Sloane (29 page)

I groaned, yanking on my shirt. “I’ll talk to
them.”

He flopped back on the bed.

Silas was waiting for me outside the door.

“Hi,” I said. “What do you want to talk about?”

He rubbed his chin. “Well, just kind of quickly.”

“Yeah?”

“So, I know I promised that if, um, you met a guy
that I would not, um, scare him off.” He gave me a rueful
smile.

I took a deep breath. “Silas—”

“Are you happy?”

I bit my lip. “I… I’m confused.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Does that mean you’re not
happy?”

“I’m happy when I’m with him,” I said. “When it’s
just the two of us, yes, very happy. But Leigh gave me this big
talk, and now
you’re
—”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?” I didn’t know what he meant.

“I’ll let you figure it out,” he said. “You can
figure it out on your own.”

“Really?” I hadn’t expected that from Silas.

He ruffled my hair. “Yeah. Sometimes I guess I forget
that you’re a grownup and that you can live your life however you
want. Sorry I’m an overbearing brother.”

I smiled at him. “It’s okay.”

He took a deep breath. “Right. So, I’m going to stay
out of it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“For the record, though? I don’t like him.”

I rolled my eyes. “Where’s Christa?”

A big grin broke over his face just at the mention of
her name. “She’s out here. Come on.”

* * *

Christa was sprawled out on another white couch. Her
arm was in a sling, but she looked remarkably cheery for someone
who was suffering from a bullet wound.

“Hey,” I said, going over to give her a careful
hug.

She squeezed me with her good arm. “Thank you for
bringing them back to me.”

I pulled back. “Well, I couldn’t let them stay there,
could I?”

She nodded. “And thank Axel too. I know his whole
apartment was completely ruined.”

“Yeah.” I considered. “But it’s not like he doesn’t
have the money to fix it.”

Silas was hovering. “What do you need, babe? You tell
me, and I’ll get it. Anything.”

Christa gave him a wicked grin. “Anything?”

He grinned back. “You know it. I’m just so glad
you’re okay.”

“Can you go out and get a sampling of any local beer
that’s brewed in Boston and bring it all back here for me to try?”
said Christa. “Because, you know, I think that would really help my
arm heal.”

“Yeah?” said Silas. “You want me to run errands?”

“Oh, you love running errands for me,” said Christa.
“Besides, you can’t tell me that you’re not dying to try all the
beer.”

He laughed. “You know me too well.”

She shrugged. And then flinched. “Ouch.”

Silas was next to her in a second. “What? What
happened?”

“I just shouldn’t move like that.” She wrinkled up
her nose.

“Well, then don’t.” He inspected her with a worried
look on his face.

She stuck out her tongue at him. “You know, Silas is
going have to help me bathe, because I can’t get the bandages this
wet for a while. I’m going to be an invalid, and he is going to
love
it.”

He cupped her cheek with one hand. “I love you.”

She smiled. “I love… beer.”

He cocked his head.

“And you too, I guess.” She snickered.

“I don’t know about alcohol right now,” he said. “I
think those painkillers might be enough. You’re still a little…
off.”

“Silas, please,” she said. “You said you’d get
anything I needed.”

He straightened. “Well, it would be pretty epic if I
got good samples of all the local beer, wouldn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” said Christa.

Axel appeared in the doorway. “Hello again,
Christa.”

“Hi, Axel,” she said. “Thanks for shoving me in the
pantry.”

He laughed. “Anytime.”

Silas turned to Axel. “Uh, would you… would you mind
if I brought beer here?”

“That’s not a problem,” said Axel. “I have tons of
room.”

Silas shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at
the carpet. “Thanks for letting us crash and all.”

“Of course,” said Axel.

Silas raised his gaze. “Look, about my sister—”

“Silas.” I glowered at him.

Silas looked wounded. “All I was going to say is that
if Axel here seems to like you then… he has good taste.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

Axel smirked, but covered it with one hand.

Silas took a deep breath. “Yeah, so, uh, I’m going to
get beer.” He made a beeline out of the room.

Axel watched him go. “Your brother hates me, doesn’t
he?”

LEIGH

I woke up to Griffin crawling into bed with me,
saying, “Scooch over.”

I blinked sleep out of my eyes. “You’re here. I tried
to wait up for you, but I didn’t make it.”

He pressed his body against mine. He was warm and
firm. I snuggled into him, enjoying how being close to him made me
feel small and delicate.

“Is Christa here?” I asked.

“Yup.” He ran his hands over my body.

I sighed as tingles went through me. “She okay?”

“She’s fine,” he said. “Well, she’s got a hole in her
shoulder, but other than that, she’s fine.”

“Mmm…” I kissed him. “I should go see her.”

He tightened his grip on me. “Not yet. Stay here for
a little bit.”

I smiled at him.

“This is the first time I’ve had a chance to be alone
with you and not terrified in a long time,” he breathed. “I want to
savor it.”

I had to agree that it was nice. I sighed, closing my
eyes and burrowing into his warmth.

His fingers skimmed my hips. I was wearing a shirt
that Sloane had lent me and a pair of underwear. She’d given me
some jeans, but it was too uncomfortable to sleep in them.
Griffin’s hands wandered over the bare skin of my upper thighs.

I gasped at the sensation.

He made a little growling sound in the back of his
throat and ground his pelvis into me.

“Griffin!” I scolded. “Don’t. We’re in someone else’s
house.”

He rolled over on top of me, trapping me under him.
“Axel’s house. I think it’s perfect, actually.”

I touched his face. “You’re not jealous of Axel, are
you?”

He kissed me, long and slow and sweet. “What I am,
doll, is very happy that we’re both safe and free,” he whispered.
He thrust his fingers under my shirt, finding my breasts and
rubbing his palms over my nipples.

I groaned. It felt amazing. My whole body started to
respond to him, warmth gathering between my legs, my pulse starting
to thrum.

“And you’re very sexy when you wake up,” he
continued, teasing the tips of my breasts.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, bucking against
him. I could feel his arousal, hard and huge.

He pushed up my shirt. He closed his mouth over one
of my nipples and sucked.

I shuddered, giving myself up to the pleasure of
it.

“And okay, maybe I’m feeling a little territorial.”
He gave me a wicked grin.

“Griffin, I’m you’re
wife
,” I said, arching an
eyebrow. “You don’t have to… mark what belongs to you.”

“But you do belong to me, don’t you, doll?” He
lowered his mouth to my other nipple.

I gasped. “Always.”

He reached down and eased my panties over my hips. “I
want to be inside you, doll. I want you. I love you.”

And we were kissing, and I was kicking off my
underwear and unzipping his pants, reaching inside to stroke his
stiff length. And everything felt good. So good. I felt very turned
on, and I wanted him too.

“Okay,” I managed. “Maybe it might be a little bit
fun to be marked territory.”

He chuckled against my mouth.

I let my voice get throaty. “But only if you promise
to mark me very, very deep.”

In response, he lifted my hips and thrust inside me
with one long stroke.

My back arched and I grasped fistfuls of sheets. He
felt wondrous, so familiar and so nice. My Griffin.

His mouth was on my nipple again, sucking into it
into a tight peak as he began to move within me, stirring me,
filling me, sinking into me.

I moaned, and it was loud, and I didn’t care.

He kissed his way up my chest, settling in the hollow
just below my jaw. His voice was gravelly. “You are so sweet and
tight and…” He grunted, punctuating his words by burying himself
inside me. “You feel like heaven.”

I snatched his chin and forced him to kiss me.

Everything was building inside me, a taut,
overpowering sense of euphoria, and I writhed in his arms, even as
he pinned me down and rubbed against me in the most delicious of
ways.

“Make me come, baby,” I gasped. “Please.”

His fingers went between us, finding my clitoris. He
flicked it, and spasms went through me.

I cried out.

He was relentless, pushing deep in and out of me, his
fingers working at my sensitive bundle of nerves, and I was caught
up in it. I thrashed. I grasped onto his shirt—
why was he still
wearing that?
—and I struggled to breathe, struggled to think,
struggled to get myself right to the place where it would take
over. I tensed. I moaned. I shut my eyes and grit my teeth and—

There.

It bowled through me, a bubble pushing its way to the
surface to pop. I surrendered to it, letting it make my whole body
twitch and ripple. It was ecstasy. It was exultation. It was
elation. It was joy.

Griffin’s lips were on mine. His tongue was stroking
mine.

Inside me, his thrusts grew more frenzied.

I grabbed his ass, pulling him even closer.

He threw his head back, pumping his own orgasm into
me.

And then we both relaxed.

He lay on me, still inside me, panting and planting
tiny kisses on my bare skin.

I rubbed his head. The stubble there was a little
longer than it usually was, and I liked the softness of his
shaggier hair.

And then… “Shit,” I muttered.

He lifted his head. I could tell he was about three
seconds away from going to sleep. “What?” he mumbled.

“You came inside me.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So… I didn’t want you to do that.” I looked at the
ceiling, trying to think. It probably didn’t matter. It was too
late, because I was pretty sure that I’d ovulated while we’d been
locked up, but there was always a chance my calculations were
wrong.

“Why not?” He still sounded sleepy.

“You know why not.” I shoved him. I didn’t want his
weight on top of me anymore. I was feeling panicked all of the
sudden. I needed to get up and go into the bathroom and try to
somehow wash of all of his… stuff out of me.

Griffin rolled over. He was still mostly clothed,
except his pants were undone and his penis—soft now—was dangling
out of them. “You can’t be serious.”

I started to get up.

He grabbed me. “Leigh.”

“Griffin, I need to get rid of—”

“You really don’t want to get pregnant, do you?” he
said. “You’re so adamant about it that you’ll ruin our reunion over
it. What is so disgusting about having a baby with me that—?”

“It’s not about you.” I shook him off.

He tucked himself inside and zipped up his pants. “Do
whatever you want. I need to take a walk.”

“No,” I said. “You’re tired. You haven’t slept. Just
lie down and—”

“I
was
tired,” he said. “I actually was
floating somewhere in a kind of perfect universe of you and me and
good feelings and… But I don’t feel like that anymore.” He sat
up.

I was completely naked. I pulled the sheets up to
cover me. “Griffin, I don’t want to fight about this.”

“I don’t either.” He swung his legs over the side of
the bed. “There’s no way for it to work. You hold all the cards. If
you don’t want to do it, then we can’t have a baby. I guess there’s
not really anything to talk about.”

“Well.” I touched him. “It makes you sad.”

He wouldn’t look at me.

“What if…” I chewed on my lip. “What if we tried it a
different way?”

“What are you talking about?”

I scooted closer to him. I rubbed his shoulder. “I
don’t know if I can handle being pregnant. Maybe I’m being an idiot
about it, but I swear to God, if you force me to do it—”

“I wouldn’t force you to do anything.” He looked at
me, but there was anguish in his eyes.

“What if we adopted?”

His jaw worked.

“I know it’s not the same. It’s not our genes, and
it’s not our—what about a surrogate?”

His eyes widened. “Are you serious? You’re too afraid
to do it, but you’d pay another woman to do it instead?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I think that would be better. If
some other person was willing to, then why couldn’t she?”

He got up, dragging his hands over his face. “I
really need to take a walk, doll.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I was outside on the small porch that connected to
one of the apartments when Griffin came out. He looked haggard.
There were dark circles around his eyes. He’d shaved since getting
out of lockup, but he still looked like he needed to sleep for a
week.

He saw me and started to back away. “Sorry, I didn’t
know anyone was here.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to intrude.”

I shrugged. “Well, I was trying to get some space to
think, but I don’t know if it’s helping.” I cocked my head. “You
look awful.”

He let out a short laugh. “Gee, thanks.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Just… shouldn’t you be getting some
rest?”

He rubbed the top of his head and sighed.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

He walked past me to clutch the railing on the porch.
He hung his head. “You said you thought that Leigh was excited
about getting pregnant.”