heard you yelling and slamming doors this morning.”
I slid my gaze beneath my sunglasses toward Amelia. We were lying on loungers under an umbrella on the beach. Griff and Quentin had just walked away to buy us ice creams upon Amelia’s orders. Now I understood the order. She wanted privacy to grill me. “You heard that?”
“Yes. Hard not to. We didn’t hear what you were yelling about though?”
I let the hurt I was hiding from Griff out. “He was mad at me for the nightgown and when I hinted that maybe we could solve our sexual frustration by giving into our attraction he said no. I asked him what he intended to do about his frustration then and he…”
“He what?” she asked warily.
“He said that if he needed to look elsewhere for satisfaction he would be discreet.”
“That rat bastard!” She threw herself off the lounger, with apparently every intention of killing my new husband. “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Amelia, stop,” I begged, swinging my legs off the lounger. I pushed my sunglasses up off my face so she could see the gravity in my expression. “I told him I’d do the same and although he didn’t respond verbally it was clear he didn’t like the idea.”
“The door slam?”
“The door slam.”
She sat back down on the lounger. “Why is he being so stubborn?”
“I think you’re right.” I sighed. “I don’t think he’s just worried about complicating our business arrangement. I don’t… I know I don’t have a lot of experience with men but I still think our chemistry is unusually strong. And I think he’s afraid of it.”
Amelia reached over to squeeze my hand in sympathy. “What are you going to do?”
“When they come back, can you take Quentin for a walk so I can talk to Griffin? We need to hash this out.”
“I can definitely do that.”
And she did. As soon as the men returned with our ice cream, Amelia grabbed Quentin’s hand and said she fancied a walk along the beach. He didn’t get a chance to respond before she led him away. It was a Sunday, end of summer, and we were enjoying a particularly hot September so the beach was fairly crowded but we’d created space between us and the nearest loungers giving us privacy.
I took a small lick of my strawberry ice cream as Griffin sat down on Amelia’s lounger with his. “What flavor did you get?”
“Rocky road.”
I studied his profile as he gazed out at the water. It glistened tranquilly in the sun at odds with the mood between us. A wave of emotion toward him overwhelmed me as it sunk in that this man was legally my husband.
“We’re officially husband and wife,” I said.
He turned his head toward me. “So we are.”
I took another lick of ice cream as I gathered the courage to confront him about our argument. “This morning was interesting.”
“Which part?”
“The part where we argued about our sexual attraction.”
His sunglasses masked his expression but I could see the eyebrow that quirked above the top of his shades. “For a woman who still has a tendency to blush at the slightest innuendo you’re certainly not afraid to push a touchy subject with me.”
Ignoring the censor in his tone, I shrugged. “I don’t like drama and subterfuge.”
“How unfortunate for someone being paid to be my wife.”
“But I’m not being paid.”
He grunted.
“That’s why you wanted to pay me? Not to seal the deal but so if we did sleep together you’d be able to turn around and say ‘well, we only did it because you’re being paid to be my wife’.”
“That’s not true,” he snapped. “I wanted to pay you so there was an employer/employee barrier between us that would remind me sleeping together is a bad idea.”
“Because the barrier worked out for you last time?”
“Don’t push me, Scarlett. I’m lounging around on a fucking beach when I should be answering emails and working. The last thing I need is this pointless conversation between us.”
“Then go,” I huffed. “Go work. I don’t need you to force yourself to spend time with me to keep up this ruse. Amelia and Quentin are aware of the truth so there’s no need for you to pretend to want to be here with me.”
“Why are you being so bloody antagonistic?”
“Because you hurt me!”
He tensed.
And I inwardly cursed.
Why the hell did I say that?
His voice was low, quiet and intense as he asked, “I hurt you?”
I flinched and my shoulders rose toward my ears as I tried to make myself small, as if I could somehow hide from him if I succeeded. “Never mind.”
“No. Not never mind. Explain.”
Glaring out at the water I bit out, “You basically inferred that any desire you felt for me could be assuaged by another woman.”
He was annoyingly quiet.
“What if I said my desire for you could be assuaged by another man? That his hands on me, his body… they’d feel just as good, if not better, than yours.”
Griff’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he avoided looking at me. Finally he replied, “This is why we need to keep our relationship free of sex. You’re already complicating this marriage.”
Ugly, burning jealousy churned in my gut. “Are you going to sleep with someone else while we’re married?” I pressed.
He finally stared back at me and I wished I could see his eyes. “You’re my wife on paper but not in reality. I don’t owe you that answer.”
Renewed anguish suffused me.
If he wanted me as badly as I wanted him he wouldn’t keep fighting this. It would be too much. He would feel too much. So obviously he didn’t.
I needed these feelings for him gone. I needed the want of him out of me. To flush this desire out of my veins and erase the memories of his touch that were burned on my brain.
“You’re right.” I nodded as I stood up, wanting to get as far away from his as possible. I wanted the truth and now I had it. Amelia was wrong. I was wrong. I was just a naïve young woman who knew nothing about men. “And I expect you won’t question me about the men I take to bed either.”
Griff shot to his feet, throwing the ice cream cup onto the lounger so he could grab my arms. He shook me gently. “Don’t. Don’t act like this. I respect and like you, Scarlett, but I do so because I thought you weren’t the kind of woman who played games with a man.”
I shrugged his arms off. “I’m not.”
“So a woman who has only slept with
three men in her life is planning on taking many to bed now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Oh yes, what was it you said this morning. I broke the seal.”
“I was hurt this morning.” I shook my head sadly. “I’m not saying this to play games or to make it tit for tat. I want you out of me,” I whispered, hating that he could make so vulnerable. “And if I can’t get my attraction to you out of me on my own, then I’ll find another man who can erase you.”
Griff’s breathing shuddered out of him at my words. I couldn’t see his eyes but his lips parted as if he was stunned. Unhappily so. He turned his head away and I saw that tell-tale muscle in his jaw tick. “Fine.” His tone was ice cold. “You do that.”
Tears burned in my eyes and I was extremely grateful for my sunglasses.
“Tell Amelia and Quentin I’ve gone back to the inn to do some work.”
He left me.
By the time our friends returned from their walk I’d gathered my feelings back inside myself and poured a metaphorical layer of concrete over them.
I was never going to make myself vulnerable to Griffin Mandeville again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
From: Melanie Olivia Jennings
To: Scarlett Vivien Jennings
Subject: Call Me
I tried calling the cell Tavius gave you but you’re not picking up. I need to explain some stuff. Please call me. My number is 555-894-2341.
I closed my laptop and stared into the unlit fire in the sitting room of the penthouse. My sister couldn’t reach me because I’d bought a new phone to avoid her and her scheming boyfriend’s calls. I wished she’d leave me alone. My head was a mess without adding her emails to the mix.
Griff and I had returned to Boston as a married couple a few days ago but everything had fallen back into the same routine as before. It was like we weren’t even married. Which I guess was the point. Griff was avoiding me more than usual, however, but thankfully so was Pete.
Poor Amelia and Quentin had to put up with my and Griff’s silence on the flight back from Martha’s Vineyard. We only spoke when Griff asked Amelia if she’d contact Elite— the online Boston society magazine—about our elopement. Amelia, of course, said yes and Griff said he’d paid the photographer extra to develop our wedding photos immediately so they could be given to the magazine.