“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” he said after he hugged her.
“You know why,” she whispered harshly, taking the stool next to him. “How are Joanna and Justine?”
Namely, his wife of the past year and infant daughter. The two women who had supposedly changed his life forever.
“They’re fine.” Jeremy gave her a wide, unabashed grin. “Justine’s sleeping on her own now. No more midnight feedings.”
“So does that mean you can go out on some midnight creepings?”
Jeremy’s smile slipped. “Oh, Nic, come on. You know I’m out of the business. I haven’t pulled any jobs in over twelve months.”
She caught the way he scratched his right palm. “Then what are you doing here?”
“You know, other people’s sisters would ask, ‘Bro, how the hell are you doing? What brings you out to this neck of the cement woods? Buy you a cup?”’ His grin made a return. “But not you. No. Instead you automatically assume I’m pulling jobs again.” The waitress behind the counter filled his coffee cup and he ordered a breakfast plate. “Nope, the only thing I’m working on is other people’s plumbing.” He waggled his brows at her. “And on Joanna’s, of course.”
Nicole relaxed, but only a little.
Jeremy loved his wife and infant daughter. She knew that as sure as she knew that what she’d be wearing tomorrow would be black. But she also knew that there were only a handful of places in Manhattan where a working thief could go to pick up on reliable secondhand information, and Coffee Corner was one of them. Seeing as it wasn’t a place one went out of their way to have a meal at, Jeremy’s presence was suspicious at best.
He smiled at her. “If you want to know the truth, I’m down here to talk to Demasi about a job. You know, something part-time to help bridge the gaps.”
“Bruno?” And he was telling her he was out of the business? Bruno Demasi was one of the biggest thieves this side of the Hudson.
“Ah. I thought you might not have heard.”
“Heard what?” She was an inch away from hauling him back to the john and giving him a swirly until he swore he wouldn’t put his future with his new family at risk.
His grin was almost smug. “That he started his own security firm. You know, instead of taking, he now protects the stuff he would have taken.” He shrugged. “I hear he’s doing pretty good and the word’s out that he’s taking on new personnel. Hell, if I had something to protect, he’d be the first person I’d hire.”
“Bruno, a security guard? That big lug?”
Jeremy chuckled. “I’d like to see you say that to his face.”
Of course she never would, not if she hoped to keep her own face. Bruno was a hothead. He was also one of the best thieves running today.
“Dad asked about you last Sunday,” Jeremy said quietly.
The air rushed from Nicole’s lungs, all thought of Big Bruno and his new gig vanishing from her mind.
Those were the absolute last words she expected to hear come out of her brother’s mouth. Some comment on the weather, maybe. An aside about how he’d heard so-and-so had done such-and-such. But never anything concerning their father.
Jeremy scanned her face. “Yeah, Joanna and I took the baby up to visit him.” He drank out of his water glass. “He says you haven’t been out since he got locked up.”
Nicole stared straight ahead, feeling the blood rush from her face.
“Any particular reason why you haven’t been out?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“So have I, but I don’t let that stop me.”
She started to get up. “Let it go, Jer. At least you and your family are going up. That’s enough for now.”
She made the mistake of looking at him. At seeing the curious shadow in his eyes. “He wants to see you.”
And she wanted to see him. So badly it hurt. But she couldn’t do it while he was in there. Couldn’t bear to see him behind bars. Even if the address of his current residence didn’t bother him in the least, just knowing what all that cement and metal represented—namely, the loss of freedom—made her queasy.
Nicole quickly kissed her brother on the cheek. “Give Joanna and Justine my love, you hear? Maybe I’ll stop by sometime this week.”
“I’d rather you stopped by to see Dad.”
Nicole ignored his comment as she passed Alex and told him they were leaving.
5
WHO WAS THAT GUY back at the coffee shop and what in the hell did he want from Nicole?
Alex stood in the elevator next to the tight-lipped woman in question, none too happy about the attention she garnered from the men packed in the elevator with them. The attention she garnered from everyone wherever she went.
He rubbed the back of his neck, irritated in a way that he’d never been before.
He was jealous.
It was as simple and as complicated as that.
He let rip a series of silent curse words. Never, ever, in his thirty-two-year existence could he remember being jealous. So unfamiliar was he with the emotion that he hadn’t nailed it for what it was straight off. He’d thought at the root of his irritation lay pure, unadulterated sexual frustration, and his prolonged need to put his quarry behind bars. Instead, the fact that other men wanted Nicole Bennett as much as he did made him want to punch a few lights out.
Definitely a new experience for him. And not one he was particularly comfortable with. He’d never challenged the grade-school bully to a fight and couldn’t imagine starting now.
“Afternoon, Alex.”
He glanced over at Jason Dewitt, one of the dweebs from accounting, then followed the man’s gaze to Nicole’s breasts. “Jason,” he ground out. Then he nodded at John Carlon who worked down the hall from him. “John.”
John lowered his voice and lightly elbowed Alex as he stared at Nicole’s cleavage as well. “New client?”
Alex grimaced at his co-worker. Only John was more than that, so he couldn’t fault him for his actions. He had been the one to show Alex the ropes when he first hired on at the company, and he’d offered him the type of camaraderie he’d experienced on the force. If he had any questions or needed any backup, John was the first one he went to. He was also the first one to want to grab a beer after an especially hard day of tedious business meetings.
Unfortunately, he was leaving the company, having accepted a prime position with a rival firm in San Francisco. Alex smiled at his friend. “So, John, I hear Friday is your last day here.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to grab a beer or something before I go.” John looked at Nicole again. “How’s tonight?”
“Sorry, buddy, no can do. But let’s definitely arrange something.”
The elevator dinged when it reached the twenty-fifth floor and he and John set up tentative plans. Then the doors opened and Nicole and her sexy boots led the way out, earning stares as she passed the desks situated around the large open area between the closed offices.
“Excuse me,” one of the secretaries said as she stood in the middle of the pathway, her arms loaded with folders so that Nicole had no choice but to bump into her as she passed.
“You’re excused,” Nicole said.
Alex coughed behind his hand. She glanced at him, a mischievous gleam in her dark eyes as if she was well aware of the effect she had on people and that she enjoyed using it to her advantage.
He crossed in front of her and opened his office door, motioning for her to precede him in. He took the unguarded moment to appreciate what his co-workers had.
Nicole Bennett was va-va-vavoom in capital letters.
And he wanted to cover her up. Put a bag over her head and a potato sack over those luscious curves.
The problem was she’d still look good enough to eat.
He watched as she stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. He noticed the way her shoulders went stiff and knew exactly what she was looking at.
He stepped inside and closed the door on at least
five associates craning their necks straining to get a look inside.
At a little over fifteen by fifteen, the only saving grace for his office was its large window overlooking the edge of the financial district…and the fact that the display board next to the door was filled with photos of the very woman looking at it now.
“Jesus,” she murmured, moving from shot to shot.
Alex released the lock, then tapped the bottom of the revolving board until the white dry-erase side was facing them. Then he pushed the entire display back against the wall. He rounded his desk and unlocked the drawer with the file on Dark Man inside. He took it out and laid it on the cluttered desktop.
He heard Nicole swallow. “Did you, um, take all those?”
He didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. It was obvious the pictures of her had made an impact. “No. I subcontract a local P.I. to work on cases like yours. A woman by the name of Kylie Capshaw took most of those.”
She slowly turned to face him, her eyes wary and watchful. “Don’t you have any other cases?”
He gestured to the pile of twenty or so case files in his in-box.
Nicole idly fingered through them, but he could tell she wasn’t seeing them. Instead, her mind was apparently on the board and the pictures of her now facing the wall. Alex squinted, trying to read her expression. He realized she looked…vulnerable somehow. Exposed.
And he suddenly hated that he was the one who had made her feel that way.
“You’re not the target, Nic,” he murmured.
Her gaze snapped to his face, seeming surprised at his use of the shortened name.
“Is it okay if I call you that?”
She shrugged as if it was of no consequence to her, although he suspected it was.
“This it?” she asked, turning the file he had just opened so she could look through it.
“Yes.”
She sat on the edge of the desk and began quickly leafing through what had taken him months to compile. He picked up the phone and asked his secretary Dorothy to bring in all the policies that had been issued over the past couple of months for over a hundred thousand.
“Make it a half,” Nicole said.
He changed the amount then hung up the extension.
She tapped a page in front of her. “He’s upping the ante. Each job bigger than the one before.”
Alex didn’t need to point out that the rate of casualties had also risen as he sat on the other side of the desk and noticed her fingering a blurry picture. “We think that might be him.”
She picked up the snapshot of the shadowy figure and held it out to stare at it. She didn’t say anything as she put it back down.
“Did your father get a good look at him while they were working together?”
Nicole’s movements slowed. “I didn’t say they worked together.”
“Sorry. My mistake. When you said he was responsible for your father’s imprisonment, I assumed…”
“Natural assumption.” She crossed her arms. “Cramped office.”
He looked around and smiled. “A bit.”
“I’d go crazy in a place like this inside a week.”
Alex had no doubt that she would. “I thought the same thing when I first hired on.” He shrugged. “But you get used to it. Learn to distract yourself.”
“With things like looking for D.M.”
Dark Man.
“Something like that.”
She took a deep breath. “My father never saw him.” She looked directly at Alex. “No one has. At least no one I know about.”
He considered her. “You’ve been asking around.”
It wasn’t a question and she didn’t answer. Instead she glanced toward the closed door, then back at him. “Do you have access to all the policies underwritten?”
“High-end luxury items, yes.”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Because the sweaty short guy who was staring at my breasts in the elevator sells information on such policies to the highest bidder.”
“Dewitt?” Alex nearly fell off the side of his desk. “He works in accounting.”
“Mmm. Guess he wanted in on some of the numbers he crunches. You might want to do some cross-checking. I bet the policies he can get his hands on easily coincide with a high percentage of thefts. He could be more original and look for more difficult policies, but he strikes me as the lazy type.”
Alex looked at her. Really looked at her. Sure she was sexy as all get out. And even now he wanted to haul her across his desk and have another go at her. But she was also incredibly smart. And she didn’t offer up information as a braggart might, but rather as a statement of fact.
He also found it curious that while she didn’t come out and say how she felt about someone like Dewitt doing what he did, there was an undercurrent of disapproval in her voice.
He found his gaze skimming her figure and cleared his throat. “How much does information like that go for?”
Her pupils seemed to grow huge in her eyes as she watched him. “Depends on the score.”
“A percentage?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and causing that black silky hair to stir then settle back into place. “Too risky. A pat amount. One hundred. Two hundred. A grand.”
“That’s quite a scale.”
“Mmm. Like I said, it depends on the score.”
He wished she’d stop using that word. Every time she said “score” he thought of “scoring” with her.
He pretended interest in putting the file back together. “Have you ever bought info from him?”
“No. But I know those who have.” He heard the smile in her voice, as if she sensed what he was thinking and was slightly amused by it.
She also appeared slightly turned on as she re-crossed her legs and scooted a little closer to him on the desk. The spicy scent of her skin teased his nose and the close proximity of her breasts made it all but impossible to think.
Alex resisted the urge to tug on the collar of his T-shirt. “Ah. Would these be the same people you target?”
She laughed. “No. These would be friends.”
“And you don’t steal from friends.”
“No, I don’t steal from friends.”
Silence stretched between them. A sensually charged silence that seemed to notch up the temperature in the small office and make Alex’s T-shirt feel like a woolen parka.
“I thought honor among thieves extended to all thieves,” he said, wondering if she’d really moved closer or whether wishful thinking was what made her now seem close enough to kiss.
“Nope.” Was it him, or was her voice huskier than before? “Thieves are like the rest of the professional population. And those who act without honor don’t deserve to be honored.”
During the conversation, Alex paid close attention to the slight change in her body language. Where she’d grown tense at the sight of her pictures on the board, she now seemed to relax, leaning back against her arms, her long silky black hair slanting over her shoulder and down over her breasts. He was finding it increasingly difficult not to look at those sweet mounds of flesh beneath the stretchy, low-cut fabric of her dress. So he stopped trying to fight it.
What did that make him given their current surroundings? Not any better than Dewitt. He lifted his gaze to Nicole’s face to find her eyes sparkling suggestively at him. Then again, maybe there was a whole world of difference.
“You should turn your desk to face the window. A shame to waste such a great view.”
Speaking of great views…
“What’s stopping you?”
Alex blinked. “Excuse me?”
Nicole shrugged, causing the sheer blouse she wore to dip down over one pale shoulder. He discovered the dress she had on underneath didn’t have sleeves and that under that she didn’t have on a bra as she dipped a finger under one strap and eased it down over her arm until the material stretched across her left breast.
“Wh
at’s stopping you from acting on what you so obviously want to do?” she murmured.
A click sounded as Alex swallowed. Oh, about five hundred of his co-workers on the other side of the door, for one thing.
He cleared his throat. “And what is it that you, um, think I want to do?”
“Mmm. Touch me, maybe?”
Oh, yeah. That and a whole lot more. “Because I don’t think it would be a very good idea.” He put the file back in his desk drawer.
She allowed her gaze to travel the length of him and back again and he felt his arousal grow. “Why not?”
“A dozen different reasons,” he said, increasingly unable to come up with a single one.
She chuckled quietly, sexily. “You know what your problem is, Alex?”
“I think too much like a cop.”
She didn’t respond for a long moment. “You operate by too many rules.”
He cracked a smile. “And you operate by too few. I guess in the end it balances things out, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe.” She lowered her lashes, considering her own breasts and the way she was using them to tantalize him. “And maybe you need to crawl over onto this end of the teeter-totter. Find out how much fun it is on this side.”
Alex’s body temperature had risen so high he swore his neck burned. Last night in the Theisman family guest room he’d gotten but a taste. And fun wasn’t the word he’d use to describe what having sex with Nicole would be like. Outstanding, phenomenal, sinful were words that came to mind.
But despite how much he wanted her, he knew he shouldn’t allow himself to have her. She was a thief. And she was now officially a co-worker.
And, frankly, the thought that sex with her would far surpass even his imagination scared the crap out of him.
Still, before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached out and tugged that strap a little farther down her arm until her nipple slipped out of the front.
His breath caught in his throat. While he’d laved that same breast the night before, everything had been done in the dark where things that might not happen otherwise regularly took place. But here in his office in the middle of the day with the afternoon sunlight slanting through the window behind him, there were no such excuses, no shadows to hide behind, no darkness to blame.
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