Bad Boys In Black Tie

by Erin McCarthy; Morgan Leigh Lori Foster

  It almost made him regret he’d never joined the private sector.

  Truthfully, he found the whole thing borderline disgusting. He liked to have as much fun as the next guy, but this was over the top for a business function.

  “Yeah, White’s watching, looking a little put out, in fact,” Brandy murmured.

  Wyatt glanced over at CJ and winced. He should have felt that cool breeze of disdain blowing over him, even muffled by Brandy’s breasts. White was ripping linen off a table, her ponytail bouncing, her mouth set into a scowl. He knew that scowl well, was subjected to it on a daily basis.

  CJ’d had it out for him since the minute they were assigned to a case together nine months ago and her attitude had never wavered.

  Which had to be the only reason he felt this bizarre attraction to her. It was annoyance that she was immune to him. That she was the first woman that he could ever remember who blatantly didn’t like him, and made no pretense of the fact that she thought he was an unpaid gigolo. It was obviously all just a blow to the ego, which fueled his interest. There couldn’t be anything else to it.

  The desire for CJ certainly didn’t spring from her looks. He’d seen five-year-olds with a better sense of style. Her clothes were all about two sizes too big, and she walked around in shoes that could be worn in military combat. As for breasts, it was anybody’s guess if she actually had them.

  “CJ always looks put out,” he told Brandy, flashing her a grin. “She’s uptight. Unlike me.”

  Brandy caught his change of tone. She raised an eyebrow and he once again appreciated the picture she made in a red-hot evening dress, blond hair piled up high, legs long and toned, painted toenails. The kind of woman he enjoyed.

  He went for it, giving her hand a caress. “So, how about we do this date for real tomorrow night?”

  Brandy gave a laugh. “I don’t think CJ would appreciate me trespassing on her property.”

  That stunned him into stopping all pretense of dancing. He gaped at Brandy. “I’m not White’s property. I’m White’s nothing.” Less than nothing. He was the sludge in the sink pipes, according to White.

  “Well, you could be if you wanted to.” Brandy tugged his hand, forcing him to start swaying back and forth again. “Trust me, I know when a woman is jealous, and if looks could kill, you’d be digging me a hole right now.”

  Jealous? CJ was jealous of Brandy? The idea took hold for a split second, maybe because it appealed to him, and then he dismissed it. Hell, the idea was ridiculous. White was probably just pissed that she got stuck slinging plates of half-eaten cheesecake while he was playing the partygoer.

  He’d spent nine months trying to figure CJ White out. He certainly wasn’t going to get any closer to the truth about her tonight.

  “Let’s head for the hall, Brandy.”

  “Got it.”

  Wyatt turned and caught CJ’s eye. He gave a slight nod and waited until she nodded back.

  Then he made a big show of stumbling, grabbing Brandy perilously close to her breast and saying loudly, “Let me show you my office, baby. I’ve got a really big ... desk.”

  Time to go to work and forget all about CJ White and his desire to peel off those baggy-ass clothes and discover what she was hiding under there. And then show her his big desk.

  Half an hour later, he was done, having poked around in some computer files in his office, Brandy standing just inside the door, ready to cover for him if anyone walked in. It had gone smoothly, but he hadn’t found anything of value. Nordstrom was going to be pissed, and that vein in his head would throb in a way that always freaked Wyatt out.

  Couldn’t be helped. There was nothing he could detect in the computer files to help their case when he did a quick visual search, though he had managed to bug his phone in hopes of taping a revealing phone conversation. A minor success, nothing more.

  The minute they stepped into the hall, he sensed a problem. Several women were huddled together, laughing in a drunken giggle, hanging on to the wall like they were on the people mover at O’Hare and needed the wall for balance.

  He pulled Brandy to his side, hoping they wouldn’t attract any attention, but the women glanced up. And the redhead with cleavage he could drive a truck through shouted, “Brandy? Brandy Dempsey? Ohmigod!”

  Brandy cursed under her breath and murmured, “Sorority sister.” Then to the redhead, “Hi, Patti!”

  “What are you doing here?” Patti wobbled over, her voice carrying the length of a football field, making Wyatt wince and look around nervously.

  The alcohol had clearly dulled her sense of hearing as she continued to blurt out with volume that rivaled a rock concert, “Aren’t you an FBI agent? I heard that, and I thought—no shit! Brandy’s a fucking fed—unbelievable!”

  Hell. Wyatt thought fast, well aware of how dangerous it could be to the case for anyone to know who he or Brandy was. A little desperate, he reached out and touched Patti’s arm.

  He said, “Brandy, aren’t you going to introduce me to your gorgeous friend?”

  Patti swiveled her head, and her delight turned to calculating interest. “Oh, well, hello.”

  “I’m Wyatt.” He lifted her hand and kissed it softly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” Patti flipped her hair over her shoulder with her free hand. As drunk as she was, the movement challenged her balance. She pitched forward and Wyatt caught her by the arms.

  “Oh!” In a flash, she was pressed up against him, her thigh pursuing his with predatory accuracy. “Thanks.”

  Damn. How he got himself into predicaments like this was anybody’s guess. Wyatt smiled at Patti, the sorority lush, and nudged Brandy with his foot.

  She got the hint. “You know, Patti, God, it’s good to see you, but I really have to go to the restroom. Can I leave you with Wyatt for a minute?”

  “Absolutely,” Patti purred, her voice dropping an entire octave.

  It was for the good of the case, he reminded himself, trying not to inhale Patti’s forty-proof breath, worried he might get drunk from secondhand fumes. With Brandy gone, and Patti distracted, they wouldn’t have to be concerned about her screeching out words like “FBI” and “fed” and blowing their cover. Being mauled by a drunk tart was a small price to pay, and hey, he was a team player. If she weren’t plastered he might actually enjoy it.

  What he didn’t count on was the hecklers.

  “Whoo-hoo, Patti—you go, girl.”

  “Now you’ve got him, what are you going to do with him?”

  “Next drink is on me if you kiss him.”

  The women had gone wild, whistling, hooting, and egging Patti on. His back was against the wall, literally, and he was trying to formulate a plan to get out with his dignity and body parts intact when she grabbed him by the cheeks and smothered him with her mouth in a wet, grinding kiss.

  He’d never again have to doubt the meaning of the phrase “suck face.”

  CJ was hovering in the hallway by the elevators, trying to be discreet. Maddock had been gone a long time and she was starting to get concerned. That concern magnified when she saw Brandy emerge from the office pool where the receptionists and other entry-level employees worked.

  Brandy didn’t see her, but went back into the reception area, where the party was still raging.

  CJ hesitated a minute, then started through the maze of cubicles toward the hallway that led to the larger offices in the back of the building. Brandy wasn’t supposed to leave Wyatt, and that she did was alarming. CJ felt under her loose black pants for the handgun. Reassured, she moved steadily, cautiously.

  Heavy breathing came to her attention and she automatically went for her gun again before she realized a couple of partygoers were sweating in a swivel chair together. They glanced at her but didn’t break stride, major organs thankfully covered by the woman’s black dress.

  “Sorry.” CJ walked faster. Geez, this company was full of perverts. She’d seen more sexual acts
tonight than in six months of watching HBO.

  She rounded the corner, and caught sight of another. Only this pervert she knew. And the woman wrapped in his arms wasn’t Brandy, but a flaming redhead in an electrifying dress, who was ramming her tongue down Wyatt’s throat.

  CJ ground to a halt and stared in horror. It was like roadkill—you didn’t want to look, but you had to. She would have preferred checking out squirrel guts. Fury swept over her, intense personal disgust that she could ever find this man attractive, followed by anger that after all these months of working this case, he could jeopardize it by acting like a vagina-seeking missile.

  Assessing the situation, which included planting herself in the center of the hall so no one could leave, she observed the redhead’s skirt inching its way up as she really worked Wyatt over. Poor guy. His jacket was getting wrinkled from all those desperate fingers gripping it.

  She imagined the dry cleaner saw a lot of Wyatt.

  When the woman’s fingers rose into his light brown hair, artfully tousled, CJ lost her patience.

  “Excuse me.” Time to extract him before he caused actual damage to this case. And just for being a hormone-driven hound dog, CJ was going to make sure Agent Maddock went to bed alone tonight as punishment.

  The redhead didn’t break stride as her tongue swam laps across Wyatt’s mouth. CJ grimaced. If she could see the woman’s tongue from where she was standing, something was really wrong with her technique. Then she realized that Wyatt’s arms were waving behind the woman’s back and that his lips appeared to have clamped shut, denying access.

  “Mr. Maddock?” CJ said, loud and clear. “I hate to interrupt ...”

  That was a big-ass lie.

  “But you just got a phone call. I guess your cell phone is off? Anyway ...” She tried to sound nonchalant, instead of malicious and furious like she felt. “Your boyfriend is just desperate to talk to you, so I think you should call him back.”

  The red-whore—oops, she meant redhead— stumbled backward, nearly falling onto the floor on her behind. “Boyfriend? What?”

  “Oh, damn, that’s a shame.” One of the women lingering with a martini glass on the opposite side of the hall shook her head.

  The other two nodded in agreement.

  Redhead looked stunned, her hand coming up to wipe at her lips.

  Wyatt stood stock-still, every ounce of blood in his face draining away, leaving him with tight lips, narrowed eyes, and taut muscles that clenched in fury. She’d never seen quite that expression on his face before.

  It was a good look.

  Getting him that mad almost might have been worth the hellish night except that she still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t compromised the case. Besides, she wouldn’t be so immature as to actually enjoy riling him. Much.

  She expected him to refute her boyfriend claim, so he could pick up his tonsil tango with the redhead where they’d left off. But he just straightened his jacket and said, “Thank you.”

  He strode off, without even a good-bye to the woman in red, leaving CJ to trail behind him in his wake, with a distracting view of his butt in those tuxedo pants.

  It was wrong to feel the way she did. It was repulsive, spineless, and unnatural to lust after someone she didn’t even like. Yet she couldn’t drag her eyes off him, slowly raking from head to toe, taking in the rigid pull of his broad shoulders beneath the tux jacket, the confident stride of firm, long legs, and his shiny black shoes.

  He was tall, muscular, in shape but not brawny or stocky in any way. His hair was a little on the long side of respectable for the Bureau, but she had never seen him in anything but well-made, perfectly fitting suits.

  He was testosterone in a tux and she was boring in baggy.

  Which only served to infuriate her more.

  When they reached the elevators and Wyatt turned to speak, she held up her hand. “Save it for the car. I want to rip your head off in private.”

  Along with a couple of other parts.

  Two

  When they reached the lobby, Wyatt strode for the parking garage, feeling really damn insulted.

  Gay. CJ had said he was gay, of all things. Jesus.

  It shouldn’t matter, didn’t matter, but it did, and no matter how many times he told himself she’d said it on purpose to piss him off, it still filled him with the need to show her exactly how straight he was.

  Fuck privacy. Her little performance back at the office hadn’t been private. And he needed to tell her how he felt about it before he popped a blood vessel. She had said she wanted to rip his head off. Well, the feeling was definitely mutual. Or maybe he wanted to do something more along the lines of screw her brains out.

  Gay. Hah.

  Wyatt stopped next to the front security desk and whirled around. CJ drew up short, just avoiding hitting him.

  He said, “I cannot believe you said I was gay! That’s the third joke like that you’ve made about me in the last couple of months. I don’t make cracks about your personal life, so stay out of mine.”

  Her brown eyes widened. “Then you really are gay? Damn, Maddock, I’m sorry, I was just joking. If I had known ...”

  “No, I’m not gay!” Far from it. Not when he was lusting after CJ’s mystery breasts and strategizing how he could get in her shapeless pants in five steps or less.

  Then she shocked him by reaching out and nailing him on the arm. It wasn’t a girl swat. It was a punch. His muscle was tight when she’d impacted, and now he reared back in pain, his arm stinging.

  “Then you are such a complete jackass, Maddock! Why are you screwing around with drunken bimbos when it could jeopardize the case? Screw the bimbos on your night off.”

  “I’m not screwing any bimbos.” Lately. His appetite for bimbos had decreased since he’d become preoccupied with pissy FBI agents in half-ass ponytails.

  “Then explain what I just saw back there. And why did Dempsey leave?”

  CJ was breathing hard, her cheeks tinged with pink, her brown eyes snapping at him. She blew a few strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her eyes.

  Wyatt wanted her warm breath on him. Everywhere. Which really did make him a jackass.

  “Lower your voice, for God’s sake.” He glanced around the empty lobby. “For your information, I saved the case tonight. That woman was about to blow our cover.”

  That was greeted with a snort of disbelief. “That’s not all she was going to blow.”

  Irrational desire flared with anger that she thought so little of him. “You know, what the hell is your problem? I’m a damn good agent, White. I do my job. When have I ever let you or the team down on anything? I don’t need this shit from you.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t need to work with somebody who can’t go five minutes without coming on to a woman.” She paced a little before stopping in front of him again. “I’m going to ask Nordstrom for a transfer to a different case.”

  “What? Don’t be an ass.” She was going to risk Nordstrom’s wrath and derail her career because she didn’t like him?

  The flat of her hand landed on his chest, between the lapels of his jacket. Her hand was warm, her eyes were hot with fury. Wyatt inexplicably, and without warning, went hard.

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  And she shoved him backward.

  Preoccupied with lust, he lost his balance and hit the reception desk with the back of his thighs. “Knock it off, White.”

  “I can’t work with you anymore, Maddock. I’m serious. But maybe you should ask for the transfer, since you’re the problem.” Then her finger came up and waved in his face.

  Wyatt watched that delicate finger, marveled that CJ was so feminine beneath her scowl and her attitude. What would she look like in bed? His bed. Would she rein in, hold on tight the way she did at work, or would she let go, screaming out her pleasure, or whimper in demure delight?

  He snatched her finger out of the air and shoved it down by his side. “Why should I transfer? You
’re the one who has the problem, not me.”

  Her finger twitched in his grip trying to break free, and he held her tighter. They went through a thirty-second tug-of-war before she gave up. Her chest was rising and falling under the waitress getup and she held herself tense, like she wanted to pull back but was afraid to move.

  “I can’t... .” And her normally tough, no-nonsense voice cracked just a little. Her eyes dropped, hiding.

  That flash of vulnerability did him in. For the first time, he could see what Dempsey had seen. CJ wanted him just as much as he wanted her.

  He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her unresisting body up against his. He couldn’t feel much through the clothes, just her basic outline, confirming his suspicions that she was carrying quite a package under those baggy suits. He’d give just about anything to see her dressed like Brandy had been tonight. And then, immediately following, dressed in nothing.

  “Hey, CJ, did you ever notice something?” He couldn’t resist this opportunity. She might pull her gun on him, but having her in his arms was just too good to pass up.

  “What?” She sounded grumpy, like his niece did when she missed her nap.

  It was cute and sexy, and he had clearly lost all sense of reality if a cranky woman who hated his guts turned him on.

  “Did you ever notice that I want you, CJ? I don’t understand you and you really kind of scare the crap out of me, but I want you just the same.” Wyatt allowed his fingers to stroke her back as he bent over her just a little so he could press a kiss alongside her ear. She was so soft and warm, he just wanted to sigh.

  CJ squirmed a little in his arms, but she didn’t pull away. “You’d want anything with two legs and breasts.”

  He grinned. “Oh, do you have breasts? I couldn’t even tell.”

  Her hand came out to shove him again, her mouth turned down in a fierce scowl. Wyatt reached out and cupped her breast through the layers of clothes, blocking her push. “Oh, hey, you do. Feel pretty good, too.”

  She froze, then tried to step back. He held her firmly in place with his other arm, and brushed across her nipple.