by Jianne Carlo
“What?” Eli sat up and stroked his hand over her thigh.
“I thought you were pissed at me,” she said, her eyes dropping to his splayed fingers.
“Horny beats pissed on any level.” He rolled a shoulder. “Testosterone and all that. My cock and my brain operate independently.”
“Ha! More of a case of the little head versus the big one.”
“Happens.” He shrugged again. “What were you thinking a few seconds ago?”
“Three of us mapped out the trailer. Amy from marketing did the dialogue. Charlene chose the music, and I put it together. Chris approved everything.”
“Dunlop was supposed to be here this weekend, wasn't she?”
“Chris? Yes. At the last minute her babysitter reneged. Amy had ample opportunity to copy the tape, Eli.” She nibbled the tip of her pinkie again.
Eli groaned, capturing her hand and bringing her finger to his mouth, drawing the cool digit in, lapping his tongue up and around her silky flesh. “At least once a meeting you nibble your pinkie, and all I can think of is your mouth on my cock.” Shifting her other hand to his leg, he turned the palm up and examined her injured fingertips. “Still burning?”
“Not really. It tingles a bit, and I'm sure that hot water will sting.” Their gazes locked. “I'm okay, Eli, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the DVDs right away.”
“Why didn't you?”
“You like the things money can buy.” She pointed at his shoes. “Everyone knows about those handcrafted shoes. Seven thousand dollars for a pair of shoes.”
“First of all, these shoes cost seven hundred.” Eli folded his arms over his chest. “I support my widowed mother, my two little sisters, and my younger brother. I have since my dad died when I was twenty. I make good money now, but when Dad died, we almost lost our house. I can afford toys and luxuries now, and I splurge every so often.”
She looked so cute when she wrinkled her nose. “But…but everyone talks about those shoes.”
Waggling his eyebrows, he grinned. “I may have started the rumor myself.”
“Why?”
“Nothing succeeds like success, Steph. Looking the part is almost as important as having the talent. The Rolex was a gift from Ignatius. The Armani suits I buy on sale and have adjusted by a tailor.”
“And the Porsche?”
“Used. Bought at an auction.” Eli chuckled as her face blanched.
She buried her face in her fingers. “Oh gawd. I spent months trying to hate you because I thought you were superficial and shallow.” Stephanie straightened and her eyes misted and brimmed with unshed tears. She stated more than asked, “That's why you didn't finish your degree, isn't it? Because your father died.”
“I had hard choices to make at that time.”
Launching herself at him, she wound her hands around his neck and straddled his pelvis. “I am such a bitch. I'm so sorry, Eli.” Hanging her head, she asked, “Why? Why did you allow the rumors to continue?”
“Why not?” He lifted both shoulders. “Anyone who believed them didn't deserve my respect or attention.”
Burying his nose in her silky hair, he inhaled the faint hint of a gingery spice coating her locks, and his palm traced her vertebra.
“I feel like such an idiot.” Her cheeks glowed; the color ebbing and flowing as she frowned, then pursed her mouth and studied the third button on his shirt. “I think I wanted to believe the worst of you. My reaction to you scared me silly.”
Her great big eyes glistened like amber jewels, and a sharp twinge smoldered in his chest. “Let's not do this, Steph. I don't want to dwell on the past. I want us to move forward, to explore our relationship.”
“You've worked for Todd Technologies for nine years. In all that time, you've never dated one woman more than a few times.” She gave a small grimace. “At least, that's according to the gossip.”
“In this case the gossip's spot-on.” Steph had ducked her head, so Eli tipped her chin up. “I hadn't met the right woman. I have now. But things aren't going to work if you can't believe that. You gotta take a leap of faith, honey.”
She met his gaze unflinchingly, and he could taste her hesitation, see her uncertainty in the rapid swallows rippling her throat. Her tongue moistened her lips, and Eli's cock did a happy dance in his pants.
“I know,” she whispered, and a waft of the peppermint she'd sucked on earlier made his nostrils flare. “What exactly am I leaping into?”
“We're making that leap of faith together, Steph,” he answered, not in the least bit surprised at the conviction in his voice. “Where're we heading? I don't know. All I know is that the thought of not having you around makes my gut cramp. It's been hell the last couple of months. Promise me no matter how mad you get at me, you won't clam up like that again.”
“If this weekend hadn't happened, I was going to send you a Valentine Day's gift.” She took a deep inhale, and the neck of her blouse fluttered and sifted over her breasts. Eli forced himself to listen to what she was saying. “I'm sick and tired of being a turtle.”
“A turtle?” He couldn't prevent his lips from twitching.
“Yes. All my life it's been easier to stick my head back into my shell and create a new creature instead of facing my fears.” She flashed him a lopsided, rueful grin. “My New Year's resolution is to not back down anymore.”
A deep contentment soothed the heart threatening to leap the confines of his rib cage. “Think we can start trusting each other, Steph?”
Beneath his caressing fingers, her spine slackened, and she slid back on his thighs to stare at him. “Yep, no more turtle behavior.” She butted her head on his chest. “This feels so surreal. After the Christmas party, I never thought we stood a chance. Gawd, the gossip's going to fly around the office.”
“I wish it were Christmas all over again. What I wouldn't give to walk into the party with you on my arm.” Trailing his forefinger down her slender throat, he rested his thumb in the center of her clavicle, and savored the way her pulse accelerated. Eli growled, “I don't give a shit what anyone says once we're together.”
“There's no policy against dating a colleague, is there?”
“If there is, Iggie will amend it. Todd Technologies can't afford to lose you, honey.”
“Or their best salesman,” she quipped. “What's going to happen now? With the DVDs, I mean.”
“I left a voice mail for Iggie. I expect he'll call the second his jet touches down and he has a signal. He needs to know about everything—the voodoo dolls, the acid.” Eli touched a fingertip to her lower lip. “If I know him, he and Sam have come up with a baited trap. And I've a few ideas of my own. No.” He tapped her parting mouth. “Don't ask me yet. I need to let things percolate. And looky here. We've arrived.”
Chapter Seven
“Hungry?” Curling his arm around her waist, Eli led Stephanie through the hotel's lobby.
“Not really, but I'm sure I will be later.”
“I'm not hungry for food, honey.” Eli leaned in to trace the whorls of her ear with a finger. “But I do have a certain dish in mind as an appetizer. I'll grab a change of clothes and come to your room?”
“You might as well bring your suitcase.”
His lips spread into a wide smile, and he gripped her side, tugging her closer.
Over a dozen individuals crowded into the elevator. Snugging her in front of him, he drew her ass against his throbbing groin and strangled a groan. Lurid images popped into his brain, Steph on all fours, her pert rump in the air, his cock sliding in and out of glistening pussy folds.
Since he never unpacked for a weekend business trip, Eli made it back down to her room in record time. She'd left the door cracked open, and he stifled an expletive.
“Steph, you cannot leave a hotel door open,” he called while pulling his carry-on through the door. “What the—”
His heart pummeled his chest.
Someone had tossed the room.
Clothes, a c
ouple of paperbacks, a pair of black pumps, and running shoes littered the carpet, the sofa. The fridge had been emptied, miniature liquor bottles appearing spewed in a jagged path from the open door.
Eli dropped the suitcase and broke into a jog. “Stephanie. Where are you?”
“The bedroom.” Her voice sounded muffled.
All the sheets had been torn off the bed.
“Look at what they did to my laptop,” she wailed. Holding the screen in one hand and the keyboard bottom in the other, Stephanie glanced up to meet his gaze. “They stomped on my spare USB, and they cracked the drive. Look.”
“To hell with the damned computer,” he snarled, hauling her against him and squishing her body to his. “Okay, that's it. Gloves off. You are not leaving my sight. Not even to go to the bathroom. Did you call security?” He drew back to study her face. Her expression shouted a rising fury as her delicate brows knit together.
She blinked. “Security. No. Damn. I was so shocked, and then I found the laptop.”
“Don't touch a thing,” he ordered.
Within two minutes, he had notified the hotel's security manager, who promised him that two employees were en route to Stephanie's suite.
Iggie called as two men wearing identical rumpled navy pin-striped suits strolled into the hotel room. Eli brought Iggie current while keeping half an ear on Stephanie's conversation with the two men.
“Hotel security's going to check key-card access, but they won't do anything else unless we call in the local PD.”
“I'll make a few calls—we deal with a local PI. Sam's with me. Get Stephanie another room, but don't check out of that one. I want our PI to go through her suite with a fine-tooth comb.” Iggie's gruff tone told Eli that he was pissed and irritated. “I'm staying in the penthouse suite. Hang on.”
A muffled conversation ensued, and Eli traced Stephanie's actions and movements as she followed the two men to the door.
“Sam's organized one of the penthouse floors for our use exclusively. Check with the front desk. Apparently there's a boardroom situated on the hotel's top floor. Let's meet there in two hours,” Iggie ordered.
“What about Bill Harris?” Eli asked.
“I'll arrange for him to join,” Iggie replied. “And Jacques needs to be involved as well. I'll ask both of them to come into town for the meeting.”
“Iggie, what happened to the bodyguards I asked Sam for yesterday?”
“Hang on.”
Eli heard the whisper of the phone changing hands.
“What bodyguards?” Sam had a British accent and pronounced each word precisely.
“I e-mailed you yesterday and explained what had happened. I asked for round-the-clock bodyguards for Stephanie.”
“Never received the e-mail. Resend it and copy Iggie. Sod it, we have a hole.” Sam had spent his formative years in London, and though his normal vocabulary had assimilated American colloquialisms, his cursing range hadn't.
Eli stared at his cell after he'd ended the call.
What to do about Genevieve Drummond?
There was nothing tangible she'd done or said, nothing he could put his finger on, but his instincts boomeranged to the woman repeatedly, and he knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. His instincts had never failed him, not once in nine years.
By the time they'd moved all Stephanie's belongings to the penthouse, he realized she'd lapsed into a mild shock. She had icy hands and feet, and her conversation was tangential, hopping from one muttered topic to another. He ran her a hot, scented bath, and while she soaked, he ordered room service, specifying the food be delivered ninety minutes later.
He'd been holding himself in check, pacing, forcing his body to work, and trying not to surrender to the emotions strangling the corners of his mind. Collapsing onto the couch, he bent his head and cupped his hand over his face.
Suppose she'd walked into the room while the intruder was still there? Don't go there, Gallagher. She's safe and that's all that matters. I don't want her alone. I'll sell her on moving in with me. Aw shit, I want her to marry me.
You'll scare her into next week if you pop the question.
Moving in together—focus on that.
Eli sucked in air, straightened and slipped off his Hermès shoes and the socks he'd bought on sale at Walmart. He chuckled as he glimpsed the yellow bands on his socks, the color combination so typical of construction and factory workers. The dichotomy between the name-brand shoes and the pedestrian socks always tickled his funny bone.
The aroma of soap and citrus and the sound of bare feet slapping marble tiles preceded Stephanie's entrance into the room.
“What's wrong?” he asked as Stephanie wandered through the suite's bar and TV area carrying an Acer notebook.
Glancing at him, she replied, “Amy copied the trailer,” and promptly sat on the couch, folding one leg under the other, the computer nestled in her lap.
“Amy?” Eli racked his brain. “The brunette from marketing? The one with the hair that never moves and the centerfold bod? The one who worked on the trailer with you?”
Stephanie wore a plush white bathrobe belted at the waist and had piled her wavy locks on top of her head. A couple of beads of moisture rode the tip of an ear tinted all peachy pink. Eli balled his hands against the urge to fling her over his shoulder, dump her onto the bed, and thoroughly ravish every inch of her flushed, warm skin.
The narrowed-eyed scorcher she sent him reeked of the green monster. Eli's jaw worked to keep his teeth gritted and prevent a tooth-baring grin.
You go, honey. Now you know how I feel every time some asshole flirts with you. Amy's pursuit of him had been flattering at first but then had quickly morphed into an irritated annoyance. After the Christmas party, Amy's come-ons had become blatant and embarrassing, and gossip had run rampant at the office watercooler.
Eli lowered the TV volume and asked, “Where did you get the notebook?”
“This is my personal notebook. The one I take to the hairdresser's or the doctor's. I had it stacked under my clothes. I guess they didn't find it.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard, the muted clicks as she typed rhythmical, hypnotic.
“Fingers feeling better, I see.”
“Hmm.”
Eli studied the three lines creasing her forehead while waiting for her to continue.
“Something about the trailer and Amy was bothering me, so I logged in to the office network.”
“And?”
“Sam amended the office network to prevent default storage to an external device like a USB or a DVD unless you do it from the server. It's not that it's impossible. It's just harder to do, and the operating system records any violation of that rule.”
“How could you tell she'd copied it?”
“I ran a check on my desktop computer and found the file. I had not copied the trailer to the desktop hard drive.”
“I remember you said you'd worked only on your laptop and you hadn't been connected to the network. How could she copy it, then?”
“It's my stupid fault,” Stephanie replied. “The graphics are better on my desktop's LCD, and I wanted to see the trailer in high def. So I ran the trailer on my desktop from my USB the day before we presented it to the board.”
“Amy was there?”
“She'd kicked up a fuss for the last trailer because I'd inadvertently mixed up a few words.” Stephanie nibbled the tip of her pinkie and then puffed out a long breath that skittered the wisps of hair curling at her temples. “Product placements sponsor most trailers, and the wording of the voice-over is very important.”
“Did she just happen to be there?”
“Are you kidding?” She rolled her eyes. “I had all of marketing figuratively yelling at me for the last trailer. I intended to get Amy's written sign-off on Valentine Voodoo's.”
“How did she do it?” Eli surrendered to the need to hold his woman, lurched off the chair by the desk and phone, and consumed the distance between them in two strides. He sat
, shifted so they were hip aligned, and propped his sockless feet on the coffee table.
“Damn.” She snapped her fingers and sat up. The notebook shifted onto the couch and wedged under the arm. “She suggested running it on my desktop LCD. Oooh I could brain myself.”
“Come on, Steph—how could you even begin to anticipate any of this?” Eli draped an arm over her shoulder and tucked her head under his chin. “Okay, go on. What happened next?”
“We'd just started the trailer, and Chris buzzed me that she needed an archived file, which was stored on a DVD in the library. Damn—I couldn't have left the room for more than a couple of minutes.”
Eli tossed the events Stephanie described around in his brain, knowing he was missing something obvious. “What's Amy's position?”
“She supervises all the copywriters.” Leaning to the left, she placed the notebook on a glass-topped side table, then curled her legs to one side, snuggled her arm around his waist, and rested her cheek on his chest. “I guess money must be her motivation.”
“Always a factor. She has to be working with someone. Who does she hang out with?” Eli couldn't remember seeing Amy at the local watering hole favored by Todd Technologies employees. “She single?”
“I guess.” She toyed with his top button, alternately slipping it free and then fastening it.
How could fingers and thumbs doing something so mundane sizzle and fry my gray matter? Undo all the buttons honey, unbuckle my belt, and slide your hot little hand over my cock.
“We didn't exactly hit it off.”
What?
He blinked, and the room dipped back into focus.
Marketing. Amy. The movie trailer. Acid in Steph's purse. Genevieve. Opportunity.
His mind snapped to attention.
Amy Cartwright sported the climbing-the-ladder trappings of success: Chanel suits, a shoulder-length, sophisticated bob with bangs à la Katie Holmes, Manolo pumps, and a Cartier watch. Not Steph's kind of person.
Eli tangled his fingers in Stephanie's damp hair, combing the curls, closing his eyes to savor the hint of ginger tang lingering on her locks. His lips curled as he pictured Stephanie and her buddies, the four members of the animation department, all of whom eschewed any form of corporate clothing, favoring instead casual T-shirts and threadbare jeans and rhinestoned sneakers worn with a panache reserved for the rich and famous.