Back at the menu bar, he switched pages. He arrowed down two rows before stopping on a royal blue lace teddy that in no way covered the model’s butt. Six spaghetti straps crossed in the middle of her back, progressing in a flirt of lace just across the top curve of her butt and ending in a G-string. It was undeniably sexy. But it felt even more revealing than wearing nothing at all. Chloe didn’t think she could do it. Strip in the dark, sure. Show that off in the light to Griffin? Uh, no. No way.
“What if we work up to that one? You know, start with the pseudo-slip, see what sort of a reaction it gets”—Chloe rocked against the hard length pressed into her thigh, hoping to distract him—“and maybe graduate to this one after you’ve, um, satisfied me enough to be worth it?”
“No.” He went back to the neck nibble. Even pulled her shirt to the side to nip across her collarbone. It felt glorious. It felt more decadent than the wine in broad daylight.
“Again, just a flat-out no? No wiggle room?”
Griff raised his head to squint at her. “You’re wiggling enough for both of us.”
Weird that she had to state the obvious. “I’m flirting with you.”
“You’re fidgeting,” he corrected. “If you were flirting, you wouldn’t be lobbying against the teddy. What’s going on?”
Rats. The nervousness about actually doing the deed with Griff must’ve thrown off her moves. Unfortunate. But she’d given herself a natural segue to the topic that she knew, in her heart, had to be mentioned before they hit the bedroom.
She ran a hand down the front of his plain gray T-shirt. “Like I said, I’ve never done this before.”
“And like I said, me neither.”
“No, I mean I’ve never done all this”—Chloe waved her arm to encompass the laptop and his body beneath hers—“before.”
First, he barked out a laugh. But she didn’t move, didn’t say anything else. So then Griff shifted her to get a better look at her face. Whatever he saw there—nerves, determination, embarrassment—got her point across.
“You’re a virgin?”
There it was. The label that had defined her for so long. Chloe detested the word. At this point, her virginity was like an unwanted party guest who stuck around after everyone else left. Impossible to get rid of. “For now. Hopefully not for much longer?”
He shifted his hands to the outside of his hips. Like her virginity was contagious, for crying out loud. “How old are you? Exactly?”
Was he checking to see if she was legal? Because, sure, Chloe splurged on face cream like every other woman, but there was no way she looked that young. “Twenty-seven.”
“Is this some religious thing? Is there a minister hiding in the closet with a shotgun, ready to marry us once we get past second base?”
“No. I don’t expect an engagement ring with sex. Just an orgasm.”
Annoyance—well, maybe anger—tightened the skin around his eyes. Firmed his lips into a thin line. “Don’t joke around, Chloe. This is a lot to put on a guy.”
“Really? But you’ve done it before, right?”
“Of course.”
Great. As long as one of them knew the ins and outs, there’d be no reason for concern. “Well, isn’t it like riding a bike? Once you’ve done it, everything comes automatically?”
An unmistakable tic in his jaw. “I know how to take care of a woman in bed, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then this shouldn’t be a big deal. It seemed polite to give you the heads-up. No different than warning you that I’m allergic to oysters. Basic information to be shared when dating.”
“It’s different. This makes everything different.” He slammed the laptop shut. Pushed her off and strode to the window overlooking the always gridlocked New York Avenue, eleven floors below.
Grabbing onto the frayed ends of her patience, Chloe crossed the small living room to stand two steps behind him. She certainly wasn’t going to scream the details of her virginity loud enough for her neighbors to enjoy. “I told you that I didn’t have the standard college experience. My boyfriend and I were on the cusp of having sex when the shooting happened. Rand was one of the thirty-seven who didn’t make it. I had to heal from my surgery, and physical therapy. Not to mention losing him. Then things were…difficult…for a few years.”
He turned to confront her. “You should’ve told me sooner.”
Griff sounded angry. Like she’d set out to trick him. And that pushed Chloe’s temper into a full boil, too. “When, Griffin? When is the right time to share this? Seems to me like any moment right up until you put the condom on would be good enough.”
“No way.” Yanking at his hair, an almost frantic look in his eye, Griff said, “I don’t know when, but sooner than this.”
“Why? You don’t have to treat me like I’m some delicate oddity. I’m not a petrified teenager. I’m fully apprised of all the details, and have done most of them. I want to have sex. I want to have sex with you, Griffin. And it seemed unmistakably clear that you want to have sex with me.” A horrible suspicion crowded into her brain. “You do want to have sex with me, don’t you?”
The loudest silence she’d ever heard filled the room.
Wow. Wow. “You’re kidding, right? Five minutes ago I was sitting on your extremely obvious erection. Now you’re going to claim my virginity is the ultimate turnoff?”
Griff paced to the opposite end of the room. As far away from her, Chloe noted, as possible. Not to mention a hairsbreadth away from the door and escape. “It’s a complication.”
That particular word choice she’d grant him. “A miniscule one. Like those annoying tags on the edge of a mattress—something useless that needs to be removed before getting down to the good stuff.”
“Those mattress tags come with dire warnings to never remove. It takes a certain kind of person to undertake that.”
“And you’re not that type of person?”
“I’ve never ripped off a mattress tag before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she yelled. Immediately Chloe wanted to take the words back. Of course there was a first time. Didn’t mean that Griffin wanted to be a part of hers.
“Maybe you should go home and mull over whether you’re man enough to chart your own course and rip off the tags.” She stalked to the door and flung it open. Chloe refused to let him run out on her. Kick him out, sure. “Let me know when you make up your mind.”
Chapter 7
Griff paced the sidewalk in front of the brick headquarters to Satellite Entertainment Radio, phone to his ear. “I can’t have dinner with you, Mom.” It was the third time he’d made that statement in as many minutes. And he knew without a doubt that if he’d said yes? She’d have gotten it in one.
“But Griffin, I want to try the new Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan. They make you eat everything with your hands, off of one communal plate. That’s so uncouth.”
Given a choice, his mother would still live in an era when people wore suits on airplanes, instead of sweat suits. She used to have their housekeeper give his soccer kit a fresh steam before every game until he started hiding it in the doghouse. “It’s their culture, Mom. Not uncouth at all.”
“Regardless, you’re the only person I feel comfortable enough with to do that in public.”
She made it sound like bathing naked in the middle of the Dupont Circle fountain. “Glad you can relax around me. But I have plans with the guys.”
“What guys?”
God. Like he needed this tonight, after the ugly-ass scene with Chloe. She knew who he meant. She just wanted to make him say it, to pick a fight. And yet Griff wouldn’t lie to her. On a sigh, he said, “The ACSs.”
Another sigh echoed his. “You’re choosing them over me. Again.”
“I’m choosing to honor a commitment I already made. You didn’t raise me to be a flake.”
An infinitesimal pause, which let Griff know his arrow hit the mark. “I also didn’t raise you to disrespec
t your own mother.”
Rock. Hard place. “I’m happy to have dinner with you, Mom. Just not tonight, and generally not with only five minutes’ notice.”
“Your soccer friends are more a family to you than your own flesh and blood.” She sniffed. The sort of sniff he was positive she intended to fill him with guilt. But Griff was well aware that the blooming cherry trees all over the city brought on her allergies. He didn’t buckle under to her guilt act for a second.
“Not more of a family. But definitely a family to me, yes.” Before she could start in on him with the five thousandth variation on the same theme, Griff plucked a date out of the air. Because he did love his mother. Even if she drove him crazy much of the time. “I can have lunch with you next Monday.”
“A week from today?”
“Yes. I’ll even come to the house so you can show off your peonies.”
“It’s a date.”
As Griff hung up, her final words haunted him. There wouldn’t be any real dates in the near future for him. Not with Chloe, at least. Why’d she have to go and ruin everything?
Josh exited the glass-fronted doors covered with the satellite radio’s logo. “You’ve got your fighting face on, G-man. Who crawled up your ass today?”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Virginity was something they’d all knocked out in high school. Even Knox, thanks to his unwanted celebrity upon returning to the States sporting the guaranteed chick-magnet ankle-to-knee bandage. All the time in college, all the years since with the blog, none of them had taken anyone’s V-card. They found it about as much of a turn-on as an STD. Something to be avoided at all cost. Because if someone held on to it this long? It came with too many layers of complication and commitment attached.
“Everyone else is inside.” Josh led him in and down a long hallway to a conference room. Knox and Riley already sat at one end of the table. Both still wore their work suits. Their daily uniforms. Damn, but it made Griff miss his flight suit. Wondered how long it’d be before he got to wear it again.
“For what? Why are we here, anyway?” The message Riley sent him had been scant on details. Something about their blog expanding. Griff didn’t have a clue.
“You’re here because I’m a huge fan, Lieutenant.” A short man with a seventies forehead sweep to the front of his hair pumped Griff’s hand. “I’m Bob Osner, the head of programming here at Satellite Entertainment Radio. I binged on your Naked Men blog last week. Went back and read seven years straight of posts.”
“Good thing you didn’t go back eight years. That was when Logan went through a haiku phase. God-awful stuff.” Knox kicked back in his chair to high-five Griff as he took a seat next to him.
“Gentlemen, your blog is amazing. It’s raw. It’s real. It’s uncensored. The title Naked Men truly describes how you open yourselves up and put your lives and your hearts out there for the world to read.”
The praise, as always, made Griffin uncomfortable. Even if this guy was just blowing smoke up their collective asses. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
“I want to make it better.”
This’d be a short meeting. They’d been approached more than once by people wanting to snazz up the site. Or worse yet, pick apart what they actually wrote to make it more concise or flowery or some damn shit that wasn’t how they sounded at all. Annoyed—partly because he’d been annoyed since leaving Chloe’s apartment—Griff snapped out, “We don’t need an editor.”
Riley snorted. Figured. He was the stickler in the group for irritating things like running a spell check before posting. And once a year, for exactly one half hour, he ran them through a grammar boot camp. “Oh, I’m certain we need one.” He swiveled the chair to level a hard stare at Bob. “And equally certain that we don’t want one.”
“Guys, I don’t want to edit you. By better, I meant bigger.”
Griffin swallowed hard to keep the half-dozen size-matters jokes that sprang to mind from actually coming out of his mouth. He caught Josh’s eye across the table, and saw the other man had his hand braced over his lips, like he had the same problem.
Letting out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a snicker, Knox said, “Bob-O, you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“You guys are huge on the web. But that’s only one audience. I want to open you up to even more. Ours, specifically. We want you to do a podcast.”
“About what?”
“Exactly what you do now. It’d be once a week, the same type of thing you put on your blog. Expanded. The four of you dishing it out in front of microphones instead of limiting it to a single page. A give and take. Buddies talking amongst themselves.”
“Five of us.” Knox’s relaxed pose was replaced by a ramrod straight spine and the hard mask of his business face. “Logan Marsh isn’t here tonight. But when he’s in the country, he’ll be a part of this group. That’s the first sticking point.”
First? This was a classic example of Knox and his giant brain being five steps ahead of the rest of them. Griffin was still trying to swallow the thought of being on the radio at all. Who’d want to listen to them? How could they turn a couple thousand-word posts into a thirty-minute—God, he hoped Bob wanted only thirty—broadcast? How the hell had Knox jumped past accepting all that to already figuring out contract terms?
Bob waved away Knox’s point. “We can hash out the terms at the next meeting. Tonight’s all about getting acquainted. Getting you excited so you say yes.”
“Sounds like the agenda for all of my dates.” Knox came at Griff with a raised palm for another high five.
“Aha! That’s the humor I love from you guys.” Grinning, Bob slapped the table. “This should be fun. We’ll bounce ideas around for a bit. Because we’d want to kick off with a doozy of a show. Something big. Something you can all really sink your teeth into. Controversial enough to have the listeners calling and texting and jumping all over what you say.”
“Not a problem.” For once, Griff was ahead of Knox. Ahead of them all. Right now, there was one burning topic choking everything else out of his throat. And it’d be impossible to talk business until he put it on the table. “We’ll talk about virginity.”
“Huh.” Bob pushed back from the table, wincing as though he’d eaten some bad fish. “Maybe I wasn’t clear. This show is for adults, not teens.”
Josh was less subtle. “Weird topic, G-man. We haven’t talked about virginity since we got rid of it right along with our braces.”
He didn’t care if they thought it was weird. When one of them wanted to hash something out, they used the blog. “Yeah, well, we’re going to now. Because there are women out there who are still virgins.”
“Not ones we want to bang.”
Riley held out a hand to stop the back and forth before it picked up momentum. “You mean religious holdouts? Gotta let them respect their faith, dude.”
If only it was as simple as religion. Then he’d be off-limits for not being her religion, and they could each walk away with no guilt. None of the itching remorse currently trying to gain a foothold on his conscience for the way he’d iced her out.
“No, I mean dateable women. Beautiful women. Smart, sexy, funny women our age who, for one reason or another, are still virgins. Women who want to lay all that responsibility at our door.”
Riley still looked confused. Hell, they all did. “You mean marriage?”
“Nope. I mean they want the V-card punched. Gone.”
That got a vigorous head bob from Riley. “Like I said, you mean marriage. Any woman waits this long, they expect that first condom threaded through an engagement ring.”
“Right?” Relief flooded through Griff. He wasn’t overreacting. The ACSs agreed. “A few fun dates should get you into bed, not into a honeymoon suite.”
Josh practically body slammed the table as he threw himself over it toward Griff. “Holy shit. Is this your cappuccino girl? She’s a virgin?”
“Pure as snow, evident
ly.”
“And she wants you to…make tracks in that snow? Get it all messy?”
“Yeah.” God, he wanted to make Chloe all messy. Griff wanted to be the reason behind her kiss-swollen lips and wild hair. He could picture her lying across his bed. Naked. Widespread. Pale skin flushed with orgasm. For fuck’s sake!
The other guys paused to hoot and laugh and slap the table with their hands in an exaggerated show of amusement. Or maybe not exaggerated. If Griff had been on the other side of his story, he’d be laughing his ass off, too.
Once they simmered down to chuckles, Josh said solemnly, “Bad luck, G-man. Virgins are extra work. Takes all the fun out of it.”
“Yeah. It isn’t just sex—it’s a ‘major life event,’ ” Knox continued, making quotation marks around the words with his fingers. “I don’t want my name scribbled in someone’s diary with exclamation marks and hearts around it.”
Bob had followed them avidly the whole time, head twisting back and forth as the conversation sprang around the table. “You’re saying you like this girl?”
“Yes.”
“You want to have sex with her?”
“Affirmative.”
“But now you won’t because you’d be her first?”
It sounded brutal, laid out like that. Harsh. His mom would call it ungentlemanly. And when was the last time Griff had thought about his mom and sexual mores in the same sentence? Yet another reason this whole situation sucked. He shifted his feet, deck shoes squeaking against the gray floor tiles.
“Yeah. Or…I don’t know.” Griff shot out of his chair. Paced the length of the table. What did he want to say? How to explain how wrong Chloe had been in her telling and handling and even still having a virginity to get him all twisted up? “It isn’t fair for her to dump that on me. To dump that responsibility on me. It’s too much pressure.” Especially for a guy whose parents proved he wasn’t genetically coded for commitment.
Bob put a finger to his lips and tapped a few times, obviously thinking. “It’s not fair? That’s your thesis statement you want all of America to weigh in on?”
Risking It All Page 9
