Page 39 of Holding Out

All night wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, and then was annoyed with herself.What had he said to her?His threshold for complicated was so low that he didn’t even stick around for donuts and coffee.She wasn’t going to get sappy and want more.She wasn’t going to be that dumb stereotype.

She got in the shower and washed herself clean, marveling at how wet he’d made her, and how swollen.How sensitive and greedy her body still felt.

Then she sat on the bed and toyed with her phone while he showered, and she tried not to break down the door to the bathroom and demand more.

It was just horniness, though.He’d gotten her going, and apparently now that she knew what she’d been missing, that particular genie wasn’t going back in its bottle.It was up to her and her alone to rub that magic lamp.

The bathroom door opened, and he came out on a cloud of spicy wood-and-wildernessGriff.He smiled at her, but the expression on his face was different now.More remote.

Ah, so this was how he did one-and-done.

That was fine; she could do that, too.“Ready to head out?”she asked.

“Yup.”

He must have blown the candles out when she was in the shower, and now he gathered his things and restored them to the duffle.It was strange watching it all go back into the bag, all of what they’d done undone—except for the act itself, which had permanently changed her.

He held the door for her on the way out, hit the elevator button and pressed door-openso she wouldn’t be rushed—but he didn’t kiss her.He didn’t even look at her, fiddling with his phone as they descended to the main floor.They crossed the lobby in silence, stopped briefly at the desk where he checked them out, and stepped out together into the night.

Traffic on Alaskan Way was surprisingly busy for after midnight, cars rushing by on the multi-lane street.He took her hand and stepped off the curb.

A car peeled out from nowhere with a screech, startling her.It must have been idling along the curb somewhere, and they hadn’t seen it.Its headlights swept across their faces, and Griff jumped back, yanking Becca’s arm so hard it hurt.

She was startled.The lights.The sharp pain in her shoulder.The harshness of a man who’d been so gentle with her body less than an hour earlier.It took her a moment to let go of her surprise and tune in to Griff.

He’d dropped into a crouch on the curb, and terror overwrote his features.His eyes were a million miles away.

She knew it immediately—she’d spent enough time around Nate and Alia, listening to them talk about Nate’s struggles and the men Alia treated.This was some kind of flashback.

She knew not to startle him out of it.She knew he wasn’t here with her and that he could be violent without realizing it, a reaction to whatever was in his half-conscious mind.She crouched beside him and murmured his name.Quietly.Over and over again.He was frozen in place, his gaze on a distant point, his breathing fast but quiet—as if he were hiding in the dark, waiting for his chance to—to what, she wondered?Attack?Defend?A strange tenderness caught at her, the two of them there, him suffering something she couldn’t see—that no one could see.How awful to have been hurt in a way that could overpower his consciousness, so that the sweep of headlights could scare him into an animal retreat.

“Griff.”Not trying to call him out of it, just trying to reassure him.She must have said it twenty times.

Finally something shifted in his gaze.A tiny flicker of awareness.His pupils shrank, and he was looking at her.The tenderness she’d been feeling for him was reflected right back at her.Something swelled in her chest, and she reached out a hand to touch his face.

He caught her hand and clasped it to his cheek.

“Marina,” he said, his voice thick with affection and longing.“Thank God you’re okay.I couldn’t find you.”

Becca jerked her hand back like his stubble was a cactus’s quills.

“It’s Becca,” she said.

Her voice sounded cold and harsh, loud.

Then he wasreallyback.His eyes focused, hard and tight, on her face, and she saw it: recognition followed quickly by disappointment and regret.

Well, of course.He’d loved his wife.

What had Nate said the morning after she and Griff had watchedThe Princess Bride?

You and he want different things.

And whatdoesGriff want?

To bang enough women that he forgets his ex-wife.Which, I might add, is a lost cause.He’s totally not over her.I think he’d take her back in a heartbeat if she asked.

She thought:You hit the nail on the head, Nate.

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