Page 50 of Fire for Effect

I shook my head, trying to clear it, but he took it as a rejection of his instructions. He growled, his hands doubling their speed and pressure, his finger on my ass demanding entrance.

“Send him away.”

The roar of the Camaro approached. The paper-thin walls did nothing to keep out the rumble of the engine. I liked it that way. Nothing could ever sneak up on me. But what I would have done for soundproof walls in that moment.

“No!” What was I saying no to? To breaking up with Riley? To being exclusive with Griff? To pleasure rapidly building in my body, ready for release.

I felt his finger moving in despite how hard I clenched my ass. What the fuck? I had never been a fan of anal, but this invasion - hell, this violation - sent a jolt of pleasure through me that I had never experienced before.

“Send him away.” He repeated, calmly this time. “I claimed you. You’re mine.”

“Fuck you,” I said, gasping for air as the pressure built inside my body.

Riley would be here at any moment. Just a few minutes at most, and my body was coiled, ready to give Griff everything that he demanded of me.

But I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. Griff was here on a temporary stop. He wasn’t going to stay. I knew that. So why the fuck did he get to tell me who to talk to and who to be with? It was complete and utter bullshit. He was demanding too much, and taking too much.

He’d leave for his next assignment and forget me. So why the fuck…

“Send him away, before I get jealous,” he warned, then smirked. “I’ll bury him in your fucking woods, if that’s what it takes to get my point across.”

The orgasm ripped through me fast, and hard, curling my toes, and throwing my head back. The orgasm wasn’t me. It had so little to do with me but had everything to do with Griff. It was like a foreign invader, taking residence in my skin, spreading this seed of doubt and hope that I was taken, and that Griff was here to stay. It coiled itself into my brain, planting a poisonous thought in my mind that I could be happy. That he could be mine. That we could be together.

The rotten lie was taking root inside me, and I needed to pluck it out like the weed that it was.

That was why I always cried after he made me come.

Because these insipid thoughts were there, and when I was clear of the haze of orgasms, reality would crash around me, fast and brutal. He was a Griffith. I was a Guerro.

He was a mansion. I was a trailer.

There was no world where our two lives could ever mingle together. He’d go back to his world of beauty and perfection. The stuff of movies and television shows. And I would go back to my little one-room hovels, and rig up solar panels and generators, so that I could heat a space the size of his closet.

The world wasn’t made for people like me. His world wasn’t made for people like me.

At my sniffling, he leaned down, planting a kiss on my shoulder as he washed his hands with his arms around me, doing everything behind my back as I buried my face into his chest.

With his hands clean and dried, he lifted my chin, and licked at my tears again. Another act of possession.

“Tell him to go away,” he said, his voice still angry at being defied. “Tell him, or I will.”

I closed my legs, and came down off the counter, my heart heavy and pained.

I would do as he said because Riley didn’t deserve the wrath of Griff. I wasn’t sure who’d win in a fight.

No, that’s not true. I had no idea what Griff did for a living now, but I was sure that a man manufactured to kill didn’t suddenly take on a desk job. Riley, on the other hand, kept people alive. He rescued people for a living.

They were two very different men.

And why was I attracted to the destroyer, and not the nurturer?

“I’ll tell him,” I said, unable to look Griff in the eye as the pleasure was replaced by pain.

I turned to go, but he stopped me before I got past the bedroom and to the door. He put his coat around me, pulling it closed. He slapped something on my wrist - a silver bracelet. A thick chain, with a square emblem. The intricate image of a firefly was etched into the metal.

It was beautiful.

“This is your birthday present,” he said quietly, looking at the fit of the jewel, twisting it in his hand. “I had it made for you.”

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