The Sex Files. Jule McBride
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FBI office. Whatever was going through Oliver Vargo’s mind at the moment, he wasn’t saying he was going to take her in for questioning, the way Kevin Hall had….
“Who are you, really?”
She had a thousand answers for that, beginning with Peggy Fox, a woman in trouble. But he was getting impatient. He said, “Are you a fan?”
“Uh…yeah.” That, too.
His gaze flicked down, making her realize her coat had fallen open again. He was slowly perusing the tight white dress beneath, his gaze lingering on the scoop neckline, as if he was thoroughly intrigued by the space where fabric ended and skin began.
The crowd surged, pushing him into her arms, and she gasped. Her hands dropped the coat collar and grabbed the sawhorse behind her. Trapped against the barricade, she felt completely helpless when their hips locked. When his chest brushed hers, there was no help for the way her nipples beaded. Heat flooded her cheeks, staining them a crimson red that even the night’s darkness couldn’t hide. He seemed to be aware of every nuance. She was sure of it when she registered his quickening breath.
“Look,” she managed to say. “We can’t talk here.” In this cold rain, her white dress might as well be made of cellophane.
His intrigued expression didn’t bring much comfort. “You have a better idea?”
The seconds seemed to drag on—as if this whole exchange had lasted an eternity, not a scant few minutes. Apparently, Oliver Vargo thought she was a crazed fan.
Dammit, she was a fan.
But not the one he assumed. Had he had some difficulty with a woman named Cameron? Whatever the case, he didn’t know her real name, which meant Miles McLaughlin hadn’t mentioned her to him. Regarding his and Miles’s relationship, there was only one way to find out the truth—question him. “I…I have a hotel.”
He stared at her. “Did you say hotel?”
She nodded toward McDougal Street. “I’m in the Washington Square Hotel.” It was only two blocks away. She’d been so intent on gauging the distance that she’d barely noticed the genuine smile claiming Oliver’s lips. When she saw it, she felt thoroughly unsettled. All at once, the man’s countenance had cleared. He offered a slight nod, as if a knotty misunderstanding had been resolved and everything now made perfect sense to him.
Good for you, Peggy thought dryly, since she still didn’t have a clue what was going on.
His hand slid slowly downward, gliding from her upper arm to her elbow, creating a wake of electrical current. A brass band began to play, and over the music, Oliver softly repeated the word hotel. And then, under his breath, he added, “Cameron, this is a dream come true.”
4
CAMERON WAS SEDUCING him, Oliver thought moments later, loosening his grasp on her elbow as they went through a brass revolving door that spit them into a hotel lobby. At first, he’d thought the woman might be a fan, but that didn’t explain how her picture had wound up on his PC screen. Which meant she must be a friend of his sister’s. Anna had been doing everything she could to fix him up with one of her friends, and this was obviously part of a scheme cooked up by the two women. Anna must have fed the picture of her friend into his computer, convincing him that the woman was America’s Sexiest Woman, all so that he’d be excited when the woman actually appeared.
“Home sweet home,” she said.
The idea that she was trying to get him into bed had calmed Oliver considerably. He glanced around. Long past its glory days, the red-carpeted lobby was decorated with marble-top tables and chandeliers. Outside, the streets surrounding the parade had sounded like Bourbon Street in New Orleans on a Saturday night, so only when Oliver squeezed into a rickety, dimly lit elevator with Cameron did he fully register the comparative deafening silence. “Quiet in here,” he offered.
As she pushed the seventh-floor button, he noted her nails were painted opal, not love-me red as they had been in both her picture and his fantasies. He tried not to feel too disappointed, but it was difficult when she’d appeared so often in his dreams, raking those fingertips over his body. At nothing more than the thought, his breath turned shallow with anticipation.
“Dark, too,” she supplied.
He heard the faintest quiver in her voice, and the answering flutter of his heart took him by surprise. Whoever this woman was, she probably didn’t make a habit of seducing men, judging by her nervousness. And yet she’d chosen him.
He sent her an encouraging smile. “The elevator could use a new lightbulb,” he conceded.
She didn’t answer.
But he wasn’t put off by her lack of response. In fact, he was feeling uncharacteristically anxious himself. Who wouldn’t? He was about to have sex with a stranger, after all. Why else would the woman ask him to her hotel room? And she wasn’t quite a stranger, he mentally corrected. She was a friend of Anna’s.
Suppressing a shudder, he remembered how she’d felt pressed against him in the street—how the curves of her backside had risen, cushioning his groin, and how the harder ridges of her hips had collided with his when she’d whirled around. Their lower bodies had clicked, and now the memory sent heat prancing across his skin.
Yeah, while they’d been on Sixth Avenue, he’d realized she had to be a friend of his sister’s—there was simply no other reasonable explanation—and now, with her standing so close, and her scent driving him wild in the cramped elevator, he wished he’d been nicer. Could he help it if he’d been worried, though? She’d been tailing him…
Oliver broadened his smile as he tucked down the collar of his coat, allowing the rainwater to roll off. “And wet,” he added. Another uncomfortable moment passed before the smile twitched his lips and he continued. “The elevator’s slow, too.”
His comical efforts to make conversation solicited a low, barely audible laugh from her. “At this rate,” she murmured, lifting a hand to reposition the eye mask, a fashion accessory that had been heightening his excitement immeasurably, “we won’t reach the seventh floor until tomorrow.”
“Midnight,” he countered. His eyes said he could think of countless things he and his masked date might do to amuse themselves during the wait.
“Midnight,” she echoed.
He flicked his gaze down her body. “I’m an optimist,” he assured.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Yeah, this strange little encounter was definitely going to end with them in bed together, he thought, his pulse quickening. If he was lucky, maybe the affair would even develop into something more. With an unexpected twinge of emotion, he thought of the house he’d built near his office in Quantico, then he pushed away the image. He’d be satisfied if this love game just lasted through Christmas so he wouldn’t wind up spending the holiday alone.
She’d fixed her gaze studiously on the elevator buttons, but the black mask couldn’t hide how her eyes drifted again to choice parts of his anatomy. He shook his head in bemusement, recalling how Anna had come to his office, slyly bribing him with lunch while running the Sex Files through his Quick Composite software, just so she could pull up a picture of her friend, this woman. No doubt, Vic, who was a whiz with cameras and optical illusions, had helped her with this.
Along with producing “Cameron’s” picture, Anna had stuffed condoms into his wallet, too. Cameron—maybe that was even her real name—was showing herself to be every bit as adventurous. Even as he admired the woman’s face, he was giving her points for ingenuity. She’d almost made him—a completely rational law enforcement agent—believe that an image of America’s sexiest woman had come to life.
It wasn’t every day that such a gorgeous, intelligent woman went to so much trouble for his benefit. Sexually, she must want him badly. Not only had she followed him all