by Kara Lennox
“Oh, my.”
All he had to do was rock his hips, and hers along with them, to produce the most exquisite sensations. No pumping in and out. Just a tiny friction, and with each slight movement she gave a little gasp and another squeak, which he thought meant she liked it.
“Make it last,” she pleaded. “Please, don’t let it be over too quickly. I waited my whole life for this.”
That gave him pause. “Jillian, you’re not a v—” He couldn’t even say the word.
“No.” Impatient, she rocked them herself, squeezing with her inner thighs like he was a horse and she was guiding him to her will. “But it’s never been good before,” she admitted.
“Never?”
“Forget I said anything!”
He was rapidly getting to that point where he forgot everything anyway. All of his blood had left his brain to circulate where it was more urgently needed. Now all he could do was feel—the tight, warm glove of her body surrounding him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his flesh in a way that should have hurt, but actually made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt.
He wished he could prolong this moment indefinitely, but he was too inflamed. And every time he stopped moving for a few seconds to regain better control, Jillian took up the slack. Still, he held on to every precious minute, kissing any part of her he could find with his hungry mouth, cataloging every intriguing curve and valley of her lithe body. He paid attention to the rate of her breathing, the small soft whispers into his ear, encouraging him.
“Yes,” she finally said with a note of satisfaction. “Yes, yes, yesss!”
He finally cut himself loose, relaxing into the climax until it claimed his whole body. He wanted to shout in triumph, but he wasn’t so far gone that he wasn’t aware he was at his place of business. Not that many people wandered down to this end of the hall, but he wouldn’t take a chance.
He bit his lip to staunch the shout, holding her close, burying his face in her hair as wave after wave swept over him, waves so extremely delicious he was already starting to wonder when he could manage sex with Jillian again.
As they both glided back to earth, he held her close for a long time. Their heartbeats were in sync. So was their breathing. Amazing.
“Conner.” It was barely a whisper, as if she were afraid to break the magic spell.
“Jillian,” he said back.
“You’re due at a meeting in ten minutes.”
Her statement brought reality crashing down on him in a hurry. “What happened to me not being your boss, us just being two people—”
“This is no time for jokes!” She pulled away from him abruptly, and he felt suddenly cold and lonely as she clamored off his lap and started to search madly for her clothes. “If you’re late, they’ll send someone looking for you. How will you explain—”
“They’ll call first. Anyway, the meeting was postponed until this afternoon.”
“Oh.” She laughed nervously.
“Jillian, come here.”
“I’d feel better if I could put my clothes on. I’m feeling really…really naked.”
“You are really naked. It’s nice. I wonder if we could enact a new dress code. From now on, you can show up to work clothing optional.”
“Conner, please.”
He made some effort to pull himself out of the pleasant daze of satisfaction. Jillian didn’t seem as happy about the state of affairs as he did. “Is something wrong? Are you sorry this happened?”
“What? No. Oh, no, Conner, not at all.” She sat down next to him. “But no one can know. I need this job. If anyone finds out—”
“No one’s going to find out.”
“Please…if I get fired—”
“You could get another job, a better job, in a heartbeat.”
“No, you don’t understand. I have to have this job.”
“Sweetness, relax. You won’t get fired. I’m not going to fire you, and no one else would dare, not over something like having sex in the office.”
“It’s so unprofessional.” She all but wrung her hands together.
“I’m not going to submit it to the company newsletter, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have no intention of telling anyone. Because no matter how badly you feel having sex with your boss might reflect on you, it looks ten times worse on me.”
She met his gaze, perhaps gauging his sincerity, then gave a little nod. “Okay. Okay, I just got crazy there for a minute.”
“Sit here with me a moment, okay? Lie here beside me. There’s room for two.”
Looking a bit dubious, she allowed him to draw her next to him as he lay down on the sofa. After a bit of maneuvering, he had her tucked under his arm, her head on his shoulder. He stroked her arm. “Maybe this wasn’t the smartest use of our time, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
“Really? Please don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I’ve spent too much of my life trying to make other people happy. It felt good, just doing something purely for myself.”
“Funny, I wouldn’t have guessed you grew up that way. I imagined you living life totally on your terms, beholden to no one. But that’s not how you live, is it.”
“No. Once, maybe, but not for a long time.”
“What happened?”
“Chandra happened.”
“Your ex-wife.”
“Yeah. She’s kind of a force of nature. Like a hurricane. Hard to run from, harder to survive. She fell in love with a dashing adventurer, then tamed him and turned him into a corner-office lapdog.”
“Then you ceased to be interesting to her. Is that it?”
“Exactly.” He was amazed she saw it so clearly, so quickly. He’d never talked to anyone else about the crumbling of his marriage. Most of his male friends couldn’t understand why he would divorce a hot number like Chandra. “She begged her grandfather to promote me. When my boss quit, it seemed logical for me to take his place. But it was never a good fit. The marriage fell apart pretty quickly, and I spent the next year recovering from the financial wreck my life was in. I couldn’t afford to give up the salary until we sold the house she insisted we buy, pay off some credit cards. But I always intended to return to timber buying.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Stan. He’s Chandra’s grandfather, but he had a soft spot for me even after the divorce. Chandra is the apple of his eye, but he isn’t blind to her faults. He never held the divorce against me. In fact, he sort of took care of me. He got Chandra to back down from some ridiculous demands. I owe him for that.”
“So you stay out of loyalty?”
Conner took a deep breath. He still had a hard time talking about this. “Stan has cancer. Not many people know. He might not have long to live.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“I couldn’t just abandon the job when there was no one to take my place. The company’s been in chaos and Stan asked me to stay, to help Hamilton keep an eye on things. He wanted to sell the company, but I convinced him not to, that we could weather the storm.
“Now this business with Cuddy…”
“I’m sorry I ever stirred up that can of worms. I just made things worse for everyone.”
“No, you did the right thing. You saw something wrong that needed to be righted, and you spoke up. That takes courage.”
“So you do believe me? That I really did see all that stuff?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have protected your identity otherwise.”
“Thank you. Again.” She kissed his cheek. “So I take it you don’t believe Stan is guilty?”
“God, no. No way. He loves this company. He wouldn’t do anything to drag it down. And he’s not capable of murder. He’s a kind, good man.” And if he didn’t survive the cancer, Conner was going to miss him terribly. He’d never known either of his own grandfathers. Stan had proved a wonderful mentor.
“So what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out. I was Greg’s boss, but I really had no idea what he was up to. He was always traveling. All I know is, he used to be a good forester, and then something happened.”
“I’m sure it will all get sorted out.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He absently stroked Jillian’s hair while he stared into space, remembering snippets of conversation he’d had with Greg, searching for some hidden meaning, some clue that would steer him in the right direction. That was when he noticed the black spot under his desk ledge.
The desk had been a gift from Stan, a gorgeous, custom-made piece of tiger maple. There shouldn’t have been a mark on it.
He sat up, dislodging Jillian abruptly.
“Conner?”
Wordlessly he pulled on his boxers and pants, then went to the desk to investigate. Under the edge of the desk was a plastic disk, about the size of a quarter. It seemed to be stuck on. What the hell?
He pried the thing off with his fingernails. And when he inspected it more carefully, he found a tiny label that read The Spy Store.
Oh, God. He knew what this was.
His first instinct was to tell Jillian, to share his surprise and dismay with her. But one look at her horrified expression, and he realized he didn’t have to tell her what he’d found.
“You want to tell me what this is doing here?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JILLIAN PANICKED. SHE COULD have played dumb, but she wasn’t fast enough on her feet. Instead she just stared in dawning dread.
“I can see by your reaction that you do know something about this.” His words were clipped, as if he were tightly reining his temper.
Lord help her. “I can explain.” She struggled for any logical explanation for why she would know anything about a listening device planted in his office. Anything but the truth. Nothing came to her.
“Well, you better start explaining. Because I’m pretty sure this constitutes a crime. So unless you’d like to find yourself in a jail cell—”
“You could at least hear me out before you start hurling threats.” How could he be so cold, so unfeeling, after what they’d just shared?
“I’m all ears.”
Jillian hastily threw on her clothes while he did the same. But she could feel him watching her, and not in an appreciative way. He was deliberately making her feel self-conscious.
She should have known. He’d had a cruel streak as a boy, and he hadn’t grown out of it. He still garnered some enjoyment from observing her humiliation.
Jillian had come up with a number of lies she could tell and discarded all of them. She’d been skating on thin ice with her explanation for why she’d been searching Isaac’s office. Conner wasn’t going to buy any more lame stories, not when his own privacy had been violated.
“I take it this has something to do with why your job is so important to you,” Conner said as she slipped on her shoes. “I’d actually deluded myself into believing it was because you enjoyed working with me.”
“I do enjoy working with you.” She bit her lip. No matter how she framed this, it was going to look bad. Why had she let herself give in to her attraction? His discovery of the bug would be bad under any circumstances, but it was so much worse coming on the heels of them having sex. He would never believe the two weren’t connected, somehow.
“So much so that you’re setting me up. Blackmail, is that it? Were you planning to post recordings of our tryst on the internet?”
“God, no!”
He looked around the office. “I’ll bet there’s a video camera in here somewhere.”
“No. There’s not. I planted the listening device because I was hoping to learn something related to Greg Tynes’s murder. But the only thing I’ve overheard are some distinctly unflattering comments about myself.”
“Unflattering comments?”
“You and Mr. Payne. Making fun of me. You called me a pretty bit of empty-headed fluff. You said I was stupid.”
At least he had the good grace to appear uncomfortable. “That was your first day. I didn’t know anything about you yet.”
“Exactly. You judged me on my appearance. Just like you did in high school.”
“Oh, no, you’re not turning this back on me. You were snooping, digging around in my life for information. And to think, I gave you access to my office. My email. I told you things about my personal life—all so you can repeat the information to…who? Who hired you?”
He narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze over her dismissively. “You’re not a cop, that much I can tell.”
“How do you know?”
“Because an undercover cop wouldn’t have given herself away so easily. You better spill it. I will find out. Is it Chandra? Is she trying to get more money out of me? Because that ship has left port.”
She could let him think his ex-wife had hired her. It would buy her more time. But like he said, he would find out, and then she would be simply piling one lie on top of another.
“Not Chandra.”
“One of the other directors, then, trying to discredit me. Ever since Stan was arrested, there’s been a major power grab. Everybody knows Hamilton is retiring, and I’m the only other one Stan trusts. If they get rid of me, the way is clear for someone else to be named CEO.”
The one thing she would not do is name the client. She had to protect Mr. Payne’s anonymity or Daniel would fire her for sure. As it was, her continued employment at Project Justice had certainly been called into question.
“It’s not any of those things. My goal is to exonerate Stan Mayall. I was looking for any information that might explain who really killed Greg Tynes, or why he was murdered.”
“And you think I know?”
“I never seriously considered you a suspect. But others did. And still do, I might add.”
“Who are you working for? And don’t say Stan, because I’ll know you’re lying. Stan knows I had nothing to do with Greg’s death.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Then get your things. I’ll call Security and have you escorted out of the building.” He got up and went to his desk, reaching for the phone.
Jillian quickly weighed her options. Either she confided in him, or she was out on her butt and Daniel would never trust her with another assignment.
“Wait, Conner. I’ll tell you who I’m working for, but only because I am one-hundred-percent sure you’re not guilty of anything except trying to hold the company together. Have you heard of Project Justice?”
His hand froze halfway to the phone. “Of course I have. It’s that foundation started by the oil billionaire’s son, the one who went to prison for killing a guy—”
“For not killing a guy,” she corrected him. “He was pardoned, and the conviction was overturned last year when the real murderer was caught.”
“Whatever. You’re with Project Justice?”
“Does that seem so improbable? Are you judging me again based on my appearance?”
“If Stan had gone to Project Justice, he’d have told me. Nice try.”
“I’m telling the truth. We’ll go talk to Daniel Logan today—this afternoon. I’ll explain that I blew my cover, and I’ll convince him that you should not be considered a suspect. Then we’ll move forward.”
“Call him. Now.”
He still didn’t believe her. With a shrug, she went to his desk phone and dialed the number she knew by heart. Elena, Jillian’s replacement, answered.
“Elena, it’s Jillian. Is Daniel available? It’s slightly urgent.” Urgent was reserved for life-or-death situations. Slightly urgent was their code for an unmitigated disaster, but nothing was burning, no ambulance had been called and no one was being held hostage.
“I’ll find him. Hold on.”
It took two minutes. The whole time, Conner simply stared at her, accusation in every breath he took.
And he was still so damn sexy it hurt. Why was her lot in life to always fall for men who couldn’t pos
sibly return her feelings? And why did her messy emotions always get her into so much trouble?
“Jillian. What’s wrong?”
She saw no alternative but to confess everything. “Daniel. I’m afraid I’ve—”
Conner snatched the phone receiver out of her hand. “Do you mean to tell me you’re actually Daniel Logan?”
Did Conner think she’d lied about that? She pressed the speaker phone button, daring him to stop her.
“It is,” Daniel replied, sounding quite fierce. “And who might you be?”
“Conner Blake, director of Timber Operations for Mayall Lumber. We need to meet. Immediately. I think you know why. Unless you’d like me to go to the police.”
Jillian struggled not to bury her face in her hands. Why was he being so hateful? Didn’t he understand that she’d had to keep her true reasons for being here a secret?
“I can clear my schedule for you anytime you like. Would this afternoon be soon enough?”
Conner had been prepared for a fight. He looked a little surprised to be accommodated so easily. “How about three o’clock.”
“I’ll tell my staff to expect you. Jillian has the address.”
Conner jabbed an angry finger at the disconnect button as he redirected his attention toward Jillian. “I have a meeting to go to. I suggest you take the afternoon off. Once your boss and I sort things out, one of us will let you know if you still have a job.”
She nodded, relieved that she could escape his angry presence. But he was sorely mistaken if he thought she was going to slink off to her apartment and wait there meekly until the big boys decided her fate.
Yes, she’d screwed up. And yes, acting boldly and taking initiative were exactly what had gotten her into trouble. But she wasn’t going to quit now. If she was going down, she would go down swinging.
She gathered as much of her dignity as she could find and headed out of Conner’s office. But she couldn’t resist one parting shot. She turned and looked at him directly.
“Was it good for you? I hope so. Because hell will freeze over before you get another shot at me. Oh, and before you go to the directors’ meeting, you might want to rebutton your shirt.”