My God.
It was Kenna. The same freckle on her cheekbone. The same scar above her eyebrow. The same bow-shaped lips that looked so fucking beautiful gasping in orgasm and wrapped around his cock. The familiarity of those little parts of her threatened to rip open so many memories—and even more feelings.
Only, something was different about her now. Restrained, even. He studied her for a long moment. She held her position beautifully, as she always had, with her posture perfect and her feet spread and her arms folded behind her back. The blond hair was different. In the year they’d played together, he’d rarely seen it her natural color, and he grew to enjoy the surprise of how she’d change for him, like a butterfly ever transforming anew.
But none of that was what was tripping his internal alarms. He focused on her face. There. The cool distance in her eyes. The careful neutral of the expression. This was a woman who’d fearlessly and sometimes brazenly worn her emotions on her sleeves. A woman whose feelings he’d seen in her revealing eyes long before she’d voiced them all those years ago. But now, only her mouth dropping open revealed some little chink in her carefully crafted armor.
She was still stunningly beautiful, though. Breathtaking.
“It’s good to see you after all this time, Kenna,” he finally said in what amounted to a monumental understatement.
“Master Griffin,” she said, her voice as cool as her expression.
When had Kenna ever been so reserved with him?
Since you rejected her?
The truth of that launched a sinking feeling in his gut that he made sure to keep off of his face. “Have you moved back to Baltimore or is this just a visit?”
She frowned and her eyes searched his, like the question had surprised her. “Oh, uh, yes. I moved back.”
“I see,” he said, letting his gaze wander. Down the slender column of her throat. Lingering on the beautiful plunging neckline of her bodysuit. Over her long, toned legs. His hands itched for some rope. His mind raced with the patterns he wanted to make on her naked skin. His ears strained to hear the throaty, gasping moans she’d release as he bound her tight and sure and irrevocably to him. The desires made him hard for her. “Then welcome home.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said quietly.
He wanted to grab her by the arms, shake her, embrace her. Something to elicit some of the old passion. But he’d lost the right to expect that from her, hadn’t he?
So what did she want then?
“So, what can I—”
“Master Griffin, can we—”
They both chuckled at speaking at the same time, but the awkwardness was evident in the sound of his laugh and the expression on her face. He hated it, how out of sync they were after once being so well matched that Griffin kicked himself every day for letting her go. He knew how rare that was, and he hated himself for not seeing it then. Not cherishing it, as he should’ve.
“Kenna, are you here to talk or play tonight?”
“Both, Sir,” she whispered.
He tilted his head. “And, were you hoping to do those things with me?” He couldn’t assume, not after everything. But his body was like a rope pulled taut in anticipation of her answer.
She licked her lips, and Griffin felt it everywhere, because the simple action revealed that she wasn’t as unaffected as she was putting on. “Yes, Sir. If you’re available. And, uh—” Her shoulder moved in a tiny nervous shrug. “—interested.”
Relief and heat flooded through his veins. Kenna Sloane was here for him, after all this time. He leaned in and put his face next to hers, his mouth near her ear. “Oh, little Kenna, I’m fucking interested, all right.”
The goosebumps that sprung up on her face where their skin touched felt like victory. She wasn’t unaffected at all. But he’d let her have this reserve. For now.
He pulled back and nailed her with a stare. “Now, let’s go have that talk.”
CHAPTER FOUR
For a moment, Kenna was frozen in place.
Being in Master Griffin’s presence again was utterly overwhelming. His deep voice, the heat rolling off his body, the way he’d left the button-down shirt he’d donned mostly unbuttoned—all of it set her senses on fire and unleashed a barrage of memories involving lust-drenched commands, bondage positions that sent her soaring into orgasm after orgasm, sex-tangled sheets, and sweaty, sated bodies. His scent was just as she remembered, all clean soap and something spicy and male that was pure Griffin.