I close my eyes as Griffin’s voice rasps right by my ear, just loud enough for everyone in my general vicinity to hear. Without thinking, I turn in his arms and rest my hands against his chest. The corner of his mouth tips up in a mischievous grin as he stares into my eyes. One of his hands comes up and grabs onto the back of my neck, his other hand slides down to my ass and he pulls me roughly up against him. Without even sparing a glance to the three women behind me, his head swoops down and he crashes his lips against mine.
My brain shorts out and I can practically hear the crackling of electricity in my head when his tongue slides against my lips and I instinctively open my mouth to him. His tongue slides achingly slow against my own as he deepens the kiss and everything around me disappears. I tightly grab on to chunks of his hair on the back of his head to hold him in place as he tilts his head to the side to get a better angle.
Jesus, God, this man can kiss.
I raise myself up onto my toes and wrap my arms fully around his neck so I can press as close to him as possible while his mouth works slowly against my own. As his tongue continues to swirl around mine, I feel a tingle shoot through my body and it makes me want to wrap my legs around his hips and slide myself against the hardness I can feel pressed against my lower stomach.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear Lorelei clear her throat loudly and Griffin slows down the kiss, ending it with a few soft pecks on my swollen lips before pulling his head back to stare down at me.
“Ummmm, so what’s new with you?” I hear Chloe ask from somewhere to my right.
“Sorry to be so rude, but Kennedy can’t talk right now,” Griffin responds without taking his eyes off my face. Normally I would protest when a guy speaks for me, but he’s right. I can’t talk right now. I can’t even feel my legs. Do I still have legs? What day is it?
He continues to stare directly at my lips as he removes his hand from my ass and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and extending his arm out in Paige and Lorelei’s general direction. “Next round of drinks is on me. If you ladies will excuse us, Kennedy and I are going to find a quiet corner where we can be alone.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Paige grab Griffin’s wallet. He slides his palm up my arm and pulls one of my hands down from around his neck, entwining our fingers together and then pulling me away from the girls. I follow blindly behind him, not giving a crap where he’s taking me, as long as we can do some more kissing. When we make it far enough away from everyone, he turns to me and lets go of my hand.
“Sorry about that. It looked like you needed a little rescuing.”
The euphoria from the kiss leaves me with a whoosh and now all I can think about is punching the mouth that was attached to mine moments ago. He didn’t kiss me because he wanted to; he kissed me because he felt like he needed to. I don’t give a shit that his performance was top-notch and that I can feel Chloe and her friends’ eyes boring holes in the back of my head with their envy; all I care about is the fact that I was ready to mount him in the middle of a crowded bar and he just did it for show.
“I don’t need anyone to rescue me. Especially you,” I growl at him before turning and walking toward the door.
GD lack of self-control.
CHAPTER 10
After a restless night of tossing and turning, where I spent most of my time thinking about kissing Griffin again instead of punching him in the face, I get even more pissed off when I look in my cupboard and realize I don’t have any coffee.
I swear to God the universe hates me.
At least today is football day. Football cures everything. Even smug, arrogant bastards who give you the best kiss of your life and then act like it was no big deal. Walking over to my slow cooker, I check on the status of my Buffalo Wing Dip that I always make for game day. I’m not much of a cook, but I can throw together a mean Buffalo Wing Dip.
“Mom, can you take me to the mall? I have nothing to wear to Grandpa’s.”
Turning around, I see Meadow standing in the kitchen naked.
Okay, not naked, but close enough.
“What the hell are you wearing?” I ask her in shock as I take in one of the Aéropostale Tshirts I bought her before school started. If you can still call it a T-shirt. It looks like she took a pair of rusty scissors to it and hacked off 90 percent of the material. The sleeves are missing now and the only thing left is the word Aero, which barely covers the boobs she just started growing and leaves her stomach and torso on full display. And now that she’s sprouted up and is almost as tall as I am, she’s decided to confiscate a pair of my Seven jeans, which are riding so low on her hips that if I squint, I can probably see Meadow’s meadow.
Oh, hell, no.
“These are called clothes, Mom,” she tells me in an exasperated voice with a roll of her eyes.
“You look like a streetwalker. And not even a high-priced one at that. You aren’t going anywhere until you put more clothes on. Preferably a turtleneck. And thermal underwear,” I tell her as calmly as I can with clenched teeth.
“You are being unreasonable!” she argues with a stomp of her foot.