Much as she hated doing what he told her to, Tara didn’t resist when Griffin reached back for her hands and wrapped them around his waist. When the formidable bike gathered speed and thundered onto the open road, she let out a frightened cry. In response, he clasped her hands in one of his, securing her hard up against him. Terrified, she buried her head against his back and clung to him. After several frightening moments, she gave in to the roar of the powerful engine. Huddled against him, Tara didn’t know if it was his muscular body or the engine vibrating between her thighs, but she was shocked when a cascade of erotic sensations flooded her core. Horrified, she ducked her head, praying Griffin didn’t feel her untoward shivers.
Her struggle with her tumultuous emotions, many of which were unwelcomely sensual, shuddered to an abrupt halt when Griffin turned onto a narrow, winding road. Not able to squelch a sharp cry at the death-defying swerve and afraid that she would fall off the careening bike, Tara clung more tightly to him. At one level, she was certain that he was trying to frighten her. But his skillful handling of the scary bike as he turned yet another sharp curve confirmed he’d logged untold miles on a motorcycle. Rounding a final curve, he pulled to a grinding stop in front of what looked like a small cabin. For the first time since he’d planted her on the back of the bike, Tara dealt with the fact that as terrifying as the motorcycle ride had been, given what she was about to face, it was a mere afternoon breeze compared to a tsunami.
Clearly not willing to let so much as an inch of space separate them, Griffin leapt off the bike and had her in his arms as the kickstand hit the ground. Taking off his helmet and then hers, he strapped them on the bike, then tugged her up next to him. The night he’d commandeered her from the country club event, Tara had been struck by how tall he was. Accustomed to being scant inches shorter than most of the men she dated, his height surprised her. Now, captured next to him, she felt small, fragile, which only exacerbated her fear. Knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell that she could escape him, she gave in to the torrential emotions rioting over her. When her feet hit solid ground and she was off the death-mobile, she was glad her anger surged. Remembering how he’d hauled her out of the tavern, leaving her surprised family and more than a few dozen interested townsfolk staring after them, Tara turned on him.
“Damn you, Griffin, who in the hell do you think you are? How dare you do this to me? Embarrass me in front of my family and every ne’er-do-well in Sierra Vista? Not to mention scaring me to death. I told you I hate motorcycles. That I won’t ride on them . . . ”
Ignoring her tirade, Griffin tightened his grip on her arm and dragged her up the stairs to the cabin’s landing. Keeping her firmly tethered against him with one hand, he reached in his pocket with the other and retrieved a key. Before she could resume her outraged diatribe, he inserted the key in the lock, opened the door, and shoved her inside. Clicking on a light, he pressed her up against the wall. Reaching for her chin, he forced her to meet his fierce gaze. The sneer in his voice was as challenging as the anger gleaming in his emerald-hard eyes.
“Interesting, Tara. You won’t ride on motorcycles, yet here you are. You think you can blow me off, never speak to me again, and . . . yet, here you are. Alone with me, miles away from your home, with precious little awareness of where you actually are. Add to that conundrum, not another living soul knows where I’ve spirited you off to.” His voice dropped dangerously. “I don’t know about you, Tara, but if I were you, I might be a little anxious. Hell, I might even be scared.” Gripping her shoulders in his big hands, he pressed her harder against the wall. He gave a dismissive snort when she emitted a soft cry. “Yes, Tara, if I were you, I definitely would be afraid. After all, what the hell do you know about me except that I am a traitorous developer? Who is out to pollute your precious land, destroying its beauty and taking down everything and everyone in my path?”
When she shook her head from side to side, trying to free herself, he held her more firmly. His voice was scathing, rippling with barely suppressed fury. “And then there is that other issue. Those other things that you know about me. It’s bad enough that I attack your precious land, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t attack you. I carted you off to my wicked lair and not only assaulted your body but came damn close to attacking your soul.” He breathed out a disgusted sigh. “Although, at the time, I was foolish enough to think that you enjoyed my assault.” He glared at her, then added caustically, “Clearly, I misunderstood. Obviously, all your moans and sobbing entreaties, begging me not to stop, were mere ploys to deceive me. Fool me into thinking that when I sucked on your nipples or manipulated your throbbing clit or put my fingers in your ass, driving you from one shattering climax to another, that your ecstatic screams were but a figment of my imagination.”
He stopped for a moment, then, his voice intensifying further, he rasped, “Were they, Tara? Were all your lusty cries and pleas that I not stop a lie? When you begged me to take you higher than you’d ever known that you could go? To make you feel things you didn’t know were possible to feel? Was that a ruse? Just a pathetic ploy to get me out of your life? Merely a way to send me on my way, naïve enough to believe that you reveled in all the extraordinary things I did to you?” Before Tara could respond—much less breathe—he gripped her shoulders harder. His eyes were flashing with fervor, but it was his dangerously low threat that shook her to her roots. “Maybe, Tara, what I should have done was this.”
To her shock, Griffin tore at her blouse, sending a flurry of buttons flying to the floor. Stripping off her blouse, in seconds he’d ripped off her bra, leaving her naked to her waist. As he captured her breasts in his grasping hands, his ragged voice was closer to a groan. “Oh, Christ, as if I could ever have these gorgeous breasts in my hands, my mouth, and ever let you go?”
Lashing his rough tongue over her throbbing nipples, he turned the soft pink nubs to rosy-red, hardening points and reveled in her heated cries. Pressing her against the wall, he worked his fingers into the waistband of her skinny jeans. He unzipped the tight pants and in seconds had them at her knees. Kneeling in front of her, he yanked off her boots and then stripped off her jeans, leaving her naked except for her virginal white thong.
Reaching for her thong, he stripped it off her. Holding her tightly against him, he pressed the silken scraps against his nose and sucked in a deep, audible breath. Shaking his head and gripping her chin so she couldn’t look away, he muttered, “Do you have any idea what your scent does to me, Tara? How I treasured the thong I tore off you the other night? The thong that I kept in my pocket for two whole days so I could savor your erotic fragrance? Until I finally accepted that you weren’t going to answer my calls, hell, my entreaties.” Again, he shook his head fiercely and cursed. “Damn you, Tara, damn you to hell.”
Stunned at the waves of sensation flooding over her, Tara did her best to marshal what minimal defenses she had, given the emotional roller coaster she was riding. She was determined not to let him know how profoundly he was affecting her. How much she wanted to touch him. To hold him like he was holding her. She longed to grip his broad shoulders, his strong arms. To revel in the sight and smell of his chest, rippling with lean muscle. Her shattered cry gave her away, as did her fingers tearing at his shirt, trying to shove it off him. When he ripped his shirt out of his jeans and shucked it to the floor, Tara clawed at the wiry hair on his chest. Surprising herself, she stoked one flat nipple, then the other, wanting to suck on him the way she was dying to have him suckle her.
His voice was harsh. “Goddammit, Tara. Tell me what you want! What you want me to do to you.” When she shook her head, too consumed with desire to speak, he was fierce. “Oh no, you don’t, baby. What we’re going to do for the next few hours—hell, make that days, if necessary—is teach you what it means to be an erotic lover. One that is wild with passion. So much so that the thought of ever walking away from what we have is unthinkable.” Grasping her chin, he forced her to meet his gaze. “Are you up for that, Tara? Are you willing to be that honest, that vulnerable? To open yourself to me? Tell me what your body is begging me to do to you? And when I do all those things that you are pleading with me to do, that you won’t run away, make a cowardly retreat? Pretend that you weren’t as affected as I was by the incredible things we did to each other? Or that like the foolish woman you are, you actually thought you could walk away from me?”
Clinging to him, burying her face against his muscular chest, Tara tried to answer but the most she could do was stammer. “I’m . . . not a foolish woman. And . . . and I . . . I’m not a coward.”
His anger shocked her. “Like hell you’re not. But don’t worry, baby, by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to do things to you that you didn’t know existed, and trust me, if they aren’t illegal in all fifty states, they should be!”
Staring at her naked body, his voice dropped ominously low. “And now, Tara, for the last fucking time, tell me what you want me to do to you.”
Consumed by the torrent of emotions threatening to shatter her, Tara realized with a start how angry she was. He thought he was angry? Damn him. He didn’t know what anger was. After all, she wasn’t the one who dumped him on his doorstep and was MIA for three days. And now to call her a coward, a foolish woman? Shoving at his hands, she pushed him away. “How dare you call me a coward? After you did things to me that no one ever dared to do? And then dropped me off like a bag of day-old garbage?” She pounded on his chest so hard that he stumbled back and almost lost his balance. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she railed furiously. “Damn you! I’m not a coward! You . . . you fucking asshole. You think you’re angry? What about me? I hate you, Griffin. I hate you so goddamn much . . . ”
Later, Tara admitted that if she hadn’t been so consumed with her convoluted thoughts, she wouldn’t have been as surprised as she was when his lip quirked up at the corner and he didn’t try to hide his flash of amusement. “So much that you want me to fuck your brains out?” Yanking her up next to him, his voice was soft, salacious. “Is that how much you hate me, Tara?”
She swiped at her tears and glared at him. “I . . . I want you to stop yelling at me, telling me how bad I am, how dishonest, how cowardly.” She added angrily, “And yes, goddamn you, Griffin, I . . . I want you to fuck me.”
“Say it louder, baby. Scream it. Tell me what do you want, Tara, specifically.”
“I want . . . I need . . . ” She stopped, shaking her head in anguish.
Griffin grasped her chin. “Not good enough, Tara. I need you to say it.” When she just shook her head helplessly, he was insistent. “Where? Where do you want to feel me?”
“In my . . . ” She stopped, unable to do more than shake her head in frustration.
Unwilling to let her evade him, Griffin was insistent. “Say it, damn you. Where do you want me?”
Almost shrieking, she glared up at him. “Fine! I’ll say it. I want you . . . in my pussy . . . ”
Griffin met her angry gaze, fighting the lust that was threatening to take him down. Wanting her more than he had ever wanted a woman, he reached for her. Lifting her up against the wall, he wrapped her legs around his waist. He groaned as he pressed his throbbing arousal against her naked crotch. “Is this what you want, Tara? You want my hard cock inside of you? Deep inside of you?”
Burying her face against his chest, she sobbed, “Yes, yes! Please . . . that’s what I want, what I need!”
His voice was hoarse, banked with excitement. “Hell yes, baby. And you will have it. But first I have to taste you, inhale you. I fucking need to feast on you.”
To her surprise, he lifted her up higher against the wall as if she weighed nothing. Draping her legs over his shoulders, he put her dew-covered labia within inches of his voracious mouth.
Horrified at her compromised position, she tried to pull away, but it was impossible. Giving in to his ravenous tongue pressing her swollen, intimate lips open, she cried out, begging him for more. “Yes, yes, do that! Oh God, yes, like that!” Burying her fingers in his hair, she tugged on the short strands, reveling in his passionate groan. Clutching his shoulders and tossing her head from side to side, she implored, “Don’t stop. Please, Griffin . . . please don’t stop.”
He breathed out a hard groan. “Oh, Christ, honey, as if I ever could!”