Chapter 30
THIRTY
Reese contemplated opening the door for Knight naked, but then nixed the idea. She really did need to get him talking about Delco and how far along the case was. The whole naked thing would probably distract him.
Her other clothing options weren’t all that palatable. She had her suit, which she’d taken off the minute she’d gotten back to her room after lunch. She and business wear didn’t get along.
There was her cocktail dress from the wedding. But how stupid would that look sitting around in her hotel room?
Very stupid, she decided.
There was a pair of pajama pants she had packed for downtimes, along with a white tank top to wear with it.
They weren’t flannel and three sizes too big like she’d told Knight the first night she’d met him, but they were loose fitting gray cotton.
Not at all sexy, but comfortable. And if she wore the tank with no bra, that should counter the sex-less effect of the shapeless bottoms.
Pulling the pants on, she rolled her eyes, singing along with the music of a car commercial playing on the TV.
Knight was making her go to a lot of work.
Maybe sex wasn’t worth all this effort. Then she remembered Knight’s tongue pushing inside her while she closed her mouth over him, and her body twitched in response.
Oh, yeah, sex with Knight would be worth a little clothing crisis.
The knock came as she was pulling on the tank top. “Coming!”
She ran to the door and promised herself she would not leap into his arms, under any circumstances. Business first, then pleasure. Though he looked very delicious, all folded arms, and well-worn jeans, he appeared to have the same idea.
Without even a greeting, he strolled into the room and said, “Okay, lay your cards on the table, Reese. What the hell do you want from me with the Delco case?”
She matched his brisk tone. “I want to know how close you are to an arrest.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Don’t give me specifics. Just give me vague. Tell me what’s going on in hypotheticals.” Why was he making this so hard?
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he sighed.
“Here’s the thing. To make an arrest in a price-fixing case you need to have irrefutable proof, usually a recording or documents, of executives from the companies involved actually agreeing on a fixed price and on production volumes from each company.
” He stopped in front of the bed and yanked his black fleece sweatshirt off over his head.
Trying to ignore the muscles and the gun in its holster, Reese said, “And you don’t have an agreement yet?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. So what’s the problem? You get your witness to record their meetings. How hard could that be?”
“You have no idea of the legalities involved. We can only record if a consenting person is present, and our guy can’t be at all the meetings.
And he’s nervous, so we haven’t approached him about being wired yet.
” Knight ran his fingers through his hair.
“Look, get your story ready based on what you’ve read in the files.
Go back to New York. When things break, I’ll call you.
That’s all I can promise. I can’t tell you anything about the investigation right now. ”
“Can you tell me who the cooperating witness is?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me which executives are involved in the price-fixing?”
“No.”
Reese groaned in frustration. She applauded his ethics for his job, but it only made it all that much harder for her to do hers.
Given what she’d seen in the notes the witness had taken of several meetings, Ashton Chatterton was more than aware of the price-fixing scheme.
He was ordering it, he was negotiating with the competitors for volume, he was sending his top executives when he wasn’t present at meetings.
An idea was forming. “I can help you. If you can’t get your witness to talk, I could do it.”
Knight blanched in horror.
Reese hastened to reassure him. “No, I mean, I could get a job at Delco as an executive assistant or something. Then I could record their meetings.”
Knight undid his gun holster and tossed it on the dresser.
“You’ve lost your mind. Why would Delco hire you?
It would take weeks to go through the whole resume/interview process, and then you’d wind up as secretary to some guy in accounting or something.
They don’t give new inexperienced secretaries to the big boss.
And,” his finger went up to tick off the point, “they wouldn’t talk about price-fixing while you’re serving their coffee. ”
Clearly, they were not going to agree on this. Reese thought he was underestimating her considerable powers of persuasion. She said, “You’re very negative. And cranky tonight.”
He walked towards her, stalking, hands fisted at his sides. “Because you insist on poking your pretty little nose into this case, jeopardizing a six-month-long investigation. And you’re talking about it again, when all I want to do is lay you flat on that bed and sink into you.”
As Reese tried to think of something to say besides take me, Knight reached into his back pocket and emerged with a row of three condoms.
Oh, yeah. Desire hit her below her belly, hard, heavy, aching want. Without her brain even being involved, she tugged at the waistband of her pajama pants and let them drop to the carpet.
His nostrils flared.
“You went to the store.” Smart man.
“On my way home from work,” he agreed, taking another step towards her.
The room was hot and the backs of her knees were sweating. But her inner thighs were burning, wet liquid heat rushing in anticipation, dampening her panties.
Knight’s phone buzzed.
Reese froze in the act of tearing her tank top off.
Knight swore. “Reese…shit, I’ve got to go. My witness needs to talk to me.”
She pulled her top back down to cover her breasts and took a shuddering breath to regain her sanity. Knight must be as rattled as she was, since she couldn’t imagine he would have offered info about his witness otherwise.
He was strapping his gun back on, the condoms disappearing into his pocket. “Can I come back when I’m done?”
She should tell him no. Who did he think she was? She wasn’t going to just hang around waiting for him to grace her with his presence.
Except she couldn’t worry about her affronted dignity when she was this aroused. If he didn’t come back, she was going to suffer through a long and lonely night. Besides, she had every intention of following him to find out who his witness was.
It only seemed right that after that little bit of deception, she should have sex with him.
Aware that something sounded a little strange about that whole line of reasoning, nonetheless she said, “Yes. You can come back.”
He leaned towards her like he was going to kiss her, then jerked back at the last second. Looking uncomfortable, he gave her arm an awkward pat. “I’ll see you later, then.”
“Bye.” Reese smiled and waved, pulling her pants back on.
The minute the door closed behind him, she dove for her purse and shoes.
Except she couldn’t exactly wear nude pumps with pajama pants.
Afraid she’d lose him, Reese shoved on her fuzzy white slippers, grabbed the sweatshirt Knight had left on her bed and stepped into the hall, peeking first to make sure he’d gotten on the elevator already.
Reese sprinted for the stairs. By the first floor her thighs were burning, her lungs collapsing, and her slippers sliding off. But when she burst into the lobby, sucking air like a vacuum, she saw Knight step through the doors to the hotel parking garage.
In another minute she was in her Ford Taurus rental car, following Knight as closely as she could without risking him noticing.
If he discovered her, she didn’t think it would be pretty.
Likely it would involve handcuffs. Not part of a fun-sex-game handcuffs.
But you’re-heading-for-the-slammer handcuffs.
Twice she worried that he had spotted her, given the sharp lane changes he made, but he never stopped and he never seemed to glance in his rearview mirror.
She concluded he was simply a lousy driver, allergic to his turn signal. Twenty minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in a modest neighborhood. Knight got out of his car, walked over to a black Toyota Avalon, and got in on the passenger side.