His body went bone hard the minute his skin touched hers-that was neither a surprise nor remotely strange. But somehow, just the act of wrapping his arms around her, her just being there with him, felt crazily, insanely right. In spite of the fire and all the troubling questions threatened by that attack of arson, he was able to forget it, really close his eyes this time, and zone out completely.
Lily woke to the soak of sunlight on her closed eyelids, her body all cuddled in a nest-warm cocoon-and the erotic, rhythmic stroke of a thumb on her shoulder.
A man’s thumb.
Her eyes popped open. In her immediate vision was a bunched-up blanket, a shoe twice her size, a shirt she could have used for a tent and a wide window overlooking a steep, green hillside. Only strips of sunlight made it through the tangled thatch of trees, but the verdant spice of pine scented everything. A bird suddenly landed on the windowsill-gorgeous, bright blue in color, an indigo bunting, she was pretty sure. It cocked its head, looked at her as if to say, “what on earth are you doing in his bed, you crazy woman?”
And still, that thumb kept stroking.
She knew perfectly well where she was. Griff’s. But she could have sworn she’d fallen asleep in his living room chair. A thousand unexpected sensations all seemed to require her immediate analysis. His bristly chest hair against her back. The weight of his hand. The width of his hips, spooning against her bottom. The hardness of his erection. The size of his erection. The throbbing warmth of his erection.
She strongly suspected that she wasn’t the only one awake. Not that she was willing to turn around and face him yet.
“I have to think up a strategy,” she murmured, and he picked it up as if they were in the middle of a conversation.
“For how you’re going to go back to the B and B?”
“Exactly. If I were back in Virginia, it wouldn’t matter. I’m an adult. Everyone around me is adult. But here…Louella’s going to grill me as if I were ten years old, the instant I walk in the door. Being absent for a night is one thing, but if I also walk in wearing yesterday’s clothes…” She lifted the sheet. “Uh-oh. I seem to be to be missing some of yesterday’s clothes. Something happened to my capris.”
“I was helping you.” Griff’s voice was still husky with sleep.
“Uh-huh. I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Lily.”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t say that to all the girls. In fact, there’s a giant list of things that I plan to say and do with you. That I’ve never considered doing with anyone else.”
Talk about a way to melt a girl. Griff’s Secret, she thought, wasn’t just an ice-cream flavor. It was this ingredient in him, a secret, insidious factor, that annihilated defenses and seduced a heart without half-trying. She turned in his arms, well aware they were suddenly breast to chest, tummy to tummy, danger zone teasingly rubbing against danger zone.
“Hey,” she murmured worriedly. “Where’s that kind of talk coming from?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re scaring me. I barely know you.”
“That’s supposed to be my line. I’m the girl, remember? I’m the one at risk if I fall in love with a guy who’s reported to have no settle-down or responsible genes in his entire DNA.”
“That’s me,” he admitted. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get involved with me either. I’ve never had a committed relationship in my life. Never bought a ring or shopped for one. Never had the energy or ambition to.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. He’d been selling that snake oil since she met him. Being only a pinch away made it easy enough to…well, to shut him up. It was as simple as laying her lips against his.
On his.
With his.
Yearning shot through her bloodstream like a silky streak of surprise, crazy strong, achey wild. He tasted so good. He tasted like everything she’d been forbidden, everything she’d secretly dreamed of.
His tongue dove inside her mouth, combined tastes and textures, at the same time his knee eased between her legs. His hands swept her body-up, down, roaming, igniting the slope of her spine, her fanny, back up…
She twisted in his arms, not kissing him back-more-feeling inhaled. Taken in. Taken under. She’d liked kissing him before. She’d liked his touch. She’d liked that electric sensation of risk and desire, the rush of need and want. But this was different.
Recklessness. She’d never tasted it before. Heat. She’d never suffered from it before, not like this. She’d been afraid of fire her entire life-but somehow not with him.
Not this kind of fire.
She opened her eyes, saw his-dark, intent now, not playing. He looked at her as if she was the only woman he’d ever wanted, the only woman he’d ever needed. The hunger in his touch, his eyes, his mouth, was more than sexual. It was about loneliness. Gut loneliness. The kind where you knew there was no one else who could accept you, all of you, who could know you, all the way inside, and still want to be there.
She didn’t do fantasies like that. Ever.
But with him… Her breath caught when his palm found her breast, cupped, then squeezed. Her hand slid down his side, down his bare hip, knuckled inside, to cup where he was hard and hot. She squeezed.
“Okay,” he hissed. “You’re in real trouble now.”
His head disappeared under the covers. She didn’t quite remember when she’d lost her shirt, but her bra was still on, all a tangle, straps around her arms, cups pushed away. He got rid of it altogether, started sampling slopes and valleys of skin, found freckles between her breasts, found each nipple, analyzed each thoroughly with his tongue-until she was gasping for breath, and her legs reflexively clenching. He roamed down her tummy, found her navel and appendix scar…
“Hey,” she whispered. “Maybe…hold on there. Just for a second. Maybe…wait. Maybe I need to think about this.”
“No.”
“No? Huh? You can’t say no. If you vote no, we stop. If I vote no, we stop. Those are the rules.”
“Now, Lily, trust me. I know the rules. Come on, though. Give me a chance to be a hero. I’m in the striving class. Don’t know what I’m doing. You could help me learn. You could give me an achievement badge if I’m good. Or a whack upside the head if I goof this up. See? No risk.”
She almost laughed at his words. Only, Griff wasn’t a fledgling, and he knew-awesomely, brilliantly, inventively-exactly what he was doing. She didn’t. Oxygen locked in her lungs when he dipped lower, scooped her legs in his arms, and sampled tastes and textures with his whiskery cheek and his lips and his tongue.
She stopped thinking. Stopped breathing. Forgot her name. Forgot just about everything but that she was female, pure female, and Griff, damn him, was more man than she’d ever dreamed existed. She gulped in pleasure, greedily wanted more, needed more. Needed him. Yelped his name in her angriest tone, her bossy teacher tone. “Now, Griff, and quit fooling around-”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming up,” he promised her-only right then his landline rang.
Then her cell phone did its bell tone thing.
And then his cell phone did some kind of jubilant chime.
The three noxious sounds struck her as a blast from planet Earth. For a little while-for an insane, wonderful, breathtaking little while-she’d forgotten about reality. Her fire. His fire. The way that past seemed to be strangely spilling over into the here and now.
Maybe she’d been haunted all her life by fire. But she’d never been afraid…until coming home again.
Now she tasted fear. And the upsetting flavor of guilt-because somehow, her history with fire had managed to hurt Griff.