“Where you make me wet.”
He hisses out a breath, and his hand tracks deeper. Through my curls until he can part my folds with his fingers.
“Fucking gods, Clem. This isn’t the bath, is it? You’re fucking soaked for me.”
I shiver at him using my nickname. The casual familiarity of it. Like before, he was trying to keep his distance, but now, he’s all in.
“Make me wetter,” I plead, words slightly slurred from my fangs. “Touch me inside.”
Griffith mutters more curses, even as his fingers follow my directions. To slip inside my channel while his thumb seeks out my clit, circling it just like he did my nipple. I hold on to his forearm, riding against his strokes. He curls the fingers inside me, which makes my spine bend in response. The intimate contact is better than I hoped for, and his ragged breaths are the playlist I didn’t know I needed.
Griffith overwhelms all of my senses, blotting out the agony that I’ve suffered until all I know is him and his touch and his warmth and his scent.
He leans further over the tub in order to press his mouth against mine. The taste of him is the last bit I needed to come. He swallows my moan as if that was his intention all along.
To consume me.
Wrung out from pleasure, I sink deeper into the warm water, luxuriating in how all my muscles are now loose. Utter relaxation.
Griffith retrieves his hand, and while he holds my gaze, he slips his fingers past his lips and sucks, leaving me gaping.
“That one was because I had to know at least once what you truly tasted like,” he tells me, voice low and unrelenting. “But this can’t happen again unless it’s going to happen a hundred more times. A thousand.”
I don’t flinch away from his words, even though they do steal a touch of my ease. Make me think when I just want to melt.
“I always knew you were an all-or-nothing kind of guy,” I whisper, sure my smile is rueful.
He gives me one of his own while tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
“There’s no deadline, Clem. Just tell me when you’re ready to be my everything.”
21
GRIFFITH
The dayafter I let Clem know exactly how much I want her, I have the urge to visit my parents. Not sure why, and I’m betting the self-preservation part of my mind is what keeps me from digging too deep into the reasoning.
Ivan and Maya Fangworn live deep in the Of the Claw territory, though not on one of the coveted lake properties. They prefer to be surrounded by woods, to the point that the driveway to their cabin almost feels overgrown. A few tree branches whack the side of my truck as I bump my way down it, and I pray to The Clawed One that none break my windshield.
As I park in front of the house, I keep an eye out for any animals they might have left wandering free. Mom goes through phases of wanting to keep chickens for their abundance of eggs, then gets so annoyed with their constant noises that she hunts them in her wolf form.
I learned early in life not to get attached to any of the birds.
There’s smoke rising from the chimney, even as all the windows are propped open. Whoever is home has to be able tohear me as I clomp up the front porch, but no one comes out to greet me.
“Mom? Dad?” I knock on the door, which causes it to sweep open. A real horror movie situation if my parents weren’t notorious for never using locks or even closing doors all the way.
“Griffith.” My mom sits at the kitchen table, working on a puzzle that looks like it’s got to be over a thousand pieces. She doesn’t bother to meet my eyes. “What brings you out here?”
Suddenly, I’m a little kid again, standing in this house, waiting for one of my parents to look my way, to acknowledge me and say something that makes me feel like I belong.
Decades later, and I’m still waiting.
I breathe deep, blink my eyes, and refocus on the current moment.
Maya still hasn’t glanced my way, a puzzle piece in one hand as the other pushes a set of reading glasses up the bridge of her nose.
When did she start wearing those?
