He wanted the same things. But he held back.
“Touch me,” she whispered, begged. “Kiss me.”
He transferred her captive wrists to one hand, and then achingly tugged the beanie lower until it covered her eyes and darkness swallowed her whole. For a moment, panic jarred her senses and took her back to Donnie. Her heart galloped, her body tensed.
He’d covered her eyes but left her mouth free to breathe… and maybe free for something else.
“Tell me to stop if you don’t want this,” he murmured hotly near her ear. His voice was deep, husky, and unmasked. He’d removed the voice modifier, trusting her.
She licked her lips in anticipation at what this might entail, and did she? Did she want this? Yes. Hell yes. Small blurred flashes of light came through the knitted gaps in her beanie. He was her fantasy man, no strings attached. Her vision board come to life. No ordering her around, or trying to control her. He wasn’t lying, he was upfront about his identity needing to remain secret. Underneath that leather was a strong, lethal man who put her before anyone else this night. Now he was asking for permission.
“I want this,” she confessed.
She waited.
Nothing happened.
Then hot lips landed on her neck, kissing and licking with ferocity. Oh, God. Her legs weakened as desire zipped through her body, but he held her up. Strong. Steady. With the light out, her senses amplified. He smelled like sex—musky and male. She focused on the touch of his soft, wet mouth. On her throat, her ear, her jaw. He was voracious in his appetite for her and it aroused her.
She was taken. Smitten.
Drowning in another world of heat, hard limbs, wet lips…
A moan escaped her and she writhed, sensitized nipples hardening against his body. She wanted to reach for him—to touch him beneath his leather—to feel that power rippling beneath her fingertips, to relish in his silky skin… but he wouldn’t let go.
A flicker of doubt flashed again, but she pushed it away.
He wasn’t Donnie. He was a hero.
She wanted this, right?
Those lips hit her own and his salty tongue pushed in, drugging her with his taste. All reason fled as they kissed as though the world was on fire.
Chapter Twenty
From the moment Griffin tasted Lilo’s sweet mouth, he was utterly gone, intoxicated. She was safe in his arms. Better than safe. Alive, responsive, moaning and kissing him back. God, she tasted nothing like bubblegum today. She tasted like some exquisite delight made just for him.
Everything tingled. It was almost too much. Almost painful.
What had he been thinking to deny this?
“You taste like you were made for me,” he murmured into her mouth.
She sighed and tugged on her wrists, but he couldn’t let her free.
It was more than his sensitivities. With her, he knew he could work through that, but he couldn’t let his secret out. Evan and Grace made it work through honesty, but Grace wasn’t a reporter. Griffin didn't know Lilo well enough to trust she wouldn’t share that information with the world. The collage-board at her desk had question marks over some of their photos. Question marks, and hearts, and kisses.
Somewhere, deep inside, he also knew that she had no idea it was him, yet she was giving herself to a stranger… he felt betrayed, and it made no sense.
But he wanted her.
She whined in frustration. “Let me touch you.”
He kissed her again, and trailed a finger along her cheek, over her jaw, and the line of a vein in her neck. When she shivered, he knew he’d found an erogenous zone, so dipped to explore with his tongue, licking and tasting, still not believing what a fool he’d been to keep her at arm’s length.
When he was done with that zone, he hunted for another, relishing in her mewling sounds of desire. She tasted like woman. Pure and raw and it hit him in the groin every time he licked, making him hard with hunger. His tongue went lower, under her collar, edging toward the soft pillows of her breasts.
He needed more access.
As if reading his mind, she arched toward him and for a moment, his mind emptied. The knit top clung to her shape like an erotic embrace. It would bend if he wanted, or it would shift to make way for his fingers, and then it would hold the two of them together—hand on breast, fingers to pink nipple. His erection pulsed painfully, wanting more, so he thrust, and the sensation rode over him like a wave.
She moaned and he may have too, but his mind was befuddled. He had to process. He stood back and let go.
“Why have you stopped?” she asked, panting, impatient.
“Because I’m looking at you.”
“Do you like what you see?”
He saw a woman sculptured from perfection.
A low, heated rumble was all he could manage, and then: “How could I not? You have the shape of a goddess.”
He must have said the right thing because she lunged forward.
“No,” his raspy voice whispered as he held her once again firm against the wall. “No touching.”
A frustrated moan whined from her.
“Let me do this for you.” He kissed her. “Let me make you feel good.”
He stretched her top at the neck to reveal a dark, lacy bra. He pulled that aside, releasing her from the lacy confines.
“But I want to,” she started. “Oh, sweet lord. What are you…”
He released a single breast, pale and bouncing and then took its weight into his mouth. He swirled her bud around and suckled.
She gasped, hooked a leg around his waist and pushed her hips forward, grinding into him. The resulting clash of their most intimate parts had him weak with euphoria. He groaned around her flesh. She yanked on his hold again, whimpering, begging.
“Please… let me touch you.”
No.
He kept suckling, tasting, experiencing.
But then her body stiffened beneath him, no longer compliant. Her leg dropped, and she made a pained sound.
“Stop,” she said, voice tight, struggling. “I’m sorry. Please stop.”
But he could do this for her. She’d saved his life. He’d saved hers. Now he could get ahead of the balance protocol and…
She whimpered and made a sobbing sound.
It broke something inside him.
He jerked back, horrified at himself. She was truly distressed, and he was ignoring her. What was he thinking?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and lifted her top to cover her nakedness.
She wrapped herself with her denim jacket. “No, it’s my fault. I’m sorry… I can’t.” She trembled, honestly afraid. How did they get here? “It’s the bondage.”
You know her, but she doesn’t know you.
“My last relationship”—she swallowed—“he tied me up, and… I mean. I thought I wanted it, and I wanted to please him, but it wasn’t quite… God, you don’t need to know this.”
His horror took on a new edge.
Doppenger had forced himself on her? And she thought it was because she wanted it. And Griffin almost did the same thing.
Fuck. Shit. He hit himself in the head. What was wrong with him?
There were signs. She’d asked, plenty of times. Let me touch you.
Grace had told him. She had been in an abusive relationship.
But he’d ignored it because he wanted to get ahead of his biology. He wanted to be in control, but he wasn’t, was he?
All this time he thought he managed his habits with an iron fist. He thought he was better than his siblings. He thought losing control was like how he was back when he’d killed those men in his past, but the truth was, he’d been out of control for a long time.
And she still stood there with her beanie over her eyes, waiting for permission.
Fuck!
He was no good for her.
Before he could change his mind, he slammed out of the room and into the alley, running as fast as his guilt laden legs could carry him, making
as much distance as he could.
It wasn’t until he’d turned on his bike that he realized he’d left her there, still waiting for permission. He couldn’t breathe. He messed up, and he knew no way of fixing it.
Flashes before his eyes.
Another time he’d so helplessly lost control. Was this… was this like that?
When he woke from darkness to find blood on his hands. When he woke to find he’d murdered so many people? Was he somehow…
The sound of irrational water dripping reminded him of blood. The sirens wailing in the distance reminded him of people screaming. A chopper in the sky…
He couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t breathe.
All he could think to do was return her cattle prod and leave it at the door so when she exited, she’d see it. If he offered to take her home, he’d only make it worse. He’d put himself in the same basket as Doppenger. So he left.
Not long after, Griffin stormed into his apartment, crashing through the door and shedding his leathers, gasping for air. During the ride home, he’d suffocated on his own behavior. He’d left her on her own because he was a coward. Left her in that neighborhood, cold and alone, and what was worse, his erection wouldn’t leave. His body didn’t pick up the message his brain sent…
Because he was a monster.
With the room spiraling around him, and on the way to his bathroom, he tripped over junk on the floor and landed hard on his knees. He rolled and kicked his boots off, frantically pulling his pants to free his legs. They smothered him. When he scrambled to his feet, left only in his thermals, he ran to the shower. Not waiting for it to heat up, he entered the stream, still clothed and soaked, all the while listening to the nasty voice inside his head calling him a coward.
Monster. Freak. Loser.
Those were the kinds of words hurled at him during his training from his drill sergeant, his company, and other recruits. It had taken everything he had to get past that year from hell. The following years in other countries, with other strangers, weren’t much better. He was a little different, he knew it. He never tried to hide it, but at the same time, he was never openly okay with it. Every time he felt himself reaching this level of panic, the only place of privacy he could get anywhere while training was in a shower, and even then, sometimes it was a communal block.
The water weighed his thermals, and he stripped them off, heedless of the painful situation between his legs. When the fabric rubbed over his erection, it felt good. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut, but that was a bad idea. All he could see was Lilo’s long delicate neck as she arched into him, her breast in his palm and her pert wet nipple begging for him to suckle it again. He took himself in hand and pumped roughly, trying to satisfy his need so it would go away. But all he could see was her willing body writhing under his touch turned sour. He squeezed painfully. The pictures wouldn’t go away. There had been a single wet streak running down her cheek.
Or had he imagined it.
He roared in anguish and punched the tiles, again and again despite the splintering pain in his fist, and the red blood splattering the wall. Power exploded from him and reached for every metal object in the room and beyond. Copper pipes shuddered and groaned in the walls. The faucet trembled. He hit the wall on repeat until pain reached its limit and became his friend. Until it didn’t scare him, but embraced him. Until it choked everything out—the power he couldn’t keep locked away, the painful desire that wouldn’t release, and the idea that control was a fairytale.
He’d been so afraid of losing it with his fists, that he never stopped to think the imbalance affected something worse—his heart. And at the end of the day, it wasn’t even the sin at all. It was all him. He knew that, because as he looked at his wrist, the Yin-Yang tattoo stared back at him, in perfect harmony. It had no right to be. Not after leaving her vulnerable like that.
But his biology wasn’t fussy. It was just like a toxin—you get exposed, you get poisoned. This was the same thing except in reverse. Exposure to Lilo kept him balanced for a period of time after his contact with her. She was his drug. His medicine. And he’d treated her like dirt.
Eventually the wet warmth running down his back suffused into his muscles and worked his tension. He stopped hitting and braced himself, forehead to the tiles, palms to the wall.
He counted. One, two, three… and kept going, focusing on the rhythm in his head, the logic, and the reason. It would be okay. He was alive, and she was alive, hurt, but alive. Hopefully. It was okay.
It had to be okay.
He would fix it.
He’d call someone to check on her.
Twenty-six, twenty-seven… and on and on, until finally exhausted, he turned the faucet off and, dripping, stumbled to his bedroom, wrapped himself tightly in a sheet and fell onto his bed.
His room was a simple room, and unlike the main living area, it was clutter free—the way it began all those years ago when he’d first arrived home from training. A haven with nothing but a bed, a few books, and a rarely used flat screen television on the far wall. He turned it on and searched for something that would make things right, something that would take his mind and debilitating anxiety away.
That’s what normal people did, and he desperately wanted to feel normal.
He found the next best thing on demand, the movie Lilo loved… Casablanca.
He cast his mind back to why she said she liked it. What was it again? Something about connections in times of war, and… he conjured the memory of her face, the bubblegum scent in his car… If we can keep lasting connections when the world is falling apart.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Lilo arrived at number three Partridge Way not long after ten that night, she didn’t know what to expect, but didn’t care. She needed a friend. Grace was working the night shift at the hospital, and Misha Minksi was the only one she knew who might be home.
Lilo had cried the entire subway ride, cursing the integrity of men one minute, cursing her own stupidity the next. No wonder no one dared to approach her, she’d sounded like a madwoman.
All because of him.
She stayed in that darkened stairwell with the wool literally over her eyes until her toes went numb before realizing Greed had left. At one point, the door had opened; she remembered hearing that. But never did it occur to her that he’d abandoned her, just like her ex used to. Donnie never beat her, neither did Greed. But when she’d said no, that she’d had enough, they’d both bailed. Like she wasn’t worth anything if she didn’t put out.
Donnie used to get infuriated and snarky, then he’d come back, all sweetness and sugar the next time he wanted something, he always did. It took her a long time to understand that was another form of abuse.
Before knocking on Misha’s door, Lilo opened her big satchel bag and pulled her bottle of recently bought vodka out, careful not to knock her spy phone. She’d gone back for it after she was left in the stairwell and was eager to upload the photographs the following day. The police had been at the warehouse, but she’d managed to retrieve the phone before anyone noticed. She didn’t, however, manage to get out before she was noticed and had to give her statement. In the end, it wasn’t all bad. One of the uniformed officers drove her to the subway, and she safely got herself out of the city.
And there she was. In suburbia. Lilo knocked on the door to the pleasant home. It had a white picket fence, blue walls and white trim. The garden was full of flowering roses and sunflowers that had accidentally bloomed to face the house. The sun must shine from over the other side. A little dog yapped, and the light came on inside. The door opened and a man the same age as her father came hurtling out with a baseball bat.
“Who are you? What you want?” His Polish accent was thick and disjointed.
“It’s me, Vooyek.” It was how she said uncle in Polish, and she’d known the man for years, so had been firmly asked to use it anytime she was invited to the Minksi home. It was spelled Wujek, but she still couldn’t pron
ounce it correctly, and he never minded. She held out the bottle of vodka she’d bought on the way and flinched. “I’m so sorry it’s late, but is Misha home? I know she’s not at her city apartment this week.”
He shielded his eyes from the glaring street lamps. “Lilo, that you? What you doing here so late?”
“I…” she choked up.
He glanced at the bottle in her hand, frowned, and then put his bat down. Vooyek was a short man with a round face. He’d lost his wife when his youngest son, Alek was born. A sadness to his eyes had never left.
“Come.” He took her by the shoulder. “Nieszczęścia chodzą parami. Misery loves company tonight. She is inside with the rest.”
“What happened?” Lilo wiped her nose and stepped into the warm house, instantly thawing out.
“Restaurant was attacked again.”
“Again! She wasn’t hurt?”
“Nye, but her pride. You know my daughter, she try to reason with them and they throw back in her face. Next time, will be more than my shop they break if we do not pay the crook their monies.”
Lilo had come looking for a shoulder to cry on, and a friend to help drown her sorrows, but instead, she’d found a family in need.
“Lilo?” Misha’s blond, curly head popped around from the kitchen, along with other members of her family. Her aunt Ciocia, her twenty-year-old sister Roksana, and both grandparents were awake.
“Hi Misha. I hope I’ve not woken anyone else.” She glanced around to check.
Misha snorted, coming to meet her in the living area and giving her a big hug. “It’s only Alek asleep and he’s deaf. He can’t hear a thing.”
Lilo enjoyed the embrace and tried not to cry.
Misha pulled back and eyed her suspiciously. “To what do I owe this pleasure so late in the evening?”
“Um.” She bit her lip.
“I mean, usually it’s me knocking on your door at all hours to get you to come and party.”
Greed Page 17
