by Mia Carson
“If I can find enough to get a court order for the IP addresses, maybe I can track the rumors back to April’s computer.”
I didn’t want to talk about business, but she’d brought it up so I joined. “IP address? I’ve heard the term, and I know it has something to do with the internet, but…”
“Every computer on the internet had a unique identifier, their IP address. That stuff is tracked by the internet companies because without it, the internet won’t work. That’s how an email sent to you gets to you. So, if I can find out the IP address of the message, and it matches the IP address on her computer, you’ve got her.”
I frowned. “Why can’t you just ask for that?”
“Because I need probable cause. Just like I can’t ask for a court order to search your house unless I can show there is reasonable suspicion what I’m looking for will be found there. And even then, I have to get the police to do it because they’re the only ones who can execute the search warrant.”
“Well, damn.”
She grinned. “Don’t sweat it. This is what I do.”
“You’re feeling a little more confident now than you were yesterday.”
She offered me a small smile before she looked down to hide it. “Maybe a little. The trick is not to get so focused on trying to prove one thing that you miss clues pointing you in another direction. That’s a natural thing, to discard clues and ideas that don’t agree with what you’ve already decided. That was probably the biggest thing I learned from Dad, to look at all the clues, not just those that support your suspicion.”
“Makes sense.”
“Easier said than done, though.”
Our lettuce wedges arrived and the conversation about business ended, which suited me fine. We spent an enjoyable ninety minutes eating and sipping our wine. I limited myself to only one glass because I was driving, but I hadn’t enjoyed a dinner out so much in a very long time.
She tried to pay again, but when I told her she was going to damage my fragile male ego if she bought her own dinner, she relented with a smile.
After the waiter returned my card I escorted her to my car.
“Turn here,” she said, pointing out her window. “That’s it, the duplex on the left, the right side.”
I turned into the drive on the right side of the house. The property was well maintained, but tiny. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but the building itself appeared to be light blue, or maybe grey. I stopped in the drive and got out to walk her to her door.
“Such a gentleman,” she teased as she took my arm. The door was on the front corner of the house under a small porch, and there had to be less than forty feet to the other door. The entire structure appeared to be smaller than my apartment, and there were two units in the space.
“Want to come in a moment?” she asked as she opened the door.
I followed her in as she flipped on the lights. I was standing in room that was maybe twenty by thirty, and it made up the living room, kitchen, and dining area. The room might be small, but it was nicely decorated with a large, bright, area rug on the hardwood floor, camel and black leather furniture accented with bright red and green pillows, and vibrant water color paintings in the walls. In the tiny eating area sat a small, two-person table sharing space with a compact kitchen that gleamed with stainless steel appliances. There was a door out of the kitchen that probably led to the single bedroom and bath. Judging from the outside of the house and what I could see, if there was more than one bedroom back there you’d have to step into the kitchen to change your mind. The place was small, but she’d done a lot with the space she had.
“Nice place,” I said as I glanced around.
“It’s been upgraded, but it was originally built in 1924. I don’t need a lot of space, so it suits me.”
“You can tell it’s older, but still, it’s charming.”
She looked around. “Thanks. I just finished renovating the place.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I own the building and rent out the other side. Dad owned the place for years. I think he thought he’d live on one side and I’d live on the other.” She looked slightly sad for a moment. “At the time I didn’t want to be that close, so I had an apartment about twenty minutes from here, but after he died…” She paused with a pensive look. “Renting another place seemed kind of stupid, so I moved in to his place. When the renters moved out, I renovated this side. After it was finished, I moved over here and renovated the other.”
Her eyes still looked slightly haunted. “It wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d been living here,” I pointed out.
“I know. But I could have spent more time with him while he was still here, though.”
“You can’t think like that.”
She looked at me and rallied, clearly trying to force the dark thoughts away. “Yeah, you’re right. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I need to go.”
“Okay. Thanks for the ride home, and dinner.”
“My pleasure. You’ll call me tomorrow to go get your rental car?”
“You don’t have—”
I held up my pointer finger to silence her. “We’ve already decided, remember?”
She looked down as her lips twitched. “Fine.”
“I need to go,” I repeated, mostly to convince myself.
She looked up at me, her lips just begging to be kissed. She held my gaze for a long moment, her face upturned. I brushed her lips softly with my own. She didn’t pull back, but alarm bells began ringing in my head. What are you doing? my thoughts raged. I pulled slowly back.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” I said as I took a step back. She didn’t seem upset, but as much as I wanted to kiss her again, I knew I couldn’t. “I should go,” I repeated before I turned to the door. I opened it, but paused. “The offer to take you to your car is still on the table, if you want it.”
She said nothing, so I stepped out and closed the door softly behind me.
Tanya
I watched the door slowly close with a click. His gentle kiss had surprised me. At the time I was fighting against the darkness that sometimes came over me when I thought too much about Dad. I wasn’t upset by the kiss. In fact, I’d enjoyed it and wouldn’t have minded if he’d kissed me again. I shook my head as I forced the thoughts away. He was a client. I’d never slept with a client, and I wasn’t going to start with him.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I saw the headlights of his car swing past when he backed into the road. When the lights of his car disappeared, I turned to the kitchen. The two glasses of wine at dinner had done wonders to relax me. I poured another glass and sat down to think.
The two women who functioned as production assistants hadn’t been helpful. Rather, they had provided no new information. Like everyone else, they liked Neil. They liked the entire team, and admitted to their tongues hanging out as they watched the men working out, but none of Neil’s people had been anything but friendly.
I also found out that Lewis, one of the men on Neil’s workout crew, was banging Jiao, one of the women on the team. That had nothing to do with Neil nor what I was trying to prove, but that did explain why those two acted the way they did with each other and why Neil was always teasing them about staying focused.
I liked the fact that he was open and honest with people. He didn’t try to hide anything or pretend it didn’t exist. Two of his people were getting sweaty together, and not just from jumping and kicking on a workout video, but he didn’t seem to care so long as they did their jobs. It was refreshing to see the positive side of a sexual relationship, not just the dark side like I saw so often.
Both women admitted they would gladly bed any of the three men and had made their availability clear, but thus far none of Neil’s staff had made any moves. I could certainly understand the two women being willing to take any of the men to their bed. I’d never admit it, but as I watched the men going through their routines, I’d h
ad more than a few fleeting thoughts about helping them work up a sweat myself, Neil in particular.
I’d decided that Neil was probably innocent of the sexual harassment claims. He would have been an idiot to hire me and give me such open access if he was guilty, but I was surer now than ever. Everyone had only good things to say about him. The only negatives were positives, in that he held himself to a strict moral code.
I returned to his kiss. It was true he didn’t ask permission before he kissed me, but I liked a man who was sure of himself. The kiss had been very gentle, and he hadn’t tried to take it any further. In fact, he broke it off. When he pulled back, he looked not ashamed, but almost surprised. It was as if he hadn’t expected the kiss to happen, but that wasn’t quite it either. It was as if he wanted to kiss me but decided he was making a mistake, like eating a piece of cake when you were on a diet. As I thought about it, I decided that was exactly how he looked. He’d had that slightly embarrassed, guilty look, but at the same time, he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Maybe it was the wine talking, but I found it rather charming that he’d found my lips tempting enough to slip a little. Had he started pawing me, or been too aggressive, I might feel differently, but the fact he found me kissable enough to sneak a quick, gentle kiss after a lovely dinner warmed me. As Julie had said about herself, I didn’t feel pressured to do more, which made me feel safe and made me want to do more.
I forced my thoughts away from where they were going and back to the case. He was a client and that was that. Nothing was going to happen, but even as I thought it, it felt like I was trying to convince myself.
I focused. April was still my best lead, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I’d love to find corroboration from another source. If I could find two sources that said the same thing, I’d feel pretty good about crawling up her ass with a microscope, but I’d had to dig deep to find the one thing I had. The problem, to my mind, was her actions were business related, and there were two sides to every story. I wasn’t prepared to condemn her just yet. Tomorrow I’d try to find someone to give me her side of the story. For all I knew, the guy I spoke to today deserved everything that had happened to him.
I thought about having another glass of wine but changed my mind. I could certainly feel the effects of the three glasses. I was warm and relaxed. I was such a lightweight. Three glasses of wine with dinner, and I was floating. If Neil were here now, I’d let him do more than just kiss me.
I hadn’t forgotten the surge of desire I’d felt for him as he stood in the photo shoot in all his shirtless glory, those medals hanging around his neck drawing my eye to his chest. Not that his chest needed any help. The thing was, I liked him. Take away all his sexy goodness, and I still liked him. He seemed to be a good person, someone who really cared about people. So many people I dealt with were of questionable moral character. Cheating spouses. Deadbeat parents. People trying to scam or duck the legal system. It was nice to help a good guy for once. He didn’t deserve to be treated like this.
I laid my head against the back of the couch and stared at the watercolor seascape. My job had made me cynical. I didn’t trust people easily, but I felt I could trust Neil. He seemed to be an open book with nothing to hide. I smiled. An open book, and I liked what the pages said.
I circled back around to the kiss. I knew why he’d broken it off. He didn’t sleep with clients, and while I wasn’t his client, he was mine. It was the other side of the same coin. I understood him feeling that way, and I did as well. Had he not broken it off, I would have. Another smile tugged at my lips. I was glad I didn’t have to. It only reinforced in my mind that all his talk about not sleeping with clients wasn’t just talk and he actually believed it. The hell of it was, I enjoyed the kiss and wanted more of it, and maybe something else too. I sat up with a growl.
“Goddamned wine,” I muttered to the room. It was lowering my inhibitions and making me think thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. I stood and stomped to the kitchen, rinsed out my glass, and put it in the dishwasher. It wasn’t that late, but I’d been up late last night and early this morning. I’d get a good night’s sleep tonight and be fresh and ready to face the day tomorrow.
I’d been neglecting my other cases for Neil, but they weren’t pressing. I’d been two months trying to track down the guy that owed a ton of back child support, and serving the divorce documents could wait. The woman that needed them served was already living some other guy, so she was in no screaming hurry. My only other case, one that I’d accepted just yesterday, was another cheating spouse case. Those were normally quick to prove, but I needed my car for that.
I retired to my bedroom and stripped out of my suit. I tossed it into the dry-cleaning hamper, my blouse and underwear into the wash hamper. Tomorrow I needed to take my dry-cleaning—except I didn’t have a car, dammit! I stomped to the bathroom and started the shower.
I thought the bath was the best part of the house. During the renovation, I’d had the tubs removed and replaced with large showers and a built-in cabinet for storage. The shower was tucked into a corner that made it pie shaped, the glass forming an arc to enclose the corner. Removing the tubs made the tiny space feel much larger, and the oddly shaped shower was visually appealing. The custom tilework completed the look.
Both sides of the duplex were identical, down to the color of the walls, and the bath was what rented the other side. I’d rented it to a twenty-something couple, and as soon as she saw the bathroom, she’d told her significant other this was the place. I knew they got a lot of use out of it. If I showered about nine at night, I would sometimes hear them screwing their brains out in the shower.
I often smiled when I heard him telling her he was about to come, her begging him not to, then both of them crying out together less than a minute later. I always wondered what would happen if he managed to hold off his release. Was it him coming inside her that pushed her over the edge, or maybe it was her clamping down on him as she came that snipped the thread holding back his climax. The nosy private investigator in me never stopped and I wanted answers. At least the bathrooms served as a buffer between the two bedrooms. Hearing that every night as I was trying to sleep would get real old, real fast.
I showered, enjoying the hot water pouring over me. I knew it was the wine, but I wished Neil was with me. If he were, we’d make a little noise in the shower ourselves. I was twenty-eight years old, but I would show those kids what fucking was all about. The way I was feeling tonight, I’d wear his well-muscled ass out!
I stepped out of the shower, dried, and slipped into my favorite sleep shirt. I brushed my hair and teeth and returned to my bedroom. The shower and wine had relaxed me, but thinking about having Neil fuck me in the shower had left me feeling jumpy. I knew the feeling well, unfortunately, and knew just what to do for it. I turned my bed back and retrieved my toy friend, Buzz, from the bottom drawer. He wasn’t as good as a man, but he was always faithful and ready when I needed him.
I slipped out of my shirt and lay down, allowing my mind to wander as I gently touched myself. I was back in the shower, washing my hair, the warm water pouring over me like a summer rain. I was wiping the water from my face when I heard the soft rumble of the shower door rolling aside. I squeaked in surprise as I turned, then relaxed when I saw it was Neil.
“I thought I’d wash your back,” he muttered, his voice low and sexy, as he stepped into the shower and closed the door, his cock standing at attention.
I smiled, knowing more than back washing was going to happen. He picked up the bottle of soap and squirted a generous dollop into his hand. I turned my back to him and nearly shivered in delight as his big, strong hands glided smoothly over my skin. He washed my back and squatted as he worked his way down my legs, rising slowly as his hands worked back up my front. He stopped at my neck, and I twisted my head around as I pressed my back into his chest. He was so tall that his cock was hitting me in the small of my back, his hips thrusting slowly as he devoured
my lips.
I gasped as my fingers danced in my wetness, my free hand tickling a nipple to aching erectness as his slippery hands massaged my breasts. I moaned softly in desire as I turned in his arms, our flesh made slick by the soap and water. My arms went around his neck, and I pulled myself tight against him. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and I wrapped my legs around him, thrusting my hips into his stomach as our tongues danced. He took a step forward and the water ran over us, washing the soap away.
He slowly lowered himself, lifting me higher as he did, until I was sitting on his shoulders as he settled into the bottom of the shower. Hands under my ass, he hoisted me higher and lifted my womanhood to his waiting mouth. I grabbed the top of the enclosure for stability as his wicked, wicked, tongue darted and probed, his lips caressing my petals, pleasure washing over me in wave after wave.
My finger began to dart faster, caressing my button, my fantasy causing my need to swell as the water poured over us, Neil’s lips and tongue destroying me with pleasure. My hips began to lunge at his face. I was unable to remain still as I was consumed with need. My rapture was coming.
“Oh…” I gasped as my finger swirled and touched, my body alive with tingles as my climax began to close in around me. “Fuck…fuck…fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…fuck!” I murmured, my chant becoming faster and louder as I lit up with seething energy, my head thrown hard back as my body twisted and jerked in orgasmic spasms.
I lay still, unable to breath, waiting as I crackled with orgasmic energy, and then exhaled slowly as I relaxed.
“Fuck,” I muttered again, the only word I could think of to voice how I felt.
Shit! I’d come before Neil could even fuck me. I’d taken the edge off, but I felt there was at least one more in me. I smiled as I picked up Buzz, flicked him on, and gasped in delight as I pressed him to me. I’d cried out as I came, my voice loud in the shower, but I wasn’t done. I wouldn’t be done until I felt Neil’s lovely cock inside me. I slipped from his shoulders, my legs weak from the face-melting climax I’d just experienced. I turned to him, smiling at the intensity in his eyes. He was going to fuck the shit out of me, and I was looking forward to it. He stood and picked me up, lowering me over his cock as I steered him into me.