All He Really Needs(54)
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 naked 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 climax 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?”