Chapter Five
‡
The wall-banger barely took the edge off for Griffen. They straightened themselves up and he assumed everyone in the meeting put down Aubrey’s flush to displeasure at the takeover. He paid little attention, mind consumed with desire to have her again.
She barely looked at him as she walked everyone through what would happen.
Once the meeting broke up, Griffen moved on, as was his habit. He always made his announcements and left his very capable crew to pillage the vessel while he went back to running his fleet.
A nagging feeling plagued him after he left, however. He hadn’t wanted to leave Cutting Edge and come back to his office without her.
That separation of duties was a barrier that had kept Aubrey on his payroll for well over a year before they had started their affair and he didn’t like having it in the way again.
Well, it was one of the reasons he hadn’t started something Day One. He had wanted her on sight, but he wasn’t his father. He didn’t make passes at his staff and end up in harassment suits. He’d deliberately kept his attraction to Aubrey on the back burner the way he patiently waited for the right time to make his move with any acquisition. When he only saw her for fifteen minutes a week, usually in rooms with other people, it had been easy.
Aubrey had been very careful about revealing her attraction, too. All her thoughts and feelings had been kept firmly under wraps. He had understood much later that she’d been furious with him for the takeover of her little chain and passionately determined to fight for the best outcome for her employees.
He grew to admire her for that control, though. She used facts, figures and persuasive arguments, rarely betraying so much as a huff of exasperation as she worked toward what she wanted. Her discipline and intelligence had impressed him, keeping him handing over bigger challenges and more responsibility.
Meanwhile, she had consistently nudged him toward restructuring rather than stripping for parts. Thus he had a bigger fleet to run than he had had two years ago; all of his enterprises were so lean and profitable it didn’t make sense to sell any of them.
He could give some of that work to her, he supposed. She would probably like that. She was ambitious. One of their first personal conversations had been her asking for an interim position as a CEO on one of his subsidiaries.
“I’m not assuming all women want to marry well and keep house,” he had said. “But I’m curious why you’re so passionate about that goal in particular.”
“Women are horribly underrepresented in corporate America. I like the work and I think I can make a difference.”
“You want to impose your feminist ideals on my organization?”
“Would that frighten you?”
He’d liked that she had the balls to put him on the spot like that.
“Women in the boardroom don’t bother me, but they don’t usually have the stomach for the way I work.” He’d studied her aloof but undeniably feminine appearance. “You do.”
“Senator’s daughter,” she had dismissed. “Hard decisions happen.” Then she’d added what almost sounded like a warning, “But you have to be able to live with them. If I’ve tried to be fair to all the parties and fought for the best outcome, then I can accept the end result. That’s why I think I’ll make an excellent CEO.”
“I don’t have much of a conscience,” he had advised. “And I look after myself before thinking about what’s fair to anyone else. Which is why I’m not giving you the job. I’m giving it to Charles and selling off that asset. I would rather lose him than you. That’s not sexist. It’s a compliment. In fact, it’s a promotion. Move into his office as soon as he vacates it.”
The change in duties had put her under his nose and that was when things had become interesting. Seeing her every day, sitting next to her in cars and airplanes, working late down the hall, watching her nipples harden every time he spoke to her…
They’d been in New York, staying at a hotel after finalizing an acquisition that had been particularly ugly. She’d kept her cool, but when he knocked on her door, she had a glass of wine in her hand.
“I couldn’t wait. Want one?”
“Letting it bother you?” he’d mocked gently, liking that her particular scent filled the room, making the sterile space undeniably hers. It was subtle and refined, like she was, but had sexy undertones.
Her nipples were tight. Aroused? The door clicked closed behind him and he had known he wasn’t leaving.
“Do you never have regrets?” Her hair was down for a change, showing all its shiny sable tones. Her business attire was gone and she’d put on a simple black cocktail dress with a pair of black stilettos with bling down the heel. She poured a second glass from the bottle of white in her mini-fridge.
“None.” For instance, this decision would have consequences, but he didn’t give a damn. He came further into the room, so they stood in front of the glass wall that looked down on the pinprick lights of Central Park.
She turned to offer his glass, still holding her own.
He went in for a kiss.
“Mmm.” She responded, letting it happen, helping it heat up, then drew back, bumping into the glass behind her where she stayed leaning. Her golden eyes were hot as a morning sun in July. “If you had given me that CEO position when I asked, I wouldn’t be working for you and this could happen.”
“How drunk are you?”
“One glass.” She offered his, but stayed braced against the glass. “So far.”
“Then it’s going to happen anyway,” he said, moving in and kissing her again, running his hands over the curves that had mesmerized him for weeks.
She lifted her hips into his, moaned as he pinched her nipple, gave up her neck to his open mouth and rubbed her ass into his palm.
“Let me put the wine down,” she had turned her head to gasp.
“Hang onto it, sweetheart. Don’t spill,” he taunted, and climbed his hands beneath her dress to catch her underwear off her hips. Sinking to a crouch, he drew them down, carefully picking up each of her feet, then deliberately set his knees on the floor so she had no choice but to part her legs on either side.
He stayed there and smoothed his hands up and down her thighs under her dress. Smooth and warm and velvety soft.
“I don’t—we can’t. Not in front of the windows.” Her tits were trembling with her pants of anticipation.
“Watch me.” He let his thumbs stray into her folds and found juicy heat. Her cheeks darkened with a flush. Her eyes grew glassy. He pushed the fabric up and admired the plump pink flesh he’d exposed. “Let the whole damned city watch.”
“Griffen—”
He leaned in for a taste and they were both lost. She did spill, one glass breaking as both hit the floor. Her hands came onto his head and her hips lifted into the play of his tongue. When she came, her cries were loud enough to earn a filthy cheer from young men walking by in the hall.
He rose and she barely opened her eyes, sexy as hell with her pouted mouth and dress still pushed up around her waist. “Condoms are in the bathroom.”
He felt through his pockets and came up with one, held it in his teeth as he dropped his coat and loosened his tie.
“Seriously?”
“Too far to walk. So’s the bed. Turn around.”
“I don’t do this,” she said, but she obeyed as he rolled her against the glass, then pushed off with her hands, pushing out her ass in offering, setting her feet on either side of his. “What if someone recognizes me down there on the street?”
He laughed and dropped his pants around his ankles, grasping her hips and shoving himself deep, liking the way she moaned in gratification.
“If I had given you that CEO job…” he told her with a hard thrust that tightened his scalp. “You wouldn’t be in this position.”
“This one?” Her lower back dipped. Her ass came up, allowing him to drive even deeper.
He had laughed again, thrusting with abandon, and never regretted a damned thing.
Well, maybe he hated himself a little for making it easy for her leave.
Griffen let his head drop back against his chair. He was in his office, hard from thinking about that first time with Aubrey. It had blown his mind, but he hadn’t expected that level of passion to continue. Today had proved to him that nothing had changed, so where was the wave of satisfaction? The sureness that he had her exactly where he wanted her?
Where did he want her? Exactly where he had had her last time?
They had kept things very casual then, which had suited him perfectly. Work was work and play was play. They had continued to book two rooms when they traveled even though they only used one. They would eat dinner at the hotel together, but they’d rarely “dated” at home. If they didn’t screw around in his office, it was a local hotel or, toward the end, he had let her stay over.
He remembered thinking that had been his mistake. He’d given a wrong impression with that. A few weeks into her first sleepover, she had told him she needed to spend the weekend with her parents. “Family stuff. I won’t bore you.”
He’d been thankful to be excluded, but that Monday, she’d been quiet all day. When she had come into his office to tell him she was going home for the night, he’d found himself asking if everything was all right. Maybe he expected a diagnosis or something else that might impact her availability. He hadn’t thought it through.
“If you’re just being polite, then yes, everything is fine,” she had said, and that was when she had left the first obvious space for him to let things deepen between them.
His gut tightened to this day. Was that what regret felt like? Because he had sensed a leash in that moment and had quickly avoided it with a drawled, “Good.” Then, because he had wanted to ensure things were exactly as he liked them, he’d said, “Did you lock the door?”
Looking back on the timing, he assumed that weekend had been when she had found out about her brother. She had continued to fool around with Griffen, but her usual coy playfulness had grown needy. He liked enthusiasm in a woman, but her settling on his lap was no longer purely invitation. It was craving, which had been sexy as hell in some respects, but had set off his internal alarms.
If he had thought about it, he would have supposed she talked to her friends about her family situation, but he realized now she wouldn’t have had anyone she could talk to. Even he wouldn’t know about her brother if he hadn’t figured it out himself. She had been turning to him for emotional engagement eight months ago, maybe escape and comfort.
He had feared she’d been looking for the literal kind of engagement and had cut her loose, never imagining he would feel her absence the way he had.
She was still absent. She was across town with some dipshit who very well might be stupid enough to make a move on her.
Damn but that talk of monogamy had pissed him off. Regrets? How about how much he hated admitting anything so revealing as the fact that he hadn’t had a woman in his bed since Aubrey left? Even more annoying was how effective his threat of going public with their affair had been.
Fucking closed doors.
Well, she was his again and he was damned well going to avail himself. Grabbing his phone, he texted that he’d be at her place by seven.
*
Aubrey had lied to Griffen when she had said he had made it “easy” to leave. He had wrung out her insides like a wet rag the day he had kissed Marla. When she had sat across from him to give her notice, it had been hard to disguise how shattered she was. Even more humiliating, as she had explained that she was leaving to pursue another opportunity, she had silently begged him to ask her to keep seeing him.
All she had needed was, That’s fine. Why don’t we go for dinner?
They had rarely eaten in public unless they were out of town. That had been as much by her choice as his. She didn’t need anyone thinking she earned the boss’s favor on her back. Dating him after they stopped working together would have been fine, but he had let her go.
She had told herself it was for the best. What had he ever done to tangle up her heart anyway? Yes, he was gorgeous and powerful and made her feel incredible, but aside from a dry wit and a calculated chivalry, he’d never shown enough of himself for her to fall in love.
Well, he might have been a mentor at work, praising her at odd times in a sincere way she couldn’t help basking under. He had stood at a hotel window with her once, watching a guy throw a Frisbee for his dog. They had both laughed at the animal’s leaps and catches, sharing a moment of carefree joy in life. More than once, coming out of a meeting, he had asked, What did you think? and they had sifted through their impressions. He seemed to value her opinion.
This time, she kept telling herself, she knew it was sex, plain and simple.
That monogamy discussion had thrown her, though. It gave her hope things might be different. It meant her defenses were shaky when he arrived, looking casually fantastic in a leather jacket over a black shirt and jeans over motorcycle boots.
He eyed her shirt dress and crowded her in the doorway, giving her a small frown when she offered her overnight bag. “What’s this?”
“In case I don’t have time to come home before work tomorrow.” She had assumed they were going to a hotel, but now she faltered.
He snorted. “I’m staying here.” He took a step into her space.
She held her ground, catching at a heart that skittered down a road she knew he wouldn’t travel with her. “No,” she pronounced, setting a firm hand on his chest.
His brows went up and his carved face wore fierce shadows in the slant of her porch light. He set his shoulder against the jamb. “Problem?”
“I told you.” She licked her lips. “I don’t bring men home.”
His mouth began to curve into a patronizing smile and he straightened. His weight became almost too much for her slender wrist to withstand.
“I promised my grandmother I would only sleep with my husband under this roof,” she insisted, and pressed with all her subtle might against the brick wall that was his immovable chest. “So unless you want to start talking about rings, don’t expect to sleep here.”
He eased back a notch, expression sliding into neutral. “You want a ring?”
“I’m not asking for one. I’m saying that’s house rules.”
He glanced past her to the golden glow of the lamp she’d left burning in the lounge. “Last week you mentioned children in a way that suggests you intend to have some. That surprised me. I thought you were a career woman.”
It was a cool inquiry, delivered in the same tone he would use if asking for a bank balance or more information on a foreclosure opportunity.
Aubrey hesitated. She was greedy and wanted it all, but now they were lovers again, she feared she would stay with him until he decided they were over. Would that be before or after her eggs went stale?
Taking a subtle breath to ease the ache in her chest, she said, “I used to play here with my cousins on weekends. They’ve all moved out west or they might have fought me for it, but there’s no point in my having a house like this if I’m not going to raise a family in it.”
Stating that felt an awful lot like she had unzipped her chest and set her heart on the porch at his feet. She waited to see if he would kick it down the stairs.
His expression remained closed and flinty.
“You?” she asked with facetious courtesy.
A muscle pulsed in his jaw. He swiveled to wave his arm at the sports car he’d parked at her curb. “My place then.”
Right. She fell into resentful silence as she locked up and followed him. He held her door for her and didn’t speak until he was behind the wheel, pulling away.
“My childhood was not weekends playing with cousins at Grandma’s,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t have any.”
Surprised, she said, “Cousins or grandparents?”
“Both.”
“Really.” She was more shocked by the fact he was sharing at all as by the details. “Just you and your parents, then?”
“My father mostly. My mother overdosed when I was seven. She and Dad liked their coke.”
Oh. She instantly wanted to curl protectively around the lost young boy she could see far, far away in his straight ahead profile. She swallowed back empathy, certain he would reject it.
“I read once that your first hostile takeover was your father’s company. Is that true?”
“He started it. The hostility, I mean,” he said dryly. “When things at work weren’t going well, I was dodging his fists at home. Since I was working at his firm—he put me in the mailroom at nine so he wouldn’t have to hire a sitter—I started paying attention to why and how things took a turn. I worked my way up and I was twenty when I could see he was about to make a decision that would cost me what I was starting to build for myself. I went to the board behind his back, had him voted out, and myself installed. His cronies went for it because they thought they could control me more easily than Dad, but I’m a sneaky, arrogant prick, in case you hadn’t noticed. Learned everything I know from my old man,” he added with a hard smile. “But we all made money and kept making it, so it didn’t matter.”
“Even your father?”
“Oh, no, not him.” The engine revved as he geared down and halted for a traffic light. “Dad was pissed and tried to kill me. It was the last time he touched me.” The finality in his voice left a chill in her heart.
“Please tell me that’s an exaggeration,” she said, insides tensing as if to brace for pain. “You mean he beat you up?”
“This?” He touched behind his ear where there was a two-inch scar that appeared whenever he had his hair freshly cut. “Not a football injury. I never played. Dad kept a jar in the kitchen where he emptied his pocket change. I came to when he threw me in the pool.”
“Oh, my God!” She covered her mouth, terrified even though he was here and well and not dead.
“Somehow I drove myself to the hospital. I barely remember it, but I called him while I was sitting in the emergency room. I said he could charge me for stealing, but I’d have him on attempted murder. Or he could stay in the house and let me take the company and we’d call it even.”
Her fingertips splayed across her throat where her artery pounded with reaction as if she had just witnessed the event. Beyond the windows, the world carried on like normal, but it seemed incongruous. He had almost died. Didn’t anyone realize that?
“I can’t believe—” She had to cover her lips to still their trembling and blinked hard to clear her vision.
“Don’t go soft on me.” His expression held contempt as he flashed her a look. “It’s water under the bridge and far down stream.”
Was it? How could that ever be washed away?
“Is your dad still alive?” she asked as he easily zoomed in and out of evening traffic.
“No.” His white teeth showed in a feral smile. “And no, I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re thinking. I was tempted,” he allowed. “Many times. But I didn’t. He drove drunk and fortunately only killed himself.”
“I’m so sorry. And about your mom,” she said sincerely.
It wasn’t empty platitude. She was compelled to say it. She was shaken and very sad he hadn’t had an upbringing like hers, where she might feel stifled by her father’s position and her mother’s expectations, but she’d been loved. He hadn’t had that. The people who were supposed to care about him had left scars on him. Literally.
Thinking about how his childhood had shaped him made for a silent drive. She wasn’t really tracking where he was going until he pulled into the underground lot of his building.
Her heart see-sawed as they went up in the elevator. Part of her felt closer to him than ever, like she understood something about him. Like he was finally letting her inside the man, but he was very remote, saying nothing.
“Why here?” she asked as they entered the lounge of his penthouse.
“My house, my rules,” he told her as he stole a cushion from the sofa and tossed it to land at her feet. He unbuckled his belt as he approached her.
Her heart lurched.
She wanted to tell him where he could go, behaving like this, but he revealed his turgid flesh, skin stretched taut over the long, well-shaped muscle, plum-like tip dark and pearled with fluid. So hard.
She clenched internally, wanting that inside her. Longing for it. Her entire body loosened and prepared for sex. Lots of it. Not a furtive, muted scramble against her office door, but one of their loud, epic sessions that left her muscles aching from exertion all the next day.
Starting with her tongue, driving him crazy, would be only the beginning.
Still, she hated him for reducing her to this animalistic being. For dismantling her defenses by finally revealing something about himself that only made her understand his detachment and accept it.
“You didn’t get your way so you expect me to soften the blow?” she taunted to hide her hurt.
“Such a clever mouth.” He cupped her cheek and leaned down to lick across her lips. “Do it as hard as you like.”
*
Griffen came out of what felt like a coma to hear a noise in his lounge. A zipper?
He pushed up on an elbow, seriously feeling drugged by his heavy sleep and so lethargic from copious sex he only wanted to collapse on his face and fall back into unconsciousness.
But the empty pillow next to him had a jarring effect, especially when he could hear her moving around the lounge. Leaving?
He threw back the covers and slid across the warm spot she’d left in the sheets, then rose and walked naked into the open plan of his living area. She’d turned on the light over the stove in the kitchen, but it was casting more shadow than glow.
“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice sounded like he’d been drinking whiskey for days.
She finished pulling on a T-shirt over yoga pants and turned as she flicked her hair free of the collar. Her gaze skimmed down his front. She saw he was hard and said, “Seriously?”
He was kind of stunned himself. His cock had never had much stopping sense, but this was excessive, even for him. It wasn’t the reason he jerked his head at the bedroom and said, “Just stay the night,” though.
“Taxi app said ten minutes.” She shrugged and said ruefully, “And, honestly, I can’t. We should have worked up to this.”
“This” being nothing less than debauchery, he supposed, not quite sure what had possessed them. Obviously they’d both been missing sex, but there’d been something else. He wanted to believe it was the familiarity of enjoying a former lover. They had conquered inhibitions months ago and had taken up where they’d left off, making very free with each other’s bodies. If there was a square inch of this penthouse they hadn’t braced against, he’d like to know where it was.
If there was a square inch of her he hadn’t touched, licked, or sucked, he definitely wanted to know because he’d taken great pains to reclaim all of her. At the same time, there’d been a disturbing sense of having revealed too much when he had told her about his parents. He’d needed to backtrack from that, set their relationship firmly back in the sexual arena and salvage his autonomy.
He ought to be happy she was leaving without prodding, keeping things very much to their old routine, but he wasn’t happy. He was irritated.
“If you were sore, you should have said.” She had kept up with his physical demands, but now he wondered if he’d been too aggressive. “You don’t have to run away to keep me off you.”
“It’s not you, it’s me,” she said with self-deprecation. “And I doubt you’ll fight me off.” She picked up her dress from the back of the sofa and rolled it up before she stuffed it in her bag, zipped, then pulled a hair clip from a side pocket and gathered her tresses.
That ought to leave him smug, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d told her too much and she was reaching conclusions about him that were driving her away. The urge for sex sharpened, prompted by a craving for her acceptance. Maybe the entire night had been about that.
His abdomen tensed, trying to ward off that disturbing thought.
She shouldered her bag, gaze skimming for missed belongings.
Wait, he wanted to say. Another voice in his head said, Let her go, still disturbed at how exposed he felt. He wanted to make a pass, but he didn’t want to hurt her if she was tender. Shit.
“I’ll get Keith to take you.” He looked for his phone to text his driver.
“Taxi’s already on its way,” she dismissed, and stepped into her shoes.
“You’re not taking a fucking taxi.”
She swung a frown his way. “Why are you mad? I’m legitimately achy and tired. It’s a work day tomorrow”
“I know you are. I am.” But for some reason, he was annoyed as hell that he had ever let her take a taxi home in the middle of the night. He should drive her.
Why the hell did she feel a need to go home at all?
What the hell was wrong with him that he wanted her to stay? Aubrey was a big girl. She took care of herself just fine.
“You’re still recovering,” he muttered as he clattered his phone onto a side table. “Keith will be waiting for you. I pay him to be available at any hour so use him.”
*
Keith wasn’t the only one being paid to be available at all hours, Aubrey thought darkly, stifling a yawn several nights later.
Chad finished droning on and she was able to say, “I know he’s done that in the past, but I’ll talk to him.”
“Will you,” Chad said, his tone just a teensy bit shrewd and a little too snide.
She had ignored the first two asides he’d made earlier this week, after glimpsing a text from Griffen that had been fairly innocuous, but that he’d obviously interpreted as personal. His other remarks hadn’t been this bold, though. Thankfully, he had confined his editorials to moments where they were alone—although who knew what he was saying behind her back?
Since the door was already shut on this empty boardroom, she sat back and looked him straight in the eye. “Do you enjoy sleeping with whores, Chad?”
“What? No. I don’t. Why would you say that?” He looked around as though wondering if he was being punked.
“I thought that’s what we were doing. Making wild guesses about each other’s sexual partners and passing judgment.”
He gave her a tired look. “Really? You want me to believe you’re not sleeping with him?”
“Let’s pretend it’s any of your business who I sleep with,” she said with a patronizing smile, doing her best to hide the fact that he’d lit a blinding white fire in the pit of her belly. “Do you have a problem with my work ethic? Is there something I’m doing or not doing that affects your work?”
“Well…” He scoffed, waving a negligent hand. “It must be nice to blow the boss and get what you want. Yeah, that affects me. I don’t have that advantage.”
“Right, men have no advantages in the business world.”
“Oh, play the girl card,” he snarked.
“I get what I want because I lay the groundwork,” she stressed. “I’m happy to write out the argument on cue cards and send you to Griffen to make the case, but you wouldn’t succeed even if you did blow him. You know why? Because you don’t care. Do you?”
His gaze frosted over to scathing. “True. Your little pet rock here is just one more rung on the ladder.”
She scratched the tip of her nose—one of her father’s tricks to keep from betraying that she was seconds from blowing her top.
“Do you think beyond your own reflection, Chad? Do you have a five year plan? A ten year one? Because every move I make is part of my legacy. I think every day about how I can prove that a business can succeed without compromising ethics. I want to sway the corporate culture by doing this, getting my hands dirty and talking a hard ass like Griffen into doing what is morally sound. I’m likely to follow my father into politics one day and make changes at that level, which I guarantee will have an impact on your life. If you’re still working in this field.” She smiled faintly. Yes, that was a dig.
“Excuse me for not taking you seriously when you’re so plainly fucking the boss.”
“Excuse me for not taking you seriously when you so plainly have nothing to offer. Do you know why Griffen values me? Because I bring something new to the table. What are you showing him beyond a lesser copy of the swagger he already possesses? Here’s why you’re working for me and not the other way around.” She jabbed the air with her finger. “You’re telling Griffen what he would do. He already knows that. Lackeys are a dime a dozen. You want to move up the ladder? Tell Griffen what you would do.”
His eyes narrowed, telling her she’d scored. Which she might have enjoyed if she didn’t want so badly to punch him in the face.
“And, FYI, the nineteen-eighties faxed and even they think you’re behaving like a sexist a-hole.” She drew her laptop into place. “Shall we move forward without that encumbrance?”
*
Aubrey was still stewing over Chad’s behavior two nights later, when she woke in Griffen’s bed. She’d had a rough conversation with her brother today, too, leaving her prickly and resentful.
She had thought about bringing it up with Griffen, but to what end? He had her over a barrel—and every other piece of furniture—and he knew it. Tonight was a perfect example.
She squirmed a little, thinking about it, both titillated and mortified.
He stirred as she moved, his breathing changing as his hand skimmed from her belly to her breast and down to her navel again. He dragged her tighter into the spoon of his body and relaxed back into sleep.
Her loins grew hot with memory, while his caress made her wet with anticipation.
No more. She wanted to duck her head beneath the covers and hide from what he did to her, but it was so incredible. Every. Single. Time.
He had been the epitome of a dominant male as he had casually loosened his tie in the elevator, pulling it over his head as they entered his penthouse and, just as casually, taking her hands and pressing them behind her back.
“Do we need a safe word?” she’d asked, belly swirling with nervous energy as he tightened the silk on her wrists.
“If you want one. I don’t plan to hurt you,” he’d said with an indignant look. He’d been close, enveloping her in his warm, spicy scent as he nuzzled her neck, inhaling. “But I will make you beg.”
“You think so?” she challenged, testing the tie enough to know she could get out of it if she really wanted.
He smiled and touched a soft kiss to her mouth. “I do think so.”
He had, taking his time rearranging her clothing, exposing and caressing, telling her where and how to stand or sit, bend and pose to showcase. He said positively filthy things, arousing her with licks and touches. He had bared himself and stroked his cock as he told her how sexy she was and what he wanted to do to her.
“Show me how much you want me. Tell me what you want. Beg me for it.”
She winced, recalling the things she’d said and done, but she had felt powerful at the same time. She loved exciting him with bold flashes and lewd words. She loved how his hands had shaken when she had told him exactly how she wanted him to touch her. His nostrils had flared and he’d looked very near the edge of his control when she had leaned back, knees open, and begged him—oh, yes, she had begged very earnestly—for the orgasms he’d generously bestowed.
In that moment, believing she impacted him as deeply as he impacted her, she had loved what they were doing to each other. She loved how they made each other feel.
She feared it was love all the way.
Unrequited love, she acknowledged with a wrenching twist in her belly. This was just very inventive sex for him. She could not afford to forget why she was in this bed.
She escaped the weight of his arm and the drag of the blankets, sitting up on the mattress to peel away the tie still dangling from her wrist.
“Stay,” he grumbled as he pushed his arms under his pillow, stretching out on his stomach.
“It’s a work day tomorrow.”
“We’ll talk about work over breakfast.”
Ha. Did he have any idea how hard she was working to keep things compartmentalized? How badly she wanted to use these quiet, intimate moments to extract his promise that he would nurture Cutting Edge rather than nuke it?
It must be nice to blow the boss and get what you want.
If only Chad knew how completely powerless she was.
“No?” he prompted as she dressed.
“I didn’t think you were serious,” she admitted, then teased, “I have Keith’s number, you know. I can text him myself. You don’t have to wake up to do it.” She ran her fingers through her hair before she twisted it up and clipped it.
He rolled over, reached to the night table for his phone, but left one arm under his pillow. His expression looked hard in the blue glow off his screen. He dropped the phone onto her side of the mattress. “I want to take you to New York this weekend.”
“So you can sleep through the night?”
“And have morning sex and go out in public with you,” he said flatly.
She hesitated, suspecting a weekend away would do more harm than good, building up her expectations so she’d only have further to fall when they were dashed.
“I’ll think about it.” She mentally scoffed at herself, already knowing she would agree.
Her resistance to him had always been flimsy and all he had to do was remind her that her father’s balls rested in his hand. Heck, he didn’t even have to remind her. She was already thinking it.
He came up on one hand, the other resting on his raised knee. His eyes seemed to hold two sharp points of light as he stared at her in the dark.
“What’s there to think about? Unless you have surgery scheduled, we’re going. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Of course he would, and how could she protest?
“I’ll talk to you later.” She thought about kissing him goodbye. She always had that brief compulsion, but she left without doing it, as she always did.
*
Six hours later, Una buzzed Aubrey into Griffen’s office the minute she arrived, giving Aubrey a baleful look as she did. Aubrey gave it right back, still blaming the woman for the way her life was falling apart.
It wasn’t Una’s fault, though. It wasn’t anyone’s but her own. She was letting Griffen have his way with her in a thousand different ways. It was taking a toll. When she was away from him, she grew so tense with the balancing act she became convinced she couldn’t go on.
Then she came into his presence, entered his office or his car or his penthouse, and he glanced up and that feeling hit her—the slam of joy.
Quickly followed by the reflexive strangling of it. Don’t let him see.
“Yes, I realize the market is likely to drop,” he replied to his caller, looking past his screen to take in her pencil skirt and turned up collar of her shirt. His expression tightened with masculine appreciation.
The day was sunny so her jacket was over her arm. He wore his usual business suit, but his jacket and tie were off. She immediately started thinking of a long lunch. Oh, she was so weak.
“But it will take time to demolish and rebuild,” he continued. “By the time I’m ready to sell, the market will have recovered.”
Wait. What? She narrowed her eyes on him, horribly certain she knew which building he was talking about.
“They have to accept the offer if I pay fair market value.” He looked her right in the eye, letting her know that, yes, he was talking about her land.
Oh, hell no. The sense of betrayal was resoundingly acute.
As he ended the call, Aubrey threw down her jacket across the arm of a chair. “You are not going to demolish Cutting Edge.”
“No, I’m going to move it out of the city and demolish the building it currently occupies.”
Some of the wind went out of her sails, but not much. “Without talking to me first? No, Griffen.” She was paying in earnest lovemaking for better treatment than that.
He sat back, twirling his pen in the way he liked to do when he was pretending he was only vaguely interested, but was actually paying very close attention.
She squirmed under that scrutiny. He had her emotions firmly on the end of his string. Beg me. That suddenly felt less like a game and more like an exercise of control.
“Why did I never see this insubordinate side of you before?” he asked. “Were you afraid I’d fire you if you spoke your mind?”
That threw her. She folded her arms, but was able to shrug as she admitted, “At first, yes. I wanted to learn so I gave you the benefit of the doubt—even when I suspected you were wrong.” Which you are now, she implied with a pointed look.
He ignored it. “Then?” he prompted. “You said ‘at first.’”
Oh. Shoot. She hadn’t meant to reveal that much.
His brows went up, noting her moment of vulnerability.
She twitched.
Screw it. She notched her chin and went for it, defiant as she baldly admitted, “Then we were sleeping together and I didn’t want to get fired from that either.”
A cynical smile formed while something dark flashed behind his gaze. “And you’re confident I won’t terminate either of those arrangements if I don’t like your attitude today?”
“On the contrary,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. It wasn’t easy to hold his gaze, but she made herself do it. Made herself face reality. “I know you’ll keep me or drop me as it suits you.” She waved at his phone. “You certainly won’t consider my feelings on a decision like whether to move my company.”
“Because they’re feelings.”
She recoiled inwardly. That certainly told her where she stood with how much she could influence him.
“Make a solid argument and I’ll consider it,” he said in a hard tone. “The only reason you opened on that location is because your father had the land and building available. There’s no reason Cutting Edge needs to be in the city. There are far more valuable developments that could work on that site.”
True, but he still hadn’t even considered discussing it with her. Every time she came the tiniest bit close to thinking he was invested in this relationship—that it was a relationship—he made sure she knew it was the furthest thing from personal.
“People bought homes in proximity,” she argued, but it was weak.
“They’ll sell high and pay less when they buy in a quieter neighborhood where they’d prefer to raise their children anyway,” he said without concern. “Be happy I’m keeping it alive and not stripping it for parts.”
*
Aubrey swung a glare at him that held pure venom, but she kept her tongue.
Because she was afraid whatever she said would goad him into closing Cutting Edge for good?
Right up until this moment, he would have guaranteed that he was perverse enough to do such a thing. No one should ever trust him.
But seeing she only trusted him to be an asshole was sobering. She had already managed to make him feel guilty for not at least warning her that he was planning to move the company.
Maybe if she’d stuck around for breakfast the way he’d asked, he might have mentioned it. He was still peeved that she was ‘thinking’ about New York. He didn’t ask women to stay over. He didn’t take them out of town so he could take them to dinner. Didn’t she realize that?
No. All of that went over her head, but there she stood with red flags in her cheeks because he had dared to make a business decision without running it by her.
“You saw me kiss another woman and didn’t reveal this much emotion,” he pointed out.
“Cutting Edge is mine. You’re not.”
The words were exactly what he should want to hear, but something in her tone made his heart lurch. And what could he say in response? Argue that Cutting Edge was his? Yeah, that’d improve her mood.
Argue that he was hers?
He searched her expression, not seeing any need for reassurance there, just resentment.
“Is that why I’m here?” she asked. “To learn second hand that you’re moving my company?”
“No. You’re here for that.” He pushed a folder across his desk toward her, telling himself he didn’t care how she reacted to this decision, either, but he was tense as she picked it up. He glanced across the landscape of his desk for whatever it was he should be doing, but his gaze was drawn back to her flushing face.
She stood in the very spot where she’d fainted two weeks ago, scowling even harder as she perused what he had decided.
“You’re completely removing me from Cutting Edge? Why?”
Why the hell did she look so deceived?
“It’s a promotion.” That should be obvious. “That’s all my production holdings including Cutting Edge. Streamline the supply chains and accounting software. Get them working together and bring costs down across the board.”
“And the day-to-day management goes to Gareth Freethey.”
“He’s in your old office here. That’ll get him out of it.”
“No, thank you,” she said stiffly and set the folder back on his desk.
He clenched his teeth, not particularly liking this more forthright version of Aubrey. Was she trying to make him fire her?
That thought struck like a pickax and left him uneasy, fighting to breathe. She wasn’t, was she? They were having so much sex, he was living a porn star life, but, during the day, she only spoke to him about work and half the time it was from across the city. The rest of the time it was like this. He called her in and she acted pissy about what he wanted her to do. He hadn’t expected her to like his relocation decision, but this shift in duties would challenge her. It was a really good job.
He didn’t offer gifts like this. Ever.
Of course, it was a gift to himself, putting her down the hall, but whatever.
“Cutting Edge can’t operate in a bubble outside the rest of my organization. One way or another it has to be absorbed. Unless you want me to sell it?”
The Medusa glare came back to him.
“I’m giving you the steering wheel on how this happens.” Again. Obvious. He shouldn’t have to spell this out. “You can tell Freethey how to run it. Did you notice the pay raise? Do you need more than that? A new title? Want to be a VP? Speak now and we’ll negotiate.”
“Would that be across your desk or on my knees?” she said with the dark, sickly sweet bitterness of molasses, eyes hollow and hard.
He rocked back in his chair as though she’d blasted him.
“Where the hell did that come from? I’m on my knees just as often, in case you haven’t noticed.” More, but he freaking loved going down on her so he wasn’t complaining.
“People will know, Griffen.”
“Know what?”
“How I got that job.” She dismissed the folder with a flick of her hand.
“Sweetheart.” He took a patronizing tone because she deserved it, talking to him like that. “I have never allowed anyone to fuck their way into a promotion. Maybe that’s more responsibility than you’ve ever had…” He nodded at the folder. “But you’ll rise to it. The defenses you put in place against my takeover would have repelled all but the most determined sharks.” He’d only gone through with it because he’d had other goals beyond financial. “This is earned. Say, ‘Thank you, Griffen,’ and ‘I’ll get right on it.’”
“No one is going to believe—” She looked away. Blinked.
Tears?
Everything in him froze. Tears didn’t move him so why was his blood stinging like he was staring down the barrel of a loaded rifle?
“Who cares what anyone believes?” It came out gruff with impatience at both of them. They would be working together again. Daily. This was good. Why wasn’t she smiling?
She flinched and turned her hard, red eyes on him.
“I do. Okay? I care.” She jabbed between her breasts. “I’ve been screwing the boss to keep my job. That’s humiliating enough, but my brother actually asked me if I opened the door and invited your takeover so I could get back into bed with you.” She folded her arms, profile ivory white and stiff. “When people I respect think something like that about me, I care.”
“Your brother said that?” Now he’d have to punish the bastard for upsetting her. “I’ll talk to him.”
“And say what?” Her voice came out in a hopeless exhale, empty hands splayed in the air. “Are you going to chat with everyone at Cutting Edge? Because they all think I’m a whore.”
Whoa. He was on his feet before he realized he was rising. “Who said that?”
It must have come out mighty dangerous because she flinched and staggered sideways a few steps. That took him aback, but the bitter glare she sent him was even more unnerving.
“Aubrey.” It took effort to find a gentler tone. He came around the desk in his least threatening manner, which wasn’t easy when he was this angry. His muscles bunched with aggression and his brain was about to explode. “Tell me exactly what was said. Who said it?”
“Why would it possibly matter to you?” She straightened her spine and touched her hair in a way he recognized as her attempt to pull her composure together. Her gaze was still bruised when she turned it on him. The light in her pretty copper-gold eyes had dimmed to a dull brown. “You’re extorting sex by threatening my parents. I am a whore.”
“Stop that.” Again, real guilt tightened around his innards. That’s not what this was. “We’re adults,” he reminded, not the least bit used to defending his sex life. “We’re entitled to an affair if we want one. You’re not doing it to keep your job. You’re doing it because you like it. We both do.”
Right? A completely foreign helplessness opened inside him as he waited for her to agree.
She didn’t, but she didn’t contradict him, either. She only looked terribly defenseless as she swallowed and turned her face away.
Don’t be soft, he silently begged her. Softness had never worked for him. It had only made things worse. He needed her to be cool and impervious and uncaring.
The way he was.
Yeah, he was so brutally ruthless he lifted a hand that was gentle and unsteady. So detached his insides were drawn into a tight knot as he reached out to her. The movement pulled and rent at his gut.
She quarter-turned, offering only a cold shoulder to his attempt to touch her. Then her profile tightened and she blinked at the ceiling a couple of times before facing him, emotions firmly under control.
It was shocking how well she did it and shocking how much it kicked him in the gut. How many times had he thought her impassive when she was just really good at looking that way?
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously in this world? Your buddy, Chad—”
“My buddy Chad is getting his ass fired if he’s acting offside.”
“Because he said something disrespectful to your employee? Or to the woman you sleep with?” she challenged, face as ashen as it had been that day she fainted. “Do you see how either way it’s only what you say that counts? This is why I want to be the boss and not sleep with mine. This is why I have tried so hard to keep anyone from knowing about us. And now you’re just going to go ahead and make me look like…”
She moved to the windows, hugging herself, taking a breath that made her whole back shudder.
“Aubrey.” He felt like he’d been staring at one of those optical illusions and suddenly it was no longer two faces, but a vase. He had naturally assumed she was ashamed of him. Look who he was. She ought to be ashamed of him. The idea that she wasn’t—that she was ashamed of herself—left him floundering.
“Listen.” He had to clear his throat. Christ. “This is a real job. I want you doing this work. I’m taking you seriously. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Does it matter, Griffen? You’re going to make me do what you want regardless. I think we’ve proved you’re quite adept at that.”
The floor fell away beneath him. She had liked their game last night. Hadn’t she? She had reveled in what she was doing to him, looking him in the eye and licking her lips. Maybe her words had been pleading, but her tone had rung with the knowledge that she was making him crazy. He’d been shaking with desire. She had done that to him.
She wiped her cheek, keeping her back to him.
“It matters.” He was unsettled by how much it mattered.
Approaching carefully, he very gently set his hands on her, feeling her flinch, but she didn’t reject him. He let out a slow, measured breath of relief as he drew her close and turned her into him, needing her to bend to his will, but willingly.
When she pressed forward so her forehead rested against his chest, she crushed his heart under the weight of it. He breathed air that felt like powdered glass in his lungs.
Pressing his mouth to her hair, he smoothed his hands up and down her arms, unable to recall a time he’d been this unsure.
“You didn’t like last night?” he asked, holding his breath for her answer.
“It’s not that.” Her hands opened on his torso, but she sighed like all hope was lost.
“Aubrey, I need to know. If you didn’t like it—”
“No, I did, but that’s my point. I like it too much. You can make me do anything.”
Relief closed his eyes and he settled his arms around her. As he enfolded her, sexual attraction rippled through him, but something else, too. Something worried and fond. Tender? He found himself thinking of that day she’d fainted, when he hadn’t seen how fragile she was until it was too late.
“Is this why you’re only thinking of New York? Because you feel like I’m pushing you into it? You’re afraid someone will see us and make judgments? If you don’t want to go, say so.”
He spared a moment of bemusement for the fact that he was the one pushing too hard in a relationship for a change.
She took another deep breath that rattled her whole frame. “I don’t want to start thinking this is more serious than it is.”
Which was his cue to tell her it was serious, but how could it be? He’d been uneasy about her expectations since she’d told him she wanted children. He’d tried to make her see him for what he was when he’d explained what kind of ‘family’ he came from. He was a useless piece of crap. His father had told him so for twenty years and he hadn’t done anything to redeem himself.
That selfish, ruthless streak was precisely why he wasn’t prepared to let her go, even though he was beginning to suspect it would be the kinder thing to do.