Made Marian, Volume Two by Lucy Lennox
Sam
A ringing noise sounded in my ears and I wondered briefly if it was a harbinger of a stroke. I was so angry I was going numb. If that man—
“No,” Griff said emphatically, reaching for my hand. “Nothing like that. He elbowed me and shoved me against a wall. He tried… that… but I spun out and kicked him before calling 911. He was really drunk. He probably wouldn’t have even been able to keep it up.”
The relief dropped my shoulders like a rag doll. I brushed Griff’s curls off his forehead and dropped a kiss there before resting my own forehead on his. “Thank god.”
We sat there like that for a moment. Just breathing and resting our heads together in grateful safety. I pulled back and kissed his forehead again before checking the scrapes on his face.
“What are you doing here?” Griff asked.
“I saw that man follow you out and had a bad feeling. He was a total creep to me the other night after my shift, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t do the same to you. I told my coworkers I was leaving and headed here to make sure you were okay.”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“I didn’t. But I remembered Lusk Street from when I checked your ID last week,” I admitted. “At first I thought it said Lust so it stuck out in my mind.”
Griff laughed. “Is that right?”
“When I saw you at your door alone, I thought maybe I’d overreacted. Do you have a first-aid kit?” I asked, trying to change the subject from how much I sounded like a stalker. He pointed me in the direction of the bathroom sink and I returned with the kit I found in the cabinet.
I laughed after opening the kit. “Why do you have tampons in here?”
“Nosebleeds. They rock for that.” Griff smirked. “But don’t even think about putting one in my nose right now. My nose isn’t bleeding.”
“Damn,” I said. “I was hoping to snap a photo and post it on Instagram.”
I found the supplies I needed to tend to his face. “It looks like you have war paint on. These two scrapes here especially.” I brushed a cleansing wipe lightly across his upper cheek and followed it with a smear of antibiotic ointment.
“Where else are you hurt?” I asked, raking my eyes over Griff’s bare chest and trying not to succumb to arousal when my eyes landed on the barbells in his nipples. Fuck, I wanted those things in my mouth. I forced myself to look elsewhere.
“Here?” I asked, running my hand beneath his rib cage where an angry red mark remained.
He shivered under my touch, and I met his eyes. His pupils enlarged, and I couldn’t look away.
“It doesn’t hurt that badly,” Griff said softly.
I realized my hand rested on his stomach, my thumb stroking the skin over his tattoo. I stood up. “Why don’t I get you some ibuprofen?”
I wandered around in a circle until I came back to where he lay. I grinned sheepishly. “Where do you keep it?”
He laughed and sat up, breaking the spell. “I’ll get it. Do you want something to drink? There’s stuff in the fridge.” Griff headed toward the bathroom and I watched the muscles of his back move as he walked. A large dragon tattoo covered his left shoulder blade and curled a scaly tail around his left bicep. It was unlike anything I’d seen and was sexy as hell. I wondered what had made him choose it.
I pulled out a couple of Gatorades and cracked one open for myself before wandering back over toward the living area where some framed photographs sat on overflowing bookshelves. The photos seemed to be mostly of Marian family members and Griff. There were a few I assumed were college friends and there were some that were taken at swim meets.
His book collection was fascinating due to the variety. Everything from classics to modern biographies, art, sci-fi, and self-help. I ran my hands over the spines of some of my favorites. The Martian by Andy Weir, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. All favorites.
“You like sci-fi?” Griff asked from behind me.
“Love it. What’s your favorite genre?” I asked.
“Right now I’m into creative nonfiction, like funny memoirs. My undergrad degree was journalism, but my master’s was in creative nonfiction writing. Hence, the article about using pet names at the club.”
“Your mom said it was pickup lines, not pet names,” I said, turning to face him. “Tell me more about it.”
“I basically use a pet name in everything I say to them and see how long it takes them to leave with me. Once they leave with me, I ask them how they feel about pet names. Then I come back in and do it all over again. It’s not a scientific experiment or anything like that. It’s a humor piece about my observations and the guys’ feedback.”
“Have you gone home with any of them?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Nope,” he admitted. “I wasn’t even tempted to come home and enjoy some one-on-one time with myself afterward.” His eyes began to twinkle. “Well, until I started coming to Harry Dick’s and saw you.”
I looked at him. “Really?”
He nodded as his face and neck flushed deeper red.
I felt my own face heat up so I tried changing the subject. “So what other kinds of things do you like to write?”
Griff thought for a minute. “Most of what I write is humor. I do freelance work, so I dabble in a little of everything, but it usually reverts to humor in the end.”
“What’s your dream project?”
His eyes closed for a brief moment before he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. Every writer has a dream. What’s yours?” I pressed.
He blew out a breath and turned his lips up in a grin. “Why don’t we skip the innermost thoughts part and go straight to the fact that I want to suck on your face a little bit?”
Griff’s hand came up to run through my hair, sending warmth from my scalp to my dick. I leaned in and smelled his neck.
“If you insist,” I said, lips against the skin of his neck. I kissed my way up to his mouth and stayed as gentle as I could. “Are you sure? You’re injured. Maybe we should take it easy,” I said between kisses.
“Hell no. You’ve been driving me crazy tonight. Every time you touch me I feel like electric sparks are skating across my skin. I want you naked in my bed, and I want your hands all over me.”
I swallowed as the image of my hands all over a naked Fox made me want to throw him down right there on the floor. Instead, I turned him around and frog-marched him toward what I assumed was his bedroom.
My hands were on his bare skin just above the low waistband of his jeans. His dragon tattoo was right in front of me, and I had a chance to notice some of the intricate details. Sharp teeth, claws, jagged spikes across its back and tail. Fire licked from its mouth and smoke trailed out of its ears and nose. All defensive imagery, but right in the middle over the dragon’s exposed chest was a rusty old cage covering a tiny glowing heart.
When Griff got to the bed, he turned around to face me and reached his hands down to the hem of my shirt to lift it off. I leaned in to kiss him and felt his hands run up and down my chest and over my shoulders to my shoulder blades and down to my lower back.
I rested one hand on Griff’s hip and the other on the side of his neck. My thumb found the tender skin behind his ear and stroked it as I licked deeper into his mouth. I moved my mouth down to his bare chest and found a nipple. I licked and sucked, tugging the barbell with my teeth and feeling my cock swell even more.
“Jesus, Griff, I could stay here all night and just play with these things,” I breathed. His hands ran through my hair and my fingers dipped down inside the back of his jeans.
“Not complaining,” he hissed as I tugged his nipple again. I moved one hand to the front of his jeans to stroke his erection through the denim. His cock was thick and long through the fabric, and I couldn’t wait to get my mouth on it.
Moving my lips down his abdomen, I traced wet kisses lightly over his developing bruise and down to his hip, sliding his jeans down farther to suck harder at the light skin over his sharp hipbone. I was able to see the entire quote inked onto his hip.
We live in a rainbow of chaos.
“Tell me about this,” I murmured through shaky breaths, tracing the letters with a finger.
Griff sucked in a breath and tried to focus his green eyes on me. “It’s a quote from the artist Cezanne. It basically means life is nuts, but there’s beauty in it,” he said, stomach muscles rippling under my touch.
My thumb kept rubbing pressure up and down his shaft through the fabric until I finally opened his jeans and slid them all the way down. I took a minute to appreciate how well he filled out his dark blue briefs before I slid those off too.
Once he was bare, I gently pushed him to sit on the bed. He leaned back on his hands just as I lowered my mouth on him.
