“You keep your voice down, you…man!”
Okay now that was even louder if possible. Any minute now, his father was probably going to come up here, or else that asshole Randy. “I’m going to go get you some coffee.”
She grabbed the drawstring of his bathing suit. “No, you aren’t!”
He looked down at her, vaguely amused. “I’m not?” She was kind of cute when she was drunk.
In a move that took him completely by surprise, she tugged at the drawstring and then stood on her tippy-toes and the combination of the two got her face right up next to his and his trunks slipping down to his hip bones. He could smell the liquor on her breath, which on her was endearing for some reason.
“Now you’re in the bottoms that are easy to pull off.”
And then she was kissing him, hot and heavy, tongue definitely engaged, and as turned on as he was—hell, his cock was pretty much keeping his suit up by now—he pulled away after a minute and retied the drawstring. “Hey, slow down. We should talk this out.”
She yanked her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt and over her head, launching it in the direction of the balcony. “Slow down yourself. I’ve had about as much of your bullshit as I’m going to take. No more talking.”
Her bra came off next, taking him off guard, and he was unable to suppress the pure shot of pleasure he got at seeing her sexy, pink-tipped breasts make their appearance.
He swallowed, hard. “What are you doing?”
“Get on the bed.”
Chapter Eight
He hesitated. “So you believe me?”
“I don’t know whether to believe you or whether you’re just screwing with me, but at this particular moment, I don’t care. You know what I’m thinking?”
“I’m starting to get an idea.”
“I’m thinking how hot you look, with your bare chest”—her fingers went to it—“just that little strip of black hair going from your nipples”—her fingers followed her words—“down to your crotch.” Her hand ended up gripping him inside his suit, tight, stroking hard, and he sucked in a breath.
“I want to get you out of my system, you jerk,” she whispered, “and there’s only one way I’m going to do that.”
Well, name-calling aside, that was kind of an incentive. But he really shouldn’t…
She took a step back and returned to her stripping. He put his hands on his hips, watching with appreciation as the side zipper of her skirt came down in jerky motions.
She had it off and was standing in heels and tiny white, incredibly sexy panties.
A knock came at the door and, incredibly, Liv walked breezily by him, as if to open it. He jerked her back. “For Christ’s sake, you’re naked,” he whispered between clenched teeth.
“La di da,” she said dismissively.
He blocked the door and said loudly, “Yeah?”
“Jonathon, it’s me,” his father answered and then asked in lower tones, “What’s going on in there?”
He looked from Liv—who had crossed her arms over her chest, squishing her tits even more delectably—to the balcony and then to the closed door. Jesus, there really wasn’t an elegant way out of this. Opening the bedroom door a fraction, enough to get his head through, he said, “This isn’t a good time.”
His father tried to look over his shoulder, but luckily could not see any further into the room. “Well, these tropical houses aren’t exactly soundproof. We’re hearing quite a bit of this downstairs. Miss Altman’s part of it anyway. She seems pretty upset.”
“No fucking kidding,” Liv said, full voice, behind him. He glanced back and saw that she had collapsed on her back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
“I gather you’re involved with her, Jonathon and she seems a lovely girl, really, but I understand she’s a bit of a genius as well, at least according to the fellows downstairs.” His voice went even lower. “And genius has its costs.”
The familiar surge of outrage he always felt when his father alluded to his mother reared. “I know. Much better to go after chicks without a brain in their heads, right, Dad?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Why don’t you and the other fat-cats go into town for a late lunch or early dinner or whatever, and Miss Altman and I will sort this out by the time you get back. And then you and I are going to have a talk. How’s that?”
His father nodded. “Okay.”
“Take Julie with you.”
“Yes, yes of course.”
“I know how solicitous you are of Julie,” Jonathon said, with a meaningful look at his father, who seemed not to intercept the import of it.
“Certainly. And I wasn’t, er…” He looked at him plaintively. “I wasn’t talking about your mother.”
He slammed the door in his father’s face. It’d been almost ten years since his mother had died of cancer and he still couldn’t bear to have the old man refer to her.
“What was all that about your mom?” Liv was sitting back on her elbows now, topless in her panties, casually provocative.
He should have thought to tell the old man to send up some coffee.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“Tell me,” she demanded. He wished she didn’t look so hot and wasn’t half naked and all. “Come on! Tell me something that’s true for once.”
“What?” he asked distractedly. “Oh, my mother? Nothing. She was smart. Very smart.”
“So?” she countered belligerently. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, but my father, I don’t know. It’s not that he had a problem with it, but he…Well, let’s just say his appreciation for women encompassed a lot more than the intellectual. He had a wandering eye and my mother couldn’t take it.”
He had no idea why he was telling her all this, especially since talking wasn’t exactly what his body wanted right now. With any luck, she wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.
“That’s probably the kind of husband you’d be,” she remarked casually.
“Never,” he said swiftly. “I’d never cheat.”
Funny that was what came out, instead of what he had always thought: that he’d never marry.
“Why not? I thought you didn’t believe in playing by the rules.”
The juxtaposition of ideas startled him. “I…I mean, some rules are…people get hurt.”
“Ha! You don’t think you hurt people with what you do?”
His father had said some variation of that a thousand times, about his hacking, and it hadn’t ever touched him. Not once. It took a drunk, half-naked, adorable blonde to say it for him to really hear it? That was fucked.
“I…I don’t mean…Jesus, I don’t know what I mean.”
Luckily, she veered off to a safer subject. “Admit it! You couldn’t crack my code!”
He laughed. He really was too competitive for his own good, but looked like he wasn’t the only one. So what the hell. He told the truth. “Yeah. I couldn’t crack your code. You are super-duper good.”
“I am!”
“I said you were. Happy?”
She flounced on to her stomach, showing him her cute behind and he went to lie next to her, on his side, running his hand along her smooth back.
“Should I give you a massage now?” he asked softly.
She harrumphed loudly, resting one cheek on her folded hands.
He leaned down to kiss her shoulder blade. “How much did you have to drink?”
“I’m not drunk.”
He slipped his hand under her panties, over the cheeks of her plump bottom. Her skin was smooth as silk. “No? So I won’t have to feel guilty if I take advantage of you?”
“You are so fucking condescending.”
He leaned toward her. “Give me that dirty mouth.” And then he was kissing her.
She rolled over on top of him, straddling him, and then ended the kiss and scooted down so she could pull down his bathing suit.
Uh, okay, that felt good.
“Yeah, well show me then,” he taunted.
She kissed him silent, an aggressive hot kiss that had his cock even harder, rearing out of his bathing suit. She tugged the suit down roughly to his thighs as they kissed and then pulled away to look at her handiwork, his cock arching out toward her. With one hand, she moved her panties to the side, affording a glimpse of curly blonde hair, and came up on her knees as if to mount him. He caught her hips, stopping her.
“Condom,” he muttered. “We can’t take that chance again.”
She fell back on the bed. “I don’t have one.”
He reached behind him to the back pocket of his suit and extracted the one every guy carried in case. Or maybe he knew what was going to happen when he caught up to Liv.
One might not be enough, but for now it’d do. Standing up to shrug completely out of his suit, he came back to her naked and whipped her panties off while he was at it.
Looking down as he rolled the condom on, he said, “You are gorgeous.”
“And you’re a jerk.”
He paused. He was starting to get the idea that maybe she really was mad at him. But what was the big deal? All he had done was to trick her and spy on her and guilt-provoke her and…
Her legs were open and he could see she was wet. Pink and glistening. Maybe he wasn’t good for her. Maybe he ought to get up right now and walk away.
“I want you to make it up to me,” she was saying in a lazy voice, “all the times you’ve tricked me.”
A much better plan.
He turned her over and pulled her up on her knees so her beautiful bottom was flashing him. Dropping a kiss on one cheek and then tonguing the base of her spine, he murmured, “Anything. How can I make it up to you?”
“I want you to service me, like you were my, uh, love slave,” she added in a sexpot voice. “My naughty love slave.”
His cock was maybe going to burst out of even his usual magnum condom. “Service you?” he repeated, his mouth dry.
“Yes. Now kiss me. Make me hot for you.”
He came up over her, tilting her head back, holding her chin, and whispered, “I think you already are hot for me.”
He kissed her, sucking her tongue, thrusting his in her mouth, like he wanted to do with every hard protrusion he had into every orifice she had, until she pulled his hand to her breast and whispered, “Go on. Kiss them.”
No need to tell him twice. He leaned further over her, turning her slightly so he could swirl his tongue around one nipple. God, she tasted good.
“Now stick it in.” She wiggled her ass and he suppressed a laugh.
“Are you sure…master?” he added for good measure, straightening, holding her hips, positioning her to take her from behind.
“Yes. I’m sure. Now, if you want to get along here, you’ll, er, service me. Get to it!”
“Yes, ma’am.” He slipped it in, inch by inch, watching the emotions on her face, loving what he could do for her, what they could do for each other. And he did get to it. Slow and sure. Then fast and hard until they both came, gasping. He held her tight, protective, satisfied…happy even to be with her like this, kissing her neck and rubbing her back as they settled into a cuddle.
“Was that good for you?” he asked, still in character.
“It was okay,” she said sleepily. “But you’ll have to try again in a little bit. I’m insatiable.”
“I’ll get another condom,” he said with a little smile even though he realized she was already asleep.
When he went downstairs finally, the house was still deserted and he watched the waves from a chair on the patio until he heard his father and the others come in.
Hershey and Randy looked at him apprehensively, but his father said smoothly, “Everything okay here?”
“Fine,” he responded curtly. “Liv’s asleep. She had too much to drink. That was all. The flight, the change in climate,” he finished.
“She has been working really hard,” Randy said, and Jonathon shot him a dirty look, apparently surprising the guy.
“Well, we’ll all feel much more rested in the morning,” his father offered. “We can talk business then.”
“Where’s Julie?”
“She went for a walk on the beach.”
Good. It was time, God forbid, to get to the bottom of this damn mess.
“Guys, could you excuse us?” he asked. “My father and I have something to discuss.”
There was a small room, a study of some kind, off the dining room and, thin walls or not, Jonathon was going to try for some privacy for this conversation.
He closed the door behind them and his father sat on the flowered sofa, adjusting the pleat of his custom-made pants, opening the button of his jacket. Despite the bespoke suit, in a concession to the tropical venue, he was without his usual power tie.
“What’s on your mind, son? It must be pretty serious to get you out of your own company and into society.”
He declined to take a seat next to his father, remaining standing. “Yeah, you could say it’s serious. I know, Dad. I know all about it.”
There was a long pause that his father finally filled with an impatient, “Don’t talk in riddles, son. You know I’m not in your IQ league.”
“Oh, cut the self-effacing bullshit. I’ve never met a more arrogant bastard!”
“Are we just retracing old grudges? Because if that’s the case, I have a few I’d like to throw in the mix.”
Identical blue eyes glared at each other.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t assume I’m trying to malign your mother’s memory every time I open my mouth. I was married to the woman for twenty-five years and I may have not been a perfect husband, but I loved her.”
“Save it. I’m not talking about Mom.” He spit it out, less angry and more plaintive than he had meant to sound. “How could you use Julie like that, Dad? Julie?”
“Use Julie like what? What are you talking about? I invited her here for a short tropical getaway, nothing more.”
“I’m not talking about here.”
His father was an expert negotiator, the veteran of countless million-dollar-on-up deals, and he rarely lost his cool. But his color was rising and his posture ramrod straight and he looked awfully darn close. Jonathon could take some comfort in that, he supposed.
“Why don’t you stop saying what you’re not talking about and say what you are?”
“Rudy Dickinson,” he said flatly.
His father threw up his hands. “Is that what this is all about? Christ.” He stood up. “You had me worried. What does that bumbler you went to college with have to do with your sister?”
Jonathon hesitated. He expected something more like an admission that the jig was up once he uttered Rudy’s name. Maybe the old man was going to try to bluff him out. “You hired Rudy Dickinson,” he said slowly. “He’s working for you.”
“No, Jonathon, I didn’t hire him. That’s what I was trying to reach you about the last few days. I agreed to a meeting with him for your sake and I wanted you to sit in on it. But when you wouldn’t take my calls, I just met with him myself.” He frowned. “Why? What did he tell you? Did he tell you he asked me for a job? Because he didn’t. Instead, he pitched the most cockamamie scheme, followed me right into my car to keep at me. What an obnoxious fellow. I mean—”
His father stopped short.
“Oh no.” He looked at Jonathon as if something had just occurred to him, and the same disappointed look he had given his son countless times through the years washed over his features. “Tell me you didn’t know about what he was trying to get me to participate in?”
Jonathon frowned. What the hell was going on here? “Yeah, I have an idea.”
“Oh, Jonathon, you can’t be mixed up in this. I’m buying this company. Tell me your friend is not busy trying to
steal its most valuable asset!”
Maybe he was being outplayed, but his father looked genuinely concerned. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, folding his arms over his chest, and tried again. “Are you saying you didn’t put Dickinson up to trying to steal it in the first place, Dad?”
“No! Most emphatically not! He must have heard the rumors on the street about my interest in Lincoln. He proposed he steal the program and split the savings with me. I told him I didn’t do business like that and that was the end of it. As a matter of fact, if this deal goes through, I plan to pursue the matter through legal channels. If Dickinson tries to steal this program, I’ll be putting him in jail, friend or no friend of yours. I told him that.”
“He wasn’t trying to steal the program himself, Dad. He’s not up to that, skills wise.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But he thought I was. He asked me to steal it.”
“What?” No chance keeping this conversation private with the decibel of that. “My God! I thought you had grown up at least a little; that you learned some of what I was trying to teach you! Do laws mean nothing to you? Are rules only for those not smart enough to get around them?”
“Rudy was blackmailing me into trying to steal it. I wasn’t successful, by the way, but when I saw you and Rudy together—”
“Saw us?”
“Outside your apartment building yesterday. I, ah, I guess I jumped to the conclusion that you’d put him up to it.”
They stared at each other, and his father said quietly, “Blackmailing you with what?”
Jonathon hesitated and his father came to him, put his arm around his shoulder. He had never realized what similar builds they had. Same height. Same coloring. Same pig-headed need to protect the ones they loved. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it. I will. What is it? Some hacking episode?”
He took a deep breath.
Tempting the Corporate Spy Page 13
