Tinsel In A Tangle

He lowered his eyelids and curled his lips in a small smile, watching her, and Jess tried to ignore the spear of heat igniting in her belly. Oh boy. If he was changing tactics to seduction, she’d still say no, but she’d sure enjoy the effort.

He kept staring at her with those lazy eyes, but when he spoke his tone was clear and crisp. “Start talking about what you did on Saturday night or I’ll call the police anonymously and advise them about a mischievous wigged woman at the Ignatius ball.”

She blinked, feeling unaccountably disappointed. “You’re blackmailing me?”

He gave her an entirely unapologetic shrug.

She fluttered her eyelids. “Gee, Michael-Collins-Thomas-Paine, do you blackmail all the girls?”

Straight-faced, he answered, “Only the ones who are too smart to seduce.”

Hmmph. For the first time in her life, she regretted her big brain.

He raised an amused eyebrow at her, and she quickly ironed her poker face. What to do? He had her backed into a corner. But would explaining what she did put her at less of an advantage than she was already at? Not really.

Decision made, she explained. “I uploaded a custom sort of tracking software to all of the University’s production and disaster recovery servers. Basically, all of Jerome’s movements and all of the IDs he or Seymour created since the date I was fired have a kind of trace on them. The activity is being sent to a server of mine housed anonymously in the Dark Web. To put a fine point on it, I’ll be trying to identify the replacement IDs that Jerome set up for Knoll. And then I’ll be seeing what he does with them.”

“Excellent.” The man’s eyes gleamed.

Before he could demand anything else, she felt she’d earned something. “What’s your real first name?” He blinked at her and shook his head.

“I can’t refer to you as Michael-Collins-Thomas-Paine in my head. It’s irritating.” Not that she’d really think of him that way. “The Hot Thief” was probably closer.

The man pointed to her fleece and raised a smug eyebrow. “If you’re truly a Cubs fan, maybe you can earn it. My namesake was traded to the Cubs for Starlin Castro in December of 2015. However, later—”

“Adam,” Jess said, immediately. “Your name is Adam?”

He gaped at her. Honestly, he gaped.

It was one of the funniest things Jess had seen in her entire life. She started giggling, barely able to get the words out. “The Yankees traded Adam Warren for Starlin Castro. But in July of 2016, he went back to the Yankees.” Gasping for air, she rolled her eyes at him. “Didn’t your Google-ing tell you I was raised by a single father with four brothers?”

Giddy from her, admittedly, minor triumph, she put her head on the table and kept laughing, her shoulders shaking. It was like Saturday night, when he busted her for her flailing British accent; she just couldn’t stop. Then, the famous AJ’s 10:00 radiant heat cranked on, earning the nightly groan from the regulars. Jess chimed in, and per tradition, Geoff gave the bar his middle finger.

As steaming hot air blew on the booth from the window unit, she got her giggles in check and took off her fleece, revealing a simple white tank top. “You have to dress in layers at this bar,” she explained to Adam, finally in control enough to meet his eyes across the table.

Holy shit.

She thought she knew what arousal looked like on a man. She’d been wrong. This was arousal. His eyes were searing as they roamed over her exposed arms, neck, and throat before settling on her breasts. The normally vivid bright blue color was almost fully eclipsed by the black of his pupils. His jaw clenched and she could actually see the pulse beating hard in his throat.

Her body flared in response. She felt her cheeks go pink and her nipples go hard against the thin fabric of her cotton shirt. She hadn’t thought she’d see anyone tonight; she hadn’t even worn a bra. As Adam’s eyes roamed up her neck to rest on her lips, her mouth literally watered.

“Was it the Cubs trivia or the tank top?” she whispered.

“Both,” he answered, speaking through gritted teeth. “Along with your laugh.”

She liked that he didn’t deflect or deny the electrical current between them. They stared at one another for another full, tingling minute.

Then Geoff dropped the check on the table with a loud thump, breaking the spell. “Getting late,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jess replied, but she was grateful for his interruption. Another minute of that sizzling stare and she’d be suggesting a stroll to her apartment, located only a convenient half-block away.

Adam’s cool façade was back up as he dumped some cash on the table. His voice was crisp and distant, as though the little lust-storm had never happened. “You’ll send all of the information you find with your tracking software to the email address [email protected]”

“Or else you’ll report me to the police?”

“You got it. See you, Blondie.”

Without a backward glance, he picked up his bourbon glass and left the booth. She watched as he placed it in a bus tub on the bar and then vanished out the back door.