Page 17 of Stolen

“I should hope so,” Mikey huffed, and continued on up the stairs in a high dudgeon.

Once out of sight of the ground floor, she bypassed the cloakroom and went on down the hall to the study. Gunn had already arrived.

The room was decorated like a freakin’ mobster’s hideout from the 1930s, down to the paneling, the stuffed animal heads, the old-fashioned replica phones, and the safe—which was normally concealed behind a painting that Gunn had thoughtfully removed.

“How’d it go?” he asked her.

“My boobs are wet,” she said. “At least our host had a good time.”

Gunn gave a little growl, so obviously he’d seen the guy groping her. Michelangela kissed his shoulder. “Don’t be jealous. I’ll let you dry my boobs in the limo later.”

That cheered him up. She turned to the safe, examining the locking mechanism.

“Old school,” she said. “Like the rest of the office.”

“And the cash payoff,” Gunn said. “Guy thinks he’s fucking Al Capone.”

“Lucky for us. I could have cracked this baby when I was ten.”

She put her ear to the safe door and started turning the dial, listening for the tumblers. With her shifter hearing, it was a piece of cake.

After all this old-fashioned bullshit, Michelangela had been expecting paper files, but right in the front there was a conveniently labeled envelope with a memory stick. Damn, people were stupid. There were also stacks of cash, jewelry boxes, and a ledger, which Gunn took and concealed in the front pocket of his jacket.

Mikey let him; that wasn’t part of her assignment. Her orders were only for the intelligence the senator had brought. She saw Gunn look speculatively at the cash, but he left it alone, probably because she was there.

She closed the safe door, the muffled clang sounding somehow final—like the end of something important. Gunn said, “Are you sure you don’t want to join me in a life of crime? Because, watching you steal stuff is sexy as fuck.”

“You never know.” She slid the memory stick slowly down her cleavage.

Gunn leaned in and kissed her, nipping her lower lip. “Do you know how much I want to lay you out on this desk and fuck you until I have to put my hand over your mouth to keep you from screaming?”

Mikey went hot all over. “Sooo tempting, but I’m thinking we better go.” She slid away from him before she started ripping his clothes off. “See you downstairs?”

She went back to the cloakroom to wait, giving Gunn time to get down the back stairs and rejoin the party. Then she stalked down the front way, the memory stick still hidden in her cleavage, still clearly annoyed about her ruined dress.

She made her way over to Gunn, now enjoying a fresh glass of champagne and chatting with an exceptionally beautiful woman, who had her predatory red-nail-polished hand on his lapel.

He purposely appeared to take several moments too long to register Michelangela’s presence. Finally he looked up. “There you are, darling,” he said, without enthusiasm. “Mrs. Tretterford was just keeping me company.”

“I can see that,” Mikey said in an icy tone. She went on, her voice getting louder with every word. “My dress is ruined, utterly ruined. And now I find you flirting with this…” She waved her hand towards Mrs. Tretterford as if unable to find a great enough insult. She settled on, “…this overdressed tart.”

Mrs. Tretterford gave a fake gasp. Gunn had made an excellent choice on who to flirt with—Mikey was sure this one had been called worse in her time.

“I’m utterly humiliated,” Mikey went on, even louder. “Come on, Radford, we’re leaving.”

“But sweetheart—”

“Now,” she snapped. “Unless you want me to take the limo, and you can Uber to a hotel?”

“All right, darling,” he said, giving Mrs. Tretterford a ‘what can you do when you’re married to an unreasonable bitch?’ look. “I’ll take you home.”

They got their coats and walked out, Mikey making a show of tapping her foot impatiently on the flagstone of the portico while waiting for the driver to bring their limo around.

True to his cover, Gunn ostentatiously checked out a woman in a mink coat with a thigh-high slit in her dress, getting out of a Rolls. Mikey stuck her nose higher in the air. “Well, really,” she huffed.

All the while, adrenalin was pumping through her body, tingling in her veins. The memory stick felt like it was glowing between her boobs, announcing itself to anyone nearby. Every instinct was on high alert for someone to realize what they’d done. Every color was brighter, every scent crisper.

This was why she loved undercover work. The risk, the danger, the way it made her feel twice as alive as usual.

And doing it with Gunn was even better.