All He Really Needs

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.