Page 57 of Under One Roof

I press my mouth into a flat line, concentrating on pushing my shorts down to roll the condom on, pointedly not laughing.

“You think you could kill a mammoth for me?” she asks, and I notch myself against her pussy, feeling the intense pressure to slide home in one thrust, but I hold off. Barely.

“I could definitely kill a mammoth for you.”

“With your bare hands?”

“Goddamn right.”

She bites into her bottom lip, feminine satisfaction crossing her features, and that’s it. That’s all I can take. I push inside slowly, giving her time to adjust to my size. She’s tight, her pussy gripping me like a vise, and I grit my teeth, fighting the constant urge to thrust, to claim, totake.

Once I’m finally fully seated inside her, I dip down to kiss her, my tongue mimicking the slow, steady pace I set as my cock slides in and out of her in long, languid strokes. She’s wet and warm, and I groan into the crook of her neck. “Sweetheart, you make me feel like I can do anything.”

“You can.” Her teeth scrape my ear as she wraps her legs around me, her heels digging into my ass, urging me on. I speed up, my thrusts becoming more urgent. Still, I’m careful she doesn’t get rug burn, which is hard when all I want to do is rut.

Be the caveman she wants me to be.

Fuck her hard and fast. One day, I will.

But today is not that day.

I sit back on my heels, staying inside her while I reach between us to strum her clit. I think the sudden loss of motion throws her for a loop, and she whines. “Griffin.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m so close.”

“I know, so give it to me.” She pants as I circle and rub and push her right up to the edge. “Come on. Be my perfect good girl.”

That’s when she loses it, her eyes flutter closed, inner muscles clamping on me, and I level myself back over her, thrusting once again, drawing out her pleasure, both of us riding out our orgasms until we collapse completely on the floor, a tangle of limbs.

Once I catch my breath, I snatch a tissue from a box on the coffee table and take care of the condom before holding myself above her, tugging her shirt and sweatshirt back into place. A soft smile plays on her lips. “No rug burns.”

“Told you,” I say with a nip to her lower lip. I spend a few moments taking her in, the blush on her skin, the mess of her hair, and I wish I had more time to revel in her warm glow, but I don’t. “We should get dressed.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “The kids will be home soon.”

Andi groans, but she sits up, and I can’t resist one last kiss, a sweep of my tongue along hers, before standing. I adjust the elastic of my shorts as I pick up my cell phone, a notification on the screen for a new email. Unlike Andi, who lets her emails pile up so much that my eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw she had over 3,000 in her inbox, I categorize each message as it comes in.

This one is a reminder from the school about the safety drill they’re running tomorrow. I tense reflexively, a familiar anger bubbling up inside me. Andi apparently notices because she smooths her hand up and down my back. “What’s wrong?”

I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “There’s a safety drill at the school tomorrow. I just… I hate that they have to go through that.”

“Safety… Like a shooter drill?”

I nod, and she winces. “Yeah, those suck.”

“Gracie always gets so nervous, it takes a few days for her to calm down about it after, and you know Logan. He’s so sensitive. I hate…” I grit my teeth and growl out my frustration. “I just fucking hate it.”

I step away from her, my contempt for this particular blight on our society making me pace as I spit out my words. “I spent years—years—flushing out terrorists, making sure this country was safe. But then I had to come back tothiscountry to find out it terrorizes our own kids because a few people like to wave the constitution around for gun rights and a well-regulated militia, pretending they’d have the balls to do what I did in therealmilitia.”

Andi’s eyes soften, and she steps closer, stopping me in my path. I draw up short, breathing through my nose to try to calm down as she molds her palms to my jaw. “You have every right to be mad about it.”

Her touch drains the fight from me. “Why did I do all that? Why did my brothers and I go through all that? Some of them never made it back, and for what? Freedom?” I lift my arm out at my side. “Freedom to sacrifice students? Force them to hide in closets, scared for their lives?”

She wraps her arms around me, her head resting on my chest until my heart rate is back to normal. After seeing and doing the things I did during my service, I find it difficult to send my children out into the wide world to begin with. Add this ridiculous and easily solvable problem to the mix, and I resent it. It’s not often I feel this way about my military career, but it’s impossible not to see how this very American problem is the most un-American thing about our country.Home of the free. Land of the brave.

I could personally attest to that not being true.

Andi tilts her head back, her chin against my chest. “You are a good man, Griffin. The best man. And I hope you know you can talk to me about your time in the service whenever you want.”

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