by Jami Alden
She opened the door and stopped short as she came face-to-face with the object of her reluctant lust. He leaned against the counter, sipping at a cup of coffee in a casual stance. But his intense stare was anything but casual. Heat scorched her cheeks, and she knew he was thinking about her naked, stretched under him as he parted her thighs to sink his hips between hers. Her nipples puckered against the soft cotton fabric of her robe at the remembered feel of his hard body pressed up against hers, the heat of his mouth sliding over her skin, the wet penetration of his tongue sliding in the folds of her sex.
Toni broke off eye contact, mumbled something about getting dressed, and hurried down the hall. She emerged a few minutes later dressed in skinny dark-wash jeans and a Pink Floyd vintage concert tee. She would have added a hoodie over the ensemble, but she couldn’t take it in this heat, no matter how much she needed the feeble armor another layer of clothing would provide.
She took the cup of coffee he offered, then stepped away to put a good three feet of space between them.
“Cream, right?” he asked.
She nodded and took a fortifying sip.
“So what were you doing at Jerry’s?”
“What made you realize I was right?” she countered.
“A feeling,” he said, shooting her that toe-curling grin as he echoed her words from the day before. His expression grew serious. “Whatever you did, whatever you found out, I’m not going to rat you out to Jerry.”
“Really? You’ll compromise your client’s security based on the word of someone you’ve known for less than a week?”
His jaw tightened, and Toni could see that he was still struggling with the decision he had made. “Like I said, I think you’re right. I think he’s up to something. And if it turns out it has nothing to do with Kara’s disappearance, then we agree to ignore what we find and let him get on with it. But I’d rather poke around, bend a few rules and be wrong than do nothing and put Kara at risk.”
“I like you better all the time, Taggart,” Toni said, wondering what made him change his mind. Whatever it was, she was running with it.
She carried her coffee cup over to her desk and rebooted her computer. She held up the external hard drive for Ethan, who gave her a puzzled look. “I copied the files from his home computer here,” she clarified. “And I also bugged his computer and his home network.”
“And you don’t think he’ll notice?”
Toni pulled a face. “He caught me while I was leaving yesterday.”
Ethan cursed under his breath.
“But even if he suspects something, he’ll never be able to tell. I modified the programs myself to be untraceable.”
Ethan’s lips quirked into a reluctant smile as he pulled up chair and sat down next to her. “All right, Einstein, what have you found out so far?”
“He’s been moving his money,” she said, pulling up Jerry’s bank statements for Ethan.
As he leaned in for a closer look, she could smell the rich scent of coffee on his breath, the warm smell of his skin, and squashed the urge to to fill her nose with a long, lusty inhale. “This account is based in the Caymans,” she said, as much for his edification as to get her mind off tearing his shirt from his chest. “KK Securities, LLC, is a holding company I traced back to Jerry before he and Marcy got divorced. Yesterday he moved all of the assets in that account to another offshore account for BioEnterprises, LLC.” She pulled up another page. “He also liquidated several million dollars in stocks and moved it to the same account. Over the past several months he’s received several large transfers to that account, and I can’t reconcile any of them with money he’s making from GeneCor.”
Ethan studied the screen and stroked his bottom lip thoughtfully. Toni stared, transfixed by the sensuous curve.
“You think he could be getting money together to pay ransom?” Ethan asked, jarring her from her trance.
Toni swallowed hard against the knot of anxiety in her throat. She didn’t want to think it was anything that sinister, but she had to consider the possibility. “Or getting ready to take off.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. There’s still nothing here that proves he’s not telling the truth about where Kara is.”
Toni shot him a harsh look. “You said yourself you think he’s lying.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. I agree he’s up to something—you found the proof. But it’s still a leap to go from financial malfeasance to having a hand in his daughter’s disappearance.”
“You told me you believed me. Is that true or not? Or are you just paying me lip service so you can report everything I find back to Jerry? Did he offer you a corporate security contract at GeneCor if you do?”
His big shoulders bunched under his T-shirt. She was pissing him off. Because she’d scored a direct hit, or because he was offended, she wasn’t sure. “What have I done to make you so suspicious?”
Toni made a scoffing sound in her throat. “I’ve only known you for three days. Give me one reason why I should trust you.”
His blue eyes narrowed, taking on icy focus that made her feel like he was seeing straight through her. “You have a hard time trusting men, don’t you?”
Toni rolled her eyes and pushed off her chair, grabbing her coffee cup off the desk. “Please, spare me the armchair psychoanalysis. I’m suspicious of a man who flagrantly cheated on his wife and tried to hide money from his family. Any trust issues I have are beside the point.”
Ethan pivoted in his chair, his lips quirked in a knowing smile. “So you admit you have them.”
Toni poured herself another cup of coffee. “Even so, they’re none of your business.”
“John Braxton must have done a number on you.”
Toni’s hand froze on the refrigerator as she whipped her head around to face him.
She wanted to smack the knowing look off his face. “How do you know about John?”
“He came up in your background check.”
“Yeah, what did you find?”
“You shared a residence with him for the first nine months you lived here. By the look on your face, I’d say he’s your ex.”
“And the prize for great detective work goes to Ethan Taggart,” she said tightly.
“Why did you break up with him?”
“I had my reasons,” she said. She wasn’t about to share the sordid details about how, mere months after convincing Toni to move to California with him, John had dumped her for an investment banking analyst he’d met on his frequent business trips to the East Coast. Toni’s suspicion had driven her to break into his e-mail account. The intimate messages they’d exchanged had confirmed her worst fears. To this day, the humiliation at having been so stupid and gullible felt as raw as the day she’d discovered the truth.
“Did he cheat on you?” Ethan asked, relentless.
Toni threw up her hands in exasperation. “Fine. Yes. He cheated on me. He started banging some woman in New York a few months after we moved down here.” She plunked her coffee on the desk and sank into the chair next to him. “Not that I should be surprised.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean,” she said, shooting Ethan a pointed look, “all men will screw around if they think they won’t get caught. Hell,” she said, “most men will do it even if they know they’ll get caught.”
“We’re not all bad, you know,” he said. “You really can trust me.”
She snorted in disbelief. “Give me a break. You’re the worst kind.”
He actually had the nerve to look affronted. “I’ve never cheated on a girlfriend in my life.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. And you’ve been in how many long-term committed relationships?”
His lips pressed into a tight line. “I never make promises I don’t intend to keep.”
“No, but you imply them. You make
a woman feel like she’s the most amazing woman in the world, like she’s the center of your universe. Until you’ve fucked her, that is, and then it’s all ‘Hey baby, that was great. Catch you on the flip-side.’” It was good to say all of this out loud, as it reminded her of exactly why, no matter how hot the chemistry that had sparked between them, she would be an idiot to let herself fall for Ethan.
His full lips tightened. “This is about what happened the other night. I didn’t mean to make you feel—”
“I want to forget it ever happened. Forget I said anything at all.”
Ethan sat back, bristling at the way she’d lumped him in with every other man she’d caught screwing around. “Not every man is unfaithful, you know.”
She peeled her gaze from the screen. “Yeah? Name one.”
“My father. He’s so faithful, it’s been almost eighteen years and he’s never been on a date.”
“Your parents split, too?”
That was one way of looking at it. “Yeah. My mom left when I was fifteen, and I’m pretty sure she was the one having the affairs.”
Toni’s eyes darkened with sympathy. “I’m sorry—I know how that goes. My dad left when I was the same age. I haven’t really seen him since. He didn’t even come to Michelle’s funeral.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not always the men who leave.” He didn’t know why he was talking about his mom. He never talked about her with anyone, never wanted to see that pitying look everyone used to give him that first year. Poor kid, losing his mom like that. He didn’t need anyone’s sympathy.
Toni knew. Her look was different. Shit, Toni was different, but hell if he understood why. It wasn’t her looks. Yeah, she was beautiful, especially when her lips were red and puffy from kissing and her cheeks were flushed from coming her brains out. But Ethan had dated, slept with, women who could have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.
It was something more, something deeper that made him want to dig down and find out everything there was to know about her.
The hell of it was, she thought he considered her just another piece of ass, another notch, another meaningless lay. Hell if he knew how to convince her otherwise. He was good at the sex but sucked at anything that smacked of a real relationship.
“Are you even listening to me?” Her question snapped him back to her description of the files on Jerry’s computer she’d gone through so far.
“Absolutely,” he lied.
“There’s also a bunch of stuff he deleted that will take me awhile to recover,” she said.
Ethan nodded. “And we’re tracking his car and we know anytime he leaves the house.” He made a mental note to put a man on Jerry. While he still wasn’t convinced Kara was anything more than a runaway, Jerry’s recent activity left him with a sense of foreboding.
Toni got out of her chair, twined her fingers, and stretched her hands to the ceiling. Her arms dropped wearily to her sides and she rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe you’re right—I can’t see how this all links together. Maybe Kara taking off for the beach is just some weird coincidence.”
She looked at Ethan. He could see a flicker of something in her expression and he knew she was thinking about her sister.
He got up and went to her, needing to touch her, to comfort her, even knowing she wouldn’t welcome it. His hands settled on her shoulders, kneading the tense muscles, sliding in to work on her neck.
Her entire body stiffened and she tried to move away.
“Relax,” he said, murmured, tightening his grip on her shoulders. “It’s just a neck rub.” But what had started out as a comforting gesture morphed into something else the moment he touched her. The smooth skin of her neck heated up against his fingers, and he focused on the tender patch of skin where her neck and shoulder met. He wanted to sweep his tongue across it, close his teeth over it, leave a love bite for her to remember him by. Her muscles quivered against his hands, and she tried again to step away.
“I don’t need a neck rub,” she said stiffly.
He dug his thumb into a knot at the juncture of her neck and shoulders, and her right knee buckled. “Really?”
“I carry a lot of tension in my shoulders,” she conceded, her voice a little breathless, “but I don’t need you to help me work it out.”
He leaned in closer, inhaling the fresh scent of her shampoo coming from her still-damp hair. Instead of sleek and straight, this morning her hair fell in loose waves that just brushed the delicate line of her jaw. A curl bounced against her cheekbone as she turned to face him.
“Can you stop touching me, please?”
Not on your fucking life. He spread his hands over her shoulders. “I like your hair like this,” he said. He could hear her breath speeding up as his thumbs swept over her shoulder blades.
“It does this when I don’t have time to dry it.”
“It’s sexy.”
She jerked away from him as though propelled by some unseen force. “Don’t do this, okay?” She spun around, eyes accusing behind their heavy frames, a rosy blush slashing across her cheekbones.
“What?” he asked, honestly bewildered.
“Look, I’m a big girl, okay? I know what the other night was, and what it wasn’t. But I’m not really good at sleeping with guys and pretending it doesn’t mean anything.”
His eyes narrowed. “I never said it didn’t mean anything.”
She cocked her head and shot him an incredulous look. “Please. Don’t feed me some bullshit line about my being,” she lifted her hands and did air quotes, “‘special.’ You don’t have to bother convincing me that I’m any different from any other woman. My self-esteem isn’t that fragile. I can handle reality.”
He could tell from her posture that she believed every word she said. She really believed he’d just been looking for a warm place to stick his dick, and she’d happened to be close. If he was smart, he’d let her believe it. The way she managed to tie him in knots and throw him completely off his game should have been warning enough.
“You want to hear about my reality?” He grabbed her and pulled her to him, wrapping one hand around her upper arm and the other around the back of her neck. “Yeah, I’ve fucked a lot of women. And you’re right. After I leave, I don’t spend much time worrying about their feelings or thinking about when I’m going to see them again.”
“Such a gentleman,” she spat out.
“But I’m honest. I don’t feed women lines of bullshit. I don’t have to.” He pulled her closer, let her feel his thickening cock surge against her firm belly. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but you are different. And I know because I’ve been thinking about you nonstop for three days straight, wondering where you are, what you’re doing, when I’ll see you again. I gave my brother a black eye yesterday for even joking about asking you out. And now that I’ve fucked you, I can’t get the feel of you out of my head, and I think I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have you again.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she said was muffled by the hard pressure of his mouth. He took full advantage of her surprise, thrusting his tongue between her parted lips, his fist tightening in her hair when she would have pulled away.
She splayed her palms and pushed against his chest, but he wouldn’t give an inch. He knew he was being obnoxious but he couldn’t stop himself. With her, he wasn’t capable of any disconnected, calculated seduction. He was wild, out of control, driven by the need to prove she was different. By the need to have her.
He caught one of her hands in his and dragged it to the fly of his pants. His cock surged, hard as a spike against the unwilling pressure of her hand. She let out a muffled sound of protest even as her fingers wrapped reflexively around the thick shaft.
He rocked his hips against her hand, already so turned on he was seconds from coming in his pants like a horny teenager. “Feel that?” He nipped at her bottom lip and released her hand, groaning when she kept it firmly pressed against the front of
his pants. “I’m like that every time I get within ten feet of you.” He thrust again for emphasis. She responded by giving his dick a firm squeeze. He cupped her face in his hands and began to kiss her in earnest, his tongue tracing her lips and probing her mouth. He kissed her the way he wanted to fuck her, sweeping in and out in a slow, hungry rhythm.
Her hands slid down his back and up again, catching the hem of his shirt on the way. He hissed at the feel of her cool fingers on his overheated skin. He yanked the hem of her T-shirt up her chest and dragged it over her head, his dick swelling against his fly when he saw what she was wearing underneath.
Her bra was made of sheer mesh decorated with patches of lace and did nothing to hide the pale skin and dark pink tips. He covered her with both hands, brushing his thumbs over the rock-hard peaks. “Please tell me you’re wearing panties that match.” He groaned aloud at the thought of tasting her plump pussy lips through the thin veil of see-through mesh.
Gripping her around the waist, he lifted her off the floor and moved the short distance to the kitchen table. He sat her down and stood between her legs, kissing her all the while. He wanted to suck her tits into his mouth, bury his tongue in her cunt, but he couldn’t get enough of her sweet, succulent mouth. He loved the way she tasted, the way her tongue chased his back into his mouth, the way her lips sucked at his, the breathy little moans she made in the back of her throat.
She shifted to fit herself more firmly against the hard ridge of his erection. He could feel her heat through the fabric of his pants and hers. He unbuttoned her jeans, and the buzz of her zipper was the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. He slid his hand over her panties. They were drenched, soaked with the evidence that as much as she tried to hold herself back, she was as hot for him as he was for her. “I’ve been dreaming of fucking you again,” he murmured, pressing his fingers against her hot slit. She breathed a shaky sigh into his mouth as his finger barely brushed her clit through the insubstantial fabric of her panties.
