Any Way You Want Me (8 page)

She spotted a few friends talking near a sparkling Christmas tree and led Kyle in their direction. Would everyone be able to tell right away that they were imposters as a couple? That they were more familiar in bed than out?

She smiled and tried to think happy couple thoughts.

“Hey, Yasmine, I’m on your team for Trivial Pursuit,” a woman she knew as Nora, from Cass’s office, said. “She’s a total brainiac,” she added to her boyfriend, Lionel.

“I was hoping in the spirit of the holidays, we could skip the Trivial Pursuit for once,” Cass called from the kitchen.

“With Yasmine, that’s simply not an option,” Nora said, and she was right. A party was not complete without at least one Trivial Pursuit game, and usually a major argument breaking out over a Trivial Pursuit game.

She introduced Kyle to the group, carefully avoiding giving any more information than his name. Everyone’s gaze raked over him, and she could see a few of them trying to decide which question to ask first.

Nora, never one to tiptoe around the subject, dove right in. “So you two are dating?”

“Um, sort of,” Yasmine said.

“How long?”

She glanced at Kyle, hoping he’d have a good lie for an answer.

“Just a short while,” he said, smooth as could be.

He was cuter than her last boyfriend by a mile, and his casual J. Crew catalog style was far cooler than her previous guy’s affection for black leather pants—which, for the record, could never be removed quickly enough in the heat of passion.

All her friends would probably size up Kyle and deem him the catch of a lifetime, The One, and when he disappeared from Yasmine’s life in another few days or weeks, they’d spend the next ten years shaking their heads and secretly speculating on the exact reasons Yasmine was unable to hold on to men.

Likely they’d deem it related to her sordid past.

She could hold on to any guy she wanted, she supposed, if she actually wanted to keep him around. She glanced at Kyle and wondered if he had potential for more than just a weekend fling. He could hold a conversation, and he was smart and funny and great in bed, and her cat liked him. But there was that whole coworker issue. And the fact that something about him haunted her, left her feeling as though she was hanging out with a ghost from her past.

It was one thing to have hot sex with a co-worker and then have to go about pretending it never happened. But it was quite another matter to get real emotions involved, have a relationship, let the world know they were a thing, and then break up and have to live with all that emotional baggage sitting in the middle of the office between them.

And could he see her as something more than a pretty face? Could he care about her as a person as much as he cared about the way she looked? Did she even care?

No, she’d take the weekend fling and be happy with that. Yasmine knew that complications were to be avoided whenever possible, and that men were attracted to her for one reason alone.

But she watched and listened as Kyle launched into conversation with her meddlesome friends, fielding
their nosy questions and behaving like a relaxed boyfriend rather than a guy she was screwing for the weekend, and he almost convinced even her that they were an item.

“Where did you two meet?” Nora asked.

“We work in the same office.”

“Ah, an office romance! I had no idea Yasmine worked with any cute guys. To hear her talk—”

“We’re all a bunch of pasty-faced geeks.”

“I’d hardly call you pasty-faced,” she said, and Lionel cast her a look.

Kyle shrugged. “I do some surfing, get some fresh air now and then.”

Across the room, Cass caught Yasmine’s attention and waved her toward the kitchen. She slipped away from the group and followed her friend.

“What’s up with you?” Yasmine asked as she surveyed the hors d’oeuvre tray Cass was preparing to take out to the crowd for something that didn’t look burned.

“Try not to look too smug, but that guy Drew is what’s up with me,” Cass said as she tried to hide the burned spots on the finger foods with a layer of spray cheese.

“You like him!”

“Well, I can’t say I didn’t like him, but I don’t know him well enough to know if I like him. What I do know is that there’s definitely some chemistry going on.”

Yasmine settled for an overdone mushroom and chewed it up fast to avoid experiencing too much of the flavor. “Let me just say for the record that the spray cheese isn’t going to fool anyone.”

“Aren’t you going to comment on the chemistry thing?”

“I’ll reserve my enthusiasm for your engagement announcement.”

“Don’t even go there.”

“Okay, I’m glad you’re giving Drew a chance. He’s one of the nicest guys I know, and he deserves a good woman. So that means no stomping on his heart.”

“Well, I can promise him some good sex, but that’s about it.”

She decided not to argue. Cass had been more into her ex-boyfriend than she had any other guy, and being dumped out of the blue had hit her hard. Even harder when the dumping happened over another woman. She was well past the rebound period though—it was time for her to move on to a guy who deserved her affection and get over her fixation on pretty, shallow men.

The acrid aftertaste of the mushroom hit Yasmine and she thought twice about bringing any of the cheese-sprayed mushrooms back to Kyle.

“I’d better go rescue Kyle,” she said. “Soon as you’ve had your date with Drew, I want all the details.”

“You’ve got a deal, so long as you give me a full report on Mr. Gorgeous out there.”

“There’s nothing to report. We’re just being weekend sex buddies, I guess.” She shrugged and turned away to avoid any further scrutiny.

Yasmine wandered into the living room, pausing near the doorway to watch Kyle interact with her friends. He was as relaxed as if he were among his own friends instead of a bunch of people eager to find out if he was his date’s soul mate or if he had some monstrous flaw. And she marveled that for once, she didn’t feel on edge
introducing her date to her friends. She somehow felt just as relaxed as Kyle looked.

Bizarre, considering how little they knew each other, and how he could still reveal himself as an utter and complete nutcase, and she wouldn’t have any right to act surprised.

In fact, any second now, Yasmine fully expected she’d wake up and realize Kyle Kramer wasn’t nearly as great a guy as he seemed to be.

A
LEX SIPPED
his after-dinner eggnog and watched the lights twinkling on the Christmas tree. Around him, the ebb and flow of conversation lulled him into a half trance, the sort he remembered from his childhood that only came with being content and surrounded by family and friends.

He’d enjoyed hanging out with this group, talking over dinner and watching with detached amusement as half of them got into a heated debate over Trivial Pursuit. He was even having trouble remembering he was supposed to be someone else. Sure, there was the lying he’d had to do about his career, but he’d rehearsed that story so many times he’d almost started believing it.

And now, here with all Yasmine’s friends, he felt as if he belonged, as if he was with a woman he really cared about and not one he was secretly trying to gather evidence against. It occurred to him, when he finally remembered his situation, that his life had gotten seriously screwed up.

Not only did he think Yasmine was the hottest thing since the discovery of fire, he was pretty sure he liked her just as well outside of bed. So far, she hadn’t done a single thing to make him feel justified in secretly investigating her.

If she didn’t start acting like an obnoxious criminal soon, he was going to develop a guilty conscience. Okay, who the hell was he kidding? He already felt guilty, and if he didn’t find some solid evidence against her, he’d feel like the world’s biggest jerk for ever having lied to her in the first place.

The Trivial Pursuit game ended with a resounding victory for the women—owed entirely to Yasmine’s amazing wealth of useless knowledge—and she flopped down next to him on the sofa where he’d been sitting content to watch, not contributing much to the game.

“You’re looking awfully contemplative. Ashamed that your team lost so badly?” she asked, her dark eyes sparkling.

“You know more than any normal human should about American history.”

“Side effect of attending expensive boarding schools.”

Which must have made going from a stimulating intellectual environment to a youth correctional facility an even bigger shock for her. He’d blocked out that fact before, but now, sitting here with her, he had a pang of empathy for the spoiled little genius girl who’d been locked away thanks in part to him.

“Did you get to wear hot little plaid skirts and white tops knotted at the waist?” he half whispered.

She laughed. “Yeah, and we dressed in little pink teddies on Saturday nights and had all-girl pillow fights.”

“A guy can dream, right?”

“And you’re also pretty good at evading questions. What’s with the brooding expression you were wearing a minute ago?”

“Seriously? You want to know the truth?”

Yasmine leaned in close and propped her head on her elbow against the back of the sofa. “Absolutely.”

“I
hate
eggnog. Why on earth do people drink this crap?” He gazed down into his cup as if worms were emerging from it.

She laughed and swatted his thigh. “You’re a freak.”

“Only in the bedroom.”

Around them, people were donning coats, gathering purses and unwrapped gifts, saying goodbyes. Alex realized, out of the blue, that as much as he loved Yasmine’s company, this was truly an awful way to celebrate Christmas Eve, spending it deceiving a woman he didn’t want to deceive. He was so far removed from the spirit of the season that he might as well have donned a devil costume and called it Halloween.

“Let’s go,” Yasmine said, “before you do anything violent to your eggnog.”

“Definitely.”

The darkest, ugliest part of him had brought Alex to this point, and he realized now his mistake was in thinking that a good end justified dishonest means.

Five minutes later they’d said their goodbyes and were outside, walking back to Yasmine’s apartment. She was tucked into his side, her hip bumping against him as they walked down the street.

“I hope my friends didn’t drive you crazy,” she said.

“They were great. I had fun tonight.”

“Thanks for being my date—and for keeping me company over the holidays, too. You’re still staying the night tonight, aren’t you?”

“Truckloads of eggnog couldn’t keep me away. And I’m the one who should be saying thanks.”

“We’d better stop the lovefest before we make each other sick, don’t you think?”

“I think if you show me any appreciation, it should be for sharing my piece of Yule log with you.”

“Oh, right. My dear friend Cass is many things, but talented chef is not one of them. That Yule log tasted like—”

“Like something better used for kindling?”

Here he was again, nearly forgetting that Yasmine wasn’t his girlfriend or even his date. She was a woman whose company he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying, and damn if he could help himself.

Focus. He had to shove aside his feelings of pleasure, of guilt, and focus on the task at hand. Time to dive into his investigation headfirst. He couldn’t change his plan now, regardless of how underhanded it might be. “It’s great that you’ve moved on from your time in juvenile detention and built a new life for yourself. Your friends seem really nice.”

“They are. I’m lucky I have people who don’t judge me.”

“Except when it comes to Trivial Pursuit.”

She smiled, and he could sense her relaxation. “Right,” she said. “I like them because they don’t care what I can or can’t do with a computer.”

“Aren’t you ever tempted to test out your hacking skills?” he asked, casual as he could be.

She sighed. “I’ll admit, it’s a temptation.”

“I can imagine. I mean, honestly, I used to play around, trying to break into systems, but I sucked. I’d make a terrible hacker,” he lied.

“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a skill to be proud of.”

“Sure it is. I mean, assuming you were doing it for the right reasons.” His stomach clenched. This was the point where he could ruin everything if he wasn’t careful.

“Now there’s a daring idea.”

“What?”

“That it’s okay to do something wrong if you’ve got a good reason.”

“Sort of like Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich to give to the poor.”

“You really believe Robin Hood was a good guy?” she asked, and Alex’s heartbeat quickened.

He knew he was close. So damn close.

“Yeah, doesn’t everybody?”

“Not the rich people he stole from.”

He glanced over at her and caught her smiling. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“Promise you can keep a secret?”

“Sure,” he said as evenly as he could.

“Remember that story in the news a while back, about the hackers who were attacking terrorist Web sites?”

“Yeah,” he said, a weird sense of anticipation settling over him. “That was great—why?”

She smiled, all mock innocence. “Well…”

“That was you?”

“Me and some friends. It was a blast.”

Alex felt as if someone had clubbed him in the head. It made sense now. She had been hacking again, but perhaps not in the way he or any of his fellow agents had thought. At least in this case, not for any nefarious purpose.

Holy shit.

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not. But please keep it quiet, okay? I’ve
never told anyone, and…given my history, I don’t want word getting out.”

“My lips are sealed. But that’s awesome. I mean, how many Web sites did you take down?”

“Between me and my friends, probably about twenty hits over a two-month period. That’s counting repeats—when they got their sites back online, we took them out again.” She smiled, and he could tell she was proud of herself even if she didn’t want to admit it.

“What made you stop?”

“Guilt, and a weird feeling, like this sense I had that I was going to get caught again. I started feeling like I was being watched.”

“Who would prosecute you for hindering terrorists?”

“I guess I’m just paranoid. I know it sounds crazy.”

“Not at all.” His chest filled with an odd sense of pride in her. In her own way, she’d been helping to defend her country.

“I’ve always felt—I mean, since the first time I got in trouble—like I had to walk the straight-and-narrow path or else. I just had this little impulse to do something rebellious, but then I got scared.”

“Is that what this weekend with me is about? Being a little rebellious?”

“No,” she said too quickly. “I mean…maybe, a little.”

“I see,” he said, smiling.

And now he understood his appeal to her. She was a rebel without an outlet for her urges, and he was her way to rebel. He was dangerous, but not too dangerous. It wasn’t the way he’d intended to gain her trust, but it had worked nonetheless.

“You’re not offended, are you?”

“Let’s see—a beautiful, intelligent woman wants to spend the weekend with me. Which part should I be offended by?”

Yasmine shrugged and looked ahead as they walked. There was some shift in her mood then that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

And the question remained—had she engaged in any other system intrusions? Was she only telling him part of the truth? Was her daring to hack into terrorist Web sites just a hint of her secret activities?

Alex glanced at Yasmine again, her perfect features aglow in the streetlights. He couldn’t fathom her, this rebellious beauty who’d captivated him from the moment he first saw her. And he hoped like hell that she was innocent.

But then what? What if she really was innocent? Did he think he could just tell her the truth and that they could continue as they’d started this weekend? No, he knew there would be repercussions, and no matter what he learned from his investigation, both of them were going to get hurt.

A
LEX HAD SET HIS WRISTWATCH
alarm to sound at two in the morning, and as soon as he heard it go off, he pressed the button to stop the tinkling alarm. Beside him, Yasmine slept soundly, her steady breathing marked by the occasional pauses of deep sleep.

He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark, then lay in bed biding his time. He could get up right now and search her computer, search her apartment, look for any and all answers to the question of her involvement in illegal activities.

Part of him couldn’t wait to know the truth, was ea
ger to prove that she was innocent. And another part of him dreaded the other possibility—the chance that she really was still a hacker. If his attraction to her had clouded his judgment that badly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that, either.

But he’d come this far. He’d concocted a false identity for himself, lied his way into Yasmine’s life, and he couldn’t back down now.

One more glance in her direction to confirm she was sleeping, and he slipped out of the bed, silent and easy. Grabbing his boxers from the floor, he slid them on and eased his way out of the room and into the living room, where the lights on the tree still twinkled.

Alex sat at the computer desk and with a nudge of the mouse, took the monitor out of low-power mode. Yasmine’s flat-panel screen came to life, bright blue in the near darkness, inviting him to explore whatever secrets the hard drive held.

The type of people who spent their free time invading other people’s systems tended to be a paranoid sort when it came to their own computer’s security. Passwords and firewalls abounded, but Yasmine’s system came to life without a single password request.

Without that hurdle to jump, he easily started exploring. Through folders hidden and not so hidden, he looked for clues about her Internet activities. That everything was so easily accessible was a good sign, a sign that she didn’t think like a hacker anymore.

And after a half hour of poking around her hard drive, he’d have to say, if she had any secrets, they were hidden
extremely
well. On the Internet, she seemed to have a penchant for Ebay and online shopping sites, a cou
ple of news sites and blogs, and that was it. Nothing nefarious. She didn’t haunt any of the sites attractive to hackers, didn’t even go to sites that suggested she might have an interest in system security anymore.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

His eyes glazed and his body telling him what he needed most was sleep right now, he glanced at the dark hallway that led to the bedroom.

No sound came from that direction, but something made his hackles rise. He went totally still and listened.

Nothing. Maybe it had just been the cat. But his muscles remained tense, his senses on alert, so he turned back to the monitor and set it to low power again.

When he was about to rise from the desk chair, an almost imperceptible sound caught his attention. He turned and saw Yasmine standing in the living room doorway squinting in the soft light, her long hair tousled, falling over her shoulders and breasts.

The fear of nearly getting caught shot through him, seized his chest, sent his brain scrambling for an explanation of his late-night visit to her computer desk. It occurred to him now how horrified he was at the thought of Yasmine finding out the truth about his deception. He didn’t want her to know, regardless of her guilt or innocence. He didn’t want her to hate him.

She was still naked, and if it weren’t for the cold spike of adrenaline that now had him on edge, he would have gotten hard at the sight of her. Shielding her eyes from twinkling lights on the tree with one hand, she frowned at him.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I heard a noise and thought Santa had come.”

He forced himself to breathe. “I’m kind of an insomniac. Couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get up and check the news on the Internet.”

A slow smile spread across her lips as she closed the distance between them. “I thought I’d properly tired you out tonight.”

Alex stood and took her in his arms, relaxed into the warmth of her body. Thank God she’d bought his story.

“Mmm.” He dipped his head down and kissed her. “I may need a little more exercise before I’ll be ready to sleep.”

“Exercise? Is that what we’re calling it now?” she asked, and then she placed a kiss on his neck that he felt all the way to his groin.

“Call it what you want,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s addictive.”

The swiveling computer chair was behind him now, and she molded her body tighter to his. He brushed her hair back off her shoulders to give him unobstructed access to her breasts, and his cock went hard, while his balls tightened.