Hot Winter Nights

She didn’t.

Okay then. They’d shared orgasms, but they still weren’t quite friends. Good to know.

Archer strode in and proceeded to start the meeting without preamble, pointing at various members of the team when it was their turn to run through their current case. When Lucas was up, he opened his laptop and froze. The open tab was on one of their special search programs and Molly’s name was still typed in. He smoothly and quickly shifted the screen aside and presented his current case to the room, not looking over at Molly.

Shortly thereafter, the meeting was adjourned and everyone filed out. Molly stood and turned to him, hands on hips. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to; steam was coming out her ears.

“Okay,” he said. “I get that it looks bad, but I didn’t hit enter.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

He stood and met her gaze straight-on. “Yes.” He waited for her reaction, but she wasn’t giving him much of anything. She was just looking at him, eyes intense as if trying to measure his ability for honesty.

Fair enough. “I found something on St. Nick,” he said quietly. “I’ve emailed you the file.”

“Did you?” she asked with a surprise that bothered him.

“Yeah. I did. Partners, remember? He’s got a lot of aliases to comb through.”

They were toe to toe now and the air in the conference room seemed to crackle around them. He didn’t know about her, but all he could think about was last night when they’d been this close and what they’d been doing to each other. Was she thinking about it too? How they’d stripped each other in the dark and spent the long hours of the night locked in erotic sensations. And she’d come through on the dirty talk too, big-time. At the memory, he smiled.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth and he knew, oh yeah, he damn well knew that she was thinking about it too. She wet her lips and gave a small little sigh that warmed him in places that had no business being warmed in a damn conference room at work. “Molly.”

She closed her eyes and tipped her face up, like she wanted him to kiss her—which he wanted more than his next breath. He put a hand on her hip and leaned in and . . .

Joe walked into the room.

Molly jumped back a few feet and whirled on her brother. “Why are you always sneaking up on me? Jeez, wear a damn bell, would you?”

Joe gave her an odd look and pointed to his cell phone still lying on the large conference table. “Forgot that.” He gave a half smile to his sister. “I know, I know, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t attached to my neck, right?” His smile faded and he divided a glance between Lucas and Molly. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Molly said quickly.

Lucas shook his head. Nope, nothing wrong here, nothing to see . . .

Archer came back in to grab a doughnut out of the opened box. “Almost left dessert.” He stared at Lucas and then Molly. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Molly repeated.

Lucas pleaded the fifth.

Archer didn’t look any more convinced than Joe, which meant it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Lucas grabbed his laptop and nodded to Joe. “Hand me a kiss.” Shit. Fuck. Damn. Hell. “I mean a doughnut.” God, he was so stupid. “Hand me a doughnut.”

Joe just stared at him as if one of them had lost their mind.

Not Archer. There was no bemusement in his gaze at all. Just a blank, deadpanned stare that probably would’ve had most people running for the hills.

Lucas wasn’t most people and he wasn’t easily intimidated or scared. But he could admit that his balls tightened slightly and not in a good way. Ignoring everyone but Molly, whom he sent a quick glance to and found her cheeks flushed, he grabbed a doughnut for himself, and then on second thought, took a second. Because this was definitely going to be a two doughnut sort of day. Then he turned his back—a risk with both Archer and Joe being excellent marksmen—and walked out of the room.

By the time Molly lifted her head from her laptop at the end of the day, most everyone else had left work. She’d switched over from Hunt work to the file Lucas had sent her. Back aching, she stood and stretched, giving her leg a moment to get under her. When she could straighten it all the way, she went around closing up for the night and found Lucas in his office on his laptop.

“Oh,” she said in surprise, standing in his opened doorway. “I was just about to turn off all the lights on you. What are you still doing here? You came in at five this morning.”

“I could ask the same of you,” he said and rose, stretching as she just had, rolling his broad shoulders. His T-shirt rose a little, giving her a quick peek at some serious rock-hard abs. She had to force her eyes off him because she knew herself. Knew the danger signs. Her entire body softened when she got too close to him now, and she . . . tingled.

It was the memories of their nights together. She kept replaying the sound of his low timbered rough voice in her ear when he’d been over her, deep inside her, taking her to places she hadn’t been in far too long. And then the sound of his sexy triumphant laugh when he’d taken her over the edge for the second time.

And then a third.

If she was being honest, it was about more than just the physical intimacy they’d shared. It was the look in his eyes when he got concerned about her safety—and yet he still let her do what she wanted to do.

Yeah, there was no doubt. She was deep, deep in the danger zone with him. “I had a bunch of work piled up,” she said.

“And not all of it for Hunt Investigations,” he said.

She gave a single nod of agreement.

“Find anything?” he asked.

“I’m working on getting access to financial information on Nick and all his various aliases, along with his brother. And also the workings of the charities that the village supposedly supports. Did you know that there’s a handful of people who win bingo? A lot?”

“What’s a lot?” he asked.

“Just about weekly, near as I can tell. Almost as if they have a deal with the person in charge of bingo.”

He nodded. “So assuming that’s true and that Nick has people planted in bingo, the winners probably get to keep part of the winnings, but have to hand the rest back to him.”

“Bad Santa.”

“Very bad,” he agreed in that voice that never failed to rev her engines. Before she could do something stupid, she looked at the time. “Oops. Gotta go,” she said.

“Hold up.”

“No time,” she said and walked down the hallway, grabbing her purse and laptop. At the front door of the offices, she was halted when a long arm reached past her and held the door closed.

He was right behind her, as in so close she could feel the heat of him through her clothes, seeping into her back. She closed her eyes to take it in as he lowered his head and rubbed his jaw to hers.

“Molly,” he murmured, his mouth at the sweet spot beneath her ear, making her quiver on the inside. On the outside, she locked her knees.

“Hmm?” she managed, her body moving of its own accord, dammit, tipping her head to the side to give him more room in order to drive her crazy with his mouth now at her throat.

“Where are you running off to?” he asked. His breath was warm, the day-old stubble on his jaw prickling her skin in the very best way.

“Home,” she managed. “I’ve got to rest up for tomorrow night’s elf shift. Mrs. Berkowitz and Mrs. White heard rumors that something’s going down tomorrow night.” Dammit! Her eyes flashed open and she whirled to face him, poking her finger in his stupid hard chest. “Stop doing that!”