She shrugged then studied him. “This hits home for you.” She let out a sigh, unlocked her car, and tossed her purse in. “I don’t leave any kids behind, Griffin. I’m sorry that it happened to you. It shouldn’t have.”
He wasn’t easy to read, he’d made sure of it, and yet she read him like a book.
“Have you ever tried talking to your dad about it?” she asked.
“You mean the brick wall?” He blew out a breath and shook his head. “This isn’t why I came here.”
“Fine. Then let’s talk about why you did come. To make sure I wasn’t secretly devastated about our one night, right? To make sure you haven’t ruined me for all men?”
He grimaced and shoved his hands through his hair. “Okay, how about we leave it at the fact that I’m a complete idiot and move on.”
Finally, he’d reached her. Her mouth curved, albeit slightly, but he’d take it. “I’m willing if you’re willing,” she said.
He nodded and turned to go, but he couldn’t stop himself from stepping in it one last time. “Oh, and online dating is dangerous.”
“More dangerous than dating, say . . . you?”
Touché. “We haven’t dated,” he said.
“True.”
“We should change that.”
She actually paused, and he went for it. “Have dinner with me, Kate.”
“I’ve got a lot to go over in regards to my upcoming parent-teacher conferences . . .”
He knew a blow-off when he heard one. He’d certainly given enough of them in his life. Studying her for a moment, he said, “You change your mind about me?”
“No. No,” she said again more firmly. “I really do just have a lot of work.”
“I could help,” he said in that voice that had gotten him what he wanted more than once. “I’m an excellent . . . debriefer.”
She gave him a considering look, and as he’d intended, a sense of playfulness came into her gaze. “What would this debriefing involve?” She wanted to know.
He stepped closer and was gratified to hear her breath catch. “Personal, hands-on techniques come to mind,” he said.
“Oh,” she breathed, sounding a little short of air and also intrigued.
He smiled. “We’ll discuss at dinner.”
“Now?” she asked.
“Now.”
* * *
Halfway out of town, Kate’s cell phone rang. It was Holly. “Hey,” Kate said, going for casual. “What’s up, everything okay?”
“Depends,” Holly said.
“On?”
“You. Are you okay?”
Kate looked over at Grif, who was driving. “I’m okay.” And excited. And terrified. “Why?”
“Are we still best friends?” Holly asked.
“Well, of course!”
“Then when were you going to tell me you’re on a date?”
“I just texted you five minutes ago that I’d be out tonight.”
“With my brother?”
Kate twisted and looked behind them. “Are you following us?”
Griffin, much more used to Holly’s tricks, didn’t even glance in the rearview mirror.
“I’m not following you,” Holly said.
“Let me guess,” Kate said dryly. “There’s another rumor?”
“Adam asked Grif to go on a quad ride with him tonight, but Grif said he was busy. Grif’s never too busy for a quad ride. I took a wild guess.”
She glanced at Griffin. He was driving in his usual Zen-calm zone. Kate didn’t have a Zen-calm zone. “Was I this annoying when you were dating Adam?” she asked Holly.
“More,” Holly said on a laugh. “Listen, I just want to say that I love you. And take things slow, okay?”
“I will.” Kate looked at Griffin again. “I’ll take very good care of your brother, but he’s a big boy now, Hol.”
Holly laughed.
Griffin slid Kate a long, slow, thoughtful gaze that gave her a hot flash. She hung up with Holly and pocketed her phone.
“I’m a big boy?”
Kate thought about just how big and shifted in her seat, earning her another one of those looks, this one accompanied by a low, sexy laugh.
He drove her into Boise, where they went to a tiny little blues club she’d never been to before. They enjoyed great food, great music, and fantastic wine, and when she curled up with him on a comfy love seat to watch the musicians, kicking off the heels that were killing her feet, Grif pulled her feet onto his lap.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shocked. Panicked. Her feet were . . . well, not pretty. She’d spent years standing on them all day in classrooms. Not even Ryan would have touched her callused stumps.
But Griffin wrapped her foot in his big, warm hands and dug his thumbs into her arch.
She moaned so loud that he grinned and leaned over her to kiss her, probably to shut her up.
Later he drove her back to her car. When they reached the school, he woke her up, and she was mortified that she fell asleep on him. He unlocked her car for her and nudged her inside.
“Be careful,” he said, and hooked her seat belt.
To her surprise, he followed her home. “Is this where we get to the hands-on debriefing?” she teased as he walked her inside.
He smiled. “You’re too tired for what I have in mind.”
She was getting less tired by the second. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
“A proper debriefing is . . . intense,” he said. “You need to be on top of your game for that.”
Her good parts quivered, and she pressed him against the door. “You think I’m off my game?”
He stroked a hand down her back and palmed her butt in a possessive nature that was shockingly thrilling. “I think you’re exhausted,” he said. “Understandably so.” He patted her butt then and tugged off her sweater. He hung it up on its hook, his thoughtfulness warming her and making her suddenly not so tired. Because for the first time in recent memory, someone was taking care of her. She felt safe. Cared for. Cherished.
And this was a problem. A big one, given the man making her feel these things. The man she’d originally pulled into her orbit for nothing more than a tryst.
After all, he was leaving.
She was leaving.
And she was in over her head . . .
As if he sensed her sudden melancholy, he paused. “You okay?”
She managed a laugh. “I thought guys only asked that question in romance novels.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “We’ll do just about anything to get what we want, Kate. You should remember that.”
She sucked in a breath. “What if what you want is the same thing I want?”
This earned her another steadying gaze. “I don’t think that can be true,” he said.
“Is that why you haven’t tried to get back in my bed? Because you think I don’t want what you want?”
“I didn’t want to push you,” he said.
“I’m not easily pushed.” She put her hand on his chest. “So I’m going to ask again, what if we want the same thing?”
He stared down at her for what had to be an eternity, during which she let her hand shift a little, gliding from pec to pec.
“You’re going to get your way on this, aren’t you?” he murmured, voice low and a little husky.
“I usually do.” She kicked off her shoes. “Don’t try to fight it, Griffin. I’ll be gentle.”
He moved so that his forehead rested against hers as he slid his hands into her hair, his fingertips against her scalp. “You’re daring me.”
“Yes,” she said, not opening her eyes, enjoying the bliss caused by his touch. Even without looking, she felt him smile. After a moment he tugged lightly on her hair until she met his gaze.
“I stayed away to give you time to think,” he said.
“Thinking’s overrated.”
This startled a laugh out of him, and she soaked up the sight of his genuine amusement. He was
just too damn sexy for his own good, certainly too sexy for her own good. When he let her inside his personal space like this, when he so rarely let anyone in, letting her see the private side of him, every last defense around her heart melted away.
Just melted away . . .
“Griffin?” she whispered, suddenly serious.
His smile faded. “Yeah?”
She backed him to the foyer table. “Remember when you asked me if this table was sturdy?” She patted her hands on it. “It feels sturdy.
His eyes were serious now, very serious, with only the slightest quirk of his lips as he stepped into her and kissed her hard. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I know,” she said, sliding her hands up around his neck. “But it’s a good way to go, right?”
Apparently he was too busy divesting her of her clothes to answer. He started with her blouse. He smiled at her pretty pink bra and then took that off, too, tossing it over his shoulder. “Do your panties match?” he asked.
“There are some things a man should find out for himself,” she said demurely.
His hands slid beneath her skirt and pulled her leggings down and off. He shoved up her skirt and eyed the matching scrap of pink. “Nice. Lose ’em.” Then, before she could, he tugged the silk down her legs. And then her skirt as well. Which left her bare-assed on the wood. Putting a big hand on each of her thighs, he spread her legs and then stepped between them, his jeans rubbing up against her heated flesh.
Heaven . . . “Griffin?”
“Yeah?” He trailed hot kisses up her cheek to her ear, melting her bones.
“You want me bad,” she said, rocking against him, pulling his head down to hers, pressing a kiss to first one corner of his mouth and then the other.
He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and swallowed hard as if unused to such a tender touch, which of course only made her want to be all the more tender.
“I do want you bad,” he whispered as she planted tiny kisses along his jaw and down his throat. “Very bad.”
“Good.” She pushed up his shirt, reveling in his rock-hard abs and leanly muscled chest, leaning in to take a nibble right above his collarbone, and when he sucked in a breath, she soothed the ache with her tongue.
Her efforts tugged a deep groan from Griffin. He tore off his shirt and shoved his hand into his front pocket, coming up with a condom.
“You think of everything,” she said.
“Yes, would you like to know what I’m thinking now?”
She had a pretty good idea. “If I didn’t know the truth,” she said. “I’d swear you were once a Boy Scout.”
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and huffed out a laugh, his chest rising and falling as he fought for control. “Don’t play with me right now,” he warned. His taut body wasn’t up for teasing.
Neither was hers. She popped open his jeans and reached inside. “I don’t play.” She stroked him, and he swore roughly. Picking her up, he turned and pinned her against the wall. Her fingers tangled in his hair as he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her into submission.
“Bed,” he growled against her lips, and carried her to her room. He dropped her onto the mattress and then crawled up her body, kissing every inch of skin he passed, stopping at every spot where she gasped or squirmed, starting over when he felt like it, until she was writhing and panting beneath him. The feel of his hard body pressing into hers, combined with the way he devoured her, sent jolts of pleasure through her, coiling low in her belly.
“The condom,” she finally gasped.
He was one step ahead of her, and then his weight settled on her. Opening her thighs for him, she urged him closer. “Hurry.”
“Hell no.” Cupping her face in his big hands, he moved as calmly and deliberately as he pleased. “We have time.” And then he held her gaze as he, just as slowly and steadily as he did everything, slid into her.
He stilled then, a look of impossible control crossing his face. But if he was learning her body, she was doing the same with his. She knew how to wrestle his hard-earned control away, and she gradually arched her hips, taking even more of him deep inside her.
Eyes hot, he bent over her, and then it wasn’t just his control snapping but hers, too, as they both fought for release. When it came, it was with shocking force, knocking them both into oblivion.
Much later she felt him lean over her to kiss her good-bye, a deliciously hot kiss that left her stirred up all over again. “Uh-oh,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s still here. Our chemistry problem.”
He smiled a little tightly in silent agreement, and then he was gone.
Nineteen
Kate woke up deliciously sated and with a smile on her face. Sex absolutely did a body good. Normally, she might have spent a few moments wondering what last night had actually meant—or not meant—but she decided if she didn’t think about it too deeply, she could take it in the spirit she’d originally intended.
Naked fun, and not as the possible beginning to something between them, because that would end in disappointment.
Not that any of that mattered at the moment, because she was running late. She made the usual run to her dad’s, where she speed-read Ashley’s practice SAT essays, fed everyone, grabbed Tommy—Captain America today—and ran out to Ryan’s car.
Thirty minutes later, Kate’s class was humming with the wild energy of twenty second graders getting ready to go on a field trip to Belle Haven.
Their new vet, Dr. Wyatt, usually came to her class for monthly visits, but at least twice a year Kate brought the kids to the animal center. They got a lot from watching responsible adults handle all the animals, and Kate got a lot out of letting the kids run themselves ragged on the large acreage.
With budget cuts, Kate had to rely on parents to drive the class, and as a result, she was humming with her own wild energy—worry. One of the parents who’d signed up to drive hadn’t yet shown up.
Trevan Anders.
She got him on his cell phone five minutes before their scheduled departure time, and he said he was unable to get away from work. He expressed polite regret and offered to make it up to her over dinner, where he hoped to also apologize for his behavior the day before in the parking lot of the school.
The man was as hot and cold as a sink valve, and he gave her a headache. She’d meet him for dinner approximately never.
“Do we have to cancel?” Tommy asked solemnly at her side, having apparently sneaked up on her.
She looked down into his green eyes. The Captain America sweatshirt was a direct contrast to the seriousness of his gaze. “We are not canceling,” she said. “Even if we have to walk there.”
“It’s seven point five miles.”
That got a smile out of her. She wasn’t the only one in the family who knew all sorts of random facts. “How did you know that?”
He pulled out the iPod Touch he’d gotten for his birthday.