“Thank you, sir. Let me know if you need anything else.” Rob walked out of the office and quietly closed the door.
Beau pulled the first drive out of the computer and shoved in the second. Cassidy moved a little closer, the curve of her hip just inches from his shoulder. He forced himself to concentrate.
“I have a feeling if we look under the name George Larson,” she said, “we’ll find the reason he agreed to sell his half of Green Gables Realty.”
Beau scrolled down the list and sure as hell, there was Larson’s name. He opened the file and saw a photo of George with his arm around a curvy blonde in her twenties. Myra Larson would not be pleased.
Beau looked at Cassidy. “You realize the names on this list are all people who might have a reason to kill him.”
“We’ll need to look at them before we can make that determination.”
Frustration rolled through him and he shoved up from the chair. “For chrissake, Cassidy, how many people wanted my father dead?”
“Your father was a successful politician. I’m sure some of the information he collected was only a means of understanding his political opponents, people he needed to win over to his way of thinking. I imagine amassing that kind of information isn’t uncommon.”
A sigh whispered out. “God, I hope you’re right. Otherwise we may never figure out what happened.”
Cassidy’s shoulders straightened. “Oh, we’ll figure it out.” Her determined expression had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss on her lips.
He meant for it to be quick and fun, but instead of ending the kiss as he’d planned, he sank in, tasting the softness, feeling the heat rush over him like a fiery wave.
Cassidy made a little sound in her throat. Her soft lips parted and his tongue swept in. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers slid into the black hair curling at the nape of his neck, and the next thing he knew he had her up against the wall and he was kissing her the way he had kissed her in his dreams, deep and hot and erotic.
He wanted to rip off her pretty pink silk blouse, wanted to free those lush breasts and bury his face between them. He wanted to taste the fullness, suckle her nipples, find out if they were dusky rose or pale mauve, see if they were as bold as a quarter or as petite as a dime.
He was hard. Aching and pulsing until he couldn’t think. He had to have her, now, this instant or he was going to explode.
The intercom buzzed. His foggy brain heard Marty’s voice but he couldn’t tear himself away. His personal quarters lay behind a paneled wall, a place he went to change when there wasn’t time to go home, or to nap between meetings. There was a bed in there, a small living room with a sofa and chair.
It seemed a million miles away. Cassidy’s head fell back as he kissed the side of her neck. Then he took her mouth again. Something buzzed at the edge of his mind but he ignored it. If he hadn’t felt slender, determined hands pressing against his chest, he might have pulled her down on the floor and taken her right there.
She shoved again and Beau broke free, breathing too hard, his arousal throbbing, his mind a foggy blur.
“It’s . . . it’s your assistant,” Cassidy said, trembling as she began refastening the buttons on her blouse he didn’t know he’d undone.
He just looked at her.
“You need to answer, Beau. Marty’s going to think something’s going on.”
His head began to clear. A slow smile stretched over his lips. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want Marty to think something’s going on.”
She almost smiled, instead gave him a little nudge toward his desk. He sat down, grateful for the chance to compose himself, spoke to Marty while Cassidy wandered over to the windows.
He answered a question about an important meeting with the CEO of the Wayne Corporation, which he had been working on for weeks and now had to reschedule, then leaned back in his chair.
Blotting the memory of the wildest, hottest kiss he could ever recall, clenching his jaw so he wouldn’t get hard again, Beau walked over to where Cassidy stood in front of the windows.
“I didn’t plan for that to happen,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
She turned. “It was my fault as much as yours. I should have stopped you.”
He wasn’t completely sure she could have. He almost couldn’t stop himself. “Maybe we’d both be better off if we just let things take their natural course.”
Cassidy looked up at him. “We can’t, Beau. We don’t have time. If we don’t find out who killed your father, you could be arrested. Think what that will do to your reputation, how it will affect your business.”
His stomach pulled into a hard, tight knot. Dammit, shewas right. He had to get his head on straight and he had to do it now. Besides hurting himself and the business that meant so much to him, he had Linc to consider. Cain had just gotten married. He and Carly wanted to start a family. Linc didn’t need the kind of trouble Beau’s arrest would bring down on all of them.
“You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” He managed to smile. “It seems to happen a lot when I’m around you.”
