The Queen. Tiffany Reisz

as sheepish and self-conscious as a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound weightlifter with a trust fund as well-endowed as he was could look. He was dressed in his usual uniform of stylishly ripped jeans and a heather-gray fitted T-shirt. He’d grown a beard since she’d last seen him. No, not quite a beard but more than a five-o’clock shadow. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you following me?” she whispered, but loudly.

      “Um...maybe.”

      “No more ums. Use your words.”

      “Yes. I’m following you.”

      “Care to tell me why you’re following me?”

      “King told me to.”

      “King told you to follow me?”

      “Yes, if you left the house, which you did. He’s trying to keep you safe.”

      “Safe from who?”

      “Yourself, I think.”

      Of course he was. Kingsley knew her, knew she’d be tempted to go back to Søren. Somehow he’d cajoled Griffin into saving her from herself. Well, as plans went it wasn’t the worst one she’d heard.

      “And you couldn’t say, ‘Hi, long time no see’? You had to follow me?”

      “King told me not to tell you I was around.”

      “Why not?”

      “Um...”

      “What is it, Griffin Fiske?” She crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at him, domme-style.

      “King said if you saw me, you’d probably jump me, and if we’re fucking I won’t be able to do my job of keeping an eye on you if we’re having sex since I do most of my thinking with my cock.”

      “King thinks that although I haven’t seen you in over a year, I will jump your bones the first chance I get and then you won’t be able to follow me because I’ll know you’re there? That’s the situation? That’s why you’re stalking me?”

      “Well...yeah.” Even with the beard, Griffin looked terribly young and innocent, and she had a feeling he’d grown the beard so he’d look less terribly young and innocent. Caught red-handed. Shamefaced. Slightly embarrassed. Utterly adorable. And Griffin looked at her as if Christmas came early this year, and he’d been a very good boy.

      Merry Christmas.

      “Well, you want to know something?” she asked.

      “What?”

      “King was right.”

      She dropped her backpack and crooked her finger. In an instant Griffin was in her arms, pressing her back into the bookcases. He kissed her hard, and she kissed him back harder. So hard. Everything was hard. The kiss and Griffin’s cock and how much she wanted it inside her.

      “Did you miss me?” she asked into his lips.

      “So much,” he breathed as his hands scored her back and clasped her tight to his chest.

      “How much?” She raised her chin to give him access to her neck. She needed neck kisses. She needed all the kisses.

      He pushed his erection against her.

      “This much.”

      When he kissed her ear she could feel the scruff of not quite a beard but more than a five-o’clock shadow tickling her neck. She wanted this, didn’t she? Wasn’t this what she’d been waiting for, what she’d been aching for since she’d come back to Kingsley’s? A male body, strong arms...power? Right? And Griffin kissed masterfully. He could dominate with a kiss alone by setting the pace, holding her where he wanted her, keeping her captive and mute with his tongue in her mouth so that she couldn’t raise a word of objection.

      But.

      It wasn’t quite right.

      Something was missing, and she knew she needed it if this were to go further than one good kiss.

      “Please...” Griffin growled in her ear. She loved to hear him beg.

      “Please, what?”

      “I have to fuck you.”

      “No one has to fuck me. You want to fuck me. Going without sex never killed anybody.”

      “But why take that chance?”

      Elle reached down between their bodies and pressed her hand into his cock through his jeans. Already erect, Griffin stiffened even more in surprise and what must have been a modicum of discomfort.

      Elle laughed softly and the sound of it surprised her. It was an arrogant, throaty laugh that sounded foreign to her own ears. Kingsley laughed like that while he mocked a trussed-up submissive when she squirmed or begged for mercy. It was a dominant’s laugh. A queen’s laugh.

      She unbuttoned his jeans. Hidden in such a faraway corner of the stacks, she felt it was safe to touch him. If they got kicked out of the library for fooling around? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

      “You did miss me, didn’t you?”

      He put his mouth at her ear. “I still think about that night, your birthday. When we were in the Rolls and—”

      “I remember.”

      “Fucking you...watching King and Søren fuck you... Jesus, I’ve known gay guys who didn’t love cock as much as you do.”

      “They don’t know what they’re missing.”

      “But you do,” Griffin said, tilting his pelvis forward to push his cock against her hand.

      “I do want it. But on my terms.”

      “What are your terms?” Griffin asked. She had a feeling he’d agree to anything at this point, including but not limited to committing felonies. Or, at the very least, a series of misdemeanors.

      Elle looked up and met his eyes. He was so much taller than her but she didn’t care. She had his attention.

      “I am not a submissive anymore, and I will not be treated like one. I kiss you. You do not kiss me. I top you. You do not top me. If you can play by these rules, we can play. If not? Game over.”

      Griffin closed his eyes. He’d grabbed on to the bookshelves on either side of her arms, and gripped them as hard as she gripped him.

      She slid her hand down his cock and wrapped all five fingers around the base, squeezing, holding, waiting. Griffin’s hips pulsed against her hand, fucking her fingers until he could fuck other parts of her.

      “If you let me top you, we can fuck. Deal?” she asked.

      The slightest cry or maybe it was a whimper escaped his lips. His eyes were shut tight as if he were in pain or in pleasure or in both. Didn’t matter to her except he better make up his mind fast before he ejaculated all over The Collected Novels of Willa Cather.

      “No pain?” he asked. Griffin was no coward, but he was a recovering drug abuser. When he was in pain he wanted drugs to ease the pain. Even one strong painkiller could send him backsliding into the hard stuff again.

      “No pain. I promise. Only other sorts of torture.”

      “Fun torture?”

      “There is no other kind of torture when you’re with me.”

      Griffin took a shuddering breath as she ran her hand up and down his cock again.

      “Deal.”

      A smile crossed Elle’s face, and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever smiled like that before, as if she were nothing but smile.

      “Good boy.”

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