Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games Series Book 2) (4 page)

His gaze, searing hot, travels down the length of my naked body. His voice grows husky.

“Imagine what I could do with all ten.”

I
leap backward
into the bathroom and slam the door. “You fucking
asshole
!” I shout.

In response, I hear a deep, satisfied chuckle.

So furious I’m shaking, I tear the towel off my head and wrap it around my body. “This is breaking and entering! I’m calling the police, you goddamn maniac!”

There’s a short pause, and then Connor’s voice, low and rich, comes through the door. It sounds like he’s standing right outside. “You’re not gonna call the police.”

Red-faced, I stalk back and forth in front of the vanity, deeply mortified that animal saw me naked. “Oh yes I am!”

“Tabby. Be reasonable. Do you really think it’s the best idea to invite law enforcement over to the home of the woman who once hacked into NASA’s mainframe and intercepted the source code of the International Space Station? NYPD might not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they’ll take one look inside your office and know they’re not dealing with the average computer hobbyist.”

The bastard is right. My office is packed floor to ceiling with hard drives, servers, monitors, modems, wireless networking equipment, soldering equipment, lock picks, ham radios, cryptophones, and all the other tools of my trade. I’m careful to always flush data from every device after a job is done, but you never know if some rookie officer who wants to make a name for himself decides to invoke probable cause in the name of post-9/11 public safety.

I imagine Connor smirking on the other side of the door and feel a profound desire to bury a hatchet in his skull.

“You’re right. I won’t call the cops. But you just made yourself an enemy. Consider it open season on Metrix.”

Silence.

Now it’s my turn to smirk. Connor knows I can make good on my promise. If I wanted to, I could have his entire company’s network fucked six ways to Sunday before he could even figure out how I snuck in.

“How ’bout a compromise?”

“Compromises require two parties to make concessions in order to get what they want.
You
, asswipe douche bag megaprick, have nothing I want.”

Connor chuckles. “I ever tell you I love that dirty mouth of yours?”

Oh my God. I’m seriously going to open the door and punch him in the face.

He taps on the door. “C’mon, Tabby. I promise I won’t surprise you again, okay? No more showing up unannounced when you’re coming out of the shower.” Pause. “Though I have to admit, seeing you naked has been like the highlight of my entire fuckin’ life. Nipple piercings? Jesus
Christ
, that’s hot. And was that a tiger tattoo on your stomach?” He chuckles again and then growls, “Rawr.”

I stare at the door, blood pulsing in my cheeks. “I will kill you with my bare hands.”

A gently teasing
tsk
. “You love me. Just admit it, sweetheart. The only time you feel alive is when you’re screaming insults in my face.”

I close my eyes, pulling in deep breaths through my nose, and count to ten. “How did you even get here so fast?” I ask through clenched teeth. “I thought you had a meeting in LA?”

“TSA global security pass, private jet, yada yada. Plus, manipulating time is my superpower.” His voice drops. “Wanna know what my other superpower is?”

“
No
.”

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s between my legs.”

I look around the bathroom for something sharp to stab him with.

I freeze when the door swings open. Connor leans against the frame, dwarfing it. He drawls, “Forget to lock something, girl genius?”

I stare at him with what I hope are death rays emanating from my eyes. “I hate you. With a heat like a thousand suns, I hate you. With the force of a million tons of TNT, I hate you. With every fiber of my being, I—”

“Hate me, I get the picture,” says Connor drily. “But you also think I’m kinda cute, right?” He winks.

The nerve. The
nerve
of this man. My voice shakes with rage. “Get out. Get out of my house. Now.”

Connor looks at me for a long, measured moment. “Sure thing, Pop-Tart. But there’s something you need to see first.” He turns around and disappears.

* * *

I
find
him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, calmly eating an apple as if it’s the only thing he’s got on his schedule for the rest of the week.

“Liked you better in what you were wearing upstairs,” he remarks, eying my baggy jeans and even baggier Nine Inch Nails sweatshirt.

I say coldly, “If I had one, I’d also be wearing a hazmat suit. The thought that you’ve seen me naked is traumatizing.”

He crunches into another bite. I wonder if he’s got his arms folded across his chest like that on purpose, to show off his ridiculous, oversized biceps. They’re so big, he could be one of those strongmen in an old-fashioned circus, the guys in the stretchy leopard-print unitards, hoisting barbells over their heads.

I’d like to hoist a barbell over his head.

“What’s so important you just doomed your network to an early death over it?”

He motions with his chin to a laptop on the opposite counter.

“You brought me a gift? How sweet. But I don’t accept candy from home-invading strangers. Now get out before I remove your spleen. With a rusty knife.
Through your nose
.”

Connor takes a final bite of his apple—
my
apple!—swallows, and licks his lips. He manages to make the entire thing look both sensual and provocative. A dare.

A growl builds in the back of my throat.

He says, “Open it. You can kill me after.” A dent forms in one of his cheeks.

I’m not sure which infuriates me more, him seeing me naked or finding my anger about it a source of entertainment.

“I’ll leave you alive just long enough to appreciate my skill at creating the metamorphic virus that’s going to devour every line of code in every piece of software your company owns. How’s that?” I smile sweetly and head to the laptop.

I open it, expecting to see anything but what I find, which is Miranda Lawson staring back at me from a live camera feed.

In a clipped voice, she says, “Tabitha West. I’m Miranda Lawson.”

So much for the preliminaries. I look at Connor, who nods at the screen as if to say,
Pay attention.

I turn back to Miranda, an elegant, icy-blonde ringer for the actress Sharon Stone. Straight-backed and pale, she’s sitting at a desk in what appears to be a spacious home office. Bookcases and photographs line the wall behind her right shoulder; to her left is the view of a spectacular sunset over the ocean through a wall of glass.

If she’s cutting right to the chase, I am too. “I understand you have a situation.”

She offers me a pinched, unhappy smile. “Yes. My situation is that Mr. Hughes requires you to assist him in a job I’ve hired him to do, and he informs me you’ve refused.”

With a clenched jaw, I look over my shoulder at Connor. He blows me a kiss.

I turn back to Miranda. “Correct.”

“What is your reason for refusal?” she demands.

This entire situation is really starting to chap my ass. “Well, if you must know, I despise him.”

She makes an elegant little movement of her hand as if she’s swatting away a fly. “Your personal feelings about Mr. Hughes are immaterial.”

I can see why this woman has such a bad reputation. I understand that highly intelligent people are more often than not absolute disasters with interpersonal skills. All I have to do is take a look in a mirror to get that. But that isn’t what I take offense to. It’s the arrogance that gets me. The presumption that what she wants is more important than what I want.

Before I can speak, she says coolly, “No, I don’t care about your feelings. And you don’t care about mine, nor should you. We’re strangers, after all. What I do care about is that you are regarded highly by a person I regard highly, and therefore I’m willing to negotiate on price. I authorized Connor to offer you five hundred thousand. Now I’m offering a million. Will that be sufficient?”

I’m surprised she actually stooped to ask my opinion. I take great pleasure in saying, “I’m not interested in the job, Ms. Lawson. At any price.”

Her icy-blue eyes don’t blink. Her elegant features don’t move. But I
feel
her disapproval, like a glass of cold water poured down my spine. “You,” she says, barely moving her lips, “are being unreasonable.”

If she’s an iceberg, I’m a forest fire. I feel heat sweep up my neck from my chest, feel my ears go hot, feel the pressure build behind my eyeballs. “And
you
, Ms. Lawson
,
along with that high horse you rode in on, can go fuck yourself.”

I slap the laptop closed.

Behind me, Connor sighs.

I glare at him. “That was
beyond
, jarhead, even for you.”

“Well, my finesse didn’t work, so I thought I’d bring in the big guns.”

“Your finesse?” I repeat, astonished. “I didn’t realize you were familiar with the word.”

“The letter,” he replies patiently, as if it should be obvious.

“Ah yes. The letter. I wonder, how many tries did it take before you could actually bring yourself to write the dreaded words ‘I owe you an apology’?”

At the sarcasm in my tone, his brows lift. “You think I lied?”

“I think you’d rather stab yourself in the eye than admit you were wrong.”

“Well, yeah.” He shrugs. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the truth.”

I narrow my eyes and inspect his expression, which remains suspiciously bland. I can’t tell if he’s lying.

I
hate
it that I can’t tell if he’s lying.

He says mildly, “You have trust issues, you know that?”

“Ha!
Me?
With
you
? No!”

His smile is wry, that amusement again. He inclines his head, as if to say
Fair enough.

“Are we done here? Because I’d really like to get back to my life now.”

“There’s really nothing I can do to persuade you? Nothing you want from me in exchange for doing this job?”

The way he said that last part, the hint of innuendo along with a sparkle in his eyes, makes me grimace. “Please tell me you didn’t just offer to service me sexually. Tell me I’m wrong, jarhead. Restore my faith in humanity and tell me you’re not that much of a pig.”

He makes big, innocent doe eyes at me. “What? Geez, Tabby. Sex on the brain much? How long has it been since you’ve gotten some?”

Then he smiles.

And he does it with his whole goddamn body.

I shudder. “You’re a real piece of work. How do you ever get a date? No wait, don’t tell me—with cash!”

His lashes lower. He looks at me with so much smugness oozing from his pores, I’m afraid I’ll need to get out the mop. “Never had to pay for it in my life, sweetheart. Though I’ve been on the receiving end of that offer more times than I can count.”

I stare at him, amazed by the sheer size of his ego. “You’re so full of shit.”

His full lips curve into a wicked grin. “You’d like to think I am.”

I cross my arms over my chest, shaking my head in disbelief. “Okay. I give. Uncle! Now
vamanos
,
por favor
, and don’t ever darken my doorstep again.”

“She’s bilingual,” he murmurs, as if that’s some kind of giant shock.

Is he fucking with me? Making fun of me? Baiting me? I can’t tell! Fuck!

In spite of myself, I can’t resist correcting him. “Not bilingual. Septalingual.”

He slow blinks, the very definition of droll.

Impatiently, I explain, “Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Romanian, and Catalan. I speak seven languages, not two.”

“The Romance languages,” he says, drawing it out as if he’s expecting me to give an explanation as to the origins of my knowledge. Which, obviously, I’m not.

But I am the tiniest bit impressed he knows what the Romance languages are. I doubt they teach that in jarhead school.

When I don’t reply, Connor prompts, “You forgot English.”

I’m momentarily thrown off balance. “Oh. Right. English. Well, that goes without saying.”

In a tone so banal he could be examining his cuticles, he corrects me. “Actually it doesn’t. Including English, you’re octolingual, not septalingual.” That roguish dent in his cheek makes another appearance. “Technically speaking, that is.”

With a shock like sticking my wet finger into an electrical outlet, I realize several things at once.

First, he’s right. He was right about the police thing earlier too.

Cue brain cells fainting.

Second, he’s much smarter than he lets on. He plays the blunt, sexed-up, muscle-bound military man to absolute perfection so no one will think to look closer. But it’s an act. A brilliantly executed, nuanced disguise.

Third, the preceding realizations rearrange something in my head, and I feel the first stirrings of something other than anger or contempt for Connor Hughes.

The world tilts on its axis. I pull my lips between my teeth and stare at him, for once at a total loss for words.

“Wow,” says Connor. “There’s smoke comin’ outta your ears, sweet cheeks. What gives?”

“I-I…I’m…”

The dent in his cheek becomes an apostrophe.