Bad Boy of Wall Street: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (14 page)

"Movie's all ready to go," he reported, nodding with approval as he took in the gleaming, clean results of my work. "I'll be in there in a minute with the popcorn, and maybe some drinks. Unless you've got anything against some booze?"

"After everything that's happened today, booze is really exactly what I need," I replied, closing my eyes for a moment at the thought of a cool, delicious mixed drink. I wiped my hands off on my pants, not even caring about how the water might leave marks on the dark pants. I still wore the classy outfit from earlier, but couldn't muster up the energy to head upstairs and change out of it.

Instead, I just wandered over into the living room of the little house. Rob had already drawn down the curtains and turned off most of the lights, and I saw the DVD's opening titles displayed on the television. The remote sat on the coffee table in front of the couch; all we had to do was pick it up and press play.

By the time that he returned a few minutes later, accompanied by the delectable salty, buttery smell of popcorn. My mouth had already started to water as I listened to the popping sounds coming from the kitchen, and I had to hold myself back from snatching the bowl right out of his hands.

"And this is also for you," he said, setting a thick-walled glass mug in front of me on a coaster, the ice clinking against the interior of the cup. "Made with what was on hand, so forgive me if the proportions are off."

Curious, I took a sip. The drink tasted almost like a mint margarita - interesting, but not bad! "What is it?"

"Mint julep, but with tequila, because apparently my eighty-two year old grandmother is still a wild party girl at heart." Rob grinned as he took a sip of his own drink. "Ahh, not bad, though. Now scoot over, so that I can fit on the couch, too!"

"Only because you come bearing popcorn," I replied as I moved my feet, letting Rob slip in beside me. As soon as he was down, however, I dropped my legs across his lap. The couch wasn't that big, after all, and he'd just have to deal with my invading his personal space!

He didn't seem to have any objections, however, and started the movie. He grabbed the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over both of us, and wedged the popcorn bowl into a depression in the middle so that it was within both of our reach. In minutes, the narration of Robert Downey Jr. filled the room, and we both tuned into the movie.

About a third of the way through the flick, as Downey was throwing Val Kilmer's personal gun out into a lake to "dispose of the evidence", I felt Rob's hands settle gently around my feet, under the blanket. His eyes still glued to the television, he began massaging my feet, gently working each of the muscle groups in tight little circles.

I hadn't asked him to give me a massage, but oh my god, his hands felt good. I settled back and kept my eyes on the screen, trying to keep my lips pinned together so that I wouldn't accidentally let a moan slip out.

About two thirds of the way through the film, as Downey accidentally shot a man with a revolver because he didn't understand the math behind Russian roulette, the popcorn ran out. Wordlessly, Rob moved the bowl off of the couch, setting it instead on the table in front of us. I sat forward to finish off the last of my drink, but he slid slightly sideways as I dropped back onto the couch, propped up alongside me with one arm behind me.

Briefly, I wondered if this violated any sort of journalistic ethics. But we weren't sleeping together, or anything totally inappropriate like that. He was just laying back watching a film with me, and I was just laying against him and enjoying the heat of his strong, muscular body pressed against me because I wanted to get to know my subject better.

I wriggled a little, feeling something bumping against my ass. What was that? Did he have his phone in his pocket or something? I reached back behind me, trying to move the object - and froze as my fingers landed on it, and Rob stiffened.

Oh. That was... him.

Wow. He was hard right now? That was totally inappropriate, even if I was leaning back against him and had been wiggling a little! I was just trying to get comfortable, not turn him on or give him any sort of wrong impression!

But he did feel quite... big?

I probably ought to move my hand away.

In just a moment.

"Your hand," Rob murmured into my ear a minute later, his breath brushing against my earlobe in a seductive whisper.

"What about it?"

"It's moving back and forth."

So it was. Wow, he could feel that, even through his jeans? "Should I stop?"

A brief hesitation before he replied. "Not if you want to keep going," he said. "But if you're going to move your hand back and forth..."

What did that mean? A second later, however, Rob's free hand, the one not propping him up behind me, draped over my waist. At first, I thought it might stay there - but then it found the bottom hem of my blouse and slipped beneath it, sliding up across my stomach...

Rob's exploring fingers found my bra, and slid up over it. "Oh," I gasped out, as my nipple grew hard beneath the soft fabric of my bra, pointing out as if indicating that yes, there was a man's hand, right on top of it, so close to touching!

And then his hand dipped inside my bra, teasing out my breast, his thumb running ever so lightly across the surface of my nipple, and most of my thoughts fled out of my head. Instead, they were replaced with a wave of longing, a tidal crash of desire.

I turned my head back, away from the screen to face Rob, and his lips met mine.

God, he just had to be a good kisser, too, didn't he? Cooking, caring for his grandmother, earning money, sneaking into houses, driving me crazy and turning me on - was there anything that the Bad Boy of Wall Street couldn't do?

"Bad idea?" Rob asked, sounding curiously short of breath when we separated.

"Only if we stop to think about it," I gasped back, and wrapped both my hands around his neck to draw him in close again.

A few more kisses and squirming movements later, Rob lay beneath me on the couch, my thighs straddling his waist. I was bent forward, both of my hands wrapped around his neck, my wrists resting against his broad shoulders as we made out. I felt almost giddy, like a horny, lusty teenager again! I couldn't remember the last time I'd just lain on a couch with a guy and made out like this, filled with overwhelming desire!

Somehow in the burst of movement that put us in this position, my bra managed to come undone. I suspected that it had been the work of Rob's fingers, although I didn't put it past the garment itself to pop open, knowing how much I needed it to be someplace, any place, other than on my body. My breasts dangled down freely inside my blouse, the areolas hard and just begging to feel Rob's fingers, or maybe his mouth, settle upon them...

A minute later, he slid both of his hands up my waist, up to cup both of my breasts against his warm palms, and I cried out wordlessly at the feel of his hot touch. "Kiss them," I begged him, my hands wrapping around the back of his head and pulling him up towards my chest.

He did as commanded, brushing my blouse aside. He would probably end up tearing the expensive silk fabric, but I would gladly sacrifice my only nice blouse to feel Rob's mouth on my chest. His lips found one pink nipple, and I nearly came right there, still fully clothed and astride this man in his grandmother's house!

"We shouldn't be doing this," Rob murmured again, but he didn't seem in any hurry to take his mouth out from between my tits.

I shook my head. "No, definitely not." This was fast rushing into really off-limits territory, even for a reporter with my inexperience. I definitely knew that sleeping with my subject was expressly forbidden.

Even if I really, really wanted to feel him take me, to feel Rob's strong, muscled naked body against mine, feel his big length enter me and drive me mindless as he moved against me, claiming me...

"But you're innocent," I gasped out after I managed to draw in another breath, a minute later.

"But we haven't proved it. And we need my boss's computer, to get that program on it, to prove it." Rob sounded distinctly less than happy to be discussing this as he nuzzled against my chest, and his words were rather muffled. Perhaps in an effort to distract me from the impending suicide of my journalistic integrity, he drew my nipple into his mouth again, this time running his teeth ever so gently over its surface.

Holy shit, yes! "Let's go get it!" I panted out, fighting with every fibre of my moral fortitude to not abandon any hope of writing his story and instead just tearing at his pants with my teeth.

At that comment, he drew back, giving me an instant to recover a little bit of energy. "What, right now?"

"Yes!" I didn't know if that cry was because I wanted to go wrap up this story, or if it was just because I could sense him throbbing against me, even through both of our pants, and I could already practically feel him entering me.

For just a moment, Rob hesitated. "We can't," he finally said, reluctantly pulling his hands back away from my breasts. "Like I said, Chad keeps that computer on him at all times. And besides, he's down in Manhattan."

"So let's go there!" Why wasn't he jumping at this suggestion?

But down below me, Rob kept up his frown. "And do what? Ask him nicely? My boss isn't a nice man, especially if he's responsible for setting me up - and he knows my face, April."

"But he doesn't know mine," I countered. "So I could go down and snatch his computer from him!"

Rob's eyes widened. "April, that's theft!"

I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant and like my heart wasn't thumping out of my chest at the craziness of what I'd just proposed. "But it would prove your innocence! I even know someone else who could help me pull it off."

For a moment, I saw Rob considering the possibility. But then he shook his head, sighing. "No, April - I'm sorry, but I can't let you do it. It's too risky." He pulled me down for another kiss. "Just forget about it. Take a break from being a journalist for tonight."

He didn't even know how much I yearned to take him up on that offer, to just let him do whatever he wanted to me. "I'm sorry, but I can't," I forced out, hating every single word as they left my lips.

I eased back from him, reluctantly lifting my hips off of his hard body, instantly missing his hard warmth. "Really, I can't," I said again, not looking at him, knowing that if I so much as turned my head, I'd want him, I'd give up everything to let him take me.

Rob sighed, but he nodded and sat up, wincing slightly as he crossed his legs. For a long minute, both of us just sat there, trying not to think about how much we wanted each other, what we were fighting to hold back.

"Fine." Rob didn't even turn his head to me, but I heard the word creep out. "How would you get this laptop?"

I thought hard for a minute, and then began to lay out the general idea that had been taking shape in my head over the last couple of minutes. Halfway through my explanation, Diana slipped back into her house, making me uncomfortably aware that my bra was still undone inside my shirt, but she just said goodnight to us before heading off to her bed.

I kept talking, doing my best to convince Rob to go along with my wild, crazy plan.

Chapter Seventeen

*

His eyes felt heavy, and Hook was on the verge of passing out in his car when he heard the faint sound of the door opening. He jerked awake, a bag of mostly-eaten French fries slipping off of his chest and landing on the dirty floor of the rental car under his feet.

Hurriedly, he scrambled for the binoculars. For a moment, he cursed this residential street for not putting out good lighting. Weren't they concerned about nasty muggers skulking in all these shadows?

He finally found the shape of the binoculars under another paper bag, and dragged them up to his bleary eyes.

The woman was coming out of the house. Below the binoculars, Hook's lips pulled back in an unconscious snarl for a moment. The bitch had nailed him several times with that damn frying pan! His fingers on his right hand still stung like hell, with a weird sensation of pins and needles whenever he tried to flex them. Hook felt a little concerned that he might have permanently injured something, but he couldn't take the time to go get it checked out.

He also had a nasty bruise growing above his left eye, where that very same frying pan caught him a glancing blow when the bitch threw it back at him. If he had the time, he would love to tie her up somewhere, someplace where no one could hear her scream as he took his time getting his revenge...

But he wasn't interested in her, at least not right now. First came the money for his employers, after all. He'd already had to deal with a call from the man who hired him, doing his best to promise the angry Hispanic voice on the other end of the line that yes, he was making progress, that he would get their money back.

That man now had to be inside this house. Hook didn't know how he'd missed him when he first came by the old lady's house, but there was no denying now that Rob Hendricks was hiding out inside this place. The old lady, who was probably related to him, had only just come back a few minutes earlier, probably out shopping for the day given all the bags that she hauled inside.