Not his finest hour, but Liam had been young, and hungry, and bent on proving himself to all comers. Passing on John’s raw genius and sending him back to Whitfield Industries because it was the sappy, good-guy “right thing to do” was not an option he’d entertained.
Then Beckett Senior wrapped his car around a tree, Beckett Junior had skipped town, and Max’s side of the rivalry had turned personal.
A tiny ember of guilt tried to flare, but Liam drowned it with a healthy swallow of bourbon. He couldn’t have known how things would turn out when he’d made that deal.
Still, Liam owed Max a fair fight, and he’d been looking forward to it, to putting the products each of them had developed to market in a cryptocurrency battle royale and see once and for all who came out on top.
Max’s software would be good—why have a rival if he didn’t have the chops to push you to be your best?—but it was no match for Cybercore’s hardware.
The Shield was a status symbol, one you could display on a watchband, a bracelet, a necklace or a belt. Max could only sell people the SecurePay app once, but The Shield came in seven different colors, a rotating selection of limited-edition prints, and a coordinating line of accessories.
And that was why Liam was going to wipe the floor with him.
Well, he would have.
Now that Max had temporarily dropped out of the game, Liam’s inevitable victory was hollow and unfulfilling.
He thrived on testing his mettle against a worthy opponent.
Liam stared contemplatively at the empty glass in his left hand. And speaking of worthy opponents...
He wasn’t bored anymore.
Most definitely a party crasher...but how she’d done it was what intrigued him most. This was an exclusive bash he was throwing.
He knew she hadn’t breached the perimeter. Not only couldn’t she have scaled the wall in that dress—God, that dress—and those heels, but his new electronic fence tech was unbeatable...which was why the government was about to make him even wealthier than he already was.
That meant she had not just duped a bar code, which would have flagged her for using someone else’s invitation, but created a new one that let her through the gates under the alias Robin Capucha, without registering as an extra person and tripping the maximum guest number warning, either.
The cockiness of casually breaching his top-notch security by giving Robin Hood a Spanish flair was...ballsy. And intriguing. And pretty fucking hot.
Someone below called his name, but he pretended not to hear as he stepped back into his decoy office—he kept all the really good tech downstairs—and abandoned the glasses on the desk. Then he pulled his phone from his jacket to check the progress on the facial recognition he was running off the security footage from the front gate, where all arriving guests had to check in. No match on her so far.
Liam tapped a finger against the edge of his phone. “What are you up to?”
As if in answer, his phone buzzed again. This time, he answered it.
“Dom. What have you got?”
“Not sure. All the cameras in your office are now pointed at the ceiling, and I can’t get them back online.”
Good to know he could still outsmart his employees. “That was me.”
“I knew it!” His voice got muffled, as though he was covering the mouthpiece. “I told you it was Liam,” he gloated, and then his words were back to full strength. “I told Mina it was you. She and I have a hundred bucks riding on who solves your office cam puzzle first.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, we just had a camera go out. Nothing but static in the library. Nobody on the feed prior to, so either it’s busted, someone hit it remotely or you’ve got a tech-savvy ghost.”
Aha.
The library. It housed a built-in safe behind a false picture frame, like something out of a movie. He’d considered having it removed during the last set of renos, but there was something antiquated about it that appealed to him. And it was a smart hit—a room with a secret was a target that would draw focus.
“Wanted to let you know, but you’re a hard man to get ahold of tonight.”
Liam’s focus drifted to the tumbler on his desk. There was a faint imprint of her lips on the glass, the same deep pink as her lipstick. “I was busy working out a little puzzle of my own.”
Dom laughed. “Yeah, I know what you were busy with. I’m the one who told you ‘the puzzle’ was nosing around your office in the first place, remember? You want me to dispatch some muscle to the book room to investigate?”
“In a minute. First, check the other feeds for looping. Start with the west stairs to the basement and the hallway outside the master bedroom. Work out from there.”
“There’s no way anyone pulled something as bush-league as a loop with Mina and I on the—Jesus H. Christ in a porno, that’s a bingo on the hallway cam. Goddamn, this is clean. It didn’t trigger any of the fail-safes.”
Liam’s blood picked up, like a predator who’d just scented his prey.
Definitely not bored.
“Send someone to the library anyway. Low priority. Tell security not to cause a scene. And get the cameras back online. I’ll take care of the bedroom myself.”
Liam stowed his phone away, helpless against his own smirk of satisfaction as he hit the button that would close the window to the balcony. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten under his skin like she did. And longer still since anyone had gotten the drop on him.
Gorgeous and brilliant was a hell of a combination.
Liam savored the rest of his bourbon, contemplating the upcoming battle of wits, giving his sexy little interloper a few minutes’ head start on whatever she had planned.
Then he pulled the doors to the office closed behind him and returned to the party, placating attention-seekers with a distracted smile and nod as he headed toward the stairs that led to his bedroom.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIAM KEARNEY HAD all the best toys.
A self-satisfied smile curved her lips as the light on the electronic trip wire went dead. With the final booby trap dispatched, AJ shoved her phone back in her purse and slipped into the master suite. Safer to leave the light off, since the giant floor-to-ceiling window across from his bed looked out over the party. All she needed was one nosy guest to report her skulking around and she’d be sunk.
Focus, she warned herself. Quick. Efficient. Eyes on the prize.
No time to indulge in perverted thoughts about his ginormous bed or how good he might look in it. Or on the floor. Or up against the dresser.
This was a onetime deal. She’d known that when she’d hacked her invitation. She’d been all over the security feed since the second she’d stepped onto Liam’s property. A second chance at this was never part of the plan.
Might as well hit the main server before she disappeared for good. Right?
You don’t owe him anything, she reminded herself sternly, when the answer to her previous question wasn’t a resounding yes. He was the enemy. The asshole who’d hacked Max.
And yeah, he was sexy as sin, but their association had the same approximate expiration date as nonrefrigerated dairy in the California sun.
Swallowing her unease, AJ hurried over to the dark mahogany closet, wishing she could have pulled this job in her Doc Martens instead of stilettos. Props to all the women in action movies who kicked ass in heels on the reg. It wasn’t easy.
The doors slid out of the way as she approached—the man had a damn spaceship for a closet—revealing an impressive square-footage of meticulously arranged suits, shirts and ties, but she didn’t waste time admiring the dark-to-light color coding. Instead, she walked directly to the rows and rows of shoes that lined the wall at the back of the room.
According to the blueprints, the entrance to the panic room should be behind them.
AJ ran a hand along the side of the shelves until her fingers caught on a lever.
“Gotcha.”
She pressed it, and with a click, one side of shelving came loose from the wall so she could pull it open like a door. But when AJ looked behind it, she encountered the one thing that she hadn’t expected from a tech god...
Uh oh.
It was freakin’ brilliant, no doubt about it, but there was no way she was getting past the vault door. Three key locks that seemed to be on separate timers, a good old-fashioned combination lock and a manual keypad.
She was a hacker, not an old-timey bank robber.
Touché, she thought with a mental salute to the man who’d won this round. Looked like she wouldn’t be using any more of the cool tech she’d loaded on her phone after all.
Good thing she’d gone after Liam’s phone when she’d had the chance, or tonight would have been a total bust.
The memory of their dangerous flirtation flooded her body with heat.
Okay, maybe not a total bust. At least she had a fun new fantasy to exploit next time she gave her vibrator a workout. Like the second she got home.
AJ pushed the shoe shelf until it clicked into place and hurried back into the bedroom, relieved when the closet door sensed her departure and whooshed shut behind her. She’d just stepped into the hallway when her phone gave two sharp pulses—the signal that someone had tripped the innocuous little motion detector she’d stuck to the baseboard in the hallway to warn her if anyone was headed her way.
Her heart rate jacked into the danger zone.
Shit.
She’d pushed it coming up here in the first place, she realized as she pulled the door shut behind her as quietly as she could, all the while trying to one-handedly unclasp her purse.
Should have gotten the fuck out when I had the chance.
AJ pulled out her phone. She needed to rearm Liam’s fancy electronic trip wire, or she was as good as caught. He was a details man, and a deactivated alarm was the sort of detail that wouldn’t go unnoticed.
She cursed her impetuousness—always pushing for one more thing, one more score. It was sloppy.
And sloppy gets you caught.
Her thumbs flew over the screen, disconnecting the signal jam she’d deployed to bypass it in the first place. A quick glance at the alarm showed it was still off-line. What the hell?
“Come on,” she breathed, entering the start-up code again.
Still nothing.
Her eyes darted down the hall. Still clear, but not for long.
Think like the tech god. Liam Kearney was smart. Meticulous. Known for his rotating codes and his attention to detail...
Of course! The sequence changed with each restart.
It was ingenious. A discreet little counter that let him know how many reboots the alarm had been through. AJ didn’t have time to be too impressed, though. Whoever was headed her way would be arriving momentarily.
She made the necessary changes to her approach, and within seconds, the little green light on the trip wire flicked on. AJ jammed her phone back into her purse and turned around just as a figure appeared at the end of the hallway.
* * *
Liam braced a shoulder against the wall and allowed himself a moment to watch her as she stood, unaware of his presence, staring thoughtfully at the artwork in the hallway outside his bedroom.
Her profile was beautiful—the slope of her nose, the softness of her lips, the curve of her neck. Her raven curls brushed her shoulder as she tipped her head to the side, engrossed in the painting, as though he’d come upon her in an art gallery instead of sneaking through his house.
“Find what you’re looking for?”
Her gaze didn’t waver from the painting, but a slight smile touched her mouth. It was almost as though she was expecting him. She pointed up at the canvas. “Would have put my money on you being more of a dogs-playing-poker-on-black-velvet man.”
“I lock up the really expensive stuff during parties.” He pushed away from the wall and joined her beside the Pollock. “I thought you might like a tour, but I see you’re already taking one.”
She crossed her arms, drawing his eyes to the way it pushed up her cleavage. “Just curious,” she averred. “I mean, if the bathroom’s that nice, what riches must the rest of the house conceal?”
Her voice was full of sarcastic wonder, and yet again, her impertinence made him stifle a grin.
“Well, there’s no safe hidden behind this painting, if that’s your game.”
She cut him a measuring glance at his opaque reference to the library, and Liam watched, fascinated as the suspicious edge that had marked all their interactions thus far relaxed slightly. Like something had changed between them. “Foiled again.”
“In that case, I’ll call off the cops.” Liam pulled his phone from his pocket and keyed in the current iteration of the rotating eight-digit master password that would unlock the room behind them before stowing it away.
“As for the riches concealed behind these doors, only one way to find out.”
She glanced behind her, shrugging one bare shoulder in a show of nonchalance before she turned and pushed open the double doors to reveal his bedroom suite. If she was impressed by the room, or the glass wall that looked out over the grounds, she didn’t show it.
Despite her nonchalance, his body revved as she stepped over the threshold, wandering deeper inside. At some point after his first million, sex had become an inevitable conclusion. Something easily acquired when and if he wanted it, and much to the disgust of his sixteen-year-old self’s fantasies, less exciting for it.
The thread of danger in this interaction, his inability to decipher whether he was the hunter or the prey, had him on edge, primed for action. He’d forgotten how fucking good sexual tension could be.
She clasped her hands behind her back as she explored, taking in her surroundings. “It’s not what I expected.”
Liam pushed the doors shut, and the click was loud in the sudden silence as the soundproofing kicked in, blocking out the ambient party chatter and the throbbing bass line of the DJ. “What did you expect?”
“Based on your reputation as a jaded international party boy?” She glanced over her shoulder, and her mocking smile almost undid him. “Manacles on the headboard, some kind of swing in the corner.”
Liam slid his hands in his pockets. He wanted her. Against all reason and his better judgment, he wanted her. “I don’t need chains to keep a woman in my bed.”
“You’re awfully confident.” She turned back to the window, staring down at the party below.
She was a fascinating study in contrasts. Tough, but vulnerable. Smart, but impetuous. Gorgeous, but oddly reticent to exploit the hell out of that.
“Just hopeful. And for the record, I’m not opposed to chains. I’m just a strong proponent of mutual reciprocity.”
“That’s encouraging. Although I will admit, I didn’t take you for a literal exhibitionist.” She gestured toward the window, where a web of party lanterns and the submersible spotlights in the fountains lit the way for the dozens of guests still milling about on the sprawling grounds.
She pressed a hand to the window, and something flared in her eyes, something dark and exciting. He watched in fascination as she pushed it down, resurrecting her cool, mocking facade. “I thought you rich guys tended to show off your penises the old-fashioned way—fancy cars and sexual conquests.”
Jesus.
He needed to get his hands on her, his mouth on her.
“Don’t let my tech company fool you. I’m very old-fashioned, with a garage full of penis metaphors to prove it. As for sexual conquests,” he said softly, letting the words hang there for a moment, “don’t tell me this is where your courage deserts you.”
She looked over as he joined her beside the window. “I’
m not afraid of anything.”
The declaration was said simply, as though she thought he hadn’t expected her to take him up on his dare to explore this heat arcing between them. But that was only because she didn’t realize how much credit he already gave her. And he didn’t even know her real name yet.
“Not even me?”
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
He stepped closer, and she shivered, but true to her word, it wasn’t because of fear.
Liam reached out and ran the pad of his thumb down her bare arm, from shoulder to wrist. Her pulse fluttered beneath her skin. “Because usually when people want each other this badly, someone ends up getting burned.”
She leaned into him, so close that her lips brushed his jaw. Her hand drifted down his chest...lower. Lower still. “I like playing with fire.” His knees almost buckled when she stroked the length of him through his pants.
With a quick squeeze, she unhanded him and began dispatching the buttons on his vest with quick efficiency. “Also, for the record,” she informed him, before unknotting his tie, “I’m more of an arsonist than a nurse.” She reached up and pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders. “So you’re probably going to want to be careful.”
Careful was the last thing he felt like being with her. He wanted whatever this was, pulsing between them, begging to be let loose.
He swallowed thickly as she slipped his jacket down his arms. “I’m going to need—”
“Your wallet?” she asked, holding it up as the expensive Italian wool blazer hit the ground.
Liam popped the button at his collar. “Impressive sleight of hand.”
She pulled the condom he kept inside free and tossed his leather billfold onto his jacket.
“You’re easy to please.” She tracked his progress as he worked his way down the placket of his shirt, baring his chest to her gaze. “I haven’t even gotten started with my hands yet.”
Wicked Pleasure Page 3