Page 45 of Sniper's Pride

“Twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, you need to be available. In every possible way. There are no shifts, no vacations, and certainly no sick days. Whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. Total, grateful surrender, night and day, forever.” She could feel the brittle smile on her face, but it was nothing next to how she felt. Particularly when Griffin only stared back at her, motionless, that dark look on his face. “So yes, Griffin. I know that men think I’m beautiful. Lucky me.”

And for what seemed like an eternity, there was no sound in the inn’s lobby but the snap of the fire.

“It’s time for you to get back upstairs,” Griffin gritted out, one or two lifetimes later. “Let’s go.”

He tilted his head in that way he did, as good as an abrupt order. And Mariah didn’t have it in her to fight it, not when she’d flipped over such a terrible stone, exposing all the ugliness beneath it.

She could feel it all squirming around inside her now, raw and unmanageable. Yes indeed, she knew all about being a trophy wife. The shinier she’d gotten, the more obedient, the more David had taken.

Taken and taken, until she had been little more than a flower with its head popped off.

She reminded herself that she was tough as she walked up the stairs, Griffin a silent wall of disapproval at her back. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d pointed out that they were the same beneath all their masks. She’d been forged in a nasty fire, too, and she’d never had the opportunity to consider what she’d done honorable.

When she got to her door, she stepped aside as Griffin went in to perform his usual check.

She stayed where she was when he came back, nodding at her to let her know he hadn’t found anything suspicious. Because there was nothing suspicious here. This was Alaska, and Mariah was more certain by the day that she’d left her troubles back in Georgia.

“If it helps,” she said softly, because he was close again and she had that ache in her that always seemed to grow when she was near enough to touch him, “you’re not the only one who’s disgusted with me.”

He stopped on the other side of the doorway, facing her where she stood in the hall. “I’m not disgusted with you.”

“You do a really good impression of it. Must be all that talk about whether or not I know that I’m pretty enough to be a trophy for a man like David.” She felt the way her mouth twisted, and it was no mask. It was too real, and she didn’t know how to stop it. Much less the words that came next. “But certainly never good enough for a hero like you. You made that perfectly clear.”

This time, it wasn’t the muscle in his jaw that gave him away. Because maybe he was already too edgy. Or less contained than she’d imagined. Because his eyes flashed, a bright, hard heat.

“I’m no hero,” he threw at her, and even his voice was different. Not cold. Raw straight through, like he ached the same way she did. “It’s not a question of pretty enough or good enough. You’re a beautiful woman, Mariah. I’m not immune to that. To you. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it.”

A kind of sob rolled through her then, too huge for her to control.

“Why not?” Her voice was as raw as his, too hurt andtoo honest. She would feel the shame of it forever. “What do you have to lose?”

“Me,” he hurled back at her. “You make me lose control. You make me loseme.”

She had never heard him sound like that. Wild, uneven. Not icy or controlled at all.

“Griffin,” she began, putting out her hand to touch him again, finding that hard line of his mouth and smoothing her fingers over it. “You don’t have to—”

He muttered something that she knew was a curse, and she could feel the heat in the words, but she didn’t recognize the language.

And then it didn’t matter.

Griffin hauled her into his arms, kicking the door shut behind them to lock them up tight in her hotel room, and took her mouth with his.

Twelve

She tasted like things Griffin didn’t believe in.

Magic. Heat and desire.

And he knew he would regret this. Maybe he already regretted this.

But he couldn’t let go of her.

This time, when Mariah wrapped her arms around his neck, he indulged himself. He ran his hands down her back, vaguely recalling that she’d lost her wrap downstairs, and then not caring at all because the only other thing she was wearing was an absurdly soft T-shirt. He tested the curves that he’d been much too aware of for far too long. The delicate line of her spine, the mouthwatering flare of her hips.

He lifted her against him, letting out a groan when she wrapped her legs around his waist and crossed her ankles, holding on tight.

God help him, the ways he wanted this woman.

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