Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2) Read online

  He was scared to see her face, just in case she thought this was too soon. If she got that scaredy cat thing going again, he would have to tie her up and drag her to his place. He really didn’t want to do that. He’d sort of been joking about the tying her to his bed business.

  “Evan, I love you.”

  Dumbstruck, he looked up at her face to see she was earnest. “I mean it. You said something earlier, at my house, about how you’d fallen in love with me, and I never said anything back. I just… needed you to know that I’ve always loved you.”

  He smothered her face in joyful kisses while she batted him away. “I can’t guarantee I’m not going to freak out a few times while I get used to the fact that I’m living with Evan Fucking Rocco, but I’d love to give it a shot,” she giggled.

  “Every time you freak out, I’ll just make love to you until you forget I’m a rock star.”

  He couldn’t stop the smile from bursting across his face. “I love you, Paige Lawson. Since I met you in April, I’ve loved you. Now that I know you, I love you even more. There’s nothing you can do to change that, ever.” This time when he kissed her, it wasn’t because he’d lost control, or wanted her to get quiet, or to get a rise out of her. He kissed her because her toes deserved to curl. She needed to unwind and feel his love. He loved her, and the kisses he gave her were to prove that.

  Evan led Paige by the hand into Ryan’s cabin for Thanksgiving barbecue. They were a little early because he hadn’t timed the traffic right. Surely, Ryan wouldn’t mind.

  Of course, as soon as he walked in the door, the sounds from the bedroom told him otherwise. Holding a finger to his lips, he pulled Paige close, undecided what to do.

  “Oh God, Ryan… Right there.”

  “Fuck.”

  The headboard was banging, and Paige let out a giggle before Evan’s hand clamped over her mouth to quiet her. His other hand clenched her hip, and he watched her eyes darken with understanding and desire. Evan clenched his fingers harder, realizing the auditory display was turning them both on.

  “Yes! Oh God! Yes!”

  “I’m gonna wring another one out of you before we’re finished…”

  “Well then you’d better hurry before your friends… Oh! Oh! Oooohhhhhh!”

  A guttural roar accompanied a shrill shrieking from the couple in the throes of ecstasy right before a crashing sound echoed through the cabin. Muttered curses and a giggle seeped through the walls as well as a low moan. They didn’t seem to be letting what sounded like the collapse of their bed stop them.

  Paige gasped against Evan, and his roaming hands clenched her hip as she mouthed at him. “Should we go?”

  Grinning, he led her out the door as quietly as he could, his erection straining painfully against his zipper. Even though it was listening to his coworker and his girlfriend, Evan was visualizing him and Paige. He managed to get her into his car before mauling her with his mouth.

  “God, did that turn you on as much as it did me?” she whispered breathlessly as she fumbled with his pants.

  “Fuck, yeah.” Twisting her into his lap, he pulled her panties aside at the same time as he lifted her skirt and speared Paige onto his hard length. Feeling her tight heat was enough to make him blow, but as she rode him, careful of the stick shift, he pulled up her blouse and freed her tits.

  This woman was a fucking goddess he didn’t deserve. But he’d take her any way he could have her. He was living out a fantasy, fucking her in his car before eating half a cow for Thanksgiving. What red-blooded American male wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now?

  Throwing her head back, Paige accidently honked his horn before she squeezed closer to him with a breathy giggle.

  As she bounced up and down, Evan mouthed her breasts, listening to her moans of pleasure. This was going to be over before she came if he wasn’t careful, so he found her clit with his thumb and traced small circles over it, pressing down. When she tightened around him, suctioning him with her inner walls, Evan let go.

  As she collapsed against his neck, breathing heavily, Evan realized Simon’s truck was pulled up next to them. Looking over, he saw his boss staring at them red-faced, Quinten grinning at them maniacally.

  “Um…”

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” Paige was blushing furiously, and Evan had to kiss her. She was just too damn adorable. “He doesn’t like me much.” She hastened to straighten her clothes.

  “Naw, he’s just a teddy bear under all that gruff exterior. He acts like he doesn’t like anybody.” Evan had absolutely no evidence of this, but it seemed to reassure Paige as she crawled over his stick shift back into the passenger seat.

  He got out of the car just as Simon and Quinten were getting out of the truck. Simon was blushing, not looking at either of them. “I wish someone had gotten Miriam’s deviled egg recipe.”

  “Where is Miriam, anyway?” She’d really been taking a lot of time off lately, and Evan missed her, especially the food she always brought in to the office.

  “Medical leave. She said it’s routine, but she’s taking two weeks.” Simon seemed grateful for the change of topic.

  Before he could express alarm, Quinten asked, “Everything okay?” Nobody missed the tense of his shoulders or the grimace on his face.

  Simon shrugged. “Hell if I know. That woman’s locked up tighter than Mother Theresa’s legs.”

  Visualizing Miriam in a position the least bit sexual, even if it was a Mother Theresa innuendo, was too much for Evan. But he understood the sentiment.

  As they all filed into the house, Evan was relieved to see that Ryan and Krista seemed to be finished with their sex, even though it was clear they’d been doing it. Both of them came from their room the same time the rest of them entered the house. They were both flushed and disheveled, and Simon didn’t hide his eye-roll from anyone.

  “She’s learned the trick to my stove,” Ryan shrugged. “It’s a fucking turn-on.” Looking at Paige, he apologized. “Sorry, but it’s the truth.”

  Paige muttered something about not needing to apologize and followed Krista into the kitchen while Simon, Quinten, and Evan followed Ryan to the barbecue pit outside, where Ryan proceeded to flip the biggest rack of ribs Evan had ever seen. His mouth watered in response.

  “Hey, Evan. You got a Marine brother, don’t you?”

  He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the ribs and noticing a brisket as well. He licked his lips. Today was a great day.

  “When’s he get out?” Shifting his focus from the meat to his boss, Evan answered, “Sometime after the first of the year, I think. I can find out. Why?”

  “I need a few more men. Your last case has given us more publicity and we’re starting to get more cases. The good thing about them is it’s a few protection details, and those are lucrative and usually pretty easy. You think he’d be interested in a job?”

  “I can set something up.” Everybody at the company knew Simon had envisioned Pierce Securities as less of a PI firm and more of a securities detail type thing, but when they’d first started, they’d had to take what they could get. Now, apparently word was out that they were competent.

  “What’s the deal with the case? Have you heard anything?” Ryan was looking at Evan expectantly, and Evan debated toying with the man about just having sex with Krista when he was expecting company, but thought better of it when he realized Simon and Quinten could just as easily rag on him for getting busy in the driveway.

  So he shrugged. “Peggy’s going away for a little while as an accessory, but Stygman’s trial is on hold for a while. I don’t anticipate many issues with it, though. Asshole’s going down for lots of things: insurance fraud, murder, aggravated assault, organized crime, you name it, the feds have a case for it. He pissed them off good.” And then the civil suits would start. Stygman would spend the rest of his life in jail and court.

  “What about that other guy? The one who disappeared?” Quinten piped up.

  “He’s got a defunct
olive grove in Greece. Paige emails back and forth with him sometimes.” He’d decided that Roger Patton really was harmless, having gotten sucked into a bully match with Paige at Stygman’s egging. Poor shmuck had been just as big a pawn in the entire fiasco as anyone else had been.

  They drank beer and watched the meat cook while the women were inside doing whatever women do at a barbecue. Evan realized that he loved this, knowing he had a place to be, with his brothers and his woman. Knowing everyone had his back as much as he had theirs and that they would lay down their life for him gave him a sense of purpose he’d never really known. Sure, his gaming buddies would do that, but that was a digital world, not a real one. These guys had shown him multiple times that they would do it without thinking.

  They ate lunch outside, in the crisp fall air, joking with each other like a family. Evan’s parents in Montana were too far away for many visits, and Paige’s parents were gone. Ryan didn’t have any family, and Krista’s were at her sister’s house. Simon and Quinten had a mother still living, but she was doing some charitable function on this holiday and didn’t seem to mind they weren’t around.

  It was just them, and Evan wouldn’t change a thing, except have the rest of them there, Zack and Miriam.

  “So what’s the deal with you and Miriam? When are you going to ask her out?” Evan eyeballed Quinten who choked on the rib he was gnawing on.

  “He’s not,” Simon growled. “You asshats may not understand the rules, but my fucking brother certainly does.”

  “O-Kay,” Evan found the brisket suddenly fascinating as he tried to figure out what Simon’s problem was. He’d made it a rule from the get-go that they weren’t to sleep with clients, which Ryan and Evan had fucked up. But Miriam was a co-worker, and he couldn’t remember any rules involving co-workers.

  “Are you going to hide under another rock now that you’re back in the public eye?” Simon was adept at changing the subject when he was uncomfortable.

  “No, we’re using it to our advantage.” The media had made a sensation out of the geeky playboy rescuing the gaming CEO and finding romance in the process. They’d had their faces splashed across every newspaper and magazine in Austin, and some in national news.

  Paige started talking about her newest baby. “All those kids who were targeted by The Crimson Lady should have had another outlet to turn to, so we’re going to provide one for them. It’s still in the idea stages, but it’s a great way to get to improve PSL’s image and it will give me something different to focus on for a while.” She beamed at Evan and his heart stopped beating for a second as he realized what he’d signed on for.

  She’d come up with the idea one night when they were gaming together. He’d introduced her to his game team, and she fit in great, immediately taking Red_Dawn’s place. She’d vocalized the desire to help the kids who needed a little push in the right direction, the ones who were perfectly smart but had attitude issues, behavior problems, or just didn’t fit in. She’d come up with an internship program at PSL for them to work with whatever aspect of gaming they found interesting, be it design, marketing, software development, or whatever. She’d found a niche, remembering how she herself didn’t quite fit in when she started.

  He’d been working with her on it, and it was promising to be fruitful. It hadn’t gotten off the ground yet, but she was a master with test subjects and market research. So far, the school administrators they’d talked to seemed to think it was a worthwhile endeavor.

  And Evan thought she was sexy when she did her presentations to them.

  Hell, he thought she was sexy just sitting here in Ryan’s yard eating barbecue with the guys. She fit in here. She was quickly becoming a part of his family, and Evan felt the rightness of it all. Paige was perfect for him and he was perfect for her. Even Simon had to see that, whether he liked it or not.

  Yeah. He and Paige were going to change the world. And he couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

  Keep reading for an unedited excerpt from the next book in the Pierce Securities series, Click, due out in September 2015.

  Miriam was in the gym, trying to freshen up the stale air. She’d taken out the dirty towels she found in random places to take home to wash, but it still smelled like sweaty socks. She sighed softly to herself. Men.

  “Mir? Can you come in here? I’ve got a job for you.” Simon’s voice bellowed down the hall at her, and she stopped the eye-roll before it got started.

  “Yes sir?” She liked her job, honestly. It just seemed like she wasn’t appreciated enough for her skills in the office. As soon as the boys had learned she cooked, they’d peppered her with requests. She should feel flattered, but couldn’t help the occasional twinge of unappreciation.

  She wondered what they needed her to do now. Clean out the coffee pot?

  “We need you to take a job as a bar manager to find out where the owner is siphoning his money. He’s gone through tens of thousands of dollars, with nothing to show for it.” Hands folded on his desk in front of him, Simon was all business.

  Her breath left her in a whoosh. They wanted her to work undercover? That was unexpected. She was the one who filed paperwork and organized the office. “Quinten can’t do it?”

  “He only hires pretty ladies. You get in, find a problem with the bartender, and hire Quinten to back you up.” Simon drummed his fingers on the calendar in front of him idly. “But it’s purely up to you. I don’t want to put you in a position you’re uncomfortable with. You’re safety is more important to me than the job.”

  A flush of pleasure stole across her cheeks. The fact that Simon thought she was pretty would have been enough to make her take it, but for him to then go on extolling the value of her safety? Wow.

  She wasn’t attracted to Simon, or any of the boys really. It had just been so long since anybody had said anything about her looks, good or bad. She’d begun to think she was asexual in the boys’ eyes. Or ninety.

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Go in for an interview and get the job. You’ll need to dress the part, unfortunately. The professionalism that you exude here won’t get you very far at a bar on Sixth Street. Then, just do your best to fit in and find out what’s going on. The job is actually perfect for you. Turns out, he can’t hire a pretty face with brains. Until you.”

  She swallowed hard. “Do you want me to seduce him?” She wasn’t adverse to that part of the job, although she didn’t know if she could seduce just anybody. Miriam liked to think she had some standards not that you could tell by her past relationships.

  A frown crossed his features as he thought about it. “Honestly, I’m not sure what this job will entail, but I don’t think so. Just flirt with him for now. The client seems to think he’s mixed up with something dangerous, or illegal, but he doesn’t know what it is. Until we’re sure, I’m going to say no. But flirt with him a little. Get him to trust you.”

  She nodded. Seemed simple enough.

  Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the last four years. Currently she is writing two romance series. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head. Check out her blog, www.anneconley.com for updates, book blurbs, and more.

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  Serendipity Series

  Welcome to Serendipity, Texas, a town where real people deal with real problems. Meet characters in their thirties and forties struggling with day-to-day issues and managing to find love in the process. Visit Serendipity, where the days are hot, and the nights are steamy! The first story, Neighborly Complications, is free! www.anneconley.com/p/neighborly.html

  The Four Winds Series

  The Four Winds series are Paranormal Romances dealing with the Archangels. They are the biblical archangels, so there are aspects of Christianity in them. But the conflict in the stories are about the archangels falling in love and turning human, so they are dealing with human emotions and feelings. Due to various reactions of shock and outrage, I feel the need to put the spoiler out there: These books have sex in them, but also Christianity. So if either of those bother you, please don't buy these books. First book in the series is free! www.anneconley.com/p/falling-for-heaven.html

  Pierce Securities

  A group of misfits come together to form Pierce Securities & Investigations; doing the best they can with their collective and individual strengths; becoming unlikely heroes in the process.

  Stand Alone Novels

  Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men

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