Untouchable

Chapter 28

The following day was Sunday, and Kelly had figured out what to do to get into the storage room.

She’d had to lay the groundwork that morning by prompting a little argument over breakfast—about nothing more serious than his being grumpy with her—and the fallout was that he’d gone into his office in the city to work for the afternoon.

He used to do that every Sunday afternoon, so it hadn’t been too hard to get him to fall back into the habit.

She didn’t really want him to go into work. It felt like it was creating distance between them when they’d been so close last night.

They hadn’t made love when they got back home, but she’d fallen asleep in his arms, and she’d never felt so close to anyone in her life, like they’d both opened their souls, leaving nothing unexposed.

He’d been a little more guarded this morning since opening up like that had been hard for him, and she’d taken advantage of it, intensified it.

Because she had to. She had to bring this to a close at last.

At three in the afternoon she showed up at his office.

She never would have done this on a weekday since his time was usually scheduled out to the minute Monday through Friday.

But it was Sunday, and he was just working on his own in his office.

Some of his staff might be there, but there wouldn’t be tons of people around.

This was the best opportunity that she would ever have to get into the storage room.

She was going to use it.

A couple of people were working in offices she passed as she got off the elevator on his floor, but his assistant wasn’t at the desk in the executive suite.

That was good. That would make things a lot easier.

Caleb’s office door was cracked open slightly, so she knocked on it.

“Come.” He sounded professional, curt, busy. The consummate businessman.

That was him as much as anything else. She needed to remember it. There weren’t many limits to what he was willing to do to get ahead in business. Ignoring that reality about him would be a huge mistake.

She pushed open the door.

He turned his head from his computer at her entrance, and she saw his body twitch in surprise when he processed her appearance.

“Kelly,” he said, standing up and taking a few steps toward her. “Is everything all right?”

She gave him a little smile, not having to fake the nerves she was feeling.

His expression softened. “What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping you might have a minute.”

“Of course I have a minute. Is anything wrong?”

“No. I, uh…” She dropped her eyes and then raised them again. “I was hoping for an appointment with Mr. Marshall.”

She saw the series of expressions flicker across his face. Confusion, recognition, understanding, heat.

“Does Mr. Marshall have a few minutes for me?”

He chuckled and leaned down to check the schedule on his computer. “It looks like he does. I’m assuming you wouldn’t interrupt me without an appointment if it wasn’t important.”

Pleased he was going for it and unable to keep from admiring his quick mind and sharp reflexes, Kelly stepped all the way into the office and closed the door with a click.

Then she went to put her leather satchel on the floor next to the couch, sliding her keys down beside it, out of sight from the desk.

Caleb had moved to stand next to the window, and he was now facing a little away from her. She understood it as part of their little game.

He never bothered with a suit on Sundays, but he wore an Oxford shirt and a pair of tailored trousers, still managing to look well dressed and professional.

Kelly stood and studied his back. Noticed that the fabric of his shirt—just between his shoulder blades—was sticking to his skin as if he’d gotten too hot earlier. For some reason, that small detail made Kelly’s heart do a little flip-flop.

No matter how brilliant and powerful he was, Caleb was still human. And sometimes his shirt stuck to his back when he got a little sweaty.

Finally he turned around, his eyebrows arching up as he gave her an automatic once-over. “Ms. Watson. You wanted to see me.”

Kelly had to fight a smile. Damn, the man was good at these little sexy routines, even when taken totally by surprise and without any preparation. “I did. Thank you, Mr. Marshall.”

“What can I do for you?” The corner of his mouth twitched up a little as if he was privately amused. “I’m a busy man, you know.”

“I know you are, sir. Thank you for sparing a minute for me. I was hoping you could help me.”

“What do you need help with?” His lips softened even more, and his eyes trailed over her body in a very suggestive way. She had dressed strategically in a wrap dress and kitten heels. His eyes lingered on her breasts.

Kelly thought quickly, trying to focus on their little game and not on what she needed to accomplish afterward since that would distract her. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself in a… a tangle. With my job.”

“You did? What did you do?” His voice was low and provocative as he took a step toward her. He was having fun. She could see it beneath the heat and charisma. He liked playing these little games with her. He liked that she’d initiated this.

He thought she’d just done it spontaneously—because she wanted to. He had no idea she had an underlying agenda.

She forced the guilt away and concentrated only on the sexual tension radiating between them. “I was bad. I missed a deadline on that project you gave me.” She tried to look nervous and ashamed of herself to better establish their scenario.

“You were bad?” He took another step closer, until they were within arm’s length. “You know how I feel about people missing deadlines.”

Her body was already reacting to the hot look in his eyes, and her breasts were tingling as if his gaze had been a caress. “I’m sorry, sir.”

He took a step even closer, until he was less than an inch from her—but not touching her yet. “Sorry isn’t enough for this kind of poor performance.”

“What kind of performance do you want, sir?”

“You know what I want.” His voice was thick and low. He leaned forward until his breath was blowing against her ear. “You know what I expect to make up for your mistakes.”

Kelly’s heart was pounding, and arousal sprang to life at her center so quickly it actually hurt. She arched her back slightly, her nipples jutting out through the thin fabric of her dress. “I’ll do better, sir. I promise.”

Caleb smiled slightly and reached over to the tie on her wrap dress. He pulled it. “You better.”

Her dress fell open all the way, revealing her black lace bra and panties.

The smolder in Caleb’s eyes flared up as his gaze devoured her exposed body, but he didn’t make any move to touch her.

Feeling gorgeous and aroused and still a little guilty, Kelly let the dress fall off her shoulders completely. She was almost naked, and the office door wasn’t locked.

But she didn’t care.

Thirty minutes later, Kelly hadn’t yet caught her breath when Caleb straightened up, his expression half tender and half embarrassed as he fastened his pants and pulled himself together. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry about what?” she asked, genuinely confused and kind of self-conscious now since she was still sprawled out on his desk, completely naked except for her shoes.

Caleb picked up her dress and handed it to her, his lips tilting up at the corner in a way that made her chest relax, despite the blazing of her cheeks. “I kind of lost the game there at the end.”

She released a breath, feeling far too fond and soft for her own good.

He’d been acting like the dominant boss for their lengthy foreplay, making her come with his hands three times.

But when he finally slid his cock inside her, he’d dropped the act, making love to her with all the fervent passion of his deep, complicated heart.

She couldn’t help but love that he was so invested in her emotionally—for real—that he couldn’t even act out a sexy scene anymore.

“Well,” she began, pulling on her dress and tying it closed. “I think it turned out better than what I’d planned.”

Caleb looked relieved, and he pulled her into a hug before she’d even finished securing her dress. “Good. I think so too.”

“I’ll let you finish up your work now,” she said when she finally pulled away, forcing herself to focus now on what she’d come here to do. “Don’t stay too late. Okay?”

“Just another hour or so.” He kissed her hard and quick. “I promise.”

She smoothed out her dress and hair and made sure she was presentable. She went to get her bag from the floor, but she left her keys on the floor next to the couch, out of sight in this position, exactly where she’d put them.

She prayed Caleb wouldn’t see them.

She didn’t even glance in that direction as she smiled at him. “I’ll see you later then. Thanks for making room in your schedule for me.”

He gave her a warm, intimate smile. “Anytime.”

She left, her chest and belly aching with emotion. But she closed the door behind her and made sure his assistant wasn’t at her desk. Then she hurried over and opened the top drawer, grabbing the master key fob, which was still where she’d seen it placed a few weeks ago.

Under normal circumstances it was probably a perfectly safe place to keep it since security was high in the building as a whole.

These were not normal circumstances, and she closed her hand around the key as she hurried down the hall to the elevator, her heartbeat racing as she prayed that Caleb wouldn’t find her keys and come after her.

She needed an excuse to come back up here and return this key fob.

When the elevator doors slid open, she hurried on, breathing a sigh of relief. She pressed the button for the basement level and hoped that the coast would be clear.

Hardly anyone was in the building right now. There were the normal security guards stationed at the entrance, but it was the weekend, so they’d seemed bored and laid-back.

She didn’t think they’d be making rounds at three in the afternoon, and no one else should be down here.

She hoped.

When the doors opened, she took a cautious step out, but the lights were dimmed to only safety lighting, and there wasn’t a sound at all from the floor. She walked quickly and quietly, checking out each door that she passed.

She wasn’t sure which one would be the storage room.

There were a couple of offices down here, but they didn’t seem to be in use at the moment. Probably just spares if they ran out of space on the main floors. Then there was a maintenance room.

And then finally a room that was closed and locked, with no posted purpose.

She tried the key, and the door opened easily.

It was definitely the storage room. The room was filled with packed boxes and enormous file cabinets.

The drawers were labeled clearly, so she easily found the one marked PERSONNEL and started looking through the tab identifiers as quickly as she could.

She found the personnel files Jack had wanted.

They were enormous, which meant looking through it and taking pictures of certain documents was impossible, so she pulled out the files and put the whole stack in her bag.

It was dangerous, but there was nothing else she could do.

She zipped her bag and then closed the cabinet drawer. She hurried to the door, peeked out at the hall, and then closed and locked the door behind her.

Not until she was back in the elevator, heading up to the top floor again, did she finally take a full breath.

She seemed to have made it. No one had stopped her. Now all she needed to do was return the key fob.

To her relief, the executive suite was still empty, and Caleb’s door was still closed when she returned.

She opened the drawer and placed the fob back where it had been, but she gave a gasp when Caleb’s door started to open.

She closed the drawer as discreetly as she could and forced her panic back down.

Caleb’s brows drew together as he saw her, obviously confused.

Flustered and terrified, she still managed a casual smile. “Sorry. I left my keys on the floor in there, so I had to come back.”

“I know.” He smiled at her and held up her keys. “I just found them.”

“And you were going to bring them down to me?” She took the keys, hoping he wouldn’t notice that her bag was a lot fuller than it had been when she’d arrived. That file was really weighing it down.

“Of course.”

She looked at his face, and her heart melted a little. He’d been worried about her getting to her car, only to find out she didn’t have her keys.

Fuck, she was a bitch. A coldhearted bitch to use him this way.

But maybe what was in these files would finally bring this whole thing to an end.