Ramagos, Tonya - Strictly Accountable [Stud Service 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

“You were busy with Bella.” Mother and father shared a smile and Gabrielle turned her attention back to Sabrina.

“We call her Bella for short, but we can’t seem to convince Brody of that.”

Brody looked at her. “Have you ever heard the tale of Cinder
bella
?”

Sabrina laughed, instantly understanding. “No, I don’t suppose I have.”

“Well, there you go. That’s because there’s no such princess. Now Cinde
rella
existed, and she’s still the bell of the ball ’til this day. That’s a lady fit for a shiny slipper.”

Gabrielle rolled her eyes, but her smile spread from ear to ear. “He bought her a pair, too. Where he found a set of size zero silver slippers I’ll never know.”

“And I’ll never tell. Can’t give away our little secrets, now can we?” he asked Isabella then wrinkled his nose. “That’s one secret a lady is supposed to keep.”

“I just changed her.”

Brody passed the baby on to his sister. “And you can change her again.”

“Why don’t you do it, Uncle Not Grumpy?”

“No can do. Sabrina here has already reminded me once she’s here for a business meeting.” He leaned closer to his sister and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “She’s got a hot date this evening.”

Sabrina felt her cheeks flame, but she didn’t say anything. Little did he know exactly what kind of hot date she planned and who would be the star.

“Come on.” His hand found the small of her back once more and he guided her out of the living room. “Everything you need is in the office.”

Everything she needed. As the potency of his touch seeped into her flesh through the material of her shirt, she wondered if that everything included handcuffs, lube, and a bed with him naked between the sheets.

Chapter Three

“You’re sure you’ve given me everything?” Sabrina looked up at Brody from beneath long lashes, one red-tipped fingernail tapping idly on the desk as she waited for him to answer.

The red nails gave him a moment’s surprise. At first glance, she didn’t strike him as a woman with wicked needs and siren thoughts, things kept secret but exhibited subtly by red nail polish and sexy lingerie. A slightly deeper look revealed the truth, however. He caught the veiled hunger in her eyes, the simmering inner shock and awareness of needs taking form inside, of the want to explore.

Damn, but he wanted to explore them with her. He wanted to spread her naked over the desk she sat behind and manipulate her lithe body until she begged and screamed for him to fuck her.

She cleared her throat. The sharp, feminine sound yanked him from his sexual bliss to the here and now.

“Yes. No.” Brody raked a hand through his hair. He wasn’t sure of shit anymore, except that he wanted to feel this woman’s nails digging into his flesh as he buried his aching cock in her pussy. Said cock did a decided jerk when she lifted a brow, her lips curving in a hint of amusement that transformed her face from merely beautiful to downright wicked. He stifled a frustrated growl. “I’m sure I’ve given you everything I’ve managed to find so far.” He went digging everywhere he suspected his father would stash records of the ranch finances and discovered a few places he hadn’t known existed.

“You’ve given me the current books as well as financial accounts and 1040s that date back to 2005.” Sabrina shuffled through a few pages on the top of the nearest stack. “Page one and two of the tax returns are here, but without the Schedule Cs, As, and depreciation reports I can’t tell how he came up with the figures reported or how many of them are correct.”

Brody let his hand fall to his side and leveled a glare at her. “You lost me with all this A, B, C stuff, darlin’. I watched Sesame Street growing up, and Big Bird never said anything about reporting the alphabet on my taxes.”

“Hardy har har, Brody.” Her sarcasm coupled with the tempting little frown that etched itself between her brows almost made him laugh.

She had stayed on his mind yesterday and last night far more than he expected. He knew women, beautiful and hot and ready for the taking, and none of them penetrated his thoughts and stuck like a virus starting to spawn the way Sabrina had. It made it hard to concentrate on anything but fucking her. Couple that with the realization he came to around four o’clock this morning that her no-nonsense act hid a sex kitten dying to purr, and any chance of rational thought kept slipping from his grasp.

“They’re tax forms.” She held up the top sheet of paper as an exhibit. “They give a breakdown of business deductions and income, itemized deductions, and so on. Those forms are used to calculate the numbers reported on these lines.” She pointed to an amount he couldn’t read from his distance across the office.

“That makes only a grain of salt more sense than it did before.” Brody rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “I’m a rancher, Sabrina. Tell me about the amount of feed we have in the barn and how many livestock we have chomping on it, and I’ll tell you whether it’ll last or not. You start talking to me about schedules and alphabets and itemized depreciations, and I’m dumb as a fence post.”

Sabrina made a sound of part laugh and the other half a sigh. “Itemized
deductions
. Depreciation is entirely different.” When she leaned back in his father’s swivel chair and pursed her lips, he instantly envisioned them closing around the head of his cock as he buried his length in her luscious mouth. “And that’s why you hired me.”

“Now you’re catching on.” And he would do good to remember that, too. He hired her to do exactly what she appeared to be focused on doing, making heads and tails out of the Holt’em Up Ranch finances and taxes. He didn’t bring her here to make her his sex slave, no matter how many truly appealing images the thought provoked.

Her gaze dropped to the desk and danced over the stacks of papers he’d set there for her. “I suppose the forms I’m looking for could be buried in all this somewhere. I went for the most obvious first. I don’t see anything here prior to 2005, though. The IRS Voluntary Disclosure Initiative covers from 2003 to now.”

Brody shook his head. “Mom died in 2005. She took care of everything until then. She never lived a dishonest day in her life. Pop took over after her death, and that’s apparently when everything went to shit. I looked through the stuff you’ve got there myself, Sabrina. Even I could see from the bank statements and paperwork that the numbers aren’t jiving.”

She regarded him with an expression of mixed humor and understanding. “Then you aren’t as dumb as a fence post after all.”

“He was stashing. Even a fence post could figure that out. It looks like 2005 was the year he started. He didn’t even wait for the dirt to harden in Mom’s grave.”

“Where is the money now?”

“Still in the accounts. I haven’t touched a penny.” Brody laughed scornfully. “Hell, I’m not even sure how to access money in an offshore account.”

“Same as you would any other, with a few extra security measures, I’m sure.”

Brody held her gaze for a long moment. Anger at his father collided with a demonic need to possess the woman staring back at him. Trouble came in the sense that it didn’t stop there, not the anger or the need. Both ran deep in his system. He could handle the anger and find other avenues to let it out. Taking Sabrina, possessing her and showing her all the dark pleasures forming in his mind wouldn’t be done in a night.

“Bottom-line it for me,” he finally said. “Can you get it straight?” Damned if he could. He understood the desire in his cock, but the tightness in his chest didn’t make a damned bit of sense.

“Oh, I can straighten it out.” Her steady tone only added more weight to her obvious confidence. “It’s going to take some time, but yeah, I can do it.”

“Do what you’ve got to do. I offered you triple time and I’ll keep my end. I can pay you however many hours it takes. I think,” he added because, damn, what if Holt’em Up Ranch wasn’t as well off as he thought?

Sabrina’s grin spread and his world shifted. “You’re not broke, Brody.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a relief. Are we talking not broke
now?
Because I knew that much. Or are we talking about after Uncle Sam snatches whatever is rightfully his plus some?”

“Hmm.” The way she chewed her bottom lip as she sat up straighter and began shuffling through the statements and returns he’d laid out for her made his dick whimper for attention. “The IRS is going to attach some hefty penalties. The size of the offset will determine exactly how much. I’ve got to do some more digging, but my understanding so far is there will be a twenty percent penalty for each tax year we amend. The amount of that penalty is determined by the amount of the underpayment for each year. Then there is the tax itself and the interest accrued.”

Brody pushed out a hard breath. “At this rate I might have to find another way to pay you.” Something moved through her eyes, a quick suggestive flash he knew he wouldn’t have seen if he hadn’t been looking right at her. Heat rapidly followed the flash, and he couldn’t decide if he sparked her temper or stroked her sexual curiosity. She wanted him. He knew women, recognized the signs, and didn’t doubt for a second she had been entertaining some wild and wicked thoughts about him. He also guessed that the depths of those thoughts and wants scared her. Because he didn’t want her to run away with her tail tucked between her amazing legs, he added, “That might have come out wrong.”

“Might have?”

Oh, yeah, curiosity got her along with a prod to her temper. He decided not to press too hard just yet. “You’re saving my ass, Sabrina.”

“Maybe I happen to think your ass is worth saving.”

Brody couldn’t stop the slow grin that curved his lips. “Do you, now?”

Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Down boy.” Her chiding hinted with a promising confession he didn’t miss but chose to let slide.

She rubbed the back of her neck and glanced at her wristwatch. “Wow! It’s after noon already. I need to get going.” She pushed back from the desk and paused, her gaze sweeping over the paperwork cluttering the top. “Is it okay to leave everything here like this?”

“Yeah, I’ll close off the room. It’ll be just like this when you come back.”

“Thanks.” She shouldered her purse as she stood and walked around the desk.

“Any idea when that will be?”

She drew her lip between her teeth, chewed thoughtfully, and sent his cock on a tantrum of fits and barely bridled needs. “I can come by tomorrow afternoon for a while if that’s good for you.”

It would be better for him if she never left. The idea of her hanging around for an indefinite period of time came from so far out of left field that he rocked back on his heels. He managed to turn the shocked move into one of nonchalance and gave her a quick nod. “That’ll be fine. If you shoot me a text before you head out I’ll make sure I’ve got on a shirt when you get here.”

“That isn’t n…uh, okay, I’ll do that.”

Brody didn’t think he ever heard a woman put the brakes on a statement so fast. Necessary. That’s what she started to say. The tinge of pink that came to her cheeks as she glanced at him and then quickly looked away confirmed it.

He reacted, temptation and need coming together to test his control to the end of its current limits. He caught her arm when she started to walk past him and steered her until she stood facing him with barely a breath of air between them. He kept her that way, letting the tension build, staring into her eyes and discovering secrets he figured she didn’t even know she hid. “You’re sure you’ve got to get going?”

She swallowed visibly, and his attention locked on her throat. The vein pulsed in her neck, beckoning his tongue, his teeth. “I, uh, yes.”

“You don’t sound so sure.” He dragged his hand up her arm, skimmed over her shoulder, and cupped her nape. “You could stay for dinner. I could massage away this tension for you.”

Desire burned hot and ready in her eyes. A primitive possession roiled through his mind as he quit resisting and slowly dipped his head. He drew out the moment, letting her see his intent, drowning in the plea he felt radiating from her before he lightly brushed his lips to hers.