She brushed her mouth across his, pressing in close and blowing his mind before pulling back, blinking as if she wasn’t sure what in the hell she’d just done.
He could answer that. She’d started something—they’d started something—and he couldn’t wait to finish it.
His gaze dropped to her lips, pink and soft and plump with wanting after that tease of a kiss. This was when he should walk away, get out of that apartment, and come up with a plan. Instead, he reached out and curled his hands around her ass and lifted her up. Her arms came around his neck as he took a half step toward the couch, setting her down on the back of it, sliding his hands to her hips to keep her steady, and stepping between her open legs.
Heart racing, he dipped his head down and crushed his lips to hers. Her fingers tugged at his hair as she opened beneath him, her tongue tasting and teasing him as he tried not to lose himself in the pleasure of how she felt against him.
This went beyond attraction, beyond wanting, beyond craving. This was Old Testament coveting. Lust and a possessive need roared through him. He’d known it the first time he’d heard her voice and this knock-you-on-your-ass kiss only confirmed it. He was meant for Kinsey Dalton, body and soul.
Now he just needed to convince her that she was meant for him—too bad that for once in his life, he didn’t have even the first clue how to solve that problem. She was in lust with him, he was sure of that. But how was a guy who didn’t know the first thing about using his words actually get a woman to fall in love with him? He should probably start by not making her more in lust.
He broke the kiss, setting her down on the ground and stepping back. They stared at each other, both breathing heavily.
“Tomorrow,” he said, walking backward to the door because he couldn’t seem to make himself look away from her. “Six thirty.”
She nodded, her fingertips against her lips, her expression as shell-shocked as he felt.
He’d no more than closed the front door behind him, then he was texting Nash and Dixon.
GRIFF: My place. SOS.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Griff
Nash and Dixon sat on opposite sides of the counter-height kitchen table, beers in hand, and stared at Griff as if he’d grown a second and third head—and all those heads were having a full-fledged argument about middle part versus side part or some such shit. For his part, Griff kept shuffling the deck.
Rummy helped him focus. The shuffling. The dealing. The calculating of odds and options. Grandma Betty had taught them how to play during the summers they’d spent out at Gable House as a way to keep them out of trouble. Now he played whenever he really needed to think. So when his cousins had shown up at his place, he hadn’t said anything until they were sitting down, cards in hand, the score pad sitting on the table next to Dixon. Griff had flipped over the card that would form the beginning of the discard pile and given them the entire situational rundown in the amount of time it took him to organize his hand—by suit in order of ace on down.
Dixon let out a low whistle as he arranged his hand while Nash slid his cards together so it looked like he was only holding one card—he always kept his hand in the same chaotic jumble they’d been dealt—and then took a long drink from his beer.
“So what’s the plan?” Nash asked as he took the top card off the stack.
Griff shook his head. “Fuck if I know.”
He’d spent the time since leaving Kinsey’s in his Lego room trying to concoct the perfect plan and coming up empty. That meant the shower was next, where instead of figuring out how to get Kinsey to fall in love with him, he ended up imagining the way her face had looked after that kiss—her lips swollen and her eyes hazy with lust—so that he’d ended up grabbing his dick and jerking off imagining how good it would have been if he’d gone down on his knees in front of her, spread the wet fabric of her robe, and ate that pussy until she came all over his face.
He shifted in his seat, since whacking off in the shower and then again half an hour ago didn’t seem to lessen his ability to get it up at the thought of Kinsey.
“Why does he need a plan?” Dixon looked from Griff to Nash and back again. “It’s not like this changes anything. He’s not—” He stopped mid-sentence and turned his attention to Nash. “You lucky asshole.”
The bet. For Dixon, who counted winning as integral a thing for survival as breathing, of course the bet would factor high.
“When you’ve got it, you’ve got it,” Nash said, flashing a know-it-all smug grin at their cousin. “But Griff never cared about the bet for Grandma Betty’s last present.”
“Not true.” Okay, kind of true. At the time he’d agreed, really it was just about busting Dixon’s balls. “I just don’t give a shit about it in comparison to winning over Kinsey.”
“Like I said,” Dixon continued, drawing a card and then shucking it straight into the discard pile. “Lucky fucking asshole.”
Time to bring everything back to the ranch or Nash would continue to gloat while Dixon took his revenge by pulling every petty opportunity possible to score shit points in rummy. “Normally, I wouldn’t bring you two into this.”
“Awwwww,” Nash said, going all in on his innate patronizing tone—the one that always got him glared at even when he didn’t mean it. “Our baby is growing up and he needs our help.”
These fucking guys—if they weren’t all ride or die for one another, he’d probably be the one planning the best option for getting away with murder.
Griff took a card and glanced down at his hand, which, just like his life at the moment, was one thing away from perfection. “I just need a plan.”
“You have the dates, numb nuts,” Dixon said, swiping up the four of spades that Griff had discarded and then laying down four of a kind. “That’s your opportunity to make her fall in love with you right there.”
“It’s not enough.” His gut was all twisted up. Usually that only happened when he was face-to-face with the old man, having to bite his tongue as his dad outlined all the many ways his children had failed to live up to his level of success. Griff could listen to the bitter asshole complain about him all day, but when he went in on Morgan, that’s when shit got ugly.
This wasn’t that, though. He knew the truth about himself. He might not look it anymore, but he was still the kid who’d spent most of seventh grade stuffed in one locker or another. So Griff did what he always did—he armored up with a scowl dark enough to get mistaken for midnight. “Because Kinsey’s fun and I’m—”
“About as joyous as dandruff on a black shirt?” Dixon asked, completely immune to Griff’s growly attitude.