Temporary Spy Read online

  “And knock them down,” she reminded him.

  “I’ve done some of that, too. Rat and cockroach infested hovels. People forget what they were really like. They talk about communities and space to live when they had nine or ten to a two-bedroomed house.”

  “Same old Finn.” She nuzzled closer to his heat, unable to stop herself. He drew her like a magnet. He always had.

  “So you’re working for Sweet Investigations now?”

  She nodded. “I own Sweet Investigations.”

  He frowned. “It’s a big set-up.”

  She smiled at him. “It is now. I inherited it from my uncle. I could never work out why he chose me, but he said in his will that I was most competent to run it, and I needed a push. True enough, after Rod.”

  “Rod Robertson.” His mouth firmed. “He hurt you, didn’t he? Is that why you don’t trust anyone else to take care of you?”

  Right to the heart of the matter. She had other reasons, too, but Rod had been one of the most important at the time. “Yes, he did. He hit me. A lot.” She ignored his low growl. “And he tried to get me pregnant, to keep me with him.” She’d never told Finn that bit. It hurt too much, even now. “I thought I was safe to carry on using the name. I was tired when I left him, I just wanted to rest and think. Robertson’s a common enough name, and I thought that if I moved to London he’d never find me. I started again. That’s when I met you.” She gazed at him, and, despite her resolve to stay firm, focussed, the sight nearly overwhelmed her. After I left you, Uncle Pete left me the agency. His share of it, anyway. His partner had left his share to his daughter, years before.”

  “So you changed your name back?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want any reminder of Rod anymore.” She didn’t want any more references to her ex-husband. Very much ex, now, and well in her past. But she’d gladly tell him about the agency. “Uncle Pete had concentrated on divorce work. But business was declining, with the modern divorce law. You don’t have to prove anything anymore. So we tried something else.”

  “Industrial espionage.”

  She thumped his chest and he yelped. “Ouch! Okay, investigating industrial espionage. That better?”

  “Much.”

  “So how many employees do you have?”

  “Twenty-three. There’s a lot of paranoia about. And some serious cases.”

  He stroked down her body, curved up to her breast and grazed the tip. She bit her lip when he pinched then stroked again, startled by the intensity of the sensation. “With all those employees, I’m surprised you have the time to do investigations yourself.” He paused from his contemplation of her breast and lifted his head to meet her eyes. “Is it dangerous?”

  “No, not usually. It’s a lot like the old divorce work. Go in, make a low-key investigation and provide a report. That’s all. The employer has the proof and they can take it from there.”

  “So it is dangerous. Don’t any of the people you catch come back to find you?”

  She paused, a telling moment. She found it so hard to lie to him. The best she could do was avoid telling him all the truth, about the reality of her business and about all the reasons why she’d walked out on him three years earlier. She sighed. “Sometimes. But we have good contacts in the Met. We don’t take chances. If anyone threatens us, we get in touch with the police. And my partner’s a big bad mother.”

  His hold on her tightened. “A partner? What kind of partner?”

  “Like your PA kind of partner?” Was there any truth in Joy’s innuendo? Did Finn have a fuck buddy? He said he had given up looking for a permanent partner, but that didn’t stop him having some fun if he wanted it.

  “I hope so.”

  When she tried to push away, he laughed and hauled her closer. “I mean it. Except that I hope your partner doesn’t hit on you like Joy does on me.”

  “She hits on you? What about Rome?” Too late to stop herself, she glanced over his shoulder to where her neatly printed letters lay crumpled and scattered on the floor near the door. “You only booked a one-bedroom suite.”

  “I bet she made sure you saw that.” He chuckled. “I’m a catch, apparently. I found out what she’d done when the hotel rang to confirm the booking. They couldn’t give me another room for Joy, so I decided to do without her.”

  Beth lifted up on to one elbow and gazed around the office, putting on an exaggerated expression of amazement, widening her eyes, letting her mouth fall open in mock astonishment. “You think you’re a catch or something?”

  Windows lined two walls of the office, with a panoramic view over the City of London, the Tower just visible in the background. The Thames spread its grey waters in the foreground, serenely going about its business. That view wasn’t a cheap one. Beth didn’t know of any office around here that charged less than an arm and a leg for rent. And she happened to know that Finlay’s family owned this one. The office itself, spacious and gracious, oozed taste, class and the discrete expenditure of a fuck-load of money. From the polished mahogany partner’s desk to the cushy black leather chair behind it, nothing she saw could be bought at a discount store. Especially the man she lay with now. They didn’t make them by the dozen.

  His chuckle made her look down at him. He lifted his hand and traced the shape of her nose with his forefinger. “And yet you walked away from it all.” With her breasts nuzzling his chest, he was looking at her face? What a gentleman.

  “I did. It was never about money.”

  “I know.” His voice softened. “But you didn’t have a lot, either, did you?”

  “Enough.” Sometimes not enough, but there was no reason for him to know that. “Sure I loved the lifestyle, but you were working so hard, Finn, I never saw it as a substitute for having you.”

  He bit his lip. “I still work hard, but now you’re back—”

  She touched his lips with one finger, quietening him. “I’m not. Not properly. We can’t just take up where we left off.”

  His mouth firmed into a thin line. “I hope not. But I’m not letting you go. Not this time.”

  “Yes, you are, because I know what will make you.”

  He nipped her finger, making her pull it away with a startled yelp. “And what’s that?”

  “If I ask you to. You won’t chase me or corner me. I know that.”

  “What makes you so sure? Can’t you tell how much I still want you?” Under her thigh, his cock twitched. “I don’t grab every woman who walks into this office, slam her against the door and fuck her blind.”

  She arched a brow. “Really? That’s not the usual way you act in the office?”

  “Never. Never before, anyway.”

  She warmed to the idea of being the exception.

  A knock came on the door, but nobody entered. When Beth would have moved, he held her down, mouthing, “No.” Lifting his head, he called out, “You can go home, Joy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Her muffled response sounded smug. “Will you lock up the office?”

  “Yes, no problem.”

  “Just you and me tomorrow?”

  He kept silent, then she moved away.

  When she thought she was safe again, Beth told him, “She said to knock and go straight in. She said you preferred it that way.”

  He gave a hollow laugh. “I hate it. When I’m designing, I want silence and a long period of concentration. I often call to her like that. Recently it’s been for another reason. Which you’ve already noticed.” He hugged her close. “Do we have to talk about her? It’s not what I’ve got on my mind right now.”

  With his cock burning like a brand against her skin, she didn’t need him to tell her that. With a smile, she lifted her hips and settled against him, enclosing his cock in the warmth and heat of her pussy. But not inside, not yet. He jerked and groaned. “Shit, woman, do you want to kill me? We need protection.”

  “No, we don’t.” Her smile lost a little of its intensity, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I’m safe, clean and I c
an’t get pregnant.”

  “You’re on the pill?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “I had my annual check-up a couple of weeks ago, and I’m fine.” She would have sunk down on him, but he caught her chin and stared into her eyes. “I’ve never done it bareback with anyone but you.”

  She swallowed. She didn’t want to think about what that meant.

  Finn gazed into her lovely blue eyes as she enclosed his cock with her lovely pussy. Everything about her was lovely, always had been, always would be. Her breasts, hanging like pure temptation not far from his mouth, touching his chest as she took him into her. Her lips, lush morsels, slightly open. He loved the anticipation, the decision of what he’d do next—kiss her lips, caress her breasts, both or neither, concentrating on the spot on her neck that he knew drove her wild.

  Then he lost his mind as his cock shifted inside her. Without that thin layer of latex, he could feel her better, the way her juices oozed around his cock, bathing it, seeping over his balls to coat them in her essence. As if she was claiming him. He gripped her hips, watched her close her eyes momentarily. She was feeling it too, the closeness, the pure bliss of having her again, so unexpectedly. The last thing on his mind when the temp, the person he’d employed to spy on his PA, had entered his office.

  Had she planned this?

  He pushed at her shoulders, urging her to sit up, to lean against his upraised knees. She lifted, shoved her pelvis down, took him, and oh, how she took him! His hard dick sinking into her lush, soft, wet body felt like nobody else ever had or ever would.

  His gaze went to where they joined, the meshing of their pubic hair, the glimpse of wet, pink flesh teasing him every time she moved. When she lifted up further, he saw his cock entering her, and the way her body responded to his, enclosing him, so welcoming. And he could see her juices increase with every stroke. Bracing his body against the couch, he held steady for her, thrust up to meet her downward strokes.

  And he groaned. He wanted more, for both of them. He reached down, found her clit, the hard little nub pressing against the pad of his thumb. Her turn to groan. When he captured her clit between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing and pressing, pulling gently in counterpoint, she cried out, and her hands, resting on his hips, tightened. He hoped she’d leave bruises. Not that he was into rough play, just that he wanted her to leave her mark. Like the tattoo he’d had in his wilder days, the little skull on his right buttock, done for a dare. It had hurt like hell, but it felt part of him now. As she did. If she left thumbprints, he’d have them tattooed in. A permanent reminder.

  She was plunging down now, making contact with his balls with every stroke. A jockey on the last straight of the Grand National couldn’t have worked any harder, pressed as fast for the finishing line. Little cries punctuated her movements, increasing when he pinched and pulled at her clit, careful to be gentle, because that supersensitive knot of flesh should be cherished and coaxed into life. He wanted her to come, but only when he did, a mutual explosion of ecstasy.

  By watching her eyes dilate, he could tell how aroused she was, and he fought to contain his climax. Desperation set in as his balls hardened and his cock stiffened within her. Heat suffused him, and he bit his lip in an effort to stop, but he wouldn’t stop working her, wouldn’t stop fucking her until she folded.

  Something caught, but as he succumbed to the waves of fulfilment crashing through every part of his body, she cried his name and he felt the first contractions of her orgasm.

  She screamed and he growled, releasing her clit to grip her hips and slam her body down on his so he could feel every wave, every tight clenching of her cunt around him. He wasn’t sure what he cried, except that part of it was her name.

  She collapsed on to his body, and he held her tight, murmured her name and kissed her, making it long and loving, tasting her as she sampled him, running his tongue around her mouth, tickling the roof of her mouth with his tongue, sucking her in.

  When she tried to move away, he held her close; and remembered that as the sweat on her body chilled she tended to snuggle under the covers. Without moving her, he reached under the bed and snagged the box on wheels that held the soft blanket he kept there for when he napped in the office. He’d slept all night on this sofa before now.

  Her chuckle told her she’d seen it, and her sigh of contentment when he laid the blanket over them told him he’d done right. She settled, kissed his chest, murmured something.

  “Do you need the bathroom?” he asked.

  “Not right now.”

  “Then rest. Sleep if you want to.”

  In another moment, he felt her breath, warm against his chest, deepen and become more regular. She’d taken his suggestion. She had always slept after sex.

  Home. He was home. But not home free, not yet.

  He was still getting over the way she’d strolled into his office. As if she’d never been away, as if she hadn’t disappeared so completely. After he’d discovered her absence, he’d torn London apart looking for her, but he hadn’t been able to find her. She’d moved out of her flat without leaving a forwarding address, and any effort to trace her employment history had been foiled. No wonder, if she’d taken over her uncle’s business. He hadn’t known about that, or he’d have done something, anything to get her back.

  Beth was the one that got away. Well, now she was back, and he wouldn’t let her disappear like that again.

  She’d come back of her own accord and he didn’t know why, not really. Closure? Maybe her conscience had overcome her good sense, or perhaps she wanted him again and wondered if he’d moved on.

  After three years she must have realised he hadn’t found her, and nor would he have been likely to if she had taken care to keep their paths separate. She could have kept tabs on him. He appeared in the media with tedious regularity. The need to promote his architectural practice and his high profile in London society had made that inevitable. And he hadn’t changed his name, hadn’t changed his profession and his address. But he’d waited. Then he’d got angry and had sworn revenge on the one woman who’d walked away. He had given up, decided she hadn’t been worth it, only to change his mind when he’d tried a couple of other women.

  He still remembered the night he’d realised nobody would replace her. There had been nothing wrong with the women he’d dated. Good company, good in bed, and after he’d stopped trying to look for the same all-encompassing relationship he’d thought he’d shared with Beth, almost relaxing. But they hadn’t been Beth. They hadn’t reached the place inside that she’d effortlessly touched every time she’d looked at him and smiled. He didn’t even know if she realised how deeply she’d affected him. He wasn’t sure, now. But he’d asked her to marry him and she’d refused him, she’d disappeared. Just went. She hadn’t given him an answer, hadn’t appeared upset, she just—went.

  Or so it had seemed to him. At first, terrified she’d met with an accident, he’d contacted every hospital in the Greater London area, then widened his search until it became obvious he couldn’t spend all his time doing that. The business had needed his attention. His first big commission had just been unveiled, and it was so radically different that it had attracted a lot of criticism. But he’d designed the building for its purpose and he’d reaped the reward, when, after a year, it started winning big awards and garnering just the attention he’d hoped for. That was why, before he’d met Beth, he’d deliberately courted a high profile, taken out a lot of women in the public eye, pop stars, socialites and models, and gained his reputation, not entirely unearned, of man-about-town.

  Until he’d met Beth. He still didn’t know what made her so different, why he craved her touch, her presence, but this time he’d learned. They’d been friends first, but then Finn always preferred to be friends with the women he fucked and hoped to remain that way afterwards. Yet they’d moved closer, faster and they’d connected at a deep level before he’d persuaded her into bed.

  He smiled wryly into the growing darkness. N
ot that they’d got that far the first time. Door sex worked for them, normally. He glanced at the door of his office. He’d been in such a hurry to have Beth, he hadn’t locked it. Joy could have come in and caught them tearing each other’s clothes off. And he hadn’t engaged the device that made the windows one-way instead of two-way, either. The remote was on his desk, too far away for him to bother with right now. His arms were far better occupied, holding the woman he’d dreamed of for so long. He’d even fantasised about sex with her when he’d slept with the last woman. Shit, he couldn’t even remember who she was without an effort. That was bad, and that was when he’d decided to stop disrespecting them, and himself, for that matter.

  Nestling his cheek against the top of Beth’s head, he held her close. For sure he’d find out what it was about her that made her so irresistible, so different to any other woman he’d ever known.

  Chapter Three

  Beth roused when he lifted her. How he’d managed to sit upright without waking her, she wasn’t sure, but he’d managed it. She murmured his name and snuggled against his chest. “Wonderful though that feels,” he said, “I think we should move this to a new venue, so I need you to put some clothes on.”

  She blinked and became fully awake, emotions washing over her in rapid succession. How could she have done this, and how could she not have done it? Until she’d seen him she hadn’t realised how much she’d missed him and how much she wanted him still. It hurt that, the minute he’d come for her, she’d fallen into his arms like a ripe peach. The fact that he’d fallen into hers hadn’t escaped her either. And she’d come close to telling him he never had to worry about contraception. Oh shit, she probably had. So off guard. His scent had done it to her. The minute she’d smelt the blended aromas of Boss and aroused male, this male, she’d been a goner.

  Shame, shock, triumph, and a numb sense of the inevitable warred for control and eventually postponing it all won. Because it was dark. The lights of London illuminated the office, sparkling over the water and glinting off the myriad panes of glass in this part of the city.