“Is that why you were so willing to consider that I might be innocent? Because of Miguel?”
She shook her unusual grim mood off. I saw the light of a smile radiate in her eyes. “Well,” she said, running her fingers over my ass and squeezing, “I was only a kid at the time, but I was old enough to notice that Miguel was hot. He smoldered...like you do.”
“Smoldered?”
“Yeah.”
“I smolder?”
“When you fuck me, you do.”
I slid a finger down to explore her pussy. It didn’t take long for all the folds and fissures down there to turn soft and juicy. I kept my thumb on her clit while I eased the finger inside her. She moaned.
“Tell me how this smoldering thing feels to you, babe.”
Her hips started to thrash. She was so sensitive, so passionate. All I had to do was touch her lightly and she was ready and open for my cock. “You feel warm, no, hot to me,” she gasped. Your fingers…it’s like they’re giving off heat. I can feel it inside me. It makes me hot, too.”
“You’re burning up inside,” I agreed. I thrust a second finger in. Her pelvis came up off the bed as her back arched. “My dick wants to be in you, babe.” In and out, in and out I pumped, while keeping my thumb busy on her erect clit. “It’s like a love furnace in there.”
She started to giggle. “A love furnace?”
With some other girl, I might have been embarrassed at my own cheesy wording, but her laugh was, as always, warm and delighted. It never felt as if Rory—who laughed a lot—was making fun of me. Rather she was full of joy that she just couldn't keep inside. When she shared that joy with me, I melted like an old softie and laughed too.
“We smoldering dudes require a love furnace. The hotter, the better.”
She needed no urging. She rolled over and knelt on top of me, her knees spread over my hips. Flinging her hair back over her shoulder, she gripped my dick at its base and pumped me up and down a few times. “You really ready for the fiery furnace?” she teased me. “You might get burned.”
I loved the look of her sitting athwart me, her tits bouncing gently as she settled into a comfortable position. Her body was perfect—not too thin, but womanly. When she was wearing her usual loose jeans and T-shirts, you couldn't see how feminine she was, but naked, my Rory was voluptuous. “Bring it. Burn me.”
Smiling, she aimed the tip of my cock in between her folds and impaled herself on me. She did it slowly, teasing me the way I loved to tease her. As her silky sheath engulfed me, all my lust erupted and control was abandoned.
I grabbed her hips and forced her down, driving balls deep into her over and over again. She rode me triumphantly, grinning all the while…or at least until her own control shattered.
She threw back her head and keened while I caressed her beautiful breasts and bucked like an animal until we both came.
Rory
After Griff and I had fucked ourselves boneless, I had trouble falling back asleep.
I couldn’t believe I’d told him all that stuff from my childhood.
I’d been spooked by my nightmare, I guess.
I thought it was gonna come right back and haunt me. Especially when Griff unexpectedly asked, “So who was Big Oscar?”
“Huh?” At first, I had no clue what he meant.
“You said that the night your friend was kidnapped, her parents were out at Big Oscar’s party. I’m pictured a big hulking dude who probably could’ve crushed the sicko dentist with one hand, if only he’d known.”
I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. The neighborhood where I’d grown up was
not
what Griff was imagining.
I should probably tell him the truth. I’d known him a few days now, and I hadn't told him. It wouldn't be too good if he found out on his own.
But if I told him, it might ruin everything.
So I lied. “I said big
ass
party. Not Big Oscar’s party.”
“Yeah?” He laughed too and snuggled me closer. “Guess I need to clean out my ears.”
A couple minutes later, he was asleep.
I lay awake, guilty, uneasy. When I still couldn’t sleep, I quietly slipped from his bed and wandered over to the window. I parted the curtain and looked out. The bedroom window overlooked the back of the house, where the woods were.
It was a clear night. A half moon was hanging over the skeletal branches of the trees. A breeze must have been blowing because the tree limbs were gently scraping the dark sky. A dusting of stars, paler than usual because of the light of the moon, were scattered above the woods.
No leaves on the trees yet. It was technically spring, but here in Massachusetts, the trees would be bare for at least another month.
I’d always loved the spring most of all the seasons. Autumn was beautiful here, and people went nuts about the dramatic colors, but I’d rather see life return to the world than watch it die. Spring was all about new beginnings, and I, as usual, was starting over again. College was about to end, and I had yet to make a decision about what I was going to do when it did.
I’d been accepted at all four of the graduate programs I’d applied to. They’d all offered decent support, too, so there was no danger than I’d still be dependent on my mom. More than ever I was leaning toward staying at MIT, rather than heading out to Stanford or Berkeley. If Silicon Valley loomed in my future, so be it, but I’d like to hang out in Boston for a few more years.
Or I could blow off grad school and take one of the jobs I’d been offered. Or look for another job, maybe right around here. In Cranton or Rolling Meadows.
Shit. Was I doing the “I’m hooking up with this dude, and I like him a lot, so maybe I should change all my plans so I can be near him” thing?
That would be so premature.
Griff didn’t even know me, but what he did know seemed to work for him. Things were going well between us, but I was afraid that if I explained where I’d come from and who my family was, he’d freak.
That’s what usually happened. People couldn’t seem to separate me from the people I was related to, even though I’d been trying to separate myself for most of my life.
It felt so good to have Griff holding me close and making me feel safe. No one ever did that for me. Hardly anyone. My mother had never been too good at expressing affection. She always said that being forced to emote professionally wrung her out so much that she just wanted to veg at home in a calm atmosphere. Save the drama for her job.
Not that things were ever calm at home. Jesse, my brother and Lily, my sister, were both all about the drama. I was the middle child, and I always seemed to be caught right in the center, trying to keep everybody else from skidding off into the dramosphere.
I’d learned to keep my own emotions as low-key as I could make them.
Except for laughter. All sorts of things struck me as funny, made me grin or snort with laughter. Apparently, I snort when I laugh. Just the idea of that makes me giggle. Crazy sense of humor, I guess.
Griff made me laugh a lot. And smile even more. Good laughter. I felt light-hearted around him despite the whole murder investigation thing. I wonder why that was?
Even when we were sexing, I felt joy bubbling inside me. It was really nice.
I was falling for him.
No. I’d already fallen. I was down with Griff. Down with sex. Down with love.
Forget the smoldering. Griff had made me burst into flame.
But he still had this Hadley thing hanging over his head.
It was hard to do battle with a ghost.
Dammit. I was so screwed.
Griff
The next couple days were peaceful.
Rory and I got into a routine.
We’d get up in the morning and have breakfast together. She no longer questioned me about Hadley. In fact we hardly talked about her at all. I didn’t want to think about the past. Or about other women. Rory filled me up. She had somehow become the only woman I was interested in.
Even work seemed okay to me now. I’d do my job and do it well, but my head was full of memories and plans of stuff I’d try with my lover when I got home.
I’d turned her on to having lots and lots of sex. And we were having fun with it. But that wasn't the only good thing about us. We weren't bickering any longer; we just seemed to get along. I now looked back on my first day with her, when I couldn't wait to get her out of my hair, as an aberration. She didn't annoy me at all now.
I looked forward to coming home in the late afternoon and finding her waiting for me, her smile, broad and generous, the house neat and dinner on the table.
“I can't believe a 204 IQ chick like you is the perfect 1950s housewife,” I teased her.
“Yeah, well don’t get used to it. When I graduate and get a job I won’t have time to putter around in the kitchen.”
Which was an odd thing to say. Would we even still know each other when she graduated and got a job? Her spring vacation would be ending soon and she’d have to go back to MIT. Would we ever see each other then? It was hard to think of a way a guy like me could fit into her life.
But hearing her talk about school once again awoke in me that old desire to finish up my own degree. I’d thought all my ambitions on that score had vanished when I’d suddenly become the object of every crime reporter in the country. I’d stopped going to my night classes, stopped thinking about graduating.
I had to go to work because I had to fucking eat, and besides, I’d always given my mom a little cash to help her out every week, and I sure as hell wasn't going to stop doing that. But school—and all the stares and gossip and questions it exposed me to—that had been expendable.
It didn’t seem so daunting now. Truth was, I only had two more courses to finish.
“You can take classes online now,” Rory suggested. “You can even take MIT classes online if you want to. Or Harvard courses. I’m serious—haven’t you ever heard of the Harvard Extension School? Do the work and take the exams and you’ll get the credits you need. You’re plenty smart, Griff. If you really want it, you can do it.”
Spending time with her, talking to her about all sorts of subjects was great for me. It was true that I’d gotten good grades. I was no dummy. I’d just had my confidence shot after being branded by the scandal-fed mainstream media with a huge scarlet M for Murder.
She didn’t push, though, which I appreciated. She said stuff like, “I don't know what the fuck I’m doing, so I don't suppose anyone else does either. Doesn't matter if it takes some time to work things out. I guess I’ll have a better idea about my life when I’m, like, thirty, but who knows? There are plenty of people who never figure it out.”
So I didn’t feel as if she was trying to control me. Instead, she was taking an interest. And encouraging me.
One night she asked me about Sean.
“Do you think you might feel like telling me about your brother?”
We were in bed, having just made love, but it wasn’t that late and neither of us was sleepy. I was surprised by the question and felt myself clam up. But she was gently stroking my arm as we lay together, spooned, her ass nestled against my pelvis, her fragrant hair spread over her bare shoulders just below my cheek.
“It’s hard for me to talk about him. You probably know he’s dead.”
She nodded. Her hand closed over mine. “You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to, Griff.”
I didn’t say anything for a while. Thoughts and feelings were ricocheting around my head. “I was angry with him for dying. For leaving me alone to fend for myself. For leaving our mom. How crazy is that? Like he could help it? Sean didn’t want to die.”
“I think a lot of people feel that way when someone they love dies. The anger. Like, how could you do this to me? Even when you know your anger makes no sense.”
“Well, he got killed doing something fucking dangerous, so maybe he did want to die. He was a SEAL. Rough, tough, I can handle anything kind of guy. Man, he was so good. Physically, mentally—he was this superman. To me at least. It was like he could do anything. And he would always be okay because who the hell would ever be good enough to take out Sean? He was unstoppable, indestructible.”
“Your big brother,” she said softly, understanding.
“Yeah. He’d come through shit before without a scratch. Then, two years ago, his Team got deployed on some secret fucking mission to pull somebody out of Afghanistan. It went wrong. I mean, the mission succeeded, or so they told me, but there were casualties on the way out, and one of them was Sean. The guy they rescued survived, but two SEALs died.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Fuckers,” was all I said for a time. Rory massaged my thigh lightly, but for once it didn’t get me hard. Sean had filled my mind again—his careless laugh, the awesome power of his fist socking me in the shoulder when he said hullo, the jaunty wave when he said good-bye and departed for some mysterious mission overseas.
“I’m not much like him,” I said. “My personality, I mean. He was the typical man of action, you know? He could do anything, fix anything without even having to think about it. Whereas I think too much. Imagine too much. Try to analyze what I should do instead of just doing it.”
“Thinking and imagining are good things, Griff. I mean, there’s a place in the world for men of action, but there’s also a place in the world for men like you.” She laughed a little. “And girls like me, I hope.”
“The thing is, I always wanted to be like Sean. I looked up to him, tried to copy him. But I could never have been a SEAL. I’d never have made it through hell week, or whatever they call it. I wouldn’t have measured up.”
“He had his talents and you have yours.” She paused and then added, “For example, you have much better grades than Sean.”
Jeez. I thought about what that meant. Not only had she hacked my school records, she’d also hacked Sean’s. I wondered what else she knew about him. She might even know stuff I didn’t. Had she hacked the fucking U. S. Navy files, too? The Team files?
I didn’t even dare ask.
“I’m talking about high school,” she added, as if she’d guessed what I was thinking. “His old file was right next to yours. I didn’t violate his privacy in any other area of his life.”