“Ooh, Mommy’s coming. I’ll call you back.”
“All right, sweetheart. Now don’t get caught trying to sneak the phone back into her purse.”
“Of course not! I’m the Artful Dodger! Bye,” she whispered, and the call ended.
Still laughing with Sarah’s happy voice echoing in his head, Griffin tucked the cell back in his pants pocket. And sighed.
Dragging a hand over his head, he turned and headed back into the building behind him.
He had some negotiating to do.
5
Hayden slammed her car door shut, taking a petty satisfaction in the loud bang. Since she couldn’t yell, cuss and kick something—or somebody—slamming her door would have to suffice. For now. The morning was still young.
Especially since for the next two weeks she would be the personal assistant to one Griffin Sutherland.
Oh yes, a lot of slamming doors and cursing was in her immediate future.
Hiking her bag strap over her shoulder, she inhaled and stared at the townhome with the detached garage before her. Beautiful. But set in the exclusive and moneyed Memorial area of Houston, its attractiveness wasn’t surprising. Brick and two stories with a perfectly manicured, small lawn. Except for the cheerful chirping of birds, the serene setting was quiet, homey even.
How would the good people of this neighborhood react if they knew the devil had moved into their midst?
Grumbling under her breath, she stomped—hard to do in four inch stilettos, but still doable—up the sidewalk leading to the front door that was tucked into a corner of the house, an overhang providing shade from the broiling Texas sun. She knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again. Waited some more.
“Are you kidding me?” she muttered, lifting her fist to pound on the wood. Again. “This is ridiculous…”
The door swung open.
“Really, Sunshine. It’s barely nine o’clock in the morning. Much too early to be frowning.” Griffin arched an eyebrow. “Especially before coffee.” He pivoted and disappeared inside the house.
She tried to utter a comeback. It sat right on the tip of her tongue. Unfortunately, said tongue was currently glued to the roof of her mouth thanks to the miles and miles of golden, taut skin that had filled her vision seconds ago.
God, he was sobig.
Fuck milk.
These past five years had done a body good.
Her first assumption when she’d seen him in that Florida bar had been right. The kind of strength and muscles he sported weren’t earned by countless hours in a gym. No, his hard, sculpted body was probably the product of labor, of time in the sun sweating next to his men. Not one pale line striped his body. Every inch of his chest, shoulders, arms and back were like molten gold. The breath stalled than stuttered in her lungs.
He was beautiful.
Before he’d left, she’d always compared him to a god, one of the regal and impossibly gorgeous Greek Parthenon she’d loved to read about. Now he was…more. So much more. Powerful. Intimidating even. A flutter tickled her belly, arrowing in a sinuous glide south until that same whisper of sensation teased her sex. Hell, it’d been so long since she’d felt a tickle, flutter or tease down there. Why did it have to be this man who had to remind her that her pussy still worked?
Move. She glanced down at her feet, glaring at the peep toes of her nude shoes.Move, damn it.Good Lord, if he turned around and caught her ogling him like a damn peeper… Mortified wouldn’t begin to describe the shame. The humiliation. She was over him. Didn’t want him. Her pussy might’ve picked this moment to exhibit signs of life, but that was biology. Like a dieting woman catching sight of red velvet cake. But like that Weight Watchers devotee, she could decide to say no.
And insist he put on a damn shirt.
Forcing herself forward, she entered the home, and shutting the door behind her, pretended like she hadn’t just trapped herself in the lion’s den wearing Lady Gaga’s meat bikini. A very nice den. High ceilings, flawless wood floors, an open, airy floor plan, floor-to-ceiling windows that granted a view of the woodsy area in the back, and a curving staircase that led to an upper level. She thought of her perfectly lovely two bedroom, one bath condo and smothered the sting of apartment-envy.
“Coffee?” Griffin asked from the spacious kitchen with its multitude of pale wood cabinets, a stove that would make Chef Emeril weep in thanksgiving and a huge, freestanding, butcher block island.
“No, thank you.”
He shrugged, the muscles under his skin doing a sensual flex and shift. When he turned, she tried to drag her gaze from him. Really tried. But like the man embodied some kind of magnetic pull, she stared at the wide expanse of his shoulders, down the shallow indent of his spine to the narrow span of his waist. And lower. Positively indecent the way the pair of black sweatpants clung to his hips. Even more so because she remembered clearly what the cotton hid.
Hard flesh perfect for digging her fingernails—or heels—into. And she’d done both. She’d also clutched those shoulders, clawed his back, and in the quiet, in the peace after the carnal storm, she’d rested her head on that chest.
