Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(45)

“Doll,” he rasped, his lips finding the hollow just beneath my jaw.

I sighed. That spot always got me. I closed my eyes. “Maybe I was selfish, Griffin,” I whispered.

His mouth closed over my earlobe.

I choked on breath. It felt too good.

“You weren’t selfish.” He rained kisses over my neck. “You were alone. You did what you had to do.”

“But—”

He silenced me by kissing me long and slow and deep.

I drowned in the sweetness of it, clinging to him, kissing him back eagerly.

He pulled back. “Doll, you are the least selfish person I know.”

“No, I’m not.” I reached down for the edge of his tight t-shirt and pulled it over his head.

He let me do it, offering no resistance, and then he was beautiful and shirtless in front of me, all his skin bared to me.

I placed my hands on his pecks, trailed my fingers over his sturdy chest and stomach.

He sucked in breath, closed his eyes. “You’re open and accepting and patient.”

I kissed the rigid clefts of his muscles. I put my mouth against the ugly tattoo in the center of his chest. I peered up at him.

“You’re good to me,” he breathed.

“I put myself and what I wanted ahead of the idea of being pregnant, though. That’s selfish, isn’t it?”

“No.” He took me by both hands and pulled me to my feet. “It’s not.”

“I think it is.”

Griffin gathered the skirt of my dress into his fists and tugged the dress up and over my head.

It wasn’t the kind of dress that I could easily wear a bra with. Suddenly, I was naked except for my panties.

He raked his gaze over me. “You’re beautiful.”

My insides melted.

He cupped my breasts, one in each hand. “Listen to me. The definition of selfish is caring about yourself more than you care about other people. But the way you care about me is the opposite of selfish, doll. I’m sorry I ever said it. I didn’t mean it.”

I moaned at his touch.

He ran his thumbs over my nipples, and they stiffened.

Pleasure jolted through me. I moaned louder.

He continued to toy with my breasts. “But me, on the other hand... I don’t deserve you. I’ve put you through too much.”

“Griffin, that’s not true.”

His hands faltered. “I think it is.”

I reached for the button on his pants and undid it. I unzipped him and pushed his jeans over his thighs. He stepped out of them. There. Now, we were even. We were both only wearing underwear.

I could see his erection straining against the fabric of his boxers. I had to touch it. I stroked him through the thin cotton.

He gasped.

“Bad?” I said. I always had to be careful when I touched Griffin here. Sometimes, he didn’t like it.

“No,” he said breathlessly. “Good. It’s good.”

My hand moved rhythmically around him. “I don’t know where I’d be without you. You’ve saved me so many times. From myself as much as from people trying to kill me.”

He captured my wrist, stopping my hand. “But it seems like there’s always people trying to kill you. Or me. And right now, it’s because of me that you’re in danger.”

I climbed back onto the bed, my hand still wrapped around him. I pulled him down with me that way.

He grunted, slamming his eyes shut.

I started to drag my grasp against the length of him again, but he lowered his face to my breast.

When he drew my nipple into his mouth, I forgot to do anything but cry out. Bliss washed over me, warm and wonderful. “Maybe I like danger,” I managed.

His hands were on the inside of my thigh, moving higher. “Oh really?” he murmured into my breast.

“Maybe it turns me on.”

His fingers went under my panties, gently probing me. “You seem turned on.”

I groaned.

He yanked my panties out of the way and his fingers were back between my legs. “Don’t I owe you, doll?” His lips closed over my other nipple.

I couldn’t answer with words. I tried to moan out something in the affirmative, but it was too tough to speak when he was assaulting me that way. His fingers were expert, gently flitting against me, stroking, swirling—slow at first, but recognizing the signs my body made and increasing to a frenzy.

I writhed under him, thrashed, screamed.

He’d always been good at that, but months of practice when we’d been dating had perfected his technique. And I was tense and ready from everything that had come before. My body was begging for release, and he gave it to me.

The spasm of my orgasm ripped through me, powerful, shattering. I rode it, calling out his name as it rolled over me, swelling and ebbing back until I was nothing more than a mess of twitching on the bed.

Griffin kissed me.

I was jelly in his arms, liquid and loose. “You’re amazing.”

He tugged away. “No. As if any amount of making you come could ever make up for the way I left you.”

“Griffin, it happened,” I said. “We can’t change that.” I tugged at his boxers, pulling them off.

“Everything that happened was my fault.”

I took him in my hand, stiff and thick and long and ready. I caressed him. “No. It’s all been far too complicated to be anyone’s fault.”