Undercover Love Read online

  Their mouths warred, straining for more. His hands returned to her behind, squeezing; he lifted her against him. Ashley wrapped her legs around his waist and settled against his erection.

  Her lacy thong provided no protection.

  Jason carried her over to a long, low sofa and collapsed on top of her. He settled between her legs, pressing on the very center of her heat. The only noise was their heavy breath and the occasional whimper or growl. He yanked open her blouse with force and filled his hands with her breasts. Too much of a distraction, the soft cups of her bra were shoved down to bare her curves to him.

  Ashley reached down to cup him through his pants. He groaned and she squeezed harder.

  “I want you,” he growled low as his mouth settled over her nipple. There were no gentle tastes. He latched on and began to suck. Ashley arched against him, offering him everything.

  She couldn’t think. She needed to be closer. She needed to feel his skin against hers. She needed him to drive inside her and make her forget everything.

  His mouth moved to her other breast while his fingers found her nipple still damp from his mouth. His fingers tugged and rolled even as he took the other aching tip between his lips.

  “Jason, please! I need you.”

  “Say my name again. Tell me you want me.”

  He tugged her hand free from between them and pressed against her center, ignoring the layers of clothing in the way.

  “Jason, I want you,” Ashley whispered on a moan. “I want to be with you.”

  He released her breast long enough to recapture her mouth. His tongue thrust into her mouth in a savage imitation of sex.

  He thrust against her again and Ashley felt her sex tighten from the friction.

  Jason took her pebbled nipple between his fingers, squeezing and tugging. He replaced his fingers with his mouth, sucking the taut peak until it strained against his tongue. His hand slid down her body, over her skirt, to her bare thigh.

  Ashley reflexively opened her thighs wider.

  Jason rose up on his knees and slid his fingers between her legs, up to the silky barrier.

  Ashley bucked against his fingers. She needed him closer. Inside.

  Two fingers slid under the thin barrier to touch her.

  “God, Ashley.”

  “Jason, I want —”

  Twin alerts from his desktop and phone broke through the trance.

  “Your 3 o’clock is here,” said Mona through the intercom.

  Ashley shoved at Jason and squirmed off the couch, smoothing her skirt down.

  “Goddamnit, Ashley.” He attacked his tie, which was wildly askew.

  “This is my fault?” Temper threatened to snap again as her fingers stumbled over the buttons on her blouse.

  Jason gave up on the tie, grabbing her wrist instead. “You make me forget everything.” He planted a hard kiss on her mouth and seemed ready to move in for more.

  Ashley put a hand to his mouth. “You’re forgetting again.”

  She watched the glints of gray and brown in his eyes sharpen. Jason kissed her hand before releasing her.

  She made him forget. With a man as in control as Jason Baine, that was a feat. She reached up and straightened his tie. “To be continued?”

  “To be continued,” he agreed. “Soon.” It was a promise. Or a threat.

  Jason took his time smoothing her skirt down over her hips and straightening her blouse. “I think I lost one of your buttons.” He grinned, looking not at all apologetic.

  Ashley held the gapped fabric together. “Good thing I have a sweater in the car.”

  She looked up and caught his smug grin. “Don’t think that this gets you out of explaining exactly how installing a ridiculously expensive security system in my place of business is not an inappropriate invasion of privacy.”

  “I want you safe at all times.” He said it matter-of-factly, and it sent her heart skipping. Romance and logic did battle. He cared. A lot. Enough to want to keep her safe. But it was the kind of over-the-top gesture that made her feel uncomfortable, indebted.

  “How did you get this past Barbara?”

  “Barbara isn’t nearly as cynical and suspicious as you are. It was a simple transaction. She needed an upgrade to her system, and I happened to have one that was ready for testing before releasing it.”

  “Jason there’s a fingerprint scanner.”

  “I didn’t think you’d like the retinal scanner. Did Dax show you how arm it from your phone?”

  “I’m still not happy about this.”

  “I know, and I’m grateful you’re willing to indulge me.”

  “Thank you for your very generous, very unexpected gift,” she said primly.

  “Are you talking about the system or what just happened on the couch?”

  Ashley smacked his arm. “You are ridiculous.”

  “Then you’ll humor me when I give you these.” He crossed to his desk and picked up a manila envelope.

  Ashley peeked inside. “Parking passes?”

  “For you and the rest of the girls at the shop. Now you can park on the street close to the store instead of walking to the garage at night.”

  Ashley sighed heavily.

  “Are you getting mad again?” He tipped her chin up.

  She shook her head. “I think I’m madded out. Now I’m just tired. And since we’re exchanging strange gifts, here’s yours.” She fished the flash drive out of her bag and handed it to him.

  “I haven’t found anything incriminating yet, but we will. He’s not very bright.”

  “Not if he let you go,” he said, kissing her hand again.

  Jason wrapped an arm around her. “Come on, I’ll show you the back way out of here so you don’t have to meet seven Austrian businesspeople while looking like you were just mauled.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The next few days flew by leaving little time for spy games or obsessing over Jason, but Ashley managed to still do a bit of both. The forensic imaging of the hard drive would take some time, so she tried to carve out an opportunity every day to comb through Steven’s Facebook account.

  She was itching to take another pass at his computer at home, but hadn’t found a safe opportunity to do so.

  She was going to have to do something soon, though. After enduring a takeout night at home with him, which he tried to turn into sex, Ashley was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to keep it together for much longer. One of them would end up dead. Him from murder or her from an aneurysm.

  She hadn’t seen Jason since Monday and found her thoughts wrapped up in him more often than on Steven and the present situation. Ashley felt like a teenager with a huge crush on the high school quarterback.

  She couldn’t afford to lose her focus, she told herself. Once Steven was out of her life, then she could explore Jason. Every inch of him. And that meant she was going to have to stop avoiding Steven like the plague and start dragging information out of him.

  The best way to do that was to cook a big meal and pump him full of alcohol.

  Arriving home, she found Steven engrossed in a reality show. “Hey, babe,” he called from the couch.

  Ashley hefted the grocery bags onto the counter. “Hey.” She spotted an empty glass on the coffee table in front of him. Perfect. He had already started.

  She wandered over to the bar and poured a generous scotch for him and grabbed a bottle of wine for dinner. “I’m making spaghetti tonight.”

  “Awesome,” he said, attention still on the screen.

  Ashley put the drink down in front of him and took his empty glass to the kitchen where she started to unload the groceries.

  Usually, when she made spaghetti, she used her grandmother’s recipe for sauce. But she didn’t want to taint a family tradition by making it for Steven, so she went for store-bought instead.

  Ashley opened the wine and poured two glasses before sliding the garlic bread into the oven.

  She added the pasta to the boiling water
and turned the sauce down to a simmer. Cooking always relaxed her. But not tonight.

  Ashley reached into the pocket in her bag to make sure the new gadget Jason had messengered to her today was still secure. This little drive was for Steven’s cellphone. But the only time he didn’t have it on him was when he was sleeping.

  She was just supposed to plug it in and let it sync and it would somehow magically copy all of Steven’s texts and browser history. Again, it was a slight circumvention of the law. But she was willing to bend the truth if it meant she could get her life back, Steven-free.

  The timer on the oven buzzed as she drained the pasta. Ashley plated up the spaghetti and bread and carried it to the table.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  She made a return trip to the kitchen for the bottle of wine.

  It was time to work. Steven dug in and Ashley made sure to keep his wine topped off. “So how was work today?” She crunched into a piece of garlic bread.

  “Same old,” he said, reaching for his glass. “It’s a joke. I put all this time and effort in, and the partners just reap the rewards. I get nothing out of it.”

  “Your last bonus was pretty decent,” Ashley ventured.

  “Chump change. Literally,” he snorted. “It’s almost embarrassing. You know what a junior partner takes home? It’s like triple what my paycheck is. And those bonuses are something worth talking about.”

  “Why do you think they aren’t making you partner track?” Ashley toyed with the noodles on her plate.

  Steven wiped his mouth on his napkin and picked up his glass again. “Victoria says they’re just trying to get everything they can out of me. Like I’m some kind of servant. They’re doing the same thing to her.”

  She couldn’t believe his nerve — or was that stupidity? — that had him so casually mentioning his mistress’s name to her.

  “She’s family. Isn’t she guaranteed to be partner?” Ashley couldn’t quite bring herself to say Victoria’s name.

  “She thinks that’s why they’re so much harder on her. That’s why she wants to leave. So she can prove to her grandfather that she’s more valuable than he thinks she is.”

  “Do you think it’s because she’s not actually family?” And just trying to take advantage of tenuous connections?

  “They just feel threatened. But they’ll be sorry when we leave.”

  Ashley poured more wine into his glass and figured what the hell before topping her own off.

  “So Victoria’s leaving the company, too?” Ashley congratulated herself on not gagging on the woman’s name.

  Steven nodded and reached for another piece of garlic bread. “Yeah, she’s the one who got the line on some partner-track jobs.”

  Ashley kept her gaze on her plate. “What firm are you looking at?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. She said she has some details to work out first.” He wiped his mouth again and finished off the rest of the wine, kicking back in his chair. “Soon I’ll be calling the shots. That’s what I care about.”

  ###

  She had thought about setting her alarm for the middle of the night but was afraid it would wake the soundly sleeping Steven next to her. She didn’t need the alarm anyway. Ashley hadn’t even closed her eyes since she climbed into bed hours earlier.

  She was going to get some answers tonight and the thought of that was enough to keep her awake.

  Ashley held her breath and tiptoed over to Steven’s nightstand. His breathing was deep and even and the occasional snore reassured her that he was out.

  Very carefully, she lifted the phone from the table. She waited to hear another snore before unplugging the charger. Ashley hugged the phone to her chest to block the light of the screen and quietly left the room.

  Keeping the lights off, she scurried across the loft to Steven’s workspace. While the drive read his phone, she thought she would give his email another look. She hadn’t snooped through his sent folder yet and wondered if there was something in there worth finding.

  She eased into his desk chair, wincing at the telltale squeak. To her anxious ears it sounded as loud as a gunshot in the silent apartment. She listened intently for a minute, straining for sounds of life coming from the bedroom.

  Satisfied that Steven still slept, she plugged the tiny drive into the cellphone’s port and pushed the sync button. A blinking green light appeared, showing the sync was in progress. Since Jason said it should take about 15 minutes she opened Steven’s email on the computer to double down on the spying.

  Something was still nagging her about his run in with Phil. She was curious to see if he had replied to Phil’s message.

  Ashley opened his sent folder and sorted it by recipient. Bingo. One reply to Philip Barden two days after the original message was received.

  Ashley previewed the email.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Hey man,

  Great to see you, too! We definitely need to get together more since we’re both in the same city. So work is still shitty? It’s funny that the legwork for billion dollar acquisitions is done by a guy who puked on the ping-pong table at Homecoming two years ago. Can’t hang with the pledges, can’t make the big bucks like the partners. It sucks being this age where we do all the work and have none of the fun. Want to get together next Thursday and trade work stories? You can let me know on my other email [email protected].

  He had another email account. Ashley snapped a picture of the screen with her phone. She wanted to document her discovery step-by-step to make sure she could tell Jason where to look. She switched back to the desktop and opened a browser window Sure enough, in the history she found several visits to Gmail.

  One thing at a time, she cautioned herself. She reorganized his sent message folder by date and closed out of the program. Returning to the login page, she paused.

  Steven had gone to great lengths to create a new email account to hide something important, so wouldn’t it follow that he would use a different password?

  Password123.

  Login error. Damn it!

  Ashley leaned back in the chair and drummed her fingers quietly on the desk. What would it be? How many tries would she have before the account locked?

  She let her eyes scan the wreckage of his desk. Sticky notes, envelopes, and takeout menus. It could be written on any of them. Ashley sighed and closed her eyes. “Think like an asshole,” she whispered. “If I were a self-important, cheating asshole how hard would I work to hide something secret?”

  Ashley opened her eyes and spotted the keyboard. She peered under it. There on the desk was a single yellow sticky note.

  DoubleD123.

  Double D. Obviously an homage to Victoria’s rack. Ashley mimed vomiting on the keyboard.

  Theatrics aside, it was time to test her gamble.

  Holding her breath, she typed it into the password field and hit enter. A full inbox opened on the screen.

  Pay dirt! Dozens of messages to and from Victoria Van Camp and Phil Barden.

  Ashley silently punched the air in victory. She had him now.

  The drive on the phone signaled solid green. It was done, but Ashley was just getting started.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ashley huddled over her latte in the corner of the café praying that the caffeine would help her through the day. It was 6:30 a.m., and she had been up the entire night combing through Steven’s secret email account.

  The cozy coffee shop was a few blocks out of the way from home and work, so she rarely visited, but it suited her needs today.

  She spotted him before he saw her. Even dressed for a workout, Jason moved with a casual authority. Ashley had the pleasure of watching his face go from searching for her to finding her. It lit up.

  It was going to be a good day.

  Jason threaded his way through the collection of tiny tables.

  “Thanks for meeting me. I like the shorts. They’re a nice change from
suits,” she wiggled her eyebrows.

  Jason glanced down at his gym shorts and long-sleeve t-shirt. “This is how I usually dress for a pre-dawn rendezvous.”

  He sat down, and Ashley slid a black coffee across the table to him. “You don’t look like the cream and sugar type.”

  “Very astute of you, investigator.”

  Ashley grinned. “Hold your applause until the end, please.” She passed him the phone drive and a manila envelope. “I’ve got something good.”

  He smiled an easy smile, but she saw the sharpening in his eyes. “How good?”

  “I know what they’re after, who gave them the info, and what they plan to do with it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of amazing.” She leaned in and tapped the folder. “So here’s the overview. One of Steven’s college friends is a junior accountant at a firm downtown. He is doing grunt work to help one of the firm’s clients structure an acquisition. A billion-dollar tech startup. The deal is top secret and going down at the end of next month. He runs into Steven, makes a casual comment about the deal without naming names, Steven mentions it to Victoria, and Victoria latches on. ‘Get the details, find out who it is, I can use this as leverage for partnerships...’ She’s working on selling the info to a guy — don’t have his name — at a rival firm in return for cushy jobs for her and Steven.”

  Ashley leaned back in her seat, cheeks flushed with excitement. “Go ahead and read. I went to the store at 4 this morning to print copies. Almost set off that damn alarm, too, until I remembered Dax’s instructions for disarming it on my phone.”

  Jason stared at her for a minute, taking it in.

  “What? I’ve had a lot of coffee,” she shrugged in apology.

  “You’re pretty cute when you’re over-caffeinated.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Just read and tell me how brilliant I am.” She settled in and watched him. The frown line between his eyebrows deepened. He skimmed methodically, without an outward reaction. But when he put the papers down and looked at her, Ashley could see the energy.