I have to shut her up so the goons don’t see her. One second, I’m shushing her, and the next, though I’m not sure how it happens, I’m ...
Kissing Penelope Lee.
Chapter 15
Penny
I do not know what is going on.
One second, Griffin is teasing me for being a skeptic about the flashy, trashy fence we were talking about, and the next, he’s cursing and bodily moving me again. He’s really got to stop doing that. Despite my small stature, I’m not a kid he can just pick up and put wherever he wants me to be.
And then, my demand for answers has his eyes darting all over the place, from my face to the sidewalk behind him.
How in the hell does this end up with Griffin Mahoney kissing me?
Seriously, universe, what is going on? Is Mercury in retrograde, or did my pheromones kick in at the most inopportune time with the least likely person? Maybe Johnny K put a love spell on Griffin? I don’t believe in magic potions, but that’s as logical as what’s happening right now.
But it’s not really a kiss.
Oh, his mouth is on mine, and his body is pressed against me so tightly that I can feel the bulge in his jeans, but this is no kiss. It’s a mashing of his lips to mine to shut me up. Hard, unyielding, forceful power against my frozen shock.
Fighting for oxygen because I’ve stopped breathing, I push him away, and this time he relents and gives me the smallest amount of space. He seems to be breathing just fine, though a little fast for an athlete. He should really up his cardio before the playoffs.
“Sorry, you need to be quiet,” he whispers into the air between us.
I rear back and slap his cheek ... hard. “What the ever-loving actual fuck, Griffin?” I spit out. He had no right to do that. It’s a complete violation of the tenuous friendship I thought we were building with this whole fiasco. It also lit a fire inside me that I do not like or appreciate in any way.
Except . . .
I reach up, grabbing his face and pulling him back down toward me, kissing him again. This time, I make sure to move my lips against his, feeling the unexpected softness of his mouth as he submits to me so much better than I did to him. It makes me feel powerful, even though I know it’s a false sense of control when he’s so much larger than I am.
The kiss turns into something more, his hand snaking between us to gently caress my throat. He doesn’t squeeze, but the feeling of his large palm over my tripping pulse has me opening my mouth for him. The heat of our shared breath mixes, and I don’t know whose oxygen I’m taking in any longer. It doesn’t matter, my entire brain is just shoutingmore, more, morelike a greedy bitch who hasn’t been kissed in way too long, which is exactly what I am. I lift to my toes to get closer to him, very nearly climbing him like a tree, and then wrap my arms around his neck, teasing at his nape with my nails. He groans against me, and the vibration is sexy as hell. I think I smile, but I definitely clench my thighs together, feeling the aching thud of my heartbeat in my clit.
Something is happening in my chest. A heart attack maybe? But no, that’s not it. Nor is it the flutter of butterfly wings, nothing so poetic and pretty as that for a girl like me. Instead, my heart is thudding against my rib cage like a herd of flightless penguins flapping their wings around wildly like they’ve forgotten evolution did them dirty.
Griffin’s hands land on the brick wall on either side of my head with a resounding slap, breaking the spell woven around us.
I dip my chin, ducking out of the kiss that just entirely reset everything I thought I knew about Griffin Mahoney. Cold and robotic? Two minutes ago, I would’ve said yes. Now that I’ve felt the heat and need churning right below his stoic surface? Absolutely not.
“What was that for?” he says, his voice husky and rough.
I lick my lips, feeling the slickness there from the kiss. “I didn’t want you to think I’m a shitty kisser who just stands there with frozen, tight lips. Now, it’s my turn ... Why did you kiss me?”
I want him to say that he couldn’t withstand my charms any longer. That he’s been holding himself back from me for ages and finally succumbed. That I’m sexy as hell and he needed to taste me. Because that’d be hot as fuck.
Except it’s Griffin and me, and none of that is true.
“It’s a long story.”
He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly looking exhausted, and I remember that he played an intense, tough game barely more than twelve hours ago and is likely still feeling the effects. I should be kind and let him off the hook, but how can I afterthat? I need answers, pronto. I roll my hand at the wrist expectantly, likeget on with it, then, and Griffin lifts his face to the sky like he might find answers there, or a way to delay my inevitable demand for his body, or hell, maybe he’s hoping aliens will beam him up. None of that happens, obviously.
“Can we ... I don’t know ... go somewhere and talk?” he finally says.
I blink in surprise, reconsidering my earlier quick dismissal of aliens. “Did you get body snatched this morning or something?” I poke at his chest with a finger. “If you’re really Griffin, let me hear the special growl you make when I piss you off?”
“Penny,” he rumbles.
“Pretty close,” I say with a twitch of my lips, and he steps farther away from me, obviously irritated. That’s something I’m used todealing with. “Can you blame me for doubting that you’re you? Griffin Mahoney—textbook silent, broody sort—wants to talk, like with actual syllabic words, not grunts and grumbles, to me, Penelope Lee, in private?” Not a bit of that makes sense—because of the sentiment, not the words themselves. I’m a master speaker, so it’s not that, for sure.
