Matched For Love(23)

“Thank you.” She’d been so sure he wasn’t interested in her. Was her radar out of synch after all these years?

She’d have a built-in babysitter with her sister staying. So why not? “What time and where?”

He gave her the details. “Thanks, Lori. You’ll be doing me a great favor. See you then.”

“I’ll look forward to it. Night.”

“Good night.”

Maybe he’d been as nervous as she’d been at dinner. Was that what she’d been picking up on, instead of ambivalence? That he called showed a lot of compassion, and she liked that in a man.

Shrugging at her miscalculation, she rose from the couch to tuck Emily in. Jason might not be so bad after all. And if she were lucky, he’d kiss as well as Deek.



At home, Deek tucked Asher in, still kicking himself for kissing Lori like that. And for liking it so much. “Night, bud. Sleep tight.” He rose and headed for the light switch before he got peppered with any more questions about why he’d kissed Lori like that. It was the “like that” part he wasn’t sure how to explain. Pretty hard for Asher not to have noticed that Lori had been in Deek’s lap and he’d had both hands filled with her enticing rear end.

Asher called out, “I think Mrs. Went is nice, Dad. And very pretty.”

“Yep.” He couldn’t argue with either of those things. “Good night, Asher.”

“Mr. Raymond smiles funny at Mrs. Went the same way you do.”

Asher and Emily’s teacher liked Lori? “I don’t smile funny at Lori. GO. TO. SLEEP. ASHER!”

Deek closed Asher’s bedroom door. Just as Deek started for his downstairs study, he heard a small voice say, “YES. YOU. DO!”

He chuckled as he walked toward the steps. He probably did smile funny at Lori. Especially after that hot kiss. He’d better find a way to cover up his affection for her when Annie came home.

Soon. Hopefully.

Guilt crept further into his gut with every step he took toward his study. He shouldn’t have kissed Lori like that. Should he come clean with Annie and confess? Or would it cause more problems between them? He hadn’t meant for it to happen. That he enjoyed it so much wasn’t technically his fault. It was simply the result of an experiment.

Nope.

He was lying to himself. He was as much attracted to Lori as he genuinely liked being with her. Might as well admit it. And be sure nothing like that kiss ever happened again. A grown man could control his hormones. Even the intense ones that had raced through his veins as if he’d still been a horny teenager. He needed to table what he wanted, to be with Lori every day for the rest of his life, and do the right thing. Get Annie home so Asher would have his mother in his life again.

Deek pondered how to go about doing that as he sat down behind his desk and got back to digging into Jason Pederson’s background. There had been hints of more hidden data, and he had better snooping equipment at home rather than on his laptop. Top-notch equipment that rivaled mission control in Houston. His incredible electronics were the one area he geeked out the most but had zero guilt about it. He needed it all for his gaming software design. Well, most of it anyway. Now he’d use the most advanced parts for a good cause. Lori.

Grateful he’d been recruited in grad school to help develop profile programs for government agencies, and even more so that he’d quit because it seemed so intrusive, he put those skills to work.

As his machine ran a mining algorithm that automatically dug into Jason’s online life, thoughts of kissing Lori again made it hard to concentrate. But then, the results popped up on his screen and drew him right back into his mission. The information intrigued him. Seems Jason had access to sources who charged big money to bury data. But Deek was better and found that Jason had been engaged twice before. Two beautiful, dark-haired, very rich women, but the reasons the engagements abruptly ended were mysteriously never mentioned.

The next set of unearthed photos were so sexually charged and explicit, it was no wonder someone had paid to bury them.

Earlier, Jason had looked like a player on the surface, someone who’d dated dozens of beautiful women in different stages of undress and drunkenness. The sheer number of women made Deek conclude that Jason would tire quickly of a kind woman like Lori; however, the new pictures added a different dimension. Whips, chains, restraints, and men and women engaged in violent orgies filled his screen. A sense of darkness made a shiver run up his spine. The vibe was…vile, not a dress-up party for bored, rich people. Was that a true reflection of Jason’s sexual preferences? If so, why would he want a sweet, single mom who wears sexy yoga pants instead of leather?