Page 44 of Sniper's Pride

And when he pulled his mouth from hers, his hands wrapping around her shoulders and holding her away from him, his gaze was the darkest she’d ever seen it.

Furious all over again, but this time without a shred of that deep chill she was used to seeing in him.

“Griffin...” she began, through lips that no longer felt entirely like hers.

“You think this is a game.” His face was so close that it was almost like another kind of kiss. “You think—what? If you shatter every boundary I have it will end well? Because it won’t. You have no idea who I am. You have no idea what I’m capable of. The control that I keepover myself isn’t for me, Mariah. It’s for you. It’s for the world in general. You don’t need to see what happens when I’m out of control.”

“Do you even know?” she demanded, spurred on by something she couldn’t have named if she tried. It was that ache she felt within her. The taste of him in her mouth. The feel of him tattooed into her palms. The particular scent that was only his, salt and man, that she knew might haunt her forever. “Do you have the slightest idea who you are when you let yourself go?”

“I could tell you what it’s like to be a Marine sniper, but you wouldn’t understand. I could toss out my number of confirmed kills. But those aren’t things I talk about with civilians.”

“I don’t think the things you’ve done make you any kind of monster.”

“Neither do I. But you know what would? Acting like I have anything in common with all the happy civilians who walk around with no idea what price is paid to keep them free. I know the price. I chose to pay it. And I make sure to keep the weapon they made me under total control at all times, so people like you never have to know what it costs.”

She could see how deeply he meant that. How it let him stand taller and wrap another chilly barrier around himself.

But she wanted his heat.

“You don’t drink. You don’t have one-night stands, and you’re certainly not in a relationship. You work out every single day and act as if missing a session might kill you. There’s self-control, and that’s a good thing. But then there’s being a control freak.”

There was something like anguish on his face as his hands tightened on her shoulders.

“You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” She hardly recognized her own voice. “You’re talking to the only person around who wears more masks than you do. Do you really think I don’t know what that costs? You think I don’t know how hard it is to stay cool and collected no matter what?”

“I must have missed the part of your file that talked about the time you spent having drill sergeants and commanding officers in your face.”

“I had David,” she threw right back at him. “Ten years of a controlling husband monitoring every twitch of eyelid and every chip in my nail polish. And I’m betting that the consequences I put up with were more unpleasant than an extra set of push-ups.”

Griffin let go of her and stepped back, but that only proved she was getting to him. His hands ended up on his lean hips, and he looked male and pissed, yet still so beautiful it took her breath away. And it was worse now, because she’d tasted him.

There was no way she was going to get past that anytime soon.

“The situation is my fault, not yours,” he said, sounding cold and detached again. But she didn’t believe that distance anymore. “I’m the professional. I should have known better.”

“That’s what happens when you block stuff up. All that pressure has to come out somehow.”

“I’m sure you know you’re a beautiful woman,”Griffin said with deliberate, pointed courtesy. And a faint note of pity besides. It stung, even though she knew that he was deliberately putting distance between them. “You’d have to know, wouldn’t you?”

“Men like my ex-husband don’t typically waste their time pulling ugly ducklings out of roadside diners,” Mariah replied, letting her drawl get good and thick. “They tend to go right for the swans. If I keep my mouth shut, wear my hair right, and stay pretty, who knows? People might forget that I’m nothing but some no-account country girl, not quite a hillbilly, married to someone way above my station.”

“I always assumed trophy wives knew better than anyone else what made them a trophy.”

Her lips still felt swollen from his, and he was talking about trophy wives.

So Mariah smiled, letting her voice get sweet and syrupy. “We surely do. Why? Are you looking for one?”

“Mariah.”

Her name was a command. One she ignored.

“It’s not only about being pretty,” she said, feeling dangerous herself as she glared at him. “You have to stay pretty in the very specific manner that appeals to whoever considered you a trophy in the first place. All the time. No days off. No yoga pants on the sofa, binge-watching television programs. No fluctuations in weight or fitness levels. To be determined by him, not you. Not a scale, not a trainer. He’s the final authority on how much you eat, when you eat it, whether it’s stuck to your thighs, and what you should do to get it off. Because the thing you really sign up for when you become a rich man’s trophy wife is availability.”

“Jesus Christ.”

But she wasn’t done. She leaned in closer to drive the point home.

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