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He was her boss …
A few orgasms—earth-shattering or not—were not worth playing Russian roulette with her whole life.
“If we’re going to be working together,” she said, “this thing between us has to end. No candlelit dinners, no late-night phone calls … No sex.”
In response, Griffin threw back his head and laughed.
She set her jaw stubbornly. “I’m not joking.”
He pulled her toward him so she was standing between his outstretched legs and took her lips in a soul-searing kiss. The kind that almost ended up with him ripping off her clothes and devouring her until she came apart in his arms.
He smiled. “Well then, you let me know how that goes for you.”
Dear Reader,
When I first envisioned Griffin Cain, he was no more than the charming second brother in the Cain family. Characters often start like that for me, very one-dimensional. Still, I knew that he would have to become the CEO of the company one day. My critique partner, the fabulous Robyn Dehart, told me early on that he needed a goal beyond wanting to escape the mantle of responsibility. Of course she was right. She usually is. So I decided that this charming, seemingly irresponsible man was secretly involved with an international aid organization, just the kind of thing his father would disapprove of.
Of course, then I had to decide which international aid organization to model his imaginary charity after. My good friend Tracy Wolff suggested Water.org, a charity with which Matt Damon is heavily involved. I did a little research (i.e., wasted hours and hours online). I’m tremendously impressed with Water.org. That’s what inspired me to create Hope2O for Griffin.
I hope that a few of you who read this letter will check out Water.org and find out what great work they do. I made a donation in honor of the book and think it would be pretty cool if others did, too. If you want to give, too, you can check out my website or theirs for more information.
As always, I hope you enjoy this book and love Griffin and Sydney like I do!
Emily McKay
About the Author
EMILY McKAY has been reading romance novels since she was eleven years old. Her first Mills & Boon® book came free in a box of Hefty garbage bags. She has been reading and loving romance novels ever since. She lives in Texas with her geeky husband, her two kids and too many pets. Her debut novel, Baby, Be Mine, was a RITA® Award finalist for Best First Book and Best Short Contemporary. She was also a 2009 RT Book Reviews Career Achievement nominee for Series Romance. To learn more, visit her website, www.EmilyMckay.com.
All He
Really Needs
Emily McKay
For the men and women involved with charitable
organizations around the world. They give their time,
their work and their money to improve the lives of
others. They are the real heroes.
One
Griffin Cain certainly knew how to make love to a woman.
This was not the first time that thought had flittered through Sydney Edward’s mind. Indeed, it wasn’t even the first time today she’d thought it. Oh, the things he did to her body—the decadent, sinful, exquisite things he did.
But that was Griffin all over. Decadent. Sinful. Exquisite.
And so completely, totally opposite from her. Even now—four months into their clandestine relationship—she could hardly believe the things he did to her. The things she let him do to her. No, to be fair, the things she begged him to do.
Begged. Her, Sydney Edwards.
The most staid, conservative, responsible person she knew. And she was putty in his hands. One of which was, even now, tracing enticing swirls across her naked hip.
“I should go,” she muttered, attempting to roll away from him.
“No.” The sound that emanated from Griffin’s throat was low and possessive, more of a growl than a word. His hand slipped over her hip to rest low on her belly as he pulled her back against him. “Not yet.”
“I’m already late for work.” But even she didn’t believe her protestations. Not when his fingers were slipping down into the curls between her legs. Not when her back was automatically arching so that the moist center of her desire tilted toward him.
“Then be late,” he grumbled, nipping at her shoulder with his teeth.
They had had sex twice last night and once already this morning. Normally, she didn’t stay over at his condo. So, normally, she was back at home, showered and de-Griffined, long before she had a chance to be late for work.
But Griffin had just returned from an overseas trip the night before. He’d had a different trip just prior to that one. In short, lately he’d been gone entirely too much for her taste.
Not that she needed him.
Not that she even really missed him.
It was just that … well, she craved his touch. Which was not at all the same thing as missing him.
Sydney knew that her relationship with Griffin was odd. Contrary to her very nature, even.
They spent very little time together outside of bed. In bed, he lavished her body with attention. So much so that she might have worried she’d become addicted to his touch—if she was the kind of person who allowed herself the weakness of having addictions.
Besides, she was twenty-seven. She was young and healthy. It would be unnatural for her not to be attracted to someone like Griffin. She wasn’t the least bit worried that she might become too attached. After all, this was Griffin Cain. Charming playboy. Office flirt. The heir to one-third of the Cain fortune. All in all, an unlikely match for her.
So she wasn’t worried that, last night, as soon as she’d gotten his text that he’d landed at Houston International Airport, she’d climbed out of bed and come straight to his downtown condo to meet him. And it had been late. So of course she’d bent her personal rule about staying over. No one wanted to drive home at three in the morning.
And she wasn’t even particularly worried about her inability to muster anxiety about being late to work.
Still, she tried to fool him, even if she couldn’t fool herself.
“It’s all well and good for you to be late to work. You’re Griffin Cain. Your family owns the company. People will forgive you anything.”
“And I just got in from Norway.”
“I thought it was Sweden.” As if it made a difference. He was always getting back from some exotic location or heading off to some other.
“Your boss isn’t even coming in today,” Griffin murmured.
His fingers found the nub of her desire, stroking her in a way that made her tremble and ache all over again.
The rational part of her brain lodged a vain protest. She should be stronger than this. She should have some shred of willpower where he was concerned. But she wasn’t and she didn’t.
Besides, once more wouldn’t hurt.
The heat of his erection stroked her moist folds. He was so close. All she had to do was rotate her hips and wiggle to accommodate him from behind. He’d take her fast and hard. One movement from her and they could both have what they needed.
She arched her back, ready to give herself over to her desire, but instead, he rolled her over onto her back. He pinned both her hands over her head with one hand and stroked her folds with the other, making her arch and moan.
“Open your eyes.” The gentle tone of his voice didn’t make it any less of a command.
She kept her eyes firmly closed, willing his fingers to move more quickly, to push her over the edge.
But he stilled. She knew he was teasing her until she gave him what he wanted. She rocked her hips, bumping against his hand and against the length of his erection. Digging her heels into the mattress, she pushed her hips up, wanting to drive him in.
“Open your eyes,” he said again, somehow touching her, teasing her, yet staying out of reach.
She gritted her teeth as she opened her eyes. She wanted to glare at him for forcing her hand, but sexual desire made her languid and weak. Her protestation came out as a groan of satisfaction.
Griffin leaned over her, his usually relaxed smile stretched into a grimace of restraint. He’d teased her, but it had cost him. He was torturing himself, too. It made her smile, that fierce expression—knowing how hard it was for him to restrain himself.
He muttered a curse and plunged into her. She met his every thrust, her gaze on his the whole time, until she felt his control shatter and his own eyes closed. Only then did she let her climax wash over her.
His body was hot and heavy on hers, but the sensation was not unpleasant. She was satisfied. Not just her body but her pride. She may need him, but he needed her just as badly.
He rolled off her and this time, when he pulled her against him, she didn’t resist. He was right. Her boss, Dalton Cain, wasn’t coming in today. He had had nothing on the schedule today anyway, no meetings to move around, no appointments to jostle. For once, her plate was blessedly bare. No one would miss her.
Even though she was late for work already, even though she still needed to shower and eat before heading in, she let herself fall asleep. Partly because she was exhausted and sated as she rarely had been and partly because her realization brought her a sort of peace.
Griffin should have been exhausted, but he wasn’t. Just as he should no longer have the energy to desire Sydney, but he did.
Despite his fatigue, Griffin couldn’t sleep. He was still on Norway time. Or was it Sweden? He’d traveled so much recently, he barely knew where he was or where he’d been.
So he did what he always did when he couldn’t sleep. He turned on the TV and poured himself a bowl of cereal. The marshmallows in his Lucky Charms were just starting to soften when the doorbell rang. For the life of him, he couldn’t guess who it might be.
He opened the door to see his brother, Dalton, standing in the hall. Dalton, who normally looked like he’d wandered straight out of a Brooks Brothers’ ad, was dressed in a slightly wrinkled shirt and jeans. Jeans, for Christ’s sake. Griffin hadn’t even been sure Dalton owned jeans. But there he was. And the poor guy looked worn-out. Like the past few days had beaten the crap out of him and left him in an alley somewhere.
Unsure how else to greet his brother, Griffin said, “Hey, you’re up early.”
Dalton’s gaze drifted from Griffin’s bare feet to the pajama bottoms he’d pulled on not five minutes ago before finally landing the cereal bowl on the table in front of the TV.
“I’m not up early,” Dalton said drily. “It’s nearly noon.”
Nearly noon. Crap, he really had kept Sydney here way longer than he should have.
At the thought of Sydney, Griffin’s gaze jerked to Dalton. Dalton was her boss. And—as far as they knew—Dalton didn’t know that his brother and his assistant were sleeping together. Griffin didn’t think that Dalton would mind, but hell, what did he know?
Feigning casual, Griffin leaned back to glance at the clock on the TV, then he scoffed. “It’s 11:05 a.m. That’s not nearly noon. And I just got back from the Middle East last night.” Or was it Norway? Or Sweden? Crap.
He could only hope that because he didn’t remember where he’d been, Dalton didn’t, either. Sweden—or Norway—first for a meeting with Bergen Petro and then down to Yemen for another meeting. No more than a day for each of those trips. Then he’d taken two personal days for a long weekend down to Rwanda. No one from Cain Enterprises knew about Rwanda, but for him it had been the most important part of the trip.
He was secretly involved with an international aid organization called Hope2O. He’d been in Rwanda on behalf of Hope2O working to set up a water district there.
He traveled all over the world for his job. Of course, no one at Cain Enterprises knew he worked with Hope2O. The Cains were allowed to donate to certain charitable organizations, but the family members rarely came into contact with actual poverty. That kind of dirty work was beneath them. To the Cains, compassion was weakness. He didn’t want anyone in the family—not even his brother—to know just how “weak” he was.
He walked back toward the sofa. “Hey, you want something to eat?”
“No, thank you.” Dalton shut the door and followed him in.
“You want some coffee?” Griffin asked.
“Yes. Please.”
Griffin headed for the coffeemaker. Though his condo boasted a gourmet kitchen, mostly it went unused. It was galley-style, open to the living room, outfitted in honed black granite and hickory cabinetry. His housekeeper kept it stocked with the essentials. Coffee, cereal, fresh milk, cold cuts and bread.
He punched a few buttons on his Saeco Espresso machine and let it work its magic. It made a single, perfect cup of coffee at a time, but it was damn slow.
Glancing out into the living room, he saw that Dalton had his elbows propped on his knees and his head in his hands. The guy looked whipped—which was something Griffin would never have thought possible.
Dalton had spent his entire life dancing to their father’s tune, and until today, Griffin would have sworn he was fine with it. Cooper was the opposite. He was Hollister’s illegitimate son. He had almost nothing to do with the family at all.
The closest he himself had come to bowing to Hollister’s will was accepting the job he currently held at Cain Enterprises. Because Cain Enterprises—a conglomerate of oil, land development and banking—operated mostly in the United States, there wasn’t a lot of international marketing to do. It was a cush job. One that Hollister had created solely to lure Griffin to work for him. Hollister liked having his sons firmly under his control. Griffin liked the fat paycheck and the international travel. And he’d never once envied Dalton his position as heir to the family business.
Dalton was the company leader, Cooper was the family outsider and Griffin was just the guy who met everyone’s lowest expectations. Until recently, everyone had been happy with that.
A little more than a week ago, Hollister—who was practically on his death bed—had called them all to his side. Apparently news of his impending demise had reached the outside world. Some lover he’d scorned long ago had sent him a nasty anonymous letter informing him that he had a daughter he’d never known. The woman who’d written the letter wanted him to die knowing he’d never find the girl.
A letter like that wasn’t something Hollister would take lying down. So, he’d issued a challenge: whichever of his sons found the missing heiress would inherit all of Hollister’s wealth. If no one found her, all his money and his share of Cain Enterprises would revert to the state.
Yeah, Griffin was pissed off that their father was trying to manipulate them all like this, but he wasn’t particularly worried. The way he saw it, Dalton was highly motivated to find the heiress. He had the most to lose.
If Dalton’s weary appearance now was any indication, the search for their long-lost sister was not going well.
As far as Griffin knew, Dalton had been working full-time the past week to try to find the heiress. That was why he’d texted Sydney that he wouldn’t be coming in today.
Ah, crap.
For the first time since Dalton showed up on his doorstep, Griffin considered how Sydney would react if she realized her boss was there. Though they’d been together for four months now, she’d insisted they keep their relationship a secret.
Especially from Dalton.
And here he was about to serve Dalton coffee. As if the machine could read his mind and make coffee, it emitted a series of seductive beeps to indicate Dalton’s drink was ready.
Griffin came out of the kitchen and set a mug on the table in front of Dalton. “So,” he said, clapping his hands together to hide his nerves. “What brings big brother D to my humble abode in the middle of the day?”
Jesus. Big brother D? Why had he said that? He sounded like a jerk. Thankfully, Dalton didn’t seem to notice.
Dalton reached for the coffee. “I think the real question is why you’re not at work in the middle of the day.”
“Hey, jet lag’s a bitch.” Suddenly it occurred to him that as long as Sydney didn’t come out of the bedroom, he had no reason to be nervous. It wasn’t as if Dalton would wander in there on his own. Griffin purposefully stretched his mouth into a salacious grin, just to make sure Dalton knew he wouldn’t be welcomed into the condo’s private quarters.
As if on cue the shower cranked on in the other room.
“Oh,” Dalton said, finally putting together what should have been perfectly obvious.
Griffin glanced at the bedroom door and then back at Dalton. This was the moment of truth.
Sydney took quick, efficient showers. She was efficient about everything except sex. Five minutes max. Another two to dress. Which meant in seven minutes or less, she’d wander out of his bedroom with damp hair, dressed in clothes that had spent the night crumpled on the floor.
Then, one of two things would happen. Dalton would be cool with it, and Sydney would realize their being together just wasn’t that big a deal. Or she would freak. And that would mean the end of their relationship. No more enthusiastic welcomes home. No more warm body beside him in bed. No more mindblowing sex. He wasn’t willing to give up any of those things.
When he noticed Dalton looking at him, he forced a smile. “Give me a second, will you?”
Dalton nodded. “Take your time.”
Griffin crossed the bedroom, made a quick detour through the closet to change clothes and grabbed his keys before heading for the bathroom. Sydney had the hot water cranked all the way up, and steam churned out of the glass-brick shower. The wavy glass distorted the killer curves she normally kept hidden beneath conservative clothes. She wasn’t the kind of woman who showed off her body, but she didn’t seem to mind being naked, either. He loved watching her shower. Unfortunately, this time it couldn’t end with them going back to bed.
Still he couldn’t resist propping his shoulder against the doorway of the walk-in shower and enjoying the open sensuality of her movements and the heavy, relaxed, deep breaths she took as she scraped her nails over her scalp. She gave her hair a final rinse and turned off the faucet, reaching for a towel.
As she dabbed the towel over her face, she realized he was watching, and her lips tipped upward in a smile. “Stop it. You know I have to get to work.”
“I know.”
She wrapped the towel around her chest, tucking the corner in to secure it, and then grabbed a second towel off the rack before edging past him into the bathroom proper.
Even though her smile was relaxed and her words teasing, there was something guarded in her expression. But maybe that was to be expected. She’d made it clear when they first got involved that this was a just-sex kind of relationship. Nothing more. Which was perfect because he was a nothing-more kinda guy.
Still, leaving before his girl even got out of the shower was a little harsh, even for a nothing-more kinda guy.
She bent over at the waist to wrap her shoulder-length auburn hair into one of those turban things only women seemed to be able to manage, then straightened, frowning. “What’s up?”
He fished a house key out of his pocket and set it on the bathroom counter beside the contact case and tiny toiletry bag she carried in her purse. “I have to head out. Lock up when you leave?”
Her frown deepened. “Wait. I don’t want … I mean, why …”
He didn’t give her more time to protest but gave her a quick peck on the lips. “Don’t worry. You can give it back to me the next time you see me. Stay as long as you want. There are muffins or you can find something in fridge. Marcella always leaves stuff like that.”
“But …” she tried to protest again.
He pretended to misunderstand. There was no point in her getting upset before he knew what Dalton wanted. “Text me later tonight and let me know what your plans are.”
She caught up with him just shy of the bedroom door and stopped him with a hand to the arm and an unwavering stare. “What’s going on?”
Her stare did him in. Something about her warm brown eyes made it impossible for him to lie to her. “Dalton stopped by. We’re going to lunch.”
“Dalton? Dalton, my boss?”
He grinned, partly hoping to disarm her and partly because her shock was amusing. “You know any other Daltons?”
“Do you think he’s here because he knows about us?”
“No,” he said, perfectly honestly. “I think he’s here because he’s up to his neck in this crap our dad has dumped on him. He may be your boss, but he’s also my brother.” He dropped another kiss on her mouth. “Don’t worry, he’ll never know you were here. I’ll take care of it.”
Then, because he just couldn’t resist, he gave her ass a squeeze beneath the towel before leaving the room. She had a great ass. He only hoped that Dalton showing up today hadn’t spooked her so badly he never saw it again.
She was going to kill Griffin. What the hell did he mean, he’d take care of it? Was he going to take care of it like he took care of that pothos ivy that had been slowly dying in his living room? Or like he took care of … Well, crap, she couldn’t even be properly indignant because she couldn’t very well rant against his lax attitude toward taking care of things because as far as she knew, he had absolutely no responsibilities in life other than keeping that damn potted plant alive. And he appeared to be failing at that.
For several stunned minutes, Sydney stood there beside the door, listening to the murmur of voices from the other side. She could distinguish none of the words and barely registered the tone. But she tried because somehow it seemed deathly important that she hear every nuance of their conversation.
Which was ridiculous because this probably had nothing to do with her. Dalton had a lot on his plate right now. She knew that better than anyone. She was one of the few people with whom Dalton could even discuss the missing heiress. For the previous week, he’d asked her to hand her normal workload off to someone else on the support staff so that she could devote her time to doing legwork in the search.
She and Griffin had never discussed the missing heiress, but it made perfect sense he’d be worried about it. His livelihood was also at stake. The entire company was at risk. Her job, too, now that she thought about it.
So of course Dalton would need to talk to Griffin. That made perfect sense. Totally, completely logical.
Still, she kept her ear pressed to the door until she heard Dalton and Griffin leaving the apartment. After that, she dressed quickly, barely giving herself time to towel dry her hair and apply a quick, but necessary, coat of mascara before grabbing her purse on her way out. But she stopped short with her hand on the front door of Griffin’s apartment.
Crap. The key.
Going back to the bathroom her steps were slower. The key to Griffin’s condo sat on the marble countertop, the brass gleaming against the black-veined white marble. She stared at it for a long minute.
“Ugh. Stop being such a wimp. It’s just a key.”
She grabbed it and stalked to the front door, carefully locking the door before dropping the key into the change pocket of her wallet as she walked down the hall to the elevator. She pointedly did not put it on her key chain. It wasn’t that kind of key. She and Griffin didn’t have that kind of relationship.
No, they had a very casual, sex-only kind of thing. A no-key-exchange kind of relationship.
She punched the down button with a tad more force than was necessary. She was just being responsible. Like when they’d first started sleeping together and he’d presented her with the test results of his most recent physical, proof that he was drug and disease free. At first, she felt weird about it. Like it was wrong having that kind of information about someone she barely knew—even someone she was sleeping with. Sure, the information was nominally about sex. But there was other information in there, too. She now knew his cholesterol number and that his last tetanus shot was in 2010—from the time he’d gotten snagged with a hook while deep-sea fishing, she’d later learned.
But she hadn’t wanted to know about the tetanus shot any more than she’d wanted to know the origin of the tiny scar on the side of his neck. Any more than she’d wanted a key to his apartment.
Which was why, when she got out to her car, she sat there for several minutes, sucking in deep, panic-reducing breaths.
What was she doing?
When was she going to stop fooling herself?
Sex with Griffin was a bad idea. Very bad.
When they’d first started sleeping together, it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea. It hadn’t even seemed like an idea. More like … an accident. Like when she’d accidently adopted her cat, Grommet. She’d come home to find the poor, malnourished kitten huddled on her front porch to stay out of the rain. She couldn’t just leave the pathetic tabby there, so she brought him inside. But he was wormy and sick and even had to have part of his tail amputated. The vet had recommended putting him down instead of taking him to the shelter. A thousand dollars plus weekly allergy shots later and she was the proud owner of the ugliest cat on earth.
Sleeping with Griffin was kind of like that.
Except not at all. Because Griffin wasn’t pathetic and he wasn’t tame and she most definitely was not allergic to him.
But when it came to adopting Grommet, she hadn’t meant to keep him. It was supposed to be just for one night. That’s what she’d told herself about Griffin, too.
Last summer, in the middle of a record heat wave, fresh on the heels of an awful breakup with her fiancé, Brady, she’d slept with Griffin.
It was Brady’s fault, really. Nine months before their wedding—a date it had taken him two years to agree upon—he’d reconnected with his high school girlfriend on Facebook. He’d apologized profusely for breaking up with Sydney. But how could she feel anything past the burning indignation of finding out the guy she’d been with for six years was in love with another woman? So much in love that he quit his job and moved halfway across the country to be with her, when he hadn’t even wanted to sell his condo to move into Sydney’s house once they were engaged.
She’d wanted to punch him. It was the first and last time in her twenty-seven years of life that she wanted to do physical violence to another human being.
Instead, she’d calmly emptied the single drawer he’d allotted her in his condo and done the same for the few items he kept at her house. The whole exchange had required only two empty cardboard boxes. She hadn’t even had to take a day off work. And she’d told herself she was fine. Fine.
She’d continued being fine right up until the point she’d stumbled onto a Facebook post about Brady’s wedding through a mutual friend. Then, all of a sudden, she hadn’t been fine anymore. Less than thirty-six hours after Brady married another woman, she did the unthinkable. When she’d run into Griffin Cain in the coffee shop half a block from Cain Enterprises, she’d typed her number into his cell phone. Yes, he’d been flirting with her since she’d hired on at Cain Enterprises. He flirted with everyone. She’d never dreamed she’d be one of his conquests.
Griffin was handsome and charming. With his shaggy, dark-blond hair and ocean blue eyes, he looked better suited to professional surfing than international business. His crooked smile and sexy dimples had all the women in the office swooning.
Still, she’d been sure she’d be able to resist him, despite all the times he wandered into Dalton’s office and propped his hip on the corner of her desk to flirt with her while he waited for Dalton to come to or from some meeting. Despite the way he’d occasionally bring her gourmet coffee and drop it off at her desk with a salacious wink as he headed for Dalton’s office. Despite all that, she knew she could resist him because she knew he treated all the women in the office that way.
And she hated that kind of crap. And she hated people who coasted by on their good looks almost as much as she hated people who got by on their family name. Griffin was the triple-whammy of things she despised in the business world.
Of all the men she knew, he was the guy she was least likely to get romantically involved with. Which was precisely what made him appealing to her after Brady dumped her. She’d been emotionally bruised and battered. When she ran into him that morning at the coffee shop, when he turned on that classic Griffin Cain charm, she did the unthinkable. She decided to sow her own wild oats.
She hadn’t really believed she had any wild oats in her. They certainly had never floated to the surface of her psyche before. But Griffin had somehow gotten the damn things to sprout.
The one night she’d planned on allowing herself with Griffin had turned into a weekend. And then into a month. And then into four.
The brief sexual encounter was no longer brief. She’d managed to keep it purely sexual, but it was no longer uncomplicated. A mere call from him had her leaving her house in the middle of the night for a rendezvous. She’d stayed over at his place. Showered in his shower. Missed a morning of work. And now she had a key to his frickin’ condo.
It was time to stop fooling herself. She wasn’t just having sex with Griffin. She was acting like an addict. And it was time to go cold turkey.
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