Uncovered (22 page)

I ran what he just said
through my head and forced myself to breathe. “You have everything you wanted
from me, so what are you going to do now?” I gripped my hands in the black
fabric of his jacket. “Are you going to tell Margaret before I get the chance
to finish what I started?”

“I’ve felt things for you
that no other woman has ever made me feel. I’ve wanted things from you I’ve
never wanted from another person. I’m pissed, but don’t think for a second I’m
going to turn my back on you and feed you to the wolves.”

“Then, what are—”

Covering my mouth with his,
he molded me against him. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said between hot kisses.
“I’m going to be selfish and kiss you because it’s the only goddamn thing that
makes sense to me right now.”

Dizzy when he drew away, I
dragged him back to me. “Touch me,” I said. Because I didn’t know what would
happen between us tomorrow or the next day. I didn’t know if I’d ever get the
chance to feel him like this again.

“Here?” he rasped against my
throat, and I nodded.

I shivered as his hands
skimmed my hips, arching my back when his fingers found the hem of my dress.
Burrowing his face to my neck, he inhaled my scent—the perfume that drove him
crazy.

He shoved the blue and white
dress up around my mid-section. “I can’t say no to you.”

“Don’t. Just … touch me.”

He leaned me against the desk
and dipped his fingers beneath the lace of my panties. Dragging them down
slowly, he stopped a few times to kiss the insides of my thighs and various
spots on my legs. On his knees in front of me, he touched his mouth to my
hipbones, and I sucked in a harsh gasp.

“Ticklish, Gemma?” he asked,
and all I could do was nod.

He’d called me Gemma.

Still holding my breath, I
reached out to grasp his hair, but he grabbed my hand. Kissing the inside of my
wrist, he ripped my glove off and then did the same with the other hand,
stuffing both gloves deep in his pockets.

“Now,” he rasped and parted
my legs to tongue my clit. When I whimpered, he lazily finished, “
Now
you can touch me however you want, beautiful.”

Sifting my fingers through
the soft brown locks, I tugged until he came to his feet and took possession of
my mouth greedily. Our hands were all over the place, and a few seconds after I
heard his zipper open, he picked me up.

“How do you want me?” I
whispered.

He rubbed the head of his
erection against my pussy and licked the corners of my mouth. “Slowly,” he
drawled, and I tightened my legs around his waist.

“Slowly?” I panted.

“You heard me the first time,
Gemma.” He eased himself inside me just a fraction before giving me a sexy
grin. “Very,
very
slowly.”

For what seemed like an
eternity, he teased me like this, gradually entering my sex—drawing the moment
out until it was agonizing. Finally, I let out a frustrated noise and bucked my
hips until his cock filled me.

I sighed with pleasure, and
he chuckled into the crook of my neck. “I love your impatience. Love the way—”

I brought his lips to mine to
silence him.

Then, with the noise of the
party that was taking place in the courtyard fading into the background, and
the sound of him breathing me in, he kept his word, taking me slowly. And I
realized just how hard I had fallen for Oliver Manning.

*

My tryst with Oliver was still in the
front of my mind during work the following day, but if I expected my stepmother
to mention the dance her son and I had shared in her courtyard, she surprised
me by giving me my usual lists of tasks before waving me off.

She’d done a complete
one-eighty overnight, and it played with my head almost as much as everything
else she was up to.

Focusing on Margaret’s sudden
lack of interest as I drove home from work, I was still deep in thought when I
entered my apartment building, so I didn’t realize someone was waiting by my
door until I nearly ran over him.

“You’re all over the place,
Gem,” a familiar male voice teased, and I stared up in relief at Linc
Connelly’s out-of-control beard and wide smile. “Pen told you I was coming this
weekend, didn’t she?”

“She did, but I didn’t
realize you were already here.” Still, I was ecstatic to see him. With Oliver’s
promise to keep my identity to himself and Linc being in town, I was hopeful
for the first time in days. “You don’t know how relieved I am to see you.”

He leaned his shoulder to the
wall. “Apparently my sister isn’t as enthusiastic about me being in Los
Angeles. She was supposed to be here when I showed up, but she’s not answering
her texts. Good thing I stuck around a few minutes—I’m exhausted.”

Thinking about all the
legwork Pen had done for me the last several weeks, I bit the inside of my lip.
“She’s been busy,” I explained as I jiggled my key in the lock. “Stop giving
her such a hard time.”

“I’ll stop giving her a hard
time when she does the same for me.”

Opening the apartment door, I
gave Linc a dark look as I motioned him inside. I kicked off my heels and
gestured toward the living room. “Make yourself at home. When Pen comes in …
there are a few things we need to talk about.”

I started to leave the foyer,
but he grabbed my arm. “Is everything okay?” Before I could say anything, his
phone buzzed, and he lifted a finger. “Hold that thought.”

“Five bucks it’s Pen,” I
laughed nervously.

A second later, he wiggled
the screen close to my face. “Speak of the devil.” Scanning the message
quickly, he snorted. “She said she’s doing some work, but she’ll be here
shortly.”

“Like I said, Pen’s been
busy.”

“Hacking,” he said with a
smirk, and I scowled. “Don’t even deny it, Gem, because we both know it’s true.
If she doesn’t pull it together soon, she’s going to be stuck in a loop for the
rest of her life.”

Jabbing my tongue in my
cheek, I prepared to defend my brilliant friend, but the shiver moving down my
spine stopped me. “What did you just say to me?” I asked, my voice hushed.

“I said that if she doesn’t
pull it together soon, she’s going to be stuck in a loop for the rest of her
life,” he repeated, and as I listened to him, I heard a similar statement in
the back of my mind.

“Unless you want to be
stuck in the loop you’re in for the rest of your life. Your body will only get
you so far.”

My mouth dropped open, and
red spots pranced in front of my vision.

When they faded, I stared up
at the man who’d come into my life, bringing my best friend and a sense of
family after I lost mine. I took in the short dark hair and green eyes that
belonged to a person who’d been like a brother to me. And when those green eyes
widened, and the emotions reflected in them went from surprise to recognition
to shame, I knew I was staring at the person who’d encouraged me to turn my
life upside down.

Before I realized what I was
doing, I heard a sharp echo through the silent apartment as my hand flew across
his face.

Reeling
back from my blow, Linc clutched the side of his face, his forehead wrinkled in
an angry scowl. Like
he
should be angry. “What the fuck was that for,
Gemma?” he demanded, and my nostrils flared.

“You know exactly what it was for! I
know
what you did.” Clenching and unclenching my hand to shake out the pain
throbbing through it, I took a few steps backward, glowering at Linc until it
felt like acid clung to my lashes. He didn’t move an inch. He just stared back
at me, his expression crestfallen as he scuffed the soles of his Vans against
my foyer floor. “What you just said about Pen is the exact wording you used the
night you called me six months ago.”

“Calm down and—”

“Don’t tell me to keep calm! Don’t you
dare tell me a damn thing other than what your real reason for calling me was.”

The veins in his neck straining against
his skin, he lowered his face, offering me a better view of the bright red
handprint on the left side of his cheek. I was glad I put it there. It matched
the smack in the face that was dealt to me when I figured out he was the person
whose call had started all this.

“You disguised your voice. You tricked
me.” Clearing my throat, I added, “And please don’t say it was for my own good.
If that were the case, you would have come right to me.”

“I can explain everything,” he said
roughly, stalking toward me. He hooked his hand under my arm and pulled me
toward the couch, fending off my angry shoves the entire time. “Let me
explain!”

Nausea gripped me. Turning away from him,
I slammed down, holding my fist to my mouth as he paced the narrow space
between where I sat and the coffee table. I counted his steps. Listened to his
growls of frustration. But I wasn’t ready to meet his eyes, not yet.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,”
he told me at last.

“How the hell did you want me to figure
it out, then? Does Pen know?” I wanted to believe my best friend hadn’t been
involved with this, but I’d reached the point where nothing surprised me.

“Of course she doesn’t know!” He let out
a flustered curse. “I figured you’d come to me when you found what that woman
was hiding. Dammit, Gemma, I thought you’d ask for
my
help.”

“When you called, did you really think
Margaret had screwed me over? Or were you making a wild guess.”

“I knew it was a possibility. But I knew
for sure there was something going on at that company. ”

The emptiness in the laugh shoving up
from my throat scared me. “Congrats, then. You called one right.” Abruptly,
another thought hit me, and I jumped off the couch, planting my feet apart.
“That call came from Emerson & Taylor. How the hell did you manage to make
that one happen?”

“I had a—” His green eyes plunged to the
floor between our feet, and I tapped my bare toes impatiently on the laminate.
“I had a source who worked at the company.”

“A source?” I snorted. “And why couldn’t
that person get you what you needed? When you weren’t one hundred percent
positive any of this pertained to me, why didn’t you use your source to dig for
information?”

“When that person couldn’t get things
taken care of like I needed, I thought of you.”

I scoured my brain, thinking of everyone
I’d met so far who might have helped Linc. When I stared up at him pleadingly,
my arms outstretched, he sank down on the ottoman and shielded his eyes with
his hand.

“Stella Marchand.”

“Stella?” I wheezed. The woman who’d been
my friend. The woman who’d taken me out for drinks, who had met me for lunch
numerous times. “The next thing you’re going to tell me is that Oliver Manning
is your new partner, right?”

It wouldn’t shock me.

“I can’t go into details about Stella,
but I can tell you she didn’t want to hurt you. I take full responsibility for
what I did to you, but I knew you and my sister would wiggle your way in and
figure out what I kept missing. I really hoped you’d find answers for yourself,
Gemma.”

“That’s disgusting,” I hissed. “That you
would use Pen and me to do your job.” Biting the inside of my cheek until I
tasted blood, I stepped around him and grabbed my phone from my purse.

“What are you doing?”

I turned my back to him, focusing on the
green light on my cable box as I waited for Pen to pick up. When she answered
on the second ring, her voice cheery, I immediately interrupted. “You should
come home.”

“Nothing’s wrong, is there?”

“Your brother is here,” I said, “And he
knows
everything
.”

She sucked in a breath. “God, Gemma! You
told him?”

“He knew all along.” I tossed a furious
stare over my shoulder at Linc, who was still on my ottoman looking like
he
was just deceived. “Just get here so you can ask him yourself.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Linc said
quietly when I hung up.

“Did you expect me to keep it from her?”
Tossing my phone onto the couch, I scrubbed my hands over my face, wishing this
were just a nightmare I’d swiftly awaken from. When I dropped my arms to my
sides, though, Linc was still there.

And I was still livid.

“What do you need from me?” I asked.

“What?”

I paced from the armchair to the ottoman,
letting my head fall back so my eyes faced the ceiling. “You sent me here to
dig around in Margaret’s life, so what is it you want to know? I can give you
plenty. Do you want to start with how she forged my father’s will? Or how she’s
been skimming money from the company and charities for the last fourteen years?
Or—”

“I already know all that. I’ve—” He
paused and curled his lip guiltily. “There are surveillance microphones in
here. I put them in last month.”

Recoiling, I bit the tip of my tongue. I
wanted him out of my apartment. And the quickest way to do that would be to get
him to come out with exactly what he required from me—how much longer he needed
me to be his puppet.

“Tell me what you want me to do.”

Clearing his throat, he looked me up and
down. “I want you to get a confession from Margaret.”

“Is this a confession about what she did
to me?”

“No, but it’s a start. We’ll get
everything else out of her once we have her in custody.”

“When this is done, we’re through,” I
said, starting toward my bedroom. “And get your fucking surveillance
microphones out of my house.”

*

When
my phone rang an hour later, and I saw it was Oliver, I slipped into my shoes
and grabbed my purse. Pen and Linc’s argument had reached the point where I was
sure the neighbors were calling our landlord to complain. Not that I planned on
stopping her. As hypocritical as it sounded, I couldn’t even bear to hear
Linc’s voice at the moment. If he had approached me and asked for help, I would
have done anything he wanted in a heartbeat, but the way he went about it made
my chest ache.

He’d been like a brother to me. At least,
that’s what I let myself believe.

Shutting my apartment door, I answered
Oliver’s call and held the phone between my shoulder and ear. “I didn’t expect
you to call so soon,” I answered nervously. Jogging down the stairs at the end
of the hall, I headed for the lobby. “Are you still there?”

“I was thinking about you, Li—
Gemma
.”
Oliver was momentarily silent before his low growl made me shiver. “What’s
wrong?”

“Nothing,” I denied, twisting my head to
either side to convince myself.

“I’m looking right at you. And you look
like you’ve been crying.”

When I whipped my head up, my blond
ponytail flew around my face. There he was, crossing the carpeted lobby
steadily with a frown on his bronze face. I met him half way, immediately
offering an excuse. 

“It was a … family argument. Nothing to
worry about,” I said lamely, gasping when he held my chin between his thumb and
forefinger.

He chuckled, and though it might have
been somewhat sarcastic, that sound was the best thing I’d heard all day. It
brought a touch of warmth to the coldness that had weighed me down for the last
hour and a half.

“There are so many places I could take
what you just said about family, but none would be appropriate, considering how
badly I want you right now.” Sucking in his cheeks, he tilted his head and
examined my face. “Come with me.”

Yes,
I thought.
I’ll go with you anywhere.
“Should I
change?” When I looked down at my jeans and white V-neck I’d changed into after
arguing with Linc, Oliver shook his head.

“We don’t have to get out the car. I just
haven’t been able to get you out of my head, and I needed to be near you.”

His hand firmly pressed to the small of
my back, he escorted me to his Viper, which was parked illegally in front of
the building. As we walked, I slid closer to him to fight off the slight chill
of the early December night, and the fingers touching my back moved around to
grip my hip possessively.

It was a touch that had me wanting more,
and I was reluctant when we parted to get into the car.

For the first few minutes of the drive,
he was content to focus solely on the road, so I stayed quiet too. With all the
thoughts assaulting my mind—Margaret’s impending downfall, Linc’s deception,
and the possibility that Oliver’s ex-girlfriend might be my sister—it wasn’t
hard to keep my mouth closed. Finally, he broke the calm.

“I’m not sorry for what happened last night.”
He skimmed his tongue over his teeth. “If I could do it again, I would’ve spent
the rest of the night with my cock buried in you. Your body was made for me …
which given our circumstances, is a problem.”

Problem or not, I felt his hand on my leg,
and I pressed my thighs together, trapping his fingers in place. “I’m not sorry
either.” He squeezed his hand an inch higher, coming dangerously close to my center,
and I sucked in a breath. “But you’re still angry with me—even after last night.”

“I am.”

“But you refuse to go to Margaret,” I
whispered. “With all the information you have on me, you refuse to go to your
mother.”

“I cared about your father and I care
about you.“ Watching me closely, he turned the Viper down a narrow street. “I
wish the only thing I wanted from you was what’s right here—” His fingers
pumped my sex through my jeans, and moisture flooded my mouth. “—but sadly,
it’s not.”

“How do you do it?” I murmured.

“What?”

Turning to the window, my breath fogged
up the glass as I stared at the seaside rushing by. “I was angry—furious out of
my goddamn mind—and then you came in and touched me, and all I could think
about was you. I should still be flying off the handle right now, and all I
want are your hands on my body. You make me want things I shouldn’t want.”

You’ve made me fall for you
, I added silently.

“Looks like we have the same effect on
each other, beautiful.” Several second passed, and he asked gently. “Why were
you crying today?”

“Because someone I thought I knew hurt
me.” In the window, I saw his reflection, feeling my chest twist at his ironic
smirk. “I found out who … made the call that sent me here.”

“And it was someone you knew?”

“The FBI is on to your mother,” I said, ignoring
his question. I heard him shift toward me. “And they want me to help.”

He frowned. “Why are you telling me
this?”

“I trust you.” Saying that felt so messed
up, but it was the truth. A horribly sad truth that hit me right where it hurt
the most. “I
trust
you, Oliver.”

Focusing his light blue eyes straight
ahead, he drove his Viper into one of the Venice Beach private lots and turned
off the ignition. “You’ve got a lot of faith in me.”

“You’re the only person in my life
besides Pen who hasn’t fucked me over yet.” When his eyebrows came together, I
realized he had no idea who Pen was since she’d introduced herself by her
middle name, and I hated myself for deceiving him over and over. “She’s my best
friend.”

Unsnapping his seatbelt, he faced me,
reaching up to tangle his hand in my blond hair. “I’m not going to tell you not
to go after my mother.” His mouth inched closer to mind, catching my breath.
“If she’s done everything you said, I—”

“She has,” I said firmly.

“Then I’m not going to tell you to back
down.” Our noses skimmed. “Get your closure, Gemma.”

“But what about—”

Before I could continue, before I could
ask him what would happen to him—to us—he stopped me with his lips. The contact
was agonizing, a crashing of mouths that penetrated my mind and my body. I
gripped the back of his neck, feeling his muscles tauten beneath my fingertips,
and I invited him in.

Invited him to have all of me.