Revenge for Hire (The Get Even Agency) (11 page)

His brow lifted. “I appreciate the sentiment, Angel, but this
is Mrs. Yamaguchi.”

He expected her brain to kick in and her to understand this was
business, not personal. Avery would. Angela would not. “I don’t care who the
little slut is. You’re my date. Back off, sister.”

Mrs. Yamaguchi’s jaw dropped. A scarlet flush crept into her
cheeks. Her dark gaze darted back and forth between Jude and Avery.

Jude appeared stunned, but only for a second. “Now, honey,
don’t go getting all jealous. Mrs. Yamaguchi is a wonderful woman, but it’s
just a dance.”

She was just doing her job. Making a scene. In her whiniest,
clingiest voice. “Seriously, you’re going to leave me so you can go dance with a
sex scion? You expect me to be okay with that?”

“Yes, honey,” his tone held warning, “I do expect you to be
okay with that. This is an esteemed business colleague.”

“You’re having sex with her, aren’t you?” Avery accused loud
enough to draw the attention of those standing near them.

“Angel, perhaps we should discuss this later, because right
now, I am going to take this beautiful lady who I am not having sex with out
onto the dance floor.”

When Avery opened her mouth to argue, he shook his head. Although
she should have burst into tears or flung herself at him in anger, anything to
draw more negative attention their way, instead, she silently watched him slide
his arm around the woman’s waist and guide her onto the dance floor.

She wasn’t going to be fine. She’d broken too many TGEA rules
and totally botched things up.

Because she was attracted to her mark. Bad. Very bad.

Determined to remain professional and keep a close eye on him,
she waited for the opportune moment to go dump her glass of wine over his dance
partner’s head-that ought to cause more waves. But she wasn’t able to keep a
close watch on him as Simon Sims swept her onto the dance floor. Which should
have made it easier to see Jude but instead only made it more difficult. Simon
was a fast dancer and kept her turned to where he could see the other dancers. Unfortunately
that meant she couldn’t.

But she had Simon’s full attention on her. She took advantage,
planted seeds of doubt about Jude the
Wonderboy
.

Simon didn’t appear to believe her. She hadn’t expected him to.
Her sole purpose was to plant those seeds so they would fester and erupt into
something ugly.

Every so often she caught a glimpse of Jude. Always, he was
smiling and charming the lady. Apparently, she was ready to forgive him for his
office faux pas.

Of course, he hadn’t wrecked the lady’s entire party yet either.

Give him time.

* * *

Jude smiled down at Mrs. Yamaguchi and ignored that his eyes
watered and throat felt scratchy. The woman’s perfume choked him and he missed
Angela.

He’d caught sight of her with Simon on the dance floor, caught Simon
sending him odd looks during that dance and afterwards. The next time he
spotted her was with one of Mrs. Yamaguchi’s product models. A man who knew way
too much about women’s “g” spots for Jude’s comfort.

The only man who’d be getting near any alphabetical part of
Angela’s anatomy would be him. Although she’d surprised him with her earlier
outburst. What had that been about? She hadn’t struck him as the possessive
type. Then again, being possessed by her appealed a great deal at the moment.

Could he take her home with him and not break his vow?

He scratched his arm through his tuxedo sleeve. Even if they
couldn’t have intercourse, there was so much they could share together. So much
he wanted to do with her.

If nothing else, he wanted to sleep with Angela in his arms and
wake up with her beside him. He hadn’t lied when he’d said he wanted to see her
first and last thing. Insane and unlike anything he’d ever known, but Jude
didn’t lie to himself. He wanted Angela badly. More than he recalled ever
wanting anything.

“You will meet my daughter. She would like to work with you on
the next ad.” Mrs. Yamaguchi went on. “You make her happy tonight and I will sign
a contract for the next year.”

Jude’s attention dropped to the petite businesswoman in his
arms. Her daughter? He rubbed at his collar. “A year?”

“A year.” The woman nodded, smugly. She knew she had him by the
gonads.

“I’d be pleased to meet your daughter, Mrs. Yamaguchi. Is she
here?”

The woman nodded, eyeing him in the suggestive way she usually
did. “Tonight is her twenty-fifth birthday. She asked for only one gift.”

He honestly wouldn’t have thought Mrs. Yamaguchi old enough to
have a twenty-five-year old daughter. Perhaps she should be in the skin care
product market, too.

He moved his head back and forth, brushing the collar of his
tuxedo against the back of his neck. “What’s that?”

“To meet you.”

He scratched his chin. “What?”

Mrs. Yamaguchi rolled her eyes. “I know. Her father and I
thought the same thing, but it is what she asked for, so…” the woman shrugged. “She
is a good girl. You will dance with her and make her smile.”

Did he have a choice?

Damn, he’d have to explain to Angela. After her earlier
reaction to him dancing with Mrs. Yamaguchi that might not be as simple as he’d
have thought.

“You might recall, but I brought a date.”

“How could I forget?” Mrs. Yamaguchi
tsked
,
her face going momentarily dour. “I’m not asking you to bring my daughter home,
Mr. Layman. Just dance with her, flirt a little, make her feel good about
herself, nothing more.”

He nodded, scratching a spot on his face.

“Ah, here she comes now,” Mrs. Yamaguchi beamed.

Jude smiled at the pretty young woman who wouldn’t meet his
eyes.

“Naomi, this is Jude Layman. He works for us.”

He didn’t bother to correct Mrs. Yamaguchi’s comment. Technically,
he guessed he did work for her in a
round about
way.

“Call me Jude.” He scratched his collarbone and stuck his hand
out.

The girl stared at it, then glanced at him. Her face screwed up
with confusion and shock. “You don’t look like I remembered.”

From the expression on her face, Jude guessed that to be a good
thing because the last thing he wanted was Mrs. Yamaguchi’s daughter having a
crush on him. She looked like just seeing him again killed the ardor.

“I’m sorry I don’t recall our having met.” He said, noticing
his words slurred a bit. He moved his tongue in his mouth and felt it swelling.
Swelling rapidly.

“As a matter of fact, you look nothing like what I remember,”
the girl said, staring at him as if he were growing a second head.

He felt as if he were. Like everything in his body were
increasing in size.

“Excuse me,” he said, but it came out indistinguishable.

He scratched his sleeve again, glanced at his hands and saw
angry red whelps.

An allergic reaction.

The only other times in his life he’d had an allergic reaction
was when he’d eaten shrimp. It caused some mild swelling and raised whelps. At
his doctor’s advice, he avoided the stuff like the plague. He thought back over
what he’d eaten tonight. No shrimp.

Unless there had been some in the pate Angela fed him.

What were the odds of someone having Benadryl? An epinephrine
pen?

Maybe the hotel concierge would. He scratched his neck and his
hands. Then his face. Hell. He had to stop the reaction. Fast.

“Are you all right?”

He wasn’t. His throat felt thick, his heart was racing, and he
was having an allergic reaction.

He opened his mouth to tell the person to find him some
Benedryl
, someone with an epinephrine pen, anything to stop
this reaction, but nothing came out except a wheeze.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1, then
sank to his knees, wheezing.

Chapter Nine

Where was Jude? Avery had lost sight of him when a model she
couldn’t seem to ditch started saying something about teaching her the ABCs.

It annoyed her that she’d gone so long without seeing Jude. Especially
after the little scene she’d made when he went off to dance with Mrs.
Yamaguchi. No doubt he wooed some woman, but where? Who? No, that wasn’t
jealousy coursing through her veins.

Her cell rang from inside her purse at the same time as she
noticed a small crowd forming on the opposite side of the ballroom.

“Hello?” she said, recognizing the number as Cassidy’s.

“Get over by the statue of that ugly horse, now! Jude’s down.”

Down? What the hell did that mean? Down? Had Mrs. Yamaguchi
whacked him for saying something inappropriate or what?
Down
?

Lifting the hem of her gown, she ran across the ballroom and
pushed her way through the crowd. She gasped when she saw Jude sitting in the
floor. His face was swollen and his eyes were almost sealed shut.

What the hell happened to him?

Tears popped into her eyes and her heart hurt, but she didn’t
have time for
examing
why. She had to get him help now.

“Somebody do something,” a lady in the crowd cried, fanning her
pudgy hand as if she were going to pass out.

“He’s having an allergic reaction,” another said.

An allergic reaction? She looked at him, realized that’s
exactly what was happening. Just as quick she recalled what she kept in her
purse just in case any of the potions TGEA divvied out ever caused a reaction.
But they hadn’t given Jude anything other than the gut bomb and too much time
had passed for him to have an anaphylactic reaction. What was he allergic to?

Avery dug in her purse and pulled out the
Epi
-pen.
With shaking hands, she popped the needle into Jude’s thigh. Within seconds the
medicine should counter-act the reaction, but she was going to take him to the
emergency room, just in case.

Making sure he would be okay was imperative.

“Help me get him outside,” she told the hefty man to her right.

“An ambulance is on the way,” someone else said.

“Fine.” She refused to give in to the weakness robbing her legs
of their ability to stand. “Let’s get him outside so they can help him quicker.”

She watched the labored rise and fall of his chest, heard the
wheeze echoing through her head, grimaced at the sight of his beat up, swollen
face.

Jude definitely looked human, vulnerable. Not like a man who
went around chewing up women’s hearts for breakfast.

Avery’s heart clenched. She’d planned for Jude to ruin Mrs.
Yamaguchi’s party. She’d certainly succeeded. So why did she feel so horrible?

* * *

Courtney checked her connections and dropped backwards off the
thirty-nine story building.

With ease, she rappelled down the side to the thirtieth floor. Outside
apartment thirty-sixteen’s window, she took a small laser device from her
backpack and shined it through the window onto the security mechanism, temporarily
short-circuiting the system with the press of a button. Next, she jimmied the
lock on the window, causing it to slide forward with ease and without making a
sound.

With the stealth of a master thief, she slipped through the
window and unhooked her d-ring, removed her backpack, peeled off her leather
jacket to reveal the white tank she wore beneath.

She pulled two long cloth strips from her backpack and curled
her fist around them.

Tip-toeing across the apartment--she knew her way around as she’d
been there once before to scope the place out--she snuck toward Aidan Mills,
private investigator extraordinaire and total sex god’s bedroom.

Outside his bedroom door, she paused. What if the king of
orgasms had someone with him?

After all, the man was sexy as hell, magnificent in bed, and
should never be allowed to sleep alone and waste all that stamina.

She leaned forward, listening. Nothing, but the even sounds of
his breathing.

Breathing that wouldn’t be even for long.

She planned to make him huff and puff and blow her house down.

She undid her boots and slipped them off. Then she shucked her
jeans. Clad only in her hip-hugger panties and the white tank, she pushed
Aidan’s bedroom door open without so much as a squeak.

Light from his bedroom window illuminated a shadowy figure in
his bed. She needed to make sure he was really alone before acting on her whim.

She tip-toed closer. Air trapped in her throat as she scanned
the bed for body outlines.

Just one. Aidan’s.

What an outline it was. Total yum with orgasms on top.

She smiled. She was glad he was alone. She’d hate to have had
to throw the witch out the window if he hadn’t been.

She’d been unable to think of anything else but the man lying
beneath the sheets since the moment she’d met him.

Which for a sworn avenger of womankind could be a pain in the
kisser.

She wasn’t supposed to have one man stuck in her head. But try
telling that to her dream machine because every time she closed her eyes this
guy’s memory took over.

And how.

Was he naked? She bet he slept nude. More room for that
beautiful body to breathe.

She wanted to know. Needed to know.

Ever careful not to wake him, she bound first one wrist, then
the other, securing them to the bedposts. Mainly, she pinned his wrists so he
wouldn’t accidentally hurt her when she woke him, but she also got off knowing
he’d be at her mercy. Aidan Mills at her mercy made her wet. Aidan Mills period
made her wet. Soaking.

Easing onto the bed, she crawled toward him on all fours. He
stirred, but didn’t fully wake.
Lightening
fast, she straddled
him and pressed a kiss to his surprised mouth.

“Wake up, Sunshine. You’re about to have a really good dream.”

“What the?” he mumbled, jerking from sleep and immediately attempting
to free his wrists. The entire bed shook. He was strong. She liked that about
him. Strong hands, yet amazingly gentle when he touched her. “What the hell is
going on?”

“You’re tied up and at my sexual mercy. I plan to do very
naughty things to you. Things so naughty when you wake you’ll know all this was
just a really good dream.”

He struggled to free himself, but not with nearly as much
effort as he had upon waking. Just enough to not look like a big sis for just
lying there.

She stretched forward and laced her fingers with his bound ones.
She grasped his hands, realized his face was strategically located between her
small breasts. Grazing every inch of her upper torso against him, she scooted
back down to where her thighs cradled his hips.

“Let me loose.”

“
Shhhh
,” she whispered against his
mouth, kissing him again, and squeezing her thighs together to hug him tight. Beneath
the sheet, something moved.

He was naked
. And hard.

“Like I said,” she continued. “You’re just having a dream.”

“A good one?” he asked, straining to lift his head from the
sheet to kiss her mouth.

“You tell me.” She kissed him, a deep
Frenchie
that had her clamoring to tear the sheet from between them.

“Seems familiar.”

“Oh?” she asked, grinding her hips against the hard ridge
beneath the sheet. She contracted her muscles, longing to feel him stretching
her. Damp heat moistened her inner thighs, moistened her panties.

“Like one I’ve been having every night for the past month.”

“You’ve been dreaming of me?” She liked that, because he’d
definitely been in her dreams, too. Dreams of the way he’d smiled at her the
night they met. The way his eyes ate her up. The way he’d propelled her to all
new heights sexually and couldn’t get enough of her. The way he’d done her hard
and fast and deep. Just the way she liked.

She’d given credit to the magic pill. She wanted to know for
sure. That’s why she’d had to see him again.

To find out if it was only the pill that made him so different
than any other man she’d ever been with. Or if it was Aidan himself and the
pill had just been an added bonus giving way to extra stamina and staying power.

Definitely he didn’t need a pill to produce the goods, because
the
stiffy
digging into her groin was impressive.

“Untie me.”

“No.”

“I want to touch you.”

She clenched her thighs around him and shifted slowly. “I want
to touch
you
.”

“Yes.”

Courtney wasn’t such a fool as to ignore an open invitation. She
pulled the sheet off his chest, bunching it where their thighs met.

She slapped his chest and raked her fingers down the smooth
expanse of magnificent male flesh. With her tongue she traced over what was
sure to be red paths from her nails. She nipped and licked and teased his chest
and abdomen until she thought the bed might collapse under the strain of his
pull against the binders.

“Untie me.”

She scooted down, pulling the sheet with her, revealing all of
his body. “We both know you like what I’m doing, so shut up and take it like a
man.”

She raised her hand.

“Don’t you hit me there!”

Courtney slapped him. There.

But not nearly as hard as she’d slapped his chest. She raked
her nails down the long smooth skin. Traced her tongue over him.

“What were you saying about not doing something?” she teased,
thrilling at the way his entire body tensed. At the way his hips lifted off the
bed and his arms flexed against their restraints.

“No.”

That got her attention. She stopped her sweet torture. “No?”

“
Untie me
.”

She kissed him, rolled a condom over him, then wiggled her way
to lie on him, belly to belly. She stared down, only making out the silhouette
of his face. “Give me one good reason why I should.”

“I want to touch you, taste you.
Untie me
.”

“You know, you’re ruining the fantasy here.” She mock sighed
while she undid the knot binding his left hand. “I planned to swoop in, ride
you hard, and leave you tied to the bed for the maid to find in the morning.”

“I don’t have a maid.”

She gave another mock sigh. “Guess I’d better untie you then.”

She tugged the knot loose. He immediately pulled his arm free
and rolled, reversing their positions and pinning her to the bed beneath his
hard, naked frame.

“How did you get in here?”

She smiled. “The same way all your other dreams get in. Now
kiss me.”

“I’m going to do a hell of a lot more than just kiss you.” He
took her mouth in a kiss meant to dominate.

“
Mmmm
, promises, promises.” She moved
beneath him, stretched her arms above her head, meaning to work the other knot
loose to free his right wrist.

“You’re going to be gone when I wake up?”

“Yes.” She stared up at him, her eyes adjusted to the low
light, but not enough that she could make out his expression. “So you better
shut up and kiss me because so far this has been a dud of a dream.”

“You’re dreaming, too?”

“Apparently not,” she complained. “If this was my dream I’d be
naked and you’d be inside me.”

Then, Courtney decided she was dreaming, because he pushed her
panties.

Oh hell, she thought with her last few functioning brain cells.

It hadn’t been the magic pill.

It had been Aiden Mills.

* * *

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Let’s get you upstairs,” Avery said,
trying to rouse the man resting against her shoulder.

After promising the doctor she’d keep an eye on Jude, she’d
called for a taxi to bring them to his apartment. Under the influence of the
medications he’d been given at the hospital, he’d fallen asleep within minutes
of their getting into the car.

 
“Wake up.” She shook him
and was awarded a groggy groan. “I’m not carrying you to your apartment which
means you’re going to have to walk, mister.”

She could carry him, but she wasn’t going to. Not in this dress.
She sent a pleading look to the taxi driver. “Can you help get him inside the
building? Just as far as the elevator, please?”

Stronger men than the fifty-
ish
year
old Arabian cabbie had tried resisting a TGEA girl and failed. When he opened
the back passenger door and helped her tug Jude from the car, Avery shot a
grateful smile.

Jude’s head bobbed forward.