Three Rivers (29 page)

Before he could bite back the words Griffen said, "You are so soft Althea...all over. God, you're perfect for me," he mumbled against her neck.

She was still quivering in his arms, leaning her head back against him and she asked, "What did you say? Sorry, I was in outer space there for a second," she giggled.

Griffen's heart squeezed again. "Nothing, I just said that I can't get enough of your amazing body."

"Mmm, I like the sound of that," she whispered.

Every ounce of him wanted to keep her with him, to persuade her to consider opening up to him for real. Frustrated by her response and afraid such words would scare her off for good, he swallowed the sentiment and buried his face into her wet neck, water spraying against his back as he breathed deeply with emotion. "I hate leaving you today," he said huskily.

She turned around in his arms and wrapped hers around his neck, reaching up to give him a deep kiss. He gripped her hair in his hands, trying to express his emotion with his lips and tongue, nibbling her lower lip until she groaned against him.

"I'll miss you today, Griffen, but don't worry, I love this area. I think I'll make the most of my day off and treat myself to a shopping spree."

"Oh really?" Griffen cleared his throat and tried to school his face so he didn't upset her with his emotional turmoil. "And what are you going to buy while I'm out having to suffer through a meeting with my asshole publisher?"

"I'm not telling, but I promise you'll like it."

"That sounds sexy...I'll cancel my meeting. I need to come with you."

"Oh no, it's a surprise. Go have your meeting. I'll see you back here later stud. With surprises."

"Okay," he answered.

Althea rubbed her wet body against his erection, smiling as she looked up into his eyes. "Maybe we can go back to bed and I'll take care of this for you? Come on."

Griffen turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He couldn't understand why nothing seemed to be enough for him with this woman. For now, he would settle for simply burying himself inside of her again.

Griffen's first stop was a meeting with his publisher and his agent. He strode in and took in the conference room and its two suit wearing occupants. These guys gave him hives, but it was worth it to get to share the news that inspiration had finally struck again.

"Griffen! Come in," Stuart Anderson, his longtime agent and sometime friend said boisterously. "We were just talking about how excited the world will be about a new Cade Jackson novel."

He walked in and took a seat. "Nope. This one's not Cade Jackson. It's a whole new character." Their well-fed faces fell morosely as though someone had stolen their brand new puppy.

"Not Cade Jackson? Now, Griffen..." James Masters, his publisher, grumbled out as his agent became visibly agitated.

"Calm yourselves. Wouldn't want either of you guys to have a heart attack. I've got another Cade novel in mind and it will be a good one. But this one, the book I'm writing now...this one's going to actually be great. It's still an action-adventure, but it has a lot more heart." He laid out the whole story — the hero's childhood friend, his death and the mystery surrounding it, including the possibility that the apparent perfect half of this duo may have committed an act of treason by stealing military technology.

They looked at him silently with dollar signs and critical acclaim flashing in their eyes, until James finally blurted. "Who's the villain? Who stole the military secrets?"

"Don't know. I guess you'll have to read it to find out."

"Is this based on true events like your Cade books?" James asked.

Griffen hesitated.

"Of course it is! All his books are," Stuart exclaimed as Griffen kept his face neutral.

"Is there a woman?"

"I hope so," he answered softly. He imagined Althea naked before him and his heart sped up at the thought of extending their story together.

The men gave him confused looks but perked up when he added, "I'm still in the early stages, but I've written a few chapters. You'll find the plot summary, outline and what I've written so far in your inboxes. See you later gentlemen."

He walked out hearing their frenzied excitement.

"Talk about crossover appeal. Women will finally buy one of his books."

"We can make this a hit."

"It's like Cade Jackson, but with a heart!"

Heart, huh? How about that
? Griffen thought.

Trey greeted Griffen at the door of his Brooklyn brownstone, barefoot in nothing but a pair of jeans. He was jacked, with tattoos across his chest and arms,

"Hey Griffen. Come in, man."

"Cover up, dude. Jesus, you know I don't want to look at all that shit in your chest," Griffen said with a wince, referring to Trey's pierced nipples that were on display. "Couldn't you be bothered to put on a shirt before I got here?"

"Sorry man, I was, uh, pretty occupied this morning," he said, rubbing the back of his neck and smirking. He snatched a T-shirt off the couch and pulled it over his head.

As they walked into Trey's main room, a stunning blonde walked out of a back room in a sophisticated black sheath dress and just-fucked hair. She crossed the room to Trey, kissing him with copious tongue and slipping a piece of paper into his back pocket.

"Call me," she said with a husky voice. Trey smacked her ass and she giggled as she scurried out.

Trey sat down in front of a huge desk with multiple computer monitors and equipment Griffen didn't even recognize, when a hot redhead emerged from the same back room. She kissed Trey, stopping to tweak his nipple rings through his T-shirt and slipped a piece of paper in front of him with a smile before whispering something in his ear that caused him to kiss her again and squeeze her ass.

"Not right now, I have to take care of some business, but thanks for a great night, Monique."

She looked royally pissed before grabbing the paper back up and saying loudly, "It's Monica,
asshole
." And with that she stormed out.

"Got any more back there? A brunette perhaps?" Griffen said with a raised eyebrow, hoping the show was over.

"
What can I say man? Chicks dig a nerd with muscles."

"A
rich
nerd with muscles," Griffen added.

"Yeah, that helps, too," he said with a lascivious smile.
"And good thing, because I like variety."

"Yeah, that was some variety that headed out of here."

"You know me, I take all comers. The blonde was a stockbroker from Wall Street. She wanted to enjoy a taste of the wild side and I wanted to expand my portfolio. I got some stock tips out of her, too," he added with a wink.

"And the redhead?"

"Monique?"

"
Monica
," Griffen corrected and Trey simply smirked at him.

"Yeah, right. She was just smokin' hot and they didn't make me choose," he grinned.

"Good for you, man. I hope you found some time between all your diverse pussy to work on my project for a minute."

"Hell yeah."

"So, where are we at now?"

"I've been decrypting piece by piece. There's only a couple folders left for me to get into. The most heavily encrypted are the ones before the day he, uh..."

"Died," Griffen said over a scratchy throat.

"Yeah, died, right, sorry bro." Griffen just grunted and nodded toward the computer screen. "I'm actually having some luck with the next set of documents. I just cracked into them last night. I was going to email them to you."

"What are they? Why the delay?"

"I wanted to look at them a little more, uh..."

"Bullshit, why are you stalling? Just spill it, Trey. Christ."

"Shit, all right man, I just wanted to be sure before I dropped this bomb on you dude. First one is a spreadsheet."

"And..."

"Jack prepared it, a few days before he died. It lists amounts of money and bank account numbers."

"Like he was tracking payments?"

"Or recording receipt of payments."

"Fuck. Can you try to trace these account numbers?"

"Are you asking me to use my computer to infiltrate bank records? For shame."

Griffen raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'll see what I can do." Trey turned back to his monitors. "Then there's this one here, designs for something seriously badass. Look." Trey pulled the image onto a huge screen in front of them.

"Holy shit, that's specs for some kind of iron man suit."

"Right. This would fall in the serious military shit category. Whatever this is, it's intense. I'm not into robotics, but I'm enough of an engineer to know that. There's a lot of these for different designs. Looks like a breakdown of how they're made, too. Was Jack working on this project?"

"Not that I can figure. According to his widow, he didn't do the military stuff."

Drew whistled slowly. "His widow, huh? She hot?"

Griffen's muscles twitched. "We are not going to talk about Althea, all right?"

"Oh, yeah. Sounds like she's definitely hot. Interesting. Well, what
did
he work on then?"

"He was working on 3D mapping when he died."

"That is definitely not this. Can you talk to anyone in his department to confirm Althea is right? Maybe find out more about him?"

"Yeah. I can do that soon."

"Good, because if he wasn't doing this serious military shit then that means he was accessing this info for another reason."

"Right. Look, I've got to go pick something up. Let me know what else you find out and about those bank accounts."

Griffen chewed on this new unpleasant information as he sat in the back of the cab. Just the mere idea that Jack could've been stealing this information for personal gain made him sick. It was so unlike him. No one was more clean-cut and honest than Jack.

Griffen took a deep breath. He had one more stop to make before he could get back to Althea, where his day would hopefully look up again.

Althea readjusted herself on Griffen's sofa. One arm was behind her head and her stocking-covered legs were stretched out before her.

She'd spent the day exploring lingerie shops and sex toy stores (from tasteful to ridiculous), stopping occasionally to treat herself to a bite to eat or a cocktail, and she had the pink and black shopping bags to prove it. The outfit she'd chosen to wear to greet Griffen was an elaborate lace and feather getup from
Agent Provocateur
that had cost her a pretty penny. It featured smooth elastic straps that wrapped around her curves in a way that evoked silk ropes and was so involved she'd had to ask the salesgirl to draw her a diagram of how to tie herself into it when she returned to his apartment. The whole experience had felt completely decadent and she'd loved it.

He was supposed to be home any minute, so she planned to be waiting for him, complete with overdone sexy hair and makeup. They didn't have many more nights together and none where they would have as much total privacy as this one. There was no way she wasn't going to make the most of it. Fortunately, right when she was starting to feel awkward, Althea heard a key turning in the lock.

"Althea, I'm back, I thought we could go out and get that Gray’s Papaya’s hot dog you..." He turned, saw her and dropped his keys along with his jaw. Just the response she was going for.