with it, for more.
He had muscles like iron despite that rangy, swaggering build. His back rippled with them. Oh God, the feel of them under her hands. The weight of him pressing her down into the bed.
And hard hands, rough, impatient hands, all over her body. Not awakening needs—awakening seemed too tame a word.
It felt more like resurrection.
When his mouth closed over her breast, a scrape of teeth, a flick of tongue, and his hand slid between her legs, the orgasm tore through her, left her shocked and shuddering in its wake.
He didn’t stop, didn’t pause, but drove her up again.
And she was a pebble in a catapult, flying. Helpless and quaking. Her body was his now, open, and he took it, gave her more so sensations tangled together, needs became a single throbbing ache.
Then he was inside her, and pleasure ran through her in a flood.
She rode with him, beat for beat, her heart racing as his raced. Her sunset hair spread wild over the sheets, and her skin glowed in the smoky light of dusk.
“Shelby. Look at me.” His body screamed for release, for that last leap. But he wanted to see her eyes. “Look at me.”
She opened them, dark and dazed, looked into his.
“It’s everything,” he said, and let go.
17
Shelby’s first coherent thought when the haze cleared from her mind was: So this is what it’s like.
She felt heavy and light and limp, hulled out and filled up again all at once. She thought she could run a marathon, or sleep for a week.
Most of all she felt utterly and completely alive.
Griff lay flat-out on top of her, and that was just fine. She liked the weight of him even now, the sensation of his skin against hers, everything still hot and damp like after a strong summer storm.
In pretty contrast, the breeze fluttering through the open doors cooled her cheeks, made her smile. Everything made her smile. If she wasn’t careful, she’d burst into song.
“Gonna move in a minute,” he mumbled.
“You’re fine. It’s fine. Everything’s just really, really fine.”
He turned his head enough to brush his lips over the side of her throat. “I was a little rougher than I meant to be.”
“To my way of thinking you were just rough enough. I can’t figure if I’ve ever felt this used up or if I’ve just forgotten the feeling. You’re sure thorough, Griffin. You sure do good work.”
“Well, anything worth doing.” He levered up to look down at her in the flickering of the fire. “You weren’t rusty, by the way.”
Pleased, languid with it, she touched his cheek. “I forgot to worry about it.”
“I wondered what you’d look like, lying here like this. It’s better, even better, than I imagined.”
“Right this minute, everything’s better than I imagined. That might be due to that long dry spell, but I’m giving you credit for it.”
“I’ll take it. It’s cooling down. You’re going to get cold.”
“I don’t feel cold.”
“Yet. And I haven’t fed you.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I need to finish off dinner. But first . . .”
He rolled, and as he did, scooped her up. Her heart did a stuttering roll as he just lifted her right up as he stood.
Muscles like iron, she remembered. He was stronger than he looked.
“We should take a shower.”
“We should?”
“Definitely.” He grinned as he carried her. “You’re going to love the bathroom.”
She did. She loved the generous space, the oversized claw-foot tub, the earthy tones of the tile work. Most of all she loved the enormous shower with its multiple jets—and what could be done in all that heat and steam by two inventive and agile people.
By the time they were in the kitchen again she felt fresh and new and so happy she wished she’d learned to tap-dance.
“I need to let my parents know I’m going to be a little later than I said.”
“Go ahead. Though since your mother gave you a condom on your way out the door, I don’t think they’ll be surprised.”
She sent a quick text, asked if Callie had gone to bed without any trouble. Then as Griff had the heat going under the sauce again, and water on for the pasta, she channeled some of the giddiness into a quick additional text to Emma Kate.
Been at Griff’s for two hours. We haven’t eaten yet. Bet you can guess why. I’m just going to say WOW until I talk to you in person. Make that WOW twice. Shelby.
“What can I do?” she asked Griff.
“You can have that glass of wine we never really got to.”
“All right.” She picked up her phone at the signal. “It’s just Mama saying Callie’s sleeping like an angel and to have a good time. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Callie was a little put out she wasn’t going on a date with you. I said we’d ask you on a date.”
“Oh yeah?” He glanced back as he pulled the salad out of the refrigerator.
“Why don’t I take care of that? Do you have a salad set so I can toss it?”
“Huh?”
“A couple of forks, then.”
“I got those. What kind of date am I going to be asked to go on?”
“A picnic.” She took the forks, the bottled Italian dressing, smiled back at him.
“Is that a cold fried chicken and potato salad picnic or an imaginary tea party picnic? That would determine the dress code.”
“The first. I know a place. It’s not a far drive, and a short hike after that. I was thinking Sunday afternoon, if that’s all right.”
“Two pretty redheads and food? I’m already there.”
“She’s awful fond of you, Griffin.”
“It’s mutual.”
“I know that, it shows. I just want to say, she’s had a lot of adjustments to make in a short time, and—”
“Looking for trouble, Red?”
“It kind of goes with the territory. You’ve got a kindness in you, Griff. That shows, too. I just want to say whatever happens with us, I hope you’ll . . . well, I hope you’ll still take her on a date now and again.”
“I’m lucky to know four generations of Donahue/Pomeroy women. I’m crazy about every one of them, and not looking for that to change. Sass and strength, it runs right through all of you.”
“I’m still hunting up pieces of mine.”
“That’s bullshit.”
He said it so casually it took her a minute to look up, blink.
“Most people I know, and I might be one of them, would’ve been crushed flat finding themselves millions of dollars in debt, and through none of their own doing.”
He’d have heard the details, she thought. That’s how things worked. “I went along with—”
“I’m going to repeat myself. Bullshit. What you did was be young and impulsive and fall for the wrong man. As wrong as it gets, from where I’m standing.”
“I can’t say you’re standing in the wrong place on that.”
“Then instead of staying crushed when you find out fully how wrong, find yourself on your own with a kid and buried under a mountain of debt, you pushed up the weight and started hacking away at it. And that little girl? She’s happy and confident because you made sure of it. I admire the hell out of you.”
Staggered, she stared at him. “Well. Well, I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Plus you’re really hot”—he dumped pasta in the boiling water—“which is no small appeal.”
That made her laugh, go back to tossing the salad.
“You could answer a question for me, though, one that’s bugged me awhile.”
“I can try.”
“Why’d you stick? You weren’t happy, and it doesn’t take much to deduce he wasn’t much of a hands-on father with Callie. Why’d you stick?”
A fair question, she decided, under the circumstances. “I thought about divorce, more than once. And if I’d known all I know now . . . but I
didn’t. And I didn’t want to fail. You know my granny was just sixteen when she married my granddaddy?”
“No.” It shocked the sensibilities. “I had to figure young, but that’s a baby.”
“They’ll be married fifty years before much longer. Half a century, and you have to figure they had some rough times in there. Her mama was but fifteen, and she and my great-granddaddy were together for thirty-eight years before he was killed when a semi crashed into his truck and three others one night, the winter of 1971. My own mama was still shy of eighteen when she married Daddy.”
“Women in your family stick.”
“The men, too. Oh, there’s been some divorces, and some of them bitter, cousins and aunts and so on scattered through. But I can trace a direct line back, seven generations of women I know of, and not one of them raised a child in a broken home. I didn’t want to be the first.”
She shrugged, picked up her wine again, determined to lighten the mood. “Now, it’s true enough my great-great-granny on my mama’s side had three husbands. The first died fighting a blood feud with the Nash clan. He was only about eighteen when—so it’s said—Harlan Nash bushwhacked him and shot him in the back, leaving my great-great-granny with three children and another on the way. She married her first husband’s third cousin, and had time to make two children with him before he died of a fever. Then she up and married a big Irishman named Finias O’Riley. She was about twenty-two, and bore him six more children.”
“Wait, I’m doing the math. Twelve kids? She had twelve kids?”
“She did, and unlike a lot of women of her time and place, lived to the age of ninety-one. She outlived five of her children, which must have been a burden, and lost her Finias, who was sheriff around here, so Forrest comes by his tendency natural, when she was eighty-two and he eighty-eight. My great-granny, who lives in Tampa, Florida, with her oldest daughter, would say she— Her name was Loretta, but they called her Bunny always.”
“Prophetic, considering.”
With a snicker, Shelby lifted her glass again. “They say she might’ve married again, as she had a gentleman caller, a widower who’d bring her flowers every week, but he died before she’d made up her mind. I’d like to think I could draw a gentleman caller at that age.”
“I’ll bring you flowers.”
“Then if I don’t see you on my doorstep in sixty years, I’m going to be disappointed.”
• • •
IT RELIEVED HIM that dinner was not only edible, but actually tasty. She entertained him with the story of Melody’s eviction from the salon. He’d already heard a couple of versions, but hearing it from her, could visualize it perfectly.
“What’s her problem anyway?”
“She’s been a bully since I’ve known her. Spoiled, superior, with that mean streak you mentioned yourself. Her mama doted on her, and does still. Pushed her into all the beauty pageants, even as a little thing. And she won most of them, then sashayed all around being important.”
“Sashayed. Not a word you hear every day.”
“It suits. She almost always got what she wanted whenever she wanted it. Can’t say she’s shown any gratitude for it. She’s hated me for as long as I can remember.”
“Probably because she knew if you’d entered those pageants, you’d have beaten her little beauty-queen ass.”
“I don’t know about that, but I beat her out of some of what she wanted. Simple as that.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, silly things—or they are now. A boy she wanted when we were about fourteen, and he liked me. She got Arlo Kattery to beat him up—I know she did, but Arlo wouldn’t say. I made captain of our cheerleading squad—all through high school—and she wanted that. Grandpa fixed up this old clunker of a Chevy so I didn’t have to walk home after practice. She spray-painted ‘slut’ and worse all over it. I know it was her, because when I called her on it, Jolene looked so damn guilty. Same as she looked guilty the night of the Homecoming dance when I got voted queen and the windshield of that old Chevy was busted up, and the tires slashed.”
“She’s sounding more pathological than annoying now.”
“She’s just mean. I guess some people are, and if they never pay a real price for it, they just get meaner. She doesn’t worry me, especially since she’s banned from the salon and day spa.
“You made a wonderful meal, Griffin. Maybe you are a good catch.”
“I’m telling you.”
“I’m going to help you put this kitchen back to rights, then I need to get on.”
He traced a finger down her arm. “No way you could stay?”
He had those wonderful green eyes, those rough, skilled, thorough hands, and a way of kissing her that just put sparkles into her blood.
“It’s tempting, because that porch is still out there. It’s a lot more tempting than I thought it would be. But I wouldn’t feel right, not going home tonight to Callie.”
“Maybe I could have a pizza date with Callie between now and the picnic.”
“Oh, that’d be nice, but I’ve got such a busy week. I need to rehearse, and—”
“I wasn’t asking you.” Still he leaned over, kissed her. “Any problem with me taking Little Red for pizza?”
“I . . . I guess not. She’d really like it.” She rose, carried the plates to the sink. “Are you sure you want to take this on, Griffin?”
“Callie, or you?”
“We’re a set.”
“Nice set.”
He distracted her with talk of plans for the house while they loaded the dishwasher. He liked running his ideas and plans by someone who understood them, saw the potential.
“The one thing you need, and before much longer, is a porch swing. You can’t have a beautiful front porch like that and not have a front porch swing.”
“Front porch swing, check. Back porch?”
“An old bench, maybe a rocking chair. You could sit and rock and look out at the gardens you worked so hard planting.”
“I’m planting gardens?”
“With a wisteria arbor in my imagination, those pretty weepers.” She dried her hands after wiping up his cooktop. “I had a wonderful time. I don’t just mean . . . well, I wouldn’t want to leave out the tour of the second floor.”
He slid his arms around her waist. “I’ve still got a lot to show you.”
She let herself melt in, just sink into the kiss. And pulled back with real regret. “I really have to go.”
“Okay, but you’re going to come back for the rest of that tour.”
“I don’t think I could resist it.”
She picked up her purse; he plucked keys out of a dish on the counter.
“Oh, are you going out?” she asked as they walked to the front door.
“Sure. I’m following you home.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not being silly. I’m following you home. Argue if you want, I’m still doing it. The woman who threatened you was shot less than a week ago right outside where you were working. You’re not driving home alone after dark.”
“I can’t stop you from trailing me all the way home, then