by Fallon Hart
She gave me a sweet smile. “Thank you. You’re stunning. They’d hate you just for having caught Griff’s attention the way you have.” She gestured in front of us to Maggie and her friends. “Even married they all want him. You have him in a way no woman ever has before you. But they hate you more because you’re fascinating too. Not just because you have a movie star’s face, Jessica Rabbit’s body, and their husbands are unashamedly drooling over you and patting dear old Griffin on the back for having found you.” She laughed at my answering blush as she echoed Griff’s thoughts. I thought he was just being a caveman but apparently not. “There’s a mysterious reserve about you, Melanie, and then you go and do something adorable like blush and it strangely makes you even more of a mystery. No wonder he’s smitten. And he is smitten. You’re not intimidated by him, are you?”
Hmm.
I was intimidated by my feelings for him but I was no longer intimidated by the man himself. “Not really.”
“Good. That’s what he needs. Someone to equal him. To challenge him. Not to fall in line, like a good little girl. Men like Griffin and my husband could never be happy with that. They think that’s what they want,” she nudged me conspiratorially, “Until they meet us.”
I laughed but the laughter waned as I saw Griff heading down the beach toward us.
Oh hell.
It was proposal time.
“Here he comes to claim you. Can’t leave you alone for a minute.” Esme’s expression turned longing. “You two are making me miss Stephen. I might head home tomorrow after all.”
“There you are,” Griff said, approaching us.
His eyes flickered to Esme, who did have an elegant physique, and he gave her a curt nod before turning all of his attention on me. Pleasure threatened to overwhelm me that he would overlook Esme’s exotic dark beauty for me but then I reminded myself he was just playing his part well.
We stopped, facing each other, his expression intense on me. “If you don’t mind, Esme, I’m going to steal Melanie from you.”
He didn’t even look at her when he said it and I heard her soft, attractive laughter. “Not a problem.” She winked at me. “We’ll talk later.”
I nodded and watched her stroll away, the soft breeze molding her dress to her beautiful figure. It shocked me that Griff didn’t take time to watch her walk away. In fact, the entire time we’d been here he hadn’t paid any attention to the woman who was inarguably the most beautiful woman here and possibly the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in real life.
I looked back at him.
“You ready?” he asked.
Butterflies erupted to life in my belly for some reason. Maybe it was because this was the moment of no turning back. Our engagement was going to be quick and then we’d be married. Our deception would be complete.
My deception would be irrevocable.
The guilt I’d spent weeks trying to ignore suddenly flared to life.
When we met I’d felt badly about deceiving Griff but now…
Now I felt horrendous.
He deserved the truth and yet I couldn’t tell him the truth without endangering my sister’s life.
“Are they far enough away not to hear us?” he asked.
Pulling myself from my troubled thoughts I gazed beyond him. The rest of our small party was up ahead, some of them dawdling. I could see Maggie and Jen peering back over their shoulders at us.
I frowned. “Did you know Jen and Maggie have a crush on you?”
“I could care less about Jen and Maggie. You ready?” he repeated.
I nodded.
“Okay. I’m going to get on my knee like a complete wanker and hold up the ring. Try to act surprised or something.”
Laughter bubbled up to my lips and I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop it.
Griff’s eyes glittered with amusement. “You can’t laugh at this moment.”
“But you’re being so romantic.” I grinned.
He shook his head, unable to fight his smile. “Let’s just do this.”
I bit my lip, trying not laugh (partly out of nervousness) as he got down on one knee and pulled a ring box out of his pants pocket. He snapped open the box, his gaze on my face and I turned my attention to the ring. The moonlight and flood of lights from the houses behind us made the diamond sparkle and wink at me.
“Jesus Christ.” I gaped.
Griff burst out laughing. “Not a bride-to-be’s usual response.”
“Look at the size of that thing.”
He groaned but I could still hear the amusement in his voice, “My mind just went somewhere filthy.”
Smiling at his sudden playfulness, I sighed, still staring at the mammoth diamond. “You don’t go half measures even when you’re pretending.”
He took the ring out of the box, dropped the box in the sand, and took my left hand in his. He slid the ring onto my finger. The band was a simple, slender platinum band but the rock… that was a big old diamond. It had to be at least four carats.
“Is that a yes, then?”
I nodded, grinning hard in case anyone was watching and then Griff was on his feet and I was in his arms. The opportunist used the moment to kiss me like we were never going to kiss again.
All I could do was hold on tight and kiss him back.
When he finally let me go we were both breathing hard.
Attempting to regain steady footing in our situation, I panted, “I’m sure that looked quite realistic.”
“Did I just see that right?” Amelia’s voice called down the beach to us.
We turned around to see her rushing toward us with the other guests at her back. As she grew closer, I saw the excitement in her expression.
Griff squeezed me.
It was time to perform my ass off.
I grinned at her, holding onto Griff, as I held my left hand out at her approach.
She practically squealed as she grabbed my hand to stare at the rock. Her pretty eyes rose to look at me and then Griff. “Ahh!” she pulled Griff’s head toward her to kiss his cheek and then she turned to do the same to mine. “I’m so happy for you both.”
By now, everyone had gathered close, coming forward to offer their congratulations to us.
Esme seemed smug, like she’d known all along, but genuine in her felicitations.
Maggie and Jen and the blonde whose name I couldn’t remember looked like they’d eaten something sour as they gave their disingenuous congratulations.
“What did he say?” Maggie pried.
I leaned into Griff, resting my head on his shoulder. “I’d rather just keep that between me and Griff, ladies.”
Griff’s hand tightened on my back, I guessed in thanks, for dodging that bullet.
“Of course, of course.” She tittered and stepped back as Quentin moved forward to shake Griff’s hand. Then he turned to me and pried me from Griff’s arms to hug me.
It surprised me but I liked him so I hugged him back.
Then he whispered in my ear, “I’m glad it’s you, Melanie. Be good to him.”
My earlier guilt suffused me and I tried not to let it show as Quentin pulled back.
Thankfully, Griff playfully warned him to watch it, and tugged me into his side, making everyone laugh.
But I couldn’t rid myself of the guilt as we walked back to the house.
Not just that we were deceiving two of Griff’s friends, people I had grown to like, but that I was deceiving Griff.
It shouldn’t have mattered.
There was supposed to be no feelings involved.
Supposed to being the operative words.
Michael Pennyworth’s voice cut through my guilt as we walked back into the yard where the other guests were. “Well for two people who are supposedly so in love, your bedroom was awfully quiet next to ours last night.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Michael with his arm around the woman who was his date and half his age. Both of them were grinning at us.
I felt
Griff’s hand tense in mine and sought to answer before he could say something menacing. “Oh Griff had already exhausted me multiple times by the time you dragged yourself to bed.”
The guests tittered but Griff continued to scowl until the news of our engagement spread through the whole party. He stopped scowling but he didn’t stop brooding. Everyone seemed used to him and didn’t expect him to be beaming like a man in love. The fact that he put a ring on my finger at all and then kept me glued to his side for the rest of the evening seemed to convince everyone of that.
As guests started to dwindle, heading back to their own vacation homes, accommodation, or to their rooms if they were staying at the house, Griff excused us and we headed up to our room. As soon as we entered we could hear the headboard from Michael and his date’s bed hitting our wall.
Griff’s eyes narrowed at the sound of feminine moans filtering through the wall as he slammed our door shut.
The sleeping tension between us suddenly woke up and I avoided his gaze as the moans escalated while I took off my shoes and disappeared into the bathroom to change.
When I came back into the room, Griff was in nothing but his plaid pajama bottoms and silence reigned.
He cut me a droll look. “Apparently they’re done.”
“Apparently.” I flushed, unable to look at him as I put my things away. I felt him brush by me as he walked to the bathroom and I let out an exasperated sigh as soon as he was enclosed in the bathroom.
Looking down at the diamond on my finger I felt a pang of longing I steadfastly shoved down into the pit of my soul.
Not. Going. There.
“They need to think we’re in here doing it,” he bit out, as soon as he came out of the bathroom. He sounded supremely unhappy about it. “We’ve just gotten engaged. An engaged couple would have sex. And apparently the walls here are thin.”
I nodded, knowing that was true, and finally met his gaze. “We can pretend.” I gestured to the bed. “We’ll make all the right sounds, knock the headboard a bit.” I attempted a smile. “It’ll be funny.”
Griff didn’t look like he found any of this funny but he got on the bed nonetheless and I followed him. I sat against the pillows while he sat on his knees facing the headboard.
His face was like a thundercloud. “What do we do?”
I bounced the mattress and the headboard shook. Shooting him a mischievous smile, trying to make him laugh, I bounced it harder and moaned.
Griff rolled his eyes but bounced on his knees, rattling the headboard harder.
I tried not to laugh at how annoyed this made him.
He grimaced. “I feel like a fucking teenager.”
Wanting him to see the funny side of it I bounced the mattress more and moaned loudly, “Oh, don’t stop!”
He shot me a look of surprise and then melted at my huge grin.
His lips twitched.
I pushed. “Oh, Lord Mandeville, right there! Yes!”
Griff’s stifled a bark of laughter, making my heart thump hard. He choked out, “Lord Mandeville? Really?”
Grinning back at him, I shrugged. “That it’s, Lord Mandeville, don’t stop!” I moaned, rattling the headboard.
“You like that?” Griff rumbled, trying not to chuckle as he slammed a hand against the headboard behind me.
I’d never seen him playful before. It was a sight to behold.
We called out more ridiculous things, but as our eyes locked, my ridiculous inadvertently changed, “Oh Griff,” I cried out, my skin flushing when I couldn’t stop myself from imagining what it would be like if he was really inside me, “right there, yes, right there!” I bounced harder, my hands pressed against the headboard behind me.
Griff’s face darkened as his eye fell to my breasts. I pushed up against the headboard and realized their heavy weight was jiggling with every thrust.
His hot gaze might as well have been a hand between my legs. My sex pulsed with need, my nipples tightened for attention, and I knew I’d grown flushed with want.
My fake fiancé’s jaw tightened and his eyes moved back to mine. “Take off your top.”
I froze at the demand, everything within me wanting to do as I was told, which surprised the hell out of me. Not to mention it was not a good idea.
He practically growled. “We’re not going to fuck. I just… I just want to see you.”
Oh God.
I needed to stop.
But…
I wanted him to see me.
I wanted him to want me. To shatter his control. To make him forget everything he thought he knew and just… want me.
That wasn’t me, though. I didn’t do this kind of thing.
Yet, that wicked, mischievous, sexual creature only Griffin Mandeville seemed to bring out of me, wanted to take possession of my body. So much so I let her.
My fingers trembled as I sat up and pulled the camisole up and over my head.
Feeling vulnerable, I shivered, throwing the camisole to the floor, suddenly unable to look at him.
“Jesus fuck,” he bit out.
The hoarse need in his voice brought my gaze up to his.
His eyes blazed with passion. “You have the most gorgeous fucking tits I’ve ever seen in my life.”
My nipples pebbled under his hungry gaze and he clenched a fist and rested against the headboard. His arousal stretched his pajamas toward his hard stomach. “Griff?”
What the hell were we doing?
We were past flirting with danger. Definitely.
But I was consumed with the fire of passion.
Until him, I’d thought this feeling was something made up for books and movies, that it couldn’t possibly exist. The kind of fiery want that obsessed and overwhelmed every rational thought.
He swallowed hard, and dragged his gaze back to meet mine. “Touch yourself,” he said gruffly, and then shocked the hell out of me by pushing his pajama bottoms over his ass to free his cock.
I gasped at the sight of it.
I’d only seen two other penises in my life and both times I’d been prepared for it.
I was not prepared for Griff’s, or the way he had to pry it from his belly it was so hard with hot blood. It was long, thick, and purple red with need.
The sight of him, powerfully built, beautiful, his thumb grazing a thick vein along his cock as he fisted himself, staring at me with his dangerous dark gaze, sent another rush of wet arousal between my legs. I was soaked.
“Griff?”
He sat back on his heels, stroking himself as he stared at me. “Just touch yourself. With your left hand.” It was almost a plea.
Oh my God.
If someone had told me I’d be in this position a year ago I would have told them I’d flee the room, horrified by the entire idea.
I was not horrified.
I was hopelessly, desperately, turned on.
My trembling body moved of its own accord and I put a shaking hand down my shorts and beneath my panties. My breath stuttered when my fingers slipped against my clit. Sensation, lust, tingled through my whole body.
“Oh God.” Were we really doing this?
Griff stroked his cock faster, harder, his jaw clenched. “Be loud about it,” he grunted out.
The reminder that this was for the benefit of our neighbors didn’t even diffuse my lust. Instead it gave me an excuse to lower those final inhibitions. I watched him, so freaking turned on by the sight of him masturbating I knew I’d blow soon.
I hit my free palm against the head board and undulated against my fingers as I rubbed my clit. My moans filled the room. Then my eyes locked with his. “Griff,” I pleaded.
His expression tightened. “Louder.”
“Griff!” I lost all thought, all control. “Fuck me. Please, fuck me!” and just like that I blew apart, crying his name so loud I’m sure the whole house heard. My inner muscles rippled around the ghost of him, my lower body shuddering with the longest, hardest climax of my life thus far.
“Melanie!” he groaned and I watched through dazed eyes as a stream of cum shot out of him. His other hand had fallen against the headboard at the same time, rattling it hard against the wall. “Fuck. Fuck.” He dropped both hands against the headboard now, panting hard as he stared downward.
Reality blew like a cool wind over my skin.
Holy crap.
What the hell had I just done?
Did I just beg Griffin Mandeville to… fuck me? I could barely think the words now, how is it possible they had fallen so easily from my lips like that?
I scrambled off the bed and grabbed up my camisole, covering myself.
Reluctantly glancing over my shoulder, I saw Griff’s head turned toward me, glaring at me.
For a moment we just stared at each other in silent reproach.
Then he snapped back from the headboard, and moved off the bed, disappearing into the bathroom.
My gaze turned to the sheets, now covered in the evidence of his climax.
Determined to ignore what had just happened for the sake of both our sanity, I stripped the sheets, bundled them into a ball and put them in the corner. I tried not to be embarrassed about it, knowing Amelia had a maid service and wouldn’t be cleaning the sheets herself.
When Griff came out of the bathroom, I couldn’t meet his gaze. I brushed past him to use the bathroom to clean up.
When I came out he was lying on the sheet-less bed, one hand behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
Why did he have to be so beautiful?
Ignoring the desire to clamber over him and kiss every inch of his muscled torso, I rounded the bed, got in and turned my back to him. Without a word I reached out to switch off my light. A second later his light went out too.
We didn’t say a word but I knew neither of us slept well that night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Tomorrow I’ll give you the number of a wedding planner. You can start making fake plans with her. In two weeks we’ll elope to Martha’s Vineyard instead.” It was the first thing Griff had said to me in hours.
We’d just returned to The Patrician from Wickford. That morning Griff had decided there was no need for us to stay at the party another night and that people would understand we wanted to be alone to celebrate our engagement. Although Amelia was disappointed she did understand. I only said goodbye to her, Quentin and Esme, leaving Griff to do the rest of the pleasantries since I wasn’t feeling all that pleasant.
