Seduced by a Dangerous Man (19 page)

“We have to come back,” I said, ejecting the camera from the laptop. “We’ve got the security code and we know the combo to the safe.”

“Let’s spare a few minutes, figure out if it’s even worth coming back out here.” Corbin glanced up at me. “If Henry comes back early, I’ll deal with him.” He pushed the envelopes toward me. “Can you look at these while I see what else we’ve got?”

I peeled back the flap and slid the contents onto the desk. It was a strange mix of documents. Toll booth receipts for the past few months, photos of someone’s house and car. “Nothing incriminating,” I said. “Just weird.”

“Take pictures. We’ll work it out later.”
 

I spread some of them flat on the desk and snapped a picture. I went through the documents… a grainy snapshot of a license plate. A black-and-white photo of a stately, single-family house. I reviewed the images on my screen to make sure I’d framed them properly. Between my crappy phone’s camera and the poor quality of the photos themselves, it wasn’t pretty.

“Henry really needs to invest in a better printer,” I grumbled.
 

Corbin glanced over at the array of paper, and his face went still as stone.

“What?”

He reached over and slowly picked up the photo of the house. His mouth opened very slightly, then snapped closed. A muscle twitched visibly in his jaw. Given how little light there was outside of the flashlight’s glow, I knew he must have been clenching his jaw tightly for me to have seen that at all. I feared for his teeth.

He moved into my space as if I weren’t there, and I had to scramble to get out of the way. His large hand hovered tentatively over the papers as if he was afraid to touch them, like it would make them more real. Then he quickly swept everything into a pile and shoved it back into the envelope.
 

“Please find a bag,” he said hoarsely. “We’re taking everything.”

If we hadn’t been under a tight time deadline, I would have invoked the “no secrets” clause of our relationship. Instead, I hurried down to the kitchen. Henry only had white trash bags. No paper, nothing darker. Just glow-in-the-dark, I-think-I-see-someone-sneaking-across-the-lawn white.

It would have to do.

I hurried back up the steps, my ears peeled for the sound of the pickup truck.
 

Corbin had pulled everything out of the safe, and he was wiping the dial with the bottom of his shirt.
 

He stood and quickly dumped everything into the bag, knotted it and handed it to me. “Where’d you find the laptop?”

“The far side of his bed.”

“Open or closed?”
 

“Uh… open. Why?”

“I don’t want him to know anyone was here until he looks inside the safe. I don’t want him to suspect.”

“Why?” I followed Corbin to Henry’s bedroom and watched as he wiped down the laptop and set it on the floor. “It was facing the bed more,” I said. Corbin nudged it with his foot.

“Time to go,” he said.

“Couldn’t agree more,” I mumbled.
 

We went down the stairs and out the back. Corbin kept wiping down everything we had touched. “In case he notices the safe is empty sooner than I’d like,” Corbin explained. “He could surely call in a favor, get someone out here to dust for prints. No point in making it easy.”

There was no sign of Henry yet. And we didn’t have any trouble on the way to the truck, either. I was beyond relieved. Getting stuck in a closet again would have been the end of me, even with Corbin there to keep me calm.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I will. You drive.”

I got into the cab. “What’s with the new truck?”
 

“The old one had a job to do elsewhere.” Corbin was already digging into the bag. He held the envelopes on his lap.

“A job? Was I a job?”

No answer.

“Whose house is in the photo?” I backed out of the parking space and took the winding roads out of the housing development.
 

As the miles between us and Henry’s house increased, so did my worry for Corbin. He was intently going through the things in the plastic bag, and he was being strangely uncommunicative, even for him. All the secrecy was supposed to be behind us, but this? Too much mystery and shadows.

“Whose house is in the photo?” I repeated several minutes later.
 

“It belongs to a friend,” Corbin said.

“You think Henry is watching him, planning to do something bad?” I shivered, remembering Henry’s threats.

“No,” Corbin said. He shoveled the papers back into the envelope. “He’s very high up in my organization. Former organization. And now we know who the master leak is, why the investigation kept falling apart.” He turned to look out the window, and I felt his great sadness. I didn’t know if it was personal—if he felt betrayed—or if he was afraid of how much information had been compromised.
 

“Where am I going?” I asked suddenly, thinking he might want to go to his mountain home.
 

“Your place,” Corbin said. “Excuse me for a few minutes.” He reached into the back and pulled out a laptop. He opened it and his fingers sprinted over the keyboard. Next he started taking photos of the photos.
 

“Go on inside,” he said when I parked on Rob’s street. He was gentle but firm.
 

“For the record, I hate being out of the loop,” I said. “Despise. Abhor. Detest—”

“His name is Gordon, he’s ranked higher than I am, and apparently he was susceptible to blackmail. I promise I’ll tell you everything I can later. I need to act on this fast, before Henry realizes something is amiss.”
 

He stayed in the SUV long after I went inside the condo. I tried to read, then tried to watch television, but I couldn’t stop wondering how those photos could be so important. I peered through the bedroom curtains and saw that Corbin had rolled down the window several inches. The glow of the laptop created foreign shadows over his handsome features.

I had a feeling I might be sleeping alone that night. And I was right… but at least he came up to kiss me good night before he disappeared, and he said he would see me the next day.

Still, I wondered how long it would be before I would stop worrying whenever he left.

~~~

Only three hours to go in my second shift, and then I was going to track Corbin down. I hadn’t heard a peep from him so far. It was still early, but I was burning with curiosity about the details of Henry’s scheme. Oh, hell…. Who was I fooling? It was the details of his impending demise that most interested me.
 

I checked on all my tables… four more than usual because we were short two servers. Everyone seemed happy. I wasn’t such a terrible waitress when I wasn’t being suffocated by stress.

“Good afternoon, lovely.”
 

I whirled, smiling. Corbin pulled off aviator sunglasses and hooked them on his shirt. The man looked yummy enough to eat, and judging from the interested glances coming our way, half the diner was hoping he was on the menu.

He wore a clingy white tee underneath a lightweight black hoodie. His hair had been trimmed and was styled slightly differently than usual. I thought there might be gel in it. “Did you just get back from the hairdresser?”

“Half an hour ago. Very perceptive,” he said. “Barber, not hairdresser.”

“Oh, so you buy expensive jeans woven from fairy’s hair, but you’re too manly for a hairdresser?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “No,” he said. “I’ve had stylists. It just so happens that today I visited a barber.”

Now everyone was looking over, which reminded me that I was on the clock. “What are you doing here?”

“Heard this is a great place to grab lunch. Nice skirt.” He turned, spotted an empty booth, slid into it. He sprawled a little and looked up at me, somehow making it seem he was looking down. “It’ll be nice to have you serving me with clothing on.”

“I’ll do it, but only because you didn’t wink when you said it.”

He raised an eyebrow, then winked slowly. Heaven forgive me, it made my panties wet. I wanted to straddle him right there.
 

The hostess came over with a menu. “Sorry,” she said, lapping Corbin up with her eyes. “You slipped in while I was away from my station. I hope you weren’t too inconvenienced. Do you like this booth? There’s an open one with a better view.”

“I like the view right here.”

I blushed.

“Well, ok,” the hostess said. She looked at me, taking in my messy hair, my not-a-supermodel body. I knew what she was wondering because I’d asked myself the same question.

With an easy smile, Corbin accepted the menu. He had a devastating effect on women, and he damn well knew it, but at least he didn’t flirt back. I appreciated that.
 

His gaze ran down the menu. It was weird watching him do what I’d seen so many zillions of times since I’d started waiting tables.
 

“Surprise me,” he said.
 

“Ok, but are you thinking breakfast or a sandwich?”

“Up to you.” He handed the menu to me with a roguish smile.

I wrote in my pad,
Whatever takes the longest
. If I could keep him here for the rest of my shift, so much the better.

After I put in a complicated order, I poured Corbin a cup of coffee, then ran to the bathroom to check that my hair looked ok.
 

There was a knock on the door.
 

“One second,” I said.

“It’s me.”

My heart pounded as I opened to Corbin. He quickly looked left and right, then slipped inside.

“You need a coffee refill that badly?” I asked.

“Not exactly.”

I reached out, hooked a finger in one of his belt loops. Probably shouldn’t have done that… there was hunger in Corbin’s eyes as he stared down at me.
 

“Up for hot sex?” he asked.

Boy, was I ever. “How about a two-minute quickie?”

“You can spare two whole minutes?”

“You’re right. Maybe sixty seconds is wiser,” I said. The blood was raging through my veins. I wanted him. Now.
 

“Turn around,” he said seductively.

Alarms should have been going off like crazy, but I was lust-blind. I obeyed.

“Bend over. Brace yourself against the wall.”

I obeyed, placing my palms flat on the wall right under the sign that read “Employees Must Wash Hands.”

“Legs together.”

That should have been my second warning, but Corbin sometimes fucked me with my legs together, to make it even more intense than usual. So I did it.

He pulled up my skirt. “I like you in this,” he said. “I can’t wait until summer comes. You’re going to have booty shorts in every color of the rainbow.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said, wiggling my hips. “Come on! I don’t have all day.”

Corbin cupped my buttocks in both hands, and at his touch, I let out the jittery breath I’d been holding.

“That’s right. Let out that tension.”

I smiled and turned my head to look at him over my shoulder.
Uh-oh.
I knew that look. He was focused on my ass like he was calculating angles.
 

And he
wasn’t
rubbing the distended bulge in his tight jeans, and he certainly wasn’t taking himself out.
 

“This is your punishment for making me hard the moment I saw you,” he said.

“You can’t punish me for that,” I protested.

He slapped his hand across my butt. Apparently, he could. Desperation uncoiled inside of me. He slapped me again, the blow forcing me toward the wall. I braced myself, my forearm in my mouth so I wouldn’t make any noise.

Then he unbuckled his belt. He pulled it from the loops and doubled it. “Snowstorm,” he said, reminding me of my safe word.

I fidgeted, nervous and excited. This was so naughty. Not just a bathroom, but at work. It was forbidden and wrong, and it made me crazy. I’d fucked in bathrooms plenty of times, but not like this, and not with the man everyone in the place wanted.

He struck me lightly with the belt, making me jump. Then he did it for real. There was a snap across my rear, a sizzling lick that made my face red. I could feel the blood pounding between my legs. I could feel my swollen clit.

I threw back my head, arched my back.
 

“You like that?”
 

There wasn’t any need to answer.
 

He did it again, this time focusing on the full curve of my left cheek. Then the right one. Then the left one again. I began to dance from foot to foot, anticipating where he might hit me next.

It hurt. No doubt about that. But right after the pain always came a moment of bliss. I felt like I was flying in the clouds. My pussy tightened on nothing, and I moaned; the spanking hurt, but not getting fucked? Pure torture.

“Two more,” Corbin said, his deep voice breathy. He leaned closer, and his scent washed over me. “These will be the best ones.”

I jammed my arm in my mouth and closed my eyes. My other hand was braced against the wall.

There was that high whistle, then the belt snapped hard against my skin. For a moment, I felt nothing, then there was cold, white pain that quickly turned red and burning hot.

Another whistle. Another strike. My eyes rolled into my head. Even though Corbin hadn’t gone near my clit, that’s where I felt it. There and my ass, but while my ass hurt, my clit was throbbing. I felt light shudders coming from deep within my core, radiating out.

My breath came in short pants, and when I heard the sigh of Corbin’s zipper lowering, I moaned in anticipation.

He stepped forward, nudged into me without preamble. He sank in to the hilt, and within two thrusts I was coming so hard that only Corbin’s support kept me from falling over.

Corbin shoved me up against the wall, and it was cool on my cheek and neck. One of his arms wrapped around my torso, just under my breasts.
 

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be eating here a lot.” His other hand zeroed in on my clit, and he sent me shooting into the stars again. It wasn’t until the orgasm faded that I realized I’d been making low mewling sounds.