I wished I knew how to reassure him. But I didn't know what was wrong. "I don't think you should worry about my dad. My dad's dead, and the way I figure it, he owes me more than I owe him. And I like you, Griffin. A whole lot. It's big, and I never felt anything quite like it..." It was my turn not to finish and to seem embarrassed.
"It's not about your dad."
I bit my lip. "Then because you think you'll get distracted?"
He rubbed the top of his head. "Well, I do worry about that. I mean, doll, you're kind of distracting."
I couldn't help but smile. "You really think so?"
"You looked in the mirror lately?"
My smile widened.
He touched my cheek with the back of his knuckles. "You're beautiful."
I couldn't look at him, and I couldn't stop smiling. "You can't say stuff like that and then tell me we can't do anything because you'll be distracted."
He groaned. "Damn it, I'm already distracted."
I moved closer, looked up at him. "So, then what's the problem?"
He tucked my hair behind my ear. "Someone like you, you deserve it all to be right, to be good. And I'm messed up. I'm gonna disappoint you."
"How do you know that?" I said. "You're amazing, Griffin. You're strong and deadly, and you've been through so much."
"Going through stuff changes you. I won't ever be what you need."
"That isn't true," I said. "At the very least, I should get to decide that myself." I kissed him. Not one of the intense, passionate kisses we'd shared in the darkness last night, but just a quick, soft pressing of my lips on his.
He grabbed me, pulling me close. He kissed me again, harder and longer this time. "Look, maybe if we just took things slow."
My eyes were closed. I was still reveling in the aftermath of his kiss. "Slow?"
"Yeah," he said. "Like we could work up to certain things. You know?"
I opened my eyes. "I can do that."
"Yeah?" He looked so hopeful.
"Yeah," I said.
"Well, then, maybe I can too." He crushed me against him and kissed me again, teasing his tongue into my mouth. I clung to him for dear life. The water crashed over rocks behind us, spraying up in little white bursts, hurrying over stones, frothing and brilliant. And I kissed Griffin until all I knew was the sound of the water and the feel of his body.
* * *
"So what's slow mean?" I murmured into Griffin's mouth. We were lying in our tent. He was lying on top of me, my shirt was pushed all the way up, and his hands were assailing my breasts. "Because this-" I gasped. "Doesn't seem so slow."
He laughed low and deep. He was pressed against me, and I could feel his laughter vibrate through me. He kissed my eyebrow. "This is slow. It's, you know, above the waist stuff."
I giggled. "Oh, so that's the definition, then. Slow means above the waist."
"It can," he said. He ran a finger over my nipple.
My breath caught in my throat.
"I could have sworn you were enjoying it," he said.
"You could say that," I said.
He growled. "If you can still speak, I'm not doing it well enough." He lowered his head and captured my nipple in his mouth.
I groaned.
His other hand found the breast he wasn't suckling, and I was lost in sensation. I felt like I was floating in a sea of pink perfection. Each touch, each caress pushed me further into this world of pleasure. I closed my eyes and surrendered to it.
"Enjoying?" said Griffin.
I could only pant.
"That's more like it," he said, kissing my nipple.
"It's only that it's not very fair, is it? I mean, what about you?"
He raised his head to look at me, but his fingers still traced lazy trails over my breasts, making it hard to think. "I want this to be perfect for you."
"It is," I said. "I want it to be perfect for you."
He slid an arm under me, pulling me against him. "I don't mean to talk about the past while we're being intimate, but I, um, I didn't really do this right the last time through."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I had sex when I was in high school, but I was a typical idiot guy, you know? I didn't have a clue about foreplay. I kind of just... went for it."
I laughed. "Yeah, that's high school."
"So," he said, "this time, I want to make sure I please you. I want to make up for every time that I might have used someone in the past and only worried about my own pleasure. It's not cool. I know that now. And I want to make you melt."
I was grinning again. I touched his chin. "Are you real? Are you a robot or something? Did someone make you to be my downfall?"
"What?" He looked confused.
"You keep saying these perfect, wonderful things," I said. "A real guy would never say something that awesome. Ergo, you must be a love robot."
He laughed. "A love robot?"
"Yeah," I said. "It could happen. Dewhurst-McFarland made you to seduce and destroy me."
"That seems like an awful lot of work. Why bother seducing you?"
"I don't know," I said.
His hands were on me again. "I'm not a robot."
"Mmm," I said. "You feel real enough."
He slid his hand over my stomach, easing his fingers under the elastic of my jogging pants.
I gulped. "I thought you said above-the-waist stuff."
His fingers slid lower. "Maybe we're speeding up just a little bit."
My mouth was dry. I tensed up. I wasn't sure why it seemed like such a big deal. When I took guys home from the bar, they usually had their hands in my pants in five minutes. But this was different somehow.
Maybe it was because he was moving so slowly, inching down further and further.
With each new place he touched, my heart pounded more quickly, my breath grew more shallow, and it grew warmer and warmer between my legs. I'd never anticipated a touch more than this one.
His fingers grazed me, and strong shocks traveled up my body. I cried out.
He kissed my earlobe. "You're going to have to help me. I never did figure out where I was going down here."
I just moaned. He was doing fine.
He stroked me, his touch delicate and faint. "Here?"
I bit my lip. "Um, a little higher."
And then he was sliding over the most sensitive part of my body. I made a sound of surrender, of giving myself over. I felt my body open to him, relaxing.
I writhed against his fingers, drowning in exquisite sensation. He had his hand right on the center of everything, and he was parting me, unwinding me, unraveling me, taking me apart strand by strand.
And I wanted him to. I wanted to help. I slithered and squirmed, making sure he had access, making sure he was able to do just what he wanted with me.
His mouth was against mine, and I was whimpering into it.
One of his hands was on my breasts, and that seemed to peel away yet another layer of me, laying even more of myself bare.
I don't know how long it lasted. It seemed like ages. It seemed like I'd been transported again, that I'd fallen into some other place, a place where I was nothing more than a collection of sensitive parts, and those sensitive parts were swelling and gushing and opening and allowing and-
Detonation. Everything ruptured.
I came, and it was like he'd finally gotten to the center of me, like he'd massaged aside all the tension, all the things in the way. I was completely undone, splayed open, vulnerable and accepting. It was like he'd taken me completely apart. But I felt safe in his arms, lost and disembodied, but trusting and perfect at the same time.
I kissed him afterwards, clinging to him, running my fingers over his firm body, wanting him.
He stopped my hands, whispering to me to hold on, to wait, just...
He held me close.
I fell asleep in his arms.
Chapter Eight
"Do you think it's weird for a guy not to want to have sex with yo
u?" I asked. Stacey and I had managed to grab a private moment while the guys were unloading the camping gear. We were bringing it back from Blackwater Falls. We'd been back for a day or so, but we'd had to wait for Stacey and Jack to get home from visiting friends in Morgantown.
Her eyes got big. "What happened? You have to tell me what happened!"
"Like everything but that happened," I said.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, he doesn't want to do it. He basically told me that he's cool with anything except that."
"Except sex?"
I nodded. "But he totally like..." I looked around to make sure we were still alone, and I lowered my voice. "He got me off. More than once. And it was... earth shattering."
She giggled. "That's awesome."
"Yeah," I said. My eyes rolled back in my head. "No, it's completely awesome. I mean, he's fucking fantastic, but do you think it's weird?"
"That you're having orgasms? No, contrary to popular belief, it's actually quite normal for women to climax."
I shoved her. "Stacey. You know what I mean."
"I don't know if I do," she said. She smiled mischievously. "I don't want to get overly detailed, but, I mean, are you getting him off?"
"That's the thing," I said. "He won't let me. He barely lets me touch him. Do you think that's weird?"
Stacey considered. "Well, it's out of the ordinary."
"That's what I thought," I said.
"Hey," she said, nudging me. "I didn't say it was bad." She tapped her bottom lip. "Actually, he sounds like the perfect man. He serves up multiple orgasms and asks for nothing in return?"
I giggled. "Good point."
"You should count your blessings."
"No, I am. I mean it, I think he's great, and I'm so happy that you sent us on that camping trip, because it was awesome, and everything worked out perfect." I bit my lip. "But I want to reciprocate, you know?"
"You need to talk to him about it."
My lips parted. A little bit of air came through them.
"What?" she said. "Can't you talk to him?"
"No," I said.
"Why not?"
"Because... I wouldn't know what to say."
"Well, I would start by telling him he shatters the earth for you, and go from there," she said. "Men take all sex talks better when they're peppered with a lot of compliments about their prowess."
I suddenly flashed on a mental picture of Jack and Stacey in bed. It made me feel sort of ooky. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this anymore."
"Why? Because I said you should talk to Griffin?"
"No," I said. "Because maybe it's really weird for me to be telling you this stuff."
"Oh come on," she said. "I'm not gonna say anything. Not even to Jack, I swear."
I hugged myself. Everything seemed complicated all of the sudden. "He is too perfect, isn't he? There's something wrong with it. All guys want to get off too." I looked at her. "Don't they?"
She lifted her shoulders. "I don't know."
"Maybe he's like... not really a guy. Like in that movie Boys Don't Cry, about that girl who dressed up as a guy and got murdered?" Of course, I had grabbed his crotch the first night, and I had definitely felt something there.
"I think he's a guy," said Stacey. "He has an Adam's apple."
"Good point," I said. I took a deep breath. "That makes me feel better."
"Have you tried to just jump him? Like go for it and grab it, you know?"
"Yeah," I said. "He stops me."
"And what does he say?"
"He says not yet," I said. "He says for me to hold on. He says we'll get there."
"So. Maybe you will?"
"Maybe," I said.
"Maybe he wants to make sure he's given you an intense amount of pleasure before he even tries to get any," said Stacey.
"He actually said something like that."
"Maybe it's true." "Do you really think so?"
"I think you should talk to him," she said.
I made a face.
"But if you don't want to, maybe you could just wait a little bit and see what happens. You might be getting worked up over nothing."
I nodded. "Yeah. I hope you're right."
* * *
Griffin handed me the gun. "Since you're being so distracting, I'd feel better if you had some idea how to take care of yourself."
It was heavy. I weighed it in my hand. "Isn't the gun kind of a waste? I mean, it won't kill someone with the serum."
"You saw what happened to you when you got shot," he said. "You were helpless for minutes. And every minute counts."
I raised the gun. "I guess that's true."
"I'll teach you some self-defense moves too," he said. "But I want you to get used to having a gun in your hand. How's it feel?"
"Heavy," I said. "I didn't think it would be so heavy."
"Everyone says that." He demonstrated. "That's how you take off the safety, okay?"
I nodded.
"Show me," he said.
I turned the safety on and back off again.
"Good," he said. He took a deep breath. "Okay, first thing. You want to make sure that you're holding the gun right. You want to place it squarely within the web of your thumb and forefinger, so that when you hold it out, it's perfectly in line with your arm."
I rearranged a little, holding the gun out. "Like this?"
He inspected and adjusted me. "Good. Like that. See how your thumb's right here on the safety and your forefinger is extended right here?"
"Uh huh."
"You're not touching the trigger, but you could, right? Your finger's right there."
I nodded.
"Okay, bring up your support hand and wrap your fingers around your other hand."
I brought up my other hand.
"You ever play basketball?"
I raised my eyebrows at him. "You're asking because I'm tall, right?"
"You're tall?" He kissed my forehead. "You're short as far as I'm concerned."
I stuck my tongue out at him. "Maybe in middle school. Why?"
"Well, when you're shooting basketball, you've got a support hand, and it's the same principle. You don't want to let the support hand do anything other than support. If you rely too much on it, it's going to throw your aim off."
"Okay," I said. I did kind of remember trying to shoot lay-ups and having my other hand push the ball the wrong direction. But I'd been twelve. I wasn't sure how much the analogy was really going to help me.
He stood behind me, running his hands over my arms and shoulders.
"Ooh," I said, wiggling my butt against him.
"Stop," he said.
"What?"
"This is serious, doll."
"I know. It's seriously hot when you put your hands on me."
He pushed on my shoulders. "Loosen up here. Square your shoulders, spread your legs."
I couldn't help it. I giggled. "Spread my legs, huh?"
"Leigh, I mean it, stop fooling around."
Whoa. He'd called me by my first name. He was obviously in a bad mood. I stopped giggling.
"Feet shoulder length apart," he said.
I moved my feet.
He walked around me, so that he was standing next to the gun. "Okay, you want to use the pad of your forefinger to push the trigger, not this inside knuckle. You see what I'm saying?"
I moved my finger and ran it over the trigger.
"Exactly like that," he said. "Now take your finger off the trigger."
I did.
"You see the target?" he asked.
The target was an empty marshmallow vodka bottle. I thought we were being a tad ambitious with something so small, but Griffin thought otherwise.
"Okay, you've got three posts to line up. Those are your sights. You see what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah."
"The front post needs to be horizontally centered and vertically level with the rear posts. You line up the front post with the tar
get, you line up the rear posts on either side of the front post, you look back at the front post, and then you pull the trigger."
I bit my lip. "Um."
"Try it," he said. "Don't pull the trigger. Just try lining up the posts."
Once I had the gun aimed at the bottle, I saw what he was saying. Looking down the barrel, I could see the three sight posts. I did what he had advised. "Okay, I think I understand."
"One more thing," he said. "You're holding your breath. You don't want to do that. You want your body loose and relaxed. Breathe through it."
I nodded.
"Go ahead," he said. "Give it a shot."
I squared my shoulders, took deep breaths, put the pad of my finger on the trigger, lined up my sights, and squeezed the trigger of the gun.
It kicked in my hands, I nearly dropped it. "Jesus!"
Griffin laughed at me.
"You could have warned me it was going to do that!"
"I thought you knew," he said, still laughing. "I'm sorry."
I peered at the intact vodka bottle. "I didn't even come close, did I? I told you I wouldn't be any good at this."
"Loosen up. It was your first try. If you did well the first try out, you'd be exceptional. Practice, doll."
My shoulders slumped.
We practiced.
Eventually, I did start shattering vodka bottles. My ratio wasn't exactly great, though. I think I missed more than I hit. But Griffin said I was improving, and that was all that was important.
* * *
Saturday night was my one-month sober party at Stacey's place. I was excited about it, even though she'd invited all these people who I didn't know from other NA meetings. She said it would be cool for me to meet other addicts. I was a little nervous. I used to be really good at meeting people, but I didn't know if I still was. How much of that had been me, and how much of it had been cocaine?
The morning of the party, I woke up alone in bed, which was strange, because I'd gone to sleep snuggled up against Griffin. We'd been sleeping in the same bed ever since camping, but we still weren't doing the deed, just messing around. And he still wasn't letting me touch him much. I knew Stacey was right, and I was going to have to talk to him about it, but I hadn't. I couldn't figure out quite how to bring it up. And it wasn't as if things were going so badly, anyway. Griffin seemed happy, and he was making me very happy.
I got out of bed, put on some slippers, and padded out into the kitchen, where Griffin was busy dicing potatoes on the kitchen counter.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"Well, I was going to make you breakfast in bed," he said. "But you're not in bed anymore."
"Breakfast? You?" I said. "You cook?"
He grinned at me. "I cook quite well, thank you very much."
"But why?"
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