by Unknown
She moistened her lips, watched his intense gaze follow. For a second her mind went blank. She fought to recall what they were talking about and not speculate on what Shane’s mouth would taste like. “That’s the problem. No one in my office believes it was a thief. No one else has missed anything except me. Building security didn’t even want to make a report or contact housekeeping about the matter until I asked to speak to their supervisor.”
“Nothing like going over someone’s head,” Shane said.
“Mother taught me that early and Father later on, although both went at it differently,” she told him.
“After meeting your mother, I bet she opted for the talk-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick approach,” Shane teased. “Just as you did with the manager of the home improvement store.”
Paige wasn’t surprised by Shane’s astuteness. He seemed to have a knack for reading people correctly. For some odd reason, she wondered what he would have thought of her father, who brought out the big stick from the get-go. “She did.”
“Any reason for you to be singled out?”
She was grateful he was listening and not looking as if she’d lost a couple of screws, the way the others in the staff and building security had. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Russell. But that didn’t mean she wanted to tell Shane everything.
“Paige?”
She sighed. He wasn’t going to give her a choice. “It will sound as if I’m bragging.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
She forged ahead. “Besides Jackie and a few others, I’m the one who usually has money around payday. I’ve gotten into the habit of buying pastries on Fridays, keeping the coffee replenished, and always making sure the snack basket is full in the break room.”
“You don’t drink coffee.”
She was inordinately pleased that he remembered. “Jackie can’t function without her third cup. The same goes for a few other workers.”
“So let them buy their own.”
“It’s no problem.”
“How many people work in your office?”
She hesitated before answering. “Twenty paid employees, but we can also have from two to five volunteers on any given day.”
He studied her for a long moment. She resisted the urge to fidget. “It’s all right to want to help others, but don’t let them take advantage of you.”
Her mouth tightened. “That’s what Russell said when he stopped by the office and found me restocking the coffee.”
“Forget I said anything then.”
Paige laughed. Shane made her laugh, and it felt good. “Russell can be very nice.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Shane picked up the bill. “Let’s go back to your office. A camera might not be your best bet.”
“Then what?”
“Me.”
It took Shane all of three minutes to check Paige’s office. He could have easily installed a surveillance camera, but he had a better idea. “When you leave this afternoon, I’ll hide in your office and catch the person or persons stealing from you.”
“No,” she said, her voice adamant. “The thief might be dangerous.”
“I can handle it.” Shane patted the cell phone hooked to his waist. “But if it will make you feel better I’ll call the police or building security if anything happens.”
She nibbled on her lower lip. “I don’t know, Shane. Perhaps we should think of another plan. I don’t want you hurt.”
“I won’t be. Trust me,” he assured her, wanting for one crazy moment to take her into his arms and comfort her with a kiss.
“I guess.” The worry in her face didn’t clear.
“I’ll be safe. I’ll hide in your closet.”
“You’d never fit. Your shoulders are too wi—” She stopped abruptly, her face reddening.
“I’ll manage,” he said, not wanting to embarrass her, but pleased he wasn’t the only one looking even though it wasn’t going to lead to anything. She wasn’t his type—experienced, easy to forget, buxom. Paige was inexperienced, unforgettable, and her breasts fit his hand as if made for him. “What time did you plan on leaving today?” he asked to distract her.
She hesitated. “No later than five. Russell is leaving for Beijing in the morning and he’s taking me to dinner and the theater.”
He glanced at his watch to combat the urge to ask her not to go. “Five hours. I’ll be back at a quarter till.”
“What about the visitors’ log the guards keep?”
“Meet your new computer guy, who is going to run a diagnostic on all the office computers—which can’t be done until he has free access to them all.”
“That’s a brilliant idea. You think fast.”
“Occasionally.” But what he was thinking about Paige might land him in trouble . . . if he let it. “See you later.” Closing the door, he walked away without looking back.
“You seemed preoccupied all evening, Paige,” Russell said when they were leaving the restaurant later that night. “I think I know why. You wish I didn’t have to leave you.”
She didn’t know what to say, how to respond. His leaving had nothing to do with what she was feeling. She was such a coward. “I understand how important your job is.” “
“Do you?” He stopped, taking her forearms and staring down into her upturned face. “You’re so beautiful. I ache with wanting you.”
She looked away. “I’m sorry, but you know how I feel about intimacy before marriage.”
“I know, but that doesn’t keep me from wanting you,” he said, his voice harsh.
“Russell, I don’t feel—”
“No,” he cut in, his voice panicky. “I shouldn’t have pushed. It’s just that I’ll be gone for two weeks. I don’t want us to argue.”
“Neither do I.” He had been a good friend, had helped her cope with her father’s death.
“You seem tired. Why don’t I take you home so you can rest?” he suggested.
She should tell him no, be with him on his last night in the States, as he had been with her while she grieved for her father. “If you don’t mind.”
“Your happiness and well-being are all that I care about.” Holding her arm, he started down the street to his car.
“Thank you, Russell,” she said, her mind already busy with plans.
Shane had been on dozens of stakeouts with his unit in the army, and despite the sand in his clothes, bugs biting him, rain beating down on him, he had remained focused. He was in Paige’s functional but plush office, her door slightly cracked so he could watch the outer office of the assistant she shared with Jackie, and all he could think of was that she was with that arrogant lying bastard Russell. He didn’t deserve to touch her after being with Alisha.
Shane cursed. What kind of man chose a slut over a loving woman who always put others first? A conniving, greedy fool, that’s who. But what was killing Shane was the unknown. His instincts told him Paige wasn’t sexually experienced, but there was a hell of a lot more they could be doing.
His phone vibrated and he jerked it from his waist. “Everything all right?”
“I called to ask you that.”
Shane almost looked at the phone. “You checking up on me, Rio?”
“You missed your ETA coming here, and advanced your time to leave by sixteen hours. It’s not like you to do either.”
Shane had always thought it was a good thing that Rio and Blade knew him better than anyone, since he didn’t have a family who cared if he lived or died. Now he wasn’t so sure. Blade, in love with Sierra, would understand. Rio was a different matter entirely.
Shane had been late getting to the airport because of Paige and had returned early thanks to the same woman. “It was a good thing I came back early. I interrupted the woman who was with Marshall Albright the night he died, and she was blackmailing Mrs. Albright.”
“If she doesn’t listen to your warning…”
There was no need for Rio to finish. “Taken care of, but for fur
ther insurance the zero balance in her checking account should bring home the fact that she’s in over her head.”
“You’re paying her a visit in the morning.”
Yep. They knew each other well. “As soon as the bank—what?” The receptionist’s door opened slowly. Paige peeked through the small opening.
“Problem?” Rio asked.
“No, it’s Paige. I’ll call later and explain.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” The line went dead.
Shane returned the cell phone. Rio was probably right. Shane might explain about the stakeout, but not how Paige affected him. He was still trying to understand it himself. He opened Paige’s door wider. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Dressed in black from head to toe, she straightened. “My office. My problem.”
So, she took her responsibilities seriously. He’d already learned as much. “This is unknown territory. Things could get crazy.”
She slipped past him into her office. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
He frowned at her. He didn’t like her throwing his words back at him. “Paige, I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She turned to face him. “You said you’d call the police or building security and that’s what we’ll do. I’m not leaving.”
He tried again. “I thought you were on a date.”
Her pretty little chin lifted. “We decided to end the evening early.” She raised a paper sack from the restaurant they’d had lunch in. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“I could have eaten the snacks in the break room,” he said, the need to send her home warring with pleasure that she had thought of him, and that she wanted to be with him instead of Russell.
She tilted her head to one side. “It’s down the hall. You would have had to leave my office and chance someone seeing you, and I don’t think you’d do that.”
“Good reasoning,” he said, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth.
She handed him the take-out bag. “Eat, and I’ll stand guard.”
He watched her go to the door and crack it open. From the light he could see her slender shape, the enticing curve of her hips. She’d pinned her hair on top of her head, exposing her delicate neck.
“You tell your mother where you were going?”
“I told her I had some work to do at the office,” she replied. “She offered to come back with me.”
“Sounds like Mrs. Albright.”
Paige nodded. “She always thought of Zach and me, worried about us. That’s why…”
“Why what?” he asked, although he had a pretty good idea what she had been about to say.
“Eat your food.”
He decided that eating might take his mind off the woman who shouldn’t occupy so many of his thoughts. He opened the bag. Less than five minutes later he’d finished the turkey sandwich.
The entire time he’d been eating, his thoughts had been on Paige and not the sandwich that he’d eaten because she’d brought it, not because he was hungry. On a mission they’d learned to ignore hunger, the elements. But nothing in his training had prepared him to ignore Paige.
Finished, he went to stand close behind her just to torture himself. “Anything?”
“No-o,” she answered, her voice unsteady.
Inhaling the sweet scent of her fragrance, feeling the innocent brush of her hips against him, he wasn’t too steady, either. He’d like nothing better than to spend the next hour or so searching for, and then kissing all the enticing places she’d put the perfume. Paige was definitely turning into an irresistible problem. “This might take a while.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “You’ve done this before?”
“Army Ranger,” he answered, willing his body and mind to behave.
Somehow she managed to face him, her breasts and tempting body torturing him in an entirely different way. “I knew it,” she said, smiling up at him. “At the home improvement store, the men kept looking at you as if they expected you to rip their heads off. Then this afternoon, when you were talking to that woman, your face was like . . . Mess with me at your own risk.”
He would have bet he did a better job of hiding his other side. Rio would never let him live it down. “I think you saw more than there was. That life was a long time ago.”
“It’s probably instinctive. It must be wonderful not being afraid of anything,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper before she turned back to stare out the small opening in the door.
Without thinking he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Everyone fears something. In my first six weeks of training in the army, I was afraid I wouldn’t make the cut. And when I was selected for Ranger training, I had to fight the fear that I really didn’t belong, that there had been some kind of a mistake. When I realized it was really happening, I had to get over the fear I wouldn’t let myself or my team down.”
Slowly she turned, her eyes searching his. “You aren’t just saying that, are you?”
“I’d never lie to you.”
Her smile was slow and twisted his insides. “Thank—”
Laughter sounded on the other side of the receptionist’s door. Shane tensed; his hand gently squeezed her shoulder as the outer door opened.
A slender black man in his midthirties pushed a cleaning cart into the room. He was followed by a tall Anglo woman in her early twenties. Both wore T-shirts and faded jeans. Keys dangled from their belt loops.
His hand firmly on Paige’s shoulder, Shane backed them farther into Paige’s office and into the tiny coat closet. The fit was tight. Too tight.
His hard body pressed intimately against her softness. He just hoped his lower body behaved this time. With each breath he inhaled her scent. Her fragrance teased, beckoned him once again to find and lick all the delightful places on her body she’d put the seductive scent.
He gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate on the man and woman in Paige’s office and not how she much tempted him.
Chapter 9
Paige had to remind herself to breathe, to take in a slow steady breath, then blow it out the same way. Her senses were heightened, narrowed to the man behind her.
She felt the hard, warm muscular imprint of Shane’s body pressed against her from her shoulders to her hips, felt his arm around her waist as he held the knob of the cracked door, smelled his masculine scent mixed with hers.
She had the strangest urge to press against him. She wanted to feel his body, feel both of his strong arms around her. Her brilliant idea was suddenly fraught with seductive danger.
“You’re safe.”
Shane whispered the words in her ear, his warm breath causing her skin to ripple with pleasure, goose bumps to form on her arms. Paige would have laughed if she’d had the ability to do so.
She’d never been in greater peril. If Shane propositioned her as Russell had, she wasn’t so sure she would turn him down.
“Let’s see if she left anything tonight,” the cleaning man said as he took a seat behind Paige’s desk.
“Be careful.” The woman emptied the trash can into a half-filled fifty-gallon bag. “Hope it’s better than the twenty she left last night. I hear she’s some kind of do-goody socialite. With her money, she can afford it.”
“And she can’t prove anything was stolen.” Through the crack in the door, Paige watched him lift up her desk calendar. “The key is not being greedy or having more than one mark on the floor. Being in charge of fund-raising, I figured she’d have more petty cash on hand.”
“I hate that we have to pawn those earrings.” The woman plugged in the vacuum cleaner.
Paige gasped. Shane’s hand tightened.
“They looked good on me when we went out Saturday night,” she bemoaned, her crossed arms braced on the handle of the upright vacuum.
“Pay dirt.” He held up a fifty-dollar bill. “This is one stupid woman.”
“Stay here,” Shane whispered when Paige tried to surge forward. He’
d heard more than enough. Opening the door, he eased past Paige. The woman screamed; the man shot to his feet and jammed the money into the pocket of his jeans.
“Looks like we interrupted a little something-something,” he said. Grinning, he began to ease from behind Paige’s desk. “No problem. We can come back later to clean.”
“That might be a while since you’re both going to be in jail,” Shane said.
The woman whirled toward the door. Shane beat her to it, slamming it and positioning his body in front as he took out his cell phone.
“Where are my earrings?” Paige asked the woman, heading for her.
“Paige, stay where you are,” Shane shouted.
“No, I—”
The man lunged for Paige as she passed. One hand clamped around her waist, the other around her chest. She shrieked, trying to twist free, her frantic gaze going to Shane. He was a blur as he propelled himself across the room. Paige saw him grab the man by the neck. The next second her attacker slid bonelessly to the floor.
“Call security and stay here,” Shane ordered as he whirled and ran after the fleeing woman.
Trembling, Paige picked up the phone on her desk and dialed, her worried gaze glued to the door. “This is Paige Albright in the Carl D. Rowe Foundation office on the fortieth floor. Two of the cleaning crew just tried to rob me. Please come. My friend is going after one who got away.”
Paige moved farther away from the unconscious man as security asked her more questions. She wasn’t in a mood to answer them or stay on the line. “I’ve got to make sure he’s all right.” Hanging up, she started out of the office only to pull up short when she saw Shane with the subdued woman.
“I was worried about you,” Paige said, her voice as unsteady as her knees.
His mouth was tight. “I should have sent you home.”
Paige stuck her trembling hands in her pocket. “I wasn’t much help. I’m sorry I got in the way. Security is coming.”
“Paige, you could have been hurt.” His eyes and voice were unyielding.
“I wasn’t.” She turned away before he could see the tears in hers. She had been worthless. Why did she think that would change? He was right. She should have stayed at home.