The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(46)

From the first moment with Griff, it was so intensely personal. No weirdness, no awkwardness, just—right.

It was messy, it was sweaty, and a little rough towards the end—and she was totally aware that he wasn’t just a person in bed with her. It was Griff she was snogging and gripping on to, Griff who was inside her, murmuring into her ear.

It was more than physical; it was a building and layering of a bond that went much deeper than that.

During the middle part, when it was slower and more quietly sensual, and his hands were cupping her head, his kisses were deep and searching, he pulled back just for a moment to look into her eyes. She saw, in the depths of his, the same sense of wonder and trepidation that she was feeling.

Then the pulse, the drive, was becoming too intense for slowness, and he asked in a low rasp if she wanted to go on top, and she did squeak. With horror.

“God, no. I’m so out of condition right now I have the hip flexors of a ninety-year-old. I don’t know how you’re doing it.”

She got her first proper laugh from him in bed, in the midst of very intense sex, and somehow that seemed right, too.

In the end, she did need more to get there, and he turned her under him, and supported her unfit hips with a strong arm while he drove into her from behind.

“Too rough?” His voice, barely comprehensible now, into her hair.

“No.” Just a gasp, as she lowered her head, and gripped onto his hand where his spread fingers were braced on the mattress, holding up his weight. She reached down to touch herself again, and felt the wet slide of him, and her muscles clenched down hard and then released into seemingly endless pulsing pleasure.

She was barely aware of him tensing violently against her however long it was later, his grip on her almost painful, or how heavy he was when they both collapsed down into the mattress.

Her heart was pounding so hard it couldn’t be healthy. Freddy turned her cheek against the quilt, feeling the scrape of the cotton stitches. She closed her eyes and felt back for his hand, and his fingers interlocked tightly with hers.

Eventually, he rolled over and left the bed and the room for a minute. When he came back, the mattress dipped as she felt him behind her and around her, his arm folding over her and their hands finding each other again. She could smell sweat and hear his breathing, still slowing back to normal.

The most overwhelming sense of wellbeing and safety washed over her. Not only orgasm aftermath, but secure. She couldn’t find words beyond that.

“I think you may have underestimated yourself when you implied you weren’t good at anything but acting.” Griff’s voice was a lazy murmur against her shoulder. “Drastically.”

She barely had the energy to laugh. “Not really a talent I can write on the back of my headshot.”

He kissed her neck, and she still shivered, even after all that. She turned over in his hold and her nose brushed against his. “Should I go back to my room?”

His arm flexed her closer, seemingly on reflex. “Why?”

“Possible hazard of butlers and alarming old ladies stalking the halls at dawn.” She studied his face as she spread her fingers against his chest. “And a preference for sleeping alone?”

“You?” He was stroking light patterns on her back.

“Surprising nobody, I’m all for the postcoital cuddling.” Delicious goose bumps broke out on her skin when his hand reached the dip at the base of her spine. “But I suspect you’re not.”

“Not usually. But nothing else about tonight is within my usual experience.”

“But...” Her voice trailed off when he touched a knuckle to her cheek. She looked at him for a heartbeat longer, then closed her eyes again and curled into him, and felt his head come to rest against hers.

In the dark, the outside world started to exist again, and the rain continued to patter on the windows, and all the lurking problems beyond the enclosed intimacy and security of the room tried to sneak through the crack under the door and back into her mind.

She tightened her hand on Griff’s.

It wasn’t a censorious butler or disapproving hostess who woke them just before eight, but an unexpectedly conscientious little brother.

Charlie’s current car, which looked and sounded like it should be on a Formula One track, roared into the courtyard, and broke Griff abruptly back into consciousness and momentary disorientation. He’d dropped into complete oblivion after the most intensely intimate experience of his life.

Lifting his head from the tangle of Freddy’s hair, he breathed in her scent—coconut—and tensed, trying to work out what—

Another rev of a familiar engine before it cut off and a car door slammed, and he finally got his brain working. Slipping his hand down her arm in a brief caress, he disentangled their legs and rolled out of bed, striding naked to the window and looking out.

His brother was standing by the vehicle that he treated like an extortionately expensive child, looking up at the manor. Even from a distance, Griff could see the incredulity and growing amusement as Charlie took in the full Gothic splendour.

Retrieving his trousers from the floor, where Freddy had thrown them, he dressed quickly. His shirt had been removed last night before he’d gone to investigate the light footsteps creeping about the hallways, so it was in decent shape, but from the waist down he looked like he’d been dragged backwards through a bush.