Three Rivers (33 page)

He had to see her, had to feel her, but more than that, he had to know how willing she'd been to move on with someone else.

"Did he touch you?" he asked quietly.

"What?" Her eyes were unfocused and dilated, drunk on the pleasurable touches he was giving her.

Griffen pressed more firmly into her skin, "Did. He. Touch. You?"

"Griffen..."

He relaxed and stroked her shoulder. "Did he touch you here?"

"He took off my jacket," she answered.

Griffen growled a little. "So, he touched you here." Griffen ran his fingertips across her shoulder and collarbones. Following them with his tongue and teeth. Nibbling and marking everywhere the other man's hand had been until she was panting from his attention. "Where else did he touch you, Althea?" he whispered after licking up her neck to bite on her earlobe.

"He led me out of the restaurant," she breathed.

"I saw that. I didn't like it," he growled again. "So, he touched you here," Griffen said as his fingertips moved, barely touching the small of her back. Griffen knelt behind her stroking the cheeks of her bottom and massaging as he licked the small of her back.

He slowly pulled her panties down her legs, supporting her as she stepped out of them. Then he ran his tongue up her thigh and over to the seam of her ass — licking and grazing her flesh with his teeth.

"He didn't touch me there. Nowhere else. I wouldn't have let him," Althea said.

"Why, gorgeous? Why wouldn't you have let him?"

"Because I wanted it to be you touching me. So much. Not him."

"Good. So then I'll touch everywhere he didn't, too."

She spun around and knelt down in front of him, joining him on the floor. Placing her hands on his face she said, "Yes, please. But I need you inside me first. Now."

Griffen wrapped his arms around her back roughly and leaned her backward to suck on one breast, then the other. Each moan she released drove him crazier. His need to mark her becoming more intense by the moment.

"Please, Griffen. Now."

He couldn't wait either. He walked over to the bedside table and pulled out a condom from the stash he'd left there earlier in the week. When he returned to her on the floor she quickly pulled down his running shorts and boxer briefs, revealing his throbbing length. He was rock hard and his mind was still racing and feverish from his shit of a day. He kissed her deeply, running his hands down her sides and pulling her close. He was incapable of feeling anything but being completely lost over this woman, over his life, over everything.

But when he lay her back and thrust inside her in one stroke, peace finally found him.

He stilled for a moment, enjoying the completeness he knew he couldn't give up. She was just as crazy as him, rolling them over so she could straddle his lap and ride him — hard.

He leaned back on his hands, his muscles rippling from the effort, his legs straightened for even more traction. He had to take control. Needed it. Reaching one arm back around her he guided her up and down, deeper than he'd ever been before. She let go for him, throwing her head back and moaning, tightening and clenching around him.

On a final thrust she tightened hard around him and he pulled her firmly back against him, stroking his tongue in her mouth.

He swallowed her moans and vibrating screams, only matched by the intensity of his own. Griffen came powerfully inside her, leaving nothing for himself — all was given to her. They panted and held each other, silently caressing and reminding themselves they were back in each other's arms.

No matter what happens next, we are together now
, he assured himself
.

Althea finally broke the silence with a little giggle.

"Gorgeous you're lucky I have a healthy ego or I might be worried about you laughing right now."

"Oh no. Nothing to worry about, stud. I just think it's safe to say you've successfully made me forget all about Curt."

"Good," he said, squeezing her tightly. "Now let me get you off this floor and into the shower with me. I want to touch you all over properly like I promised and don't want to wait until after I wash this day off me. I've got a lot of sexy ground to cover."

"Are you up to the task?"

"It's a tough job but I'm more than happy to do it."

After leading her to the
en
suite
bath and pulling her under the warm water with him he proceeded to kiss, touch, and tease her until the day fell away and there was nothing but the feel of each other in their arms.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Griffen reached across the bed but when his hand found cool, smooth sheets instead of a warm, sexy woman, he reluctantly opened his eyes.

He looked across the room and caught sight of Althea, wrapped in a light robe, her arms gripping her waist as she stared out the window, her eyes dark and distant. The room was dark but the contours of her forlorn face were occasionally illuminated by flashes of faraway lightning.

The rain was still coming down in violent sheets outside, sliding down the window in front of her as it beat onto the rivers nestled beneath the rock face on which her home perched. It was as though the sky was listening to the sadness in her heart, crying for her and he couldn't help but feel like he was intruding on their intimate conversation.

He walked over to her, running his fingers through his hair. She looked back at him with glassy eyes.

"Gorgeous? What's wrong?"

"I just couldn't sleep. Sorry I woke you."

She looked back out the window. He stood beside her, waiting for her to share whatever was going on in her head with him. It felt like years before she opened her mouth again.

"I love that I can see all three rivers from here. Jack and I had the coolest condo in Lawrenceville. Loads of bars, restaurants, artists — it was so cool — but I could only see the Allegheny River from there. This is better."

"Why'd you move?" Griffen asked cautiously. He could sense her mood was dark and he wanted to be careful, like he was approaching a spooked horse that may rear back and run off at any moment.

She turned to him slowly. "Carol wanted me to move here — closer to her — as soon as we found out about the baby. I fought it for a while. I couldn't leave the house at all for weeks, selling it seemed even crazier. Then it was robbed one night while I was at school. The whole place was ruined, ransacked. Not much was taken, thank God, but after that, well, I didn't fight Carol anymore. I just gave in — gave up — and moved. But I like it here. I like this view."

"Is that what you were thinking about just now? Is that why you woke up?"

"No." She looked away again, "I, uh, had a bad dream."

Griffen touched her cheek and found his fingers came back wet. "Why are you crying? What was your nightmare about?"

"Same basic one I've had since Jack died."

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he asked softly.

Her eyes moved over his face slowly, as if she was trying to make a decision about something. She finally looked deeply into his eyes for a moment and then turned back to stare at the rivers again before she answered.

"I dream that Jack is alive. Sometimes I'm big and pregnant and he's so proud and happy. He touches my belly and we talk about baby names. Sometimes I'm telling him I'm pregnant. We cheer as we look at the test strip. Sometimes I'm holding baby Johnny. Sometimes Jack's walking Johnny and me home from a youth football game. We both hold one of Johnny's hands and swing him back and forth between us as we all laugh. We are so happy.

"But when I let go of Johnny and reach out to touch Jack's hand it falls apart in mine and turns to dust. He just...disintegrates right there. Sometimes it's more gruesome. He's waterlogged from the river, with drug hazed eyes, reaching for me. He starts to bleed, out of his eyes, his mouth, everywhere. I try to grab for him but only come back with blood and bone. Then his flesh falls away.

"The dream may be different, but the end is always the same. In the end, everything is gone. Jack is gone. Our home is gone. Our baby is gone. It's just me, in the dark, with an aching heart and empty hands. I wake up clutching the sheet, panting, looking around. It's ridiculous. Like I'm in an eighties TV show, or something."

Griffen swallowed around the tightness in his throat. Her voice was eerily smooth but tears streamed down her lovely face like the rivers from which she couldn't seem to look away.

"Do they happen often?" he managed to choke out.

"Used to be I had them all the time, every few days." She looked at him and smiled faintly. "There is a bright side. It makes me productive. I get a lot of client work done at two-thirty in the morning."

"You said used to. Have they slowed down?"

"This is the first one I've had in almost two weeks."

"Oh," Griffen said, pausing to let the significance of that to sink in. "I'm so sorry baby," he whispered as he kissed the tears across her cheeks.

Althea sighed and touched his cheek gently. "Don't be sorry, Griffen, it's not your fault. I don't want to think about whose fault it is. It just
is
."

But Griffen did feel like it was his fault that Jack was gone, leaving her here alone, and all he wanted to do was make her pain go away — if she would only let him try.

Griffen stroked her cheek and Althea thought how truly sorry she was to have woken him, especially because what she didn't tell him was that tonight it wasn't Jack's face that turned to dust and disappeared. It was
his
.

"Althea..." Griffen whispered.

"Shh. No," she said softly as she reached up and caressed his face gently in return. "Will you just...will you please make love to me, Griffen?"

"Anytime, gorgeous."

But it won't be anytime anymore
, Althea thought.
He will turn to dust and I will be all alone. Again
.

And she knew it had to be that way, because this emptiness in her heart was the penance she would always have to pay for failing Jack.

Griffen led her to the bed and they made love. It was the most tender and gentle experience of their time together. Griffen touched her everywhere, stroked her hair, kissed her face and soothed away each tear. He ran his lips down her chest and she gasped as he sucked her nipple into his mouth reverently. He somehow managed to put on a condom despite touching every part of her constantly and slid gently inside of her. She was grateful because she didn't want any lead-in this time. She just needed him inside her, while her hands were full of his hair and his warm, giving flesh. She moaned and lifted his head from her breast to look at him.

"Baby," he said, kissing her eyelids and finally claiming her mouth. She wrapped her legs around his, even curling her feet around his calves, desperately trying to make every inch of her body touch his.

She was so preoccupied with how full and complete she felt that her climax surprised her. This had not been about an orgasm, it was about closeness and human contact. Running off the demons of loss and fear, if only for a moment.

But Griffen didn't know how to leave her unsatisfied. He couldn't touch her without making her body go off like a sparkler in the backyard on the fourth of July, and even now, with his gentle lovemaking, it was no different. He groaned in her ear and came right along with her, spurring more spasms and electric shocks through her body.

"Oh Griffen, yes, Griffen," she responded.

He leaned up and looked into her eyes, brushing her hair back from her face. His face looked so tormented.

"Oh Althea," he said sadly over and over again, almost like a prayer, until he rolled over and held her until she finally fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep.