He had an answer for that, but it was one he couldn’t share. “Whatever you want.”
“Things at work are tense, and you being a Beckett definitely would jeopardize that…if we were dating for real, that is… I mean, I know this is just for a bet, just fun,” she said, a slight tremble in her voice.
Because he couldn’t imagine ever letting her go, he trailed a stream of soft kisses across her shoulder. “I can wait.”
The second the words were out of his mouth, he caught his mistake. He couldn’t scare her off, make her feel trapped, overwhelm her like a caveman intent on making his claim no matter what.
She stiffened in his arms, and he silently cursed his mistake. She’d caught his slip. Of course she had. She was Kinsey. So before she could ask for clarification on what he meant, he rolled her so they were facing each other and kissed her, putting everything he could into it so the only thing in the world there was at that moment was them and the promise of tomorrow.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Kinsey
A week later and Kinsey’s brain had been overtaken by Griff—her body, too. It was a full-on mutiny. She’d spent her days at work under the watchful glare of Gavin the Terrible as he sent her what amounted to busywork assignments on the hot new product Archambeau was going to launch and then her nights with Griff eating meals he cooked in between orgasms he helped give her. It was exhausting and exhilarating and like walking down Main Street the time the county sheriff had set an illegal pot patch to blaze only for the wind to shift and send all the smoke toward downtown, giving the entire population of their small town a contact high.
Even now, when she was tucked away in a sandwich shop six blocks from Archambeau and was supposed to be reviewing the specifications of the next task Gavin had assigned her, her thoughts kept drifting to Griff and how he’d looked this morning in bare feet and low-slung jogger shorts making her an iced coffee to drink on the walk in to work. It was all so domestic and hot and completely and utterly dangerous.
She should cut the whole thing off right now.
Look at what being around Griff had done. Work needed to be her focus. She had to get the people at the lab to take her seriously, to understand she had a brain beneath all the blond hair and big eyes. To do that, she needed to be putting in more hours than anyone else, to see what the others didn’t, to prove she deserved to be there.
And what was she doing instead? Eating a pastrami on rye with a goofy-ass grin on her face and thinking about Griff.
“Oh, fuck it,” she muttered to herself and grabbed her phone.
KINSEY: So tell me about this bet.
GRIFF: Nash’s stupid idea.
KINSEY: What’s on the line? What’s in the present?
It had to be something beyond amazing considering Griff, Dixon, and Nash were willing to participate in such an elaborate bet to win it.
GRIFF: Long story.
KINSEY: I’m on my lunch break. I have time.
She tucked the paperwork she’d brought with her back into a folder and dropped it into her bag.
GRIFF: You already know. Our grandma Betty only wrapped one Christmas present before she died. We know it’s for one of us because she group texted us she was putting the finishing touches on our gifts early. But sadly, we don’t know which one of us she finished first.
The possibilities rushed through her mind one after the other like thunder bolts during a summer electrical storm.
KINSEY: Is it the deed to some fancy house or a private island?
GRIFF: She left Gable House, which does happen to have its own island, to all of the grandkids.
KINSEY: So is it a million dollars?
GRIFF: I already have that and more.
Fair enough.
KINSEY: Okay, Mr. Richie Rich, what’s in the present?
GRIFF: No idea.
She chewed the inside of her cheek and pondered. Not knowing was going to drive her up the wall. She hated questions without answers. It kinda went with the whole scientist thing. Okay, so maybe she could tease the answer out of him.
KINSEY: So it could be socks? Or underwear? Or a box of hard candy that grandparents always have but no one ever eats? Or a treasure worth the GDP of a small island nation?
GRIFF: Yup.
She groaned. Ugh. She should have known he wouldn’t fall for it. Even worse, he’d fallen back into monosyllabic texting mode.
KINSEY: And it would be worth all this trouble?
GRIFF: It could be a pile of dirty towels wrapped up by accident and it would mean something because it was from Grandma Betty.
She scrunched up her face and sniffled because all of a sudden it was very dusty in this absolutely pristine sandwich shop. Of all the ooey-gooey answers, he had to go with the one that would hit her right in the feels. Meemaw had raised her and her siblings after their mom had dropped them off at the doorstep and never looked back. The woman could have shipped them off to state care, but she hadn’t. She’d reshuffled her life for them, and there was nothing Kinsey could do to ever repay her, so the best she could do was to not fuck things up in Harbor City, to show her grandma that the completely funded retirement she’d given up to help Kinsey get through college had been worth it.
And here was Griff with so much love for his own grandma that he agreed to a bet he had absolutely no interest in being a part of. She sniffled again. Who would have thought the tattooed, muscled-up, grunting scientist and total fucking softie inside Griff would go together like peas and carrots?
KINSEY: We’ll make sure you win that bet.
The incoming message dots appeared and disappeared about a million times as she finished up her chocolate chip cookie, all gooey from a few seconds in the corner sandwich shop’s microwave, and then there was nothing. Okay, fine, they hadn’t talked about the bet in weeks, but it was always there, hanging between them. The real reason they were hanging out.
And the fact that she was thinking about him pretty much twenty-four-seven? Well, that didn’t matter. She was a woman starting out in her career, and she didn’t have time to catch feelings—especially not for someone who headed R&D at Archambeau’s biggest competitor. Nope. She wasn’t gonna do it. Falling for Griff was about as smart as grabbing the unlabeled jug on the table at family reunions and taking a gulp thinking it was water and realizing too late it was Meemaw’s moonshine.
Too bad you already drank it all, Kinsey girl.
Shut up, brain.
The bell above the shop’s door jingled, snagging her attention away from her phone screen, which was frustratingly not displaying any new messages from Griff.
Gavin walked in with another man. Her boss spotted her as he scanned the small seating area, but instead of his usual judgmental smirk, he blushed and looked away. After a quick conversation that Kinsey was too far away to hear, he and the man walked back out and headed left down the block.