Page 43 of The Money Man
“If you think you can stop after just one.” She stepped into him so that her breasts met his chest and her thighs brushed against his. His grip on her hand turned to steel and he snaked his other arm around her waist to pull her even closer before his mouth lowered to hers.
An electric shock of sensation seared through her, and she grabbed handfuls of his shirt to hold herself against him. He slanted his lips against hers first as a question, then as a demand, and finally as a wild joining that neither one of them controlled.
When he lifted his head, flares of wanting lit his eyes. “That was only one kiss.” His voice held a huskiness that ran along her veins like flame.
“But I wouldn’t call it small.” She was almost panting.
“God, I don’t want to work on Argon.”
“But you have to.” She forced open her fists and tried to smooth out the wrinkles she’d made in the fine cotton.
He seized her wrists to pull her hands away. “That won’t help me concentrate.”
“Sorry. I was just trying to undo the damage to your clothes.” But she reveled in the knowledge of her power over him. She stepped back, feeling oddly unmoored when he released her.
“I think I’ll sit at the next table. Otherwise my focus may suffer.” He ran one finger down her cheek before tucking his laptop under his arm and walking to the work station behind her.
Yearning still crackled through her as she walked down the aisle toward the back of the plane. It was hard to appreciate the flowers or pillows when she wanted to lay her body against Derek’s from ankles to lips. A control panel by the sofa caught her eye. The graphics by the buttons indicated that it could extend out flat to become a bed. That was not a helpful image.
She kept going past the sofa to check out the bathroom. Although the walls curved and the ceiling was low enough that Derek might have duck his head to get his hair wet, it was as promised: a full-fledged shower. Of course, the thought of Derek in the shower brought back visions of water running down his naked body. The craving that already pulsed through her body grew stronger.
She couldn’t even shut the door and splash cold water on her face because it would ruin the makeup she’d taken such trouble with.
When she strolled back up the aisle, Derek was typing furiously, but he gave her a quick smile as she passed.
Alice sat down and opened her laptop to work on Nowak Plumbing’s books. But her mind kept wandering to the man seated a mere six feet behind her, his presence making the recirculated air of the plane seem heavy with pure sexual tension.
She yanked her attention back, reminding herself that she had to be on the alert for Myron Barsky’s criminal fraud.
When Alice walked past him, her signature scent of violets drifted past Derek’s nostrils, making him inhale. Alice’s innocence about how the corporate world worked, her occasional delicious blush, and her wide-eyed enjoyment of traveling on a private jet for the first time evoked the delicate, woodsy flower. Her sharp intelligence and the steely determination that had led her to KRG’s Small Business Initiative shredded all images of flower petals. Not to mention that her passion in bed veered more toward the deepest red roses.
The contradictions made her fascinating. Those, and the curve of her lips that kept tempting him to bend down and taste. Now every time she shifted in her chair, it jerked his attention away from the numbers swimming across his computer screen. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to the sofa so he could slowly strip off her sexy business clothes, yank the clips out of her prim, tantalizing bun, and spread her out naked on the leather to feast upon. His cock twitched into life again.
Irritated at his inability to keep his mind on his work, he hit the call button, asking Kai to bring him some more coffee. Alice asked for tea, her soft voice stroking over his skin like the brush of satin. Jesus, everything about her aroused him this morning.
He drew on every ounce of self-discipline he possessed to focus on the Argon reports, immersing himself in the shifting patterns of the numbers he loved so much. Just like Alice did. And there she was, waltzing through his thoughts again.
An urgent email from Leland pinged into his laptop, thanks to the plane’s high-tech wireless network. As Derek read it, he muttered a curse under his breath.
I found the issue. It’s definitely not a bug. It’s an encrypted subroutine tied to the credit card transaction system. I’ll need some time to crack the encryption but in the meantime, tread carefully.
Derek stared at Leland’s last admonition. He hoped like hell that this was just white-collar crime—the kind that didn’t involve violence—but even then, Alice’s professional reputation was vulnerable. This meeting with Barsky and his boss, Ted Murval, had damn well better shift their attention to KRG and away from her. The script he’d developed with Alice deliberately made her seem like a minor player, a mere incidental to KRG’s powerful plans. Alice had joked about being insulted by that, but she’d gone along with it, acknowledging that it was the sensible strategy.
He didn’t want Barsky to have any suspicion that she’d found the problem on her own and gotten KRG involved through the SBI portal. That would put her in even more danger of reprisals.
He closed the email, deciding not to share it with Alice until after the meeting. She was already tense about their subterfuge. He could see that she wasn’t accustomed to lying, at least in a business setting. He wouldn’t add more pressure.
Then he forced himself to dive back into the Argon project, although with a low thrum in his gut that twisted together desire and uneasiness.
Chapter 11
Derek insisted that they rehearse their script yet again during the limo ride from the executive airport to BalanceTrakR’s headquarters. He threw some new questions at Alice, challenging her to think on her feet. When she stumbled once, his critique verged on harsh. He apologized, but there was an edge that made her jumpy.
“Once we get out of this car, stick to the cover story, even in the elevator. We don’t know what kind of security monitoring they might have,” he said as the car pulled up in front of a nondescript brick office building on a side street in what Derek said was a fringe area of downtown Dallas.
Panic clawed at Alice’s chest, making it hard to draw full breaths. The whole thing had seemed like a little bit of a game until that moment.
Then Derek’s hand covered hers where it lay on the seat. She turned to find him smiling at her encouragingly. “Anything you don’t want to answer, just throw to me.”
