by Alyssa Kress
"Yes, but it's okay for you to go crazy — "
Whatever Griffith might have added was lost beneath Kate's bark of a laugh. "What? Why am I the lucky — ?"
But Griffith didn't let her finish. Drawing her hands apart from each other and bringing her close, he pressed his mouth against hers in another deep, damp kiss.
She melted, as he'd hoped. He let go of her hands and worked on the buttons of her blouse.
But once he had her shirt unbuttoned and slipped it off her shoulders, she appeared to consider his chest fair game again. He braced himself against the fingers of pleasure that streaked from her touch, and set himself the task of undoing the waistband of her jeans.
Ah, women's jeans, so much easier than men's. There was nothing but a single button and one quick zipper. As Griffith lowered that zipper, he could feel Kate arch again. This time he knew it was anticipation. "Knees," Griffith murmured, "Get on your knees."
She instantly complied, a fact he would go over at length and with pleasure much later. For now, Griffith drew her jeans down over her hips. Ah, those hips, how many times he had watched them, usually strutting away from him, but always tantalizing. And now...
And now, he had to keep a grip. He had to stay focused on her needs. He had to finish getting these pants off her. Griffith let out a long, careful breath. "Could you — ? Ah, yes."
Understanding what he wanted, she shifted so that he could pull her pants, together with her silky underthings, all the way down her legs and off.
She shivered, and Griffith pulled her into his lap. The feel of her naked skin against him, so smooth, so feminine, was nearly his undoing, but he concentrated on her reactions once again. "Yes, yes," he murmured, waiting for her shivers to calm. His hands trembled where they splayed across her naked back. "Let's...lie down," he suggested.
"Okay," Kate murmured back.
She clung to him as Griffith lowered them both to the blanket. Then they were side by side, facing each other.
How strange that as many times as he'd lain in this position with a woman it had never felt...intimate. Griffith dropped a soft kiss on Kate's lips. "Let's..." He moved his hand in big circles on her back. Her skin looked like sugared cream in the darkness. He wanted to lick every inch of it.
But Kate didn't appear to be in the mood for long preliminaries. She was wriggling against him, obviously wanting, but not wanting to ask.
Instinct told Griffith that even though she was asking, he'd better tread carefully. With his own loins burning, he slowly slid his hand from her back to curve over her hip. She rocked those hips against him.
More.
Griffith clenched his teeth. He would give her more, but slowly.
"Griffith." It was a low demand. She placed one leg over his thigh.
Griffith couldn't resist an invitation like this. His hand went between her spread legs.
With a cry, she shoved her hips against him. He took the hint, walking his fingers in the hot, wet playground between her legs. His whole body was burning now. His erection was a pillar of need. But all he really knew were the unsteady breaths issuing from Kate's lips, the rock of her body against his, and the slick evidence he was giving her pleasure.
With a shift of his weight, Griffith turned her onto her back. He uncurled her leg from his thigh and laid it so she was spread nice and wide. She looked up at him from slitted eyes.
Confirming her suspicion, Griffith used her new position to find exactly where she wanted his fingers, how deeply to stroke, when to speed up and when to slow down. Her slitted eyes closed all the way and she moaned her delight.
Griffith felt like exploding, but he concentrated on her, on where she liked him and how. Only when her movements became restless again, only when her eyes opened and fixed on him with mute appeal did he take his fingers from the pleasure places between her legs.
He jerked open the button on his own waistband, and the four buttons beneath. Kate rose onto her elbows and watched as Griffith hustled out of his jeans. When he was done, she hummed and reached out for him.
Griffith had to steel himself against his reaction to her light, curious touch. As it was, he couldn't resist pushing himself into her hand, delighting in the testing, tentative pressure.
"Yes," Kate said, and looked up at him.
Griffith almost lost it right there, her fingers light and sweet on his sex, her eyes like pools of eternal mystery. But his goal loomed urgently in front of him. He had to make her the one to feel pleasure, her the one to want it — and thus him. Yes, he so wanted — even needed — her to want him. Just him.
"Yes?" He leaned over to kiss her, a kiss to seek and to learn. Did she want the ultimate pleasure? Was it time?
She clung to him, her thighs parted to hug him. Even discounting the static caused by his own raging desire, it was rather clear she was ready.
But Griffith couldn't do it this way, with Kate supine beneath him. The leaves he'd stuffed under the blanket would do nothing to cushion his weight. So, gathering her close, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him so that she now lay on top.
"Oh!" Abruptly, his wanton lover was gone. "Oh, no. I can't."
"Yes, darling." Griffith pushed her legs apart and put his fingers between them. He found her pleasure point while kissing her lips. "You can."
"Oh." She widened her legs. "Maybe I..." She gasped in a ragged breath. "Can."
The condoms. Where the hell had he left them? Griffith's brain was a haze of desire. It was mindless memory that had him groping with his free hand toward his discarded pants. He fumbled into the front pocket and pulled out one of the plastic packages.
He would have preferred to get the thing on without interrupting his play between Kate's creamy thighs, but it was physically impossible. Fortunately, she seemed to understand there was a task to perform. She sat up and saw the little package in his hand.
With an impatient sound, she plucked the thing from him, ripped it open, and rolled the condom onto his erect member.
"Please," Griffith muttered with a shudder.
"Yes, please," Kate groaned.
He took her shoulders, drew her down. His mouth opened over hers and his tongue plunged inside, the way he wanted all of him to plunge in.
She took his tongue, rolled her own around it. Her slick sex slid over his.
Oh, God. They had to — now.
Griffith lifted her hips, positioned himself, and though his body screamed for instant relief, lowered her slowly.
He was immediately glad for his care. Despite their play and her apparent readiness, she was tight inside. Griffith could hear her breath hiss out from between her teeth, but her hips rocked, letting her body take more of him, a quarter of an inch at a time. He gritted his teeth and let her work the problem at her own pace.
It was worth the effort. With each fraction of himself that went inside of her, a notch went up in her pleasure. Griffith could feel it; he could feel her body softening and then tightening around his. He could feel the change in the rhythm of her breathing, the urgency of her movements.
When she'd taken him fully, Griffith allowed himself a moment to savor that, to feel the fireworks of sensation crackling all over him. Then he began to move.
Every impulse screamed for him to grab her hips and pump himself into her, seeking his own peak. It's what he would have done two weeks ago, with whatever woman he'd found in his bed. He did not do anything of the sort now. Instead he played the dancer, alternately taking the lead and following, his own sensations inextricably twined with his partner's.
It was amazing. It was incredible. It was like no sexual experience Griffith had ever had. The pleasure wrapped his body in tight coils, from his toes up to the hair on his forehead. The most amazing part was his perception that his sensations were a male mirror of Kate's. He felt pleasure because she did. He climbed to paradise because she did.
When her body tightened, urgent, frantic, his hands gripped her close, his hips jerked powerfully. She
arched. Her face was the most beautiful image Griffith had ever seen, a picture of fulfillment. His heart seemed to grow to the size of a mountain. Need and pleasure shot together into a flaring beam of light. He held Kate tight, unwilling to go without her. And then they were both flying. Together.
"Oh, Lord," Griffith whispered. He clutched Kate close, his body convulsively shivering. What were the words?
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.
Feeling he understood them now, he pressed a kiss against the side of her temple, then touched his forehead to hers.
A mysterious feeling flowed through him as the aftereffects of his physical release shuddered down and Kate's body became a satisfied blanket above him.
It wasn't until Kate stirred some time later, stroking his cheek, a peculiarly tender gesture, that Griffith recognized the emotion still sifting through him.
It was happiness.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"You okay?" Griffith's voice was careful; somewhat at odds, Kate thought, with the playfulness of his fingers in the loose tendrils of her hair.
Draped over him, she burrowed her nose in the space between his arm and his chest. She hoped the squeeze she gave him around the middle was answer enough. She was okay.
Bowled over, flung out of her skin, tossed into chaos, but okay.
"I'm fine," she managed to mutter.
He relaxed beneath her. Kate could feel that. She felt...way too much of what he did, an empathy she hadn't expected.
Nothing had been as she'd expected, not since she'd seen him standing by the tomato field, waiting for her. She'd expected to feel resistance, distance, even annoyance. She should have felt all those things. He'd had his arms crossed over his chest, his feet spread. Not supplicant or deferential — but impatient.
Instead of reacting with perfectly righteous annoyance, Kate had felt excited, flattered...even tender.
Tender? The mere thought made her tense. No. This was Griffith she was talking about. She couldn't have felt tender toward him.
She certainly hadn't acted tender. She'd done her best to make him change his mind about the whole thing.
But he'd persisted. Responding with sugar to her acid. Drawing her back in.
Oh, how he'd drawn her in. Though Kate couldn't entirely blame Griffith. She'd been ripe for the picking, her body humming with want, too long denied. With him tugging, she'd fallen from one level of sensuality to the next, sinking deeper and deeper into stark hunger and forbidden want.
Finally, she'd dropped into another universe, a place of overwhelming sensations, unbelievable pleasure — and taboo emotions.
"Kate." He rubbed the back of her neck.
"Mm." That felt good, his hand rubbing, the concerned tone of his voice. Awfully good... Just before she felt herself sink into this indulgence, too, she popped her eyes wide. "Griffith."
"Yes, Kate?"
She struggled to come back to herself, to her real self, the independent woman who stood alone and didn't need this sort of nonsense: tenderness, concern. Emotion. Healthy, shmealthy. She took in a deep breath, pasted on a smug smile, and rose enough to look down at him.
But his face — It looked...different. Softer-edged, more...important. Kate steeled herself against the strange, and rather frightening, effect. Keeping her smug smile, she said, "Hey. I guess we know now why we've been so strangely attracted to each other."
Slowly, his concern transformed into a smug smile of his own. "Saying we're sexually compatible hardly covers the subject, does it?"
Kate shook her head. Inside, she was a mass of conflicting reactions. She was glad he agreed to be flippant. She was also insulted. And he still looked...too different.
She lowered her gaze to his chest. With one finger, she pressed down the silky thicket over his breastbone. "But we really ought to get back to camp." Yes, yes. Escape. She needed to shove this into a storage box. A locked one. Dynamite proof.
"Really? It's time to head back?" Griffith's fingers curved dangerously over her bottom. Beneath his lowered lashes, his eyes gleamed.
Kate felt her viscera jump. "You must be kidding." She meant it to come out scolding. Instead, she sounded breathless.
"I'm not kidding." Griffith's fingers kept on playing.
Kate felt her legs part; she felt her body soften in acceptance. But she couldn't do this again, not when she needed to lock all the emotions away. "You don't play fair," she whispered.
"Oh, did you want me to?" His eyes laughed.
Yes, Kate thought. Yes, I need fair. I need a break. Time to think.
Meanwhile, her back arched as he played her with his fingers.
"Kate," he murmured.
"Griffith." The idea of stopping him, the notion of danger, was growing dimmer. His fingers were oh, so clever. And when Griffith turned her and rose over her, parting her knees and lowering his head, when his tongue touched the tip of her dark need, she couldn't remember what she wanted any more. "Griffith," she groaned, and twisted her fingers in his hair.
She was tossed into chaos again.
~~~
"This is it." Kate shuffled to a stop at the foot of a steep set of stairs leading up to a tiny cabin. Griffith already knew the place was hers. He'd seen her coming in and out of the white-trimmed, yellow house several times. Besides — the potted flowers in front, the macramé doohickeys hanging from inside the windows — who else could be living there?
She sighed and started up the stairs. "This is really unnecessary. I walk around the camp at night by myself on a regular basis."
Yes, but you don't wander around by yourself after you've recently made me your sexual slave — twice. Wisely, Griffith held the comment back. Instead, he ascended the steps behind Kate in silence.
"I suppose you feel..." Coming to a stop by her front door, Kate appeared to search for a word.
"Chivalrous," Griffith supplied.
She shot him a dubious look.
Griffith smiled.
"All right, then." Kate looked torn between annoyance and amusement. "Mr. Chivalrous. You've returned me."
And this is as far as you go, boy. Her body language spoke for her as she stood blocking the door, unwilling even to crack it open while he was standing there.
He felt annoyed and amused, himself. He didn't need to go inside to know what Kate's place would look like: warm and feminine. Cozy rather than tasteful. Welcoming. Nor could he have accepted an invitation should she have offered one. He'd already left his kids alone with Orlando in charge longer than he should have.
But it would have been nice to get invited. It would have been...the expected thing. Particularly after he'd made her come that last time with just his mouth. Yes, a man expected an invitation inside a woman's front door after a service like that.
But Kate stood at the top of her porch and actually stuck out her hand. Her hand!
"Good night, Griffith," she said.
Griffith felt like howling, but he took her offered hand. "Good night, Kate."
He held on when she tried to take her hand back. "One thing," he said.
She sighed.
"When we see each other tomorrow morning at breakfast," Griffith told her, "this is what you do. You give me a sugar-sweet smile and say, 'Why, aren't you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, Griffith.' And what I'll do is smile sugar-sweet back and say, 'And a good morning to you too, Miss Kate.' Okay? You got that?"
Kate frowned. "Why would we do that?"
"Well, it's a script."
"Yeah, I get that, but what for?"
"Oh. See, you're all cool and collected tonight, but I anticipate that by tomorrow morning you'll be embarrassed and shy. So I'm giving you a script, something to fall back on if you can't think of what to say to me."
As he'd hoped, her amusement won out. A delightful laugh escaped her. With their joined hands, she poked him in the stomach. "I think that script is for you. So you'll know what to expect from me tomorrow morning."
"There is that."
Kate laughed again. "So, all right. A sugar-sweet smile and 'lookin' bushy-tailed this morning, Griffith.' No worries."
"No, no. It's, 'Why, aren't you looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning, Griffith.'"
"Don't push your luck, mister."
Too late for that. Griffith was already pushing it, drawing her toward him and lowering his head. It was Pavlovian response, maybe, but Kate raised her chin. Their mouths met somewhere in the middle.
It shot through him again, immediate and fierce: emotions, sensations, desires — everything that had occurred beneath the spreading oak tree. He wanted to wrap Kate in his arms and melt into her, just be one.
But his brain was in enough control to pull him out of it. She wasn't even inviting him through the front door of her house. They weren't about to become one.
Carefully, he drew his lips from hers. "Good night, Kate."
"Good night, Griffith." The words were followed by a long-suffering sigh.
Griffith got a glimpse of the inside of her house — a rag rug by the front door, an antique mirror on the wall, and a spray of dried flowers — before, quick and efficient, she was closing her door in his face.
Good night.
Griffith performed his own sigh then. Good night. Goodbye. Time to go back to his own bed.
He turned and stepped down Kate's stairs. That kiss — all of it — was still zinging around inside of him as he walked down the dirt path toward Bunkhouse Three. He felt like he was walking over marshmallows. It was a strange and novel sensation. Not even the best sex Griffith could remember having — with a female steel subcontractor on the sofa in her job trailer — had made him feel...bouncy. Humming with excitement, nearly skipping.
Was he in love?
Griffith immediately stubbed his toe in the hard-packed dirt of the bunkhouse quad. His heart did a backwards somersault as he stumbled to a halt.
No. He drew in a hard breath and willed his heart to go back to a steady rhythm. He wasn't in love. Couldn't be. For one thing, Kate had made her feelings quite clear.
This was only physical.
