Free Strongman by Denise Rossetti Page B

without Griff! The concept rocked him to his foundations. Even though he knew there could be nothing between them, somehow, the knowledge that Griff existed, living his life at the Fair, with his dark heated gaze, his quick intelligence, his acerbic sense of humor—somehow, it had come to anchor everything that was.
    His flashing grin, the crooked tooth.
    His kindness, his care.
    Because that’s what he’d done last night, offered his concern to Fort as a gift of, a gift of… The thought stuttered to a halt, resumed.
    More than lust and more than friendship.
    Go on , do it .Distinctly, he felt the warm, pressing sensation at the base of his spine, just as he had the first night in his little wagon. Lufra , I —The automatic protest collapsed as the heat increased. Shoved .
    46

    Strongman
    Time and space seemed to compress for a single heartbeat, then two. When Fort came back to himself, he was leaning right into Griff’s body to brush the scar with his lips, his nose pressed into the tender pocket between hipbone and sectioned stomach muscles.
    Strong fingers speared into his hair. “A little to the left,” murmured Griff, his voice no more than a husky rasp. When Fort jerked up, his bristly jaw brushed the side of Griff’s bobbing shaft.
    “Twister!” hissed Griff, his hips arching off the mattress.
    Fort held him down, glaring into his face. “Who did this?” he rasped.
    “Careful.” Griff reached down and gripped Fort’s wrist. “I bruise easy.”
    With a muttered oath, Fort relaxed the hard fingers he’d sunk into Griff’s smooth thigh. “ Who was it ?”
    “Me.” Griff grinned, then sobered. “I made a mistake. The blades don’t forgive.”
    Unable to resist, Fort touched a forefinger to the pulse of the big artery there. “You came mighty close.”
    Griff hissed and his cock bobbed, growing even rosier as hot blood surged beneath the skin. “You are too,” he panted.
    Fort reared up and the sheet slithered right off his hips and slipped to the floor. He froze.
    Griff’s dark eyes heated and his tongue crept out to moisten his lips. He nodded at the most brutal erection Fort had ever experienced, jutting up over his belly, so proud and fat and long it ached with wanting. A brow arched. “All for me?”
    “Don’t—” The words strangled in Fort’s throat. Don ’ t tease , don ’ t flirt . I can ’ t bear it .
    Griff smiled, slow and lazy. “Fine.” He slid an open palm over his chest, rasped the small peak of one nipple with his thumb. “I’ll just lie here and…” The hand slipped down, over his ribs, his stomach. Fort ceased breathing. “Do what I’ve done every morning since you walked into the Big Top.”
    Without taking his eyes from Fort’s, he took his cock in a firm, sure grip and pulled.
    His hips came off the bed with the drawn-out pleasure of the stroke and his eyelids drooped, though he didn’t free the other man from the tether of his gaze. “Gods, that’s good.” A pause while his chest rose and fell. “And you don’t have to do a thing, except—ah, fuck!—watch.”
    He compressed his foreskin between thumb and forefinger, working it up and over the glans, shining with oily secretions. When he threw his head back, his eyes slitting with pleasure, the fading bruises on his throat caught Fort’s eye and something dark and powerful surged inside him. He hesitated, torn between the enticing action in Griff’s groin and the need to touch the marks he’d left. His marks .
    But the decision was taken from him. “C’mere.” Griff paused at the top of a stroke and snagged Fort’s arm above the elbow with his free hand, tugging him down onto the 47

    Denise Rossetti
    pillows beside him. “Show me…” a rasping inhalation, “how you do it. What you like best.”
    Involuntarily, Fort’s fingers clenched and a wave of pleasure streaked from his balls and up his spine, buzzing deep in his ass. Ruler God, he hadn’t even realized he’d grabbed hold of