Page 80 of The Curveball
“Nope.” I rest my palm over his mouth. “I’m not done. I didn’t even think tonight. I just got into comfortable clothes, didn’t even spare a glance to check if it was showing before I came back out here. Want to know why? Don’t answer; it’s rhetorical.” I pull back to look at him. “I’ve never,never, felt safer, stronger, and more cherished than I do with you.”
Griffin breaks. With a tug to my hair, he pulls my head back enough to smash his lips to mine. My arms wrap around his neck. Doubtless, the poor guy can’t breathe through my chokehold, but I have nowhere to place all this built-up energy, all this heat and want.
I want Griffin. More than I care to breathe, I want this man.
In this moment, I have every intention of cracking open every piece of my heart, then sealing it back up with images of him tattooed there forever. I want to give him the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful pieces of life.
The kiss deepens. Griffin groans against my mouth and lies back on the couch, pulling me over him.
“Wren,” he whispers, abandoning my mouth to stake his place on my jaw, my neck, much the same as I did. “You’re everything, do you know that?”
“I know that I’m yours.”
He smiles against my skin. “And I’m yours.”
Time doesn’t matter, but when we come up for air all I know is my hair is tangled, my glasses were removed, and my lips have a delightful burn they didn’t have before. Griffin cradles my head against his chest. I draw slow circles over his heart, getting lost in every sensation, every touch, every breath.
“Griff,” I say after a long silence.
“Yeah, Birdie?”
“I want to be a safe place for you too, you know.”
More silence. Until he rolls onto his side, facing me. Our foreheads fall together, and Griffin presses a kiss to my knuckles.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I feel a lot.”
“You mean you turn into a puppy who’s about to get a treat.”
He chuckles. “Something like that. But . . . it goes the other way too. When I worry, or panic, sometimes I get stuck in my head. I don’t talk, I don’t do anything but sit and overthink. It gets dark and messy up here sometimes.”
He taps the side of his head. I kiss the spot and hold him a little closer. “Something put you there tonight?”
He closes his eyes again and nods. “I don’t know how to explain how protective I am of my mom. When my dad died, well-meaning people told me over and over that I was the man of the house. It was my job to make my dad proud and look after my mom. I took it seriously.”
This man. He says anything else like this and I’ll be on my knee proposing.
“You’re a good son, Griff. I see that.”
“Yeah, but it got extreme. She’d get the slightest bit sick, and I’d have panic attacks as a kid. I’d convince myself I was failing. My mom had to take me to counseling over it.” He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “Anyway, it got better, but with her health issues, I can’t control any of it. Sometimes that paranoid little kid still comes out, but instead of panicking out loud, I go inward.”
I prop onto my elbow, one palm on his cheek. “Is she okay?”
“She didn’t want to tell me because she knows how I get, but she’s been having some bad pain in her knees. Worst case, the cancer is back. Best case, it’s the aftermath of her treatments, and her bones are a little weak.”
“But you go to the extremes.”
“Basically, I saw funeral arrangements and death, yeah.”
I don’t tell him not to worry. That would be like telling a puddle not to be wet to someone who feels as deeply as he does.
“Well, now you’ve got me, Marks.” I kiss his lips, pulling back just enough to talk. “And even if you don’t want to talk, I’ll be there to remind you of all the good, sexy, sweet things about you until even a sliver of the worry goes away. Got it?”
Griffin brushes a lock of hair off my brow. The way he looks at me, it’s as if a thousand thoughts rush through his head, but he settles on kissing me and whispering, “Got it, Birdie.”
CHAPTER25
WREN