The Hunted One (Falcon Falls Security), page 33
She sniffled. “And are you?”
“I hope so. I might need a little more fixing. You know, my head has been in my ass for quite a long time, but for you, Savanna, I’ll do anything.” He thought back to her words about Marcus in Greece. “I’ll fight. I’ll fight to be with you until my last breath.”
Savanna stepped forward, and unable to stop himself, he pulled her into his arms, setting his chin on top of her head.
“Do you still want me?” he asked, his voice a bit raw with emotion. There was still the potential problem of his job. “My work,” he reminded her.
“Without a doubt,” she answered, easing back to find his eyes. “I know this thing between us happened fast, but maybe we could date or—”
“I would love to bake with you.” He grinned.
“Come inside.” She stepped back and held out her hand, and he followed her into the house, hating she still lived in a place where a man had been killed.
“I want to tell you something,” he said once they were in the foyer.
“What is it?” She pointed her beautiful hazel eyes up at him and palmed his cheek, and he did his best not to scoop her into his arms and kiss her.
“You see, I met this woman, and she’s got the biggest heart in the world. She’s the most forgiving person I’ve ever met.” His voice gave out a little. “And I thought maybe I could be like her.” He closed his eyes. “So, I visited my mom, and I took the first step to being the man she needs. And I forgave my mom.”
Savanna’s other palm found his cheek, and she held his face, which had him opening his eyes. “Griffin,” she softly whispered. “I’m proud of you.”
“I have something for you,” he said after swallowing.
He stepped back and reached into his pocket.
“My passport?” She eyed it in surprise.
“You forgot it, and I . . .”
She arched a curious brow before peering up at him.
“I thought maybe we could fill it together?”
Her lips stretched into the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life before she said, “I love you.” Her eyes became watery, and she added, “I know that makes me crazy.”
“Then I’m crazy, too,” he admitted in a hoarse voice before pulling her into his arms and finally kissing her.
When he lifted her off the ground, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and he walked her to the wall for support. One hand on her ass, the other on the wall over her shoulder, she kept herself in his arms as he broke their kiss to say those “crazy words” for the first time in his life to anyone other than his parents. “I love you.”
Savanna’s short nails bit into his back as she kissed him again with even more intensity, and then he dragged his lips to her ear.
“Tell me, Sugar, did you touch yourself every day I was gone?” he rasped, and she bucked her pelvis into him.
“There’s only so much baking a girl can do,” she replied as he pressed his cock against her. “What about you?”
He gently nipped her earlobe. “No, I wanted to wait for it to be with you.” Griffin brought his lips back to her mouth, brushing them over hers.
“Oh really? Well then. I guess I’ve been a bad girl for not waiting.”
“Very bad,” he murmured darkly.
“Mmm.” She leaned back to catch his eyes. “Guess you’d better punish me.”
Epilogue
Tuscany, Italy - One Month Later
“I still can’t believe you set this up.” Savanna accepted the glass of Chianti from Griffin, her eyes on the vineyards off in the distance from their villa. She was naked beneath her short red silk robe, after hours of lovemaking that’d begun the moment they’d walked into the place.
Technically, the sizzling heat began before then while Griffin drove the little black sports car up the winding roads to their villa. He’d slipped his palm beneath her dress and gently thumbed her sex over her satin panties.
“This place is everything and more.” She stretched her back, her body sore from their lovemaking. A good kind of sore. But after two weeks of missing this man while he’d been working on another job, they had time to make up for, and the trip had been an unexpected surprise.
A.J. and his wife, Ana, had been over for dinner when Griffin showed up earlier than she’d expected after his assignment in Costa Rica, and he’d greeted her with a kiss and two plane tickets.
She was relieved that A.J. and Griffin got along so well and that A.J. hadn’t felt the need to deck him the way he had Shep.
And now, we’re in Italy. A new stamp in her passport on a trip with the man she loved.
Griffin wrapped his arms around her from behind as they stood on the veranda and took in the view of the setting sun.
“All that’s missing is a typewriter,” he said into her ear, his warm breath coaxing chills to form on her arms beneath the robe.
“I have you. I don’t need more.” She leaned forward to set her wineglass down, and he didn’t lose his hold of her when she turned in his arms and set hers over his shoulders.
“No?” He lifted a brow. “You sure?” He brought one hand between their bodies and freed the knot of the robe, allowing the fabric to drape open. It was only sixty outside, so her nipples stood at attention in the brisk air, but the heated way he stared into her eyes even though they’d just made love began to warm her again.
“What if someone sees us?” She playfully lifted her brows up and down to tease him. Although not a lot of time had passed since they began dating, Griffin had held to his promise to focus on his trust issues, though he still growled when other men looked at her. And she didn’t want him to change in that department. She liked her rugged, alpha male being all growly like that.
“True. Someone might be wandering through that vineyard,” he said as if dead serious, then pulled her back inside in one fast movement and shut the door.
“Forgot my wine out there,” she teased.
“Why, you want me to pour it down your body and lick it off you?” But he had her flat on her back on the rug on the wood floors a heartbeat later, all thoughts of wine forgotten.
His strong, muscular arms held his weight over her as he stared into her eyes. She hooked a finger in the waistband of his black briefs, the only thing he was wearing, while biting her lip. Then her attention skated to the ink on his shoulder. The feathers shielded a man in armor holding a sword, and Griffin had told her a few weeks ago the armored man represented all his brothers in arms.
“Make love to me,” she whispered, ready for him again.
The robe was open to her naked body, and he shifted his body to reposition his mouth over her breast. He ran his tongue over her nipple, and she buried her fingers into his defined back muscles as he moved his weight to his forearm on one side to work his other hand between her legs to her soaking wet center.
“I’ll never get tired of this,” she panted out when he fingered her hard and deep.
All of the erotic and naughty things they’d already done in the bedroom since they’d met somehow felt like the tip of the iceberg with this man, and they had so much more to explore. And they had time to do it, too. Thank God.
Her body heated, and her nipples pebbled hard once he buried his cock deep inside her in one hard thrust, and her back went off the floor.
She loved all the ways they made love, but him on top, peering into her eyes, always made her heart squeeze. The connection was so deep. So real.
Am I really this lucky? This blessed to find love again?
Savanna gave herself over to the orgasm, not able to fight it, not even but a few minutes later. And then Griffin came, pouring himself inside her. He collapsed alongside her and linked their hands together, and they stared at the ceiling for a few quiet minutes before he broke the silence.
“I may have gotten you something . . . that missing something.”
“What do you mean?” She rolled her head to the side to look at him.
“I, uh, had something shipped here before we arrived.” He cleaned her up, using her robe, then slowly stood. “Be right back,” he said with a smile before striding from the room naked.
She grabbed her robe, but it was sticky now, so she couldn’t wear it.
Naked it is. He won’t mind.
But she nearly fell back onto her ass when Griffin came into the room with an old-fashioned typewriter in his hands. There was a piece of paper already inserted.
“Where’d you get that? And why?”
He wordlessly set it on the desk by the doors leading to the veranda, and when he faced her, his nerves appeared to return. “It’s my mom’s. She wrote her first book on it thirty years ago,” he told her. “She wanted you to have it in case you felt like . . . having your own, um, Hemingway moment.”
She cupped her mouth as tears filled her eyes. “You inherited your mother’s romanticism whether you care to admit it or not,” she rasped once she’d managed to unglue her hand from her mouth and work the words free.
“There’s something on the paper if you want to take a look.”
Savanna eyed him a little suspiciously, then walked up alongside him and bent over to retrieve the paper. Typed on the page was, “Will you be my prologue?”
“Griffin?” She held the paper to her body as she faced him, trying to wrap her head around the meaning of the words.
“Te casarías conmigo? Will you marry me, Sugar?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion.
“You . . . you learned that in Spanish to ask me?”
He smiled. “I’m already fluent. I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you.”
The paper slipped from her hands as she stared at him with lips parted until she finally put two and two together at what he was trying to tell her. “Our babies can be . . .”
He nodded, and his handsome smile stretched. Eyes filled with tears. Hers, too.
“Sí.” She briefly lifted her eyes to the ceiling as if feeling her abuela there. “Yes. Yes, I want to marry you,” she cried and tossed herself at him.
“Te quiero,” he said into her ear. “I love you,” he added before kissing her, sliding his tongue inside her mouth.
“I can’t believe you held out on me,” she added once their mouths were free, but the shock had yet to wear off.
“Life’s better with surprises.” He winked and drew her back against him. “And, Sugar, you were life’s best surprise for me.”
Walkins Glen, Alabama - Christmas Eve
“Did you ask him to sing that?” Savanna peered at Ella’s brother, A.J., performing the Maroon 5 song, Sugar, with two of his brothers. They were set up on the deck of their parents’ home on their sprawling ranch.
“Of course,” Ella responded with a chuckle.
A.J.’s voice had to be a gift from God, like his father’s. And his brothers weren’t half bad themselves. Of course, moody Beckett didn’t join them, but his daughter was on the mock-stage dancing her heart out.
The Hawkins family knew how to throw a party, that was for sure. Savanna was pretty certain the entire town had been invited. A.J. and his nine teammates were there with their families, as well as Savanna’s parents and Griffin’s. The place was bustling with activity and a lot of mistletoe kissing and dancing going down.
Before the party had started, A.J. and his teammates, along with Griffin and his colleagues, had made a toast . . . one to the past—to Marcus . . . and one to the future—to her and Griffin. And although Griffin had known Marcus’s teammates prior to tonight, it’d felt like they really welcomed and accepted him into the family, one they’d never dropped Savanna from in all those years.
It’d been one hell of an emotional toast for them all, too, especially when A.J. played Coffey Anderson’s “Mr Red White and Blue” as they stood around a bonfire and raised their glasses.
Savanna had been choked up, but Griffin held her hand and got her through it. He was her rock now. The reason Marcus felt it was okay to say goodbye. To move on.
“He knows that I told you he calls me Sugar now.” Savanna tucked her hair behind her ears as she caught sight of her fiancé maybe twenty feet away while talking to Jesse and Jack.
Griffin lifted his beer her way and shot her a knowing smile, and she did her best to shoot him a saucy look back.
“Yup, he knows,” Ella said. “But who cares, a guy has to know there are no secrets between best friends.”
“There might be a few secrets left between some friends.” Savanna turned her attention toward Jesse as he seemed to be pounding back the drinks a bit more than normal after his slightly awkward hello with Ella not too long ago after he’d arrived. It’d been the first time they’d seen each other since he left behind his business there to work with Griffin’s team, barely giving Ella warning he was taking off. “I think Jesse’s hiding something from us.” She peered back at Ella, who was dressed in a gorgeous red wrap dress, similar to the one she’d designed for Savanna.
“Well, after what we learned about Rory, I guess secrets run in the family,” Ella commented. “Rory stopped running when she met the right person, though.” She tipped her chin toward Rory’s husband, who worked on A.J.’s team. “It’s safe to say I’m not that someone for Jesse.”
Savanna shook her head. “The problem isn’t you. It’s him.”
“I don’t know.” She took a sip of her red-and-green-colored vodka-something cocktail. “I should really start dating for real.”
“I knew those other dates you were going on back in October were bullshit.” And Ella had stopped going on them once Jesse was out of town.
“Trying to make him jealous so he’d remove his head from his ass didn’t work.”
“You really going to be done, done, done this time?” Savanna followed her gaze, eyes set on Nick, who’d surprised Savanna by accepting the invite to join her and Griffin for Christmas. He was talking to Gray and his sister by one of the food tables.
“Nick asked me on a date,” Ella blurted, and Savanna choked on the sip she’d taken of her own drink.
“Oh.” What was she going to say to that?
“I said no,” Ella told her straight away. “He’s a man of the world. Not someone who wants to stick local, and it’s time I get serious and find someone who loves not just my home but me.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” Savanna could barely believe that she was no longer a side character in someone else’s love story. She’d been watching couples fall in love for years, assuming it’d be impossible for her to ever do the same, and now she was planning a spring wedding. She pinched herself just about every other day. “But it will happen.” Just maybe not with Jesse. And that broke her romantic heart.
“I don’t know.” Ella sighed.
“I mean, I suppose Jesse isn’t really permanently gone from here. Or he doesn’t have to be. I’m making it work with Griffin even though his job isn’t here.”
She and Griffin were having a house built in Walkins Glen, but she’d commute to Birmingham for the café. And now that she could afford to hire help when Griffin needed to be in Pennsylvania between his jobs, she could stay there with him too.
Before Ella had a chance to reject Savanna’s comment, which she’d assumed was coming, Griffin began waving them over.
They cut through the party to get to where the guys stood, then Ella surprised Savanna by stepping in front of Jack and offering her hand.
How much had Ella drank? Because damn.
Not just a J name, but Jesse’s new co-worker.
Well, this should go well.
“Dance?” Ella asked Jack, and Jack pivoted his attention to Jesse for permission, and the glaring look Jesse sent back had Jack shaking his head.
“Sorry, I have to, uh, take a piss.” Jack shrugged, then hightailed it out of there.
Smart man.
“I’ll dance with you,” Jesse blurted, and his expressive blue eyes became hooded as his brows dipped like someone else had hijacked his voice. “Come on.” He snatched Ella’s drink and handed it off to Griffin without waiting for her response.
“Well, that was—”
“Confusing,” Savanna cut off Griffin after Ella hesitantly took Jesse’s hand and walked toward where her brother and the others were still singing. A new song this time.
Griffin discarded Ella’s drink and his own in the trash can set up nearby, then tossed Savanna’s next. “I’d like to dance with my future wife.”
“Oh, would you?” She smiled as he took her into his arms, looking incredibly handsome in his dark denim jeans, cowboy boots, and button-down black shirt. And he’s all mine.
“I would.” He pulled her into his arms where they stood, not bothering to leave that spot. “And then I’d like to unwrap you later for an early Christmas gift,” he said into her ear, and her body tightened with anticipation for “later.”
She set her head on his shoulder as he held her, and they simply moved side to side. She was so freaking happy, but then her heart leaped from her chest at the sight before her. “Babe,” she said, pulling back to excitedly swat his chest a few times.
“What?” Griffin twisted to the side to see what she was looking at.
“Your dad. He’s . . . totally enamored by Liz.” Savanna watched Griffin’s dad take a small red napkin and pat Liz’s cheek as if helping to remove sauce or something. “I think he’s flirting. Look at him.”
“Is Liz single? And how young is she? She looks young.” Griffin wrapped an arm around Savanna as they watched his dad smile at whatever Liz had said.
“She’s sixty, and she’s the one who owns the bakery in town. The reason I didn’t want to open one here and have us be competitors.” Savanna beamed at the sight. Maybe after all these years, his father just might find his second love too, and Liz, a widow like Savanna, could use that second chance as well.
“I haven’t seen Dad smile like that in a long time,” Griffin said while coughing into a closed fist as if his emotions were choking him up. Such a strong man, but he hated showing his sensitive side. He was getting better at it, though, which she appreciated. Still a total alpha in the bedroom, though, and she preferred that. Damn, did she ever.
