Page 25 of Sniper's Pride

And she watched, fascinated, as a storm chased itself across Griffin’s proud, beautiful face. Thunder, there and gone, until there was nothing but that burning flame that she knew—she just knew—was all for her.

“I’m not a bottle of cheap tequila.” His voice was like frigid cold water, slapping her into a different sort of alertness. He’d placed both his hands on her arms, setting her back from him. Decisively. “You can’t tie me on, drink yourself under the table, and forget about it in the morning. I’m not a bad mistake you get to make.”

And there was danger all around him. It wasn’t simply that leashed power she’d sensed in him from the start. This was different. This was more specific, more personal.

This was a darkness she wanted to taste.

“One-night stands are supposed to be fun.”

“I don’t do one-night stands.” Griffin’s tone was as dark as he was. “I don’t do any of the things that would lead to one.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t drink. I don’t hang around in bars, picking up vulnerable women. And I certainly don’t take anyone home with me.”

“I’ve never had a one-night stand,” Mariah confessed, like that might help. Like what he needed while he was seething at her was an argument. “I tried once. Everyone told me he wasn’t the kind of man who stuck around. And that part was true, but he ended up taking me with him when he left.”

“I’m not a substitute for your husband.”

“This I know. For one thing, you’ve already been much nicer to me than David ever was.”

She had the confused sense that this admission startled him, though whatever she’d seen on his face was gone in an instant. And everything was so blurred around the edges. She could hear the sound of her own voice, carrying on as if of its own accord, but she didn’t have the slightest idea what she was saying.

“Enough.”

She certainly heard that. Griffin’s voice, cool and in total command. And hotter than anything had a right to be.

Mariah stopped... whatever she was doing. She couldn’t really focus, but it was easy enough to let him lead her back to the bed and then slide herself onto it when he patted the mattress. She watched as if from a great distance when he bent in front of her to slide her boots off. One and then the next.

“Lie down,” he told her brusquely.

She did that, too, letting out a deep sigh when her head hit the pillows. Everything shifted again, sloshing around a bit and then settling hard, as if she’d been much heavier than she’d imagined all this time.

Griffin moved away, and she forgot to watch him. Or her eyelids were too heavy to allow it. But he returned again, surprising her enough to open her eyes when he set down a glass of water next to the bed. He also set down two tablets.

“Take those when you wake up in the middle of the night. And drink the entire glass of water. Then sleep as long as you can.”

“Griffin.”

He stared down at her, forbidding and imposing at the side of her bed, carved not from marble but her own secret fantasies. “What?”

“Nothing. I just really like your name.”

She was sure she actually heard him laugh, but her eyes were already drifting closed, and that was impossible anyway. Griffin Cisneros didn’tlaugh.She didn’t think he could. He might break something.

When he sighed again, she suspected she might have said that out loud.

“I’m locking your door behind me. When you want to leave tomorrow, you can get your key from the front desk.”

Mariah meant to reply to that. She really did. But she couldn’t get her mouth to obey.

She had the vague impression of him standing there for another moment. She felt the quilt when he pulled it up over her from the foot of the bed. She was already half asleep when she heard the door close, and then the deadbolt as he locked it behind him as promised.

And as sleep spun in to claim her, she didn’t fight it.

Hours later, she woke up again in a sickening rush.

Mariah panicked, because she had no idea where she was.

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