Beach House No. 9 (27 page)

His hands bracketed her hips, holding her still as his lips reached the small of her back. He pulled her to her knees, her bottom canting high, and he went greedy again, his teeth scraping against the soft curves, his mouth taking sucking kisses. The whiskered stubble along his chin and jaw only added another layer of throbbing sensation to her flesh, and she pressed her hot face into the sleek pillowcase.

“Griffin,” she moaned. She was wet and needy and if he’d just give her the slightest touch… Her hand moved, but he caught her fingers and pressed them to the mattress, his palm flattened over her wrist.

She struggled a little, and he brought his mouth to her ear.
“No.”
His other hand fumbled at the fastening of his jeans, his knuckles bumping against her where she was swollen and full blossom-ready for him. The drawer to the bedside table squeaked as he jerked it open. Panting, she watched him reach for a condom, and the anticipation made her pulse flutter in her throat. Then he was over her and the thick knob of him was at her entrance, his hand guiding him to her.

He pushed, grunting at the first breach. Jane gasped, her belly hollowing out as he drove slowly forward, the angle, the position, making him feel impossibly large. “No,” she moaned, even as she lifted her hips toward the intrusion, impaling herself on his thickness.

Denim abraded her whisker-burned bottom, and she realized he was still half-dressed. She reached back, wanting to touch him somewhere, but he caught that hand too. He placed it like the other; palm to the sheet, his hand flattened over her wrist.

“Griffin…”

“Shh shh shh.”
His mouth was against her ear, his breath hot, his chest bowed over her back. “Relax now. Stay open for me. Let me in. Let me have it. Give it to me. Give me everything I need.”

Every lust-laden word in his dark, sexy voice added more kindling to her own fire. She wiggled back, trying to take more, trying to incite a riot in him, because she was going to become violent if he didn’t move.

And then he did. His movements were aggressive, a powerful rhythm of retreat-and-thrust that instantly made her wetter. “Yeah,” he whispered, clearly aware she was slicker than before. “Like that. Yeah.”

Griffin didn’t sound like himself. This wasn’t the charming lover, the playmate-in-the-sheets. At this moment, she thought, he might not even know her name. This was the male animal using sex, taking her to take himself away, an elemental act to avoid an entanglement of feelings.

And, God help her, she loved it.

If it brought him some relief from the pain of his memories, she’d be on her knees every night.

He started grunting with each new thrust, and she pushed back to take him to the root. His breath was soughing in her ear, fast and hard, and sweat dripped from his face onto her shoulder. She wiggled her going-numb fingers, and he noticed, adjusting her arms for a little more blood flow, yet still keeping her pinned with his hands.

His movements became rougher, his breath more jerky, and she braced herself, thinking,
Go ahead, my love. Let go.

On the next retreat, though, he pulled free.

“Wha—” Jane spit out, but then she was flipped to her back. Griffin was on her in an instant, his tongue penetrating her mouth, his shaft once more pumping inside her. Her hands came up, flailing around his shoulders. He grabbed them once again and entwined their fingers. Lifting his mouth, he stared down at her, his gaze going as deep inside her as his body.

His eyes on her, he continued pumping. Another excruciating round of chills broke over Jane’s flesh. This wasn’t the pirate crouched over her. They weren’t honey-pie and chili-dog. In this bed in this moment there was no librarian or governess. No friends or foes.

Again, she suspected he didn’t know who he was with, that she was just the female he needed to his male. Tonight’s yin for his yang.

His eyes glittered as he released one of her hands. He slid his palm between them, brought his fingers to her clitoris. “You first,” he said.

You first.
Tears stung her eyes. She’d been wrong. He knew her. He knew so very much about her that even now, even under this duress, she was on his mind. And it was that, as much as his sure touch, that detonated her explosion. The pleasure twisted tight, then released, whipping outward in circles until her entire body was shaking with the strength of it. She arched back, pushing up to take more of him, and he went still and deep, his arms shaking, as he came with short, jabbing pulses.

Then he fell to the mattress, half on her, still in her. They were both breathing hard, and she stroked a light hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, his head turned away from hers. “I was rough.”

“It’s fine. It’s all right,” she said, feeling her face go red.

He turned to look at her. “Are you sure?”

“Everything we did—I loved it. Griffin, I—” She stopped herself just in time.

He was already going tense, however, and she knew he’d heard her unspoken words.
I love you.

Damn, she thought, as he withdrew and headed for the bathroom. But she was too tired and sexually replete to devise a fallback position. Shifting on the bed, she allowed herself a little wince as she twinged where she had never twinged before. Still waiting for him to return, she drifted off.

It couldn’t have been a long while later that she awoke. Alone. She could feel he wasn’t in the house, and she padded through the quiet rooms to confirm it. Private was gone as well. As she passed through the kitchen, she caught a glimpse of the next-door cottage through the window. There were lights on in No. 8, lights she hadn’t left burning. A blue flicker told her the TV was on as well.

It was Griffin who had made his escape, not Jane.

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
, Jane left the cove to run a few errands, which included visiting a quickly recovering Rex at the hospital. If she was also using the time to steer clear of Griffin, that was nobody’s business but hers. Upon her return in the late afternoon, she approached the door to Beach House No. 9, steeling her spine to face the man inside. Everything between them was a tangled mess: the ruined book, his brutal memories of war, last night’s unbridled sex, her unspoken words.

She adjusted her denim-blue linen pants and squared her shoulders beneath the tissue-thin white tee. She was wearing the same espadrilles she’d had on the day she’d brought him coffee, and now she wished she had something like that to occupy her hands.

Glancing down, she noted the mat under her feet.
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.
How many times had the words and Griffin himself warned her away? And yet she’d pushed forward, pushed him, and her reward was falling for a prickly loner who felt things so deeply he had to pretend he felt nothing at all.

Images of him flashed through her mind. In one he raced up the cliff, in another he steadied Rex on the short stroll to his home. She remembered him playing tag with his nephews on the sand and holding Private like a big furry baby on his lap. His voice whispered in her head.

I didn’t think you were actually afraid of anything.

Somebody’s coming along real soon, and you’ll know just how lovable you are.

You first.

Shaking off the memories, she twisted the doorknob and strode over the threshold. Private gave one loud bark and rushed to her in exuberant greeting. “Hey, boy,” she said, rubbing his silky head. “Can always count on you being happy to see me.”

Griffin came into view from the direction of the bedroom and glanced at her as he moved toward the deck. In jeans and his favorite Hawaiian shirt, he carried a pair of well-worn hiking boots and had the pinched look of someone suffering from a headache. “Jane.”

“Griffin.” She followed him outside.

“I guess we can safely say we remember each other’s names.” He flicked a glance at her again as he held the boots upside down and tapped the toes together. “I don’t know if you were as drunk as me—”

“I wasn’t.”

“Well, that’s good. Because I’m a bit hazy on the particulars past, oh, the third beer or so.”

Liar.
She stared at him as he bumped the shoes together again. He was pretending to not remember, so they wouldn’t have to honestly address what had occurred the night before. Could he really keep this up? Crossing her arms over her chest, she watched him set the pair of shoes on the picnic table and inspect them like a doctor might a patient, up to and including looking under their tongues.

“Habit,” he said, as if she’d asked him what he was doing. “In Afghanistan, the tarantulas would climb into our boots. I wouldn’t want to bring any stowaways with me on the trip.”

Her gaze snapped to his face. “Are you saying—”

“I feel sure I have some apologies to make, Jane.” He was still focusing on the shoes, making a big show of working on the laces, slipping them free of the grommets then reworking them through the small holes. “I saw the chaos in the office.”

“About that—”

“I talked to Ted. He said you came onto the beach and collected me last night.”

Did he really not recall it? “You told me about Jackal—Jackson.”

Griffin winced. “Sorry to put that in your head.”

But it was in
his
head, and letting it fester there was poisonous. “What happened to him after the explosion?”

“He made it. Has a prosthesis, and gets around quite well, considering.”

“Have you talked with him, then?”

Griffin was working over the second boot. “A couple of times.”

It made Jane think of the soldier who’d traveled from Philly to see him. “What about your friend who visited here—the one who had the car accident?”

“Hernandez. He’s okay too, finally getting some counseling at the VA.”

They had services like that for soldiers who’d been in war. Places and people who were trained in helping them manage the aftermath of their injuries and of what they’d seen and done. The guilt that they’d survived when their buddies had not.

But who was helping Griffin? Who was there for the observers who were witnesses to fear and horror and heroism?

“You should talk to someone too,” she said.

He stiffened.

“You’re smart. You’ve got to realize you’re exhibiting some of the classic symptoms of—”

“I’m handling everything just fine. Christ, Jane, I was a reporter—lucky me got to come home while the soldiers are still serving their country. Even when I was with them, I carried a pen, not a gun.”

“I think if you end up covered in blood and holding someone’s blown-off limb, the distinction is pretty moot.” She realized she was sounding slightly tense herself when Private whined and came over to lick her hand.

“That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Moot.”

“In this case it means without or with little practical value—” She broke off, realizing she’d fallen into the trap he’d set. Always trying to distract her. “Griffin,” she ground out.

“Jane.” He flicked her a glance. “Look at that, we’re still good with the names.”

Frustrated, she looked toward the horizon, seeing the line where the steely-gray of the ocean met the turquoise-blue of the sky. The wind ruffled her hair, sending a swath of it across her face. Before she could brush it away, Griffin was beside her, his touch light as he caught the strands and tucked them behind her ear. It was a tender gesture, and she read something in it. Apology. Regret. Farewell.

“You changed your mind,” she said. “You’re going to Gage.”

He nodded.

“Is this your competitive streak coming out?” she asked, the words knife-edged. It felt as if he was cracking open her ribs and reaching in to squeeze her heart with his bare hand. He’d survived bullets and bombings before, but would he again? How many times could one man tempt fate? “Is it that you can’t stand letting your brother be somewhere dangerous when you’re not?”

“I don’t know what else to do with myself.” He rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “Jane…”

She jerked her face away. “Yeah. I get it. You still know my name.”

“About the memoir.” Griffin shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll call Frank and make sure he’s clear that missing the deadline is all my fault. It does not reflect on you. And, please, feel free to use me as a reference. As a matter of fact, I insist on it.”

“Oh, as if you’ll be so easy to reach at some remote location in Somewhere-istan.” Her hair blew across her eyes again, but she shoved it away before he could touch her a second time. “Why don’t you at least finish the half of the book that’s due before you go?”

His eyebrows rose. “Last night—”

“As if I would let that be the only copy,” she scoffed, shaking her head in disgust. “I typed it into a word processing file shortly after you got it from Frank and have added both our comments to it on a daily basis. There’s a copy in the cloud, on my laptop, and on three separate memory sticks.” She was a little anal about stuff like that.

He looked bemused. “Efficient Jane.”

“So you see, you can finish it.”

Now he was shaking his head. “I can’t. I really can’t.”

Meaning he really couldn’t face coming to terms with the experience. She saw the truth of that on his face, and she had to look away. “All right. But it doesn’t mean you need to take off for another war-torn country.”

There was a long silence.

“Gage will let me be me. The way I am now,” Griffin finally said, so quiet that she could hardly hear him over the surf. “No questions, no expectations, no…” He shrugged.

No Jane and the love she felt for him.

Seagulls were wheeling and diving, their movements a large-scale imitation of what the butterflies were doing in her stomach. Maybe he didn’t like facing what had happened between them, but she couldn’t pretend things away like he could. She took a deep breath, determined to be straight with him. “If this is about what I didn’t say last night…”

“Jane, I don’t want you—”

A man’s voice, coming from the direction of the sand, interrupted. “That works out well, then, because I do.”

Her head whipped toward the newcomer, Griffin’s following suit. Ian Stone, looking urbane and completely at ease, stood on the sand below the deck, wearing pressed khakis and a short-sleeve button-down shirt. “Hello, Jane,” he said, with his made-for-TV-interviews smile.

She gaped at him. “How did you know where I was?”

“Your father told me.” He smiled again. “I’ve come with an offer you shouldn’t refuse—which, by the way, was his message to you.”

And with that, the snarled mess that was her current situation took on yet another twist.

* * *

G
RIFFIN
WAITED
AT
No. 9 for Jane to return. She’d let The Author Ian Stone—for some reason, he’d started imagining the guy would introduce himself that way—take her down the beach to Captain Crow’s for a drink and conversation. He checked his dive watch, then addressed his dog. “How long could it take to say, ‘Hell, no’?”

Private didn’t reply, and Griffin’s patience wore thinner. He had things he wanted to say to the librarian—as well as subjects he wanted to avoid. On the To Say list:
Thank you for being kind to my dog and my elderly neighbor. You did good with Tess and the minions. Not anybody else in the universe could have gotten me to touch a single page of that book.
On the Subjects to Avoid list was just one item: Last Night.

Despite what he’d told Jane, he remembered everything about it. Well, there was a little missing between having drinks with Ted and falling on the sand with Jane. The impact had knocked him near sober, and the shower had made him even more clearheaded. What happened after…

The memory made him hard. He threw himself into the lounge chair and stared at the ocean, willing thoughts of it away. But they were like the surf, drawing back for a moment but then charging back in. And in. And in. Jesus. He threw his arm over his eyes as if that could prevent the image of a naked, delectable Jane as she’d been last night in his bed. High on her knees, her sweet hips in his hands as he took her with everything he had. He was dimly aware of Private settling on the deck beside him with a thump and a canine sigh.

“I was about to confess I’m a dog,” he said, reaching out to stroke the Lab’s fur, “but that would be an insult to you, my friend.”

He’d been hard on Jane. Used her as a way to empty himself. It made him no better, he thought, than that asshole, The Author Ian Stone. But she hadn’t complained, had she?
Everything we did—I loved it.

Because she thought she was in love with him. Jane hadn’t said the words out loud. She’d stopped herself, and yet the truth of it was written all over her face for anyone who knew her as well as he did.

Her “I love you” had hovered between them in the sex-scented air. It had horrified him then and made him sick to recall now. His intention had never been to engage her heart—he didn’t deserve it, and he was sure she wasn’t thrilled about it either—but those big silver eyes of hers couldn’t lie.

Yeah, she was in love with him, and that’s what he really didn’t want to talk about.

Just thinking about it made him restless. He sat up. “I’m going,” he told the dog. “If Stone’s not taking no for an answer, then I can provide Jane some backup. I’ll be happy to see him on his way.”

Griffin considered putting on nicer clothes. The Asshole Author Ian Stone had looked as if he was ready for a photo shoot. But then Griffin shrugged. His ragged jeans and soft shirt printed with pineapples and naked wahines might have seen better days, but, hell, so had he. It took a moment to slip into his second-best flip-flops and then he was ambling down the sand toward the restaurant.

“She’ll be grateful,” Griffin said aloud, addressing a seagull picking at a mound of drying kelp. “It’ll be my small attempt at paying her back.” For the way she made him laugh, for that annoyed little squint of her eyes when he was teasing her, for those ridiculously frilly shoes and fascinatingly plump mouth.

For the great sex.

Yeah, he owed her a lot for that.

It was conch-shell time at Captain Crow’s. From his Party Central days, he recognized most of those crowded on the beach saluting the martini flag. As they all climbed back up the steps to their tables and drinks, he joined them, and was immediately tugged into a free chair.

A beer was shoved in his hand. A girl in a bikini plopped onto his lap and slid an arm around his neck.

A month ago, life wouldn’t have been any better than this, but now he could only think of Jane. He slid out from under the pretty girl and surveyed the deck for
his
pretty girl. Yeah, she wasn’t really his, of course, but she certainly didn’t belong to The Smug Author Ian Stone.

That’s exactly how he looked too, gazing on Jane as if he knew all her buttons and exactly how to push them. Griffin would bet a billion bucks that the other man didn’t know how Jane took her coffee—one dollop of half-and-half and a stingy sprinkle of real sugar—how she liked her pencils—sharpened to the point of battle-readiness—how sweet she looked in the morning wearing only the perfume of lovemaking and a pillow crease.

He stalked to their corner table. Without looking at the other man, he addressed Jane. “Hey, I’ve been waiting for you back at No. 9.”

Her expression was cool. “I thought you’d be busy packing.”

“And we’re busy having a private conversation,” The Annoying Asshole Author Ian Stone put in.

Griffin showed him his teeth. He didn’t believe either of them would call it a smile. “Let me make it a much shorter conversation. She said no. Goodbye.”

“I want to work with her again,” the other man started. “It’s a good offer.”

“And I’m considering it,” Jane put in.

Griffin stared at her. “Are you kidding me? This guy’s a smarmy hack who treated you like crap when he had you.”