Page 104 of Dream Chaser
Oh God. My spine straightens against the wall. I brace.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” he starts, “but when I come back here, and if you’re still looking at me the way you do, and I’m still feeling you the way I do …” He shakes his head like evenhedoesn’t believe it. “Thirty was my number,” he says. “That’s when I told myself I’d be open to something more. Something real. I’m not thirty yet, Iz. But I found something way more.”
I don’t know what to say because I am not there in my life, not even close to there.
“Griffon,” I whisper, and?—
“Fuck,” he groans, cutting me off, pounding a fist over his chest. “When you said my name—my actual fucking name—when I was inside you last night? I nearly nutted, Iz. Like, straight up lost my damn mind. What is that even about?”
I suck in a breath. “Please, let me?—”
“I’m not gonna try changing you,” he barrels on. “You’re fucking perfect.”
My heart lurches. Not because I believe him—but because hedoes.
“Jesus, I thought about the carriage house on the way back from ’Cuse,” he adds, eyes flicking toward the window like he’s picturing it. “I’ve never sees things like you do. I don’t have a million plans or projects in my head. I only ever had football. It’s the only thing that made sense, my one and only dream.” He looks back at me, like I’m next. Like Iamthe next thing that makes sense.
“I’m always going to be here,” I say, the words surprising even me. “This is where I want to be.”
His jaw ticks. “It’s a great fucking place to be,” he says. “I wanna be here, too.”
God. What do I evendowith that?
“You like taking trips with your girls,” he continues, “I like taking trips with my boys. I would love to take a trip with you. You, me, naked …” He closes his eyes briefly and mutters, “Fuck, anywhere … everywhere.”
I laugh. Ihaveto. Because if I don’t, I might start crying.
“I’m not asking you to stop chasing your dreams. I’m asking, when I come back”—he motions between us—“you let me watch you chase them, and then maybe one day you’ll be willing to let me chase them with you.”
That last line-let me chase them with you—is all it takes. I barely registered my own movement. Did I nod? It must’ve just been the barest tilt of my chin, or the unspooling of tension in my shoulders, or the way my hands flex and uncurl at my sides. But he sees it—sees the exact instant I make my choice. And before I can even think of some smart-ass way to walk it back, Griffon Skinner closes the gap between us in two long strides.
The air shifts. My lungs forget how to function for a hot second. His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up, and the tiny pause before he kisses me is a slow-motion eternity.
Then his mouth crashes into mine—hungry, hard, and almost angry with need. It doesn’t matter that we just had each other less than eighteen hours ago. It doesn’t matter that we are in the middle of Blue Valley Publishing and not a bed. Nothing matters when I feel like he’s devouring me.Not in pieces, but whole and all at once.
His hands are on my waist with a roughness that sends fireworks up my spine. I grab fistfuls of his shirt, yanking him closer, needing him closer.
“Tell me to stop,” Griffon growls into my mouth, every syllable vibrating against my lips. His hands ghost up under myshirt, callused and careful, and the heat of his palms makes my skin ache.
I don’t tell him to stop. I don’t tell him anything, not with words. Instead, I kiss him again, open-mouthed and desperate, and let my teeth graze his lower lip until he hisses and shudders. He responds by lifting me up and setting me on the edge of an old wooden desk. My legs wrap around his hips automatically, like every nerve ending in my body has been rewired to need him pressed up against me, hard and solid. It’s been like this since jump.
He slides his fingers under the hem of my shirt and skates up over my ribs, slow and reverent, but the look in his eyes is anything but gentle. “God, you feel like mine here,” he mutters, voice ragged as he kisses down my neck, sucking into the hollow above my collarbone. “Like my cock should always smell like you.”
I can barely breathe. My head tips back, exposing my neck to his mouth, letting him taste, and mark, and claim every inch. I am so far gone that when he nibbles below my ear, a whimper escapes me, involuntary and obscene. He chuckles, low and rough, and then his hands are at my waistband, tugging me forward.
My hands work at his belt, clumsy with urgency, nails scraping across the buckle before finally getting it undone. He sucks in a sharp breath as I palm him through his jeans, and I feel the tremor in his composure. He’s losing it, too, for me.
“You’re gonna break me,” he breathes, voice so hoarse it’s almost a growl.
“Not tonight,” I say, teeth against his jaw. A second later, my sleep shorts and underwear are shoved aside, and he pauses just long enough to drag his thumb across my clit in a perfect circle.
I gasp, eyes rolling back for a second, and the sound that comes out of me is something I never let another person hear before.
Griffon’s mouth quirks, triumphant, and then he lines himself up, the blunt hot pressure making me whimper again.
“I want you like this, Izzy,” he rasps. “Fast, hard, and loud.”
“Quiet,” I whisper, already half-laughing, half-moaning. “We could wake the girls.”
