by Jillian Neal
“That’s the first place she’ll look.”
“Not if you don’t let her in,” I pointed out.
“Fine but stay quiet because when I get rid of her we’re getting you right back where you were.”
“What are you going to say to her?” My pulse sent constant reminders that this could be a PR nightmare. He stared at me like I must’ve forgotten all of his training. “Right. You got it. Sorry.”
I received only a frustrated grunt as he sealed me inside the closet and then inside the bedroom.
13
Griff
She’d been a half-second away from coming on my fucking thigh. Any dude with a sac knew how fucking hot that was. Hell, eunuchs knew how insanely hot that was. For me, an idiot with a bum leg because my thigh had been obliterated, her sweet juices dripping out of that innocent lace onto my jeans would’ve brought about healing no army doctor could ever provide. My preferences when it came to her marched in by the dirty dozen. I never would’ve washed them, would’ve loved brushing my hand over her sweet cream on my jeans and remembering how I’d gotten it there.
I pulled off my T-shirt and flung it on the couch as I sped toward the door.
Fury ricocheted through my veins. It sizzled from the tip of my scalp down to my boots. I scrubbed my hands through my hair and adjusted Griff Jr. who was pissed the fuck off on Hannah’s behalf. Pressing my palms to my eyes hard, I blinked away the pops of white light and hoped it would be enough to confuse my opponents. I flung open the door.
“Sergeant Haywood, sir.” White-glove dude’s eyes rounded as he took in my biceps and my six-pack. Back in the day, Smith and I would occasionally walk around Fort Carson with “shock” painted on his chest and “awe” painted on mine. Damn, I needed to stop thinking about Smith while Hannah was in my closet. Besides, I wasn’t just showing off. I had a plan and being shirtless was part of that plan. “I did try to tell her that you had company. She’s…” he paused, “rather insistent.”
“Thanks. And tell me your name. I need to stop calling you white-glove dude up in my head.” I tapped my forehead.
Confusion intensified the wrinkles around his eyes making him appear ten years older. “My name is Fred Jones, sir.” Every single Special Forces operative loves when the universe provides us material. I’d just been given gold.
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you serious with that shit? That is legitimately the worst fake name I’ve ever heard, and I’ve made up some doozies in my time. I told the head of a foreign liaison office in the Sudan that my name was Tian Tee. Get it? Okay, yeah, you don’t get it. For real though, what’s your actual name?”
He looked mildly frightened, which is precisely the way I preferred for him to look. If he thought I was going to forget the fact that he up and thought he could stare at my baby’s sweet little ass, he was mistaken. “I assure you, sir, that is my name. Perhaps I could phone my mother if that’s required.” Ah, so Jones had something to prove. I could use that.
“If your mother actually named you Fred when your last name is Jones, two of the most common names ever, you should hash that shit out with a shrink. Seriously, I’ll pay for the first session. That’s messed up.” I turned to Ms. Mallory enjoying her bewildered expression almost as much as Fred’s. I needed them off balance, and I needed her to forget that, according to Fred, I had company in my suite. “Did you need something?”
Her mouth hung open stupidly.
“For the love of God, tell me you needed something. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I got to take a nap?” I added a yawn and popped a nonexistent crick out of my neck for effect. Shock people with your entry and then make them feel like they did something to offend you, like waking you up, and they’d become putty in your hands.
“U-uh…” she stuttered.
“Have anything to do with those?” I pointed to a stack of stapled packets clutched in her hands.
“Oh….” She stared down at the papers.
“We playing twenty-questions? Come on now. Sounds like?”
“Sorry,” she cringed. “Yes, uh, here’s your badge for the auction and your number. You’ll uh…” her eyes landed on my chest once again. I might’ve flexed a little. “Um…” She actually cleared her throat. I couldn’t wait to tell Hannah this story. I couldn’t wait to make her laugh. And that was when I realized how absolutely fucked I was. One week would never be enough. I’d just be feeding the addiction and worsening the withdrawal when it was all over.
I refocused when Ms. Mallory remembered what she’d come to tell me. “You’ll need to mingle with all of the guests throughout the cocktail hour. There will be dancing and then we’ll announce the winners after dinner.”
“Cocktails, dancing, dinner, winner, got it.” I took the badge and gave a quick scan to the packet of information that turned out to be a list of acceptable places to be seen with the woman who wins me. I flipped the page to reveal a lengthy list of rules for the auction and how a gentleman should behave. Ten fucking pages worth of rules.
She really was worried this was all going to blow up in her face. Probably should’ve thought of that before she decided auctioning people off was a good way to make money. “I’ll see you tonight.” I closed the door before any questions about me having a guest could be asked or even remembered.
I glared at the door. If you can hear a knock through it, it’s not soundproof.
The plush rug under my boots would mute my footfalls, but I needed to hear what was going on outside my door. Hannah stepped out of the bedroom. I shook my head at her and touched my finger to my own lips. My baby had lived the military life her entire life so she knew what was up. Silently, she took a seat on a chair out of sight from the front door.
There was a peephole. That shit was getting covered up as soon as I’d dealt with this latest situation. Theoretically, hotels all used quality fisheye lens in their peepholes so only the people in the room can see out and not the other way around, but the quality of the lens was key. Cheap lens and people outside the door could catch an eyeful of whatever was going on inside the room. Should’ve remembered that before I had Hannah grinding on my thigh.
I stepped to the side and pressed my ear to the door. I heard nothing.
We weren’t in the clear yet. There was a decent chance Ms. Mallory would remember Fred’s reasoning as to why she should’ve left me alone and knock again.
Left to their own accord, the average human with a relatively short attention span would debate something in their own minds for less than twenty seconds. I needed Fred to keep his mouth shut about me having a guest.
On her own, Ms. Mallory would decide she’d misheard Fred as she’d seen no evidence of anyone else in my suite, and I’d given her a plausible explanation as to why it took me so long to answer. In just a few seconds, she’d go annoy the piss out of some other guy. It’s always easier to trick someone than it was to convince them they’d been tricked. We humans don’t care for the idea that we’re so very, very fallible. She’d much prefer to believe she knew what other humans were doing at all times. That sense of control was her drug. We all had one. No one without some deep need to maintain authority came up with a ten page list of rules for an event.
“Did you say he had a guest in his suite?” Ms. Mallory’s question was audible. “I was certain she’d be in there.”
“I must’ve been mistaken. Perhaps it was one of the other rooms I’m attending,” Fred supplied. So the guy wasn’t all bad. Maybe I’d cut him a little slack.
“Maybe,” Ms. Mallory’s tone maintained her doubt. “It doesn’t really matter anyway, right? He’s just a volunteer. This whole thing will be great for Homefront Heroes. That’s all that really matters.” Yep, it was brewing right there just under the surface.
Fred, theoretically, had nothing to do with the auction, and yet she needed his assurances. Knowing what someone wanted more than anything else always gave you the upper hand.
14
Hannah
“Is she gone?” I mouthed. My heart continued to hammer home how stupid I’d been to have arranged all of this. Why did there always have to be so much at stake when I was with him? Why couldn’t the universe just cut us a freaking break? I could already see the clickbait blog titles now: Design sponsor of bachelor auction for charity gets caught.
Griff nodded and joined me on the couch. “Come here to me,” he ordered. I grinned at his determination to follow through on our previous mission, but I wasn’t going to be distracted again.
Reaching, I scooped up his baseball cap and rubbed my thumb along the worn rim. “I need to talk to you first.” When I refocused on him, it finally slapped me across the face that he was shirtless. “Did you seriously take your shirt off to distract her?”
And there was my cocky smirk. My God, I loved this man. He waggled his eyebrows. “Shock and awe, baby doll.” He pointed to each of his pecs in turn.
It took a rather extreme amount of effort for me to trap my giggle behind my lips. My cheeks reddened from the task. I shook my head at him. “I like to think of both shock and awe as belonging to me, Sergeant.”
He scooted closer. His right hand rubbed my knee, and his fingertips disappeared under the skirt portion of my dress. It took even more effort than it had taken me not to laugh to deny his questing hand. Our magnetism wasn’t going to be denied and the delight in his eyes had returned. I hadn’t seen it in so long. Every time he’d come to Denver, there’d been insistency, and desperation, and love there, but never delight. “You’re not jealous are you?” He weighed his words, part kidding, part worried he’d actually upset me.
My eye roll was involuntary. “You do have a very high opinion of yourself.”
His chuckle was half-haunted. It pricked at my heart. “I definitely don’t.”
Leaning closer, catching that underlying scent that made me lose my mind and my inhibitions, I brushed a kiss on his cheek. “I am not jealous, but I am taking this opportunity to say that for the next ten disagreements we have I reserve the right to flash my tits at you and therefore win.”
This time his chuckle was genuine. He narrowed his eyes. “Do I get to touch them, or do I just get flashed but can’t touch? Torture is against the law. The DOD said so.”
The giggle I’d been keeping at bay sprang free. I batted his right hand from my leg and he latched it onto my rib cage instead. When he wiggled his fingers, I jerked away. “Do not tickle me!”
“Why? It’s fun.”
“Griffin Duke Haywood.”
“Damn, full name. You trying to scare me, Hannah B? Now, tell me, do I get to touch or not?”
My lips pursed, and I kept my arms pinned to my sides in an effort to keep his fingers away. “Fine you can touch as long as I win the argument.”
“Half the time, I also get to use my mouth,” he continued his negotiations. His earlier thrill was still alight in those hazel eyes. The sun from the patio doors highlighted the faded scar above his right eyebrow. Yep. I was done for. “Fine but I get to choose the times you get to do that.”
He took one moment to consider. “I agree to this arrangement.” He offered me his hand. I knew what was coming. When I shook on our deal, he took hold of my hand and yanked me into his lap. Gravity and Griff, the two fundamental forces of nature I could never fight and would never want to.
“We have to talk. I need to apologize,” I insisted.
“What in God’s name do you have to apologize for?” He cradled me against him. Warm muscle enveloped me completely. The satin covered steel of his skin pressed against mine and made me long to strip bare, so there was no longer anything between us.
Weak against his strength and my own complete lack of resolve, I nuzzled my head on his substantial shoulder. I went as far as to brush my lips on his neck. The touchpoint sent another round of sparks directly to my pussy. But I would not be weak this time. I had to apologize. Only, my hands had gone rogue and were clearly no longer taking orders from my brain. I ran my palms over the firm planes of both shock and awe.
“Mmm, honey, you keep doing that and the Department of Defense can come try to drag me away because I’ll be torturing you in every delectable way I can think of.”
“I’m sorry I tricked you into coming here.” I lifted my head to stare him down.
“What?” That was the second time that day he’d looked utterly confused. Another round of guilt walloped through my stomach.
“I shouldn’t have gotten T to help me do this to you. I should’ve come up with some other way to see you. You should’ve had the option to not have to be auctioned off. I mean…” I climbed out of his lap and began to pace. “I’m pretty sure after that kiss and all of the other”—I gestured to the approximate location on the wall where he’d had me on the knife’s edge of a climax I would never forget—“that you do still have feelings for me, but I shouldn’t have just assumed that.” I shrugged and increased my pace in the tiny vestibule where I’d had large antique dressers installed that served as storage space. “I got T into this. It wasn’t fair to either of you. I jeopardized one of the most important relationships in your life. I’ll apologize to him, too.”
In one adept move, he stepped in front of me halting my progress. “Look at me.” Anger riffed in his tone. I lifted my eyes from his chest to his face. The intention in his gaze kept my feet locked to the cool tile flooring. “The sixteenth of March. You were standing behind your mom in the entryway of the biggest house on post. It had that dark Parquet flooring that popped when you walked on it. You had on this…” he gestured to his own shoulders, “…white tank top thing that had the word love spelled out in flowers. And a pair of cutoffs that were so short I almost came in my uniform as soon as I laid eyes on you. You looked so annoyed your brother’s whole stupid team had been invited to dinner and you had to be there.
“I have no fucking clue what else went on that night. I kept trying not to stare at you but, my God, it was like telling me not to breathe. Not ten seconds before we all got there we’d been harassing Chris about Maddie. I’d sworn I was never going to fall in love, and then you looked up at me, and smiled, and blew all of that straight to hell.” He grinned and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. Every vocal cord in my body strangled on the memories. He recalled every detail. “You were drinking something from Starbucks.”
“A mocha coconut frappucino. They’d finally put a Starbucks near the PX. I was so excited,” I filled in a few details of my own.
His half grin spread liquid warmth through me. Every moment of that night was etched in my memory as well, along with every moment I’d been in his presence in the last seven years. They sat on my chest like a lead weight.
“Yeah, I know. I used to have you one waiting for you in my Jeep, when you snuck out of the general’s house, but that night all I wanted was to taste it off of your lips.”
I grinned up at him. “As soon as I saw you, I wasn’t annoyed that I’d had to stay to meet the team anymore. I was trying so hard to be cool. I tripped when you offered me your hand, and I spilled my coffee all over that shirt.”
He grinned. “You’ve never been too good at getting all of your food to your mouth, baby doll. Then you cursed, and your daddy almost birthed live cats over your language, and I fell hopelessly in love with you. And absolutely nothing about that has changed.”
“Daddy has never understood my affinity for pretty things and the word fuck. But you looked miserable down in the lobby.” I would never be able to wash away that remembrance no matter how many good ones he replaced it with. I’d hurt him deeply.
He quirked a pained half-grin I couldn’t decipher. Even his eyes didn’t give away what he was thinking this time. “When I was in the field…” grumbled from him. The sound reminded me of the noise the tanks at Fort Carson made as they smashed their way over the gravel out by the airfield. “The things you didn’t know could be what got one of your team members killed. I knew something was coming. Made me a little nervou
s that I didn’t know what it was. If I’d had any clue that you were the beautiful incoming bombshell, I wouldn’t have looked so miserable. I would’ve been so fucking thrilled to see you I would’ve been able to give you your moment.” Regret ate at the last word as it slipped out of his mouth.
“My moment?” I didn’t understand.
Before he explained, I was lifted back up into his arms. He settled us on the couch and tucked me against him once again. “Can’t stand that you thought even for a second that I wasn’t still in love with you. I’m going to hold you until I know you’ve gotten over your epic bout of insanity.”
“It must not have been too bad of a bout. I wasn’t going to just let you walk away. I did get you out here.” I was still a little proud of myself for that.
“You did do that and now you’re apologizing for it. Still don’t know what that’s all about.”
“It’s not just tricking you into coming here. I had a whole agenda of things I wanted to do with you while we’re here. My head ran away with my heart again and all of that.”
“You are aware that one of the things I love about you is that you never take no for an answer. Your stubbornness and wild schemes turn me on.”
Bliss popped and fizzed under my skin. My grin spread the width of my face. “That works really well for me.”
“I’m glad, but let’s hear about this agenda of yours. You make me a list of everything you want us to do this week, and I’ll make every last thing on it happen.”
Of course he would. He was Griff and if I asked him to bring me home an entire constellation of stars he’d fly up there, leap out into space, and capture every single one for me. “I know you would.” Guilt clawed away that bliss that had existed in my chest a moment before. “But I have no right to use you that way. I never even asked if you wanted to come here. I took total advantage of your love and willingness to spoil me rotten.”
