The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(44)

Opening the door to the nursery, she turned on a lamp, then the main ceiling light when it was still too creepy in the shadows. She padded over to the table where Griff had neatly divided the materials he had conned out of Wanda on loan and was planning to pack into the car later this morning.

She reached for the stack of letters again, and then almost jumped out of her socks when Griff’s voice came from the doorway. “I know you commit to a part, but this might be taking the Girl Friday act too far. It’s almost two in the morning.”

He came up behind her, and she startled again when she felt the warmth of bare skin. “You don’t have a shirt on.” She snuck a peek to see if the nakedness continued past the waist. Sadly, not.

“Sorry, am I shocking your delicate sensibilities?” He reached over her shoulder and took the letters. “Why so interested?”

Freddy hesitated, started to speak, then stopped again.

What could she say? That based on some dusty old letters, she suspected something so wrong had been done years ago that the secret had been buried for decades? That her entire conception of her grandmother and their family history had just twisted? That she might have just uncovered what somebody had tried very hard to hide?

She wasn’t bloody Miss Marple.

He’d think it was her pinball imagination again, bouncing from one outlandish idea to another.

She hoped it was.

Griff touched a light fingertip between her brows. “You don’t have to tell me, if it disturbs you that much.”

She brought her hands up, clasping his forearms. He was muscled and solid, and felt like a welcome wall of reassurance right now.

Amazing, how quickly things could change. In the space of a week, her entire perception on everything was shifting.

“I just...need to work something out.”

“I know the feeling.” His eyes had a lazy, smoky look, and his jaw had developed a thin layer of stubble.

“Were you asleep?” Freddy couldn’t help tracing her fingers up to his biceps. The muscles there bunched under her touch, and a very jaguar-ish glint appeared in the dark depths of his expression.

A finger ran down her back, and she shivered. “For a few minutes.” His voice was turning low and purr-y. “Until someone started trying to break through a block of cement with a chainsaw.”

Freddy’s giggle was more of a rasp as his hand slipped around her hip, pulling her pelvis into his. “I was worried that might be you.”

Another snore rattled the rooftop.

“Careful. This constant padding of my ego, I’ll become unbearable.”

“Become unbearable?” Freddy returned sweetly, and went up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms about his neck. She kissed him very lightly, testing the waters, and drew back to look into his face.

There was a warmth there, and a heat, that was yards apart from the vibes he usually put out, but it was still him. Still the sarky, difficult man she’d first spoken to in a London pub, after he’d torn verbal strips off her and left her feeling exposed and vulnerable, sitting with the people who should know her better than anyone but had failed to see what he had realised from the distance of the theatre stalls. It was perverse that she liked him so much.

And fancied him like mad.

“Snogging licence still valid?” she teased, and he kissed her in answer, hard and deep and engulfing. Once more in this room, she experienced being thrust into a dream-state, where she couldn’t breathe properly, but unlike the intense dismay of her dawning realisation earlier, this was all sensation and want.

He was pushed back a few steps, and her socked feet slipped on the wooden floorboards as she stumbled closer into him. His hand gripped high on her thigh, skin on skin, and her dress must be caught somewhere around her waist.

He momentarily froze. “Stitches.”

“Other leg.” Her lips on his neck, unable to stop nuzzling up to his earlobe, Freddy murmured, “What if the snoring stops?”

“People over in Littlebourne Copse can get some sleep?” Griff’s mouth burned a trail of kisses down to her throat, and she struggled to catch her breath, in a painful gulp.

“I mean, Wanda could wake up and she’ll be in here at the first squeak.”

“Do you often squeak?” he asked, and she grinned against his mouth as it returned to hers.

“Given enough inspiration, I make all sorts of noises.” She felt the faint laugh move in his chest, and cupped his neck between her palms, keeping his head away from her for a second. “And we can’t forget about Arthur. And possibly the parrot, if he’s never in a cage.”

“Freddy.” Griff straightened, his hands rubbing slightly at the curve of her waist. “If you want to stop, I’d prefer you stick to your candid philosophy where intimate relationships are concerned, and say so.”

Her heartbeat was a hard, fast thump in her chest, echoing the pulse of arousal. His touch made her shake, and his scent seemed to be pressed into her own clothes and skin, and she loved kissing him so much that she’d happily abandon her hobby search just to suck on his tongue at every possible moment. Her mind was a jumble right now, her body was tired and stressed and in need of release, and she wanted sex.

It was something she’d always approached kind of lightly, before and after the fact.

She’d take a guy back to her flat after a first date if she was attracted and in the mood and it was all consensual, and with one notable exception, she’d never thought much about it afterwards.