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I got Cori out of the car just as Kurtis and his moving truck pulled in. Once she was inside and in bed, the girls stood on the porch with Mom, completely unaware of what happened. Someday when Axel did find out about her father, Celia would be there for her, helping her through it just like Ax helped Celia come out of her shell.
TWENTY-ONE
Cori
Griffin groaned, stretching out in bed behind me. I had put on a happy face to spend all day with Ax and Celia, but once they were in bed, I was too. I stared at the wall, hoping Griffin thought I was sleeping, but he didn’t.
“Cori, you need to eat.”
I didn’t answer, or move. I couldn’t figure out why Richard’s death was hitting me so hard, neither could my fiancé. Griffin hadn’t said it, but I could read him. My phone buzzed again, and Griff reached over to silence it only for it to ping with a voicemail a few seconds later. I started reaching for it, but Griffin stopped my hand. I knew it was Wanda, but I deserved her anger. I earned every horrible thing she said, every vulgar word slung at me for killing her son. It was my fault, so I would live with it, forever.
Griffin huffed, ruffling his hair when I shrugged him off me to grab the phone. I tapped the screen and turned on the speaker. “Of course you can’t answer the phone. You couldn’t show up at the funeral, either, but you won’t keep that baby from me. I have rights, Cori! You killed him, but you can’t get rid of me so easily!” The line went dead and I dropped the phone back on the table. I tried to roll away from Griffin, but he touched my shoulder. I closed my eyes, biting my cheek.
“You can’t keep this up. Tomorrow, your sister is getting the girls and we are going out.” His calloused finger traced the tattoo on my arm, making me shudder. No matter how wrapped up I was in my own head, I still reacted to Griffin. He nuzzled into my neck, kissing softly until I pushed him away. I rolled away from him. I hated what Richard had become, but I didn’t want him dead. The man was the father of my daughter, the first man I loved, the first one I gave myself to. Griffin should have gotten pissed and left, he should have stormed out the door of the bedroom we shared and slammed the door. Not Griffin, though. Instead, he jerked me on to my back, straddling my legs.
“Get off me.” I pushed pointlessly at his chest.
“My fiancée hasn’t kissed me in six days. She doesn’t eat.” I went to push him again, but he grabbed my wrists, forcing them over my head. I was entirely at his mercy. “She lays in bed and stares at the wall. I have no idea what to do. I let her stew, I let her grieve, I’m a patient man. I can tolerate a lot, I can bide my time, but for all I know, I may never get her back.” I finally looked at him, his light eyes full of uncertainty. As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, a whole new wound opened. “For all I know, she’s carrying my baby, but won’t even look at me. I’m supposed to be planning a wedding right now.”
“Please stop.” I felt the burn of tears starting in my throat, working themselves up to my eyes, I tugged at my wrists. Griffin leaned down close to my face and my eyes closed again, letting a tear fall down my temple.
“Tell me what to do.” His lips touched mine, barely, and another tear fell. The ache I had been suppressing opened wide at the hurt in his voice, but I was quickly sobered by the memory of Richard. I turned my face away from Griffin and he groaned, dropping his head against mine. “I love you, Cori. No matter how long you stay hung up on that asshole, I’ll be here.”
Then I snapped. My hand came free from his grip and I slapped him, right across the face. “You bastard!” I kicked and shoved at him, trying to get him off me, but it was useless and only made me angrier. “He was her father!” I went to hit him again, but he came off me and the bed. I scrambled back into middle of the bed, starting toward the door.
“No fucking chance!” Griffin came across the room after me, grabbing me by the waist and I screamed, beating his arms locked around me. “I don’t give a fuck who he was!” Griffin yelled in my ear, dragging me kicking and screaming like a child into the bathroom. He backed me into the wall, looming over me with a look on his face that warned me I had crossed a line. I swallowed hard. His body blocked mine and he reached down to turn the water on. The sprayers came on and the bathroom quickly filled with steam. I stood, pinned by the most terrifying gaze while he peeled his shirt off, then his shorts, standing completely naked in front of me. “Strip, now.”
When I didn’t move, he pulled my shirt up over my head then slid my shorts and panties gently down to the floor. “I’m not showering with you.” There was no way in hell I was getting anywhere close to intimate with the jackass.
“You have obviously lost the ability to care for yourself, so I’m doing it for you.” In one motion, he hauled me up over his shoulder and stepped into the shower with me in tow. I beat his back until his hand hit my ass, hard, and I screamed.
“You fucking asshole! Let me down!” I beat him harder and was dropped to my feet. I was pushed into the wall again, but instead of him blocking me, he pressed against me, pinning me.
“Timeline for the wedding just got pushed up. You have a week to pick a date or I swear to God, I will carry your ass down to the court house and spank your ass in front of everyone until the words ‘I do’ come out of your mouth.” He stooped, sliding down my body to reach the shampoo, and started lathering my hair. I hadn’t showered in six days. “Axel needs you, Celia needs you, Jovie needs you.” I stopped pushing on his chest, letting my hands slip to his hips. Every part of me was smothered by a part of him. “I need you. God, Cori, I need you.”
I glared up at his perfect face while he scrubbed at my hair. “Tomorrow.” It was the only word I could think of to fix what I had done. The man may have looked like the most badass person on the face of the Earth, but I hurt him, a lot. He watched me grieve for a man who wasn’t him, who I didn’t love. Maybe I had at some point, but it was the idea of what Richard represented that I loved, not the person. Everything I wanted, needed, was standing in front of me. All six-foot-something of him was staring down at me with tortured blue eyes, covered in tattoos. He was ready to commit to everything I ever wanted in life.
“It took me months to get over the guilt of Celia’s mom. Had I known, had I been there, my daughter would have a mother. I sat up so many nights, trying to figure out what I could have changed.” Griffin’s hands slid out of my hair to my shoulders and he guided me to the stream of scalding water. He very gently rinsed the shampoo from my hair. “The answer is nothing. He’s been gone, Cori.” I quit fighting and jumped at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, kissing him hard. Griffin caught me mid jump and smothered my kiss with his, letting the water run over my back. His tongue swept into my mouth letting everything I had missed over the last six days came back. With his cock nestled against me, his mouth on mine, every stupid thought from the past week disappearing more by the second. I realized how stupid I was.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasped between kisses, sliding down his body, back onto my feet. He shut the water off and I barely had time to grab a towel, before he had me sitting on the sink. His hands in my hair. “I’m so, so sorry honey.” His lips traveled down my neck between my breasts and to my stomach before moving back up.
He snatched me from the sink and turned me to face the mirror. “Grab it.” The tight growl in his voice had me following directions fast. Instead of what I was anticipating, Griffin carefully kissed down my back, down my ass, dropping to his knees behind me. His broad shoulders nudged my legs wider he made quick work of licking my inner thighs until I was squirming. “You make me crazy, Cori. Completely fucking crazy.”
“Good,” I panted, and moaned when his tongue traced a light path back up my leg to my ass, where he nibbled lightly, and kept going. He slid his hand into my hair, tugging it lightly.
“Look at me.” I let my eyes meet his in the mirror. “I’m done fighting for you, with you.” Griffin stepped closer behind me, grabbing my hip with his other hand. “Do you understand?” He pumped his hips slightly, and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I nodded. “My wife is forever. You can get pissed, but you better know that when we cool off, I’m still there and you will be too. You’re either with me or not, I deserve that, you deserve it. The girls deserve it.”
It was more than I had ever heard from Griffin. I never questioned his feelings for me, not from day one, but I did fight it, hard. After a week of watching me slowly slip away to be with a ghost, the man had seen enough, and Griffin Steele did not put up with bullshit.
“Can you let me go?” I couldn’t let him make love to me with the last six days hanging between us. His hold on my hair was gone and I picked up my towel, wrapping it around me. Griffin looked defeated by the time I looked back up at him.
“Thank you.” I touched his face gently. “You are patient, and you do deserve what you’re asking for. I want to be the person who gives it to you.”
“Tomorrow?” Griffin took the towel from my hand and let it fall back to the floor, so we were naked in the steamy bathroom again.
“Tomorrow.” I ran my hands up his chest.
“No more fighting, no more guilt.” He inhaled the top of my head and I nodded. “Good. Can I please fuck you now?” After an hour of fighting over my horrible treatment of him, it all came down to one question.
