I nodded; it made sense. "But where would he keep that?"
Rob's face turned sour. "Unfortunately, I know exactly where he'd keep it - and that's a problem."
I waited, and he sighed. "Chad has his own personal laptop. He usually doesn't need one, since the company supplies super-fast trading computers, but he still carries it around. Latest model, super thin, brags about how it's lightning fast, all of that stuff. I always figured that he just wanted to flaunt his wealth - but if he's got a program like this, it's going to be on that computer."
"So it's back in Manhattan?" I asked, feeling dejection creeping up again.
"Worse than that. As far as I can tell, Chad takes that thing with him everywhere. He keeps it with him in the office every day, and brings it home each night. He doesn't leave it around and unguarded."
I sighed. "Well, maybe tonight some idea will come to us."
"There's also the concern of who that man in the Cartmann mansion was," Rob went on after a minute of silent contemplation. "That guy was there because he was spying on me. I'm betting he's more than just an upset investor, given that he brought a gun."
Just the memory of how the man had casually held the gun in his hand made me shiver. "Yeah. He was scary."
"You did handle him well, though," Rob said, and I glanced back up at him. That strange expression of respect was back on his face, and I could hear it in his tone as well. It seemed odd and unexpected but not at all bad, a bit like finding an extra dollar bill in a pocket of some old jeans. "Most people wouldn't have responded like you did."
"It was mostly luck," I said, thinking of how I managed to block the man's punch with the frying pan by sheer chance.
But Rob shook his head. "It's not luck that kept you from freezing up. That must be one of those traits that make you a good investigative reporter, I bet - the ability to think under pressure."
I laughed, but he sounded serious! For a few seconds, we looked right into each other's eyes, and I felt a strange but pleasant connection between us.
After a minute, however, Rob coughed and looked away, down at the milkshake. "I'll clear this," he said quickly, grabbing it off the table and sucking down the last mouthful of chocolate liquid pooled at the bottom of the glass. "We should probably head home - and take the long way, to make sure we're not followed."
I gave the milkshake glass one last forlorn look as Rob dumped it in the bin of dirty dishes, but followed him outside. We'd parked the car down a side street, and we both kept glancing in different directions as we headed over. I didn't see anyone really paying attention to us, but my mind felt all but overwhelmed with paranoia, as if that big, bulky guy in the cheap suit was about to leap out of a bush, gun in hand.
The drive back to Diana's house proved just as uneventful, although Rob still took the precaution of sticking to back roads and taking a more roundabout route. We pulled into the driveway, parked the car in the garage, and then quickly ducked inside.
"I think we made it," Rob said, after we'd both pressed ourselves against the front window, peeping out through a crack in the curtains.
I nodded. "Is there something that we can do as a distraction tonight, maybe? I just keep on feeling the thud of that pan hitting the guy, and..." I shuddered, looking down at my hands as they started to tremble. Was this post-traumatic stress?
A moment later, Rob reached out and held my hands gently in his own, and the trembling ceased. "Sure," he said softly when I looked up at him. "How about a movie? Something funny? We can make popcorn and watch it together."
"Okay." The word sounded small and alone, coming out of my mouth. "That sounds nice."
"But first, dinner," Rob said, giving my hands one last squeeze before letting go.
I followed him into the kitchen, watching as he diced vegetables and trimmed chicken thighs with quick, sure movements. He was so confident with a knife in his hand, I had observed over the last few days. While I'd always shrunk away from the idea of a scary sharp knife, he acted like the blade was an extension of his own hand, moving with no hesitation.
"Here, cut up these!" he said to me, passing me a cutting board full of vegetables.
Not wanting to disappoint him, I got to work. My knife cuts weren't nearly as fast, and my diced vegetables weren't as neat as his, but I managed to keep all of my fingers. I considered that to be a success, as far as cooking was concerned.
Twenty minutes later, we both had plates of delicious smelling chicken and vegetables, steaming hot from the pan and making my mouth water. Rob disappeared into the living room for a minute, and then returned with a stack of DVDs.
"Plenty of movie options to choose from," he announced, fanning them out on the table. "What looks good?"
With my mouth full of moist, juicy, perfectly cooked chicken, I tapped on the DVD case for "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," a classic movie featuring Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr., one that I'd seen dozens of times before and never got tired of watching. "That one," I managed to get out around my mouthful of food.
Rob flipped the DVD case over, examining the backside. "Huh. Never seen this one before."
"What!?" I forced myself to swallow the big mouthful of food. "You've never seen this one? Oh, it's classic! The director is Shane Black, which means that there's lots of action and that it's set right around Christmas, in the late nineteen hundreds or so. It's so funny - it's Robert Downey Jr. before he got all big and famous from the Iron Man movies!"
"Okay, okay!" Rob protested, holding up the case as a shield against my enthusiasm - but smiling at the same time. "We'll watch it after dinner." He smirked at me. "And since I made dinner, it only seems fair that you wash the dishes."
"Aw, man," I protested half-heartedly, even though we'd stuck to this same arrangement since the first night that Rob started showing off his skills in the kitchen. Despite my complaints, however, I sighed as I looked over at the sink full of dirty dishes, mentally calculating out how long it would take me to get through them.
Rob patted me on the shoulder. "Cheer up - I make great popcorn," he promised me. "I'll go get to work figuring out how to get the television in the living room to play this thing."
I nodded, feeling a strange little touch of warmth in my chest as he headed off. Maybe it was just happiness and contentment at being someplace safe after that assault earlier this afternoon, but I liked this little moment. Somehow, I wished that it could last forever, that I didn't have to go back to investigations and the real world tomorrow.
At least, for tonight, I could forget about all of that and just relax with Rob.
Chapter Sixteen
*
The dishes didn't take too long to clean, and I stacked the last of the plates in the drying rack just as Rob returned back into the kitchen.
"Movie's all ready to go," he reported, nodding with approval as he took in the gleaming, clean results of my work. "I'll be in there in a minute with the popcorn, and maybe some drinks. Unless you've got anything against some booze?"
"After everything that's happened today, booze is really exactly what I need," I replied, closing my eyes for a moment at the thought of a cool, delicious mixed drink. I wiped my hands off on my pants, not even caring about how the water might leave marks on the dark pants. I still wore the classy outfit from earlier, but couldn't muster up the energy to head upstairs and change out of it.
Instead, I just wandered over into the living room of the little house. Rob had already drawn down the curtains and turned off most of the lights, and I saw the DVD's opening titles displayed on the television. The remote sat on the coffee table in front of the couch; all we had to do was pick it up and press play.
By the time that he returned a few minutes later, accompanied by the delectable salty, buttery smell of popcorn. My mouth had already started to water as I listened to the popping sounds coming from the kitchen, and I had to hold myself back from snatching the bowl right out of his hands.
"And this is also for you," he said, setting a thick-walled glass mug in f
ront of me on a coaster, the ice clinking against the interior of the cup. "Made with what was on hand, so forgive me if the proportions are off."
Curious, I took a sip. The drink tasted almost like a mint margarita - interesting, but not bad! "What is it?"
"Mint julep, but with tequila, because apparently my eighty-two year old grandmother is still a wild party girl at heart." Rob grinned as he took a sip of his own drink. "Ahh, not bad, though. Now scoot over, so that I can fit on the couch, too!"
"Only because you come bearing popcorn," I replied as I moved my feet, letting Rob slip in beside me. As soon as he was down, however, I dropped my legs across his lap. The couch wasn't that big, after all, and he'd just have to deal with my invading his personal space!
He didn't seem to have any objections, however, and started the movie. He grabbed the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over both of us, and wedged the popcorn bowl into a depression in the middle so that it was within both of our reach. In minutes, the narration of Robert Downey Jr. filled the room, and we both tuned into the movie.
About a third of the way through the flick, as Downey was throwing Val Kilmer's personal gun out into a lake to "dispose of the evidence", I felt Rob's hands settle gently around my feet, under the blanket. His eyes still glued to the television, he began massaging my feet, gently working each of the muscle groups in tight little circles.
I hadn't asked him to give me a massage, but oh my god, his hands felt good. I settled back and kept my eyes on the screen, trying to keep my lips pinned together so that I wouldn't accidentally let a moan slip out.
About two thirds of the way through the film, as Downey accidentally shot a man with a revolver because he didn't understand the math behind Russian roulette, the popcorn ran out. Wordlessly, Rob moved the bowl off of the couch, setting it instead on the table in front of us. I sat forward to finish off the last of my drink, but he slid slightly sideways as I dropped back onto the couch, propped up alongside me with one arm behind me.
Briefly, I wondered if this violated any sort of journalistic ethics. But we weren't sleeping together, or anything totally inappropriate like that. He was just laying back watching a film with me, and I was just laying against him and enjoying the heat of his strong, muscular body pressed against me because I wanted to get to know my subject better.
I wriggled a little, feeling something bumping against my ass. What was that? Did he have his phone in his pocket or something? I reached back behind me, trying to move the object - and froze as my fingers landed on it, and Rob stiffened.
Oh. That was... him.
Wow. He was hard right now? That was totally inappropriate, even if I was leaning back against him and had been wiggling a little! I was just trying to get comfortable, not turn him on or give him any sort of wrong impression!
But he did feel quite... big?
I probably ought to move my hand away.
In just a moment.
"Your hand," Rob murmured into my ear a minute later, his breath brushing against my earlobe in a seductive whisper.
"What about it?"
"It's moving back and forth."
So it was. Wow, he could feel that, even through his jeans? "Should I stop?"
A brief hesitation before he replied. "Not if you want to keep going," he said. "But if you're going to move your hand back and forth..."
What did that mean? A second later, however, Rob's free hand, the one not propping him up behind me, draped over my waist. At first, I thought it might stay there - but then it found the bottom hem of my blouse and slipped beneath it, sliding up across my stomach...
Rob's exploring fingers found my bra, and slid up over it. "Oh," I gasped out, as my nipple grew hard beneath the soft fabric of my bra, pointing out as if indicating that yes, there was a man's hand, right on top of it, so close to touching!
And then his hand dipped inside my bra, teasing out my breast, his thumb running ever so lightly across the surface of my nipple, and most of my thoughts fled out of my head. Instead, they were replaced with a wave of longing, a tidal crash of desire.
I turned my head back, away from the screen to face Rob, and his lips met mine.
God, he just had to be a good kisser, too, didn't he? Cooking, caring for his grandmother, earning money, sneaking into houses, driving me crazy and turning me on - was there anything that the Bad Boy of Wall Street couldn't do?
"Bad idea?" Rob asked, sounding curiously short of breath when we separated.
"Only if we stop to think about it," I gasped back, and wrapped both my hands around his neck to draw him in close again.
A few more kisses and squirming movements later, Rob lay beneath me on the couch, my thighs straddling his waist. I was bent forward, both of my hands wrapped around his neck, my wrists resting against his broad shoulders as we made out. I felt almost giddy, like a horny, lusty teenager again! I couldn't remember the last time I'd just lain on a couch with a guy and made out like this, filled with overwhelming desire!
Somehow in the burst of movement that put us in this position, my bra managed to come undone. I suspected that it had been the work of Rob's fingers, although I didn't put it past the garment itself to pop open, knowing how much I needed it to be someplace, any place, other than on my body. My breasts dangled down freely inside my blouse, the areolas hard and just begging to feel Rob's fingers, or maybe his mouth, settle upon them...
A minute later, he slid both of his hands up my waist, up to cup both of my breasts against his warm palms, and I cried out wordlessly at the feel of his hot touch. "Kiss them," I begged him, my hands wrapping around the back of his head and pulling him up towards my chest.
He did as commanded, brushing my blouse aside. He would probably end up tearing the expensive silk fabric, but I would gladly sacrifice my only nice blouse to feel Rob's mouth on my chest. His lips found one pink nipple, and I nearly came right there, still fully clothed and astride this man in his grandmother's house!
"We shouldn't be doing this," Rob murmured again, but he didn't seem in any hurry to take his mouth out from between my tits.
I shook my head. "No, definitely not." This was fast rushing into really off-limits territory, even for a reporter with my inexperience. I definitely knew that sleeping with my subject was expressly forbidden.
Even if I really, really wanted to feel him take me, to feel Rob's strong, muscled naked body against mine, feel his big length enter me and drive me mindless as he moved against me, claiming me...
"But you're innocent," I gasped out after I managed to draw in another breath, a minute later.
"But we haven't proved it. And we need my boss's computer, to get that program on it, to prove it." Rob sounded distinctly less than happy to be discussing this as he nuzzled against my chest, and his words were rather muffled. Perhaps in an effort to distract me from the impending suicide of my journalistic integrity, he drew my nipple into his mouth again, this time running his teeth ever so gently over its surface.
Holy shit, yes! "Let's go get it!" I panted out, fighting with every fibre of my moral fortitude to not abandon any hope of writing his story and instead just tearing at his pants with my teeth.
At that comment, he drew back, giving me an instant to recover a little bit of energy. "What, right now?"
"Yes!" I didn't know if that cry was because I wanted to go wrap up this story, or if it was just because I could sense him throbbing against me, even through both of our pants, and I could already practically feel him entering me.
For just a moment, Rob hesitated. "We can't," he finally said, reluctantly pulling his hands back away from my breasts. "Like I said, Chad keeps that computer on him at all times. And besides, he's down in Manhattan."
"So let's go there!" Why wasn't he jumping at this suggestion?
But down below me, Rob kept up his frown. "And do what? Ask him nicely? My boss isn't a nice man, especially if he's responsible for setting me up - and he knows my face, April."
; "But he doesn't know mine," I countered. "So I could go down and snatch his computer from him!"
Rob's eyes widened. "April, that's theft!"
I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant and like my heart wasn't thumping out of my chest at the craziness of what I'd just proposed. "But it would prove your innocence! I even know someone else who could help me pull it off."
For a moment, I saw Rob considering the possibility. But then he shook his head, sighing. "No, April - I'm sorry, but I can't let you do it. It's too risky." He pulled me down for another kiss. "Just forget about it. Take a break from being a journalist for tonight."
He didn't even know how much I yearned to take him up on that offer, to just let him do whatever he wanted to me. "I'm sorry, but I can't," I forced out, hating every single word as they left my lips.
I eased back from him, reluctantly lifting my hips off of his hard body, instantly missing his hard warmth. "Really, I can't," I said again, not looking at him, knowing that if I so much as turned my head, I'd want him, I'd give up everything to let him take me.
Rob sighed, but he nodded and sat up, wincing slightly as he crossed his legs. For a long minute, both of us just sat there, trying not to think about how much we wanted each other, what we were fighting to hold back.
"Fine." Rob didn't even turn his head to me, but I heard the word creep out. "How would you get this laptop?"
I thought hard for a minute, and then began to lay out the general idea that had been taking shape in my head over the last couple of minutes. Halfway through my explanation, Diana slipped back into her house, making me uncomfortably aware that my bra was still undone inside my shirt, but she just said goodnight to us before heading off to her bed.
I kept talking, doing my best to convince Rob to go along with my wild, crazy plan.
Chapter Seventeen
*
His eyes felt heavy, and Hook was on the verge of passing out in his car when he heard the faint sound of the door opening. He jerked awake, a bag of mostly-eaten French fries slipping off of his chest and landing on the dirty floor of the rental car under his feet.
Bad Boy of Wall Street: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 10
