Page 28 of Played
He licks his bottom lip. An unwanted and incredibly inappropriate memory flashes through my brain.
“You have four hundred employees,” he says. “I’m going to comb through all of their work emails and?—”
“All the emails for all four hundred of them?”
Smirking, he raises his eyebrows. “I have a program I use. I’ll input some specific keywords, and then I’ll use that to narrow down my suspect pool.”
I want to ask how exactly he’ll do that, but frankly, I don’t have time and I don’t want to appear too interested in what he does in the event it’s misconstrued as interest in him. Which it absolutely is not.
King Worthington, now Blackthorn. Who came back to New York to look after his sick grandfather. Drake has never seen him with a woman or a guy. He’s not married. No kids? Yeah, I have no interest in him at all.
His rich voice cuts through my racing thoughts. “Anything else you’d like to know, Mason?”
I clear my throat. “What about after you narrow down your suspects?”
“I’ll be spending a lot of time here at the office, getting to know people, their habits, their personal lives. Anything that will give me clues as to who they really are.”
“You said you’re good at reading people.”
He nods. “I am.”
Conceited douchebag. “And you think that will be enough? Sounds like what any PI might do. Drake said you were better than most.”
He leans forward, his eyes burning into mine. “I am, Mason. I’ll be doing plenty, don’t worry about that. You don’t need to question my methods, but I can promise you results.”
God, he is such a cocky fuck. How is it he’s sitting in my office, the one that my company owns, yet I still feel like he’s the one in charge? I roll my neck and remind myself who I am. I’ve dealt with much more powerful and intimidating people than King. “You’ll report to me with updates on your progress every day.”
He smirks. “Whatever you wish, Mason.”
I wish you’d get the hell out of New York and crawl back to whatever hole in Chicago you slid out of. I jerk my chin at the door and say, “That will be all.”
He bristles. I lock my hands behind my head and smile. Welcome to my world, King.
This is nowthe sixth time King has sat across from me at the end of the day, giving me an update on his progress. Elijah’s back from the Seychelles, but for some reason I have remained King’s point of contact. Neither of us has objected or made any attempts to change the status quo, which either makes both of us masochists or completely fucked up.
His eyes rake over me, and his hungry gaze feels like a caress on my skin. I stare back at him just as intently. At the bulging muscles of his biceps straining for freedom against his shirt sleeves, at the dark ink etched on his skin, visible beneath the stark white fabric. The shadow of stubble on his jaw that gets at least two shades darker by the end of the day.
This has to be wildly inappropriate, the way we sit here eye-fucking each other. But as long as neither of us acknowledges that it’s happening, then we can both pretend it’s not.
King has made clear progress on the case, but I’m impatient. I want to know who the piece of shit is that betrayed me and my family. Who used their trusted position to sell our hard work.
It frustrates the fuck out of me, and I clearly don’t disguise it well because he says, “I know it feels slow and laborious, and I guess it is, but it’s going to take time.”
“You said it would take less than three months.”
“It’s been less than two weeks, Mason.”
Annoyance bubbling over, I push back my chair and go to make myself a coffee. And like he’s done the past three days, King comes to stand beside me. Not too close, but close enough that I feel his body heat.
“You want one?” I grumble. I didn’t offer him one the first few days, but my inherent good manners must have gotten the better of me, and by Monday of this week, I was offering him a cup. He refused. He agreed on Tuesday, stood beside me and watched on Wednesday, then helped by pouring his own sugar yesterday. And now we sound like we’re trapped in a Craig David song.
I still hate King, even if I do find him absurdly attractive, but I’m not an animal. I can suppress my baser desires for a few weeks. And I suppose if I’m going to have to work with him for the foreseeable future, I can at least be civil.
“Yeah,” he replies to my offer of coffee, his voice so low it’s almost a growl. His fingers brush the back of my hand when he reaches for the sugar, sending heat traveling up my forearm. I bite down on the inside of my cheek and pray I didn’t show any outward reaction. It’s simply muscle memory, that’s all. Nothing more.
He reaches for the spoon next, and it happens again, our little fingers brushing together, creating a palpable crackle of electricity. He did that on purpose.
He gives me a sideways glance. “Cream?”
