If he let go with one thing, all the loose strands would escape his grasp. That’s what had happened to his dad. The old man had been a narcissistic asshole before Griff’s mom had died, and after it had only gotten worse. The scraped-up edges became cracks, became broken pieces, became jagged, rusty shards of a life busted up by his own hands and out-of-control ego. Griff couldn’t—wouldn’t—fall into the same trap. He couldn’t stop loving Kinsey, but he’d maintain control, keep his words to himself, and bury any vulnerabilities until he could pretend they didn’t exist anymore.
Kinsey twisted and wrapped her arms around his neck, a wicked smile on her face. “Guess I’ll just have to try another way to convince you,” she said as she raised herself on her tiptoes and kissed him.
Just like that, every thought in his head was obliterated along with his tenuous hold on his self-control right as the elevator doors opened. In one swift movement, he broke the kiss, took Kinsey by the waist, and put her over his right shoulder before striding out of the elevator like a man on a mission, because he was—to get her naked and orgasming all over his dick as soon as possible.
Not one to be undone by being mostly upside down, her hands were busy tugging his shirt free of his pants, obviously as ready as he was to get rid of all their clothes. Once inside his penthouse, though, he slid her down his front so they were face-to-face. Without taking the time to think about a plan or anything else, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling up her arms as he backed her against the wall and kissed her, putting all that need raging through him into one action. She rewarded him by wrapping her legs around his hips, tangling her fingers in his hair, and kissing him back with a focused intensity that blew him the fuck away. He could feel her heat through the layers of their clothing, and there was nothing more he wanted at the moment than to have both of them burn.
That’s when he became a man facing a shitty decision: put Kinsey down so he could strip them both or hold on to her and enjoy the way she felt in his arms, the little sound she made when he did that thing with his tongue, and the way she just fit perfectly against him. Desperate beyond anything he’d ever known before to touch her bare skin again, he released her arms and took two steps back.
“Take it off,” he said, breathing hard and unable to tear his gaze away from her as he toed off his shoes.
She bit her bottom lip and lifted an eyebrow. “Take what off?”
“All of it.” He yanked his shirt over his head and went to work on his jeans.
“You mean these?” She undid her shorts and shimmied out of them, kicking them to the side along with her shoes.
He mentally cursed the fact that her shirt was long enough to reach the top of her thighs. The torment of seeing what was hinted at underneath was worse than no hint at all.
“More,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Greedy, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” He yanked his shirt over his head, then shoved down his jeans and his boxer briefs, leaving him bare to her.
The little gasp of appreciation she let out and the way her eyes went dark made his dick even harder than it had been a heartbeat ago. To be wanted by this woman was all he could hope for at this moment. She didn’t love him—not yet, anyway, but by damn she was gonna want him just as badly as he craved her.
Her hands shook as she reached under the back of her shirt and performed some kind of hidden maneuver that ended with her pulling her bra out from one sleeve. But by the time it had landed on the floor, she seemed to have regained part of herself. Her hot gaze trained on him, she took in every bit of him. The muscles. The tattoos. The scar along his rib cage. Griff had been stared at a lot in his life—paparazzi after his mother died trailing after him, looking for a comment on the messy scandal that had followed; other fighters in the gym sizing him up expecting to take him down; assholes in the industry who assumed there was nothing in his head; and his own father, who only saw what was missing when he looked at his son. But Kinsey? She looked at him as if he was perfect, as if she’d been waiting her whole life for him.
“What happened to all that dirty talk downstairs?” she asked, her hands going up under her shirt, lifting it a few inches higher but not enough to reveal anything. “Hearing you say what you wanted to do to me was the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He cupped his balls, squeezing them hard to pull back from the edge of the cliff he was racing toward. “You liked that? You like it when I talk?”
She bit down on her bottom lip, looked up at him through her lashes, and nodded, then lowered her hands, taking her panties with her. He watched, anticipation a living, breathing thing inside him, as the white lace glided down her thick thighs and her strong calves before pooling at her feet.
Jesus.
He couldn’t fucking take in any air. His lungs and his brain had shut down. All he could process was the lust that was kneecapping him at the sight of her in only a thin, oversize white cotton T-shirt.
“Griff,” she said, yanking his attention back up to her face. “I really liked it.”
Something feral raced through him, a completely uncivilized, raw lust that practically burned him from the inside out. She wanted that? She wanted that part of him that he didn’t show anyone? The hard part. The rough part. The secret part. It was hers. All of it was hers, just like he was. He reached out and hooked his finger in the V of her T-shirt and pulled her in close. Desire flooded her gaze, and she let out a soft, sexy moan.
“If you liked hearing me say it,” he said, “then you’re gonna love actually experiencing it.”
He picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder again, and then marched naked toward the bedroom, one hand on her bare ass as he worked out exactly what he was going to do to get her off next.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kinsey
He was so damn close to touching her exactly where she wanted and yet he wouldn’t ease that ache between her legs. Instead, his huge hand palmed her ass as he stalked across his penthouse. Sure, she could have been pissed about the whole over-the-shoulder caveman thing, but it gave her a great view of the muscles in his butt. The man had a phenomenal ass. Somewhere Michelangelo was pissed off that he hadn’t lived long enough to sculpt Griff’s butt in marble. Mikey had definitely missed out.
They went through a doorway, and Kinsey went from admiring the definition of Griff’s glutes to seeing the ceiling when he flipped her off his shoulder. She landed in the middle of his massive bed and had exactly zero point no seconds to acclimate herself before he grasped an ankle in each hand and dragged her so her ass was on the edge of the bed. In the next heartbeat, his hands were splayed across the insides of her inner thighs as he kneeled between her widespread legs. Her T-shirt had gotten bunched up as he’d tugged her to him, leaving her exposed to his hungry gaze.