Not just her body in that moment, but what she’d feel like under my hands. What she’d feel like underneath me. How she’d sound when I slid inside her and the way she’d writhe and claw at my back. Or taking her from behind, burying my cock inside her wet heat as I buried my hands in her hair and pulled until she squealed. I wanted to take her hard, ride her, make that good-girl act fall apart until she begged me to fuck her until she came. And when she came she’d squeeze me tight, until I exploded.
“Fuck.” I turned on my side and tried to ignore the raging hard-on. I had to stop thinking about her. I had to, or else I’d have blue balls all night and be a mess the entire next day. Falling asleep in front of the security feed wouldn’t earn me any gold stars. Just my luck, something would happen while I was asleep.
I glanced up at the camera and knew whoever was watching could see me. It was strange, being on the other side for once. I finally knew how my friends felt when I watched them sleep. Creepy stuff. I didn’t exactly feel like letting any of them see how uncomfortable I was. Did the other guys go through what I was going through? Shane and Brett and Dylan all hooked up with their clients at one point. Did they go through the insomnia, thinking about how close the woman they wanted so hard it hurt was sleeping from where they were? Did their fantasies gnaw at them? Were they sure they would never be able to sleep again until they tasted her?
Finally, after hours of wasting my time, I sat up and looked around for the TV remote. Something boring would lull me to sleep, maybe. Otherwise, I’d find something to pass the time until it was reasonable to get up. I kept the volume low so she wouldn’t wake up and started flipping through.
The knob to her bedroom door turned. I froze and waited to see what she was doing. When the door opened, she stood there in a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt. Not exactly what I had been imagining her in just minutes earlier, but that was for the best. I wasn’t sure my heart could stand it if she was in anything that showed a little skin.
“Can’t sleep?” she whispered, rubbing her eyes.
“You can’t, either?”
“Nope.” She looked at the TV. An old movie had just started. “Oh, I love this one.”
“Never seen it.”
“No?” She walked over to the other end of the couch and tucked her feet under her as she sat. “It’s really good.” So we sat and watched TV until the sun came up, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we were sleepless for the same reason.
Chapter Fourteen – Lauren
I went to work that morning with two things on my mind.
First, the man on the couch who I had watched TV with until dawn because I couldn’t sleep. The man whose fault it was that I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t help it. I kept imagining him coming into my room, telling me he couldn’t stand sleeping on the other side of that thin wall. The only thing that had kept me from using my vibrator was worrying that he’d hear it. I’d done things the old-fashioned way, using my fingers but imagining they were his—and when I came, I guessed I’d finally be able to sleep. I was wrong. I still couldn’t stop thinking about him and his body, fantasizing about how easy it would be to invite him into my bed.
When he turned on the TV, I used that as an excuse to at least sit with him. It wasn’t a big couch, but it felt like there were miles between us. I wanted to find a way to close that distance, but the presence of the camera in one corner of the room reminded me what a bad idea that would be.
Second, what to do about George. I had to figure out a way to get some information on him. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made that he was the one who planned the robbery. He knew all the codes to the vault—even I only knew half of the four codes it took to unlock the complicated setup, while Peter knew the other two. We couldn’t have done it without each other, or without finding where the other stored their codes. Mine were committed to memory. Peter couldn’t have taken mine and I was the only one with access to George’s office besides George. Therefore, George was the only logical culprit.
All I had to do was prove it.
“Have a good day.” Marcus gave me a quick smile before heading back to his little room. I envied him the chance to sit alone—naturally, I was so tired I could’ve laid down and slept in the middle of the bank floor, when I was wide awake all night. Even a four-shot latte didn’t seem to be helping much.
“So…” Felicia’s eyebrows wiggled up and down when I got to my desk. I reminded myself the rest of the bank didn’t know who Marcus was or that he was staying with me. All Felicia knew was that we’d walked in together. She hadn’t even seen me get out of his car—in fact, I’d hoped we would beat everybody else in, the way we usually did. Leave it to her to be early when I needed most for her to be late.
“So what?” I became very interested in organizing my desk.
“So, what’s going on with you two?” She perched on the edge of the desk so I couldn’t escape her.
I tilted my head to the side. “Why does anything have to be going on just because he told me to have a good day? That’s what people do.”
“Mm-hmm. And people look at other people the way he looked at you, too.” She giggled. “I mean, I almost melted from the heat.”
“He didn’t look at me in any special way.”
“Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself that.” She whistled to herself as she walked back to her window, shaking her head the whole way. I told myself she was imagining things, but then I remembered the awkwardness between us back at the apartment—and, of course, the kiss. I couldn’t forget that. My cheeks felt warm at the thought.
It seemed to take forever for eleven-forty-five to roll around. Probably because I was so tired. Why couldn’t I have felt so mind-numbingly tired when it was time to sleep? Wasn’t that always the way? Yet at quarter to twelve, right on the button, George left his office and walked past my desk with a newspaper under his arm. Even though my heart raced with the knowledge of what I was about to do and even though I was mostly braindead from exhaustion, I had to smile to myself. A regular man was a happy man, my father always used to say. Just one of his little bits of wisdom.
I made a big show of straightening the mail I’d just sorted, then carried the stack of envelopes into George’s office. Most of the people on the floor were busy taking care of customers who ducked out for lunch a few minutes early, hoping to beat the rush.
Once I was in there, I wondered what, exactly, I should be looking for. Some sort of evidence that he’d robbed the bank. What exactly would a man like him leave lying around? “Everything,” I whispered softly. He didn’t have his act together well enough to hide a crime like that—unless he was a complete criminal mastermind who’d been performing a long con on me and everybody else around me, including his wife and kids, for years. Knowing him, he’d do everything but paint a “GUILTY” sign on his own forehead.
I decided to check out his desk drawers, thinking he might have some recent bank statements in there. Or the receipt for a new luxury car. Because he would be just that thoughtless. I pushed his keyboard aside as I put the mail on his desk and crouched down to explore.
That was when I saw it. A bright pink Post-It note sticking out from under the keyboard. Normally, I would’ve looked away and gone back to the drawers. But I recognized part of what was written there.
I slid the note out and confirmed that at least two of the series of numbers written in George’s painfully small, precise printing were the vault codes I was in charge of. Common sense told me the other two, then, were Peter’s codes. I was holding all four codes to the vault. On a freaking Post-It note.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. It was worse than I had originally thought. The idiot left the codes in the most obvious place ever, the first place a person would look if they wanted to find something. How many times had we gotten memos from Corporate reminding us not to leave passwords under our keyboards? And yet people kept doing it, didn’t they? Or else we wouldn’t need more memos.
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br /> “What are you doing at my desk?”
My head snapped up. George’s gaze was stern as he watched me from the doorway. A funny mix of feelings washed over me. Guilt over getting caught, anger over what I’d found, superiority because I knew he was in the wrong. “Look what I just found.” I held up the bright pink slip of paper.
He closed the door and looked away. I could’ve sworn he was blushing.
“George? What is this?” I tapped it with my index finger.
“I asked what you were doing at my desk.” He was practically shaking.
“Dropping off your mail, as always.” Funny how that little lie didn’t bother me. In fact, it rolled right off my tongue. “And I knocked the keyboard aside.”
“Really?” He didn’t look convinced. I decided to roll on past that.
“So what is this? I recognize two of the series of numbers, because I have them up here.” I tapped the side of my head. “What about the other two?”
His mouth opened, then snapped shut. “You know what they are,” he mumbled, looking out the window.
I blew out a heavy sigh. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to remember them.”
He looked at me, finally. “I think you’re forgetting who the boss is around here.”
“I think you’re forgetting that these codes are supposed to be kept someplace safe! Not on a sticky note under your keyboard. Anybody could’ve found them! Anybody who works here could’ve seen you taking a peek at them before opening the vault.” I held my head in my hands. “But I’m the bad guy, right? I’m the one they’re looking at.”
“You don’t have to rub it in, all right? I feel badly enough about it already.”
I gaped at him. “You feel badly? When I’m the one who hasn’t been able to live a normal life since the robbery?”
“I’ve been losing sleep.”
“Me, too.” I couldn’t meet his eyes when I said it, though, with the memory of my last sleepless night coming to mind. I should’ve known he could never take care of those codes. He couldn’t even be bothered to remember the important days in his life, like the anniversary of his wedding or the birthdays of his kids. Why would he remember four fairly simple codes?
“I’m sorry.” He walked over to the desk and leaned down until we were almost face-to-face. I had him so freaked out, he didn’t even ask me to get out of his chair.
“Please. Don’t tell anybody about this. Please, Lauren.”
I blinked, stunned. “Tell anybody?”
“Yes. I would really appreciate it if you kept this between the two of us.”
“Who do you think I am? I mean, do you know me at all? What makes you think I would be that petty?” I chewed my thumbnail, thinking it over. “But it’s a pretty important piece of information, still.”
“You think it’s a clue?”
I looked up at him from underneath lowered brows. “You’re joking. The codes for the vault have been under your keyboard all this time and you’re asking if this is a clue?” I stood, shaking my head. “Unreal.”
“But you’ll keep it between us? I can’t lose my job. It’s not just me I’m worried about.” His eyes were wide and fearful. I thought about his wife and her recent health problems, his two college-age kids. The top-notch senior living facility his mother called home.
He really knew how to twist the knife in my chest. I sighed. “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep it quiet for as long as I can. But I swear, if things around me get any worse, I’m going to have to let the police know what I found. Because you might lose your job, but I’ll lose my job and my freedom if I end up going to prison.”
He almost laughed, he was so relieved. “Understood. But I would never let it get to that point, I swear. I would stand up for you and tell anybody who’ll listen that you’re the most honest person I know.” He was babbling, sweating bullets.
“Says the man who’s asking me to lie for him,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. I left—otherwise, I might have said something I couldn’t take back. I was furious, disappointed, disgusted. I closed his office door a little louder than I needed to as I left, but everybody was so busy with the lunch rush, nobody turned around.
Instead of going to my desk, I walked straight to the security room and walked in without knocking.
“What—” Marcus started to stand up as I closed, then locked, the door behind me. I cut him off by taking his face in my hands and crushing my mouth against his. He only hesitated a second before taking me in his arms and allowing the kiss to deepen.
“What is this?” he grunted in between kisses as his hands slid over my body.
“Whatever you want,” I whispered. “I’m sick of playing by the rules.”
Chapter Fifteen – Marcus
It was like a fantasy come true. She walked straight in and attacked me. Who was I to tell her it was wrong? Fact was, I didn’t want to. Fact was, I had been thinking about nothing but her all morning. It was like she read my mind.
I was sick of playing by the rules, too. I wanted her. I hadn’t wanted anyone the way I wanted her, ever in my life. She was everything, and she was in my arms.
The little part of my brain still capable of rational thought told me it was a bad idea. Especially in the bank—the worst place in the world. But everybody else in the bank was busy and she’d locked the door and my tongue was in her mouth and she was sighing and groaning and I was getting harder with every passing second.
So I pushed her backward, into the table. She hiked up her skirt to wrap her legs around mine, and I finally got to run my hand over her smooth, silky thigh. The higher I went, the warmer it got, until the tips of my fingers brushed against the lace of her panties. She broke off our kiss and gasped.
“Shh…” I covered her mouth with mine again and thrust my tongue inside. She met it with hers and kissed me until we were both breathless and frantic for more. Everything I touched made me want to touch more—between the curve of her ass and the full, round breast in the other hand, I strained against my zipper until I thought it might break.
She was wearing a little cardigan which she unbuttoned before working at pulling my tee from the waistband of my jeans. I slid my hands under the sweater and cupped both tits, running my thumbs across them until I felt her nipples tighten under the lacy satin of her bra. She whimpered, so I did it again as my mouth went from hers down to her chin, then her throat as she let her head fall back. She tasted just as sweet as I knew she would, and I took deep breaths to soak in her scent—soap and perfume and something I couldn’t put my finger on, something unique to her. Whatever it was, it drove me crazy.
Her hands made contact with my back, nails digging into my skin and dragging along until I hissed through clenched teeth. So she wanted it that way. I pulled down the cups of her bra in one rough motion and pushed her tits together before going back and forth, sucking and biting and licking just the way I had dreamed I would, and she tightened her legs around mine and pulled me in. I growled when my cock pressed against her pussy—the heat was almost too much, even through our clothes.
I had to be inside her. I let go of her tits so I could work at my belt and fly. She slid her hand between us and closed it around my rock-hard length as soon as I freed it, and I almost exploded. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips together to keep from groaning too loud and giving us away.
“Take me, please,” she whimpered, stroking. “Please, Marcus. Make me feel good.”
My hands shook with need as I unrolled a condom over my length. Then I took her hips and jerked her toward me, then reached between her thighs to push her panties aside. It was so hot and wet and when I slid inside.
She groaned and pressed her face against my neck to stifle the sound. Her little gasps and grunts drove me on until I slammed into her like a jackhammer, over and over. Her arms and legs gripped me tight, but not as tight as the walls of her pussy as she got closer to coming. By the time she went stiff and cried out against me, I was ready to follow he
r. I thrusted a few more times before letting go.
We held on to each other for a little while, forehead to forehead. Our gasps for breath filled the little room.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. “That was unexpected.”
“Yeah. Sorry if I came on a little strong.” She leaned back and looked at me with wide eyes and a grimace.
“A little strong?” I was so surprised, I laughed. “Yeah, you came on strong.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” I smiled, and she smiled, too. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Still, with the moment over, things were pretty awkward. We both put ourselves back together and didn’t make a lot of eye contact.
“Do I look okay?” she asked as she ran her hands through her hair.
“Yeah. You look great.”
“Like…ready to go back out there great? Or just okay?”
“Ready to go back out there,” I said.
“Okay.” I watched her in the monitor when she left. She went straight to the ladies’ room. Made sense. The one thing that made sense about the whole situation.
***
It took the rest of the day, but I finally came to a decision.
We didn’t say much to each other on the way back to her place. She looked out the passenger side window all through the drive. What was she thinking? I knew how I felt and what I planned on saying when we were alone and I was no longer driving a car, but what about her? Did she regret it? From the way she responded and how hard she came, I couldn’t imagine she would.
I knew I didn’t. I couldn’t wait to touch her again. I wanted to take my time and taste all of her, every inch of her body. It was all I could do to keep from reaching for her as we walked down the hall to her front door. I had to keep prying eyes in mind, too, the ones watching the feed from the cameras above the door and throughout her apartment. I needed to be smart. I wondered how to approach the topic until she did it for me.
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