The Confessions Game

"Yeah," he admitted. "I liked that a lot."

She kissed his cheek, taking his champagne glass. "Lie down on your back."

Griffin did as bid and wasn't surprised when she stripped off her towel to straddle him naked. Luz had never felt shame about her body or anyone else's. She reached for her cosmetics case on the side table, and then settled back over his lap with an eyeliner in hand.

He twitched with excitement. "What's that for?"

"So I can take notes on what I think of you and your confessions," she murmured, running her nails down his chest to the start of his happy trail.

He tensed and she looked sharply at him, no doubt feeling the rigidity of his body beneath hers. He began to understand how the game would work.

"Well, since we're gettin' divorced, you can't think much of me," he nervously joked. "Promise you'll stop short of any humiliation type stuff."

"I promise. And if you want me to stop, you'll need a safe word or phrase. Something you'll remember to say."

Griffin licked his lips. "How 'bout...Hazzard County?"

Her brows snapped together. "Please tell me that's not from The Dukes of Hazzard."

He shrugged. "You said somethin' I'd remember. At least it wasn't General Lee."

Chuckling, Luz kissed her fingertip then touched his forehead, slowly dragging the digit down his nose to his lips, which she traced very gently.

Whether or not she meant it to be seductive, he loved it, and even opened his mouth to suck the strawberry stain from her finger.

"What did Chakah say when you told her you love her?"

Griffin froze, resisting an urge to squirm over that unresolved issue. "That ain't what I said."

Brow raised, she leaned forward and dragged her eyeliner down his Adam's apple. His brain knew it was just a pencil with a metal cap, but his throat stiffened as though it were a straight razor.

"I said I was fallin' in love with her," he gruffly explained. "Then I asked her to forgive me 'cause that was all about how I felt. When you really love someone, it's also about how they feel and what they need. But I didn't have that to offer just yet, and she called me on it. That's part of the reason I started therapy."

"I see." She sounded interested in his answer, but he couldn't tell from her face what she thought of it.

Griffin clapped a hand over his eyes when she began to write on his chest, certain she was disappointed in him. Shit, maybe he should've just let her call him names—it would've been easier than the emotional free-fall that churned his stomach. He never should've admitted how much he cared what she thought of him.

When he looked at her again, she held up a pair of thigh-high stockings.

"Mind if I tie you up?"

"Sure. Yeah. Why the hell not?" Still worried about what she'd written, he tried to look down, but she tipped up his chin and then bound him to the headboard so fast that he was impressed. When his wrists yanked at the knots afterward, they didn't give an inch and didn't feel too tight, either.

"Where'd you learn to do that? Girl Scouts?"

"Dominique used to be in the Navy. He showed me some things." She tapped the eyeliner against her chin. "Do you follow Chakah around?"

"No."

"Why not? Don't you worry about her too?"

Griffin took a deep breath, attempting to hide the tensing of his body. "She's fine. She lives with roommates."

Luz wrote something on his chest, then slapped him. The hit landed neatly on the meat of his cheek with an electrifying burst of pain. She folded her arms and waited.

"Damn, how did you know I was lyin'?"

She pointed the eyeliner at him.

"Okay!" Griffin cleared his throat. He'd expected to hate getting hit outside of sex. Instead, the lingering tingle on his cheek made him feel high like a shot of top-shelf booze. His next confession came easily. "Briggs is a cop. I'm pretty sure he'd catch me if I staked out their place, then he and Chakah both would think I was a weirdo. I ain't the only one worried about what's normal, you know," Griffin groused.

Suddenly, a wonderful thought came to him. "But I ain't afraid of you thinkin' I'm weird. You don't care about stuff like that."

Luz replied with a wide smile. "Why do you follow me?"

He shrugged, and she pinched his nipples. It hurt good, really good actually. "Ain't I been followin' you since the day I laid eyes on you? You never once looked at me like I was crazy for doing it."

"'Crazy' is another word people throw at things they don't understand." She leaned forward and kissed him with just enough wetness to leave him wanting more. When he pouted afterward, Luz winked at him. "Why else do you follow me?"

"Just 'cause." He swallowed while she waited for him to elaborate. Luz's stares had always been intense, more so now that he couldn't use his height advantage to look down on her. "You're my wife—Ow! Okay! I worry about you. Is that a crime?"

"Why? You don't think I can take care of myself?"

Griffin silently sang a bit of an old hymn, trying to keep his body from showing the tension he felt. "Maybe. I mean, sure."

That earned him another slap, harder than the last. "Be honest."

"I just worry, all right? I don't know what I'd do if somethin' else happened to you." His chest painfully tightened with fear of losing her; and in a flash, he realized he'd been afraid of that long before the wreck.

"Accidents happen, Griff. Say it."

He repeated the words, flinching at memories of seeing her legs twisted at sick, unnatural angles.

"Your accident didn't need to happen!" he blurted in a tortured tone. "I can't help thinkin' if I'd followed you that night, I could have pushed you out of the way. Or if I hadn't been rough with you, maybe you wouldn't have left in the first place!"

Luz grasped his chin and kissed him very tenderly. "It's not your fault."

Griffin stopped breathing. He'd never thought it was, up until that moment; but like a pile of dead, dry wood catching fire, the worry he'd been holding onto went up in flames. He'd been carrying the accident as though he'd been driving the car that'd hit her, his guilt no doubt displaced from previous bad decisions like firing her from the band.

He felt sorrier than he could say in words; even fixing his mouth to form them felt cheap. Griffin said nothing, hoping she would hit him or something. Tied to the bed, he was at her mercy. Maybe he deserved it.

However, she only bit the side of his neck, and then kissed a path down to the center of his chest. There, she wrote more before exchanging her pen for an eyelash curler.

"It's not your fault, m'ijo."

She looked him in the eye while she clamped the device around his nipple, squeezing until he yelped in exquisite pain. It hurt; but it was also centering, making him focus on what was happening between them instead of the past. His senses sharpened, smelling the residue of lavender shampoo in her still damp hair and a trace of champagne on her breath. The air came on, his skin prickled, and delicious heat shot through his body when she slid down on his dick.

"It's not your fault." Her voice sounded like incense and blessings.

She tweaked his nipples with the curler until he repeated the words with conviction. Finally releasing his burdens, Griffin exhaled deeply as her fingers wrapped around his throat. Luz held him with tenderness and control, the weight of her warm hand making him relax finally.

"It ain't your fault, either," he murmured, winning a smile from her. "I love you. I fuckin' adore you."

Griffin reverently breathed the words as she leaned back and began to ride him, feeling like he'd found his religion. His wrists jerked against the silk restraints with an urge to touch her, and he laughed. He literally could do nothing except watch Luz get to her happy place. The kicker was that she was taking him with her.

He'd never felt so carefree in his life.

After they were both spent, she untied him then used a jar of skin cream to soothe his tender nipples and his wrists where the pantyhose had been. She asked if he wanted water or if he were cold and wanted to get under the covers.

However, he only needed a moment to regroup, feeling like he'd left too much of himself on the bed sheets. Griffin excused himself to the bathroom to get a warm, moist towel for her. After snapping on the light, he snagged a cloth from the towel bar and then turned to the sink. He stopped short at what he saw written on his chest.

Far from humiliations, Luz had written he was loyal, stubborn, sneaky, funny, a hot piece of ass with a heart as deep as the ocean, generous, and loving.

Griffin felt so honored while wringing out the towel that he couldn't look at himself in the mirror. It didn't matter what he looked like anyway, or that his eyes smarted. He felt like a million bucks.

Back in the bedroom, after he cleaned her, Luz sat up and grasped him around the neck for a kiss. He doubled his arms around her and flopped on his back on the bed, rolling Luz on top of him.

As their legs entwined and they gasped for breath, he whispered, "I wouldn't care if we only kissed. I love this."

She grinned down at him. "This can be every night, if you're game."

"Only thing missin' is Cha-Cha." He smiled, reaching up to brush Luz's bangs from her forehead, and caught sight of his wedding ring.

She smiled too, reminding him of the promises she'd made when she'd placed the ring on his finger. Instead of the traditional vows, she had promised to love him, believe in him, and protect him. He and the justice of the peace both had laughed at the idea of a slender nineteen-year-old girl protecting him.

Yet, Luz had done it for ten years; he just hadn't given her the credit she deserved.

He thought of the scar underneath the ring that her cigarette and his blind fury had made on the day of her accident. Twisted as the thought was, he took pleasure in the fact he would always carry her mark.

-end-