Thrill Me to Death Read online

  “So she didn’t just flip open an employee roster, slide a finger down a list of supermen and say, ‘Oh, Max. He’d love Miami in August.’ ”

  That made him laugh. “We did discuss the undesirable geography.”

  “And not the undesirable client?”

  His hand slipped higher, to her calf. To the little muscle that looked so neat in high heels. “First of all, you’re not a client, you’re a principal.” He moved both hands to the other leg, following an identical path. Just as nice. “Second, ‘undesirable’ is just about the last word in the dictionary for you.”

  She actually slid a little deeper into her blanket and the move forced his hands an inch higher. Almost to that tender spot behind her knees that he used to—

  “Are you looking for my forgiveness?”

  He glided both hands back down to safer territory, rewarming her feet. “No.”

  “Because I—”

  He squeezed. “I know you won’t.” Hadn’t he begged once before? Begged? Hadn’t he fucking cried?

  “Okay, then why?”

  His fingers moved independently of his brain. Back up the calves, around that sleek shin. He kept his eyes closed, breathing evenly, his whole body nicely under control. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Did you think we’d have another chance?”

  Control slipped. “You really would have made a good lawyer, Cori. Why did you quit?”

  Under his palms, he felt her muscles tense. “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”

  “We’re not talking at all.” He gave in and slid his hands to the back of her knees. God. Like velvet. Control slipped further. “We’re resting.”

  “Sex.” She said the word so softly, he wasn’t sure he’d heard it. But his body heard perfectly.

  “Sex?” he repeated. “Is that an order?”

  She almost laughed. “Is that why you took the job? You want sex?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, kid. But I do okay.” Contrary to the growing ridge between his legs.

  “I’m sure you do.” She tortured him by shifting enough to put a little weight on his lap.

  He smiled in the dark. “That’s because I’m irresistible.”

  “I resisted you.”

  He snorted softly. “Not for long.”

  She didn’t bother to argue that fact. Their chemistry had been flammable from the moment they’d met, a month after she arrived in Chicago to attend law school and live with her dad.

  “But you were the one who lost fifty dollars within ten minutes of my crashing your poker game,” she reminded him.

  Max smiled, seeing the aqua linoleum floor of Coop’s undersize kitchen in Berwyn, Illinois, smelling the aroma of burned Jiffy Pop and beer. “Oh, you crashed it, huh? I thought we were so loud you couldn’t study.”

  “You remember that?”

  “As if I’d forget.” The memory was branded into his brain. Looking up from what was a fairly decent hand to see all that black hair, a yellow top clinging to perfect breasts, endless legs—these very endless legs that his hands currently roamed—in tiny running shorts. Oh, and eyes so navy blue and intense that he thought he’d drown.

  Mind if I deal my kid in?

  He could still remember leaning back on the two legs of a maple chair, a beer to his lips and raw lust thumping straight through him.

  That’s no kid, Coop.

  “You distracted me,” he said huskily, vaguely aware that his hand had traveled higher up her tight, silky thigh, and wildly aware that her hips stirred…just a little.

  “And I held out for a whopping twenty-four hours.” She laughed lightly.

  “It was inevitable,” he whispered. His fingers took two steps closer to the softest skin, the warmest place. Inevitable.

  He could feel her pulse under her skin, matching the thump of his. She moved one leg over him. He grew harder.

  “What was inevitable,” she said, “was the end.”

  The end. The dark, miserable night when she’d fought so hard with her father, and Max had punched the wall and left, furious with Coop. Then that night morphed into a bright, blue morning…except there was nothing bright about the look in her eyes when she opened the door and met his anguished gaze.

  There’s been an incident, kid.

  A good two minutes passed before either one moved, or spoke. Finally, she scooted up an inch and locked him in her gaze. This would be the look she would have saved for the most difficult witness, had she ever made it into the courtroom.

  “So if you’re not looking for redemption, a reunion, or a repeat performance, why did you take this job?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her the whole truth. “Very simple. My boss said you needed a bodyguard and I already knew you.”

  “I would think that would hurt your chances of getting the assignment, not help them.”

  She was so smart. “You have to know how Lucy thinks. She’s former CIA and a spook to the bone. She knows everything. She probably figured—”

  “You know damn well I didn’t ask for her background.” Cori took her feet from the nest of his lap and leaving him, for once, feeling cold. “And if she knows everything—and by that I assume you meant that we were lovers and how and why we split up—then why would she pick you to protect me and…” She held her hand out to stop him from answering before she finished her question. “Why would you accept the job?”

  It wouldn’t be long before she knew his ulterior motive. If he didn’t have any information on her or her husband’s death by the time she did, she’d send him packing.

  He pulled her back in place, gliding his hands greedily over her legs in the process, returning easily to the soft curve of her inner thigh. “Come back here and calm down,” he urged, pulling her closer, letting her feet tuck back into his lap.

  “I am calm.”

  It took very little movement for him to be sure she felt the strain against his sleep pants. “I’m not.”

  He heard her breath catch. “Don’t change the subject,” she said softly. “You’re hiding something.”

  “Not hardly.” He rocked his hips and let his erection press against her legs. Then he leaned over her and lowered his voice. “If anyone’s hiding something, Cori, it’s you.”

  “I am not.”

  “No?” He grazed the edge of her shorts with his fingertips. “You sure are different than you used to be.”

  “Because I don’t go all melty when you touch me?”

  “You don’t?” He dipped his hand right under the hem, sliding onto the silk of her panties. She sucked in a breath, but he felt the damp material and that nanosecond of touch shot fire into his balls. “Feels pretty melty to me.”

  The phone jangled next to her head, and she lifted the handset and pointed it toward him. “You haven’t answered my questions. You haven’t done anything but prove I’m human.” She purposefully rubbed his erection with her calf. “Just like you.” Her gaze on him, she stabbed the button and held the phone up to her ear. “Hey. You’re up early.”

  Cori blessed and cursed the distraction, willing her blood to cool and her head to clear. What the hell was she doing playing feelie with him?

  She’d lose for sure. She always did.

  “You’re in the guest house?” Breezy’s voice rose in implication. “That didn’t take long.”

  “You’re awake at six thirty,” Cori said, easing her body away from the warmth and hardness of Max. “That’s a first.”

  “You really should teach your maid some discretion, hon.”

  Max stared at her, questioning. She covered the receiver. “It’s Breezy.”

  Even in the dark, she could see him roll his eyes. What was his beef with Breezy?

  “We had an incident here last night,” Cori told her. “I stayed here for security reasons.” Not that she was all that safe here.

  “Marta told me.” Breezy sounded like she’d smoked a pack of cigarettes the night before. “She’s gossiping beca
use she’s still trying to get back in my good graces so I’ll hire her sister. So what happened?”

  Cori relayed the story, minus the poker game.

  “That little prick fired at you from the bay?” Her voice cracked in fury and shock. “What the hell is the matter with him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just glad Max was there.”

  “I bet you were,” Breezy said pointedly. “And where is the big bodyguard now? Underneath or on top?”

  “Neither,” Cori insisted, pulling away completely so that it wasn’t a lie. Breezy knew nothing about her history with Max and, for the moment, Cori preferred to keep it that way. “What’s going on? Why are you awake at dawn?”

  “My husband’s been up all night getting ready for the meeting.”

  “I’m going,” Cori said. “Giff doesn’t have to vote my shares.”

  Breezy made a soft sound, then porcelain clinked in the background. “That’s too bad,” Breezy said, after a sip.

  “Why?”

  “Swen has an opening. Marc Jacobs has a trunk show. Lulu Garrey is having a tea on that insane yacht she snagged in her last divorce. I can think of twenty reasons why it’s too bad. I want to hang with you today.”

  “I need to be there. It’s important.”

  “Cor, I need a friend. It’s more important.”

  Cori tapped down a flash of guilt. It was a cold day in Miami when tough-as-nails Breezy admitted she needed something.

  But then Cori thought of that signature—that forgery. Maybe if she told Breezy the truth, if she shared her suspicions…But, no. Then Breezy and Giff would turn the company upside down trying to find out who signed William’s name, and whoever it was would hide the trail. The trail that Cori had a hunch might lead to the answers she wanted.

  “We’ll get together,” Cori promised, hating how vague it sounded. “Just let me get some things straightened out. What about tonight? Come over and we’ll have girls’ night in. I’ll kick Marta out and we’ll make pizza again. That was so much fun.”

  “Can’t. Julius Escaya has a showing at the Stone Art Gallery. I promised Giff.”

  The magic words: I promised Giff. She knew better than to argue with that. “The next night?”

  “Dinner party. Something I don’t remember or care about.”

  “Children’s Hospital fund-raiser,” Cori reminded her. “I sent a check but I’m not going.”

  “Giff wants to make an appearance.” There was no cigarette smoke behind Breezy’s long, slow sigh. Just sadness. “Never mind, Cor. You’re busy and so am I. I really wanted to see you today, that’s all.”

  “Listen, let me just get through this, Breeze. I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “All righty, then.” She’d copped a cavalier voice, but it sounded hollow.

  “I’m sorry, Breeze. I promise I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  “I might not have cell service out on Lulu’s tub,” Breezy said. “But you can try.”

  Breezy hung up and Cori dropped the phone, glancing at the early rays of sun breaking through the plantation shutters. “Something’s wrong with her,” she told Max.

  “I knew that the minute I saw her.” He stood up and looked down at her. “You probably don’t want to hear this, but—”

  She held up her hand. “Then don’t say it.”

  “She’s not your friend.”

  Cori shook her head. He was always jealous of anyone who got close to her. Even her father. How could she forget that? How could she come so close to trusting him again? To . .

  It was inevitable.

  Or was it?

  Chapter

  Seven

  M ax didn’t have a business degree. Hell, he’d barely gotten through his liberal arts degree at Pitt on a football scholarship. But he had enough business savvy to know something seriously stunk in the mall management world of Peyton Enterprises.

  After he was introduced to a few corporate officers and the outside directors, he planted himself in a corner of the massive conference room, ignoring the wall-to-wall-window view of Miami glitz in favor of the power struggle that unfolded inside the boardroom the minute the gavel fell. In no time, they’d all forgotten he was there, including Cori, who was obviously up to her swan’s neck in corporate chaos.

  First of all, there was no CEO. Peyton had left voting shares to Cori, but no power. There was a chief operating officer who struck Max as ineffective, and a team of three slick MBA-type guys and one hard-ass woman named Andrea Lockhart who checked him out thoroughly, then bared her fangs in defense of investor relations, which evidently fell into her cage.

  As far as the business agenda, Cori rarely made a comment until they reached the last item, an update on the status of the Peyton Foundation.

  “The Foundation now has an operating budget of four million dollars,” she told the group. “We’ve awarded four hundred thousand in scholarship funds this year, as well as two hundred thousand in legal services, health care, and housing support.”

  The barracuda, Lockhart, closed her eyes. Another one of the MBAs tapped his pencil and glanced at his papers. Only Gifford Jones watched with rapt attention.

  When she finished, Jones all but clapped, beaming his approval from across the table. “Well done, Mrs. Peyton. We have no doubt that Foundation will continue to be a huge success, one that highlights our company in a glow of corporate goodwill and ingratiates us into the many communities where we do business. We’re all deeply indebted to you.”

  “Why do we need an outside PR agency?” the investor relations woman asked Cori, propping her elbows on the table. “I have a team of communications specialists in my department, so there’s no reason to outsource that function. You can cut that line item.”

  “Your team of communications specialists are very busy, Andrea,” she responded. “I requested assistance, but no one was even able to draft a press release, let alone set up interviews with national media. This firm has guaranteed us coverage in all of the major national newspapers and the morning shows.”

  Andrea raised a sharp brow. “I’m thrilled that you get to be on the Today show, Cori, but our stockholders are already at work by the time they run the fluff segments. Did your spin doctors think about CNBC?”

  Cori leveled her gaze at the other woman. “The agency has already scheduled a live interview in early September, just in time for the shareholders’ meeting. Perhaps you didn’t read the e-mail I sent to you last week, asking if you’ll be available to go to New York for that.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Gifford interjected. “I think the outside firm is a perfectly reasonable expenditure. William Peyton wanted this Foundation to be run as independently as possible and it’s obviously in good and caring hands with Mrs. Peyton.”

  “Obviously,” Andrea muttered, moving some papers around.

  “Then we can close the minutes of this meeting,” Jones announced.

  “No, we can’t,” Cori said.

  All the attention returned to her.

  “I want to open the discussion of the Sonoma County property.”

  A few people glanced at their paperwork, and Gifford glared at Cori. “The executive committee has taken that off the agenda, Mrs. Peyton. It would require a mandatory motion of the board to reinstate the item.”

  “I so move.” Her gaze slid from one to the next as she remained standing. “Will anyone second?”

  For a long moment, no one breathed. Who, Max wondered, was really Cori’s ally? Their resentment was as obvious as Gifford Jones’s sucking up. The sound of that bullet rang in Max’s ears. Did someone want to lower the population of the boardroom so badly that they’d take her out?

  “I second.” The motion came from an outside board member, a banker, if Max remembered correctly.

  After a bit of murmuring and some shared looks, half the room stood, and Max realized that only the board of directors would vote on the issue, and that included Cori, but not Gifford, who was only on the executive comm
ittee.

  “I’ll handle it,” Cori said softly to Jones, who remained seated. “You can leave.”

  His face paled slightly but he nodded. “Of course. Come and see me in my office when you’re finished here.” He glanced at Max on the way out. “You need to wait outside.”

  That was exactly the out he needed. “Cori,” Max said, approaching her, “I need to talk to you.”

  He shot Gifford Jones one look and the man backed away, giving them privacy.

  “What is your password to the computer system?” he whispered to her.

  She glanced at him. “Why?”

  “While you’re in here, I’m going to make some copies of files.” He looked around the table, and lowered his voice. “To help with that forgery.”

  She regarded him for a moment, then nodded. Tearing a corner of paper from a pad, she wrote on it and handed it to him. “I’ll find out what I can from this group, then meet you in my office.”

  Jones walked out with him. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?” the lawyer asked as the doors closed behind them.

  Max gave him a questioning glance. “I suppose.”

  But Jones lingered, glancing toward the doors as though he longed to go back inside. “This Foundation is very, very important to her,” he said. “Nothing should distract her from it.”

  That sounded oddly like…an order. “I’m afraid my capabilities don’t extend to managing her schedule, Mr. Jones.”

  Jones drew back. “But surely, with your close personal relationship, you can convince her of what’s important.” At Max’s incredulous look, he added, “My wife tells me you two knew each other before. Before William.”

  Max glared him down and ignored the implication. “I’m not here to convince her of anything, but to keep her out of harm’s way.”

  A young woman approached, looking at Jones. “Mr. Nash on line two,” she whispered.

  Gifford Jones turned and walked away, and Max headed in the opposite direction to Cori’s corner office, where he’d been earlier. The assistant’s desk was abandoned, so he entered the office, closed the door and locked it.

  He sat at her desk, opened the folded piece of paper, and read the single word.