“Latte okay with you?”
AJ nodded, already reaching for the ankle bracelet.
“Wes?”
“Sure. Please.”
Vivienne disappeared into the kitchen, her bare feet quiet on the hardwood floor.
“I didn’t know it was like that between the two of you.”
Wes didn’t acknowledge his visitor with a look, though he kept tabs on her in his peripheral vision. AJ’s many talents included an almost preternatural ability to size up situations in an instant, and Wes didn’t like the smug set of her body language. “Like what?”
AJ rolled her eyes. “I mean, I probably should have. She was pissed the day she quit. Ripped into Max for ruining you, going on about how you would never betray him.”
Something clenched in his chest, and his head came up with enough speed that AJ’s expression turned to one of vindication. He didn’t care anymore. “She quit because of me?”
“Uh, yeah, dude. She went off. Said her loyalties were with you, chucked her keys on the boss’s desk, and stormed out. It was pretty magnificent, if I’m being honest.”
He glanced toward the kitchen, where he could hear the faint whir of the espresso machine. Magnificent. An apt description of Vivienne Amelie Grant if ever he’d heard one.
“AJ?”
“Yeah.”
“Get out.”
She grinned at him. “You know, it’s kind of sad I wasted so much time hating you. You’re all right, Brennan. I’ll be in touch when I have news. But you owe me a crack at this ankle bracelet.” She set the monitor back on top of the Roomba and headed for the front door.
The second it closed behind her, Wes stalked straight into the kitchen.
“Is your little techie playdate over already?” Vivienne turned away from her fancy espresso machine and held a steaming cup in his direction.
“You quit to take my case?”
She didn’t have to answer. He could read the truth of it in the rigidness in her spine and the way the latte sloshed dangerously close to the lip of the mug. Wes took it from her and set it on the counter.
“Why the hell would you do that? You loved that goddamn job!”
She looked startled for a moment, like she didn’t think he’d noticed. Granted, their paths didn’t cross at work all that often—until the hack, they’d probably only been in the same boardroom three or four times, since Whitfield had an army of lawyers, and Wes tended to bow out of the site visits anytime he could get away with sending Jesse by himself. Wes had always preferred being behind the scenes, focused on the tech. He left the parties and the wooing to his more personable partner.
But he’d seen Vivienne enough, paid attention enough, to know that she was killing it as Whitfield’s chief legal counsel. That she excelled at what she did. That she was confident and kick-ass in equal measure. That Whitfield had been lucky to have her on his side.
Which was why it haunted him, the way she was looking at him right now.
Unsure. Uncomfortable.
“Max is the one who sent the FBI after you. He was hardly going to keep me on while I was trying to get the charges dropped,” she said simply. But her matter-of-factness was not reassuring in the least. Something dark lit in Wes’s belly.
“Is that why you left? Because that son of a bitch was going to fire you? Was he trying to push you out?”
“No. Wes, just...drop it okay?”
“Not until you tell me why the hell you’d give up your career for me after everything that’s gone down between us.”
“I know you’re innocent!”
Her voice echoed in his ears. The vehemence. The way she believed in him. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. Wished he could take it at face value and use it to block out the shitstorm that was swirling around them.
But this situation was way too complicated for such a simple happy ending.
And the fact that she wasn’t looking at him right now, wasn’t standing her ground, told him everything he needed to know.
“How? How do you know that?”
She wrapped her arms around herself in a way that struck Wes as self-protection, like an animal trying to shield its soft underbelly. Still, he pressed on.
“How can you be so sure that I didn’t do exactly what they say?”
“Because!”
“Not good enough, Viv.”
When she raised her brown eyes to his, what he saw there almost sent him to his knees.
“I’m the one who hacked Max’s company, okay? I know you didn’t do it, because it was me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CONFESSION WOULDN’T compute in his brain.
“I installed the malware on Emma Mathison’s computer. She’d put in her notice. She was supposed to be gone. No one was supposed to notice anything before you—”
“Before I what?” he demanded.
“Before you stopped it. I knew you’d stop it.” There was a faraway look in her eyes, like she was somewhere else in that moment. “I never meant for this to happen.”
And just like that, everything slid into place. Wes shook his head at his own stupidity. “I should have known.” He scraped a hand down his face.
“I should have known that first day, when Max called us all into his office to tell us Whitfield Industries had been hacked. You gave yourself away.”
She looked so vulnerable then. So small in his old shirt, her long legs bare. He watched as her toes curled against the dark floor tiles, before she crossed her right foot over her left, her heel bouncing in time with her nerves.
“First, you jumped to Emma’s defense, even though she was the obvious suspect. Then you uncrossed and recrossed your legs. Which is your tell when you’re uncomfortable.” He stepped closer, and despite the two feet of distance between them, she pushed back against the counter.
She’d already uncrossed her legs, out of habit, and he saw the second she caught herself, the way her muscles tightened against the instinctual need to cross them again.
Wes cocked an eyebrow and took another step in her direction.
Vivienne’s breath picked up, as he placed his hands on the counter on either side of her and leaned close, so close that he could smell that alluring French perfume of hers, the embodiment of wine and tangled sheets and desire. Distinctly, deliciously Vivienne. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “That doesn’t prove anything.” The protest was barely more than a whisper.
“And then you tucked your hair behind your left ear,” he told her, reaching up and doing it for her. The feel of her beneath his fingers, even a touch as innocuous as this, sent heat through him. “Which is your tell when you’re lying.”
She flinched at the word, but he didn’t stop.
“At the time, I didn’t know why, but now I get it.”
She curled away from him, hands still protecting her stomach, and it hurt him to see her like this, it did. But he had to know.
“What do they have on you?”
Her eyes snapped to his, wide with shock. “What?”
“You’re a lot of things, Vivienne. Brilliant, beautiful and ballsy as hell. But you do not have the computer skills to have done this to me on your own.”
Anger flared in her eyes and tightened her jaw. “You don’t know that. You have no idea what I’m capable of. You still think I’m that naive, wide-eyed girl who threw herself at you at a frat party. But I’m not, Wes. I’m not her. I haven’t been for a long time.”
Naive. Not a word he’d ever associated with her. She’d been optimistic, and determined and sexually explosive, but she’d never been naive.
She just hadn’t been this jaded. This brittle. The change was startling, and now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. “You’re not like I remember you.”
The idle observation startled a bitter laugh from her. “I guess it shouldn’t surprise me it took you this long to notice. I mean, that was always our problem, wasn’t it? Good at sex, bad at communication? Sorry to shatter your illusions, but we all have to grow up sometime.”
She brushed past him, and he let her, but he followed her out of the kitchen, through the living room, around the corner to the hallway that led to her bedroom.
He didn’t speak until her hand was on the doorknob. “And what made you grow up, Vivienne?”
She stopped dead at the question, but she didn’t answer.
She just shut down, wilted right in front of his eyes.
* * *
Vivienne’s hand trembled on the doorknob.
She wanted him to scream at her. To feel the anger he didn’t know was his right. To be furious at her for all her secrets and how they’d ruined his life.
Why wouldn’t he scream at her?
She could feel Wes at the other end of the short hallway, feel the burn of his gaze on the back of her neck as he started to approach.
Vivienne squeezed her eyes shut until colors danced behind her eyelids. She needed him to blame her so she could repent. But there was nothing, no punishment to absolve her guilt. Wes was angry, yes, but not at her. On her behalf. And that was more than she could take.
Forcing herself to turn around, Vivienne channeled the frosty demeanor that had held her together for the last six years and faced the man she’d ruined.
The concern in his blue eyes almost sent her to her knees, confusing the situation, melting her resolve. Wanting him. Missing him. It all got jumbled up as they stood there, and she grabbed hold of defensiveness, because angry seemed like a safer option than sad. Especially in the face of his pity.
“Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m innocent.”
She planted her hand on his chest, and Wes looked down at the point of contact before meeting her gaze, his eyes full of questions.
Angry sex had always been a forte of theirs. He knew she was provoking him, but he couldn’t figure out why. And that was good. She wanted him a little off balance. Not so in control.
With a raise of her brow, she gave him a hard shove. Hard enough that he took a step back, but still there was no anger in his voice. Just resignation. “What are you doing, Viv?”
“I did this to you.”
She moved to push him again, but he grabbed her by the upper arms, and just for a second, his fingers bit into her flesh before he loosened them. She was getting to him, the flash of pain proved it. A glimpse of the loss of composure that she craved.
“But not by yourself.”
She couldn’t atone without his censure. Couldn’t banish the black tendrils of guilt that snaked through her chest, wound around her lungs, squeezed her heart. There was no catharsis in his kindness.
“Why not? You don’t think I can hurt you? You don’t think I have the power?”
His hands tightened on her arms again.
Yes. This was what she needed. What she deserved for keeping the truth from him. His rage. She could feel it now, pulsing just beneath the surface.
“Who else knows you like I do?” she goaded. “Who else knows your worst fear is ending up like your father?”
She could feel the leashed emotion rushing through him, and the darkness of it called to her, made her blood run hot.
“I ruined your company. I put you in jail.”
The lash of her words had the intended effect. She could read it in the darkening of his eyes, the way his breathing picked up. His chest heaved as he stared at her. His fingers dug into her skin as he jerked her closer.
Vindication surged through her blood at the lapse of his control.
There was barely any space between them, but it was still too much.
“Stop it,” he warned, his voice low and dangerous.
“Make me.” Vivienne lifted her head a fraction of an inch, and when he didn’t move, she leaned forward and bit his bottom lip.
He sucked in his breath and went still, and then everything happened at once. Wes hauled her close, crushing her to him, first with his arms, and then she was pinned against the wall so tightly that it knocked the breath from her lungs. Rough. Perfect.
Vivienne clutched at his shoulders as he ground his hips against her, and when he grunted into her mouth, she was enraptured.
Elemental. Animalistic. She wanted him to use her. Wanted to use him right back.
Fucking to drown out the emotion that threatened to consume her if she let it.
Straightforward, and simple, and so damn good.
And if he wouldn’t give her what she needed, she’d take it from him. She’d push him until he begged her to take what she needed.
She rubbed against him, glorying in the rough sounds her sensuous movements dragged from his throat. “Take off your shirt.”
Something wicked and powerful suffused her body when he obeyed, pulling the black T-shirt over his head and revealing his gorgeous muscles.
“Good boy.” Vivienne leaned forward, pressing a soft, openmouthed kiss against his pec even as she raked her nails down his abs, and he swore at the dueling sensations.
Vivienne bared her teeth, not quite a smile. “I’ve been very bad, Wesley. I’ve done things that I need to be punished for.”
Emotion crowded her heart, seeped through her chest like an ink stain, but she held it down, strangling it until it loosened its hold. Nothing mattered right now but the dark heat in Wes’s eyes. The rush of fire in her blood.
“Viv.” Just her name, but she heard everything in his voice. The question. The anger. The confusion. The desire.
He was so close to giving in.
She needed him to give in.
“What is this?”
“You don’t like it?” she countered, running a hand across his chest, tracing the flat disc of his nipple before pinching the sensitive skin. He inhaled sharply, pulling her close, his hips instinctively grinding against hers for a few blissful seconds before he got himself under control again. “I like it,” he conceded, his voice husky. “I just don’t understand it.”
“I thought you liked things a little rough.” Vivienne took a step back, pulled her T-shirt off and dropped it on the floor beside his. His gaze dropped instinctively to her chest, now that she was bared to his gaze, and Vivienne egged him on, biting her lip as she ran her hands up her torso.
He swore softly as she squeezed her sensitive flesh, before pushing her breasts together to exaggerate the swell of her cleavage.
The rasp of his breath, the complete focus of his attention, was heady. Vivienne pinched her nipple, not bothering to hide her gasp of pleasure, and she was rewarded as Wes shoved his hand down his sweatpants to readjust himself.
“So what do you say, Wes?” She stepped backward, reaching behind her to push her door open without breaking eye contact with him. “Wanna play?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“FUCK YES.”
Viv’s lips curved with satisfaction at his answer, and she hooked her finger into the elastic at his waist, tugging him along as she walked backward to her bed.
Once she’d gotten him where she needed him, she dropped to her knees and stripped off the rest of his clothes with one swift tug.
His cock was so hard it slapped against his abs when she released it from its confines, and the proof that he wanted this almost as much as she did made her bold. She dug her fingernails into his muscled thighs as she leaned forward and licked up the length of his shaft before lifting her gaze to his.
His eyes were dark, more pupil than iris, and she could feel the quiver in his thighs as he stared down at her. She exhaled against his skin, damp from her tongue, and his cock twitched.
“Please.”
She shook her head. “Don’t ask.
Take it from me. I want you to.”
He shoved his hand into her hair, and she could feel the effort it took him to hold back. His body knew what she craved right now. She just needed his brain to give in to baser urges.
Vivienne leaned forward, running her tongue along the flared head of his penis without giving him the pressure she knew he craved.
Then his hand fisted in her hair, guiding her, demanding more from her, and her victory pulsed between her thighs.
She took him in her mouth, reveling in the taste of him, seducing him with her tongue until he couldn’t help the rock of his hips. But when she would have swallowed him deeper still, he pulled free.
“Get up.”
A frisson of desire slid down her spine at the hoarseness of the order. Wes was losing control, and it was exactly what she wanted.
She stopped him when he bent his head to kiss her, tried to pull her into his arms.
Wes straightened to his full height, but his gaze never left her as she moved closer to the bed.
She turned from him, crawling on her hands and knees onto the mattress. She sent him a coy look over her shoulder, enjoying the stark hunger in his expression.
Wes stepped closer, and she shuddered as he reached out and ran his hand along her spine, tracing it from her nape to the lacy band of her panties.
Too gentle. He was being too gentle.
Vivienne pressed back against his cock, until his hand tightened on her hip and he ground his hips against her ass.
“God, Viv. I need to be inside you.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that the words sounded like they’d been tortured out of him, or the haste with which he was dragging her black lace undies down her thighs, but whatever the reason, everything was working for her in a big way.
“Do it.”
Her inner muscles clenched with need at his answering growl as he positioned himself at her entrance.
“Fuck me, Wes.”
His hands gripped her hips and she reveled in the strength of him as he drove into her with more force and less finesse than his usual style. Still, she knew he was holding back.
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