by Lauren Dane
The manager stuffed my résumé into his jeans waistband and then looked me up and down while he picked his teeth. With a penknife. “Do you have good people skills, Pepper?” His eyes lingered on my breasts.
“I love kids,” I blurted out.
“She hates kids,” said a deep male voice behind me. It made my nipples hard.
Steve.
He didn’t stop there.
“She eats them for breakfast.”
“Who’s your boyfriend?” The pizza parlor manager wanted to know, staring at Steve like he wanted to put him through a sausage grinder.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, my spirits sinking.
“I’m her pimp,” Steve said, and then he grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the pizza parlor. Holding me by the elbow, he steered me toward his unmarked car parked in an alley. Nobody around. Perfect for a kidnapping.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, jumping into the passenger seat rather than make a scene. I didn’t want to go downtown to the federal building a second time. “I answered a hundred online ads, and this was the only job that would talk to me.”
“Cool it, Pepper, I’ve got a better offer for you.”
“Since when did wearing a wire for the FBI pay the big bucks?”
“You’re going to be a companion girl,” he said, checking his messages on his cell.
“A what?”
“Your job is to entertain Japanese businessmen.”
My eyes bugged out. “I’m not taking off my clothes again.”
“You don’t have to. You’ll wear a recording device here.” He slipped his hand under my baby tee and cupped my breast. Okay, so he had my attention. Next, he flicked his finger under my bra strap.
Oh, that wasn’t fair. He knew I was dying for him to pinch my nipple.
“What if he gives me a bear hug and finds the wire stuck to my tits with duct tape?” I asked, trying my best not to get turned-on. I didn’t want to go down that road only to be disappointed again. I liked Steve too much to play games.
“It’s not like the old days, Pepper, when you had to wear a clunky, battery-operated recorder. Everything’s digital. The recorder is implanted in a jeweled pin.” He smiled that devil grin of his. “No one is going give you a New Jersey pat-down but me.”
He leaned over and ran his hands expertly up and down my rib cage, then between my thighs, taking time to dig his finger into my crotch. He rubbed his thumb into the tight denim cutting into me.
Pushing, probing, stroking, delicious sensations filled me up. I squirmed. So much for me not getting turned-on. It was pure hell for me not to unzip my jeans and slide them down my thighs so he could finger me.
I decided to play along. Let him try to convince me.
What did I have to lose?’
I had no intention of wearing a wire.
“How do you know Mr. Briggs will be at this fancy party?” I leaned in and ran my finger along the sexy stubble on his chin. I loved the way he touched me, made me feel good.
But I wanted more.
I didn’t want to press my luck, but I couldn’t help wishing he’d kiss me.
“He’s eager to meet my Asian contacts,” Steve said, grabbing my fingers and entwining them with his. It was a romantic gesture and one that made my bachelorette meter soar even if he was trying to con me. “There will be several pretty models at the hotel. All you have to do is follow the script I give you. There will be a surveillance team in place. We’ll move in quietly and take Briggs into custody after we get what we want.”
I pulled away. I wanted to see my ex-boss pay for what he did to me, but those old feelings of doubt lingered in my mind. Like smelly gym socks left in your tote bag. You didn’t want to open it.
“I can’t do it.”
“Pepper—”
“Mr. Briggs may be a crook, but you’re asking me to be a snitch.”
“You want to be a spy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then be one.”
He had a point. For years, I’d watched every cop and spy show on TV. Learning the lingo, imitating their moves when they kicked down doors, practicing my two-handed gun pose.
Still—
“What if I screw up?” I had to ask.
“You won’t, Pepper. I’d stake my badge on it.”
“You would?” I asked, disbelieving.
“I would.”
He tilted my head back and claimed my mouth with the most intoxicating pair of lips a girl ever knew. Burning with need, melting into me, pressing harder when I reached around his neck and held him tight. I parted my lips and he entwined his tongue with mine, leaving me breathless.
If this was a bribe, bring it on.
I pressed my breasts against his muscular chest and moaned so loud I shocked myself. “Don’t stop, Steve, please don’t stop.”
He gave it to me hot and long, sweetening the moment with trails of kisses up and down my neck and then sticking his tongue into my cleavage. Tickling me, unhooking my bra. He circled my breasts, but he didn’t play with my nipples.
What the—
“Suck on my nipples, please,” I said, jiggling my breasts like a wound-up Kewpie doll.
“No.”
“You know you want to,” I teased, biting down on my lower lip. Was that me talking?
“Not until you promise to help me take down a corporate thief. A man who is a liar and a cheat.”
“Steve, I—I—”
“You can do it, Pepper.” He cupped my breasts and squeezed them.
Oh, the frustration. Whoever thought he’d resort to such torture?
Jesus, I thought I was going to die.
I begged him to bite my nipples. Twist them. Wet them with his tongue. Blow on them. Do something.
No, he said. Not until I promised to do what he asked.
I writhed about in the bucket seat of his old Buick, the split leather cracking under my butt. I was in an emotional pickle. I wanted to be a spy and when the opportunity was handed to me on a silver platter, I froze. I knew this was my defining moment. No more daydreaming about being a spy girl.
Do it or forget it.
That meant I had to let go, get over my fears, and if it took wild, passionate sex to put me over the top, then so be it. I couldn’t stand the burning in my belly another minute.
I gave in.
“Okay, Steve, I’ll wear the damn wire.”
He grinned wide. “I thought you’d see things my way.”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, panting hard.
“No, but I do.” He bit my nipple hard, then the other, and I fell headfirst into exquisite pleasure.
Chapter Six
“Jeez, Mr. Briggs,” I muttered in a flat voice, “what a surprise seeing you here.”
“No, no, no, Pepper,” Cindy said, exhaling with a loud whoosh. “You’re too stiff. Try it again.”
I pulled in my gut and clenched my pubes. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs—”
“You sound like a robocall,” Cindy said, exasperated. “Now say it with feeling. Give it oomph.” She cleared her throat. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs, what a big surprise seeing little ol’ you here.” She batted her Dolly Partons.
Her lashes, not her boobs.
“I’m not trying to seduce him, Cindy. I’m trying to get a confession.”
“Whatever. You have to be in the moment. Think of something way more important than Mr. Briggs.”
“Like Steve’s dick?” I teased.
She sighed. “You’ll never be an actress, Pepper, if you don’t give it your all.”
“I’m a tech-head, not a drama queen.”
She shot me a dirty look and fluffed her hair at the same time. That wa
s a joke between us ever since high school when she was cast as the Good Witch of the North in a spoof of Wicked and I worked the special effects “wizard” board.
“So? Didn’t I let you sprinkle techie dust on me so I could learn how to use that image-fixing software you bought?” she reminded me.
“Yeah,” I said. It was a matter of survival. Cindy was determined to zap her freckles from her headshot.
“Then you can learn how to pronounce your vowels and how to breathe properly.”
“I don’t want to breathe, I want to die.” I tossed down the script Steve had given me and sank into the big easy chair in her parents’ living room. She couldn’t afford her own apartment. Acting wasn’t exactly a high-paying job, though she was determined to convince me otherwise.
She tried the I-did-it-and-so-can-you approach.
“You know that hair show I did?” she said, bubbling over like fizzing soda pop.
“Did they cast you or your dark roots?”
Cindy ignored my sarcasm as she always did. She was my best friend. She put up with me.
“I’ve been dying to tell you, Pepper. A TV producer saw me and wants to cast me in his new reality show about four single girls who can’t live without their phones.”
“What’s it called?” I asked with a smirk. “Confessions of a Cell-Phone Princess?”
She rolled her eyes. “All I have to do is live in a store window with three other girls with no communication to the outside world except our smartphones. The girl who gets the most votes from the viewers wins fifty thousand dollars.” She sighed. “Just think, Pepper, I could move out on my own.”
With that Barbie collection?
She’d never find a one-bedroom apartment that big.
“What about your intimate moments?” I asked.
“I don’t know all the details,” she admitted, furrowing her pencil-thin brows.
“Like bathroom breaks and lonely nights with your vibrator.” I wasn’t surprised at Cindy’s news since recent stats suggested more people in the world had a cell phone than a bathroom.
“Oh, I never thought about that.” She perked up. “Well, anyway, I’m sure they’ll work the kinks out. What’s more important now is getting you your job back.”
“I wouldn’t do this if Steve hadn’t kissed me.”
“He’s that good?”
“Better,” I said, my whole bod humming, the memory of his kiss and the promise that went with it stirring my desires. I rubbed my thighs together and moaned.
“That’s it, Pepper!” she said, her lips parting in a big O. She was so excited she jumped up and clapped her hands together. “You’re in the moment. Now, try it again....”
And so it went for hours with Cindy directing me like we were doing a Star Wars sequel and I was Princess Leia. Too bad I didn’t have her lightsaber. All I had was a measly recorder between me and exile to a doomed planet for fired programmers. God help me.
Finally, we had it down to where she thought I just might pull it off.
I thought about how what had started out as a job fixer-upper had turned into something far different. Because of Steve. This sexy FBI agent had flipped my world into a new orbit. Melted my resistance. Forced me to face my fears. No matter what happened, there was no turning back.
I jumped when the holy grail of polyphonic rings ripped through the air and my cell phone lit up with a now familiar caller ID.
Steve.
“The eagle...that is, the walrus,” he said, referring to my oft-used description of my ex-boss, “has landed.”
I gulped.
Lights. Camera. Action.
This was it.
The big takedown.
Oh, my God, I just wet my pants.
* * *
My assignment: Get Mr. Briggs to hire me back. Not as a programmer, but as a courier. Board a private jet. Deliver documents to his contacts in Asia. Then return with cash or drugs hidden in my—
No, I couldn’t even think it. It was too gross.
Hopefully, I’d never get that far. Once he made me the offer, I was off the hook. That is, wire.
I blinked through my star-crossed, false eyelashes and checked out the private lounge in the hotel filled with happy partygoers. Japanese and American businessmen drinking expensive whiskey and gulping down cubes of Kobe beef and truffles. Pretty young models wearing thigh-high, slinky dresses and spike heels. Their long earrings dangled over their bare shoulders when they laughed, provocative and jazzy.
Was I the only one not having a good time?
I glanced briefly into a dark corner and spied a couple making out on the couch. Two men drinking and laughing pointed to them. One of them must have told a dirty joke. I moved on before they zeroed in on me. I had never felt so vulnerable. My skin prickled like I was a chicken with its feathers plucked. Yet I knew Steve and his team were here somewhere.
Watching me.
“Do you copy, Pepper?” I heard him say in my earpiece. The microbud was the latest in surveillance technology, giving me the freedom to move about and receive information.
“I’m here, Steve,” I whispered, grabbing a martini off a tray. My third. I scanned a trio of businessmen watching a pretty girl balance a champagne glass on her forehead while they trickled the bubbly down her cleavage. “But Mr. Briggs isn’t.”
“Keep looking. You’ll find him. And when you do, be sexy. Make him forget you were ever a programmer.”
Easier said than done.
I was afraid to jiggle my boobs. Steve had fastened a faux diamond pin with the tiny digital recorder onto my low-cut dress. What if it came loose?
At least I could see where I was going. The Bureau had staked me with soft contacts for the job, or so Steve said. I was sure the money came out of his own pocket. I considered it a personal loan, and I intended to pay him back as soon as I found work.
I sipped my martini. Sea salt and orange mixed on my tongue as I peeked over the rim of my glass. I shook, not stirred, my courage. Revved it up all the way. Swaying my hips so the sparkly pin caught the light. Swinging my silver-sequined purse with the long chain over my shoulder. I had this fantasy I was a spy. Especially in this setup. An intimate lounge with cut crystal and glass, blue velvet couches and purple walls that reminded me of a scene in a Bond flick.
The villain’s lair.
How juicy.
I scoped out the men drinking at the long mahogany bar.
There he was. I saw Mr. Briggs raising his glass in a toast with an Asian businessman, his other hand grabbing the man’s business card. Perfect timing. I knew his game: Get a foot in the Japanese video game market and he was set.
Not tonight, Mr. Briggs.
My job was to convince him that he “owed” me a job, and I would blow the whistle on him if he didn’t hire me.
Remembering what Cindy said about being in the moment, I thought about sex as I sashayed over to my ex-boss.
Steve’s big dick. And his hands all over me.
No wonder I had a big smile on my face when I came up behind him. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder, “what a surprise seeing you here.”
Flustered, he spit out his drink and then turned to see me grinning at him. “You show up in the strangest places, Miss O’Malley.”
“I’m a whiz kid, remember?” I said, leaning in closer. “Your calendar is an open book to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
“Not until you give me a job.”
“I just hired a new programmer to take your place.”
“That’s not the job I want.” I cozied up to him, licking my lips. The Asian businessman next to him smiled, bowed and left. “You could send me to Japan to work on your
other business.”
Mr. Briggs wiped his sweaty brow with his cocktail napkin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” I sipped my martini, flirting with him and batting my thick eyelashes like a pop music queen. “All that lovely, dirty money flowing into your hands, and all you have to do is wash it clean.”
“Are you trying to blackmail me, Miss O’Malley?”
“All I want is what you owe me, Mr. Briggs. Back salary and my key to the exec girls’ washroom.”
That last part was off script, but I couldn’t help it.
“What?” he asked, not getting it.
I took a deep breath and got back into character fast. “I hear there’s beaucoup bucks in moving overseas money through phony shell companies—”
An irritated female voice butted in. “Excuse me, honey, but Mr. Briggs isn’t interested in balling you, so lay off.”
Holy shit. It was Ms. Sims looking glam, if you could make a witch glam. Her perfume reeked, as usual. Where did she get that stuff? It smelled like hair dye.
“Did you fly in on your broomstick?” I asked, feeling smug.
It took her a moment to recognize me.
“Pepper O’Malley,” she screeched, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“Mr. Briggs and I are discussing business,” I said, standing up to her. “Now if you’ll excuse us.”
“I’m calling security.”
“Don’t be so hasty, Genevieve,” Mr. Briggs said, nervous.
Genevieve?
“Miss O’Malley is going to be our new business associate.”
Did you get that, Steve?
“Make him offer you a job outright,” I heard in my earpiece.
Damn, this wasn’t going according to plan. I needed more courage. I downed the martini in one gulp.
“Mr. Briggs wants me to be a courier for the company,” I said in a clear voice.
He acknowledged what I said with a brief nod and a weak grin.
“Make him say he wants you to move money for him, Pepper,” Steve whispered in my ear. “We need his voice on the tape.”
