“Funny,” he says immediately, his mouth curving into a smile that holds so much pain it’s hard to look at. “She always knew how to get me laughing. Really laughing. No matter what life threw at us, we were always laughing.”
“Sounds like my kind of girl.”
“Yeah.” Griffin turns away from me. “She would’ve liked you.”
My throat gets tight, and I swallow hard, trying to push down the swell of emotion threatening to choke me.
“I like funny people,” I say. “It’s why I like you.”
He casts a glance over his shoulder and gestures at the ectoplasm glistening around his eyes. “I bet this is a real turn-on for you.”
“I actually prefer my men freshly showered,” I say.
“Lucky for you, I’ve got one in there.” He jerks his thumb in the direction of the house. “Big enough for two.”
My face goes hot, then my neck, then everywhere, like someone just turned my internal thermostat up fifty degrees. My nipples are hard to the point of pain, straining against my T-shirt, and all I can picture is what they would feel like in that shower with Griffin taking my chest in his hands and giving them the pressure they’re screaming for.
Griffin is breathing harder now. I can see the tension in every line of his body.
“I told you to go back to the house,” he says.
“I don’t want to be alone right now,” I admit.
“Then go find DJ,” he says. “You don’t want me.”
“You have no idea what I want,” I say.
He barks a laugh. “I have a feeling I do.”
He turns his entire body away from me, sinking onto the weightlifting bench and bracing his forearms on his knees. The space opening up between us feels like relief and disappointment at the same time. My lungs finally remember how to fill all the way.
“I assume someone already told you how the ectoplasm works,” he says. “It amplifies every feeling. Every… urge.” He shakes his head, his eyes wide and wild. “I have no control right now.”
The drumming of my heart is so loud I can barely hear him. The barn feels like it’s shrinking, the walls pressing in until all I can see is Griffin sitting there.
I have the dull thought that this is a bad idea, but I’m too foggy and lightheaded to care. I want hands on me.
“What if I want to stay?” I hear myself say, and my voice sounds husky and sultry in a way I’ve neverheard before.
Griffin gets up and stalks toward me. He’s walking so fast that I instinctively step back, my feet tangling until my back hits the wall. He braces one forearm above my head, leaning down until he becomes a question mark over me, and his breath mingles with my own.
“You followed me out here,” he says. “Why?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I say, shuddering from how close he is, still without touching me.
“Is that the only reason?”
My brain scrambles for an answer that doesn’t make me sound pathetic.
He leans closer. “I think it’s because you want me.”
I force myself to hold his gaze even though everything in me wants to look away. “You think too highly of yourself.”
“I know.” He bends down past my face, his breath ghosting across my neck and raising goosebumps that race down myspine and right between my legs. “But you won’t think so after I’m done with you.”
He pulls back so he can look me in the eye, his pupils blown so wide they consume the amber of his irises. I press my palms flat against the wall behind me to stay upright. He’s so close I can see the mottled bruising still around his eyes from the bar brawl… the split in his lip that has healed to only a raised line. I barely notice the tang of ectoplasm. It doesn’t matter anyway. I smell like that, too.
He steps into me fully, his body pressing into mine until I’m pinned against the wall with nowhere to go.
