Slow Burn (5 page)

I got up. “Don’t hit him.”

Rusty rounded on me. “You shut up, you little cunt.”

I swallowed. “I know you’re mad, and I know we shouldn’t have—”

He had me by the shoulders, propelling me up against the wall. “I said to shut up.”

“Stop it,” I said.

He slammed me up against the wall. “I know your type. You’re nothing but a cheap drug-addled whore, and I can’t believe I actually put my dick in you.”

My head glanced painfully. I yelled.

He knocked my head into the wall again. “Thank God I was wearing a condom.”

Pain bloomed in my skull. “Please,” I whimpered.

The door flew open. A blur of muscles and denim swept across the room, tackling Rusty.

When they stopped moving enough that I could make things out, Griffin was on top of Rusty, his hands wrapped around Rusty’s neck. Rusty lay flat on his back. His face was purple.

Griffin’s face was inches from Rusty. “What the hell is your problem?”

Rusty’s eyes bulged.

“You get a charge out of hurting women?”

Rusty’s tongue protruded from his mouth, blue and swollen.

Griffin let go of him and stood up. “Don’t ever touch her again.” He turned to look at me. “You okay, doll?”

I knew that hours ago, I’d been annoyed with him. I knew that I’d thought he was ruining my life and I’d only wanted away from him. But right now, I’d never been so grateful to see anyone in my life. I nodded, tucking hair behind my ears. “I’m okay.” I tried to step away from the wall, but my knees buckled. I felt shaky.

Griffin was next to me in a second, holding me up. He looked at Clint over his shoulder. “You know, maybe you’re not such a great influence on her.”

I leaned against Griffin gratefully. He was so solid. It was strange to be close to something as firm as marble, and have it be radiating heat, have it be skin.

He looked down at me. “You wanna go home?”

“Yes, please,” I said in a tiny voice.

He took a step. I tried to take a step too. For some reason, my legs weren’t working. I felt so shaky, and my heart was beating way too fast, probably a combination of the adrenaline and the cocaine. I stumbled.

Griffin’s arms came under my knees. He picked me up like I was a tiny child and walked out of the apartment with me. It was the second time in a short span of time that I’d been picked up, but I kind of liked it. It made me feel small and safe, and I hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

He carried me through the moonlight to my car.

“You took my car without asking?” I said.

“I said I was going to watch you, doll,” he said. “I had to do what I had to do.”

I lay my head against his chest. For some reason, when he said it this time, it seemed less suffocating and more comforting.

My knees were shaking. I’d just gotten out of the shower. My hair was wrapped in a towel, and I was wearing my pajamas. The sky was lightening. It was nearly Saturday morning. I sat on my couch. Griffin was lounging against the wall in my kitchen. His gray eyes looked troubled.

“I can’t have you working against me. What were you thinking?”

I picked at my pjs. I didn’t answer. I was ashamed.

“What if that hadn’t been some college guy? What if it had been someone from Op Wraith? I was watching from outside, but I was trying to stay far enough back to give you privacy. It took me way too long to get in there. If it had been a professional, you’d already be dead.”

I bit my lip. “I’m sorry.”

“You could be in danger. And you’re making it easier, not harder, for the bad guys to get you.”

What else could I do but apologize? Should I do it again?

He sighed. “I’m genuinely curious, here, doll. What were you thinking?”

I couldn’t look at him. “I was thinking I wanted to have fun. I was thinking I didn’t want to brood over what happened to my dad. I was thinking...” I shrugged. “I was thinking, ‘What’s the point?’”

“What?”

“It’s a big joke. I mean, here I am, going to college, pretending like I have a shot at a normal future. But I don’t, do I? Dewhurst-McFarland is a huge company. They aren’t going to forget I exist. I’ll spend the rest of my life like this. Hiding out. And I don’t see the point of even trying anymore. It’s easier to just numb everything.”

“Look, that isn’t true,” he said.

“It is,” I said. I stood up and began straightening the pillows on my couch. “Do you know why my dad gave me the serum?”

“You were in a car accident.”

“You know
why
I was in a car accident?”

“I thought the definition of an accident was that there was no reason,” he said.

“How about a bottle of tequila and a lot of coke?” I said. I fluffed a pillow. “Sometimes, I think that maybe I’ve been trying to kill myself for a long time.” I punched the pillow. “And then he went and gave me that serum.” I looked at Griffin. “Now I
can’t
kill myself.”

He rubbed the top of his head.

He didn’t know what to say to me now. I thought about the things that Clint had said about me earlier that night. That I was unfeeling. That if a guy didn’t like my behavior, he had to deal with it. I thought of the things Rusty had said to me. They weren’t very nice, and he didn’t have the right to hurt me, but where they really that far off? What was I doing?

I sank back down on my couch. “Maybe my life has gotten a little out of control.”

Griffin came into the living room. He sat down on the couch next to me, but he didn’t look at me. Instead he rested his head in his hands. “I felt like killing myself before.”

“Yeah?”

He leaned back. “I’m glad I didn’t. I’m not saying my life is peaches and cream now, but it’s better than it was.”

I looked into his gray eyes. He was such an enigma. He was so together most of the time. Then he’d pop out with stuff about his tattoo or tell me something that made him seem vulnerable. But almost as soon as he’d opened up, he’d close back up again, pulling back into himself. Why was he hiding from me? What didn’t he want me to see?

I hugged my knees to my chest. “So, say I try cooperating with you. What are we talking about here? I mean, what do I have to do? Stop going to bars? Let you come everywhere with me?”

“That’d be a good start.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. I can handle that.”

“That’s not all, though.”

“I know,” I said. “I have to stop doing coke.”

He nodded. “You do.”

“But it’s like addictive, and I don’t know if I can just stop.”

“I’ll help you,” he said. “It’s not like heroin, you know. You’re not going to go through physical withdrawal or something.”

“That’s true.” If I thought about it, I routinely went for days, even weeks, without doing blow. Sometimes I just couldn’t score it. I could probably lay off. It would be good for me. It mostly made me want to do it more anyway. I sometimes wasn’t sure if I liked coke, or if the effect of cocaine was simply to make me feel as if I wanted more. I thought that if I wanted it more, I must like it. But maybe it was only the drug screwing with my head. “Okay. Well, I’ll stop. No more coke. No more bars. No more running away from you.”

“Good,” he said.

I smiled at him.

The corner of his mouth tugged up. I guess that was his version of a smile. “Sun’s coming up. Time for bed.”

Chapter Three

Griffin sat up groggily on the couch. “It smells like bacon.” I could swear there was a note of suspicion in his voice.

“That’s because I’m cooking bacon,” I sang from the kitchen. I was making what I liked to call Big Breakfast. I didn’t bother cooking breakfast most of the time. I skipped it. I wasn’t generally hungry when I first woke up, and I wasn’t a big fan of most breakfast foods. Too sweet. But every now and again, I liked to make breakfast. Big Breakfast meant bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns with jalapenos, onions, and tomatoes. The whole thing was a bit of an undertaking.

I’d barely gotten started. I’d hoped to be further into the ordeal before Griffin woke up, but he seemed to be a light sleeper. I guessed, overall, that was a good thing.

“You cook?” He looked skeptical.

“I cook,” I said. “I cook very well, as a matter of fact.”

“Sure,” he said. He ducked into the bathroom.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I yelled after him.

He emerged a minute later. “Nothing. Just that I’ve been here for two weeks, and I’ve never seen you cook.”

“Well, I don’t cook every meal or anything,” I said. “It’s work, and I’m very busy with my classes.”

He laughed.

“I am!” I glared at him. “Haven’t you seen me studying a lot this week?” It had been a week since he’d rescued me from Rusty at Clint’s house. I’d been a very good, very boring little girl for days now.

He shrugged. “You’ve been reading a lot.”

“That’s my class work.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. He peered over my shoulder at the stove, where the bacon was sizzling away. “I guess it smells okay.”

I shoved him. “Step back, all right? I am going to deliver the best Big Breakfast you have ever eaten. You are going to be kissing my toes after you taste this.”

He grinned at me, probably the biggest smile I’d ever seen on his face. “We’ll see.”

“You
will
see. You’re never going to forget this.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

I shook my head. “I’ve got it under control.”

He lounged up against the wall next to the refrigerator in his usual spot. Man. He was really an expert at lounging. I tore my gaze away from him. Why did he have to be so beautiful, anyway?

I chopped onions, trying to put any thought of his relative attractiveness out of my head.

“So, what made you decide to cook breakfast?” he asked.

I transferred the onions into the skillet with the hash browns. “No reason.”

“Uh huh.”

He didn’t trust me, did he? “Go amuse yourself. I’m cooking here.”

Within twenty minutes, I was finished. I arranged our plates—a generous helping of eggs and hash browns for each of us and four pieces of bacon each. I carried them into the living room and handed one plate to him.

I set my plate down on my coffee table and went back to the kitchen for forks. When I brought them back, he was already eating bacon, holding a slice in his fingers.

“I brought you a fork,” I said, handing it to him.

“I can’t eat bacon with a fork,” he said. “It crumbles when you try to spear it.”

Maybe he was right. I settled down in a chair and picked up my plate.

Griffin dug into the plate of food right away.

I watched him eat, smiling. There was something kind of satisfying about cooking food for someone. I hadn’t made Big Breakfast for anyone except Eric. He’d been a vegetarian, though. No bacon, which was really a tragedy, if you asked me.

I had to admit, Griffin was eating with a gusto I’d never seen before.

“You like it?” I asked.

He nodded, mouth full. He swallowed. “It’s all right.”

“All right? You’re eating like it’s going out of style.”

“I always eat fast,” he said. “If you didn’t in prison, the other guys would assume you didn’t want your food and take it.”

I made a face. I kept forgetting everything he’d been through.

He misinterpreted my face. “I’m teasing, doll. It’s delicious. But I do eat fast.”

Maybe he did. I hadn’t watched him eat all that often. I’d been ordering take out and nibbling while I did my reading for class. I had noted that we never seemed to have leftovers.

“You do like it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“So, you’re in a good mood?”

He set down his fork on his plate. “I knew you had some ulterior motive for making this for me.”

“No, it’s not like that,” I said. “Not exactly.”

“So, what’s it like?”

“I was just thinking that I might throw a little party tonight.”

He set down the plate. “Party? Tonight? No way.”

“Not a crazy, raging party,” I said. “A civilized party. I’m only inviting people I know from class. None of my friends from town. There will be wine and beer. No drugs.”

He sighed. “You just don’t get it. Your life is in danger—”

“No, I do,” I said. “I get it. That’s why this is different. For one thing, it’s here, in this apartment, and you can keep your eye on everyone who comes through the door. No surprises. And for another, it will be totally chill. It’s a celebration of me changing my ways and becoming a good girl.”

He groaned. “I’m sorry, doll. You can’t do it.”

“But I’ve already invited everyone.”

“Then call them and tell them it’s off.”

“I’m not doing that,” I said. I took a big bite of hash browns and chewed.

“You have to.”

I kept chewing.

“I’m not budging on this,” he said.

I swallowed. “Jesus, Griffin, don’t you ever have any fun? I mean, like a normal person?”

He flinched. He looked away from me.

Sensing I’d scored a point, I kept pushing. “I mean, have you ever even
been
to a party? How do you even know what they’re like?”

He picked his plate back up. He took a bite of scrambled eggs.

“Someday, you’re going to wake up,” I said. “And you’re going to be thirty years old. And someone’s going to ask you how you spend your twenties. And you’ll say—”

“Okay,” he said. “Fine.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “You can have the party here. But no drugs. And if I decide that it’s over, at any point, I’m kicking people out. You got that?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. You’ll see, Griffin. It’ll be really low key. I promise.”

He glowered at his plate. “I’m kind of out of bacon here.”

“I’ll get you more,” I said, leaping to my feet. “How many pieces do you want?”

“How many are left?” he asked.

I brought over the skillet. He took them all.

“I really appreciate this,” I said to him.

“Yeah, yeah.” He seemed very interested in his bacon.

I threw my arms around him. “Thanks.”

He stiffened. “Um, doll...” He turned his head. Our faces were inches from each other. “You’re welcome.” His voice was different. Deeper. Scratchier.