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47
Greenbrier Resort
SUNDAY NIGHT
Time stopped. Griffin could do nothing but watch, paralyzed, when Kirra jumped off the balcony railing and cannonballed toward the deep end of the pool. The instant before she hit the water, she stretched her arms and legs out away from her body and broke the surface with a huge splash. He worried she’d slammed into the bottom of the pool and couldn’t believe it when she surfaced sputtering and spitting out water, her blond wig beside her. His breath whooshed out. She was alive and she appeared all right. How’d she know to spread out like that? Griffin watched her grab her wig to keep it from floating away, swim to the side of the pool, and pull herself out onto the apron. She was alive. Heart pounding, Griffin ran out of the suite and down the resort stairs.
Kirra felt like she’d been body-slammed, slapped hard all over, which she had, but she’d survived. Nothing was broken and she wasn’t really hurt. She slipped through a side door near the bell captain’s desk. Only one employee was there, a young man who stood gaping at her. He stepped toward her, his hand out. “Are you all right? Ah, did you fall into the pool? I mean, there’s no swimming at night, no lifeguard, and the water’s really cold.”
She shook out her blond wig, gave the young man a big smile. “Sorry if I scared you. I had to jump into the pool because I lost a bet. That’ll teach me to bet when I’ve drunk too much champagne. It won’t happen again, I promise. Wow, you’re right about the water being cold, it kicked the alcohol right out of me. Now I’m sober as a judge.”
Griffin came running around the corner. He stopped short when he saw her speaking to the bellboy. She looked all right, standing straight. Nothing appeared broken and she didn’t look like she was in pain. She was holding her blond wig, and her hair was plastered around her head. He let out a slow breath. Kirra looked up, saw him, and called out, shaking her finger at him. “Here he is, the wicked man who poured champagne down my throat and bet me knowing I’d lose. He should have known better than to dare me. I jumped right in.” She smiled as two more bellhops crowded around, all of them staring at her. If any of them wondered why she was carrying a wet blond wig in her hand they didn’t mention it. Kirra walked to Griffin, gave him a mad grin, went on her tiptoes, and bit his earlobe. “Take me to bed, Agent Hammersmith.”
Griffin stared down at her. “I heard your boots sloshing water on your walk over to me.”
She looked down at her feet. “It’s a pity, these boots cost me a mint.”
“Kirra, what you did—”
She shot a look at the bellhops, turned, and nodded toward the elevator. They were at the edge of the huge lobby, so few people noticed them. When the elevator doors opened, two couples came out, both of the women dressed to kill. They gaped at her. Kirra merely smiled and kept smiling until the doors closed on her and Griffin.
They rode to the fourth floor in silence, Kirra’s boots squishing on the thick carpet on their way to their suite at the end of the hall. Griffin slid in the key card, pushed the door open. He paused a moment, gave a prayer of thanks, and locked the door. Kirra was on him in an instant. “Did you listen to what they’re saying? Did Talix hear me jump? See me?”
He marveled at her. He wanted to strangle her and at the same time hug her until she squeaked. He tried to keep his voice calm. “Let’s get our priorities straight here. Get out of those wet clothes and into the shower before you catch pneumonia. We can listen later.”
A minute later Kirra’s clothes were in a pile on the bathroom floor and she was in the shower, her face raised to the hot spray. She flashed back to Kiwi, the team member who’d taught her how to dive into shallow water without killing herself. She said a prayer of thanks to him. Kiwi loved to haul his ancient snowboard to Mount Cook in New Zealand. She’d ask Uncle Leo to get him a new board.
When she came out of the bathroom wearing a hotel robe, her hair turbaned in a towel, Griffin was pacing the length of the sitting area. He stopped when he saw her. He stared at her a moment, cleared his throat. “Are you thawed out?”
Kirra nodded. “What’s even better, I don’t smell like chlorine anymore.”
He said slowly, his voice raw, “I’ve only been that scared twice in my life. The first was when I thought my sister, Delsey, was going to die and the second was when I saw you jump from that balcony into the pool thirty feet down—as in three stories. What you did—flatten out before you hit the water—how’d you know to do that?”
“Kiwi, a member of my uncle Leo’s team, is a cliff diver. He showed me how to spread out over the surface if I wasn’t sure the water was deep enough to slow one down. Believe me, I prayed, Griffin. Kiwi saved my life.”
He closed his eyes against what could have happened if she hadn’t had it together enough to remember what to do. “I hadn’t realized what it would mean to me if you died. When I saw you make it back to the surface, I knew.” He slowly walked to her, pulled her against him, and took her throat in his hands and stared down at her. Without her makeup and her tousled blond wig, she looked like a scrubbed teenager.
She tried for a smile, but she couldn’t dredge one up. “Please don’t strangle me, Griffin.” What he’d said, it touched her deeply. She kissed him, light, playful kisses, then deep, and deeper yet. She jumped up and hooked her legs around his waist, pulled his black wig off and stroked her fingers through his hair, kissed his mouth, his forehead. It was as if a door had been kicked open and she’d rushed through it. Kirra knew in an unimportant part of her brain she’d lost control, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t care. She tightened her legs around Griffin’s waist, wrapped her arms tight around his neck, and her blood surged and pounded at the feel of his hands all over her. She wanted more, she wanted all of him, and she wanted it now. She said his name over and over as she tried to pull his shirt off. He jerked at the belt of her robe, pushed it open. When his hands touched her bare flesh, he nearly lost it.
Griffin pulled the towel off her head and slicked his fingers through the tangles of her wet hair. He said into her mouth as he kissed her, “Speak up now because if you stop me later, I’ll have to jump off the balcony into the pool.”
She bit his earlobe, her wet hair curtaining his face. “Take me to bed. Now. Right this second.”
Griffin was fast. He ran to the bed, dropped her onto her back. She lay there like a pagan goddess, stretched out, staring up at him, her robe open, her white flesh a feast. Griffin knew he’d die if he didn’t have her, now. Immense ungoverned feelings tangled up inside him, prodding him, and suddenly it all became simple. He pulled back from her and stripped, never looking away from her. Nothing mattered except Kirra Mandarian and consuming her, becoming part of her. He helped her shrug out of her robe and eased down on top of her, felt her full length against him, and moved down over her body, kissing a path until he rested his head a moment against her belly, nuzzling her. She pulled on his hair, said his name again and again like a chant, then “Hurry, hurry.”
Griffin nearly forgot protection. Leaving her even for a second was the hardest thing he could remember, but he pulled away, panting like he’d run a marathon, and grabbed his wallet out of his pants. Then he was over her again, kissing and nuzzling all of her, and then he was a part of her, and when he felt her muscles clench and heave against him, felt her fingers digging into his back, heard her cry out, he let go.
He lay flat on top of her, breathing hard against the pillow beside her face. Kirra didn’t want him to move, not for a long time. She tightened her arms around him, aware only now how hard his muscles felt under her palms, how solid he was. She leaned up, toyed with his earlobe. She felt well and truly alive.
Griffin managed to raise his head and look down into her vague eyes, an incredible green. She looked satisfied sprawled out beneath him. He balanced himself on his elbows, leaned down and kissed her slack mouth, pressed his forehead to hers.
When her breathing slowed, Kirra lightly bit the tip of his nose. “So you’re not going to strangle me?”
“No, not this minute. Maybe not in the next, either, but I do feel like I could bring down a woolly mammoth all by myself and drag him back to our cave.”
“Well, we’d need a lot of barbecue sauce.”
He kissed her again. Her brain never disappointed, her brain and her fast mouth. He slid off her onto his side and Kirra turned to face him, pressing close. She kissed his chin. “Sorry, Griffin, even though you’re a manly man, I really can’t see myself carving steaks off your mammoth. You’ll have to make do with some plastic-covered steaks from the grocery store.”
