“No, thanks.”
He eyed her critically and she shrank a little into her bulky overcoat. “I usually like them skinny like your friend and you look a little more, er, healthy than that, though I can’t get a close look.”
With a disgusted expression, Liv looked out to the dance floor for Jen, but she and her black leather beau had disappeared. Probably making out in the dark hallway to the john. So much for level-headedness.
A heavy hand descended on her thigh, inching up to the red spandex hidden under the coat, and she decided this night of fun was over and got to her feet. “I don’t think so. I have to go back to work.”
Andrew laughed. “What? I was just being nice. You don’t think I usually go for chubby, do you?”
Liv pursed her lips, dropping a twenty on the table as a tip for the waitress, and texted Jen, wherever she was. I’m getting out of here. Congrats on your promotion. BE SAFE!
“Your loss,” Andrew said, already scanning the bar for a replacement.
She didn’t bother to reply.
...
Jonathon glanced up at the clock. It was after ten and he was nowhere. He hadn’t expected it to take this long. He knew he had to be on Lincoln’s computer system from the inside—couldn’t hack into it from outside for this one, since the security surrounding confidential files, undoubtedly developed by the boss herself, was so good—but once on the LAN network he didn’t expect to have much trouble finding her project and copying it. He hadn’t given her enough credit. Or he was more distracted than he thought. Either way, he figured it was little Liv’s fault he wasn’t done.
He wished he had known a girl like her back in school—actually, he wished he’d known her so that he could have maybe turned her away from the path she got on. Despite his motivations for stealing her project, he still thought it was a bad idea to begin with.
But hell, if he had met Liv earlier, he would’ve been too young and cocky to know what to do with her back then. But he knew what to do with her now all right. He remembered the horrified way she had explained keeping passwords secret. It was kind of sweet. Especially when, as good as she was, there undoubtedly wasn’t a password she couldn’t hack around anyway. And he knew there wasn’t one he couldn’t. He had gotten through her passwords—the shadow ones, the real ones, the belt and suspenders ones—but once in her files he was still having trouble with the detours and booby traps. He needed some coffee. Or a good whisky. Maybe both.
But he would crack this and soon. He grinned and grabbed his jacket, intending to take a short break out in the autumn night air. Who was he kidding? He was still a cocky little shit.
“Be right back,” he said out loud to the computer, shutting it off just in case, and locking up.
It was an hour or two later by the time he actually did return. He’d walked around, looking for an all-night coffee shop, and had to settle for a bar where he drank more than was good for him—not coffee—and almost decided to pack it in and go home.
But on the way to hailing a cab, he’d changed his mind, and headed to Lincoln instead. Returning to the deserted building, he let himself in with the card key he had swiped from Jen, since he hadn’t been issued one yet—and wouldn’t be. He didn’t want his face on an ID badge and would be wiping the building’s cameras when he was finished, since he could do that remotely.
The office was completely dark, so Liv hadn’t come back. Good. He hadn’t expected her to, but still. Flicking on a light, he hung his coat up on the hook near his cube and startled at a voice. Her voice, sleepy and low, but all the sudden right next to him.
“What are you doing here?”
Chapter Three
Oh shit. From the look of her, she had been snoozing on the couch just inside her office. She was standing in the doorway in bare feet and those pajama pants some women wore around and another nondescript t-shirt. It took him two seconds flat to realize she was braless.
He swallowed, hard, and tried to keep his eyes on her face instead of on the enticing jiggle of her chest. She must have come back from the bar, changed out of her good clothes, and fallen asleep. He should have thought of that, but in his haste to finish his task¸ and what with the whiskey, he hadn’t.
“I, uh…” He stumbled on a lie and drew a blank. Seeing her look at him so sleep-tossed and sexy, he thought of a very plausible reason to have come back tonight, if he’d known she was here. It involved picking her up and laying her on his desk. Lifting her shirt to bring his mouth to her warm soft curves, kissing, sucking, tasting. Nudging her legs open and standing between them as he brought her hand to his zipper.