Three Rivers (A Gateway to Love Novel)

by Barlow, Chloe T.

  Stevens was great friends with Griffen's mom Valerie. He suspected Stevens had wanted it to be more, but he never said anything to his mom. Either way, it was Stevens who'd mentored him when he went to University of Pittsburgh, recognized his talent and guided him toward becoming an investigative journalist and writer.

  Even after Griffen left school, Stevens never stopped looking out for him and giving him advice. He'd supported his decision to quit football and leave college after his sophomore year and set him up with his first big job with the Associated Press. Griffen always sought out the most dangerous assignments, quickly landing an assistant job on an exciting embedment with an elite Army Rangers unit in the heart of the biggest Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

  His time with the Rangers inspired "Mountains of Enemies" — his first mystery thriller starring "Cade Jackson." It became a runaway bestseller with the hottest action hero character in the world.

  After it was turned into a successful movie, Griffen got restless, then living in Mexico for a year, researching and investigating the Mexican drug cartels. This led to his second bestseller and another movie and a solid reputation as an "it" writer. Then came a blockbuster video game based on the books, cell phone covers, ring tones. Whatever crap could be made from these stories, they'd done it.

  Christ, last I heard there was some whiskey in Japan name after Cade. Ridiculous.

  Now, at thirty-one, he had more money than he could ever spend, he never wanted for female attention and he could finally try to convince himself he was worth something. That he was better than his father. Yet, the moment this city had laid itself out in front of him, he realized just how little pride he really felt in who he'd become.

  He took another burning sip, desperate to quiet the painful memories and disappointment that kept rising up with each breath.

  Griffen's phone buzzed again in his pocket. He frowned at the screen. Another call from his agent. He hadn't been able to write anything since his second book, instead relying on riding out the fame of his first two novels. His agent and publisher were still breathing down his neck for a new hit, but he didn't have it in him.

  Fuck 'em, they can wait a little longer. I've made them all very rich.

  Griffen took a deeper drink and thought, well, if I can't write and I'm stuck in this damn city, I might as well keep drinking.

  As he waited for his next drink, Griffen was finally feeling nicely buzzed and leaned back to observe the crowd, surprised by the hip cocktails and hipper clientele. Chic or stodgy, he didn't give a crap, but this certainly differed from the dive joints he remembered getting loaded in growing up. Several women gave him long, meaningful glances. He smirked back but couldn't get himself interested in that kind of distraction.

  Before he could get too wrapped up in the same cycle of guilty thoughts, a lilting female laugh behind Griffen's back jarred him to attention.

  After a heartier laugh followed, a throaty but feminine voice said, "Jeez ladies, I think he's a bit too hipster for me. If I hooked up with him, it would have to be done ironically. I mean, he's got a beard and he's wearing a vest!" Griffen laughed as the bartender put down his drink and he tried to listen in as inconspicuously as possible.

  "What about that one?" Griffen heard a louder voice ask. "Mmm, what a fine ass, and nice broad shoulders. He's turning around…come on lucky seven. Uh-oh, no," she added with a snort. "Sorry Tea, my bad. He's got a hot body, but his face, blech. Moving on."

  A third female voice said, "Excellent point. Let's keep looking in a logical manner. I'm not giving up yet. Hmm. He's too big, he's too young, he's too short, he's too...Ugh."

  "All right Goldicocks, I think you both have had your shot here. This is the third bar you've dragged me to tonight. It's late, my feet hurt and I think I've been a good sport. Let's move it along now, shall we? How about we just go home? You promised me ice cream and pajamas if this didn’t work out — I think it’s time."

  Aw hell no, Griffen thought, he had to get a look at this woman with the sexy voice before she left. He slowly turned around in his stool and his breath caught and his throat closed right around it. She was fucking gorgeous.

  Her friends — Goldicocks one and two he presumed — flanked her. They were lovely in their own right, a blonde and a brunette, but he only had eyes for the honey haired beauty in front of him.

  He looked down at his drink pretending not to hear them, when the brunette blurted, "Over there by himself at the bar in the gray sports jacket. Ooh, he's delicious. This Goldicocks says he's just right."

  Griffen stifled a smile when he glanced at the sleeve of his gray sports jacket. Oh yes, Goldicock number one, do me a solid with your friend please, he silently pleaded.

  "Uh, girls," the goddess stammered, "a little too perfect, don't you think? Not sure I can afford the stud fee on that one."

  Griffen almost choked on his drink as he thanked God that women with a couple drinks in them lost all capacity to whisper effectively.

  This pretty little thing finds me perfect, huh? Very far from the truth, but I can let her believe it for now. Maybe this night isn't a total loss after all.

  He surreptitiously shifted in his stool so he could take her in more fully.

  Gorgeous. That was the only word that kept going through his head. The only word he could say about her. He hadn't wanted any of the other women staring at him from around the bar, but this one was another thing altogether. She looked like exactly what he needed to take the edge off his internal shit storm. He had to have her.

  Her hair was long and fell in waves across smooth, lovely shoulders and round, soft breasts that looked like they would fit nicely in his hands — and his mouth, which watered at the thought. It was her eyes that had him transfixed, though. They were wide and almond shaped and the most unique color — hazel, with radiating shades of gold and green throughout, with an outline of jet black around the irises making the unique color even more pronounced.

  He stood up and walked toward her. She quickly realized what he was doing and her eyes suddenly turned scared and her cherry red lips parted slightly. She looked like a cornered deer recognizing a predator's scent in the air, but her eyes never drifted from each of his. They were like a tractor beam and he couldn't even feel his legs moving as he walked toward her.

  "Hello, I couldn't help but overhearing that you're disappointed in tonight's offerings. I hope you aren't really leaving." She was sitting on a stool, so Griffen could look down at her without releasing her from his gaze.

  From behind him he heard her two friends stumble out a flurry of assurances.

  "Oh no, we're not leaving. Actually, Jenna and I just saw a friend of ours, right?"

  "That's right, Brey, there is that friend over there. Hey...you." Griffen watched as his lovely conquest followed their retreating figures with wide eyes and visibly tensed up.

  "Hi," she gulped out, training those beautiful eyes back on his. "No, I guess it looks like I'm not going anywhere for a while."

  "Thank God, gorgeous," he drawled at her.

  "Uh, what did you call me?" she asked on a gasp, sitting upright quickly.

  "What? Oh, I called you gorgeous." He took advantage of her surprise to take her in more slowly. She was remarkably beautiful in a very unique way. Besides the hypnotic eyes that were doing some kind of Jedi mind trick on him, she had the fullest bottom lip with a perfect Cupid's bow on top. Everything about her was a combination of strong and soft — firm legs that were still softly sexy and shapely, a small waist and taut stomach that led up to smooth shoulders and pert rounded breasts.

  She was stunning, yes, but what was truly knocking him off course was that although he'd never met her before, something about her seemed so familiar, but also so sad and a little lost. He alternately felt like kissing her senseless and just holding her on the sofa to watch a movie. Griffen had to shake himself back into the present.

  Don't scare her man. You've been staring at
her eyes and lips for possibly a creepily long amount of time. Get with it.

  "Right." He cleared his throat. "I called you gorgeous and since I don't know your real name yet, I will just have to go with that for now, I guess. Unless you want to share that information with me?"

  She seemed completely flustered at the endearment, which was adorable but befuddling.

  Could she really not know how hot she is?

  He leaned in close to her so she breathed the same air as him and he could tell it was setting her off balance.

  "Althea," she whispered huskily, looking at him then quickly averting her eyes again. "You can call me Althea."

  Holy hell, Althea thought, this guy is way sexier than is even fair.

  She'd already been totally thrown by his looks, and then he called her gorgeous...she hadn't heard that nickname since Jack and it added to the way this whole experience was sending her neurons into overdrive. She blamed that for the confusing fact that she told him to call her Althea, instead of Tea.

  She’d even blinked a couple of times as the name slipped out, seeing as she even used "Tea" professionally. It never felt like Althea really fit her. Apparently most people agreed, because no one ever called her that.

  For as long as she could remember everyone shortened her name to Tea, or called her by her childhood nickname of "Sweet Tea," because she had always been such a doggone nice little thing.

  Ironically, she'd been named after her man-eating great-grandmother who'd lived it up in Charleston, South Carolina in the roaring 20's with multiple husbands (some of whom died in mysteriously gothic southern ways).

  Althea hadn't felt much like that kind of a vixen in, well, ever. No, that had never been her. She was respectable Sweet Tea, after all.

  But there was something about the way Griffen stared into her eyes that made her heart stop and had her feeling at once at ease, yet also full of desire. She felt more intense, more daring, more connected to the wild woman that was her namesake.

  "I'm Griffen. I would introduce myself to your friends, but it seems they had to be somewhere other than here very quickly." He grinned, revealing two of the sexiest, deepest dimples she'd ever seen. Althea had a sudden desire to dig her nose into one of those cute things and wiggle it around, until she realized she was staring and couldn't help but feel a blush spread across her cheeks.

  "Yes, they do seem to have run off, haven't they? I guess it's just you and me," she responded as she tried to turn her head and stop staring at him, but she was pretty sure she just looked like she had some kind of a facial tic.

  "That works for me," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  Althea had really just been humoring the girls. She'd never actually intended to hook up with anyone. The plan was to have a few drinks and laughs with her friends, maybe look at some guys, flirt with one or two. Those had been the baby steps she'd really had in mind. Yet Griffen was so exciting and new, while at the same time something about him seemed so natural, that she couldn't imagine doing anything that night except for enjoy spending time with him.

  Only problem? She was sitting in front of him completely mute, her mind blank of anything to say, and it hit her — she was totally incapable of talking to men, especially this man, romantically. This would likely turn embarrassing fast and it didn't help that she was so damn twitchy. Now it was her leg that kept jumping up and down erratically.

  "Do I make you nervous?" he asked.

  "A little," she muttered in a voice she barely recognized.

  "Just breathe," he whispered. Althea blew out a huge gust of air.

  "Thanks," she said, feeling embarrassed.

  "I can't have you pass out on me."

  "Sorry, I'm a little out of practice at this."

  "At what? Talking to a handsome stranger in a bar? I think you're doing just fine."

  "Well, you think highly of yourself, don't you?" she said with a smirk and she noticed his eyes drop to her mouth again.

  "Don't you?"

  "Think highly of myself?" Althea asked confused.

  "No," he teased and then let half his mouth turn up in what might have been a smirk or was more likely some precursor to his wolfish plan of eating poor Little Red Riding Althea whole. "Of me."

  "Puh-leeze," she groaned with an epic roll of her eyes. "You can't be serious."

  "I'm not, but I did make you forget how nervous you are with me for a moment, didn't I?"

  She couldn't lie, it had, but she didn't want to give him too much credit. "You certainly made for a good distraction, I will give you that. Thank you."

  Though he'd only helped to distract her from her nervousness. Other than that she was hyper-focused — on him: his impossibly aqua blue eyes (seriously, is that even a real eye color?); his broad shoulders; that delicious mouth; the way his slightly shaggy hair grazed his dark brows. Everything about him was hardwired to excite her on every level. Even the one inch vertical scar next to his left eyebrow, that was the only thing marring the perfection of his masculine beauty, drove her insane. Althea wondered if it would be rude to lick that scar in front of a bar full of strangers...?

  She couldn't believe she was thinking this way about a man after all these years, but it was as though he'd been crafted and chiseled to make her do something crazy and she liked the feeling.

  "Let's go back to the basics. How about that?"

  "The basics?"

  "Yeah, the basics. I know your name's Althea. Next up — where are you from?"

  "Charlotte, North Carolina."

  "Dogs or cats?"

  "Huh?"

  "Do you prefer dogs or cats?" he repeated slowly with a smirk.

  "I'm just a general animal lover..."

  "Bullshit."

  She gasped.

  "Everyone has a preference, spill it."

  "Okay," she laughed. "Dogs."

  "Good answer. Do you cry at those emotionally manipulative Sarah McLachlan commercials about animal cruelty?"

  "Of course! You?"

  "Maybe..."

  "Maybe?"

  "All right, definitely, and I always donate a ton of money every time. I think I've ended up with five subscriptions to their magazine by now. Okay. Back to you. Birthday?"

  "June 15."

  "See how easy this is? Good, now ask me something."

  Althea's mouth suddenly went dry and her palms were sweating. She knew that if she put her hand on the bar, she would leave a steamy handprint behind.

  Gross, she thought. Jesus Althea, come on. Ask him something, anything. Baby steps or not, could you be more boring? IRS agents sound more exciting than you. Maybe you should offer to do his taxes, that'll make his night. At least ask him a question. You're so wound up you've got this guy asking enough about you to fill out a visa application for you to go to Abu Dhabi. Least you could do is ask him something back!

  She was having some sort of flirtation stage fright and it was kind of humiliating. She tried desperately to remember how to do this but God she hadn't really flirted with anyone since flip phones were an exciting technological development. She looked down and glanced up at Griffen through her lashes, feeling incredibly self-conscious and for some reason — like a failure.

  She couldn't believe how much she really wanted something to happen with Griffen. They had steamy glances back and forth down but she would have to talk more or they would start looking like they belonged on a show on The WB when what she was really feeling about this guy was more in line with late night on Skinemax.

  Althea felt way out of her league but kept reminding herself:

  This is just a baby step — I can do this.

  Ha, she thought, this guy is no baby step, he is a full marathon of hotness, an Olympic long jump of yumminess.

  Maybe I can still go after that slightly chubby hipster. Is he still here? He seems a better way to get back into things. I mean, he may want to discuss his kitschy collection of ceramic diner milk s
ervers, but I can deal with that. I can't deal with someone this irresistible. At least not yet, right?

  "Hey, are you still breathing over there?" Griffen asked, stroking his fingers over her hand and resting two on her pulse with a smirk. Althea hadn't realized so much time had passed but his touch burned the delicate skin on her wrist, jolting her very much to the present.

  "Oh, sorry, I was just thinking."

  "About what?"

  "You," she said, barely above a whisper.

  "Good," he leaned closer and looked in her eyes. "I like you thinking about me, then I don't feel so alone in the fact that I'm sure I won't stop thinking about you for a while." His eyes darted down to her lips and she wondered if he may kiss her. Instead his eyes looked uncertain for a moment and then he leaned back and picked up her drink. He tasted it and let his tongue dart to pick up a drop that lingered on his bitable bottom lip. "Mmm, a manhattan?"

  "Ye-es, they age it in oak barrels for months to develop the flavor. It's my favorite drink." Althea's voice sounded thick and husky to her ears.

  "Is that so? Well, then you should be enjoying it more, shame to let something so perfectly developed go to waste." Griffen looked down her body then back up to her lips and leaned the glass to them. As he tilted it up, she opened her mouth to swallow the smooth but heady cocktail. Griffen replaced the glass on the bar and moved his rough thumb across the swell of her lower lip to collect some of the drink that remained there. Althea gasped slightly. His thumb was delightfully cool, but she felt like her lip was on fire. Without looking away from Althea's eyes, Griffen placed his thumb gently into her mouth. "Don't want to miss this, do we?"

  Althea looked back at him and sucked his thumb into her mouth. His eyes widened, clearly shocked at how bold she'd so quickly become, but he smiled in glee as soon as he recovered, dimples in full effect. Althea smiled back and let her bottom teeth scrape the pad of his thumb while she sucked at him with her greedy mouth.

  "Althea..." Griffen removed his thumb on a slow groan of her name.

  She was so glad she told him her whole name now. Just hearing those syllables on his tongue had her warm all over and embarrassingly wet between her legs, because in that moment he made her feel so sexy.