After another nip to the nub, I tongue my way up the side of her breast and still my busy fingers over her needy clit. She gasps in protest and wriggles, hips shifting, thighs spreading. “Griff…”
This is every fucking fantasy about Britta I’ve imagined. It’s mind-blowing that she wants me, too.
I can almost taste our tomorrows.
“You want me to make you feel good, angel?” At her whimper, I smile. “Say the word. I’ll strip you down and get deep inside you. Possess you. I’ll give you the kind of pleasure neither of us has had in three years. I’ll—”
“No.” Suddenly, she heaves a shuddering breath and frantically pushes at me. “No. Let go. Get off!”
She’s panicked.
I frown, lifting myself to my knees and easing my weight off her. “Hey. Everything’s okay. If you need me to go slower—”
She pushes me away, and I see tears pooling in her eyes. “I don’t need you to touch me at all. God, I never meant for that to happen!”
She’s trembling and guilt-ridden. I’m confused. And frustrated. Britta was totally and completely kiss for kiss with me. Now, she’s scrambling to get away from me as if I’m a leper.
Or like I’m the man who utterly devastated her once upon a time.
I roll to my feet as she turns her back to me and zips up her top. I offer her a hand to help her up. The fingers of the other are still slick with her moisture.
She yanks away from me, scooting to the end of the bed and standing on wobbly legs without my assistance. “Get out.”
“What? Tell me…” What spooked her? What is she thinking? What does she need from me?
“Why I’m saying no?” She scowls as she winds her hair back into a messy bun, then drags the back of her hand across her mouth, as if wiping away my kiss. “That’s so typical of you, Griff. Never imagining for a moment why any woman would say no to you. Yes, you’re great in bed, but I know at least a half dozen places that’s been.” She glances at my stiff cock shoved in my shorts.
I’m certainly not about to tell her six other women are a drop in the bucket. “Britta—”
“No. I had a stupid lapse of judgment, but there’s no way I’ll ever trust you as a lover again.”
Her words hurt more than I thought possible. “Angel…”
She brushes past me and reaches for the first of the dining room chairs I stacked to one side. As she curls her fingers around the spindles, I barely manage to stop myself from wrapping my hands around her waist and bringing her back against me until she melts. But she’s said no very clearly. I have to fall back on verbal communication.
“I’m so fucking sorry. I was wrong.”
She stiffens but doesn’t stop or turn back. She just keeps walking. “I want you out of my house.”
“Don’t do this.” I’m all but pleading.
“You did this,” she reminds me, voice warbling. “You live with it.”
“I’ve missed you.” I dare to sidle closer and cup her shoulder. I wish she’d look at me, but at least I know she’s listening.
“I don’t care.”
“I love you.”
I’ve never said those three words to her—or any woman—in my life. And I mean them now more than I can possibly express.
She freezes, then whirls around and gapes at me, blue eyes wide with shock.
Way to ease her back into a relationship, dumb ass.
“You did not just… No.” She shakes her head vehemently. “All you’ve ever done is things to make me want you and then to make me hate you. It’s too late.” She lifts the chair as I stand still, lashed by her fury. “Fuck off. And don’t touch me again.”
“Britta?” I hear another man’s voice call down the hallway. It isn’t Maxon’s.
The fiancé must be here.
I bite back a curse. Terrible fucking timing.
“Hi, Makaio. I’m here.” She smooths her hair, looking flustered, then picks up the chair and marches out of the bedroom. “I’m getting the dining room put together now that the table is back.”
“Maxon told me,” Makaio says. “Why is he sitting on the front porch? Why are you flushed? What’s going on?”
“I’m just moving the chairs.” Her voice trails down the hall as she glides toward the man she’s planning to marry.
Fuck.
I close my eyes. I know how much she hates to lie. Maybe kissing her now was a stupid-ass move. I wanted to remind her of all the passion and yearning between us. I never meant to put her in a position to either wear a hair shirt or confess her “sins” to Mr. Boring. I don’t know Makaio well, but if I were in his place, I’d beat the shit out of me.
Since she wants me gone, I have to respect that—for now—and figure out my next step. I know her too well not to understand that she needs time to process what’s happened today and decide what that means for her engagement. On the other hand, if I leave now, she’ll only be harder to reach on Monday.
Double fuck.
I smooth out the bed, take a deep breath, then lift a chair and shoulder my way to the door.
“I didn’t have to use my key to get in. You have to remember to lock the door,” Makaio scolds.
The fucker has a key?
“I know. We’d just moved the table into the house and I…forgot.”
I grit my teeth. Because I was too busy trying to seduce your fiancée and remind her of all the reasons she and I belong together, so locking it slipped her mind, tool.
With sarcasm echoing in my head, I silently shove my way into the hall.
“Hey,” I greet Makaio.
It’s the most I can speak civilly to the man without sounding like either a jealous prick or the big, bad wolf.
He blinks at me. “You’re here, too?”
“Her table was in my office.” I sidestep him and carry the chair to the dining room, setting it beside the one Britta just positioned.
She doesn’t look at me, simply heads back to grab another chair. I want more time with her, to help her understand that I was serious when I said I loved her. Whatever might help her hate me less.
I just don’t know what else to say or do to convince her.
Makaio taps my shoulder as Maxon appears in the doorway, shooting me a questioning glance. “Why don’t you and I talk outside? Your brother can help Britta finish up in here.”
Oh, Slow-Dick McGraw finally wants to warn me away?
“Sure.”
He takes me out back to a couple of cozy Adirondacks on the lanai overlooking the lush backyard. A cluster of palms sways in a cerulean-blue sky. When he gestures me to one of the chairs, I sit. This ought to be interesting…
“I don’t know you well and nothing I’ve heard is good. But I’m also willing to understand that Britta is, perhaps, too colored by her resentment to separate your romantic past from your future as Jamie’s father.”
I could admit to this guy that I was a prick. But I’m not giving him any leverage to use against me later. I don’t know what his angle is, and I’m a little surprised he all but called his fiancée hysterical before he threw her under the bus. I need to feel him out more so I can best determine how to work around him.
“Agreed.” I choose the safe topic he’s already raised. “I want to be a part of my son’s life.”
He nods. “When I was a kid, my parents divorced for a few years. They ended up together again, but one of my greatest