Page 39 of Grissom
“At least a safe place to go where she can’t get at him. Somewhere he can have time to think, maybe get counseling and legal advice. Maybe learn how to defend himself.”
“I never thought about that. I mean, Dad’s had plenty of chances to leave Mom, at least, to press charges. He certainly has enough scars, but not once has he done anything to stop her. That’s a great idea, though. We could open a safe house for men like him and me. Only we’ll have to give it a manly name. Us guys don’t like to admit the little missus beats the shit out of us. We’ve got to remember that. Guys’ egos are important, but they’re also part of the problem. I never would’ve admitted it if—”
“If Pam hadn’t disappeared with your boys.”
Grissom licked his lips. His heart rate kicked into overdrive as that night in the asylum with Murphy, the night he’d finally realized everything he lost, came back to him. “Yeah, that. My head got scrambled pretty bad in that crash. Still don’t know why I was so drunk.”
“Walker said that’s how you coped with life.”
“Yeah, but…” Grissom slid his hand down Tuesday’s spine and let it rest on her hip. He pressed his chin to the top of her head, trying to remember. “I can hold my liquor. Always could. Been drinking since I was a teen and got my first taste of forgetfulness. No, I think someone slipped me a mickey, you know, a knockout drug or something.”
“When did you start drinking that day?”
“I honestly don’t know. Probably as soon as I got home from work.” He inhaled slowly, letting his lungs fill with the sweet perfume of Tuesday’s roses. Most of what Walker’d told him about that night, he couldn’t recall.
Tuesday’s tiny hand slid over Grissom’s chest, warming him. “What do you usually drink?”
“Bourbon. Cheap bourbon. Junior knows what I like. He takes care of me. Only I don’t think I got drunk at Junior’s.”
“Tell me what you do remember.”
“Good idea. Junior’s is in the District near the Potomac River. My place back then was in Silver Spring. I don’t recallbeing at Junior’s, not even riding my bike to get there. Can’t remember fighting the police or hitting that FedEx truck or… Hell, I don’t remember anything until I came to in that asylum. Murphy was there. I remember him.” Lifting his free hand up to his face, Grissom pinched the bridge of his nose. Trying to remember hurt.
“Shady Creek Asylum.” Tuesday supplied the name he couldn’t ever seem to come up with. “Sounds like whatever triggered you happened before you left home.” With that, she wiggled off his lap and straddled his thighs again. “Maybe some kind of distraction would help your brain work better.”
Grissom’s blood supply fled south like a flood of snow melting in the Rockies.
Tuesday tipped forward, laced her tiny hands around the back of his neck, her fingers stretching up into his hair, and those luscious, plump breasts flattened against his chest.
He closed his eyes as the decadent warmth of her touch sent shivers up his spine. This woman wanted another chance. Thank God. Gripping her hips, he shifted her core over his stiff-as-a-plank cock, focused on keeping control as long as he could. If he could.
The heat spilling out of her body was already nuclear, and damn. Tuesday Smart was a damned fast learner.
Chapter Nineteen
Tuesday had no experience with men, but the best lesson she’d learned early in life was simple:‘If there’s a will, there’s a way.’ And she was plenty willful. Hopeful, too. The only way to get the experience she desired with Grissom would be by practice, and practice made perfect. So…
Positioning herself over his lap with her legs spread did the trick. Grissom’s brown eyes were hooded again and his fingertips were digging into the cheeks of her backside, his thumbs into the tight crease between her thighs and abdomen. Her heart was seriously running one heck of a marathon, and she was nervous. But Grissom needed to know she was in this—whatever it was—with him, all the way.
A fiery line of tension ran down her centerline, joining her pounding heart to the heat pooling between her legs. If this was what it took to take their relationship to the next step,dayam,she was ready. She wanted Grissom, and whatever he needed or wanted to do with her. To her. If only she could stop shaking like a freaking virgin.
“I… I don’t know what comes next,” she murmured, afraid to look him in the eye, studying the shiny snaps on his shirt instead. “Show me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” With a grunt, he was on his feet, his fingers splayed over her ass, and walking swiftly into the hall. Nudging the door to his guest bedroom open, he elbowed the light switch on before setting her on the bed across the room. Returning to the door, he closed it, twisted the lock in the knob, and asked, “Lights on or off?”
“On,” she whispered, watching Grissom strip, needing to see him uncover every last part of the hard corded, all-male body she’d been secretly eying all day. She licked her lips at the thought of being with a behemoth like him. Being beneath him with his full weight spread over her. Hungrily. Eagerly waiting for the first sex of her life.
At last, she was on her first Grissom tour. He’d already popped the snaps on his shirt. It was open and untucked while his fingers deftly unbuckled his belt, and he toed off his boots. Rolling a hefty, tattooed shoulder, he tossed his shirt and then his pants aside. But not before he revealed the pocket pistol tucked into an ankle holster and the wicked blade sheathed and strapped behind his back.
“You were armed today?” she asked, her eyes scrolling over that fortress of a chest. The much-touted six-pack, comprising at least six tendons, sometimes more, stretched from left to right across his well-developed rectus abdominis. That was another tempting sight to behold. As was the black-as-sin tattoo running down his arm.
“I’m always armed, darling,” he replied, his voice husky and his eyes bright, more black than hazel. Man, were they bright. Not sparkling with mischief, but glowering like barely banked coals with lust, strength, and a toe-tingling, sizzling energy that had long ago turned her nipples into diamonds.
In no way was he metrosexual, one of those suave, urban males who shaved everywhere, every day, sometimes twice a day. Who’d never be seen with a hair out of place, and would‘just die’if they missed an appointment with their nail tech.
Dark, crisp hairs covered Grissom’s arms and legs. An even smattering of scruff graced his chest, and Tuesday couldn’t help blushing at the sexy trail running down his belly to the bulge in his briefs. Grissom was no inexperienced boy, no cocky, know-it-all college kid, either. He was all male, every last bulky muscle,every smoldering ridge and furrow, carved into his Mount Olympus physique.
Remembering what he’d told her about mouths being involved when men and women played together, Tuesday wondered where else her tongue and lips could wander over that rugged male physique. To those dusky, flat man-nipples? To the rigid rift between his hefty pecs? Down that tempting trail to his belly button to… there?
