The Austen Playbook (London Celebrities #4)(70)

Holyshitholyshit...

She was still trembling violently, hands, arms, legs, when his head jerked back and his jaw clenched. In the most dexterous movement Freddy had managed since the day at the pub in London when she’d caught a bottle before it could smash on him, she turned, unzipped him, and closed her mouth over the tip of his erection, wrapping her fist around him, seconds before he arched with a guttural groan.

They stayed like that until the deep, irregular expansion of Griff’s ribs slowed back to a normal rhythm. The tautness seemed to drain out of his muscles, his tall frame going lax.

“God. Freddy.” Her name so wreathed with feeling, his voice so rough, it was barely audible. His fingers were unsteady as they stroked over her head, threading through her hair, and gently, carefully, Freddy drew him from her mouth with a final light stroke of her thumb over the sensitive skin at the crease of his hairy thigh. He seemed to shudder with a last wave of compulsive pleasure.

Touching her fingers to her lips, she moved back to curl against him, and was immediately pulled into a tight hold. She cuddled close into the sheltering warmth of his arms, the sweat on her body cooling in the slightly chilly air. Highbrook had very efficient ventilation in summer, largely due to various cracks and holes in the walls, Freddy suspected, but it must be freezing in winter.

She might get the chance to find out, now.

She stroked Griff’s chest, her gaze moving from where her fingers brushed across his body hair up to his face. He was watching her intently, still holding her, his forehead and hairline damp.

Post-orgasm lethargy had been replaced by obvious concern; she could see it in his dark eyes as he touched the back of a knuckle lightly to her cheek. Their faces were close enough that she felt the fan of his breath on her nose.

“What did you mean earlier about Sadie?” he asked unexpectedly, his voice deep and low in the lingering intimacy of the room. It still felt somehow hushed in here, significant and almost—reverent. “What’s she done? Besides demonstrate every deficiency in her character on a daily basis.”

At that question, the chill on Freddy’s skin seemed to prickle, and she shivered. Griff rubbed his hand along her arm and stretched out for the blanket they’d knocked askew, where it lay draped at the end of the bed. Shaking it out, he tucked it around her.

“Thank you.” Freddy pulled the super-soft wool under her chin. It was like a comforting hug—although not as comforting as the actual hug she got when Griff tugged her back into his arms. “It was...” She swallowed, and sensed his head turn down towards hers.

“You don’t have to tell me if you’d rather not,” he said quietly against her temple, and she reached up and twisted her hand into his.

“It seems she’s been making a habit on this production of storing up damaging information about people. I don’t know what she was holding over Greg Stirling, but she got him out to make room for Ferren, just because she fancies him.”

“Charming girl,” Griff said, in an inadvertent reiteration of his brother’s opinion. Despite the mildness of his remark, multiple muscles went rigid against her, and he pulled the blanket back to see her face properly. “Is that little viper blackmailing you?”

From his expression, Sadie would live to regret it.

“It’s not really cause for blackmail in my case. If she blabbed my dirty little secret all over London, it would be a five-minute scandal. After all, apparently it happens all the time in this industry.” The hard edge to her words was so unlike her usual tone of speaking that she thought it shocked them both a bit.

Griff stroked her cheek, never looking away from her face.

“She’s just been enjoying making little digs here and there. It’s far more up her street than out-and-out blackmail, actually. I bet you a hundred quid that when she was little she was one of those nasty little shits who throw stones at cats.” Freddy had to drop her gaze then. She didn’t look at him when she said, “She worked with Drew Townseville recently.”

“Another person who should be ostracised from the business for being a twat.”

Freddy huffed out a brief, startled laugh. “Yes. He was the artistic director when I performed in High Voltage a few years back.”

“The weakest performance of your career.” The comforting thumb rubbing on her cheekbone was followed up by the theatre critic in typically blunt form. Actually, there was something perversely comforting about that, too. If he’d starting waxing poetical because of an orgasm, she’d suddenly be in bed with a stranger.

And on that note...

“Yes.” She was compulsively playing with the dusting of hair on his chest. Petting the jaguar. He’d gone all watchful again. “It was the turning point. My first high-profile drama. My big move out of the child roles in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Addams Family and the rest, and into Serious Theatre.” She invested the phrase with full, sarcastic capitals, but her voice was hardening again. “I was eighteen. My dad was bursting with plans for my career, and the agent I had at the time was pushing as well. There was so much pressure. And I was so young then.”

In actual years, she wasn’t exactly on the brink of picking up a pension now, either, but that wasn’t what she meant, and she thought Griff knew that.

“As soon as I started prepping for the read, it didn’t feel right, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get it.” She managed a small smile. “Everything you said in your review of that show was right, and if you thought I was shit on opening night, after weeks of rehearsal, you should have seen me at the audition.”