Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Derek was filling out an avalanche of forms, waiting for Markson to call him back when the front desk security called him.
“You have a visitor,” the bland voice told him, before disconnecting.
A visitor? Derek started, wondering if Markson would be stupid enough to show up here. It didn’t seem like a move the CW would make, but then you never knew with these guys. And Derek wasn’t expecting anyone else.
It was the laughter that tipped him off it wasn’t Markson.
He could hear it the minute he stepped off the elevator. Rich, feminine laughter coming from a woman who met life on her own terms. A woman who made him insane with lust and occasionally annoyance.
Reese Hampton.
Leaning over the guard’s front security checkpoint desk, holding a big brown bag, one leg bent, foot kicked back, tips of her toes pressing into the marble floor. Torturing him.
When she saw him walking towards her, she smiled and said, “Oh, hi. I brought you lunch.”
Like she hadn’t left him without so much as a see you later. Like she wasn’t supposed to be halfway across the country by now, planning a layout in the Newark News for the wedding photos.
He was equal parts thrilled and scared. He knew that smile. It meant somehow she was about to complicate his life. Again.
“Hi Reese. What a surprise.” A big-ass, huge, what-the-hell kind of surprise.
She grinned. “Are you hungry?”
“Sure.” He was trying to stay cool, in control of the situation. He should approach this calmly, see what she wanted and why she hadn’t gone back to New York.
Instead, he was besieged by carnal images of backing her up against the nearest wall and sinking himself into her.
“Where should we go to eat?”
“I guess my office would be fine.” With a little luck, no one would notice Reese.
She shook her hair back over her shoulder, and he decided that was a futile wish. No man with blood running through his veins could not notice her.
“Cool. You can give me a tour of the place, then.”
So she could pinch pens and flirt with his coworkers? Screw that. He was keeping her behind his cubicle walls until he could figure out just what in the hell she was doing here.
It was a long way to come for lunch and Reese didn’t strike him as one for social calls. She would have a purpose behind this little visit.
He gestured for her to get on the elevator in front of him and said politely, “Can I carry that bag for you?”
She shook her head, eyes sparkling. “No, I’ve got it.”
When the door closed behind them, she reached over and placed her hand square on his ass, giving a squeeze. He didn’t move a muscle, just looked at her steadily, as if he were unconcerned. Well, one muscle moved, betraying him by swelling with interest.
Reese noticed too, damn her.
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” she asked, the gleeful tone clearly indicating she wouldn’t mind if he was.
“Of course not. Just curious as to what you’re doing here when I thought you were flying back to New York.”
If she didn’t take her hand off his ass, he was going to lose it. Those little strokes were driving him nuts, making the dingy elevator stifling, and his mouth dry, hands itching to touch her.
He’d thought he wouldn’t ever see her again and here she was. In the flesh. Alone with him. Touching him.
“Would you believe I didn’t want to leave you?” Her hand stopped moving, but still rested on his backside.
He forced himself to relax certain muscles, which were clenched tight. “Not really, no.”
“It’s true,” she insisted, turning towards him, the bag of food between them. “Don’t I even get a hello kiss?”
Given his suspicions about her motives, it wouldn’t be in his best interest, but he ached to anyway.
“If I kiss you now, I’m not going to stop,” he told her, keeping his hands resolutely to himself, wishing he had the willpower to take a step back away from her.
He could smell her, a light lotion and shampoo scent.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Reese went on her tiptoes and brushed her mouth over his.
That soft feathery touch that brought her breasts against his chest and her hair sliding across his shoulder did away with any fight he had thought to put up.
“Reese,” he breathed, leaning forward to nip her bottom lip, to draw her to him, his hand possessively around her waist.
She maneuvered her hand from his ass to his shoulder, gripping the lapel of his suit. “Ugly suit,” she murmured between kisses.
“Thanks.” Derek took the bag of food, shifting it behind her back so that he could feel her breasts more fully, could twist and pinch her nipple through her silky thin shirt and lace bra.
Their kisses went deeper, harder, his temperature spiking and his cock throbbing. Reese moaned.
Derek walked her back, one step, two. He wanted up her skirt, wanted to glide his hands along her thighs and feel her tremble with anticipation. His mouth met hers again and again, wet and frenzied and hot, their teeth knocking together and fabric rustling as their bodies crushed together.
The elevator door swung open. Derek was only vaguely aware of the fact until he heard someone clear his throat.
Then he jumped back from Reese like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or up a woman’s skirt.
Turning around, he squeezed Reese’s hand and prepared to drag her off, avoiding meeting the eyes of whoever was waiting in front of them.
“Knight.”
Shit. Derek broke his plan not to look and snapped his head up, staring in horror at his boss.
“Good to see you’re hard at work,” Nordstrom said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
His hard-on shriveled up and died. Nordstrom was the most effective birth control around. Nobody could possibly think about sex with him in the room.
“It’s my lunch hour, sir.”
Derek pulled Reese off the elevator and stood aside to let Nordstrom on. The older man just gazed at him without blinking. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?”
And let Reese open her mouth? Hell, no.
Too late.
She already was.
Reese said, “Oh, I’m not his girlfriend. We’ve just been having sex.”
Derek had a heart attack. Or at least that’s what it felt like when his chest spasmed in pained shock.
There was an eternal moment of frozen silence, then Nordstrom laughed, a dry, rusty, hacking laugh that sounded like a lawn mower starting up.
Derek stared at his boss in amazement. No one had ever heard Nordstrom laugh.
The other agents had all decided that since he was a robot, he was incapable of feeling human emotion.
A laugh was downright amazing.
And Reese had caused it. It figured.
“That’s funny.” Nordstrom shook his head, still chuckling as Reese smiled widely back at him.
Derek winced as Nordstrom clapped him on the shoulder. “Hang on to this one, Knight. Not every woman can make you laugh.”
With those words of wisdom Nordstrom got on the elevator and the door swung shut. Reese was looking around curiously. Derek was standing still, his ulcer sending forth a slew of angry stomach acids.
“Where’s your office?” she asked, taking the bag of food back from him. “You’re going to spill this. You can’t hold it crooked like that.”
“Down the hall. Fifth cubicle on the left.” Derek started walking, intent on getting Reese fed and out of the building so his ulcer could settle down.
“Is it private?” She winked at him. “We could finish what we started in the elevator.”
He was too horrified from the close encounter with Nordstrom to feel even remotely turned on. “No, it’s not private.”
Reese licked her lips, her hips swinging seductively as she walked in her high heels. “Even better.”
Okay, he was turned on again.
But as they walked into his cubicle, he knew he had to establish a few facts first before he indulged further in Reese’s body. Reese started pulling out little plastic bowls and setting them on his desk, glancing around his three stark white walls.
“Don’t you have any pictures or anything to hang up? This place is depressing.”
If he had a wife and kids, he would put their pictures on his desk, but since he didn’t, the desk was empty. What was he going to put a picture of there? His mother? Him and his buddies hanging out at a tailgate? A random mountain landscape?
“Reese. Tell me why you didn’t go back to New York.” He leaned against the wall and pinned her with his best investigative stare. The I-know-you-know-something stare.
She sighed as she pried the lid off a bowl and stuck a plastic spoon in the soup. “Sit down and eat your soup and I’ll tell you everything. I’ll bare my soul and talk about my dreams and aspirations.”
“No need to be soul-baring.” Derek reached for the bowl and picked up the soup and sniffed. Potato. He took a bite. “Just explain to me what’s going on.”
“Okay, here’s the deal.” Reese leaned against his desk, ripping open a pack of crackers.
“I lied to my boss, told him I had the flu. I sent in the wedding story so it could go in the Wednesday social section. And I stayed because I need to write this story, and I want to be here when it breaks.” Her words were laced with stubborn determination.
“I need you to talk to me, tell me when you think it’s possible you can get an arrest.”
Derek glanced around, fighting the urge to clap his hand over her mouth. “Shh. We’re in the middle of the office, Reese. Jesus.”
“What? Are we being recorded or something?” Reese snorted, but damn if she didn’t look a little excited by the prospect. She dumped her crumbled crackers in her soup and looked around his cubicle, like she expected to see microphones jutting out from the file cabinet.
“Listen.” Derek set his soup back down on the desk, his appetite gone. “Why don’t we make plans for tonight? We’ll talk all you want, somewhere where there aren’t half a dozen agents milling around all the time. Okay?”
Reese flipped her spoon over and licked it clean, slowly. “Can we do…other things, too?”
Given that gleam in her eye, he knew exactly what other things she was talking about. Making a mental note to stop at the drugstore for those long overdue condoms, Derek nodded. “Whatever you want.”
“Mmm. Carte blanche. I like it.” She tapped the clean plastic spoon on her bottom lip. “I guess we should meet at my hotel again, then. How about seven?”
“Fine.” That gave him half a day to pretend he was actually getting some work done.
She smiled. “Great. Now eat your soup like a good little boy and maybe I’ll let you have some dessert.”