Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,382

. . .”

I hook my leg over his behind me. “Show me.”

He grips me tighter to his chest, his hand pressed between my breasts. Burying his face in my hair, he adjusts my hips to the right angle before plunging in.

“Yessssss,” I moan, pushing back and gripping one of my ass cheeks to spread myself more for him. He’s so thick and goes so deep so suddenly, my breath suspends in my throat for a second, then whooshes out in a stream of relief. I’ve needed this, craved the rightness that comes when we do this, when we’re like this, when we have this together.

When he’s inside me.

At first, it’s a steady slide in, out, slow, measured, and I can tell he’s still checking the beast scratching to get out. His breaths truncate in my hair, frantic puffs of air as he struggles to hold onto the control I want so desperately to break. I reach back and grab his neck, anchoring myself to him, grinding back and giving him more.

“Jesus, Bris,” he rasps. “I love you.”

Tears sting my eyes. The tears I wouldn’t allow myself earlier because Zoe was years ago and I should be over it. I could hide that from myself, but I can’t hide anything from his love. It seeks out my needy places and lavishes me, comforts me, consumes me. The tears slide into the corners of my mouth, and they aren’t all old sorrow. They’re tears of gratitude for my children sleeping up the hall. Tears of hope for the babies growing inside of me. Tears of awe for the love of a man like Grip.

“God, Grip,” I sob. “I love you. Baby, I love you.”

And he snaps. His control breaks just like my voice does, and he’s clenching my thigh, pumping inside of me with a vigor that rocks the bed and makes my breasts bounce. I claw at the sheets with my free hand, balling the cotton into my fist and holding on while he charges into my body over and over. I reach between my legs to rub my clit, meeting his fire, rising with him, building until the passion burns my thoughts alive.

I think nothing.

I am sensation.

A bundle of nerve endings and longing.

A storm of molecules clashing, exploding. My cries and his become indistinguishable. Our limbs twined and twisted and melded by the heat of our lust into one beam of love. Even after a powerful climax shudders through me, he doesn’t stop. He clings to me, his heart thundering into my back and his hands all over me everywhere until he stiffens and releases a roar that surely cracks the sky.

***

I wake groggily, at first disoriented and searching the strange room for something familiar. The only thing familiar is the man asleep at my side. I sit up, careful not to wake Grip. In light lent by the bedside lamp and a solitary moonbeam shining through the open balcony door, I observe him. His hair and skin contrast with the starkness of the pillowcase. His strong features relaxed in slumber, a crescent of long lashes casts shadows under his eyes. By inches I scoot out of bed, grab his t-shirt from the floor and slip it over my head. I pad over to the balcony and close the door. On my way back, I spot Grip’s open notebook on the floor on his side of the bed. He’s felt so stymied lately and was hoping this trip to Hawaii would inspire some creative breakthrough, but that hadn’t happened.

Maybe now it has.

I tiptoe, holding my breath so I don’t disturb him, and slowly lower myself to the floor, back against the bed, and pick up the pad. This morning it was full of blank pages, but at a glance, I see much of the notebook is now graffitied with Grip’s characteristic scrawl. His handwriting isn’t that bad under normal circumstances, but when ideas and words and lyrics explode in his mind, it’s not normal and it all spills in an ungainly, illegible heap to the nearest available surface. I’ve seen Grip write number one hits on his palms and arms, inking his skin with words that would eventually climb to the top of the charts.

He doesn’t mind me reading his work. Never has, but I don’t want to invade his privacy. Still, I flip through a few pages and words he’s bolded and underlined leap out at me.

Justice.

Freedom.

Equality.

Hate.

Resistance.

Reform.

My warrior poet.

He fights with his pen. Always has. It’s one of the