Found by You (12 page)

A small laugh hit my heart from her lips and I smiled.

Pulling in close, I finished my thoughts near her ear. “She’s who I saw.
She’s
who I want. Always.”

She pushed her arms around my body and rubbed her cheek against my t-shirt, nuzzling and filling the cotton with her heat. “I haven’t had a chat since I met you. I tried… like after your party… I made another video when I went back to my apartment. When you saw me outside I was about to post it, but I couldn’t. The whole time I shot it I felt dirty. It didn’t feel so good anymore. It just didn’t feel like anything I feel when I’m with you.”

I should have been happy, relieved by what she said. That I’d been enough for her. That she no longer felt like she had to be the skewed concept of an ideal to feel secure. But what she said about the party killed any chance of a good feeling.

My life had many complications. There was shit I’d done in my past that no girl should have to put up with and deal with. Roxie was right. I had sold myself in many ways. Cheapened myself. Those choices were my reality. My unfortunate darkness.

Bracing her shoulders, I put space between us. I wanted to look at her.

She lifted her head. Her eyes were puffy, but she didn’t look sad. The state of her eyes was just the result of the tears she’d shed. I was relieved her sadness was waning. I didn’t like seeing her sweet face so upset.

I brushed away the remnants of tears underneath her green eyes. “I know there’s a lot in my life that isn’t ideal, Roxie. I have done all those things you said and I own up to them. I did accept gifts for playing ball. Women amongst them.”

She nodded but didn’t look away. She listened. She was listening.

I squeezed her arms. “They’re all things I no longer accept and haven’t for a while. And as captain this year, I’ve been advising my team to follow my example. I know that doesn’t excuse the fact I accepted them initially, though. I do know that.”

Bringing her to me, I bent to lean my forehead against hers. It was all I could do to work up the courage to ask of her what I planned to next. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be to look past these things about someone, Roxie. I can’t even fathom how hard. But damn, if you’ll give me a chance I promise I won’t disappoint you. If you just give me a chance to try.”

Roxie

There was a time not so long ago when I said I didn’t understand Griffin Chandler, and I had been right. I didn’t understand him. I assumed he was a person that couldn’t have been far from the truth of the man he was today. I’d judged him harshly and unfairly. Griffin had some very dark marks stained on his past; ones so embedded he’d most likely spend his lifetime trying to rid himself of them. Despite that, he wasn’t letting them beat him. He was rising above them. On top of that, he made no attempt to hide them. From the beginning he’d been honest with me about the things he wasn’t so proud of in his life. All I had to do was ask. This clenched my heart, surged it with pain. He was so much better than me. He always had been.

Placing my hands on his cheeks, I closed my eyes. “You’re too good,” I whispered. “I told you about the videos, why I do them, and you don’t even care. You didn’t judge me, and now you’re asking me to give
you
a chance. You’re just too good, Griffin.”

He pulled away, clear blue eyes scanning mine. When he lifted his finger, wiping underneath my eye, I knew I was crying again. He braced my cheek. “I can’t for a second judge you when I know what you’re getting when it comes to me.”

“That’s what makes you better,” I sniffed, my lip quivering. “Stronger. I did judge you. I ran. I’m so much weaker than you. How can you want me—”

“Stop it,” he said.

Tilting my chin with a single hand, he brushed his thumb under lip. He moved in, his forehead to mine, and his eyes closed. My mouth went dry as he caused our noses to brush, collide. He didn’t kiss me, but my lips felt the pressure, the heat, as his warm breath glided over my mouth.

“It’s not fair for either of us to compare ourselves to the other,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if I were in your situation. How I would have reacted or if I ever would have given you a chance at all. I just know that
I
personally won’t run away from this, and I’m hoping you’ll—”

Popping up on my toes, I touched my lips to his. I grew tired of talking and thinking. I’d been doing too much of that lately. Way too much for my own good.

Putting his hand to my other cheek, he kept me to him. Griffin’s lips were so soft and one of the sweetest things I’d tasted in a long time… in more ways than one.

To my surprise, he didn’t let our kiss linger. Stepping back, he slid his hands down my arms, squeezing me firmly. I drew in a breath, loving the feeling.

“Can I stay… tonight?”

My eyes popped open after his words. His own looked for answers, and I could see the unease behind them. I’d turned him away before so I wasn’t surprised. Before I could answer him, he spoke again.

“I, um,” he paused, closing his lips briefly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

I frowned. He didn’t? Did he
not
want to sleep with me for some reason? I didn’t understand.

He pushed his hand behind his neck, rubbing. “I meant, could I
just
stay with you. Lay with you. Not even that if you don’t want to. I could take the couch. I just…” He brought me to him by my arms again. “I just want to stay with you tonight. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

I placed my hands on his arms, under his biceps. They were so hard and lined with soft hairs. “You won’t try to take advantage of me?” I asked, my lips lifting.

His strong face flashed in worry, his long lashes flickering, and I knew he didn’t get that I was teasing him. He touched my cheek. “Of course not, Roxie—”

“Not even if I,” I paused, backing away from his hands. I moved to the bed, pushing under the covers, and his gaze followed me, watching as I took the blankets to my chin.

“Sleep like this?” I finished. With the talent that only females had a way of doing, I shrugged my t-shirt up, keeping myself covered with the blanket as I removed it from my body. I tossed it over my head to the floor and that was when Griffin made it to the other side of the bed. He sat down slowly, eyes on me intently, and I didn’t waste a moment of the attention.

I reached around my back and Griffin’s eyes twitched with the snap of my bra clasp. My straps went loose, but before I could slide them down and off, Griffin moved. I followed his hand as it went under the blanket I covered myself with.

I closed my eyes as he felt around, brushing over my arm, my chest, until he got to the arm furthest from him. His long fingers wrapped around the strap, and I helped him, allowing him to slide the dark material down my arm.

I maneuvered my arms under the blanket so he could take it off me, but when he had the bra in his hands, the object he ventured for didn’t hold his attention. He tossed it to the side and his focus was on me again. My thighs pressed together, my toes curling under his gaze.

He guided me back to the pillow with his hand, and all the while I kept the covers up to my chin, concealing my nakedness. I thought he’d join me under them when he pushed his side of the bedding down, and even more so when he lay his never ending frame along the length of mine, but he didn’t. He never brought the covers up to cover himself. He kept them pushed down, aside.

Suddenly, his hand was on my body, moving up my arm. He tugged the blanket from my fingers, removing it, and the room I didn’t realize was so cold chilled my body. I told myself I kept my arms crossed over my chest because of how chilly the room was, but I’d be fooling myself if I said my decision to stay modest had nothing to do with him. I had never been with someone like him before, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could say the same about me. Feeling average took on a new definition when in the presence of someone like Griffin. Someone so commanding and desired.

I had no idea if he picked up on my reservations with myself, but in the next moment he smiled at me. He reached behind his back, pulling his shirt off. Doing so mused his dirty blond hair and made the insecurities I had within myself so much worse.

He was simply beautiful. His skin held a golden glow like he practiced outside more than in. He reached toward me, his bicep muscles twitched, his abs clenching as he leaned over me. He was so large and all consuming. There was a strong protection I felt in his presence, a sense of security.

He gently uncrossed my arms from my body, and I let him look at me, my large breasts. My peaked dark nipples. My stomach, semi-flat and marked with few, but present, lines that resulted from stretched skin.

If he was initially put off from the differences my body held from the women he was probably used to, he didn’t let that reflect. In fact, I gathered no negative reaction at all. His eyes blazed over me, and he couldn’t seem to stop touching me. He stroked my arms gently, sensually. My shoulders the same. He made it to my breasts, and I had to close my eyes under his seeking touch. It was as if he was memorizing my body’s feel, taking me all in. His hands moved over me and to the blankets bunched to the side. He pushed them off the bed until it was just the two of us there.

I stared into his eyes. “But I’ll get cold.”

“I want to see you,” he said, lowering his head. “And no you won’t.”

He drew my nipple into his mouth, laving and suckling, and the shudder inside my body started deep. Right at the core. I spread my legs, aching to be touched, and he didn’t make me wait.

He unzipped my jeans with one hand, pushing his hand inside right after. He bypassed my panties completely and suddenly I felt his finger parting my sensitive lips. Griffin wasn’t fast. He went slow, light on pressure. The feeling knotted my core and my arousal dampened my panties. He hadn’t even entered me yet and the wetness already moved between my thighs.

“Griffin…” I said, widening my legs to urge his fingers downward. I pushed my jeans down my thighs. They were restricting me. I didn’t want him to stop what he was doing to me, but he did in order to help me take my jeans off.

He didn’t put his hands on me right away once the jeans were removed. He was doing his analysis of me again: staring, touching, and taking me all in. His lips touched down between the valley of my breasts, and I drew in a breath, bracing his large shoulders.

“You’re beautiful,” he rasped, gripping my thighs. “So damn beautiful.”

He kissed down my stomach, but he didn’t stop. The next thing I knew he was between my thighs, moving his mouth over my panties with increased pressure.

I whimpered, my eyes rolling back. Shifting my hips, I attempted to evade his mouth. It felt so good, so damn good, and it was overwhelming. He didn’t let me leave though. He held me in place by my hips and I buried my fingers into his hair.

His mouth escaped my panties. When his tongue slid to the apex of my thigh, to the wetness at my panty line, I knew he was tasting me.

“There isn’t anywhere you aren’t sweet,” he said, taking his fill of me. “Anywhere.”

Suddenly, he was upon me, moving up to my mouth, and I was engulfed in him. Surrounded by Griffin Chandler. He kissed me deeply, hungrily, and thinking back, I didn’t understand how I allowed him to stop the first time he kissed me, how I had the strength to pull back from him in my apartment. I’d never been kissed like this before; kissed to a point where I could feel the other person’s passion through the contact. It was like he was making me feel it, showing me his want for me. This connection we had was so different and intense. I’d been with other guys and pleasured myself many times—both on camera and off—but none of that felt like this. Like being with him. He fulfilled a need I didn’t quite have met before. A need that was physical yet so much more. I now realized that as I felt the desire under his touch, the longing for him and his body. Something was missing before. Something that no longer was.

I pushed my head back into the pillow and Griffin kissed down my neck. These strong emotions, strong feelings, scared me just as much as they pleasured me, the reasons for which I knew. Keeping to myself had been so easy and I did it for so long it had become second nature. The heart felt no pain when by itself. Everything was neutral. Neutral yet unfulfilled as I now knew. Tonight, I was opening myself up in ways I knew I never had before for a guy. I was allowing myself to be vulnerable. I could only hope I was strong enough. Just like that day in the laundry room, I knew who he was. And I was still… just me.

“Don’t hurt me,” I heard myself say. I believed what I said to be a whisper, but when he stopped kissing me entirely, I knew it wasn’t.

He looked at me with eyes so crystal blue. His lips lifted and he touched my mouth with his thumb. “Don’t hurt me,” he said, surprising me by repeating what I’d just said back to me. Requesting of me what I asked of him.

His response caused me to smile. We both had pasts, ways in which we could hurt the other. He was right. The stakes were high for both of us.

Touching his chest, I shook my head that I wouldn’t.

Smiling, he lowered his head, his pink lips touching mine. “Try this with me,” he whispered over my mouth. “Just try this.”

“Yes,” I gasped, my voice aching, seeking. I gripped his jeans, pushing them down.

He removed them the rest of the way, all the while tasting and coaxing my lips open with his tongue. I let him in, not thinking about anything else. The condom he had came from somewhere. I didn’t see where, but I did see him pull his dark briefs down to put it on. I must have been staring because I pulled in a breath when he touched my arm, gaining my attention. He’d sheathed himself, and if I wasn’t overwhelmed by Griffin before, I was now. I had only been with a couple guys before him, but neither had been so…

Big.

I must have looked nervous because his gentle laugh hit the air. Holding himself, he drew forward, kissing my lips, bruising and plumping them.

“It’s okay,” he said, guiding his tip into my slit. Stopping there, he kissed me. “It’s okay. Just relax. I won’t force it. I won’t hurt you.”