He rolled over, still tossing and moaning. Cold fear gripped her, and her hands started to tremble. Was Griffin sick? Like really sick? Like her father had been before he’d died? “Griffin!” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Wake up!” She had never been able to get her father to wake up, because it hadn’t been a dream that had been consuming him. It had become his reality, a horrible illness taking his mind and his body away from him.
Not again.
Please, God, not again.
“Griffin!” He fought her, shoving her hands away. His skin was hot, and his hair was plastered to his head. She shook him again, desperate, frantic. “You have to wake up!”
“Clare?” His voice was thick and confused, but his eyes opened. He was awake.
“Griffin.” Relief surged through Clare, and she sank onto the bed beside him, suddenly too weak to stand. “Are you okay?”
“Clare,” he mumbled. Still sounding dazed and mostly asleep, Griffin rolled onto his side, facing her, and she set her hand on his shoulder. He was trembling, his powerful body shocked into submission by whatever he’d been dreaming about. His skin was slick with perspiration.
“Let me get you a towel.” She started to slide off the bed.
“No.” His arm clamped around her waist and yanked her back beside him. “Stay.” He shifted so his head was on her leg, using her thigh for a pillow. He kept her anchored against him, like a terrified child in desperate need of comfort to ward off the monster under the bed.
“Okay.” She settled back against the headboard and began to stroke his head. “It’s okay, Griffin. It was just a nightmare.”
He said nothing, and she let her hand still, suddenly feeling a little silly about comforting a grown man as if he were a child.
“Don’t stop,” he said quietly, his voice harsh with anguish. “Please.”
She realized that he needed her: her touch, her comfort, and her help. Tears filled her eyes, and a powerful feeling surged through her. She immediately began to stroke his head again. “I won’t stop,” she said. She weaved her fingers through his hair, the damp strands slippery and soft beneath her touch. “I’m here, Griffin. You’re safe.”
He reached for her free hand and entwined his fingers through hers, holding onto her with a weariness that spoke of a soul that couldn’t survive by itself for one more minute.
She snuggled deeper against the pillows, moving so her body was against his. Letting him feel the reassuring strength of human contact. Of being held. Of not being alone.
He draped his leg over hers, his body heavy as he pinned her to his mattress, still holding tight to her hand.
Clare smiled gently and continued to stroke his hair. “Whatever is chasing you,” she whispered. “It can’t get you right now. I have you. It’s okay.”
Griffin said nothing, but as she held him, the tremors began to ease from his body, and his muscles began to relax. But his breathing didn’t change, and she knew he was still awake.
He shifted, nestling his head more snugly against her hip, and he wrapped his arm around her leg, as if to ensure she didn’t sneak away. His hand was gripping her inner thigh, and suddenly she became aware of exactly how little she was wearing.
A pair of silky shorts and a camisole top. Griffin was wearing only boxers, and his legs were bare against hers. Skin to skin, over the lengths of their bodies, wrapped so intimately around each other.
His breathing shifted, and she knew that he had just noticed the same thing. His arm tightened around her thigh, ever so slightly, but even that small movement was enough to send ripples of awareness over her body.
She didn’t need this. She really didn’t. He needed comfort right now. Not sex. She needed space. Not sex. She shifted, trying to extricate herself. “Griffin—”
“I dreamed she was drowning,” he said, his voice muffled and hoarse.
Clare stopped, frowning at the shadowy figure tangled around her. “Who?”
“Brooke. My daughter.”
“Oh.” Clare’s heart tightened, and she scooted down on the bed so she could look at him. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and she could make out the features of his face. Enough to see the tendons rigid in his neck and the agony in his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “It’s terrifying to imagine harm coming to our children.”
His head was resting on the pillow now, facing her as he anchored his leg over hers again. “I dreamed that I was standing on the shore of the ocean, and there were huge waves,” he said, his voice raw. “Brooke was in the water, being tossed around. She was screaming for me, waving her arms. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’ Just screaming my name over and over and over again. She kept getting sucked under, and I thought she was gone, and then she would come up again, screaming for me.”
“Oh, Griffin.” Clare laid her hand on his cheek, trying to ease his torment. “That’s a horrible dream.” For years after Ed’s death, she had been haunted by the nightmare that she was dying, and her little girl was crying for her, left behind without anyone to take care of her. A shudder went through Clare as she remembered the depths of the terror that would grip her for days afterwards, not fear of her own death, but fear of the devastation it would do to Katie if she died. No wonder Griffin was still shaking. She rubbed his shoulders the way she’d wished for someone to rub hers all those times. “But it’s just a dream—”
“I was shouting for Brooke,” he continued, his tension rising as he relived it, working himself up again. “I kept trying to get through the waves to her, but they kept throwing me back to shore.” He was starting to tremble again, and she knew he was getting sucked back into the terror of the nightmare. “The waves were crashing all around me, and I couldn’t see her and I couldn’t get to her, but I could hear her screaming. I was shouting her name, reaching for her, but I couldn’t get to her.” His voice broke. “My baby was drowning, and I couldn’t save her. I was too late. Too fucking late.” He stopped suddenly and rolled onto his back, throwing his arm over his face. “Fuck!”
Clare stroked his arm, trying to soothe him. “It was just a dream, Griffin. She’s not drowning. She’s okay.”
“No, she’s not! She’s not okay.” He swore and punched the pillow.
“Yes, she is!” She grabbed his arm, her heart breaking for his anguish. “Listen to me, Griffin! It was a dream!”
“She’s not okay, and I can’t get to her. I can’t reach her. I can’t fucking help her!” He punched the pillow again.
“Hey!” Clare climbed on top of him, grabbed his forearms and shoved them back against the bed. “Stop it! Your daughter is okay, and you haven’t done anything wrong!”
Griffin grabbed her arms and in a move quicker than she could prevent, he rolled over, pinning her beneath him. He pinned her hands against the pillow above her head, his hips weighing her down. He glared at her, anger rolling off him. “You have no idea what is going on with my daughter!”
His body was rigid with fury and the residual trauma of his dream, and his face was angry. But Clare could feel his pain and fear, and she wasn’t afraid. Despite what anyone else might say, there was no danger in this man. When Ed had died, she’d struck out in rage like Griffin was doing now, and she knew it was just the residual effects of the terrifying dream, the body’s defense to a terror so deep it could break a person completely. “Griffin,” she said quietly, trying to coax him back into sanity. “I’m not the enemy. It’s just me.”
He stared at her, as if he couldn’t understand her words, as if he couldn’t grasp what was happening. Her heart bled for him, for this strong, powerful man who had been brought to the very depths of fear and panic because he was worried about his child.
This was the man who Eppie had accused of being a murderer?
This was the lunatic who had supposedly driven his family off with rages or abandoned them, depending on which rumor you listened to?
No. This was the beauty of a father who loved his daughter, of a man with more passion in his heart than he knew how to handle. “You’re a good man,” she said quietly.
He searched her face, and she saw the desperation in his dark eyes. She felt the intensity of his need to believe her words. “You don’t know me,” he said.
“No, I don’t.”
“Then you don’t know if I’m a good man.” His grip was still secure on her wrists, and his body was heavy on hers, but she sensed that he would release her if she asked. He was holding her down because of his own need to be connected, a need she suspected he didn’t even comprehend.
“I do know,” she said. “You lost your connection to your daughter in the divorce, and you don’t know how to get it back. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It simply means you have a heart that actually works.” She smiled. “That’s a good thing, Griffin.”
“What?” Confusion laced his voice, and his forehead was furrowed.
“Katie filled me in on what Brooke had told her about you. There’s a disconnect between the two of you, isn’t there?” Her legs were starting to ache from his weight on them, but she didn’t want to dislodge him.
His grip tightened on her wrists, his gaze desperately searching hers for understanding. “I went there tonight to take her to dinner.”
Clare shifted her legs, sliding them outside his. The moment she did that, he sank deeper against her. Okay, maybe not quite the right solution. She focused on Griffin, trying to ignore the pressure of his body between her thighs. His slowly growing hardness between her legs. “And she wouldn’t go with you?”
“She wasn’t there, but Hillary’s new husband was. It didn’t go well.” Griffin’s eyes began to darken, and his gaze drifted to her mouth. “She’s trapped in that house, and I can’t reach her. It’s like my dream, only this time it’s real, and I still can’t reach her.”
Clare swallowed, her body beginning to respond to the heated way he was studying her lips. This wasn’t good. She couldn’t do this. “Have you spoken to Brooke?” she asked, trying to keep the conversation directed to a safe topic.
“Yeah. She told me to leave her alone.”
Clare’s heart tightened for the pain beneath his words. “Don’t give up on her. She needs you.”
Griffin stared at her, and then a faint smile softened his hard features. “Thank you for saying that.”
She smiled back, happy to see the hint of peace in his eyes. “I believe it.”
“I know you do.” He began to rub his thumb over the inside of her wrist. “And that’s why it was so beautiful.”
Tremors rippled down her arm from his touch, and a pulse began to beat low in her belly. “Griffin—”
“No,” he said. “No more words. Not right now.”
Then slowly, ever so slowly, he bent his head.
He was going to kiss her. She knew he was. She should push him away. Get out of bed. Run screaming.
Go, Clare, go
! “Griffin—”
“Tonight, you are my savior,” he whispered. “That dream tortures me constantly, but tonight you took it away. You gave me room to breathe again.”
Tears filled her eyes at the earnestness of his words, and then he kissed her.
Griffin’s kiss was everything Clare had dreamed of for years.
Feather-light and tender, his lips brushed over hers, a fleeting connection of desire and endearment that was over before she had a chance to take a breath.
He pulled back and studied her, as if trying to gauge her reaction.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from him, couldn’t keep herself from being mesmerized by the depths of his dark eyes. She wanted him to kiss her again. And again. And—
“You’re trembling,” he said.
She blinked. “I am?”
“Are you cold?”
“No.” She couldn’t seem to find words.
He raised one eyebrow, and then a slow, seductive smile spread across his features. No dimple this time, just the awareness of a man and his power over a woman. “Hmm...” He released her wrist and laid his hand against her head, his fingers tangling in her hair in a sensual caress that sent spirals of pleasure cascading through her.
Still smiling, he kissed one corner of her mouth. And then the other. And then her nose.
Clare closed her eyes, afraid to breathe, terrified of shattering the moment. This precious, amazing moment. She drank in every touch, the warmth of his lips as they touched her skin, the gentleness of his hand in her hair, the heat of his breath against her cheek.
There were no words between them. No words to describe the wonder of what it felt like to have Griffin touching her. She reveled in the sensation of his skin against hers, the weight of his body pressing her to the mattress, the exploration of his lips over the curves of her face, the heat from her skin mingling with the damp fire rising from his.
Then he kissed her mouth again, and this time, the kiss was deeper. More insistent. More intimate. Seeking her response.
Desire blazed through Clare, answering his summons, and she began to kiss him back, tentatively at first, not sure what he wanted, or how to respond. But when Griffin made a soft growl of pleasure and deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue across hers, she forgot to be worried. She forgot to fear. She just kissed him back, following his pace, setting her own. She became lost in the kiss, in his hands in her hair, in his body moving against hers, his hips nestling more deeply between her thighs.
His skin felt so magnificent as she moved her leg, sliding her bare foot along his calf. She basked in the hardness of his muscles as he supported his upper body, the sheer raw man that he was. She’d forgotten, oh, how she’d forgotten, what it felt like to be in a man’s arms, to be kissed as though she were the most precious being in existence.
No, not
a
man. Griffin. It was only Griffin. His legs tangled around hers, his woodsy scent filling the air, his mouth nibbling so seductively along her collar bone.
Griffin lightly bit her lip, then the kiss changed. It deepened, it pulsated with power, and with urgency. With need.
Answering need rushed through Clare, and she shifted her legs apart a little further as he moved his hips against her, pressing into her. She tentatively set her hands on his shoulders, needing to feel his skin, wanting to pull him closer, not sure how to do it, not sure if she should.