Page 31 of Fire for Effect

I pulled my face out of his hands and took two steps back, needing space to breathe. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to.

To get more air.

It was like that morning all over again, when I woke up from a fever dream, and he was there, naked, our legs intertwined, his hard cock resting on my bare thigh. I barely finished my shower before I realized that we were wrong. That I was wrong for him. A mantra I repeated to myself over and over again until it took on my mother’s voice and became just another crippling halt to my life.

But he didn’t remember. Not really. He pried, as if trying to question me about what happened. If he had remembered…

He was a Griffith. He had a future in the white house. I was a Guerro, the daughter of a washed up catalog model, and an absentee father. My only future was exactly where I was standing now. In a small town in the middle of nowhere, living in a trailer.

We never would have crossed paths if it wasn’t for the Army. It was the only place where he and I were equals. But out here? We were nothing.

Just friends.

“They have good burgers here,” I said, turning away from him as he crushed the cigarette in an ashtray. “The beer is… well… beer.”

“No Edelweiss beer?”

The memory of a cold Belgian white beer bottle in his hand sent shivers down my spine. The way he had run it over my heated skin, as he placed himself between my naked legs five years ago…

I had to shake the thoughts of my head and stay rooted in the present. The past didn’t exist. Just now, and this friendship between us.

“I think the only things imported are Corona or Guinness,” I chuckled.

I had never been able to order a Belgian White Beer without blushing, so I never did. It was still a guilty pleasure in the confines of my trailer, though. Much like the intimate thoughts of our secret night together, which I remorselessly replayed in my mind in the privacy of my bed.

Griff winced. He liked to say that he wasn’t much of a snob, but he was. Especially about his adult beverages. It came with the blue blood. He ran his thick fingers through his straight hair. He scratched at the nape of his neck in a way that emphasized his defined forearm. Beneath the black button-down was a man with perfect golden skin, bisected by gorgeous, healthy veins.

I grabbed my hair and pulled it over to one side, undoing the braid, then finger combing it out, suddenly self-conscious about my appearance. Mindlessly, I started putting it into a braid again. Once I got to the end, he took the rope of hair, pulling it towards himself. Then he tied it with a black rubber band he had around his wrist.

He pinched my chin again and gave me a lopsided grin.

“You make it so easy.” He put a finger along my brow line, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.

“I make what so easy?”

“Coming home.”

I flinched away from him. It was all getting too heated, too intense.

I remembered too much. I remembered clearly the things we did while he was drunk. Too drunk to remember.

Unless, of course…

“Did you just break up with someone, or something?” I asked, the picture becoming clear in my mind.

“What?”

“Did you just break up with a girlfriend, or something?” That had to have been it. I was a rebound. Again.

“You think I’ve been out for two years going on dates? Seriously?” he asked as I turned away, heading back into the noise of the bar. “I’m just traipsing around, going to galas and seducing princesses? Maybe an heiress or two?” He laughed, clapping his hands together. “James Bond, step aside, I get a new Griffith Babe every episode of my franchise?”

He droned on and on. Galas, dinners, balls, seducing actresses and the like. He kept on teasing me as we walked into the building, and the familiar scent of cheap pine assaulted my nostrils. Pine, and stale beer. The sound of country music blared off the speakers, and I made a mental note to change that as soon as I could make my way to the Jukebox.

Ellen, the bartender, took one look at me and scowled.

She was a 30-something woman, more worn out than her years would suggest. And she hated outsiders. She must be having a conniption with the new MC in town.

“Mm-hmm?” was all she said, throwing a rag over her shoulder. Her hair was bleached straw blonde, and fraying around her ears.

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