Neanderthal by Avery Flynn
Chapter Forty
Griff
The next morning, Kinsey was still in his bed when Griff got out of the shower. And the one after that. And the one after that for three weeks while he waged an internal battle not to give in and tell her that he’d fallen in love with her the minute he’d heard her setting the world straight at his gym. Every time he’d almost given in, he’d remember Nash’s advice about showing instead of telling and Dixon’s warning about scaring her off. But there she was, sprawled out on his bed, somehow managing to take up two-thirds of it even though she was a third his size.
She sat up, the T-shirt of his she was wearing covering her up a little too well for his taste. Of course, judging by the way her gaze traveled over him as he stood there fresh from the shower with his hair damp and only a towel wrapped around his hips, she was feeling the same.
“Are you smiling?” Kinsey asked.
He tried to force his mouth into a straight line and failed. “I do do that.”
“Hmm.” She cocked her head to the side and gave him a considering look. “I’ve seen you snarl. I’ve seen the look you get right before we both end up naked. I’ve seen you go blank when you get knocked the fuck out.”
“It was one time. I was distracted.” By her.
She rolled up on the bed so she was on her knees surrounded by the rumpled sheets that always smelled like her now. “But I don’t get to see you smile that often.”
“You see all the smiles,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, almost all of them.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you flirting with other people?”
He stilled, her jealousy, even put on as it obviously was, making his dick twitch. “Come here.”
“Why?” She raised herself up on her knees and put her hands on her hips. “So you can pull up pics on your phone of all the gorgeous Beckett Cosmetics models and Insta influencers you work with?”
Like that was in his job description as head of R&D. As if he’d even noticed another woman since she’d walked into his life. She knew that. She was way too smart not to. He was ruined for anyone else but her.
He held up a finger. “One, you’re a pain in my butt.” He put up another finger and then pointed both of them at the ground. “Two, come here.”
“And if I don’t?” she asked, crossing her arms under her tits, the move pulling the T-shirt tight so that her hard nipples were more than a little apparent.
This was their game. The one they’d fallen into without ever really discussing it. She’d push his buttons. He’d let her—but only for so long—and then she’d be coming on his fingers or tongue or dick. Well, this morning was different. The Eiffel Tower had finally arrived. Usually his Lego room was off-limits, but like every other part of his life, Kinsey had changed things.
Towel wrapped around his hips, he strolled over to the bed as if the air in the room hadn’t just gone thick with anticipation. Kinsey watched him out of the corner of her eye, acting as if she was paying attention to the TikToks on her phone. No doubt, she expected him to drop the towel, get in the bed, and fuck her senseless. Oh, he’d do that, but not yet. Instead, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder before carrying her out of the bedroom and down the hall to his Lego room.
He hesitated outside the door, one palm on Kinsey’s ass and the other reaching for the handle. This wasn’t a place he brought people. Sure, Dixon and Nash had seen it, as had Morgan, but that was about it.
“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to,” Kinsey said, her cheek resting against his back. “I know it’s special and I’m just…this is…well, it’s complicated.”
The thing was, he did want to. Letting out a little growl—the kind that he’d learned she loved—he gave her a soft smack on the ass to let her know what he thought of that idea and then opened the door. As he put her down on her feet, he tried to look at the room through her eyes.
It was a lot. Custom display shelves took up the walls, painted white and lined with the classic green Lego base sheet so the completed kits could be held securely. In the middle, under a light that looked like it belonged in a surgery theater, was his building table, made to be compatible with a man of his size. There were drawers of blocks underneath organized by color and type. The floor was a matte white, grout-free tile because nothing sucked more than looking for a block or a mini-figure sword that had gotten knocked off the table and having it mix in with the dark floor or, even worse, get lost in the carpet.
Pulse pounding in his ears and lungs starting to ache from holding his breath over what she’d think, he kept his gaze on the individual section bags of parts for the Eiffel Tower set that were set out in order from left to right on the table.
Hand covering her mouth and her eyes round with shock, amazement, or horror—he wasn’t sure—Kinsey turned and stared at him.
She dropped her hand. “This. Is. Amazing.”
Griff let out the breath he’d been holding. “It’s all right.”
“All right? You are so full of shit. Tell me about everything. I want the full tour!”
So he took her around and showed her all of it, from the Lego Ultimate Collector’s Series Millennium Falcon to the Lego Market Street that he got directly from the Lego Factory. She lifted an eyebrow when she spotted his copy of the painting they did on their date on one of the shelves. It was the only non-Lego piece in the room. But instead of asking about it, she let him continue on with the tour. He was so relieved not to have to explain his sappy self that he let her remove one of the balconies to get a great look at a spiral staircase on Market Street. Sure, he got the palm sweats and had heart palpitations while he watched, and it took everything he had not to freak out—seriously, no one touched his Legos—but it went fine.
She shot him a knowing grin. “You looked like you might pass out.”
He grunted.
“Here.” She led him over to the stool at his building table. “Sit down and tell me about this one. I promise not to touch any more Legos.”
He sat down, making sure his towel was secure so he wasn’t hanging out all over the place even though she’d seen him naked more than clothed lately, and took her through the 2007 Eiffel Tower that had more than 3,400 pieces and in its original factory-sealed box. “Now I get to build it.”
“And you’re good at that? Does it take a long time?”
The questions were innocent, but Kinsey had that look in her eye that meant trouble. His Spidey sense and his dick both buzzed with anticipation. “I am, and it depends.”
She squeezed between the table and him, coming to a stop between his legs. “On what?”
“How often I get interrupted.” Per usual with her, he was about six steps behind, working through what she was up to, even though his brain was working at full capacity.
She bit down on her bottom lip and looked at him from beneath her thick eyelashes. “Sounds like someone could use some help on developing his focus.”
“Kinsey.” Was it a warning? A plea? A call for help? Fuck if he knew, and he was the asshole saying it.
She sank down to her knees under the table and tugged the towel open. “Let’s see how long you can go without getting distracted.”
He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Kinsey.” Yeah, that was definitely him begging.
“It’ll be fun, I promise. Legos like you’ve never built them before.” She circled her fingers around his cock that was already hard and stroked. “Start building, Griff.”
He let out a harsh breath and grabbed the direction booklet and the clear plastic bag marked with a numeral one. He’d no more than opened it when he felt Kinsey’s hot mouth around the head of his cock and then her slick lips as she took him in deeper.
Fuck.
He felt her chuckle all the way down to his balls. Oh, she was going to pay for this. And that was the last thought he had because her mouth was that good; she was that good. Her soft tongue on the head, circling it. The feel of her hands cupping his balls, rolling them, as she sucked him. It was all he could do not to fall off the damn stool or tear the bag in half, sending the bricks flying everywhere—although he knew it would be worth it even if he never found any of the pieces.
She added a hand, stroking him at the same time that her mouth slid up and down his shaft, twisting her slick palm around the base. He gave up on the damn bag, dropping it so he could wrap her silky hair around his hand, pulling it to the side so he could watch his dick disappear inside her mouth. It was mesmerizing how she took him, nearly all of him, and kept coming back for more. His whole cock was wet, his balls were already pulling up, and his entire body was tensing in anticipation of what was coming. Then she looked up at him and winked and he nearly nutted right then.
“Babe, I’m gonna come.” And it felt too fucking good to be mad that it was happening this fast.
Instead of pulling back or slowing down, she amped up the suction and tugged on the springy hair above his cock, and he lost it. There was no way. It was too damn good. His vision whited out. The intensity of his orgasm forced his eyes closed as he came.
By the time he could open his eyes again, Kinsey was grinning up at him.
“I say we should definitely add focus training to our couple’s time.” She got out from under the table and stood up next to him, giving him a quick kiss. “That was fun, and I can’t wait to do it again. You build; I’m gonna go shower.”
And then she was gone, leaving him there in his most sacred of spaces, trying to process what had just happened and the fact that she wanted to do it again as couple’s time. Sure, she may have been joking, but she saw a future. It wasn’t just him. Maybe she was ready, finally, to hear again that he loved her, that he had since the beginning.
