Page 88 of Sniper's Pride

Mariah had been forged in a different fire altogether in that barn.

“If you ever try to sacrifice yourself for me again, baby girl,” Rose Ellen had told her the other night, her leg up on her coffee table and a cigarette in her hand, “you better believe that I will kick your butt. Do you hear me?”

And no matter how many years she’d spent trying to pretend otherwise, the truth was that Mariah was every inch her mother’s daughter. Bad decisions, stubbornness, and deeply unimpressed with pointless sacrifices.

“So this is your version of a good-bye?” she demanded now, not surprised to find that her hands had shifted to her hips. “You’re... what? Off to Alaska? Never to be seen again?”

“The job is complete.” He gritted out the words, and she could actually hear how tight his jaw was. “I tried to tell you this was never going to be anything more than the job.”

She laughed at him. She couldn’t help herself. And she took his scowl as encouragement.

“You go ahead and lie to yourself all you want, Griffin. You’re good at that. But don’t you think for one minute that you can lie to my face. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime.”

She could feel the air crackle between them. And when he leaned closer, he looked less like stone and more like iron heated in an unforgiving fire.

“Do not compare me to your ex, princess. Ever.”

“I’ve been beating myself up for my cowardice for longer than I care to admit.” She shook her head. “But it looks like it’s going around.”

Then his hands were curling around her shoulders. And though she could feel his fingers and the tightness of his grip, he didn’t hurt her. She knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that he never would. That he would hurt himself first.

At least if they were talking about his hands.

“You know exactly what I do. You’ve watched me do it. I can’t be the man you want me to be, Mariah. I don’twantto be the man you want me to be.”

“You mean you don’t know how,” she threw back at him.

“I can’t do this.” His voice was lower, harsher. And it broke her heart. “I spent my entire adult life making sure that I was without vulnerabilities. Without weaknesses. Anything less than total commitment to the job and I’m a danger to myself. To my brothers.” She could see the emotions all over his face. Emotions she knew he would deny having. “I should never have touched you. That’s on me. I knew better and I did it anyway.”

“I was there, too,” she whispered fiercely. “You can tell yourself any story you have to, I guess. But don’t tell me it wasn’t magic.”

His breath left him then, as if she’d landed a blow to the gut. Or lower still.

“I’m not the man you think I am,” he insisted after a long moment. “I’m not a man at all. You might not believe me now, but I’m doing you a favor.”

She let out another laugh, but this time it was hollow and dark. “You can’t let yourself have anything unless it’s a hair shirt, can you? You pride yourself on it. But love isn’t about pride, Griffin.”

He made a sound that seemed to be ripped from inside him, as if he’d been hurt fatally, bleeding out from within.

“You don’t love me,” he growled at her, and his grip on her shoulders tightened. “It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It doesn’t make it true.”

“Fine,” Mariah threw at him. “Then I’ll show you.”

She surged against him, out there in the dark. She pressed her mouth to his, and they were far, far past that achingly sweet kiss that had melted her and broken her heart when he’d caught her after she’d escaped the barn.

This was heat. Fire.

Pain, and proof of the depth of her feelings for him, whether he wanted to believe it or not.

This time, they were the ones who exploded, as surely as that Mercedes had.

Their hands moved against each other in the dark as Griffin angled his head and took control.

Mariah wrapped herself around him, lifting herself up and knowing without a doubt that he would hold her when she climbed him like he was another one of the trees that rimmed the property.

He kissed her and she kissed him, scalding and impossible kisses, tasting of magic and mourning, all wrapped up in the wild, insane heat that grew and grewbetween them with every sweep of his mouth against hers.

One moment they were standing, and Griffin was holding her against him. The next they were on the ground, and he was pressing her down into the sweet, fragrant grass.

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