Wicked Sexy

13

Tabby didn’t miss it either. A muscle in her jaw flexes. That small reaction makes me want to jump from my chair and do a touchdown victory dance, complete with chest pounding and Tarzan roars.

I say mildly, “Go on.”

She takes a breath. “There were four teams of six students. Maelstr0m and I were on the same team. His real name is Søren Killgaard, by the way. But don’t bother looking for him. You won’t find any data about anyone, living or dead, with that name.”

I keep my face and body perfectly neutral. Not even a muscle twitches. I hardly even breathe. But the odds that Tabby went to school with the very man I’m searching for are staggering.

I don’t believe in fate, but there’s something really creepy about this.

I motion for her to continue.

Fingering her fork, Tabby looks down at her plate. “He was different, even in a roomful of kids who were definitions of the word ‘different.’ He was…” She searches for the word. “Wrong, somehow. I don’t know how else to put it. He was wrong.”

“I know exactly what you mean. Some people look right, they say all the right things, on the surface they appear to be normal, adjusted members of society, but you can sense on an animal level that they’re off.”

Tabby’s nodding. “I was the only person who felt that way about Søren. Everyone else was dazzled by him. In complete awe. I think in part it was because he was so beautiful—”

“Beautiful?” I drawl. “Did someone have a crush?”

She looks at me for a long, silent moment. She’s not wearing any makeup, and in the candlelight, her bare skin gleams like a polished stone.

“No. I didn’t have a crush. Even at eighteen I knew that beautiful things can be toxic. I’m simply speaking the truth. Søren Killgaard looked like a Renaissance painting of an angel. Golden hair and fair skin and eyes the color of ice in an alpine lake that never thaws. A body so proportionate and perfect, it was made to be sculpted. I always thought he looked like a fairy-tale prince, he had that sort of untouchable, otherworldly beauty.”

Slowly, my brows lift. This Søren Killgaard must be some looker to get the rabid Tabitha West waxing poetic.

I decide I hate him.

“So what happened?”

Tabby’s expression hardens. “He skimmed millions of dollars before they caught on to what was happening. He used a loophole in the bank’s code to divert money into an account he controlled. Fractions of pennies at a time, so no single transaction would be detected—”

“Salami slicing. Classic hacker technique.”

“Yes,” she agrees. “Classic. Except the account he controlled was in my name.”

In the silence that follows, the muted noises of the restaurant seem overly loud. Voices, music, the clatter of silverware against plates, the sounds clang around in my head. “He set you up.” Tabby nods.

“Why?”

“Because he could. He could do anything he wanted.”

“No. Why you?”

She looks over my shoulder. I sense she’s deliberately avoiding my eyes.

“You’d have to ask him.”

I stare at her long and hard. “Tabby.” She glances at me.

“Don’t bullshit me. If we’re gonna work together, there won’t be any lies between us. Why did Søren Killgaard set you up?”

Her expression is unreadable. “Why do some boys like to pull the wings off flies?”

I say bluntly, “You were f*****g him.”

Something flickers in her gaze, a deep distaste or disappointment. “Not everything is about s*x,

Connor.”

“Yes, it is. Except, like Oscar Wilde said, s*x itself. That’s about power.”

Her head tilts. She appraises me with those beautiful feline eyes, a long, searching look that’s strangely intimate. The distaste in her gaze changes to something else, something warmer. In a husky voice, she murmurs, “Finally, something on which we agree.” Heat surges through my body.

Desire is a strange animal. Elemental like hunger or thirst, but unlike hunger or thirst, it has the power to rob you of reason with the speed of two fingers snapping, so that you’ll do things so out of character you don’t recognize yourself, the creature you become in service of the primal, irresistible urge to mate.

The tone in her voice, the look in her eyes, the memory of her wet, naked body—all of it conspires to wipe my mind clean of all logic, and suddenly I’m just…gone.

I reach across the table, take her face in my hands, pull her toward me—knocking over glasses and rattling plates—and kiss her.

For a moment, there’s nothing. Resistance, her mouth firmly closed, her lips hard. But then a softening, a quick intake of breath through her nose, and she gives in.

Her lips part. She takes my tongue into her mouth. She makes a sound deep in her throat, a low, feminine noise of pleasure, and my c**k instantly stiffens to steel.

She tastes sweet, so f*****g sweet, warm and soft and yielding, like a ripe piece of fruit. A peach, melting in my mouth. Our tongues sweep against each other, delicious sliding and pressure, suction, gliding, easy and perfect, like they were meant for exactly this. Then it’s more urgent, a rising demand, a jolt of pleasure when she nips my lower lip, my hands tightening around her jaw, her hands fisted in my hair, urgently pulling me closer, deeper, my mind fried as my body throbs and pulses, every beat of my heart a roar in my ears, my blood pounding like drums, wanting wanting wanting —Sweet Jesus this woman is heaven— She yanks away and slaps me.

Hard.