“What did you slip into your pocket, Martina?”Martina.That had me standing a little straighter.
“That’s none of your business.” I had no idea why I felt the need to goad him, but it was like I couldn’t stop. Like being around Griffin brought out this bratty side that needed to be put in her place by her daddy.
Daddy.There was that damn word again.
“Show me,” he ordered, and that’s when I noticed it. The serious edge to his voice. The firm grip he had on the table’s edge behind him.
“Wait, are you serious right now?”
“Dead-ass serious,” he muttered. “I had a member say something was stolen.”
“Excuse me?” My hands fell to my sides as I tried to process what he was trying to insinuate.
“Did you take something you shouldn’t have, little girl?” I swallowed. Hard.Did you take something you shouldn’t have, little girl?The roughness in his voice made my skin break out into goose bumps while his words ping-ponged in my head.
Griffin pushed his body off the table and slowly started to walk and didn’t stop until he stopped right in front of me. I wasn’t caged by his body exactly, but it felt like my feetwere nailed to the ground as his scent assaulted all my senses. Filled my lungs to the brim and made my head swim with unadulterated lust. If that wasn’t enough to make my panties combust, his body heat radiated off him in waves. Hot and calming.
“What’s in your pocket, spitfire?”
“Nothing.” My voice sounded breathy in my own ears.Why didn’t I just tell him it’s Mary’s necklace?
“Nothing, huh? I saw you pick something up and slip into your pocket.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Hmm…weird. A member, a very exclusive private member, lost something in here. That’s the call I had to take.”
“And? You think I took it?” His hand rose between us, and without hesitation, the tips of his fingers tucked a stray hair behind my ear. All without actually touching my skin. Heat washed through me as my thighs started to tremble.
“Do you know what happens to bad girls who take things that don’t belong to them?” Oh shit. My chest rose and fell. Heavier. Quicker. “Are you a good girl or a naughty one, Marty?”
“Griffin—“
“Uh-uh, spitfire. That’s not what you called me three nights ago, baby girl.” My breaths shallowed, and the room started to spin.Daddy.Was he asking me to call him Daddy?!
I couldn’t read him.
I wasn’t sure if he was messing with me or actually about to threaten my job.
Shit.
9GRIFFIN
Iwas playing with fire, and I had a feeling the two of us were going to end up in flames. But what a fucking way to go?
When I’d walked into the empty club and saw her there, I hadn’t been able to look away. Fuck, she was pretty. Mine,my heart and brain had both shouted, and fuck me, I’d been just about to call out her name when I watched her bend down and pick something up off the floor before quickly slipping it into her pocket.
That dark side of me, the pessimistic side, who couldn’t let me have her, spoke up. He’d been ominously quiet all fucking day when I’d been around her. My heart was yelling at me to say something, and my brain fucking got me tongue tied until I’d somehow found a way to put my foot back in my mouth around her.
But that dark fucked-up side knew the moment I’d watched her slip something into her pocket, that this was my chance.
My one and only opportunity to fire her and never see her again.
I swallowed.Never see her again.Never feel this thing inside of me that she’d awakened that made me feel more alive than I’dever felt in my entire life. Never feel like I could actually breathe the way I did when I was around her.
Now her breathing was off, her eyes dilated as she stared up at me. Everything inside my body, every fucking molecule that made me whole, was aching to touch her. To pull her into my arms and brush my lips against hers.
But I couldn’t.
