The way I saw it, no matter who won this little game, I was going to come out a winner if it ended in a kiss from Griffin.
We got comfy on the couch.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “Two truths and a lie.” He rubbed his hands together. “Okay. I once won a pair of Elton John’s old knickers on eBay. Also, during one of my earlier concerts, I blanked out and forgot the words to one of the songs in front of thousands of people. Lastly, for your consideration . . . I haven’t spoken to my father in two years.”
I let the choices sink in as I massaged my temples. “I feel like this is sort of a trick. The knickers thing sounds so bizarre that it almost has to be meant to seem like a lie, but really it’s the truth. While I don’t want to believe you haven’t spoken to your dad in that long, based on your past relationship with him, I’m afraid that’s possibly true as well. So I’m going to go with you forgetting the words to the song as being the lie.”
Griffin stared at me for a few seconds before making a sound that mimicked a buzzer.
“I’m wrong?”
“Yep.” He laughed.
“Damn. I’m losing my touch.”
“What would I want with an old pair of Elton John’s knickers? That was the lie.”
“I don’t know! You seemed to enjoy perusing eBay before your account got shut down, and I remember you used to like him a lot when we were younger. So . . . it made a little sense?”
“I like him. But not that much!”
I wiped my eyes from the tears of laughter before turning serious when I said, “Okay, so . . . oh my gosh. Two years since you’ve spoken to your dad, Griffin?”
A frown washed over his face. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He blew out a breath. “Well . . . you remember he never supported my musical aspirations growing up. That never really changed. It wasn’t until I made it big out here that he ever started to acknowledge that I might have made the right decision. Anyway, our relationship had always been strained because of how he treated my mum before she died, but even so, I still tried to keep the peace. That ended when he gave an interview to a British tabloid for a large sum of money. The article was titled something like, ‘Cole Archer’s Father Spills All His Secrets’ or some garbage. Anyway, I stopped talking to him after that.”
That hurt my heart. Griffin’s dad was the only immediate family he had left after his mother died. I could relate to how awful it felt to be an only child and have almost no one. It must be a different kind of pain, though, to have your parent betray you.
“I’m really sorry, Griff.”
He shrugged. I could tell from the way he sucked in his jaw that talking about it had upset him. “His loss. Maybe someday I’ll get over it and call him, but that day hasn’t come yet.”
I reached for his hand and squeezed it. Touching him even in this innocent way felt absolutely electrifying.
“Anyway . . . ,” he said. “The night I forgot the words to the song was recorded and is now on YouTube. You can find it if you want the proof. Early on, when the fame had gone to my head, I’d gotten caught up pretty heavily in the drinking and partying. That concert was the last straw. The label threatened to boot me. Got my act together real fast after that embarrassment. Never drank before a show again.”
“Wow. If you can bounce back after blanking out in front of thousands of people like that, you can survive anything. Just standing there in front of them would be my biggest nightmare, let alone having to sing and remember words.” I shivered at the thought.
“Your turn, love. Two truths and a lie.”
I took a deep breath in and thought about what I was going to say.
“Okay. Two truths and a lie.” I paused. “I’ve developed an intense fear of spiders . . . I’ve never had sex with the lights on, or . . . my readers think I’m a man.”
His eyes widened. Then a look of amusement flashed across Griffin’s face. “Why do your readers think you’re a man?”
“How do you know that’s even the truth?”
“It’s so obvious the spiders thing is a lie. Anyone who lives with a pig must have a high tolerance for creatures of all kinds. Plus, there is no possible way you have arachnophobia and agoraphobia.”
I chuckled. “Okay. You’re good.”
“Yes. I am . . . in many ways.” He winked.
Feeling my body heat up, I said, “So my readers think I’m a man because my name is . . .” I braced myself. “Ryan Griffin.”
He took a moment to let that sink in. “Griffin? Ryan . . . Griffin.”
I nodded. “I never mentioned my pen name, and you never asked, but it’s our two names combined. Well, my fake last name and your real first name. My actual last name is Vinetti.”
“Vinetti. Italian like your dad. I love it.”
“Thanks.”
“So Ryan Griffin. That’s wild—and amazing that you held on to me in that way. I’m honored. Now that you know about my fake persona, I can’t wait to properly explore yours. Will you let me read your books?”
“It’s not like I could stop you if you really wanted to, now that you know my pen name.”
“You’re wrong about that. If you didn’t want me to read them, I absolutely wouldn’t violate your trust.”
I sighed. “You can read them. You might think I’m even more screwed up than you already do . . . but you can read them.”
“Nah. Not possible,” he teased. “Seriously, though, I wanna binge them all, find out what my Luca’s intricate mind can conjure up. I can’t fucking wait, really.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Great.” As much as his reading my novels made me nervous, I was also kind of curious as to what he’d think about them. I wanted to make him as proud as he made me.
“So you’ve never fucked with the lights on. That’s easy enough to change. Any particular reason why, though?”
“Well, my first time was in a dark car, and the other times, I made them shut off the lights. Just never felt like letting those guys see me. Not even really sure why that came to mind. I guess I couldn’t think of anything else on the fly.”
“You thought about it because being around me makes you think of sex.” He wriggled his brows. “You imagined us both naked in broad daylight fucking against that wall over there. Am I right?”
I gulped.
Well, I wasn’t before. But now I certainly am imagining that!
“Jesus, Luca. You’re turning red. Did that turn you on, babe?”
“A little.”
“Just a little?”
“Maybe more than a little.”
“You’re so fucking adorable.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear. The heat of his breath gave me goosebumps when he said, “That reminds me. I need to collect my prize, don’t I?”
I got chills. “Where are you going to kiss me?”
“Well, there really is no wrong choice here. I’d love to kiss any part of you that you’d let me. But given that you’ve made it clear we won’t be taking things too far tonight, I should probably ask you what my options are first.”
I wanted him to kiss me everywhere, but I knew opening up the “options” could lead to things I wasn’t ready for. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course. And if you don’t want me to kiss you again tonight, you can just tell me. I can take a rain check for my prize—because I do really hope to see you again. I wish to God you could stay longer than just one day.”
I thought about that. Honestly, if I could have stayed longer . . . how much would I even be able to blend in to his life here? Pretty sure the answer was: not at all.
He must have noticed the look of worry on my face. “What’s wrong, Luca? Talk to me. I’m still the guy you can tell anything to, despite all this ostentatious crap you see around you right now. Ignore all that, and tell me what’s on your mind.”
After a few seconds of silence, I looked into his eyes. “How could this ever possibly work, Griffin?”
He took my hand in his. “Crazier things have happened. For one, I’ve been in a relationship with pieces of fucking paper and words for the past several weeks. They were my only window into your soul. And you know what? They made me happier than I have been in a very long time, even with just the letters and nothing more.”
“But now, we can’t ever go back to that, can’t ever go back to what we had. You deserve more than some woman who can hardly leave her house except to go food shopping in the middle of the night. It’s only a matter of time before you figure out that there is no way for this to realistically work. You don’t realize how limited I am.”
He stared off in thought. When he looked into my eyes again, he asked, “Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes.”
“Can you put all of the reasons we’re wrong for each other on hold for one night and just be with me? Because while you’re worrying about the future, I can’t stop thinking about how damn lucky I am that my dream girl drove all the way across the country to see me—the real me. I’m on a high right now that you can’t even imagine, Luca. And while you’re sitting here trying to convince me that it could never work between us, all I can think about is whether you taste as good as you fucking make me feel.” He squeezed my hand. “Can you do that? Can you just be with me and fuck the rest for a little while?”
How can I say no to that?
My eyes were watering. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“Good.” He stood up. “How about I show you around a little bit?”
“I’d love that.”
Griffin gave me the grand tour of his massive house. One of the stops was the downstairs home theater that featured several rows of plush seats along with a popcorn machine.
We plopped ourselves down into two of the seats.
He rubbed his hand along the arm of the velour chair. “I have this great theater that I don’t even use. When I do watch movies, it’s usually alone at night in my room after a long day at the studio. I can’t remember the last time I watched something down here.”
“That seems like such a waste.”
“Yeah . . . well, this room is made for more than one person, and when you can’t even count on one hand the number of people you trust, well, it’s kind of hard to fill a theater.” He shook his head, seeming to catch himself getting into serious territory. “I’ll tell you one thing, though, Ryan . . . when they make a fucking movie out of one of your books, you’d better damn well bet I’ll be screening it down here.”
That made me smile.
Next, he took me upstairs and showed me the bedrooms. There were five in total. The one at the end of the hallway was his—the master.
Stepping into Griffin’s bedroom felt a little intrusive for some reason. I looked around for a bit. There was a lit electric fireplace. His bed had a massive fabric headboard. The heavy drapes were made of gray satin.
“This is gorgeous.” I walked around, then turned to him. “I can imagine this room has seen more action than your theater?”
Even though I was sort of teasing with that statement, a part of me knew I was really digging for information about exactly how promiscuous he’d actually been.
He didn’t look the least bit amused. “You’d be surprised. I haven’t really taken many women into my bedroom. To me, that’s a very intimate thing. Like I said, I had only one serious relationship since all of this happened.”
I continued to look around, dumbfounded, as if I’d just entered a sex dungeon. But it wasn’t; it was just a regular bedroom, but somehow I was freaking out being inside it. Then Griffin placed his hands on my shoulders.
“Why don’t we talk about what’s really concerning you right now? I didn’t want to talk about serious stuff when I only have you for a short time, but I do feel like this needs to be said.” He blew a breath out. “I know what you were thinking when you walked into this room. It scared you a little. I scare you a little—maybe a lot. You have this idea that I’m a manwhore. As I told you before, it was like that for a while. There weren’t hundreds—but maybe dozens in the beginning. It gets old real fucking fast, Luca. You know what happens when you can have literally anything? Ironically, you don’t want any of it anymore. I miss the chase. I miss being a normal human being. Instead of walking into this room and wanting to lie with me, wanting me to hold you, you were worried about all of the supposed women who had been here before you. That makes me a little sad, really. Especially because at this moment, I can barely remember much of anything that happened before Luca Vinetti showed up at my house.”
My heart fluttered.
“I’m sorry for making you feel like you had to explain yourself.”
“Don’t apologize. I get it. One of the people you trusted most isn’t who you thought he was. But I’m trying to tell you that I am, Luca. I am still him. You just have to look past all of the bullshit to see me. I’m here.”
I looked deeply into his eyes before pulling him in for a hug. We held each other for the longest time. With each second that passed, my fears seemed to melt away little by little. Or at least they faded into the background—for now.
“Where am I sleeping tonight?” I finally asked.
“Wherever you want. You can take your pick of the guest rooms. The only thing I ask is that you not insist on sleeping in the RV. I want you under my roof tonight. Because in a little over a day, I lose you again.”
I felt the need to better defend my behavior tonight. “The reality of the situation is just hitting me in waves, Griffin. But I am going to try to spend the rest of this time focusing on the now and not on anything else beyond that.”
“Your concerns are normal. Just promise to always be honest with me. I promise to do the same moving forward. You need to tell me what you’re afraid of, especially when the object of your fear is me. There shouldn’t be any elephants in the room . . . or pigs for that matter.” He smiled. “But please, I’m begging you. Don’t be afraid of me. Trust what’s in your heart, trust in what made you get into that RV and come here in the first place. I promise, if you can do that, I’ll try like hell not to let you down.”
“Blind faith,” I whispered.
“Yes. Except the blind part isn’t so literal anymore—now that we can look at each other, and perhaps do some other things when the time is right.” He flashed a crooked smile.
Griffin and I hung out by the electric fireplace and talked until the wee hours of the morning. He told me more about the road to becoming a star. It turned out he’d actually been discovered by an American talent agent while singing in a bar in London. The agent then paid to have Griffin travel to the United States, but that arrangement never went anywhere. Ultimately, while here, Griffin met his current bandmates when each was auditioning at the same time for a music competition show. The group of “rejects” formed a bond and eventually became Archer.
Later, I showed him all my books online and bit my nails as he purchased and downloaded each one to his e-reader.
When it was nearing 2:00 a.m., I could no longer keep my eyes open. I was still so exhausted from the trip out here. Griffin set me up in one of his guest bedrooms. I chose the one closest to him.
As tired as my body was, I just couldn’t fall asleep. I was completely wired. Not to mention, I had to pee. This particular room didn’t have its own bathroom, so I would have to use the one that was down the hallway.
After I ventured over there, just as I was exiting, I smacked right into Griffin’s hard chest.
“Whoa. Shit. Are you alright? I didn’t see you in the dark,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He rubbed my forehead. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“I was just headed to the kitchen for a glass of water,” he said. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Thank you.”
I suppose one of us should have moved. Instead, we stayed close. I could feel the heat of his breath. His mouth lingered over mine, but he didn’t kiss me right away. Our mouths were inches apart as he wrapped his hand around my back. I closed my eyes for a moment, and that was when I felt him devouring my lips.
For the next five minutes, we just stayed there in the dark hallway, making out like teenagers. I knew he would respect my wishes not to try to have sex with me tonight. Yet I wasn’t exactly sure I cared anymore at this point.
I felt the heat of his cock through his pants pressing against my abdomen. He was so hard. Wetness began to pool between my legs.
He whispered over my lips, “I know you don’t want to take things too far. I respect that. But let me make you come with my hand.”
So desperate for it, I nodded, unable to form words.
Griffin licked his fingers before lowering his hand down into my panties. My back was against the wall as he kissed me so hard while his fingers moved in and out of me. He used his thumb to massage my clit.
It amazed me that despite our years apart, despite my earlier anxiety, his touching me this way felt so natural.
He kissed me harder as he moved his hand faster, pushing his fingers deeper into me with every thrust of his hand. At one point, he stopped, and it was almost painful. He took his hand to his mouth and sucked the fingers that had been inside me. His eyes were closed as he savored the taste. It was so sensual and erotic, like nothing anyone had ever done to me before. My clit was throbbing.
He stuck his fingers back inside me, but this time there were three. So turned on, I was ready to come. I bucked my hips. He must have felt my muscles contract when he said, “Come, baby. Come all over my hand. Pretend it’s me inside you. I’m so incredibly hard right now.”
I bent my head back against the wall and just let myself go, my muscles pulsating as I came against his hand.
“I love the sounds you make when you come, Luca. So insanely beautiful. I’ve fantasized about that for so long, but nothing came close to the real thing. Nothing.”
What could I even say? What he’d just done was selfless, really.
Panting, I said, “Thank you for that.”
“The pleasure was all mine. Believe me.” He kissed my forehead. “Go get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow. And I need to head straight to the shower.”
I didn’t have to wonder why he’d be showering now.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s happening tomorrow, though?”
“Don’t worry. We won’t go anywhere. It’ll be a big day simply because we’re together.”
