Part 5 (1/2)
”The irony is not lost on me,” she snapped.
”Relax, Toni, I only have the information available on a standard background check. I wanted to see who I was getting into bed with,” he said with a wink.
”I didn't have you checked out,” she said, though she saw his point.
”Maybe you should have,” he shot back. ”So, you want to tell me what you've found out so far?”
Ethan could see Toni trying to keep a rein on her temper. He'd caught her off guard, and she didn't like it. He'd given her a hard time about her casual-bordering-on-sloppy attire, but he found it almost as s.e.xy as if she'd opened the door wearing something from Victoria's Secret.
Her outfit revealed nothing and everything. Her T-s.h.i.+rt was gray, worn thin from hundreds of was.h.i.+ngs. It clung to the high, round curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a way that made his palms itch.
He forced his eyes away from the perfectly cuppable curves emblazoned with the slogan ”Property of the MIT Computer Science Department” and his eyes slid lower as she walked into the minuscule kitchen off the entryway and reached into a cabinet for two gla.s.ses. His mouth went dry as he recognized his mistake. He'd noticed her legs immediately, and they looked even better bare. Sleek with firm, muscled calves and nicely defined thighs. Thighs he could almost feel clamped around his hips as he rode her long and hard. Her skin was smooth, pale, tempting him to run his tongue along every inch.
Even her feet were nice, narrow and slender, toes painted a surprising hot pink with a little white flower design. Who would have pegged Toni as a fancy-pedicure type? Heat flooded his groin as he imagined propping her feet on his shoulders, sucking her toes into his mouth as he pumped her hard.
He s.h.i.+fted on his feet, willing his c.o.c.k down before she turned around and noticed the pup tent that was forming at the fly of his pants. As casually as possible, he crossed his hands in front of himself.
”You go first,” she demanded, filling the gla.s.ses with ice and water.
”Not much,” he admitted. ”Most of Kara's friends are out of town, away at summer camps or on vacation. The ones I did manage to connect with claim they haven't hung out with Kara in quite some time.”
”Did you look at Kara's FacePlace page?”
”A little. Didn't find much to go on. But who knew there were so many degrees of virginity?”
Toni didn't acknowledge the comment, but he could see the flush of color creeping up her neck.
”I always thought it was cut-and-dried,” he goaded. ”Insert tab A into slot B.”
”I don't want to discuss your thoughts on s.e.x or virginity,” she said. But he could tell from the deepening pink of her cheeks that she sure as s.h.i.+t was thinking about it, and thinking about it with him. ”Anyway, it's not funny. Girls talking like that attract all kinds of creeps and pervs.”
Toni's mouth was tight with concern. For whatever reason, Ethan was compelled to ease her fears. ”I noticed she posted again. That's good news.”
”Maybe.” But she didn't seem to share his optimism.
”What makes you think differently?”
”I don't know,” she said, shrugging him off. ”The posts were both made from her computer, but...” she trailed off.
”What?”
”I don't know. It doesn't sound like her.”
”How can you tell? They're two sentences each.”
She shook her head. ”Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Anyway, I found something right before you got here. I don't know if it's anything yet.”
He let her change the subject. For now. ”Show me.”
She motioned him over to the corner of her living room that apparently served as her office.
Piled in the small s.p.a.ce were a desk, printer/fax combo, and of course her computer. Papers littered the desk in semi-cohesive piles. More papers peeked out of the drawers of an overstuffed file cabinet and out of the tops of boxes.
Ethan thought of his own s.p.a.cious office with its giant desk and state-of-the-art computer system and couldn't help but wince. ”This is how you work?”
Her shoulders tensed. ”Not all of us can afford fancy office s.p.a.ce. Besides, I have everything I need right here.”
He held his hands up in a supplicating gesture, snagged one of the two rickety wooden chairs from her kitchen table, pulled it over to the desk, and settled in next to her.
As he leaned over her shoulder to see the monitor, he caught her scent in the sultry air. A mix of shampoo, laundry soap, and pure female hit him like a ton of bricks. s.e.xier than any perfume, it had heat pooling low in his belly.
She popped open a window on her browser. ”I went back a few months in the archives and came across this girl.”
Ethan took in the naked torso, bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s barely covered by the girl's own hands, and s.h.i.+fted his gaze away. Sure, her profile said she was eighteen, but he still felt like a dirty old man looking at her.
”She was a member of the V-Club,” Toni continued, ”invited by Kara, but she got kicked out after a month.”
”She doesn't look like their typical member. Guess I don't have to ask why they kicked her out.”
”The girls were cool at first, but then”-Toni's blush, which had barely subsided when they sat down, returned in full force-”Kstar90 started giving the other girls tips.”
”Tips?” He arched a brow, waiting for her to continue.
He didn't think it was possible for her face to go any redder, but her flush deepened from dark pink to full-out magenta. ”Tips on how to keep their boyfriends happy while staying technically intact.”
”Really, like what?” He felt a grin tugging at his cheeks even as heat gathered in his groin. d.a.m.n, he loved watching her squirm in her seat.
Her withering glare lost its impact under all that pink. ”I'm sure you would know better than I,” she said, presenting him with her profile as she turned back to her screen.
d.a.m.n straight. ”I'd be happy to demonstrate any and all of them.”
Her mouth gaped as she gave him a disbelieving look. ”Are you seriously hitting on me while we're talking about the s.e.xual habits of teenage girls? Could you be any more inappropriate?”
He held up his hands. ”The offer was made purely out of professional courtesy.”
She shot him a glare. Licked her lips. s.h.i.+fted in her seat. Yeah, for all her offense, she was thinking about it.
”All right, so Kstar90 got kicked out of the virgin club for being too s.k.a.n.ky,” he said, letting Toni off the hook for the moment. ”Besides the V-Club, what do you think her tie is to Kara?”
Toni clicked on a link to additional photos. Ethan sucked air through his teeth. He thought the picture of Kstar90 on her home page was bad, but these had crossed the line from racy to lewd. There were half a dozen, showcasing Kstar90 in various states of undress, every body part displayed for anyone with a Web browser to see.
All except her face, which had been painstakingly blurred out.
Toni's mouth got tighter and her jaw took on a hard set as she clicked on one of the photos and called up another program. A separate window popped up with a grid full of data and a smaller version of the picture. But this time the subject's face was clear.
Kstar90 wasn't connected to Kara. Kstar90 was Kara.
”f.u.c.k,” Toni swore, echoing his own curse.
She quickly clicked through the remaining photos and ran them through the same program.