Assassins: Slow Agony Part 22

"So you get a pa.s.s?" I couldn't believe him.

He rubbed the top of his head. "I'm not trying to make excuses for myself."

"It sounds like it."

"I'm saying I wasn't thinking rationally. And then... with you in danger all the time it was very confusing. Because I still want to protect you, Leigh. Like with every fiber of my being. Because I'm in love with you. But I didn't know how to reconcile that feeling with my anger and distrust."

I put my hands on my hips. "You know, Griffin, you've really got to stop sneaking in how much you love me into things that sound like veiled insults. And you've got to stop doing it on the street at night too."

He smiled. A careful smile. "Was that a joke, doll?"

"You remember how you told me that you loved me the first time?"

His smile widened.

"No man likes to see the woman he loves dancing naked in front of drunk people," I said. "Or something like that."

"No man does," he said, his arm going around my waist, pulling me close.

I put my palm against the firmness of his chest. "Griffin..." I murmured softly.

He kissed me again. He nudged his tongue into my mouth and teased a moan from my lips. He kissed me the way he knew I liked it. His kiss was like coming home.

"If you'd been there, I don't think that..."

"If I'd been there, things would have been different. But I wasn't there. And that isn't how things went."

"No," I said.

"I won't leave again," he said. "I swear. I won't leave unless you throw me out."

I smiled.

"As long as you still want me, that is."

I kissed him.

Griffin pushed me back on the bed in our hotel room. Next to us, the polka dot wallpaper cheerily looked down on us. I reached up for him, and he settled against me, his body pressing into mine, my hips cradling him, my arms holding him.

"Doll," he rasped, his lips finding the hollow just beneath my jaw.

I sighed. That spot always got me. I closed my eyes. "Maybe I was selfish, Griffin," I whispered.

His mouth closed over my earlobe.

I choked on breath. It felt too good.

"You weren't selfish." He rained kisses over my neck. "You were alone. You did what you had to do."

"But-"

He silenced me by kissing me long and slow and deep.

I drowned in the sweetness of it, clinging to him, kissing him back eagerly.

He pulled back. "Doll, you are the least selfish person I know."

"No, I'm not." I reached down for the edge of his tight t-s.h.i.+rt and pulled it over his head.

He let me do it, offering no resistance, and then he was beautiful and s.h.i.+rtless in front of me, all his skin bared to me.

I placed my hands on his pecks, trailed my fingers over his st.u.r.dy chest and stomach.

He sucked in breath, closed his eyes. "You're open and accepting and patient."

I kissed the rigid clefts of his muscles. I put my mouth against the ugly tattoo in the center of his chest. I peered up at him.

"You're good to me," he breathed.

"I put myself and what I wanted ahead of the idea of being pregnant, though. That's selfish, isn't it?"

"No." He took me by both hands and pulled me to my feet. "It's not."

"I think it is."

Griffin gathered the skirt of my dress into his fists and tugged the dress up and over my head.

It wasn't the kind of dress that I could easily wear a bra with. Suddenly, I was naked except for my panties.

He raked his gaze over me. "You're beautiful."

My insides melted.

He cupped my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, one in each hand. "Listen to me. The definition of selfish is caring about yourself more than you care about other people. But the way you care about me is the opposite of selfish, doll. I'm sorry I ever said it. I didn't mean it."

I moaned at his touch.

He ran his thumbs over my nipples, and they stiffened.

Pleasure jolted through me. I moaned louder.

He continued to toy with my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "But me, on the other hand... I don't deserve you. I've put you through too much."

"Griffin, that's not true."

His hands faltered. "I think it is."

I reached for the b.u.t.ton on his pants and undid it. I unzipped him and pushed his jeans over his thighs. He stepped out of them. There. Now, we were even. We were both only wearing underwear.

I could see his erection straining against the fabric of his boxers. I had to touch it. I stroked him through the thin cotton.

He gasped.

"Bad?" I said. I always had to be careful when I touched Griffin here. Sometimes, he didn't like it.

"No," he said breathlessly. "Good. It's good."

My hand moved rhythmically around him. "I don't know where I'd be without you. You've saved me so many times. From myself as much as from people trying to kill me."

He captured my wrist, stopping my hand. "But it seems like there's always people trying to kill you. Or me. And right now, it's because of me that you're in danger."

I climbed back onto the bed, my hand still wrapped around him. I pulled him down with me that way.

He grunted, slamming his eyes shut.

I started to drag my grasp against the length of him again, but he lowered his face to my breast.

When he drew my nipple into his mouth, I forgot to do anything but cry out. Bliss washed over me, warm and wonderful. "Maybe I like danger," I managed.

His hands were on the inside of my thigh, moving higher. "Oh really?" he murmured into my breast.

"Maybe it turns me on."

His fingers went under my panties, gently probing me. "You seem turned on."

I groaned.

He yanked my panties out of the way and his fingers were back between my legs. "Don't I owe you, doll?" His lips closed over my other nipple.

I couldn't answer with words. I tried to moan out something in the affirmative, but it was too tough to speak when he was a.s.saulting me that way. His fingers were expert, gently flitting against me, stroking, swirling-slow at first, but recognizing the signs my body made and increasing to a frenzy.

I writhed under him, thrashed, screamed.

He'd always been good at that, but months of practice when we'd been dating had perfected his technique. And I was tense and ready from everything that had come before. My body was begging for release, and he gave it to me.

The spasm of my o.r.g.a.s.m ripped through me, powerful, shattering. I rode it, calling out his name as it rolled over me, swelling and ebbing back until I was nothing more than a mess of twitching on the bed.

Griffin kissed me.

I was jelly in his arms, liquid and loose. "You're amazing."

He tugged away. "No. As if any amount of making you come could ever make up for the way I left you."

"Griffin, it happened," I said. "We can't change that." I tugged at his boxers, pulling them off.

"Everything that happened was my fault."

I took him in my hand, stiff and thick and long and ready. I caressed him. "No. It's all been far too complicated to be anyone's fault."

I wrapped my legs around his body and guided his member to my opening. "Can't you see how perfect I think you are?"

And then he was inside me.

This time he was perfect. He fit into me wonderfully, and if I felt stretched, it was in a thrilling, delicious way. I felt complete, filled up, satisfied.

He drew out of me slowly, gazing down into my eyes, and then he pushed his way back in.

I gasped.

"You're perfect," he breathed.

His slow rhythm continued, dragging almost all the way out of me, and then plunging in so deep.

I shook my head, my breathing shallow, my pulse racing. "You."

"Us," he said, burying himself in me again, piercing me.

Chapter Ten.

"So," Griffin was saying, his body curled around mine in bed, "you're coming to Morgantown to go to grad school, right?"

It was morning, but our hotel was still a dark coc.o.o.n. I didn't think there was anything nicer than feeling his naked skin against mine, than being so close. "That's the plan. If we don't die, that is."

"I won't let you die," he growled.

His voice did things to my insides. I closed my eyes and snuggled even closer to him. "You better not."

He chuckled low and deep. "I want you alive for some time yet, doll. I have all kinds of plans for you."

"I want you alive too."

He kissed me.

"I love you," I said, feeling safe and happy in the circle of his arms. I didn't want to move.

"I love you too," he said. "We should get married."

It took a second for the words to sink in. "What?"

"I said we should-"