Chapter Four
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First day under the new boss.
Same as the old boss, Aubrey silently sang, trying to pretend she wasn’t charged with sexual anticipation as she entered the uneasy tension at Cutting Edge. He was here ahead of her, she could sense it. Everyone reacted to Griffen Woodlock, not just her.
The heightened awareness in her infuriated her.
She was not happy about this takeover. This surge in her zest for life was spring-back from her illness. It had nothing to do with a bouquet of flowers with a “Get Well Soon” balloon showing up the day after she had confronted him. The silver disk still hovered in her living room as a looming placeholder for its sender. She would have written off the gesture as sarcastic if not for the card that read, I mean it.
He didn’t care about her. He wanted her to get better so he could get her into bed. He thought he could purchase her like chattel, not that she’d told anyone about that part of it.
Her brother and father had come by at different times this week. She had kept quiet to her father that Griffen knew his secret. He was already taking blood pressure pills over a dip in his approval rating. They had talked about her health and her mother’s latest fundraiser. The only thing her father was quick to say about the takeover was that it wasn’t her fault. These things happen.
Nevertheless, guilt pressed on her, making her want to somehow mitigate Griffen’s impact.
To that end, she’d had a more strategic conversation with her brother, talking extensively about how to live within the rule of the incoming dictatorship.
How she would survive Griffen’s rule was a bigger problem she didn’t know how to solve. She was so furious with him for doing this to her, she could hardly think straight. Yet damp warmth had tingled between her thighs from the moment she woke this morning. She was eager to see him again.
So infuriating. She hated how he held all the leverage between them, in bed and out. She was deathly afraid she wouldn’t be able to disguise her deeper feelings this time, not as well as she had last time. Her temper was already shorter. He already knew he had the same combustible effect on her. If he found out he had her heart in his pocket, she was done for.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Her assistant, Wanda, hurried toward her across the bullpen from sitting at Carly’s desk near Drake’s office. “Drake fired Carly,” she hissed. “And told me to take over for her. And a man showed up this morning and said he’s our new boss.”
“We’ve been acquired. It’s not a big deal.” Calming fears was always job one. “There will be a few hiccups during the transition, but it won’t change much in the long run.” The stock phrases came back to her with ease. “Carly’s departure looks bad, but that was a different issue.” It was true. Once she’d seen the water bottle on Una’s desk that had matched the one that Carly used, Aubrey had been quick to notify Drake that his assistant couldn’t be trusted.
Drake was a rabid dog when it came to protecting his proprietary information. It didn’t surprise her a bit he’d cleaned house.
“Is Griffen with Drake?” She glanced toward her brother’s closed door.
“He’s in your office with someone named Chad. He told me to order the management team into the boardroom for ten. Should I…?” Wanda pointed at her own desk, anxious for direction.
Aubrey smiled, finding the role of bringing order to the chaos Griffen created nostalgically familiar.
“Get a job description to HR and put them on the hunt for Carly’s replacement. Keep covering her desk until you’ve trained whoever they find. Arrange coffee and pastries for the meeting.”
She removed her coat and hung it in the closet, then went to confront the lion in her den.
*
Griffen was listening to Chad brief him on the management structure when the door opened.
Bam. The room fuzzed at the edges and the droning voice of his underling faded.
All Griffen saw was a black and white checked skirt that tapered in above her knees, hugging her hips and thighs like an upside down tulip over a pair of tall, saucy boots. A matching checked belt over a simple black top emphasized her narrow waist and the gorgeous breasts he had never been able to forget.
Aubrey always turned herself out flawlessly with seemingly no effort, casual yet classy, sexy without being provocative. No need for flashy colors when her complexion had returned to its healthy peach tone. Her lips were a natural, understated pink, her hair sleek in its customary chignon.
“We’re in a meeting, sweetheart,” Chad glanced to say.
Oh, shit. Griffen sat back in Aubrey’s chair, preparing to watch this idiot get schooled.
“Aubrey Hargrave.” She calmly came forward to offer her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Chad.”
“Oh, I…understood you’d been ill and might not be in,” Chad said, plainly taken aback that she knew his name. His smile projected receptiveness. Male admiration. Griffen could practically hear the younger man thinking that if she knew his name, he must be important.
“I wouldn’t miss it. It’s a big day for all of us, isn’t it?” Aubrey donned an expression of polite attention. “You most of all? This is your first transition, I assume?”
There it was.
“No.” Chad’s expression fell. He was twenty-six, one year older than Aubrey, and very competent with the nuts and bolts of acquisitions. He was also a cocky shit who thought he was on the fast track. He fell back a step, like he needed to regain his balance, and started putting together a scowling response.
“Just an impression, I guess,” Aubrey murmured in a tone somewhere between skepticism and lost interest. She turned her attention to Griffen, deliberately dismissive.
Griffen grinned. Welcome back.
“I expected Marcus,” she said, turning frosty and distant.
Disapproving. Good thing he thrived under that attitude.
Although he had to admit to something like misgivings this week. He was not the soul-searching type, but all week, as he’d finalized this acquisition, he’d been aware of a shadow over his shoulder. Aubrey had been right to accuse him of racking up numbers on a scoreboard for the sake of it. He didn’t need Cutting Edge.
He wanted what he wanted, however, and would get it.
“Marcus is tied up with other things. I brought Chad because he aspires to be you.”
“He wants men he doesn’t know to call him ‘sweetheart’?”
“He wants to learn all he can then fly the nest.” Griffen transferred his smile to Chad’s growing confusion.
“Don’t fall for it,” Aubrey said to Chad. “It’s a release and catch program.”
“See how much she can teach you? She’s the one who explained to me that words like ‘sweetheart’ are best left for the bedroom unless you want a sexual harassment suit.”
“I thought—” Chad looked between them.
Griffen knew what he had thought. He could see what Aubrey was thinking as she realized what he was saying.
“You want me to midwife the transition?”
“And mentor my next superstar,” Griffen spelled out, like it was a reward not a punishment.
A disdainful, Screw you telegraphed from her bronze eyes.
“Close the door on your way out, Chad. Aubrey and I have a few things to discuss before the meeting.”
“Why?” she ground out as the door clicked.
“You didn’t think I was going to bring you back on the payroll and not take advantage of everything you have to offer, did you?”
“It’s mean, Griffen. You can’t make me dismantle what I built.” She looked tough and healthy and shiny-eyed and betrayed.
A memory came to him of his own reflection, not unlike Aubrey’s glittery-eyed glare, when he’d learned his father was about to sell off enough stocks in the family company to devalue everyone else’s, completely pulling the rug from beneath Griffen’s feet. It struck him that, for the first time since his coup over his father, he was making business decisions that were motivated by emotion.
He veered away from that disturbing thought, but couldn’t completely avoid it as he explained his reason for saddling her with Chad.
“Why didn’t you tell me I can’t sell this property without paying fair market value to you and Yarrow first?”
Her fury abated and a smirk danced around her mouth. “The same reason you didn’t warn me you were coming after us. I wanted it to be a surprise. Was it?”
“Not exactly, seeing as I taught you how to prepare those sorts of bitter pills. I still hated swallowing it.”
Her father had donated the land and building as a portion of her “inheritance” with the proviso that it couldn’t be sold without paying fair market value to a holding company of which she and Yarrow were sole owners. It was a long way of ensuring her brother got a share of their father’s wealth if things went sideways and it was ironclad.
“It didn’t stop you,” she said with dismay. Then she slanted a look at him. “Be honest. Were you a teensy bit proud?”
“I wanted to tan your ass.” He still did, but yeah, he was proud of her. A wave of something that might have been affection washed over him. He swiveled the chair. “Come here. Let’s talk about how you’re going to make it up to me.”
“No time,” she said with fake regret, but her color came up in that pretty way that said she was aroused by the idea of being made to go down on her knees. “I have a newborn to care for. He does not want to be me, by the way. He thinks he’s you. Does he have your moves, do you think? Should I find out?”
It was a cheeky remark thrown over her shoulder as she sashayed toward the door.
He felt it like an unexpected blade jabbed low in his belly.
This wasn’t jealousy. It was annoyance. Maybe a hint of possessiveness. She and Chad would be spending a lot of time together, but Aubrey wasn’t interested in the other man. Was she?
“Aubrey.”
She turned at the door, hand on the knob.
“You know you’re mine, right?”
Her chin tucked in, askance brows lifting. “The way you were mine? If you want me to be monogamous, give me something for what I’m giving up.”
That drove him to his feet.
Her nostrils flared and she pressed into the door, but glared at his approach with her bold princess eyes, refusing to back down. Not trying to make a run for it even though that might have been a very wise move right now. His propensity to dominate had come screaming to life.
“You know what I’ll give you? Sweetheart?” He flattened his palms on either side of her head against the door. “A chance to take back that ultimatum. Because I am happy to stake a very public claim and make sure the whole world knows you’re not available.”
The caution that crept into her gaze irritated him. He found himself wondering if she had even considered staking a claim that day he’d kissed Marla. She had looked through him, not betraying to Marla or anyone else that they’d been screwing each other blind for weeks. That was why he’d been stunned that her mother had known about them.
Not stunned, however, that her mother had found him wanting.
“Would that bother you, sweetheart? Everyone knowing that you fall apart when I touch you?” He looked down at where her breasts were rising in subtle pants. “Hell, I haven’t even touched you and you’re wet, aren’t you?”
He was so hard he ached. All week, this was all he’d thought about. It had been an act of willpower to go home instead of to her house every night. To her.
She licked her lips, drawing his gaze.
“You want to do this behind closed doors again, you do it my way,” he told her in a growl. “You fuck only me.”
“While you fuck whoever you want?” Her voice wasn’t quite steady, but he put it down to arousal.
“Right now, I only want to fuck you.” He lowered his head so he was speaking against that quivering mouth. The light contact went through him like an electrical charge. “Seriously. The only thing I want to do…right now…is fuck you.”
*
She parted her lips under the press of his, meeting his tongue with hers. Oh, he made her furious and oh, that was so good.
Bringing both her hands to the back of his head, she splayed her fingers through his hair and urged him to ravage her mouth. At the same time, she lifted her pelvis into the granite log straining behind his fly.
His hands shaped her shoulders, down her ribcage, then his thumbs ran under the swells of her breasts, picking up the weight of them, lightly crushing.
She closed her teeth on his bottom lip, trying to hold back a moan of approval.
He breathed one “ha” of wicked laughter and rubbed himself into her while finding her nipples and pinching. The layers of fabric kept it from hurting, but spikes of excitement went straight into her already wet loins.
She hated the barriers between them and began gathering the wool herself, letting her head fall back, watching him as he backed off enough to watch her legs appear.
“For me?” he murmured when she exposed the thigh-highs above her boots. No garter, but yes, the stockings and black lace thong over a fresh wax was all for him. She was that weak. She had known this would happen. Maybe she had even known it would happen within minutes of seeing him again. It was pure madness.
But there was that other changed part of her that kept thinking, What If. What if a meteor hit and this was her last chance to feel him inside her. The fear of time and misfortune and death made her even less able to deny either of them. Life was short. She wanted to live it.
He opened his pants, releasing the beast. Her knees almost melted as she took in his turgid cock, dark and thick. Her pussy released another flood of excited lubrication.
“For me?” she mocked softly, moving aside her underwear, trying to pretend she wasn’t so desperate there were tears stinging behind her eyes.
“If you’re good.” He rubbed the tip of his cock against her folds, easily parting her, moving freely in her slick cleft. Each time he brushed her clit, she lifted on her toes to prolong the thrum of pleasure.
“Condom?” she reminded on a gasp, her leg rising of its own accord to hook at his waist and offer her entrance.
He stilled with his knees bent, tip already pressing into her. “You off the pill?”
“No, but—”
“I haven’t been with anyone. Have you?”
She opened her eyes to search his, stunned.
When she didn’t answer, he dragged his gaze up to her face. Maybe he didn’t hear the significance in his own words.
“Who?” he demanded. The flash in his eyes was feral.
“No one,” she answered in a dazed whisper.
“Good.” Now his face hardened, like he’d just recognized what they had both revealed.
He thrust, not particularly gentle, but she didn’t want him to be. She bit back a gasp and angled her hips to make it easier for him, distantly thinking he had given her something she had yearned for…
“You’ll keep it that way,” he reminded against her skin, nude and hot and steely where she clasped him. “Only me. Say it.”
They were keeping their voices breathy, their movements deliberate and quiet.
She clutched at him, losing herself to the pleasure of his flesh moving in hers.
“Only you,” she agreed, clawing at his shirt, wishing they were in bed and had all day and all night. “Don’t stop,” she gasped.
The rustle of their clothing increased as he thrust faster. He covered her mouth with his and they both shuddered as climax quickly washed over them.