Secret Pleasure

by Taryn Leigh Taylor

“There should be a charger in that drawer.” Aidan glanced over his shoulder as he pointed at the cabinet closest to the door, not realizing his mistake until Kaylee had already banged her mug onto the counter.

  “Oh my God, Aidan! What happened to your face?”

  Phone woes forgotten, she rushed toward him and he swore under his breath and straightened up from his crouched position to his full height. “It’s nothing,” he protested.

  “You have a black eye. It’s not nothing.”

  “Tool slipped while I was working on the bike earlier.”

  “Hold still and let me see.” She set her hand on his face, and it was so reminiscent of the private moment he’d witnessed between Emma and Max that he winced.

  Kaylee’s brow crumpled with concern. “Does it hurt?”

  Aidan had to remind himself that she was talking about his eye and not the sudden lurch of his heart.

  I love her. Max had said the words so simply. No emphasis. No uncertainty. A statement of fact.

  Aidan managed the slightest shake of his head.

  “I could get you some ice,” she offered, but this time she licked her lips, letting him know that the sudden heat kindling in his belly wasn’t one-sided.

  Her hand still rested on his cheek.

  “I could kiss it better.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it didn’t lessen the impact on his body. He was ravenous for her, instantly ready, desperately hard.

  Aidan ran his hands over her ass and down her thighs before he hitched her up his body and she locked her heels across the small of his back. Kaylee pressed her mouth to his, first sweet, running her tongue along his bottom lip, then not so sweet, catching it between her teeth.

  He loved having her mouth on him.

  “Is this working?” she asked, dropping a kiss against his jaw and another on the side of his neck. “Because if you don’t feel better yet, I do have a couple of more advanced techniques that might help you forget about the pain,” she teased.

  He wanted to take her up on the offer.

  Christ, did he ever.

  But he couldn’t. Not like this. Not until he made things right.

  “You still have to get changed and get to work,” he reminded her. “You’re going to be late if we try out your advanced techniques. And even later if we try out some of mine.”

  “My name is on the building. What are they going to do, fire me?”

  “All the more reason to set a good example,” he joked.

  Kaylee gave an exaggerated moan of protest as she unhooked her legs from around his waist so he could lower her back to the floor. “Adulting sucks.”

  Almost as much as watching her walk away from him, Aidan thought.

  “Leave your phone when you go. I’ll take a look at it.” He did his best to pass it off as a casual offer, hoping the waver his voice didn’t betray him.

  Kaylee arched an eyebrow at him as she grabbed her purse. “Oh, you fix cell phones now?”

  “What can I say? I’m good with my hands.”

  She grinned at that. “Says the man who clocked himself in the face.”

  Aidan’s response was a wounded frown. “That sounds like both a slur on my manhood and an undeniable challenge. And when you get home from work, I’ll be happy to prove just how good I really am with my hands. As many times as you want.”

  “Well, in that case,” she said, grabbing her phone from the counter and handing it to him on her way to the door, “you’d better limber up those fingers while I’m gone, because I feel a bout of skepticism coming on.”

  * * *

  When Kaylee arrived at work an hour later, her heels clicked against the tiled floor that made up the lobby of the PR department. Thanks to the communal working space, it wasn’t a sound she usually heard above the day-to-day chatter, and it definitely wasn’t a sound she should be hearing now, considering Whitfield Industries was still digging out from the perfect storm of scandals that had plagued them lately. To say the PR department was abuzz with activity right now was a massive understatement. Or at least it should be.

  That was why the clack of her pumps unnerved her. Along with the surreptitious glances her team was throwing her.

  Things made sense when she arrived at her office. Nothing like an unannounced visit from the boss to put people on edge.

  “Max? I thought we weren’t meeting until...” She trailed off as he turned from his inspection of one of the paintings on her wall. He was dressed impeccably as ever, his Windsor knot crisp and precise. Even the slight wave of his ebony hair was perfect. Perhaps that was what made his fat lip so out of place.

  The sight of it hit her like a bucket of cold water.

  Tool slipped while I was working on the bike earlier.

  No. Aidan wouldn’t have gone to Max. They hated each other.

  And she’d made it clear to Aidan that she wasn’t ready for her family to know about...whatever was going on between the two of them.

  “What happened?” But she knew. God help her, she knew.

  The realization that Aidan had lied to her struck hard and with disorienting speed.

  Max’s eyebrow lifted. “Aidan didn’t—well, that’s not a surprise, I guess.”

  “He hit you.”

  The summation made him frown. “I hit him first,” Max clarified before releasing an uncharacteristic sigh. “What are you doing with him, Kale?”

  This. This was the very reason she’d wanted to keep Aidan from her family. The inquisition. The censure. The justification.

  “You don’t get to go all big brother on me now, Max.” Kaylee stood her ground as he approached. “I’m sorry about what Dad did to you. Truly I am. And I wish that you’d told me earlier, that I’d been able to help you somehow. But what I do with my life is my own concern. We’re long past your chance to have a say in who I date.”

  Even if she wasn’t doing such a bang-up job when left to her own devices.

  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. You know Aidan has a tendency to bail. And he came here to ruin SecurePay.”

  “He told you that?” No wonder they’d come to blows. That goddamn app was the most important thing in Max’s world. And right now, Aidan had full access to it because she’d left her phone with him. Shit.

  She reversed direction, opening her office door and focusing on the elevator across the sea of worried glances.

  “Where are you going?” Max asked.

  “I’m taking lunch.” Fixing her error. Taking charge of her life. Maybe giving Aidan matching black eyes.

  “It’s nine in the morning.”

  “Call it brunch, then. I have something I need to deal with.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AIDAN THUMBED OPEN the spyware app he’d gotten from Cybercore as soon as the phone had enough charge to turn it on. This was it. He was going to end this right now. He didn’t want any more secrets between him and Kaylee—he wanted a fresh start. A chance to see if what she made him feel stood a chance at becoming something real or if it was doomed to fail beneath the lies and deceit that had stained their relationship before it had even started.

  Only one way to find out.

  Aidan hit the uninstall button.

  Uninstall failed.

  What the fuck? Kearney had assured him that was all he had to do. He touched it again.

  Uninstall failed.

  And again.

  Uninstall failed.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He dialed Liam Kearney.

  “You said this thing would self-destruct.”

  “It will.”

  Aidan’s grip tightened on the phone. Prick. “I wouldn’t be calling you if it had.”

  “Hey, I get it. My tech’s too complicated for a lot of people.”

  “I can handle the uninstall button, asshole. Too ba
d I didn’t make you prove your garbage tech before I paid for it.”

  “If I were you, Beckett, I might keep a civil tone. You’re the one who came begging favors from me.”

  Kearney was baiting him and he knew it, but it still took everything in him to keep his cool. “Hey, if I’d begged for this, I’d expect what I got, but since you took my money, yeah, I’m feeling a little uncivil about shitty tech that either sounds like static or cuts out. If my father was polite in his dealings with you, it’s only because he didn’t know what a hack you are.”

  Aidan hadn’t meant to go there, but some part of him needed to know. Needed to confirm what Max had told him.

  “Oh, I see. We’ve got daddy issues. I’ll tell you what, because John was nothing but a gentleman during our dealings and because he was a true craftsman, I’m going to overlook your slur on my tech.”

  Aidan stood up. He needed to move. An outlet. He started to pace. He felt like a caged tiger—dangerous and inclined to rip someone’s throat out but with no chance of getting his hands on his prey. And because he knew it, Kearney was poking a verbal stick through the bars.

  “Don’t even say his name, you hear me? Now, I think you were about to tell me how you were planning to fix this issue I have.”

  “I’ll take a look remotely after my meeting. It’ll be fine.”

  The word set his fucking teeth on edge.

  “Do not tell me this is going to be fine, Kearney. People always say that, and it never is. I want the malware you sold me off Kaylee’s phone. Right. Fucking. Now.”

  He hung up, his blood thundering through his veins. But despite the clamor in his head, a soft sound behind him prickled up his spine, froze him. Time slowed as he turned toward the door. The betrayal on her face almost sent him to his knees.

  * * *

  Kaylee’s purse slipped from her limp fingers, and it hit the ground with a thump.

  One minute, she was charging back home—back to his place, she corrected herself—to give Aidan hell for lying to her about his black eye, and the next minute her whole world was crashing down around her.

  “You’ve been spying on me?”

  The words didn’t make sense. It was like parroting a language she didn’t actually speak.

  “I wasn’t spying on you!” His exhalation deflated his battle stance. “I was spying through you.”

  “What?” She shook her head, but even through her shock, the pieces were starting to click into place. “That’s why you wanted my phone. Because you... Oh God. You bugged my phone? When?”

  Aidan broke eye contact, looked down. “The night we went for drinks.”

  The first night. The first fucking night. He hadn’t wanted her at all.

  “My God, Aidan. Do you know what I thought when I turned around and saw you in that coffee shop?” Something—part laugh, part cry, and all self-recrimination—burst from Kaylee’s lips. It was a harsh, wounded sound that made her flinch. “I thought it was fate.”

  And the whole time, she’d just been an easy mark. The weak link. The one who used to hang on his every word. No wonder he’d targeted her. And she’d fallen for it. Hell, she’d instigated it! “Max. My dad. Your dad. None of this was about me at all.”

  The unthinkable occurred then, and it killed her that—in light of what she’d just learned—it wasn’t actually unthinkable anymore.

  “Did you hack my brother’s company?”

  Aidan frowned, gave a curt shake of his head. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  Emotion bubbled up in her throat. She was vaguely relieved when it manifested as a scoffing laugh instead of a strangled sob. “Forgive me if I don’t just take your word on that.”

  “KJ...”

  She stepped back from the pleading tone, the intimacy of the name only he called her. “Just swooping in like a vulture then, biding your time. Waiting for the death throes to end.”

  “It’s not like that. Not anymore.”

  “Oh? And what’s it like now, Aidan? What’s changed, besides the fact that I caught you?” She shook her head at her own stupidity. “You were just using me to get information. You wanted the goddamn app.” The truth cut swift and deep. There was a moment of blessed numbness before pain bloomed in her heart, almost overwhelming with its intensity. She braced her hand on the counter, lifted the other to massage her temple. “None of this was real.” Another laugh escaped her, but this one held an edge of hysteria and burned her throat raw.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be, but it is now.” He stepped closer. His voice was raspy, like he was being tortured to divulge state secrets. “Being with you is the realest fucking thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “There’s nothing real about any of this!” Her attention landed on the dining room table, where things had been so different a few days ago. When he’d made her believe she was worth standing up for. Had that all been part of the ruse?

  “Don’t say that.”

  He reached for her. She hated that the brush of his fingers on her skin felt so good. Hated that his touch calmed her. Now was not the time for calm.

  She stepped back, and his hand fell away from her arm. Cool air swept over her skin where his fingers had been, and she shivered. “Why were you at the burlesque show that night?”

  “I was looking for you.”

  In any other context, the words would have been a dream come true. But not now. Not this context. “Why?”

  “My PI tracked your car there.”

  “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” It was hard to breathe through her outrage. “I wasn’t just a convenient mark you happened to run across at the coffee shop and chose to exploit. You recruited me. You were just using me, right from the start.”

  Aidan’s eyes flashed fire. “Well, you know all about that, don’t you?”

  The words cracked through the room with the ferocity of a whip.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You knew who I was that night in the supply closet. I’m just one more of your dirty little secrets, right? Who are you using me to get back at? Max? Your mom? Or hell, maybe it’s all intensely meta, and younger you is proving something to younger me, punishing me for not seeing what an incredible woman you were destined to become. Maybe D? All of the above?”

  The charges punched through her chest with devastating precision. It sounded so ugly when he put it that way. But was he wrong? Hadn’t she thought each and every one of those things that night in the club, when their gazes had collided? When she’d acted out her most cherished fantasy in that supply closet? When she’d accepted his offer for drinks, all the while hoping he’d figure out she and Lola were one and the same?

  “You want to talk truth? Here’s one for you. Are you here with me? Or are you here because they wouldn’t want you to be?”

  Kaylee didn’t want to think about it. Not when it didn’t matter anyway. He was here only because he was using her. And she’d let fanciful teenage emotions make her think this was something...what? Real? Special? Fated?

  She should have known better. No one who meant anything to her ever felt the same way back.

  “Jesus Christ, Kaylee. You say that secrets make you feel alive, but all you’ve managed to do is set your life up as a grenade, rigged to inflict maximum damage on anyone who’s wronged you.”

  “What?”

  He pinned her with a measured look. “Your mom lost her senatorial bid when your dad cheated on her with a stripper.”

  “She cheated on him first!” The defense of her father was automatic, as old as the scandal Aidan had referenced, and her gut lurched with disgust. She pushed the queasy feeling aside as she remembered the horrors Max had endured at Charles Whitfield’s hand. She couldn’t think about that right now. “And I’m not a stripper. I dance burlesque, and I’m not ashamed of it. Burlesque is ar
t. It’s dance as social commentary.”

  “Tell yourself that all you want. Hell, maybe it’s true. But if this hits the media, you know how it will play.”

  She hated that she had no defense for that. That maybe it was a little bit true. That she’d taken that burlesque class for the wrong reasons, not the least of which was Sylvia Whitfield’s disapproval. But no matter why she’d started, she’d grown to love burlesque. The girls. The art of it. It meant everything to her now.

  Kaylee raised her chin. “You’re hardly in a position to give me life advice, Aidan. You’ve never stuck around long enough to deal with the intricacies of relationships. Whenever things get hard, you claim wanderlust and disappear on another adventure.”

  The barb landed. She could tell by the way Aidan’s hands fisted, his automatic reaction to every blow, be it physical or verbal, but Kaylee got no joy from it.

  “You know what? You’re right.” He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the dining room chair. “It’s definitely past time that I got out of here.”

  Kaylee watched him go, flinched as the door slammed in his wake. Further proof that fight or flight was the extent of Aidan’s operating capacity.

  The rumble of his motorbike confirmed which option he’d chosen to apply to her.

  Kaylee’s bottom lip trembled, a precursor to the tears scalding the backs of her eyes. But she blinked them back and swallowed the lump in her throat. She needed to get back to work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  HEARTACHE HANGOVERS WERE so much worse than their tequila counterparts, Kaylee decided the next morning. Her eyelids felt like they were lined with gravel as she dragged them open to check the time. It took a moment for the numbers to register.

  Shit. It was almost eight o’clock! Her alarm was supposed to go off an hour and a half ago.

  She grabbed her phone with such ferocity that the charging cable came loose from the wall. Everything looked fine, but three attempted swipes later, Kaylee realized the stupid thing was frozen. No wonder the alarm hadn’t rung.

  Stupid piece of crap.