The Professional (12 page)

Ethel tsked. “Nothing to share, even? I could bring two spoons.”

“How about an order to go?” Jeb suggested, an odd gleam lighting his gaze. It was almost…wicked. A shiver slid down her spine as his gaze fastened on her mouth and lingered. Remembered heat bloomed on her lips, the taste him of him on her tongue.

“Excellent,” Ethel enthused, beaming. “I’ll fix that right up for you.”

Sophie shook herself and considered him for a moment, her gaze narrowed in thought. “You like chocolate cobbler?” she asked.

He shrugged a single massive shoulder. “I don’t know, I’ve never had it.”

She grinned. “Then why did you order it?”

“Because I like chocolate. It reminds me of your eyes,” he confided, leaning forward so that he could better look at them. “Melting and sweet and a little sinful.”

Holy hell
, Sophie thought, feeling her jaw go marginally slack. She blinked, almost drunkenly, taken aback at this description, then dredged her vocabulary for some sort of response. She finally settled for, “Oh.”

“It was one of the first things I noticed about you,” he said. “They’re quite lovely. And so expressive.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do you know what else I noticed about you?” he asked, lowering his voice. It was a little rough and foggy and sexy as hell.

She tried to respond, but squeaked instead.

“Your skin. It’s beautiful,” he said, his gaze tracing her face. “It practically glows with an inner light, one that’s just yours. And it’s
so
soft,” he added, issuing a soft masculine growl. “It makes me wonder what the rest of you feels like, if there are bits that are even softer.”

She was going to drool all over herself if she didn’t close her mouth, Sophie thought, feeling suddenly under the influence of…something.

Him
, she realized.
This
is what he did to her. With a few words, he’d turned her body into a puddling pool of heat, her brain to mush.

Need contracted her muscles, vibrated along her nerve endings and warmth mushroomed in her belly, spread up into her breasts, making her nipples tighten behind her bra and her feminine muscles clench. She squeezed her legs together in an effort to alleviate some of the mounting pressure, the desire to squirm.

“Oh,” she managed to say again.

Looking entirely too pleased with himself, masculine humor clinging to his grin, he reached across the table and took her hand, pressing a lingering kiss into her palm. Who would have ever thought that was such a sensitive area, that it would have been mysteriously linked to her core? Certainly not her, she thought, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip as sensation flooded her.

“Guess what?” he asked.

Probably, she didn’t care. She moaned a little, squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them in a vain attempt to regain some sort of control. “What?”

“Marjorie left five minutes ago.”

11

J
EB
WATCHED
AS
she blinked the desire out of her eyes, then chuckled as she started and gave her head a shake. “Come on, then,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Ethel still hasn’t brought my to-go order.” More to the point, he couldn’t get up without everyone noticing that he was…
up
. He should have known better than to taunt her, that it would only result in his own frustration, but he just couldn’t seem to help himself.

It was just too damned easy.

And knowing that she wanted him, that he made her hot, that he made her lose control, was so damned powerful it was difficult to ignore. Impossible to resist.

“Forget the to-go order,” she said, sliding out of the booth. “Let’s go.”

Thankfully, Ethel arrived and handed over his container. “Here, darlin’,” she said. “If you’ve got a little ice cream to add to it, then all the better.”

Grinning his thanks, Jeb left enough cash to cover the bill, plus a generous tip, then followed Sophie’s lead and exited the booth. He was still hard enough to upend the table, but he tugged his sweater down and prayed that no one would notice.

Naturally, she did.

Her eyes dropped below his waist, rounded, then she visibly swallowed. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”

He chuckled grimly. “Just walk in front of me, would you?”

Seemingly unable to tear her gaze away from his crotch—which, naturally wasn’t helping matters—she nodded distractedly and licked her lips. “Right. Sure.”

He groaned. “Sophie, you’re killing me.”

She gave herself a little shake, then blushed. “Sorry. I’m just— That’s—”

He wheeled her around and nudged her toward the door. “—distracting,” he finished. “Believe me, I know,” he added drolly.

Having already agreed upon a strategy for getting into Marjorie’s office, Sophie had parked her car close to the director’s building in order to make it look like they were simply getting ready to leave. At the last minute, they veered off the lighted path, then snuck into the garden.

Sophie went unerringly to the hide-a-key rock, slipped it from the bottom of the enclosure, then carefully opened the door. She dropped down into a crouch once they were inside the office, then he closed the door, locked it behind him and adjusted the curtain until there wasn’t any discernible opening anyone could see through.

“All right,” Jeb said. “First things first.” He withdrew the USB device he’d gotten from Charlie and plugged it into Marjorie’s computer. The screen immediately glowed to life, prompted for the password, then a series of asterisks streaked across the text box and, like magic, they were in. The home screen loaded, revealing a picture of the Twilight Acres sign. He clicked through a few desktop files, grimacing when they revealed nothing.

“Well?” Sophie asked. “Do you see anything suspicious?”

The light from the aquarium glowed touched the side of her face and she was so close, her sweet breath whispered across his ear. “No,” he said, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. “Nothing yet.”

He loaded her documents and scrolled through them, then felt a smile curve his lips. “Ah,” he said. “Bingo.”

Finding a file marked simply “Benchmark,” which was the name of the safe company, he clicked on it, his anticipation spiking. It withered, deflated, when he was once again prompted for a password.

“Shit,” he said. “This file is password protected.”

“The little thingy won’t work?” she said gesturing to the device. Her terminology made him grin.

“I don’t know.” He was tempted to remove it, then install it again just to see what would happen, but was afraid that it would shut the whole computer down, or at the very least, alert Marjorie to the fact that she’d been hacked. The director was obviously very concerned about protecting her privacy and that of her residents, but something was beginning to feel off. Why password protect the document? He attempted to open another file, only to have the same thing happen again.

She protected
every
file? But why? It was almost overkill. Everything couldn’t be sensitive, right?

Jeb released a breath. While they were here, he might as well give it a go. He closed out of that screen, launched the document files once more, then removed USB, waited for the tell tale ding, then plugged it back in, opened the file and held his breath.

Once again the little asterisks did their thing and the document materialized on the screen.

Sophie squeezed his shoulder. “Wow, that’s handy.”

Jeb grinned. Yes, it was, he thought, making a mental note to thank Charlie. He immediately saved the file to the drive, then looked for others that might prove useful.

“I’m going to try to get into this drawer again,” she whispered.

He nodded distractedly. “Okay, I’m going to keep poking around in here.”

Sophie dropped to her hands and knees, then crawled up under the big desk, nudging his legs over in the process. His gaze dropped to her luscious rump, displayed to mouthwatering perfection in a pair of worn jeans. Muttering something about Cora and her scrubs, she’d opted for a different outfit today, one that was infinitely more feminine and flattering.

Trying to ignore the sudden flash of heat in his loins, he determinedly directed his attention to the task at hand. He clicked through a few more document files, then on a whim, moved to her pictures. A file called My Happy Place caught his attention. It, too, was protected, but thanks to Charlie’s little miracle of technology, it was no match for him.

The first picture loaded and Jeb felt his eyes bug and his jaw go slack. “Holy mother of…”

Sophie stilled. “What?” she asked. “Did you find something?”

“Er…you could say that.” He was going to need some bleach for his eyeballs and some sort of memory modification charm, like you’d find in a Harry Potter book.

She abandoned the drawer and wiggled back out from under the desk, then popped and peered at the computer screen.

She inhaled sharply. “Is that…”

“It is,” he confirmed tonelessly. “It’s Marjorie. In a leather corset, fishnet hose and thigh high boots.”

Sophie peered closer, her eyes squinted in confusion. “She looks like she’s in some sort of…dungeon.”

“Well, the guy she’s with is in chains, attached to a wall,” Jeb said.

“And she’s got a leather riding crop in her mouth.” She swallowed, released a sigh. “That explains the red nail polish, anyway.”

Jeb clicked through a few pictures, each one more graphic than the next, showcasing Marjorie as an enthusiastic and competent dominatrix. “What nail polish?”

“I found a bottle of red nail polish under her desk last night. It’s not anything I’ve ever seen her wear. Around here, anyway.” She blinked owlishly. “Clearly she wears it…other places.”

“In her happy place,” Jeb told her. “That’s the name of the file.”

“Wow. I would have never suspected her of something like this. It’s…” She shook her head. “I can’t even wrap my mind around it.”

“And if you didn’t imagine she could be a dominatrix, then what does that say about whether or not she could be a thief?”

She paused, shook her head. “I still don’t—”

Suddenly a noise from the foyer reached them, a distinct sound of the door opening. Sophie gasped and they shared a look. Jeb gestured under the desk, where she quickly scrambled, then killed the power to the computer. He grabbed the USB, then crowded in under with her, dragging the desk chair into place just as the door swung open.

If that was Marjorie, then they were screwed. And she’d probably beat them, Jeb thought, stifling the inappropriate need to chuckle.

Feeling him shake, Sophie turned her head toward his and shot him a questioning look. He could just make out her perplexed expression and it made him want to laugh all the more. She glared at him significantly, then put her hand over his mouth.

“Stop it,” she mouthed silently.

He kissed her hand again, this time touching his tongue to its center.

She stilled, went a little boneless and smothered a moan.

But whoever had come into the office clearly wasn’t Marjorie. They didn’t turn on the light and didn’t come near the desk. Instead, humming lightly under their breath, the person opened the cabinet beneath the aquarium and the sound of lightly splashing water resonated like thunder in the quiet room.

“Hello, my lovelies,” the person trilled. It took a second to place the voice—Ethel.

Sophie noticed it too, her gaze finding his once more in the dark. A frown marred her brow, suggesting that it wasn’t Ethel’s job to clean Marjorie’s aquarium.

It would be easier to focus on that little tidbit of information if her breasts weren’t pressed right up against his chest. Plump and ripe, the sensual weight of them sizzled through him, making another part of his anatomy take notice.

It swelled accordingly.

She noticed.

Jeb shrugged helplessly. What could he say? He wanted her. He’d made that plain enough over the past few days. Him having a hard-on, particularly when she was nuzzled so closely up against him, shouldn’t come as any real surprise.

She bit her bottom lip, smothered some sort of noise, then dropped her head against the curve of his shoulder. Her warm breath fanned over his neck, eliciting another burst of reaction and he felt his dick stir against her, seeking her like some sort of carnal divining rod.

To his everlasting joy and torment, she scooted up and slid her nose along his throat, breathing him in, then pressed her lips against him, tasting his neck. And the hell of it? He couldn’t move, not without making a sound or knocking something over. He had to lay there and take it, and the she-devil knew it.

Jeb bit back a curse as she slipped farther up along his body, but somehow managed to get an arm around her, then slip his hand up under her sweater, touching her sleek, warm skin.

So soft… Softer than he’d dared to imagine.

She answered him with another retaliation of her own, sliding her hand along his jaw, then turning his head and pressing her lips against his. Her kiss was slow and thorough, laced with an undercurrent of desperation and urgency. Her entire little body hummed with it, vibrated like a struck piano wire. She shifted, drawing herself more closely to him and ran her hand down over his chest, then lower still as she cupped him through his jeans.

He would have come up from beneath the table if she hadn’t held him down, stilling him with a deeper kiss. Stroking him through his jeans, she sucked his tongue into her mouth, mimicking a more intimate act, and he felt an ooze of pleasure leak from his dick, a warning of what was to come.

Literally.

It seemed impossible that Ethel was in the room with them, messing around with that damned aquarium, but the periodic hum or splash of water would confirm it.

It was mind-boggling. But strangely thrilling, he had to admit.

Not content to merely touch him through his clothes anymore, he felt Sophie’s hand at the button on his jeans, felt it give. She couldn’t lower the zipper without it giving them away, but she’d used the silent breath he’d sucked in as an opportunity to slide her hot little fingers over the head of his penis, coating him with his own cream.

Jeb set his teeth so hard he feared they would crack.

She was trying to kill him, he decided. Trying to make him have a heart attack.

Rather than let her torture him, Jeb decided a little torment of his own was in order. He carefully nudged her onto her back, then followed her down with a kiss. She tasted like French fries and sweet tea, like seduction, like heaven and he wanted to sink into her so desperately his hands shook from the effort of holding back. He wanted to slide his dick deep into the heart of her, nestle his own hips into the perfect cradle of her wider ones and slake his lust in her soft, welcoming body.

He just
wanted
.

He found the hem of her shirt, then edged it up, pushing his up over her warm, silky skin until he found the lacy edge of her bra. He expertly popped the clasp in the middle, silently thanking the brilliant designer who’d thought of that plan, then felt the cup give way and snag on her nipple.

A brush of his fingers and it was out of the way and her plump, lush breast was in his hand, the beaded nipple thrusting against his palm. He ached to taste it, to feel it rasp across the roof of his mouth.

From the dimmest recesses of his mind, he heard the office door close, felt the silence close in around them once more. They both stilled, then looked at each other. Waited. Heard the exterior door whoosh shut, the tumbler in the lock click into place.

Then he was on her.

Jeb shoved Marjorie’s desk chair out of the way, rolled into the space behind the desk, taking her with him.

She shrugged out of her shirt, removing the bra in the process, then lifted her hips so that he could get her jeans off. Good Lord, she was beautiful. Full, lovely breasts, crested with rosy crowns, the sweet curve of her belly, a thatch of dark curls nestled between her thighs.

He didn’t know where to start, which part he wanted to taste first. Rather than wait on him to figure it out, she leaned forward and drew the shirt over his head, then bent forward and pressed her hot mouth against his chest, licking a path along the upper ridge of his right pec. She hummed appreciatively, slipped her greedy hands over his belly and around his back.

Jeb groaned, lowered his zipper and shucked his pants and boxers. She moaned when she saw him, a tiny little mewl of feminine affirmation, of desire, and something about that sound tripped an internal trigger.

“I’m healthy,” he breathed, sliding a hand down the middle of her belly, dipping his fingers into the honey pot between her thighs, gratified when she inhaled sharply and arched up into him. He palmed her right breast, then bent and pulled her into his mouth. “You?” he whispered blowing over it, making her shiver.

“Clean and protected,” she said, spreading her legs, a silent, desperate invitation.

Jeb nudged her weeping folds, found her gaze and fastened his on it. “Look at me,” he said, his voice raw and broken. Every muscle in his body was clenched and ready, bracing him for the unknown. Because this coupling was different—she was different—and every iota of understanding and intuition he possessed told him that when he took her, when he made her his…that was it.