by Lisa Plumley
“How can you not,” he asked, “when you’re so lonely?”
For a moment, the only sounds were those birds and the peaceful ripple of Morrow Creek wending its way downstream.
Then... “What makes you think I’m lonely?” This was different from his earlier charge of loneliness. Then, he’d been reacting to her statement that he was lonely. Now... “Of course I’m not!”
Pondering that, Griffin kept his eyes closed. His profile jutted skyward, angular and raw. His cheekbones were as sharp as marble. His forehead was regal enough to merit a crown. His lips were full and sensual. Only his nose marred the image of him as perfectly masculine. She began to think he wouldn’t speak.
Her certainty about that was woefully short-lived.
“Olivia, you’ve deliberately hidden yourself from everyone,” Griffin said in a rumbling, self-certain tone. “With me, you were so eager to discuss Bentham and Rousseau that you committed petty larceny of my philosophy book. With Mrs. Hofer, you chatted about hats for nearly an hour. With me, you claimed a lifelong fascination with science—and proved your interest by conducting a fairly shameless ‘observation’ of me in my bed. Yet with Miss Adeline Wilson, you pledged your undying devotion to dressmaking patterns and intricate crewelwork. Given those vast differences, how could you be anything except lonely?”
“You don’t understand. Am I not allowed to have diverse interests?” Even if a few are false? Olivia wasn’t happy he’d brought up her borrowing of his philosophy book and her inability to quit thinking about his provocatively unclothed form...even if she had categorized her peeking as “scientific observation” to him. And herself. “Everyone chats socially.”
“Yes,” Griffin agreed. “But not everyone feels as lonely as you do when they do so. I’ve watched you all day. I can see it in you.” He delivered her a serious look. “I feel it in you. If anyone can, it’s me. Unless your own hypothesis is wrong?”
Uncomfortably, she stared at him, feeling irksomely unable to take delight in his casual use of that scientific term—even if it did prove that they had intellectual pastimes in common.
Lonely? It was true that she often felt misunderstood, Olivia mused. It was true that she had no one to explore her deepest interests with. That she felt apart from workaday goings on in town. But everyone was kind to her. Everyone wanted her. Annie had been right about that, at least. She was not a victim of hardship, like Griffin. She was not despondent, like him.
She might be, though, if he refused to discuss Rousseau and Bentham with her. She was counting on their mutual interest. She was counting on exploring that interest in a way she could do with no one else. But that didn’t make him an expert on her.
“You’ve made sure they don’t understand you,” Griffin went on, placidly but relentlessly. “What I don’t understand is why.”
“What you don’t understand is far more comprehensive than that,” Olivia snapped. “I’m beginning to regret bringing you here.” She brushed off her skirts, defensively preparing to get to her feet. “It seems the creek side makes you babble nonsense.”
He laughed. Without so much as opening his eyes, Griffin grabbed her arm. Wordlessly, he stopped her from standing.
“I don’t think it’s nonsense,” he said in a steady tone. “Given that you’re ready to stomp off in a huff...neither do you.”
Olivia wanted to take umbrage at that statement. Honestly, she did. But something about the way Griffin lazily stroked his fingers along the sensitive skin of her inner arm made her senses riot in response instead. Her breath caught. Her skin tingled. All her attempts to command her mind—instead of her traitorous body—to take charge of this situation failed utterly.
Squirming breathlessly in place, Olivia wondered how Griffin’s touch could possibly be so rousing...and how she could possibly remain annoyed with him while experiencing it. Caught up in the sensation, she couldn’t help remembering how it had felt to kiss him. How exciting it had been. How new, how foreign, how stimulating and passionate it had felt. Kissing Griffin had been the most stirring event she’d ever experienced.
Even now, she wanted more. More of him.
“We’re the same, you and I,” he said, breaking into her wicked thoughts. “We’re both apart from everyone else. We’re both alone. The only question now is what to do about it.”
His gaze meandered to her face. She would have sworn he could read her thoughts—could know her illicit desires from the heated blush on her cheeks and the telltale hitch in her breath.
“You should change your ways,” Olivia said immediately. “Stop being quite so...oversize. And so brooding. And so fierce.”
“Ha.” He caressed her wrist. “I can’t help my size.”
Her heart pounded. “And all the rest?”
“Hmm.” His hold on her wrist tightened. He gave a gentle pull. Like magic, Olivia tumbled atop him with a breathless oof.
Griffin caught her, not at all brooding or fierce in that moment—and not at all bothered by their improper nearness, either. Olivia felt it intensely. She felt his chest, as hard as the river rocks beneath her hands. She felt his arms, as mighty as any tree trunks could have been, holding her close. She felt his thigh, covered now by her skirts, warmed by the sun and flexing with the strength to hold them both in place.
It occurred to her that he might have been doing the very thing he’d spoken about before—grabbing the goodness in his life before it could escape him forever. Was she the goodness?
Against all reason, Olivia wanted to be. For him.
“Why have you escaped the imperative to change?” he asked in a vaguely aggrieved tone. He turned his face again to the sunshine, as though it had been his plan to embrace her this way all along. “That hardly seems fair. If I have to mend my disorderly ways,” Griffin told her, “then you should also. You should confess your love of philosophy, proclaim your interest in science and shout your contrariness to the rooftops.”
“No.” She pretended certainty when she felt nothing of the kind. Not given all he’d said just now. “I think I should kiss you again instead. Yes, that must be it. It feels right.”
Anything that evaded this conversation felt tangibly right. But kissing Griffin had other, more exhilarating benefits to it.
For one thing, kissing Griffin made Olivia feel free. Even bound as she was to Morrow Creek, its conventions and her own role among her friends and neighbors, with Griffin she felt free. Free to be just as she was. Because he certainly was in no position to judge her—although he was positioned to disagree.
“That’s not it. Kissing is not the answer to this.” He gave her a fleeting and endearingly concerned frown. “I’m serious about this. I mean what I say. You cannot be happy with—”
“With you? Oh, yes. I can.” She touched his face, loving its contours and its warmth and its uniqueness. She leaned upward. She puckered up. “Here. Let me show you what I mean.”
Inexpertly but fervently, she kissed him. Even better, he kissed her back. Their coming together amazed her still. It amazed her with its passion, with its tenderness...with its necessity. Olivia didn’t know where she found the daring to behave this way when it came to Griffin. She’d certainly never been this sensually minded or this adventurous before he’d come into her life.
Now she was. Now she knew that his mouth made her forget everything. Held in his arms, she felt without thinking. She gave without reservations. She cared for him in a way that was both unequivocal and undeniable...and almost frightening in its intensity. She’d set out to comfort Griffin with this daylong outing of theirs, it was true—but she’d ended up tantalizing herself with their intimacy. Now she needed more.
He, as a gentleman, would likely not be first to offer. She didn’t believe the stories about him—the scandalous tales of The Tycoon Terror and The Business Brute. With her, he was...gentled.<
br />
With her, at least, The Boston Beast was tamed.
Maybe that was why Olivia felt free to loosen the leather tie at his nape. She pulled it free, then boldly went on kissing him while she delved her hands in his dark, tangled hair. With his mouth still pressed against hers, Griffin gave a startled sound.
He caught her hand, held it in his then broke their kiss.
“Don’t.” His heavy brows lowered. “You don’t want to—”
“I thought we’d settled this already.” She smiled at him. “You won’t get anywhere trying to tell me what to do.”
Demonstrating as much, Olivia wriggled her hand free. She caught hold of a length of his hair, then tenderly stroked it away from his face. Griffin closed his eyes...and allowed it.
Humbled by his trust in her, Olivia gave him a loving look, not caring that he couldn’t see it. He’d exposed himself to her this way before, in his suite, she recalled. Then, she’d been shocked at his insistence. At his ferocity. And yes, at his rawboned appearance, too. But she’d also been captivated by him...and struck by her own undeniable interest in touching him.
Indulging that interest now, Olivia lay on her side near him, scandalously close to being atop him, and went on stroking his hair. It felt surprisingly silken against her fingers, long and wavy and exhilaratingly different, and she knew that it was only one of the many things that appealed to her about him.
In Griffin, Olivia realized, she’d encountered a man who had dared to forge his own path in life, regardless of what anyone thought of him. Although the direction he’d taken had made him unhappy, she nonetheless admired him for his courage.
She admired him for his humor, too. How many men, she wondered, could have faced all that Griffin had faced and emerge with a sense of playfulness intact? How many men could have endured hunger and abuse and rejection, then made themselves into successful men of industry? How many men could have known outright ridicule—for he’d told her, somewhat tipsily, of his Hook Turner nickname—and then faced the world at all?
She could readily imagine him as a struggling boy. But she knew him now as a man, and she respected him for his strength.
Not that Griffin didn’t need armor, of a sort, Olivia acknowledged to herself as she went on touching him. He used his big hat and his black clothes and his mighty scowl to protect himself. He used his gruff manners to create distance. He used his overlong hair to distract people from his nose, shielding himself against the thoughtlessness of strangers. Knowing that he’d gone to such lengths to be on guard—only to disarm himself for her—Olivia felt indescribably privileged to be touching him.
With his eyes closed against the sunshine, Griffin exhaled. Close against her, his body eased. “I could stay here forever.”
“I could touch you forever.” To prove it, she trailed her fingertips over his forehead, along his temple then down to his cheek. His jaw. His shadowy beard had already begun to reassert itself, Olivia noticed. She felt doubly thrilled to experience its prickly softness. This was nothing she’d ever encountered before. A frisson of excitement made her wriggle. “I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s wrong,” she confessed. “But—”
“If this is wrong, just send me straight to perdition.”
His unrepentant expression made her laugh. It also made her care for him twice as much. Lightly, she said, “We might both be condemned there, for being so wanton.”
At that, Griffin opened his eyes. The tenderness in his gaze surprised her. Olivia had the distinct impression that no one had ever touched him with kindness before...and that he found the experience to be almost miraculous.
Poor Griffin. Had no one ever touched him with kindness before? If so, Olivia decided, he needed to be shown affection much more than usual. He needed to be caressed and hugged and kissed often. He needed to be loved, properly and well.
“This isn’t wanton,” Griffin disagreed. “It’s beyond innocent—more than you know.” His mouth quirked, as though he understood something about men and women coming together that she didn’t. Undoubtedly, he did. “But I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Olivia. Especially not because of me.” He caught her roving hand in his. He gave her a solemn look. “I’ll leave before endangering you. I swear it. I have to be on guard for both of us. I have to protect you! If I’d thought anyone would come this way, I would never have allowed...any of this.”
His gesture with his free hand indicated their nearly cradled bodies, their intimate position atop the worn slab of rock, their closeness that felt as right as it did thrilling.
“You’re not the only one who gets a say in this,” Olivia teased in low-voiced, crotchety mimicry of him. As trysts went, she decided, theirs felt...like the beginning of something wonderful. “If I recall correctly, I could have resisted.”
“You could have tried to resist when I pulled you down with me,” Griffin agreed. The rapscallion’s twinkle in his eyes acknowledged the likely failure she would have met if she’d done so—and reminded her of his far greater sophistication, too. “I’m grateful you didn’t. Still. I won’t endanger your reputation.”
“Hmm.” Undeterred, Olivia pursed her mouth in an elaborate show of considering his promise. “That is chivalrous of you. But if you have your way, I’ll endanger my reputation myself by proclaiming a love of science and behaving erratically.”
“Behaving contrarily, as comes naturally to you.” His mouth crooked anew. His hand dropped to her shoulder, holding her comfortably against his chest. “It’s not the same thing.”
“It is in Morrow Creek. Folks here don’t understand—”
“You?” His knowing look seemed to find its way inside her—to discern all the shamefully disagreeable and too-bookish parts that she’d strived to hide beneath ladylike sewing and frivolous parties. “They might understand you, if you let them.”
Ah. They were back to this, then. Olivia grinned. “Very tenacious of you. Very clever. No wonder you excel at business.”
“No wonder you excel at dissembling. You didn’t think you were actually getting away with distracting me, did you?”
“I seemed to be. Until now.”
“The thing to remember about me,” Griffin declared, “is that I never talk as much as I listen. I never give away what might be useful to hide. And I excel at solving a puzzle.”
“Me, too!” Brightening, Olivia angled her neck to peer at his mountainous profile. “I’m excellent at jigsaws, tangrams—”
“In this case,” he said dauntingly, “you are the puzzle.”
Oh. “Surely you must have guessed a great deal about me.”
“Not as much as I’d like to know.”
“But that can’t be true,” Olivia argued, secretly pleased that he wanted to know her at all. “To you, I am an open book! More than anyone else in the territory, you have seen all the various aspects of me.” She made a rueful face. “The good, the bad and the distressingly awful at housekeeping included.”
Perhaps that was why, it occurred to her, she felt so free with him. At first, she hadn’t even liked Griffin Turner. She’d had no reason to pretend to be anyone other than who she was. By the time they’d stirred up a camaraderie, it had been too late to alter the past. She was who she was...and so was he. Together.
“I have boundless curiosity about you,” he told her. “I aim to satisfy it. I know I can.” He cracked a cavalier grin, appearing more content than she’d ever seen him. “But first, I think I’d better soak up some more sunshine while it’s here.”
With a sigh of contentment, Griffin closed his eyes again. Still holding her close, he surrendered to the outdoors, to the babble of the creek, to the peacefulness of their surroundings.
Still holding her close, he surrendered to her, just as though he might never have a chance to do so again.
For a moment, Olivia felt distr
essed. Clearly, Griffin felt pushed to absorb all the sunshine he could now, before it slipped away. He needed to enjoy it now, because he felt certain it would tumble out of his reach. It was sad that Griffin still experienced such scarcity in his life. Olivia wanted to ease that needfulness in him—to assure and care for him. Maybe, if she was entirely honest, to love him. But then, liberated by his position and lulled by his easy manner, she relaxed, too.
Stealing away to cuddle beside the creek bed, she learned, had much to recommend it. Even more than she’d anticipated.
Before long, though, her curiosity got the better of her. Daringly, Olivia let her gaze slide away from Griffin’s tranquil face, moving lower to the rest of him. His shoulders were broad and strong, perfectly suited for wearing finely tailored clothes—or working hard to earn those selfsame clothes. His chest was barrel shaped and muscular, ideally equipped to cushion her tumble atop him—or safeguard his troubled heart. His midsection was lean, his arms tough and adept at holding her, his legs long and limber in repose. As for the rest of him...
Audaciously, Olivia slipped her attention to the front of Griffin’s trousers. With her breath held, she regarded the buttons and seams that hid the most masculine part of him.
Suddenly, the gusseting techniques she’d learned while taking sewing lessons from twice-widowed Mrs. Sunley made sense.
Beside her, Griffin drew a breath. He’d roused himself. “I’d give a hundred dollars to know what scholarly, scientific thoughts have put that fetching expression on your face.”
Olivia started. She felt her face heat. “Nothing at all.”
“Tell me another stretcher, Miss Mouton,” he teased. “I don’t swallow it. You seemed downright enraptured just now.”
She had been. By him. With effort, Olivia whipped her gaze back to his face. “I was just considering all the things I don’t know about...and pondering my own curiosity to discover them.”
“I see.” He didn’t. “Maybe I can help you.”
“You can’t!” He could. Frantically, Olivia wiggled her way to an upright position. With her legs curled demurely beneath her skirts, she stared down at Griffin. “I don’t need to know.”
