DEAD SEXY Read online

Page 2


  She jerked herself back to the moment, left the stall and went to the sink. Under her eyes light lilac circles had bloomed and her mouth had grown pale below its cover of lipstick. She took a few deep breaths, pasted a pleasant smile on her face and stealthily made her way back to the elevators and to her own floor.

  Denise, her secretary, was in the front room of Jenna’s large and nicely appointed office. Her brown hair was pulled back so tightly her eyes had taken on a slant and her dress was so starched it practically stuck out in sharp angles from her stick thin body. Denise had been at the company for over forty years and she was sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued and incredibly cold.

  The two of them only spoke when necessary, Jenna always felt that she somehow failed to measure up to Denise’s standards, after all Denise had been secretary to Jenna’s predecessor as well as a few other influential men who had since retired. She never hid the fact that she doubted that Jenna would last too long in that office, and that day when Jenna came walking in Denise gave her a sharp stare that made Jenna certain she knew exactly what it was she had been up to.

  The day began and Jenna was in her usual rush. She had a conference and several other meetings all before lunch, and at lunch she had to head down to Keen’s Steakhouse in Midtown to meet a finicky client who was wavering about their loyalty to the company.

  Right as she was leaving Denise popped into her office and tossed a file at her. “I need these documents signed now, please.”

  “I’m on the way out, just leave them.”

  “They need to be couriered over this afternoon.”

  Jenna sighed and checked her watch, “I will get to them as soon as I get back, but I’m going to be late.”

  Denise planted her hands on her hips; it was her typical stance when Jenna was too busy to heed whatever it was that Denise thought was important at the moment. Sometimes Jenna wished she could just fire the damned woman but she had some kind of tenure there at the company and nobody seemed willing to let her go, even if nobody seemed willing to have her in their office, either. She was efficient, of that there was no doubt, but her personality left a lot to be desired.

  “Just leave it.”

  Denise moved to take it back but Jenna put her hand down on it. Long seconds ticked by. Jenna did not have time for this particular battle of wills and quite honestly she had no idea why she was engaging in it, usually she just went along to get along when it came to Denise.

  “I’ll take care of it when I return, please close the door behind you.” Her voice was as cold and crisp as fall cider. Denise looked shocked, and it was the first time that Jenna had ever seen anything other than her usual sour expression on her face. It might have been funny if she weren’t so frazzled.

  Denise backed out and Jenna stared down at the file. Whatever it was it would have to wait. She might have time to look at it in the cab though, she shoved it into her bag and headed out.

  By the time Jenna got back from lunch she was late for a meeting with a new client, who was not impressed by her lack of punctuality, although she managed to smooth that over, and then it was time for final reports.

  Denise had long since left, she checked out exactly at five pm, not a moment sooner or later, and the night had fallen an hour before. Jenna had her head bent to the papers on her desk so she didn’t see Blake standing inside her office doorway observing her.

  God she was beautiful, he wanted to tug the pins holding her hair neatly in place and let that beautiful fall of dark red waves cascade over her narrow shoulders. He wanted to touch the long arch of her neck, right where it met her shoulders, place a tiny kiss there and another one in the hollow of her throat, he wanted to feel her pulse against his lips and teeth.

  That disturbed him; it had been many years since a woman had had such a strong effect on him and to allow this particular woman to affect him was foolish, to say the least.

  She did not look like a career criminal, but then most career criminals didn’t—especially the good ones. She had changed her name and changed her spots, or so it would seem, but with five million plus dollars, money she had access to, missing from the company’s coffers and her record she made a good suspect.

  “You’re working late.”

  The words came across the room in a slow rich baritone. If she had been able to bite those words they would have tasted of purest honey but since they came from seemingly nowhere she screeched and sat bolt upright in her chair.

  “I’m sorry,” Blake untangled his lean body from the shadows, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Jenna’s heart knocked against the walls of her chest with a crazy rhythm that she was sure was going to send her to the emergency room. “Can I help you?” Her voice failed to convey professionalism or politeness, mostly due to the squeak that came out at the end of the words.

  “I’m Blake Lewis.” He shut the door behind him as he spoke.

  She just looked at him. So, it was all happening after all. She knew he expected her to be afraid but she had had far too much experience with cops, and telling lies, for that. He had a major effect on her, no denying it, her nipples were threatening to shred the material covering them at any second, but lust and fear were far different.

  “Why do I expect the words vampire hunter to come next?”

  She had guts, he would give her that. And humor too, a lethal combination. “I prefer to kill zombies.”

  “Too bad, all the zombies left the building right around dinner time. Stick around though; the werewolves will be scaling the walls around midnight.”

  “Yeah I am afraid of body hair; it’s a real turn off for me. I blame it all on a girl I used to date that hated to shave anything.”

  Jenna opened her mouth and found she had nothing to say to that. He was fast, and witty. Not to mention dead sexy. His hip was leaned against her doorframe and his booted feet were crossed, the bulge in his jeans was accented and she looked at it then away then back again. Her face burned and she directed her gaze at his face but that was no help, he was almost inhumanly handsome.

  “Maybe you should have taken her in for a waxing. Is there something I can help you with? I’m in the midst of something here.”

  She had somehow managed to obtain that crispness she had aimed for earlier. Blake let his eyes wander over her upper body, she had removed the jacket and her breasts were small but rounded under her red blouse, he could see the erect cap of her nipple and the tautness of her waist but then the desk cut off his view.

  He said, “I need to ask you a few questions,” and walked around the desk.

  Jenna was too surprised to protest. Blake sat on the corner of her desk, one denim cover butt cheek obscuring part of the file she had been working on. “Do you know anything about the Heinelen or Michener accounts?”

  “I do.”

  “You want to tell me about that?” His blue eyes were like searchlights in the fog, she could feel them probing into her very soul.

  “I’m sorry, that’s company business and as such it is subject to privacy laws…”

  “Care to tell me who is skimming off the tops of those accounts?”

  He had hoped to hit her with a question that would shake her but she was not at all shaken, or if she were she didn’t show it. She didn’t even seem surprised by the question.

  “I have no idea. Now if you don’t mind, you’re wrinkling my pages.”

  Cool, she was certainly cool. He decided to risk it all and said, “Tell me how a felon with a record as long as my left arm winds up here.”

  “I don’t know, perhaps you should ask a felon.”

  Jenna stared him down and she appeared completely calm on the surface but below that she was a churning mess of emotions and thoughts. If he didn’t know who she was there was no reason to tell him, if he did know he would draw his own conclusions anyway, there was no sense in helping him decide.

  “Kendall Myers, does that name ring a bell?”

  “Should it?”

  Da
mn, she was good. She sat back in her chair and the blouse relaxed slightly, hiding those hardened buds. Her face was inscrutable and she didn’t even lift a finger or move a muscle. Her body language was relaxed and at ease. If he had been someone less knowledgeable he would have wondered if he had made a mistake.

  He had not made a mistake though. The woman sitting in front of him was a sham; she was a carefully constructed façade. Jenna Holt was a college educated women who hailed from the resort town of Branson Missouri, her high school grades were high and she listed two sports on her college applications.

  That was not a lie, per se. She had graduated from high school in Branson and she had played two sports—but her high school had been a juvenile detention facility. Her parents had been in prison off and on most of her life and when they were not in jail they, and their respective families, were busy creating crime.

  They perpetrated everything from armed robberies to the manufacture of methamphetamines. They stole from department stores and banks, ran scams that saw many a person bilked out of their last dollars. Kendall had grown up on the lam and on the run—living with a succession of family members and criminal acquaintances and accomplices all up and down the West Coast and in parts of the Midwest.

  Kendall’s career had been almost as grand as her parents. At nine she was running a scam on the streets of San Diego, posing as a lost child who would then steal the money from the pockets or purses of those who tried to aid her. When she had been caught she had attacked the officer, biting him so severely that he had still a nasty little scar on his wrist.

  The following year she was arrested in Oregon for stealing a thousand bucks worth of steaks and other meats from a grocery store. It was not the first time she had done it, but it was the first time anyone had snapped out of their bemusement and stopped her.

  The small, pale child pushing a heavily laden cart out the front doors as nonchalantly as if she had paid for the groceries must have been quite the sight, Blake thought, just as her next scheme—running a craps game behind a local convenience store, must have been.

  Blake had seen the pictures of her as a child and preteen and she had certainly looked frail, but she was smart and strong and eluded police for almost two years that time, making a small fortune in illegal bets before getting caught one night after a pissed off player had decided to try to rough her up in order to recoup his losses. She had not only gone to jail on charges of illegal gambling but aggravated assault. That guy had deserved everything she had dished out and jury might have agreed if she had hung around long enough to tell her story, instead she made bail and her family headed out.

  By the time she had been arrested in Branson she had a string of warrants. She had helped her parents commit more crimes than anyone would likely ever know and so when she had gotten the chance to have her record sealed and her name changed she had done so, and quickly.

  Jenna/Kendall was twenty eight. She had just beaten the Internet craze and search engines, her name change would have slipped past most. Blake Lewis was not most though, he knew a patchy and slim school record meant something and he had checked it out to find out all that he had about her.

  He had been fascinated by her, in truth, spending the whole day uncovering her past. He knew she had gotten straight A’s in college, that she had never once written her father, who was doing a twenty year stretch, or her mother—who had gotten married and currently lived in a trailer park in Florida. Her brother had died in a drug deal gone wrong and most of her cousins were either in rehab, dead or incarcerated.

  A part of Blake wanted to believe that Jenna had gone straight, that she had seen the light but another larger part of him doubted that any criminal ever really did. “I know who you are. I have not told your boss, yet, because until I find evidence that there is a reason to do so, there is not a reason to do so.”

  “Are you attempting to blackmail me?” Her voice was brittle. “Forget it. I can get by on my own merits. Tell them what you want.”

  It was risky, and gutsy as hell. He admired her even as his suspicions hit the higher waters. She was too silent, too fast on the draw and he knew she was sizing him up, trying to figure out the best angle to play. “I’m not doing anything except my job.”

  “Good, why don’t you go do that and leave me alone so I can do mine.”

  It would have worked, he would have believed she was absolutely emotionless if her fingers had not trembled slightly as she reached for the Mark Cross pen on her desk. “I’m not trying to stop you from doing your job. I just need to know what part of these accounts you manage so that I can determine if you broke the law.”

  Jenna laughed, a harsh jagged little laugh that cut him to the core, “Listen, I know what you think. If you read my files, you think the worst. I am okay with that. What I am not okay with is you barging in here and making thinly veiled accusations against me then asking me to do your job. I am sure you get paid well, do your own fucking work, Mister Lewis. Ask anyone who deals with those accounts what part anyone else plays in them why don’t you? Earn your money the hard way; that is what I do.”

  She was innocent, or so he wanted to believe. He cursed himself for that foolishness. He wanted to believe she was innocent because she was drop dead beautiful and she had given him an erection simply by leaning back in her chair long enough to draw her blouse tight over her breasts.

  She stood and came around her desk and his eyes dropped to her legs. Those damn stockings—they moved against her legs, and they looked so silky, as silky as the skin below it. She drew closer and he could smell her perfume and a subtle whiff of something else, something primitive and sexual.

  Jenna was too angry and frightened to think about what she was doing. Blake stood right in front of her desk and she positioned herself between him and it, her emotions overriding her common sense. She jabbed a finger into his hard chest and snarled, “I want you…”

  Out of here, was what she meant to say but she never got those words out of her mouth. His lips were too close to hers, she could smell his cologne, feel his body heat and that same rush of desire that had washed over her earlier was back, making her thoughts jumble and her body react instinctively.

  The kiss was fierce and hot, their mouths fused together and their tongues twisted into each other’s mouths. Blake tasted of peppermints and coffee and Jenna thought she had never known such an intoxicating flavor. His cheek scratched her face lightly as the shadow on his jaw met her skin. That turned her on even more and she pressed against him, her breasts flattening as she arched her back and raised her hips just slightly in a silent plea.

  Blake knew this was wrong. She was a suspect, like it or not, and probably guilty despite everything he wished to the contrary. Her mouth was wet and willing and her body fit against his like she had been made to be there. He was six foot three and in her heels her head came exactly to his shoulder.

  He could not resist those stockings any longer. His hands ran down her back, pressing into the column of her spine. The hard knobs there flexed and rose against his fingers and when he cupped her bottom she sighed, a low soft sigh that inflamed him to the point of no return.

  His cock pushed into her lower belly, his hands ran under her skirt. It bunched and slid upward to her waist to reveal black panties that were tacky with her juices and the lacy tops of her stockings. He grabbed one and snapped it against her slim thigh, making her yelp.

  “I love these stockings,” he got out before giving her another searing kiss.

  Jenna could feel everything melting away. Her reason was gone, her inhibitions vanished and all she could do was hold on and kiss him back with everything she said. His hands moved farther up, stroking the edges of her panties in an unconscious imitation of the very way she had stroked herself earlier.

  Jenna closed her eyes, whimpering as he bent her backward over her own desk, her legs came up off the floor, her feet flailing in the air as the flimsy panties tore and fell away to the floor. Blake wanted to see
her totally naked, wanted her hair down and her body spread out before him but all he had was that moment and he knew it.

  Her hand came out, fumbled at his zipper and she got it down. His cock sprang out and filled her palm, she squeezed him and he gasped, his hips jerking forward and thin drips of pre-come sliding down onto his blood engorged head.

  Jenna felt that telltale oil and she smiled, so he wanted her as much as she wanted him, good. His staff throbbed as she fisted it and pumped up and down a few times. His fingers slid inside of her walls and she shuddered, coming perilously close to climaxing.

  Jenna’s hands worked faster and faster. His hot flesh swelled even further and she began to moan in desperation, she wanted him inside of her. He moved closer, his cock nudged at her labia and she relaxed into the desk, letting her body fall all the way back and her hands grow still.

  He used his fingers to hold her labia open and then he entered her, just a bare inch, just enough to make her want, need, him even more. He thrust hard, filling her. Jenna cried out, his heavy, long cock was bigger than she was used to and it had been too long since she had been with a man, work had been her only lover for the last few years.

  An immediate soreness set in, a slight burning on the edges of her pussy but she did not care, all she cared about was the way he pushed inside of her, the delicious friction when he withdrew and the way his balls slapped against her spread ass cheeks.

  His hands kneaded her breasts through her blouse and bra, she wanted to rip those things off, let his teeth and tongue touch her there. Her orgasm drew closer and closer, his breath washed over her face as he leaned over, putting his hands on her desk and bracing himself.

  Slick juices ran down her ass crack and Jenna wriggled, her need growing with every movement. “Please,” she cried out, “Let me come!”

  Blake rubbed her clit, circling it with his fingers as he drove harder into her. Jenna’s heels banged into the desk’s front and the heel of her shoe broke off as she strained upward one last time, her heels digging deep, and an orgasm so powerful it left her shaking all over carooming through her.