Shadow Account

1 "What are you looking at?" Conner Ashby glanced up from his computer. "Did you say something?" He made it sound so sincere. Gave her that distracted tone and that puzzled expression. He had the routine down to a science, and he enjoyed playing with her head. It was one of those things they had in common. Liz Shaw stood in the doorway of his cramped bedroom, hands on hips. She wore just an oversized blue-and-orange New York Knicks T-shirt that fell to her knees. "You're impossible," she said. "Answer me." From the doorway, she couldn't see the screen. Conner grinned, impressed by Liz's ability to make casual cotton as sexy as black lace. She was gorgeous. Easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever been with. "I'm looking at my Schwab brokerage account." "You're lying to me, Mr. Ashby." Conner winced. It wasn't the accusation that bothered him. It was the fact that Liz never used his first name. Her means of maintaining a subtle yet effective distance. "What are you talking about?" "You don't have a Schwab account anymore." Conner fished an ice cube from a Bronx Zoo cup sitting beside his computer on the old desk, and ran it slowly across his bare chest. The air-conditioning had gone down a few hours ago, and he was wearing nothing but a pair of cargo shorts. "How do you know that?" "I was on your computer last night before you got home. You closed your Schwab account. You, Mr. Ashby, are now an Ameritrade customer." "Hey, as modest as this hovel is, it's my hovel," he reminded her, trying to sound annoyed. "I pay the rent here and you had no right to go snooping around my computer." "Guilty as charged," Liz agreed, moving to the foot of the bed. "But I did. So I know you're lying." She gestured at the monitor. "Come on. What are you looking at?" He glanced out the open window beside his desk at the lights of Manhattan's Upper East Side. They were burning hazy holes in the humid August night. "Some surf shop Web site. I'm gonna buy another board so I can" "I bet you're looking at smut." Conner's eyes flashed to the screen. On it, a woman lay across a couch wearing a see-through teddy. She bore a strong resemblance to Lizblond and slim with full, firm breasts straining at the frilly material. "Turn the monitor this way," Liz demanded, crawling onto the bed. Conner clicked back to his screen saver, a panoramic shot of a surfer emerging from the pipeline of a huge wave. But he was a second late. "I knew it," she said triumphantly, kneeling upright as she reached the edge of the mattress. She'd caught a glimpse of the image on the screen. "Aren't I enough?" she asked, slipping the T-shirt over her head and dropping it in his lap. "Or are you like most men? Obsessive about enjoying as many of us as possible." Conner let out a long, slow breath, admiring the work of art now on display. His eyes flickered down to the sapphire dangling from a gold ring in her navel. A body piercing seemed like the last thing a society girl would have, which was why he loved it. "I'm like most men," he confessed. "At least you can admit it," she murmured, slipping her arms around his neck and kissing him. Conner laughed softly as their lips parted. "WhaFrey, Stephen is the author of 'Shadow Account', published 2004 under ISBN 9780345457585 and ISBN 0345457587.