by Lucy Monroe
It was too right.
No matter how temporary.
They climbed toward the pinnacle of pleasure together, both their bodies tensing as the sensation spiraled higher and higher.
“Come for me, sugar. I want to feel it around me while I’m still hard.”
Her eyes fluttered, shut, and then just like that her body convulsed, squeezing his cock so tight it temporarily held back his climax. He kept moving, driving her toward a second orgasm. He knew she could give it to him. He leaned forward and took her mouth with gentle dominance, claiming the interior with his tongue and molding their lips together seamlessly.
She squirmed under him and he knew she was going to explode a second time. He increased the swivel on his hip on the downward thrust and then they were coming together, their mouths muffling each other’s cries.
Perfect.
They kept kissing until a dinging sound impinged on his consciousness and Elle went stiff under him.
Beau stood carefully, pulling out with regret. “What’s that?”
“One of those things I was telling you about earlier.”
His brain still wasn’t working all that great. “What things?”
“A reminder to get back to work.” She stood up and moved around her desk, opening a drawer while looking at the monitor on her mininotebook. “That particular sound is someone going into Frank’s office when he’s not there.”
“There’s an alarm on Frank’s office?”
“As of this morning, there is. And he remembered to set it when he left for lunch. Good man.”
“He may have come back and forgotten to turn it off too.”
“Nope. That’s not Frank feeling up his bookcase.”
Beau came around the desk to see what she was talking about. A small window on the monitor showed Frank’s office, and in it, searching under the shelf where Elle had found the listening device, was Archer Sandstone.
“The little creep,” Beau said.
Archer was frowning, but then he smirked and pulled something from his pocket. Elle handed Beau a wipe from the pack she kept in her drawer while they both watched Sandstone implicate himself beyond redemption. He was installing another bug, but this one he put under Frank’s desk somewhere.
“Are you going to catch him red-handed?” Beau asked her.
“Nope. I’ve got him on video.” Elle began dressing with efficient movements that were nevertheless arousing.
He glared down at his semierect dick. “Down, boy.”
“Is J.T. giving you trouble?”
He laughed. “More like me seeing you is giving John Thomas ideas.”
“Save that thought for later; we’ve got work to do.”
They finished dressing and Elle wrinkled her nose. “I need to keep Febreze in my drawer too, I think. It smells like sex in here.”
“I’m surprised you had the wipes. What are they for?”
“You never know when you’re going to want clean hands.”
“You really do share your brother’s penchant for cleanliness, don’t you?”
“I don’t get cranky when people leave notes on my desk.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“So, do you want to be with me when I tell Frank about Archer breaking into his office and planting another bug?”
“Definitely. How did he get in, anyway? Frank always locks his office. I’m the only other one with a key.”
“You and security.”
“Security?”
“Yep. For such a high-tech facility, certain areas of your security are dangerously low-tech: keyed locks without a biometric component to which security and janitorial staff have masters.”
“How the hell are we supposed to have our offices clean if they can’t get in?”
“There are ways around the kind of unlimited access they have right now.”
“You really are good at your job, aren’t you? Both of them.”
“So they say.”
“You impress the hell out of me, princess. You surely do.”
Elle went still and stared at him. “I…”
“The polite response to a heartfelt compliment is ‘thank you.’”
“I may not be from Texas, but I do know that.”
“There’s my sugar.”
“Thank you.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome. Frank probably won’t be back for another twenty minutes. You want to grab something to eat in the cafeteria?”
“Sounds good.” Elle moved her mouse and clicked a couple of times. “Just let me check my e-mail.”
Beau waited quietly while she did so.
She made a sound of satisfaction.
“What’s up?”
“Alan e-mailed me. He’s got information that two men with known links to the smugglers in South Africa are here in the States.”
“You think they’re here in California?”
“It would make sense. He’s tracking it, but that could be impossible to find out, depending on where they’re staying and how they’re paying for things.”
“If they’re part of a known smuggling ring, what are they doing here?”
“Neither of them has a rap sheet yet. Could be that they were let in in hopes of catching them red-handed, or that customs simply didn’t flag them on arrival. If another agency is responsible for them being let in, Alan will find out.”
“Alan?”
“My associate.”
“I figured that out. Up until this conversation, though, you’ve been careful not to use his name.”
Elle looked at him with too serious eyes. “You know who and what I am. If I can trust you with that, I can trust you with the first name of one of my associates.”
“You didn’t have a choice about me knowing you’re a TGP agent.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t mind you knowing.”
Well, hell. What did that mean? It was something he was going to have to think on in regard to his casual-sex partner. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
Elle’s expression flickered with relief as if she didn’t want to delve any further into her admission and what it meant either. “Let’s. I’m starving.”
“Worked up an appetite, huh?”
“While sating another one? Yes.”
He was laughing when they exited her office together.
Frank was clearly angry when Elle showed him the video of Archer, but just as obviously unsurprised. They were meeting in her office because she wasn’t sure she wanted to remove the listening device from Frank’s. She’d made Beau take out the garbage and find her some air freshener before she’d called Frank and requested the meeting.
“I’m going to fire his ass,” Frank said.
“Good idea, but you might want to wait on that until after Friday,” Elle said.
“Why?”
She and Beau told Frank about their meeting earlier with Chantal and the others.
“Why didn’t you call me into the meeting?” Frank asked.
“Beau is my official liaison, so frequently having him in my office isn’t suspect. You, on the other hand, are another matter. I would have arranged to meet in your office if it wasn’t compromised.”
“Why is it compromised? You disarmed the bug?”
“Archer Sandstone is watching you and your office. I’m hoping Sandstone isn’t aware that you are here right now.”
“I see. Little bastard.”
Elle agreed completely with the sentiment.
Beau shifted in his chair to face Frank a little more. “I was going to come by after lunch and tell you all about it anyway.”
“Why not meet me for lunch?” Frank asked.
Beau blushed.
Elle laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t think she’d ever see that particular phenomenon.
Frank shook his head and put his hand up in a stopping motion. “Never mind. I don’t want to know what put that look on your face,” he said to Beau. “So you th
ink there’s someone on the inside?” he asked Elle.
“I doubt it, considering how they are coercing Chantal’s cooperation, but I wouldn’t bet her life on it.”
“And you think that’s what we’d be doing.”
“If it is the smugglers we’re dealing with? Definitely. They don’t have a lot of finesse and they’ve made mistakes I’d fire them for if they were my men, but they’re also known to be ruthless. It’s a very good thing Mr. Smith got Gil Bigsley out of the picture when he did.”
“So, why wait to fire Archer?” Frank asked.
“If they do have an inside man, he’s the best candidate for the role right now.”
“No.” Beau sounded absolutely sure. “If it was Archer, he’d have gotten them the plans himself.”
“Unless he didn’t want to be held responsible when they build the ship and death and mayhem result,” Elle countered.
“Nah, just because they’re criminals doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Archer wouldn’t risk not telling them the antigravity prototype failed. He’s too much of a coward.”
“So, you think his bugging Frank’s office is totally unrelated?”
“Yes,” both Frank and Beau said at once.
“You’re serious?”
Beau sighed. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“But why?”
“He’s jealous of my knowledge. He wants to know what’s going on. His behavior this morning makes sense to me now. He’d lost his little bug and he really did want me to tell him what Frank and I talked about in our morning meeting. I bet I can even pinpoint when he planted the first listening device.”
“So, you want to fire him?”
Frank’s expression was pure cold determination. “Yes.”
“Can we do that?” Beau asked.
“He bugged my office, we damn well can.”
“We videotaped him doing it. Is that legal?”
Elle answered for Frank, “The building is posted for video surveillance.”
“But we’ve never had it in any offices.” Beau said.
“You could have. The posting is in general enough terms to cover doing so without announcing it to the general population of employees. In fact, that’s one of the things I’m going to suggest for improving security,” Elle said.
“Cameras in our offices?” Beau asked.
“No, but in all the labs and the halls outside your offices.”
“We’ve got hall surveillance,” Beau said.
“With far too many nonmonitored areas.”
Frank steepled his fingers under his chin. “Although I do not believe that Archer is using the information he gleans from spying on my office to feed anyone else at the moment, once he’s fired, that could change.”
“But he doesn’t know about the continued threat to security on my project,” Beau said. “We didn’t talk about that until after Elle removed the bug and took out its battery.”
“However, there’s a very good possibility he knows that Elle is an agent for The Goddard Project.”
Elle’s insides twisted. Of course he would. Frank hadn’t known his office was being monitored. He, Mr. Smith and Beau probably had discussed her role as a federal agent more than once. The Old Man was not going to be pleased.
Elle herself was extremely unhappy about it. One of her quirks was that she read things like employment manuals cover to cover. And since she had a photographic memory, she recalled everything they said. The manual for TGP stated that if an agent’s cover was blown to a potentially hostile party, said agent lost field-assignment privileges.
It had happened the first year she worked for TGP. The agent in question had transferred to the FBI since not all agents for the Bureau work undercover.
Well, crap.
Frank and Beau were watching her silently as these thoughts processed in her mind.
“I’ll apprise my boss of the possible breach in my cover,” Elle said.
“Do you want me to wait to fire Archer until you have done so?” Frank asked.
“That’s not my decision to make.” No matter what Beau said, they weren’t a totalitarian government and she had no authority to dictate policy or behavior to a private company.
Frank nodded. “I’ll call Mr. Smith. You call your boss and we’ll discuss what they both have to say before I take any action.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
Feeling like she was free-falling into that abyss she’d sensed the evening before when she’d agreed to make love with Beau again, Elle stood. “You’re welcome to make the call in here. I’ll go back to my apartment and use my cell.”
She started packing up her computer.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” Beau asked, looking concerned.
“Yes.”
“But you’re taking your computer.”
“I never leave my computer unsecured.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Of course.” Then she took a deep breath. “I’m actually not sure The Old Man will want me to return. My guess is that he’ll allow me to finish out this assignment because he didn’t attempt to take me off of it when my cover was blown to you and Frank, but I won’t know until I talk to him.”
“What good would taking you off the case do?”
“I don’t know, but it is a possibility.”
“That’s stupid.”
“I’m an undercover federal agent, Beau. I no longer have a cover.”
Beau cursed.
“Go, make your call, Elle,” Frank said.
She nodded.
“Phone me after you’ve spoken to him,” Frank said.
“I’ll call your cell.” So he could leave his office to talk if he’d gone back to it after his own call to his boss.
“I will see you later?” Beau asked.
“Yes.”
“Regardless?”
“Yes.” And why his insistence on that point made her feel just a tiny bit better, she wasn’t going to question.
Beau didn’t say anything after Elle left. He just waited in silence while Frank called Mr. Smith. Their conversation was not a long one, but Frank looked very upset when it was over.
“What’s the matter?” Beau asked immediately.
“Mr. Smith said that TGP policy is to take an agent whose cover has been blown to a potentially hostile source off of active field duty.”
“Elle’s going to get fired because that little creep was bugging your office?”
“Not fired. Reassigned.”
Same damn thing. “That’s bullshit.”
“I agree.”
“Why the hell did Mr. Smith tell us about her if that could happen?”
“He trusts us. We aren’t potentially hostile witnesses.”
“It was still a huge risk he had no right taking on her behalf.”
“Mr. Smith doesn’t see it that way.”
“Bastard.”
“He’s still your boss, Beau.”
“But for how long is in question.”
“You won’t leave ETRD over this?” Frank asked, alarmed.
“I don’t know, Frank. Elle loves her job, but she’s going to lose it because of Mr. Smith’s little games.”
“He has his reasons for doing things.”
“They’re not good enough when they impact other people’s lives like this.”
“He didn’t expect this outcome.”
“He’s smarter than the average man. He should have known it was a possibility.”
“I think we all made the mistake of trusting everyone who works for ETRD too deeply.”
“Damn right, including trusting Mr. Smith.”
“He suggested I wait until after the issue with Chantal has been dealt with to fire Archer, to minimize the risk to both Elle’s investigation and our employee.”
“That’s not going to save Elle’s job, though.”
“No, it isn’t. Keeping Archer on won’t either, though. Even if I could stand to do so.
Mr. Smith informs me that working for us or not, Archer would be considered a potentially hostile party.”
Beau nodded. A man who would bug his own boss’s office isn’t someone who could be trusted to keep his knowledge of Elle and TGP to himself. “We don’t know for a fact that Archer overheard the conversations regarding Elle being a federal agent.”
“His behavior implies he makes it a habit of listening in on our morning meetings. We discussed Elle Gray and The Goddard Project during at least two different ones.”
Chapter 18
Elle returned to ETRD an hour and a half later. Beau had a request in to security to let him know as soon as she entered the building again.
He was on his way to her office a second after learning she’d scanned in at the main security station. She met him halfway between there and his lab.
She stopped and turned without a word, leading him to her office.
Once inside, he put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her from moving away. “Mr. Smith said you could lose your job over this. Are you going to?”
She nodded. “I can go into research and development or transfer to another agency, but I’m out of the field for TGP.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “After this assignment.”
He turned her around and just hugged her. She let him and that told him more about her state of mind than anything else.
“You call Frank?” he asked.
“Yes. I told him to meet me here.”
“You were coming to get me.” And damn if it didn’t feel good knowing that.
She nodded against him but didn’t say anything.
“You going to be okay? Maybe we should put off this meeting with Frank for a while.”
“No. I need to know his plans for Sandstone.”
“I’m sorry about this, sugar.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, but Mr. Smith knew the risks and he blew your cover to Frank and I regardless.”
Elle just nodded again.
“I’m really pissed about that, sugar.”
“Me too.”
A knock sounded on the door and then the knob turned.
Elle sighed and pushed away from Beau just as the door opened.
“Beau, you’re already here,” Frank said as he came into the room. “I was going to ask Elle if she minded you being in on this meeting.”