Chapter Fourteen

Ben

Waking up to Griff kissing me had been unexpected. We might have hashed a lot of things out tonight, but I still hadn't thought it would be that easy. Even as we kissed, I thought it probably wasn't. That this was nothing more than scratching an itch. If that were true, I couldn't bring myself to care. Not with Griff's mouth on mine and tomorrow seeming a long way away.

I rolled him, coming down on top of him and kissing him harder, my cock already straining against the front of my underwear. "I need you," I panted between kisses, grinding myself against him. "I need this to happen." Griffin's lack of argument was in the hand that came up to grasp my arse. In the way, he bucked his entire body against mine. And in the way he kissed, like he couldn't get enough of me.

It wasn't long before his fingers found their way inside my underwear, nothing separating his palm from bare skin as he stroked and squeezed. Between us, we kicked off both pairs of underwear, throwing the sheets back to leave us gloriously naked and with nothing hidden from the other's gaze. There was more Griffin than there used to be, his exercise regime—if he still had one—presumably not keeping pace with his alcohol abuse. I liked it, though. It gave me new places to explore.

His cock was the same. Same thickness. Same length. Same curve. Same taste as I took it deep, Griffin urging me to turn so he could suck mine at the same time. Once upon a time we'd spent hours doing this, every 69 a competition over who could hold off from coming the longest. There were no losers in a game like this, though. Whether you came first or second, you were still a winner.

I tipped my head back, Griffin letting out a moan of pleasure as he slid deeper in my throat, the moan reverberating around my dick and leaving me momentarily unable to do anything but take his thrusts. I'd forgotten how intense sex with Griffin was, the necromancer bond ensuring that the twin threads of our pleasure wrapped around each other to form a rope of desire, twice as thick and twice as strong.

Needing a breather, I slid my mouth off Griffin's cock and used my hand instead while he continued to use that talented mouth of his to drive me ever closer to the endgame. Was this how I wanted to come? The answer came in a flash of neon lights that hammered at my brain. If this was going to be a one and only then, no, it wasn't how I wanted to come. I wanted it to last longer. I wanted to feel it tomorrow, evidence that it had really happened if I woke to find Griffin's barriers back up. In short, I wanted to get fucked.

Griffin made a sound of protest as I pulled my cock free from his lips. I pushed him back until he was kneeling on the bed and I could straddle him. He looked up at me through slightly glazed eyes, his lips still glistening with saliva and probably pre-cum too. I kissed him, tasting myself on him. Yeah, definitely pre-cum. "Going to handcuff me, detective?" he said with a slight smile.

"Going to handcuff me, detective chief inspector ?" I chided him. "I earned that promotion. And no, not this time. I'm sure you can be good without me restraining you." It was so easy to turn back time to when my job had provided all the role play you might expect. And yes, we had put my handcuffs to good use a time or two. It would have been a travesty not to. It was definitely preferable to any role play linked to Griffin's line of work. There was nothing sexy about playing dead, especially when you worked in homicide.

I rubbed my arse over Griffin's cock, the two of us moaning in unison as the tip notched in my hole in a promise of penetration, that I was eager—maybe even desperate—to get on with. "Lube," I demanded, already mulling over how we might get some if none was to be had in this hotel room. There was a supermarket at the corner of the street, but I hadn't paid any attention to its opening hours. Why would I? Was it open twenty-four hours a day? If I needed to, I'd knock on every damn door in this hotel until we got what we needed.

"In my wallet," Griffin rasped out, his cock still rubbing over my hole in a delicious slide.

I was off him before he'd even finished the sentence, pausing only to point a finger at him in warning. "Don't move!"

"Yes, DCI Weaver," he drawled.

I laughed as I put those detective skills to good use and located his trousers. Hardly the toughest case I'd ever had to crack. His wallet was in the back pocket, a slight pang making itself known when I realized he still had the same one as when we'd been together. And I knew that because I'd been the one to buy it for him. There were two packets of lube in there, along with three condoms, his level of preparedness for sex giving me momentary pause until I realized I should be grateful. There would be time later to think about how many other men Griffin had been with. But not tonight. Tonight, I was going to ride that cock and pretend it was all mine.

When I turned back around, the sight of Griffin stole the breath from my lungs. He'd done exactly what I'd asked and hadn't moved from the position I'd put him in, muscles braced against the bed, thighs slightly parted, thick cock pointing toward the ceiling. The slight sheen of sweat covering him was the icing on the cake, making him look like a statue left for me to defile.

I spent too long admiring him, Griffin's head turning to see what was taking so long. "Get back over here."

"Yes, sir," I mocked, dropping my collection of treasures on the bed as I straddled him once more. His mouth was hot and hungry when our lips crashed back together, his hands sure as they worked their way down my spine. And to think I'd been determined to leave him in London. More fool me. If he'd done what he'd been told, there would have been no confronting the truth, and I certainly wouldn't be rolling a condom over his cock and adding extra lube. We hadn't used condoms for the last ten months of our relationship, so there was a slight strangeness to using one now, but that had been a long time ago, and I was too impatient for a conversation about how safe we'd both been since then.

Condom on, we went back to the slow grind that had him rubbing against my hole but not penetrating, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. It was like the world's most delicious torture. I tried to end it more than once, only for Griffin to refuse to play ball. Eventually, I batted his hands away and took over, positioning myself over the tip of his cock. I let gravity do the rest until the stretch became too much, and I had to pause.

Griffin's brown eyes swam with lust. "Too big for you?" he teased.

If I could have spoken, I would have said something witty. But given all my focus and attention was on winning the fight between my hole and Griffin's cock, I stayed silent.

"Hey," Griffin said, his tone suddenly far more serious. "Ease up. I'll finger you. We skimped on foreplay. I'll—"

"I've got this," I managed between gritted teeth, sliding down another inch. "All I need you to do is stay perfectly still."

"I've got a better idea."

It was a better idea, Griffin stroking my cock until I was so intent on not coming that I hadn't even registered him being balls deep. I braced my hands on his broad shoulders as I slowly rocked on him, Griffin's eyes closing and his head tipping back. I didn't want to do it in this position, Griffin instinctively understanding my desires and helping to support my hips as I leaned back, raising my arse while keeping my shoulders touching the bed.

The position gave Griffin full control. Control of my arse and control of my cock. I might be on top, but he chose how fast, how hard, and how deep. Either I was setting myself up for him to tease or torment me until I wanted to kill him. Or he'd bring us both to a shuddering orgasm within minutes.

"It's strange," he said, his hands sliding up my thighs to get a better grip .

"What is?" I kept up the slight rocking of my arse over his cock, hoping it would provoke him into getting this show on the road.

"Using a condom with you."

"Yeah." I could hardly disagree when I'd had the same thought earlier. I prayed he wouldn't suggest doing it without, not knowing whether I had the strength of will to do what was sensible and stick to safe sex.

Griffin's hands roamed, paying homage to me being stretched out in front of him—the perfect sacrificial lamb for whatever he wanted to do. His fingers traced my ribs, stroked over my collarbone, and then tweaked a nipple. They dropped lower, leaving goosebumps over my abdomen before encircling my cock. Not stroking. Not caressing. Just grasping it like it was his rather than mine.

"It's funny," he said.

"What is?" My voice was far from steady, the delicious fullness in my arse making it difficult to think of anything else.

"Seeing you do your job the last few days… I thought you'd changed. Become far more buttoned up." He gave my cock a little waggle. "But seeing you here, impaled on my cock, you haven't."

I laughed. "Man is different in bed than he is at work. I don't think the ten o'clock news is going to be leading with that anytime soon." Another nipple tweak. This one harder, like he intended it as a punishment for my sarcasm. "Are you going to fuck me or not?"

"Yeah." Another sweep of Griffin's hands over my skin that left me tingling. "I'm going to fuck you." He flicked my cock, the slight sting of pain only making me hornier. "Going to fuck you. Going to stroke your cock. Going to make you come all over yourself and then I'm going to lick it off. Every single drop."

"When?" There was no keeping the note of desperation out of my voice.

Griffin grinned as he let go of my cock to slide his hands beneath the globes of my arse, his grip rough. "Now."

The first deep thrust had me crying out, the position I'd put myself in leaving me no recourse but to take it. "Can you feel it?" Griffin rasped out as he paused.

I knew what he was asking. Not if I could feel him fucking me, because of course I could. But whether I could feel both parts: the sensation of sliding deep within my arse and being fucked. The necromancer bond made it almost indistinguishable, Griffin's sensations so entangled with mine when we were intimate that it became impossible to know where he began and I ended. "Yeah, I can feel it."

"How does it feel?" he asked as he almost withdrew and then slid deep again.

"Like silk," I gasped out. "Like hot silk. Like I'm gripping myself so tightly I'm already in danger of coming."

"Yeah." Griffin panted as he delivered another deep thrust, his chest suffused with a red glow. "That's exactly how it feels."

And then there was no more talking, both of us concentrating on the exquisite feel of fucking and being fucked at the same time. It hadn't always been like this. The first couple of months, at least if you took away how drawn to each we'd been and the knowledge we were meant to be together, had been normal. And then this had developed, along with the ability to feel each other's emotions and taste what the other tasted, and it had only gotten stronger. We'd found it funny, Griffin even insisting on carrying out a blind taste test with one of us blindfolded and identifying what the other was eating.

Our ability to guess accurately had surprised us both. Of course, once we'd split, and it hadn't gone away, or even faded, it had quickly lost its charm, both of us using it to punish the other. Just like Griffin had done with the olives during my one-night stand, turning it from scratching an itch into something that hadn't even done that. It was hard to resent that bond, though, when it was currently giving me this, my body on fire, and the first tingles of orgasm already making themselves known without so much as a hand on my cock.

"Yes, yes, yes!" I gasped out as Griffin lifted his hips higher off the bed to really hammer into me, his body dripping with sweat. As he bucked up, I slammed down, my hips working just as hard as his.

"Close," he said, his slick palm fastening around my cock to stroke it in time with his thrusts. Just like with the fucking, I could feel both, his hand on my cock and my cock beneath his hand, the two things combining to drive me crazy. From that point, it was game over, my cock jerking within a few strokes to release spurt after spurt of hot cum all over my chest.

I collapsed back on the bed, panting, while Griffin let out a growl and took control of my body to bring himself to completion. He shuddered and thrust deep before finally releasing in the condom, a pang of longing at not being able to feel his cum dribbling out of me, hitting.

We were both still for the longest time, the air full of ragged breaths. I winced when Griffin finally eased out of me, my arse much tighter now I was no longer aroused. There was a flurry of movement as he got rid of the condom and then a warm, wet tongue on my chest collecting the rivulets of cum, even pursuing one to where it had dribbled beneath my armpit.

I lifted my head and laughed. "You don't really have to do that."

He ran a tongue over my nipple, the sensation making my spent cock twitch. "I always keep my word."

Although we were both wise enough not to say it, I knew we were both thinking the same thing: that he didn't. If he had, we'd be married now. It was enough to ruin the moment, Griffin drawing back and a strange tension stealing over us. In the past, we would have cuddled, Griffin's strong arms always the perfect panacea to a post-sex come down. Should I try to instigate that? It wasn't the past, though, was it? It was a strange limbo like state, where we might have dipped a toe back into the waters of our relationship, but where nothing had been discussed or decided upon.

Griffin cleared his throat. "You can use the bathroom first." Mistaking my lack of movement in that direction as confusion, he elaborated. "You know, to clean up." He waved a hand at my chest, which despite Griffin's best efforts with his tongue was still decidedly sticky.

"Thanks." I struggled to my feet and ignored the decidedly sore twinge in my arse as I walked to the bathroom. Once there, it was a relief to close the door and step into the shower, the torrent of hot water providing a perfect place to think. The most important thing was to not let myself get carried away. We might have had sex, but sex wasn't a magic cure. Not even sex like Griffin and I had. There was still a conversation to be had. One that I would no doubt have to instigate. Not tonight, though. We both needed sleep because who knew what tomorrow might bring? I could pray all I liked that it wouldn't bring another victim of Satanic Romeo, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen.

When I came out of the bathroom, Griffin passed me without a word to take my place, the shower starting up again. Had it occurred to him we could shower together, or had the thought never crossed his mind?

Much as I tried to stay awake until he returned, hoping to establish where we stood with each other, the hour was too late, the bed too soft, and the effects of a good orgasm too soporific, and I was asleep well before the shower turned off and the bathroom door opened.

The train journey back to London was far less spikey than the one on the way here. We weren't completely relaxed, but sex had definitely lessened the tension between us. It was tempting to just let things be, but we'd let them be for three years and look where that had gotten us. One of us had to suck it up and threaten the fragile peace, and given that Griffin's attention seemed firmly fixed on the passing scenery, it looked like that someone was going to have to be me. I put it off, watching the comings and goings in the train carriage for close to fifteen minutes before I finally bit the bullet. "What happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

I didn't buy the ignorance, the stiffening of Griff's shoulders, and the spike of adrenaline telling me he knew exactly what I was getting at. Perhaps he was hoping I'd back down. Well, he could keep dreaming. "With us."

Silence. I tried not to take it personally. He needed thinking time; I could give him that.

Griffin let out a sigh. "I still love you."

I'd had perps confess to a crime and sound happier about it than he did. I laughed. "I liked it far better when you told me that the first time. You actually looked at me when you said it, rather than staring out of a window."

Griffin turned his head so slowly my way that I wasn't entirely sure we wouldn't arrive back in London before he completed the action. Finally, though, I stared into his brown eyes. "What do you want to happen?" he asked.

Right. Push it all my way. I tamped down on emotion and tried to look at things from a purely pragmatic angle. "The way I see it, there are three options."

"Go on."

"Option one. We pretend last night never happened." No reaction. "Option two. We admit we can't exist within the same space without something happening between us, but while we give in to our base urges…" My body still tingled and my arse still throbbed from how far we'd gone down that road last night. "We keep it all strictly physical." Nothing except a blink.

"And option three?"

It was my turn to look away. I focused on a well-behaved dog sitting next to its owner, some sort of terrier cross if I had to hazard a guess. "We admit we can't fight fate and we fix things?"

"Fix things?"

I raised my gaze back to Griffin's, trying to work out whether he truly didn't understand what I was saying or he was just being difficult. It was hard to tell, his stare impassive. "We work on getting back what we had before…"

"Before I ruined everything."

"Before circumstances ruined everything." I winced. That wasn't much better. Reducing Whitney's death to circumstances would never win me any brownie points. I waited for Griffin to blow, but it seemed last night… the part before the sex, where I'd forced him to confront his feelings and talk about them had done some good, and his expression barely changed.

Griffin shifted in his seat. "What option are you hoping for?"

I shook my head. "Don't lay all of this on me. I never wanted to split."

"You get a say."

"Do I?" I leveled him with an accusing stare. "That'll be a novelty." Realizing I'd raised my voice and heads had turned our way, I spoke more quietly. "What I want … what I need is clarity, so I can concentrate on what's important." Perhaps a train wasn't the best place for this conversation, but I'd started it, so I was going to see it through.

"Which is?" Griffin queried.

"The case. Catching Satanic Romeo before he claims any more victims."

"Right."

"You've been a distraction." I hadn't phrased that well either, so I tried again. "Our relationship… us being at loggerheads… has been a distraction. So I need to know where we stand. I don't think that's too much to ask for."

During the silence that followed, I had time to contemplate what Griffin's answer was going to be. If he went for the first option, then there was no way I could go back to the way things were. Either I'd need to step down from the case, or they'd have to find another necromancer. Or failing that, drop the idea altogether. After all, it wasn't like Griffin's involvement had borne much fruit so far. The only lead it had given us was to check out the clubs where Rupert's night out had taken place, and I was still waiting on clearance to do that. If the DCS deemed it a waste of time and manpower, then it simply wouldn't happen. Not unless I did it in my own time, and there was little enough of that as it was.

If he chose the second option, it would leave us in a different sort of limbo. A limbo where I could touch him, suck him, fuck him, but nothing else. No getting too close. No thinking that things would ever get back to the way they used to be prior to Whitney's tragic demise. It would essentially keep me at arm's length. Yet, if that's all he offered, I wasn't fooling myself I wouldn't take it. Because there would always be the chance of it leading to more, to Griffin waking up to what it was he'd thrown away. Option three was, of course, preferable. That was a promise of making a fresh start. Maybe to marriage being back on the cards one day.

"Do you still love me?"

I startled as the question bit into my thoughts. There was no need to think about the answer. "You know I do. I never stopped. I'm not sure it's possible to stop."

More silence. Silence that threatened to kill me. Either that or I'd end up killing Griffin for making me suffer it. Maybe when they caught Satanic Romeo, they'd put me in the cell next to him and we could compare notes. Eventually, the silence was too much to bear, and I mumbled something about needing the bathroom before leaving my seat and going in the opposite direction .

Once I reached the vestibule, I opened the window and stood with the wind on my face, trying to think of nothing but the fresh air and how good it felt. I drew the line at rain, though, closing the window once it started and reluctantly returning to my seat. I'd half expected to find that Griffin had made his escape in my absence. He hadn't. He was still there, his face turned toward the passing scenery once more.

"It's raining," he said when I sat down.

"Yeah, I noticed."

"It feels," he finally ventured after what felt like hours, "like there should be some sort of option between two and three."

I rolled my head his way, refusing to feel relieved at him not choosing the first option. Too right, he hadn't. I deserved better than that. "Why?"

Griffin dropped his gaze, scrutinizing his fingers for what felt like forever. "Because… fixing things might not be that easy. We can't just wave a magic wand and expect everything to go back to the way things were."

"That's why I said we work on it. I said nothing about waving a magic wand. We both have to want it, though, or it definitely isn't possible."

"And do you want it?"

It felt like standing at the edge of the precipice. It would be so easy to scuttle back to where it was safe, to where I couldn't get my heart broken all over again. If someone had done it once, they could just as easily do it again. But what had safe gotten me over the past few years? A series of one-night stands, most nights spent alone, and nobody to talk to. Sometimes you just had to take that leap. "Yeah. That's what I want."

Griffin nodded. "Then… yeah, it's what I want too, but it might not be easy. "

Fireworks went off in my chest as I reached across the space and took hold of his hand. "Nothing worth having is ever easy."

He stared at our joined hands for the longest moment. Fighting the urge to yank his away? Enjoying how they looked together? Who the fuck knew? And that was the problem. The necromancer bond might have furnished us with sharing a great deal of things that a normal couple couldn't share, but I couldn't read his mind. Maybe I should hire a psychic from the PPB. They could follow Griffin around for a day and tell me what went on in that head of his. It might be worth bankrupting myself, their services coming at a hefty price.

"What are you thinking?" Without a psychic, asking him was my only option.

"I don't know."

"You don't know what you're thinking?"

"Give me time, Ben."

"I gave you three years." I grimaced. "Sorry. Forget I said that."

"I promised I'd try. I don't know what more you want from me."

No, neither did I. That was the problem. I let go of his hand, needing to think without the feel of his skin distracting me. "There needs to be some ground rules."

"Ground rules?" Griffin's brow furrowed in a way that said he couldn't imagine what they might be.

"The case comes first."

The frown grew deeper. "Right."

"It does. At work, we're not lovers. We're two men trying to catch this bastard before he kills again. I wasn't lying last night when I said you'd been a distraction. My thought processes have been clouded and I need to think clearly. "

"Do you want me to ask Cade if he can put someone else on the case?"

"Who?"

A small sigh. "That's the problem. John, as far as I know, is still suspended and Calisto wouldn't last two minutes."

"No?"

Griffin shook his head, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "We're talking vomit all over the crime scene. Patrick would probably work himself into such a frenzy over the amount of contamination that you'd have another dead body on your hands. And I already tried to get Cade to send John's replacement, and he wasn't having it. I could ask him to find someone else, twist his arm a bit."

I shook my head. "It'll take too long. I just need you to remember that when I'm at work, that's my primary focus."

Griffin gave a little laugh. "What do you think I'm going to do? Try to bend you over Baros' desk? Ask you to blow me at a crime scene?"

A tall blonde woman chose precisely the wrong time to pass our seats, her cheeks turning a fiery red as she overheard.

I glared at Griffin. "Maybe something like that. Saying stuff I don't want other people to hear."

He coughed. "Fine. Point taken. Is that it? Is that the only ground rule?"

I steeled myself for the next bit. "I expect us to be exclusive. This guy you've been seeing—"

"I haven't been seeing him. We're friends. Nothing else."

It was tempting to point out that someone you fucked wasn't just a friend, no matter how you tried to spin it, but I held my tongue. This was about building bridges, not taking a sledgehammer to them. "Whatever he is, it ends. I don't expect you to stop being friends with him. I'm not that possessive. But anything else needs to stop. I don't share."

"Fine."

"Will he think it's fine?"

Griffin held my gaze without blinking. "It's a relatively new thing. Don't go turning it into something it's not."

"I'm not turning it into anything. I'm just making my feelings on the matter clear."

"They're clear." A slight pause. "The same goes for you, right?"

"Obviously."

"Any more rules?"

"You talk to me. You don't keep things bottled up."

Griffin pulled a face. "The rest I can promise. That, I'm not sure I can."

"Will you at least try?"

A longer pause, the train slowing at a station and getting going again before Griffin finally answered. "I'll try."

I spent the rest of the journey in quiet contemplation. We weren't fixed, but at least we were on the right track, which was a huge step forward from twenty-four hours ago.