Her expression shifted, and even with her eyes still closed he could see the worry there. “You don’t mean that.”
He did. But clearly she wasn’t ready for that conversation. “Did you bring a bag with you?”
“What?” Blinking against the water dripping down her face, she stared up at him while he worked the washcloth over her shoulders, the soft planes of her chest.
“An overnight bag. I didn’t see one, and I assume you’ve got some feminine magic you usually work on your face.”
“Oh. Um. I wasn’t planning to stay the night.”
Pausing just above her heavy breasts, he frowned down at her. “You came to a hotel without planning to stay overnight?”
Panic flickered in her eyes. It was gone nearly as quickly as it came, but in his line of work a man learned to look for those quick bursts of emotions. The ones people tried to hide, but were never quite quick enough to keep them from showing at least for a second.
“I told you, I was just meeting a client for drinks. I live nearby.”
Right. She had told him that.
But if that was all there was to it, why the panic? And why did she suddenly seem so defensive?
Anyone else might have missed it, but not him. He noticed the way her shoulders hunched slightly forward, the way her jaw firmed like she was preparing for a fight.
Why brace yourself for a fight if you were telling the truth?
Every instinct he had was screaming at him that something was up. He just wasn’t sure what.
Pressing her would just put her more on the defensive though, so instead he just smiled, warm and reassuring. “Ah, that’s right. I forgot.” Moving on as if nothing were amiss, he slid the washcloth over her breasts, forcing himself not to linger, as much as he wanted to. “How’d the meeting go?”
“Good. I think we’re ready to move forward.”
“Forward with what?”
Her lips twitched. “Our project.”
“Mmm.” Taking her wrists in his hand, he backed her up against the shower wall, pinning her to the tile. “You’re being cagey, babygirl.”
“Maybe you’re just being nosy, Daddy.”
“Oh, I am definitely being nosy.” Down, down the washcloth went, over her stomach, down to that place between her legs where he’d found heaven. Her pupils widened as he stroked the cloth over her clit, rolling the swollen nub beneath his finger. “You asked what I do for a living? The answer is, I get paid to be nosy as fuck. Our competitors have secrets, I find out what those secrets are. Someone is looking to cut into our territory, I find out exactly how they’re planning to move in. Everyone has secrets, but nobody manages to keep them from me for very long.”
There it was again. A flicker of worry in the bright blue of her eyes.
Pressing her more firmly against the wall, he abandoned the washcloth to push two fingers into her slick heat. “Tell me your secrets, babygirl.”
“I-I don’t have any secrets.”
Liar.
“Everyone has secrets,” he repeated, drawing her arousal out, circling her clit as she shuddered beneath him. “Tell me yours and I’ll let you come.”
“When I was ten, I stole twenty dollars out of my mama’s purse so I could go see Jurassic World.”
Surprise had him going still. “Really? The dinosaur movie?”
“Yeah. I’m a sucker for a T-Rex on a rampage.” She rolled her hips against his hand. “I told you a secret. Can I have my orgasm now, Daddy?”
It wasn’t the secret he wanted. But she had told him a secret and while he might be a sadistic bastard, he was an honest one.
Mostly.
