He kissed her as though he needed her desperately. As though there was nothing else in the world but her. As though he was trying to sear this moment into his memory forever, just as it would be seared into her.
She felt the back of the car bump against her legs. She arched against him, opening her mouth even wider as his tongue slipped in to brush against hers. Then his hands were on her h*ps and he was lifting her up onto the trunk of his car. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling his groin against hers. Even through his jeans and her pants, she felt the length of his erection. It was perfect. Divine.
They seemed perfectly fitted to one another. He rocked against the very core of her and pleasure rocketed through her body, making her tremble. Her hands greedily tugged at his clothes, hungrily trying to find bare skin. He pressed her back down onto the trunk of car, following her inch by inch until he was lying fully on top of her. She bucked against him, desperate to be closer.
She felt his hand slipping up under her sweater and her back arched up off the car.
“Wait,” she gasped out.
He stilled instantly. Then he groaned and dropped his head down to her collarbone. She felt his breath hot against the skin of her chest.
“Please don’t tell me to meditate.”
“No. I just think we should go slowly.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Me, too.” Then he pulled up, bracing his forearm beside her head as he looked down at her. “But you’re right. We can’t do this here.”
“What?” But then his words sank in. He was right. They were in a parking lot. A parking lot, for goodness’ sake. And it was the middle of the day. “Right. Not here.”
He smiled, a slow, sexy smile that showed off his dimples. Obviously he loved having her this disconcerted. She might have been annoyed with him, but she was too distracted by the heat pounding through her.
He levered himself off her and pulled his iPhone out of his back pocket. “Give me ten minutes to find a hotel nearby.”
She put a hand on his arm to get his attention and pointed at the nearby building. “You don’t have to look far. There’s a hotel right here.”
*
It took less than ten minutes for him to get a room. He had her wait in the car—thank goodness because she wasn’t sure she’d have been up to the embarrassment of getting a hotel room in the middle of the day. Within fifteen minutes, he was swiping the pass key and letting them into the room. He was kissing her before the door even shut behind them.
He spun her around, pulling off her clothes as he walked her backward toward the bed. His hands were greedy, desperate even. It seemed he couldn’t get her na**d quickly enough. He yanked back the covers. She kicked off her shoes just as he pulled her pants off her legs. Then he knelt in front of her, first rubbing his cheek against her bare belly, inhaling deeply, like he needed the very scent of her. Then he parted the curls, burying his face between her legs. Pleasure coursed through her body, making her legs wobble beneath her. Weak-kneed and trembling, she tumbled back onto the bed. He followed her, devouring her with greedy strokes of his tongue. Her cl**ax rushed through her, pushing her over the edge as she screamed out his name.
It took him mere seconds to strip completely and then he was on top of her. He plunged right into her, moaning her name, raining kisses on her skin. His intensity overwhelmed her. His desperation thrilled her.
He made love to her like he never had before. Every other time they’d been together, Griffin clung tightly to his control until the last second. He was a master at driving her to distraction while remaining in control. It made him an incredible lover, but she always felt at a disadvantage.
But not this time. This time, he couldn’t get enough of her. He couldn’t control himself.
Pounding into her over and over, he cried out her name, burying his face in her neck. His need was palpable. He didn’t just want her. This was more than mere desire. He needed her. Desperately. And that thought alone sent her tumbling over the edge again as he thrust into her one last time.
Even as she was crying out, she was also crying. Tears streaming down her face because at last she understood. She couldn’t have him. She couldn’t keep him. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he was her boss. It had nothing to do with work at all.
She needed him to need her. No one had ever needed her before. Not really. And she wanted that—no, needed that—more than she’d ever realized.
And that was precisely why she had to walk away.
He may need her now, but this was only temporary. Of course he needed her now. His life was in turmoil. Everything he knew or thought he knew had been overturned. She represented the last remnant of the life he’d lived before all this nonsense had started with the missing heiress. She was like a security blanket.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted him to need her. But now that she did know, now that she understood, she had to get out. Because even if he needed her now, he wouldn’t need her forever. But she…she would always need him. Because she loved him.
*
Only a few minutes later, Griffin rolled to the edge of the bed and sat there, elbows on his knees, head in his hands for several minutes without speaking. Finally, she wiggled up behind him and placed her hand on his back. He flinched away from her touch, stood and stalked over to where his jeans lay on the floor near the door and yanked them on.
“Griffin—” she began.
He looked at her. For one long moment, his expression was completely unreadable. He studied her with such intensity that she slowly sat up, crossing her legs and tucking the sheet up under her arms. “What?”
He crossed back to the bed, sat on the edge and cupped her face in his hands.
“Sydney, I’m so sorry.”
Disconcerted, she pulled back, smoothing down her tousled hair and tucking it behind her ear. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I promised you we wouldn’t sleep together while I was your boss and—”
“You didn’t really promise,” she hastened to correct him, trying to lighten his mood. “You scoffed at the idea and tried to control your laughter.”
“I knew this wasn’t what you wanted. I betrayed your trust.”
He looked guilt ridden. Tormented.
A few weeks ago she would have assumed this was all an act, but now she knew better. Now she knew that despite everything, despite his upbringing, despite the arrogance that was so much a part of him, despite his natural charm and easygoing nature, he was an astonishingly decent man. Maybe even the most decent man she knew.
She understood that now in a way that she could not possibly have understood a few weeks ago. Or even twenty-four hours ago.
It nearly broke her heart to think that—in the middle of all he was going through—he was worried about whether or not he’d betrayed her trust. With all he had on his plate right now, with the fate of a billion-dollar company resting on his shoulders, with his family life in turmoil and with his dreams of running Hope2O at risk, he was worried about her. Because that was how compassionate he was. It awed and amazed her. It humbled her.
Pulling the sheet with her, she climbed onto his lap, straddling him. She kept the sheet wrapped around her, so that the only thing separating them was luxuriant cotton. Thin though the barrier might be, she needed it because without it, if they were skin to skin, they would be too close. Pressed against his body, her words would get lost in the intimacy. It would be too easy for this to become about sex. Besides, she’d be too vulnerable.
Instead, she cupped his jaw in her palms and tilted his face so he met her gaze. Beneath the remorse in his eyes, there was the spark of heat. The passion that was always so close to the surface. The passion that had distracted her far too often from the man he really was.
“You didn’t betray my trust,” she said soothingly. “This was what I wanted. It was what we both needed.”
He studied her for a long minute before nodding slowly. His arms snaked around her, one behind her neck, the other cupping her buttocks. He pulled her closer, but rather than kissing her, he bumped his forehead against hers.
“I’m still sorry. I—”
“It’s okay.” But she could see that the regret in his gaze was still there. The lingering doubts. “I get it,” she reassured him. “You don’t want to be that guy. The pushy obnoxious guy who manipulates and controls people to get what he wants. I understand now why you don’t want to do that. It’s because you don’t want to be like your father. But trust me. You’re not that guy. You’re nothing like your father. You’re nothing like anyone in your family. I—”
“You’re wrong,” he said sharply. Then he stood abruptly, picking her up and turning around to deposit her on the bed before pacing over to the sliding door that overlooked the balcony. “I’m more like my father than you know. I have lied to you. I’ve misled you.”
Her heart seemed to catch in her chest. For a moment, she wondered if this had something to do with Hope2O, but he was so serious, so distraught, she couldn’t believe that it did. Then she forced out the word, “How?”
Instead of answering outright, he kept talking as if he hadn’t even heard her question. “All this mess in my family, this stupid quest our father has laid out, this complicated web my mother has woven, all of it could have been avoided if they would just tell the truth. If just one person in the family would stop lying about everything, would stop trying to manipulate and control the situation to get what they want. If either of them had been honest about anything, their marriage would have been different. I don’t want any part of their legacy of lies and deceit and one-upmanship.”
She climbed off the bed, wrapped the sheet around her body like a toga and crossed to stand right behind him. The view out the window overlooked the parking lot and the downtown cityscape. She wasn’t worried about anyone seeing her because during the day it would be nearly impossible to see into the hotel room from outside, even if there were buildings nearby.