by Jill Monroe
Dirk’s muscles tensed beneath her fingertips and his thrusts became less controlled and more seeking. With a growl he exploded within her, triggering a second wave of pleasure.
After a few moments, Cassie caught her breath, but she wasn’t ready to move yet. She felt too good. Her body too relaxed and complete. She didn’t even care that her office desk was hard or that her stapler was poking her in the shoulder. She sunk her hands into Dirk’s hair, loving the feel of the strands between her fingers.
He lifted his head, and their gazes met. Cassie was too content to try and mask any emotion that lingered in her eyes. Dirk lowered his lips and kissed her. A kiss so sweet and tender, full of renewal and promise her heart almost melted right there.
Maybe it was time to let go of the anger. He’d hurt her in the past, sure, but looking back, it wasn’t unreasonable to have uncertainties. After all, it had only been the two of them for so long.
To be fair, she would ask any couple going through her premarriage counseling if they were still curious about other singles. If the answer was yes, she’d tell them to reexamine their commitment.
Had she expected Dirk to be too perfect?
He settled beside her, staring down into her eyes, as he gently brushed a few wayward curls from her face. So much for the sophisticated knot on the top of her head.
A sexy grin was at his lips. “Told you I was better at it.”
If Dirk had stood up and poured a cold cup of water over her head, it wouldn’t have been as jarring as the words he’d just said. If he’d slipped on heels and pranced around singing Prince she wouldn’t have been more surprised.
Had he been so insulted when she’d told him she’d faked her orgasms that he’d gone on some mission to give her one? Had she mistaken hot, I-have-to-have-you-let’s-do-it-on-your-desk sex for some sort of male, ego-motivated quest?
Every feel-good, great-sex induced endorphin ground to a halt. Replaced by cold denial.
Cassie struggled out of his arms.
“You can leave now,” she said, glaring at the back of his head.
Dirk raised his head, his eyes still heavy with desire. “What?” he asked, sounding confused.
She swallowed over the tightness in her throat, trying to tug her shirt out from under his big arm. “I said it’s time for you to go. I want you to leave.”
“I thought maybe we could grab something to ea—”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed, and his body tensed above her. “What are you saying? You’re not hungry or you don’t want to eat with me?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to eat with you. This was a mistake.”
“You’re telling me this was a mistake when I’m still inside you?” he asked, his voice incredulous.
Cassie scrubbed her hand down her face. “Everything with you is a mistake, Dirk. I can’t believe I’m here like this with you. I wrote a book about making better mistakes, and yet here I am again, repeating old ones.”
Dirk lifted from her. No longer joined. His expression grim. “That’s pretty harsh. Did it make you feel better to say that? To be the one to hurt me? Because I know I was the one to hurt you last time, and I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, it felt good. You proved your point, and now you can go.”
Dirk pushed himself off the table, his brows together in confusion. “Proved my point? What are you talking—Wait a minute. I know,” he said as he snapped his fingers. “You think this was because I was riled over what you said. About me not giving you an orgasm.”
“Exactly.” Danni shoved her arm in the sleeve of her blouse. The wrinkles would be permanent; they’d screwed on top of it. She wouldn’t call it anything else.
Dirk sighed heavily as he hauled his pants up into place. “Okay, poor choice of words. Just chalk it up under the Dirk’s Bad Moves column. I’m sure that list is lengthy in your mind. Just so long as you know, I didn’t mean it that way.”
Cassie made a scoffing sound.
Dirk yanked the T-shirt over his head, his gaze meeting hers. Sadness tinged the blue of his eyes. “You have no intention of ever seeing me as anything other than the bad guy?”
She made a frustrated noise. “Because you are the bad guy.”
“I’m not buying that. I’ve read your book, Cassie. You talk about communication, commitment, understanding. You cut everyone else in the world a break, but you can never give me any slack. I messed up. I made a mistake. You do that sometimes when you’re twenty. If it’s any consolation, I’ve regretted it ever since.”
Cassie sucked in a breath, her heart beating faster. She did not want to hear this. Not now. She crossed her arms against her chest.
He met her eyes, his gaze direct and probing. “I love you, Cassie. I always will. Even knowing you think I’m lower than something stuck to the bottom of your shoe, I still want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I won’t beat my head against the wall. I’ve done some form of that ever since college. You wouldn’t take my calls. Never let me talk to you.” He made a bitter sounding laugh. “Here I thought we were finally making progress.”
Her throat tightened and she felt tears prick the back of her eyes.
Dirk pulled out his wallet, tossing his card on her desk. “That has my cell phone on it. Call me when you want to listen.”
Then he stepped around her, careful not to touch her. She heard the outer door shut and she slumped into her chair. Cassie had just gotten everything she ever wanted from Dirk. He told her he was wrong. He admitted he still loved her. He asked to have her back.
Now should be the precise moment she should feel a rush of closure. That’s what she’d wanted also, right? Satisfaction and closure?
Cassie fingered Dirk’s card. Hating him worked. It felt right. Didn’t it? She’d wrapped those strong emotions around her like a protective blanket. Protection from what? Or whom?
That she didn’t want to think about.
Usually she’d be the first person to explain the importance of examining one’s feelings. Owning the emotions. Release Not Retain was a chapter from her book.
But then usually her body still wasn’t shaky from the most intense orgasm she’d ever had in her life. Uh-huh, avoidance looked pretty tempting right now.
13
DANNI GLANCED UP from her notes on legal terminology. She couldn’t concentrate. She’d woken this morning with such a sense of foreboding it made her nauseous. It wasn’t Eric. He’d left her earlier this morning with a sweet passionate kiss. She could sum up her nervousness with one word.
Dad. That’s when this gut-level anxiety first started. But last night in Eric’s arms she’d pushed aside the strange apprehensive feelings. Now, however, in the morning’s bright sunlight, she couldn’t ignore the unease settling inside her.
Pushing away her textbook, she replayed conversations from the night before in her mind. Still, other things seemed not quite right. With Eric?
Oh, he did and said all the right things, but there was an aloofness about him. Almost a lack of real emotional involvement on his part. Except in bed. Never there. Between the sheets he was fire.
Danni wrapped the blanket around her tighter. Come to think of it, everything about Eric presented an air of reservation. Oh, she’d seen hot fire and passion in his eyes when they kissed. Loved the idea of making this uptight corporate man lose control, but other than in bed, there felt like a disconnect between his words and his body language.
The expression in Eric’s eyes never really matched his words. She’d spot a pulse pounding at his temple or his muscles going tight even in their most ordinary moments. Flynns were adept at dissecting the subtleties of nonverbal behavior. Except she’d missed so much. Why was that?
Because she only saw what she wanted to see?
Shaking her head, Danni padded to the bathroom. She was being ridiculous. This was regular Flynn behavior. Always questioning. Normal didn’t sit well with her. That’s why she had this strange feeling. Why she had the need
to dissect his every action.
She turned on the spigot of the shower and stepped beneath the spray. The cold water jolted her back to reality. Eric was amazing. She loved him. She wasn’t about to let her father start worming any doubts into her mind.
The water turned hot, and Danni adjusted the temperature. Sometime between soaping her body and rinsing her hair of conditioner, the thought that maybe she should check out Eric on the Internet entered her mind. What could it hurt?
She hadn’t before because it seemed to be the opposite of her newfound ability to trust. Now it just seemed reckless.
After drying off, she slipped into a pair of lightweight pink shorts and one of the casino T-shirts. She put her hair in a ponytail, and was ready to recon. First stop—the business center of the hotel.
Her fingers grew shaky after she swiped her keycard to enter the office services area, but she pulled out a chair and sat before a computer with resolve. Danni clicked for the search engine and typed in Eric’s name.
A respectable amount of hits. She sighed in relief. Everything looked normal. She clicked on the first entry. Nope. Wrong Eric. Second and third Eric Reynolds were also for the wrong man—wrong age. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a man whose last name was Unterseher?
Finally she found something, and her tension lessened once more as she reviewed the contents. Everything Eric had ever mentioned about himself, which was precious little, fit the record on the Internet. In fact, this entry was a press release from the casino announcing his hire. She found another site that mentioned him. That fit, too. Not giving her any additional information.
Okay, so he was a very private man.
With a smile, she logged off and made her way to the bank of elevators in the busy lobby. She stepped into the first open lift ready to shove these doubts right out of her mind. But…
Her smile faded. If everything fit, then what was wrong? She leaned against the elevator wall and watched the numbers ascend. There was so little information about him, when everyone left a trace. No one was that private. The tiny blurb she read downstairs felt almost too convenient. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out, deep in thought.
Come to think of it, a lot of things felt too convenient. Her mind slipped to their first meeting, and her stomach tensed. The hotel did everything for Eric. They had laundry facilities. He’d even suggested she use them. Why then had he been at her Laundromat? No one used that laundry on a Wednesday afternoon.
No one unless they were looking to meet someone. The dryer sheet flashed in her mind. He even arrived armed with a ready excuse to talk to her. Not once had she seen that laundry basket he’d used for his clothes tucked somewhere in the suite.
She shook her head as she keyed into the room. No. She was blowing this out of proportion. Damn her father. He always ruined everything. Eric was perfect. He’d never been shocked by her past. He knew exactly what to say. How to make her feel. She trusted him completely.
But was that by design? How did the man know exactly what to say to make her trust him? She barely trusted anyone. Been raised not to. And yet Eric had managed to sidestep every red flag her mind would naturally raise.
She smelled a rat.
Her palms began to sweat, and she grew sick to her stomach. Like a shot, Danni began to snoop. Why she hadn’t before was beyond her. Nothing under the bed, under the drawers or between the mattresses. She scanned the room looking for the perfect place to hide something. Anything.
The safe the hotel provided in the closet was too obvious. Personal. It wouldn’t be in the room. It was too easy for her to accidentally stumble onto something.
His office. He spent a lot of time there, and he’d never invited her back, instead steering her toward a conference room whenever they discussed hotel business.
She thought of that first time he’d invited her to his office. He’d left her alone. Files left within an easy glance, or even a casual perusal of the room. It all made sense now.
He’d left her there alone.
For a long time.
With vital security information within her reach.
It had been a setup. It had all been a setup.
But still, a burning hope gave him the benefit of the doubt. She had to know.
Danni flew out of the suite and to the elevators, jamming the button over and over until the green down arrow lit. She stepped inside, coaching herself to look calm. Nonchalant. On the casino floor, she crept along the outskirts so as not to run directly into Eric.
But he had a meeting at the gaming commission. He wouldn’t even be around the casino today. She smiled and walked directly to the side where the administrative offices were located. A U-shaped reception desk provided her first block. Eric’s office was right around the corner, but she had to get past that receptionist first. She’d met the woman plenty of times, so her presence wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Her opportunity came in the form of a phone call. The receptionist lifted the receiver to her ear, and that’s when Danni made her move. She rounded the corner as if in a hurry, and opened her mouth to speak.
The woman lifted a stressed brow as she approached. Yeah, she hated working multi-line phones, too.
“It’s okay,” Danni mouthed with a wink, and pointed to her watch as if she had an appointment with someone.
The woman guarding the desk gave her a relieved wave.
On swift legs, Danni flew down the corridor before the woman rang off and decided to announce her arrival. Half the success of the con was confidence and taking advantage of an opportunity.
Danni jimmied the door to Eric’s office and slipped inside. That was the thing about security people. They never thought they’d be ripped off, so usually used the lowest form of protection on the job. Suckers.
She’d dash off a note to Eric suggesting coded locks if her suspicions turned out to be true. Just to let him know how easy he was to break.
She scanned the room. His office was nothing but a closed-off storage room. Still virtually nothing on the walls. No warmth. No clues to the man.
She started with his vertical hanging files. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing popped out at her from his pencil drawer, bookcase or credenza. The only thing in his large desk drawer was his gym bag, and she closed the drawer quietly so no one would hear.
Danni sat on the back of her heels, giving the room a second look. It was here. The proof of whatever was up with Eric lay in this room. She knew it. He was just too good. Too perfect. Too practiced to be true.
Why would someone store their gym bag in a desk drawer?
No one with nothing to hide, that’s who. She yanked the drawer open again, grabbed the bag and dropped it onto the floor. With determined fingers she slammed the zipper open.
He’d stuffed the top with smelly socks. Amateur. That was one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Under the sweatpants and dirty T-shirt she found a locked box. Again, why would any normal man keep a lockbox in his workout bag?
That was her answer.
Danni examined the lock, then gave a bitter laugh. Now this was almost downright insulting. She could pick that lock in about five minutes. Less time if she had the proper tools. She sneered. He must have thought he had her so besotted. Anger filled her.
Exactly three minutes later, the lock popped free in her hand. She had total rein to snoop. Instead, she took a deep breath and stared at the unopened lockbox on the carpet at her knees. This was her last chance. Her last moment of true trust.
She could still relock the lock, return everything to its natural hiding place and never think of this again. If she opened that box, and it turned out she was wrong about Eric, her actions right now would taint everything. She’d have to tell him what she’d done. That’s what honest—normal—people did.
Everything they’d done together she now viewed differently. Danni closed her eyes at the memory of them roasting marshmallows. She’d never done anything so simple and fun. He’d plan
ned the most romantic date.
Planning. That was the key.
Danni opened her eyes. Determined. Everything on his part seemed a touch planned. From the timing of his calls to the drawing out of their passion until she couldn’t think straight she wanted him so badly.
With a frustrated cry she lifted the lid of the lockbox, and gasped when she saw a gun. She sucked in a breath. So he had a gun. He was head of security. It would be weird if he didn’t have a gun. That might explain why he’d hidden it.
Still, she continued her search. Among a few file folders, a box of ammunition nestled along a leather card holder. The kind used to house an official badge. She grasped it, holding her breath and hoping she wouldn’t see what she knew she would. Danni flipped the holder open.
It was all there. Crest. Badge number. His picture. And the words Federal Agent. She allowed one tear to slip past her lashes. One heartbreaking swallow of sadness.
Then she closed Eric’s badge holder, replaced everything in the box and sealed it. She returned everything in the room to exactly how she’d found it, and carefully slipped out of the room. She had to get somewhere. Someplace to think.
Luckily Eric hadn’t returned to the casino yet, so she made her way to the parking lot. She reached for her cell phone to call Cassie. Wait, what if they had it bugged? Her car on some sort of geo-positioning satellite?
All right, now she was being paranoid. But still, she returned to the front door of the casino and slid into one of the waiting taxis. She’d go to some restaurant she’d never been to before, then call Cassie. Her fingers shook as she dialed the number.
Thirty minutes later, Cassie joined Danni at the diner around the corner from her office. Danni’s initial shakes were over, and she’d already settled into a nice simmering anger.
Cassie looked worried and extremely distracted. “I’m glad you called, because I think I just made the biggest mistake of my life. Or the best. I can’t decide.”
Danni settled against her chair, anxious to hear Cassie’s problems. Anything to put off facing her own. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
