Naked Sushi Read online

  I pulled in my gut and clenched my pubes. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs—”

  “You sound like a robocall,” Cindy said, exasperated. “Now say it with feeling. Give it oomph.” She cleared her throat. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs, what a big surprise seeing little ol’ you here.” She batted her Dolly Partons.

  Her lashes, not her boobs.

  “I’m not trying to seduce him, Cindy. I’m trying to get a confession.”

  “Whatever. You have to be in the moment. Think of something way more important than Mr. Briggs.”

  “Like Steve’s dick?” I teased.

  She sighed. “You’ll never be an actress, Pepper, if you don’t give it your all.”

  “I’m a tech-head, not a drama queen.”

  She shot me a dirty look and fluffed her hair at the same time. That was a joke between us ever since high school when she was cast as the Good Witch of the North in a spoof of Wicked and I worked the special effects “wizard” board.

  “So? Didn’t I let you sprinkle techie dust on me so I could learn how to use that image-fixing software you bought?” she reminded me.

  “Yeah,” I said. It was a matter of survival. Cindy was determined to zap her freckles from her headshot.

  “Then you can learn how to pronounce your vowels and how to breathe properly.”

  “I don’t want to breathe, I want to die.” I tossed down the script Steve had given me and sank into the big easy chair in her parents’ living room. She couldn’t afford her own apartment. Acting wasn’t exactly a high-paying job, though she was determined to convince me otherwise.

  She tried the I-did-it-and-so-can-you approach.

  “You know that hair show I did?” she said, bubbling over like fizzing soda pop.

  “Did they cast you or your dark roots?”

  Cindy ignored my sarcasm as she always did. She was my best friend. She put up with me.

  “I’ve been dying to tell you, Pepper. A TV producer saw me and wants to cast me in his new reality show about four single girls who can’t live without their phones.”

  “What’s it called?” I asked with a smirk. “Confessions of a Cell-Phone Princess?”

  She rolled her eyes. “All I have to do is live in a store window with three other girls with no communication to the outside world except our smartphones. The girl who gets the most votes from the viewers wins fifty thousand dollars.” She sighed. “Just think, Pepper, I could move out on my own.”

  With that Barbie collection?

  She’d never find a one-bedroom apartment that big.

  “What about your intimate moments?” I asked.

  “I don’t know all the details,” she admitted, furrowing her pencil-thin brows.

  “Like bathroom breaks and lonely nights with your vibrator.” I wasn’t surprised at Cindy’s news since recent stats suggested more people in the world had a cell phone than a bathroom.

  “Oh, I never thought about that.” She perked up. “Well, anyway, I’m sure they’ll work the kinks out. What’s more important now is getting you your job back.”

  “I wouldn’t do this if Steve hadn’t kissed me.”

  “He’s that good?”

  “Better,” I said, my whole bod humming, the memory of his kiss and the promise that went with it stirring my desires. I rubbed my thighs together and moaned.

  “That’s it, Pepper!” she said, her lips parting in a big O. She was so excited she jumped up and clapped her hands together. “You’re in the moment. Now, try it again....”

  And so it went for hours with Cindy directing me like we were doing a Star Wars sequel and I was Princess Leia. Too bad I didn’t have her lightsaber. All I had was a measly recorder between me and exile to a doomed planet for fired programmers. God help me.

  Finally, we had it down to where she thought I just might pull it off.

  I thought about how what had started out as a job fixer-upper had turned into something far different. Because of Steve. This sexy FBI agent had flipped my world into a new orbit. Melted my resistance. Forced me to face my fears. No matter what happened, there was no turning back.

  I jumped when the holy grail of polyphonic rings ripped through the air and my cell phone lit up with a now familiar caller ID.

  Steve.

  “The eagle...that is, the walrus,” he said, referring to my oft-used description of my ex-boss, “has landed.”

  I gulped.

  Lights. Camera. Action.

  This was it.

  The big takedown.

  Oh, my God, I just wet my pants.

  * * *

  My assignment: Get Mr. Briggs to hire me back. Not as a programmer, but as a courier. Board a private jet. Deliver documents to his contacts in Asia. Then return with cash or drugs hidden in my—

  No, I couldn’t even think it. It was too gross.

  Hopefully, I’d never get that far. Once he made me the offer, I was off the hook. That is, wire.

  I blinked through my star-crossed, false eyelashes and checked out the private lounge in the hotel filled with happy partygoers. Japanese and American businessmen drinking expensive whiskey and gulping down cubes of Kobe beef and truffles. Pretty young models wearing thigh-high, slinky dresses and spike heels. Their long earrings dangled over their bare shoulders when they laughed, provocative and jazzy.

  Was I the only one not having a good time?

  I glanced briefly into a dark corner and spied a couple making out on the couch. Two men drinking and laughing pointed to them. One of them must have told a dirty joke. I moved on before they zeroed in on me. I had never felt so vulnerable. My skin prickled like I was a chicken with its feathers plucked. Yet I knew Steve and his team were here somewhere.

  Watching me.

  “Do you copy, Pepper?” I heard him say in my earpiece. The microbud was the latest in surveillance technology, giving me the freedom to move about and receive information.

  “I’m here, Steve,” I whispered, grabbing a martini off a tray. My third. I scanned a trio of businessmen watching a pretty girl balance a champagne glass on her forehead while they trickled the bubbly down her cleavage. “But Mr. Briggs isn’t.”

  “Keep looking. You’ll find him. And when you do, be sexy. Make him forget you were ever a programmer.”

  Easier said than done.

  I was afraid to jiggle my boobs. Steve had fastened a faux diamond pin with the tiny digital recorder onto my low-cut dress. What if it came loose?

  At least I could see where I was going. The Bureau had staked me with soft contacts for the job, or so Steve said. I was sure the money came out of his own pocket. I considered it a personal loan, and I intended to pay him back as soon as I found work.

  I sipped my martini. Sea salt and orange mixed on my tongue as I peeked over the rim of my glass. I shook, not stirred, my courage. Revved it up all the way. Swaying my hips so the sparkly pin caught the light. Swinging my silver-sequined purse with the long chain over my shoulder. I had this fantasy I was a spy. Especially in this setup. An intimate lounge with cut crystal and glass, blue velvet couches and purple walls that reminded me of a scene in a Bond flick.

  The villain’s lair.

  How juicy.

  I scoped out the men drinking at the long mahogany bar.

  There he was. I saw Mr. Briggs raising his glass in a toast with an Asian businessman, his other hand grabbing the man’s business card. Perfect timing. I knew his game: Get a foot in the Japanese video game market and he was set.

  Not tonight, Mr. Briggs.

  My job was to convince him that he “owed” me a job, and I would blow the whistle on him if he didn’t hire me.

  Remembering what Cindy said about being in the moment, I thought about sex as I sashayed over to my ex-boss.

  Steve’s big dick. And his hands all over me.

  No wonder I had a big smile on my face when I came up behind him. “Jeez, Mr. Briggs,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder, “what a surprise seeing you here.”

  Flustered,
he spit out his drink and then turned to see me grinning at him. “You show up in the strangest places, Miss O’Malley.”

  “I’m a whiz kid, remember?” I said, leaning in closer. “Your calendar is an open book to me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

  “Not until you give me a job.”

  “I just hired a new programmer to take your place.”

  “That’s not the job I want.” I cozied up to him, licking my lips. The Asian businessman next to him smiled, bowed and left. “You could send me to Japan to work on your other business.”

  Mr. Briggs wiped his sweaty brow with his cocktail napkin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.” I sipped my martini, flirting with him and batting my thick eyelashes like a pop music queen. “All that lovely, dirty money flowing into your hands, and all you have to do is wash it clean.”

  “Are you trying to blackmail me, Miss O’Malley?”

  “All I want is what you owe me, Mr. Briggs. Back salary and my key to the exec girls’ washroom.”

  That last part was off script, but I couldn’t help it.

  “What?” he asked, not getting it.

  I took a deep breath and got back into character fast. “I hear there’s beaucoup bucks in moving overseas money through phony shell companies—”

  An irritated female voice butted in. “Excuse me, honey, but Mr. Briggs isn’t interested in balling you, so lay off.”

  Holy shit. It was Ms. Sims looking glam, if you could make a witch glam. Her perfume reeked, as usual. Where did she get that stuff? It smelled like hair dye.

  “Did you fly in on your broomstick?” I asked, feeling smug.

  It took her a moment to recognize me.

  “Pepper O’Malley,” she screeched, “what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Mr. Briggs and I are discussing business,” I said, standing up to her. “Now if you’ll excuse us.”

  “I’m calling security.”

  “Don’t be so hasty, Genevieve,” Mr. Briggs said, nervous.

  Genevieve?

  “Miss O’Malley is going to be our new business associate.”

  Did you get that, Steve?

  “Make him offer you a job outright,” I heard in my earpiece.

  Damn, this wasn’t going according to plan. I needed more courage. I downed the martini in one gulp.

  “Mr. Briggs wants me to be a courier for the company,” I said in a clear voice.

  He acknowledged what I said with a brief nod and a weak grin.

  “Make him say he wants you to move money for him, Pepper,” Steve whispered in my ear. “We need his voice on the tape.”

  “You want me to be your new courier to Japan and pick up phony documents and cash. Right, Mr. Briggs?” I said, the vodka cruising to my brain in a slow, easy fashion. I will not get dizzy. “Who would ever suspect me? I’m perfect for the job. After all, I wrote the damn video game program.”

  I burped. Loud.

  Mr. Briggs didn’t notice. He was too busy freaking out, praying no one had heard me. I don’t know where my sassiness came from. Either Cindy was a damned good acting teacher or three martinis was a damned good incentive.

  “She’s crazy, Seymour,” Ms. Sims said, pulling on his arm. “Don’t agree to anything.”

  “Are you going to let her run your business, Mr. Briggs?” I said, not letting up. I was enjoying this. Big-time.

  “No,” he began, “but Ms. Sims is in charge of the overseas accounts.”

  I was sweating pink. Hot and heavy. I still didn’t have his confession.

  I made one more try.

  “I need this job, Mr. Briggs. Say you’ll hire me to move cash for you, please!” I begged him. Jeez, that was dumb. Overkill. I broke the spy rules. I couldn’t help it. My pulse kicked up its heels higher than I wanted to go. My desperation showed.

  Something popped in Ms. Sims’s brain.

  She looked me up and down. I swear she was onto me and knew the fake diamond pin stuck in my cleavage was a recorder. “Something smells fishy here, Seymour. Who let her in here?”

  “Who cares?” he said, going postal. “I’m hiring her to be a courier for us. If I don’t, she’ll go to the feds and tell them everything she found on your computer. The phony companies, the overseas dirty money, everything.”

  “Keep your mouth shut!” Ms. Sims swiveled her head from left to right. She gasped loudly when she saw Steve and two men in plainclothes closing in on her. “You fool! You damned fool. Look what you’ve done.”

  She pushed me hard, knocking the glass out of my hand, then bolted. She left poor Mr. Briggs wiping his forehead and demanding he be allowed to talk to his lawyer. I ignored him. Steve could take care of him. Ms. Sims was right. Something did smell. Her exotic dill weed perfume lingered in the air.

  I jammed after her.

  This was one takedown I was going to enjoy.

  * * *

  Ms. Sims had the advantage. No one knew why she was running. She could be headed to the bathroom to toss up the fried squid kebabs. Or reapply her demon-red lipstick. She also hadn’t downed three dirty martinis and she was used to maneuvering the corporate world in sky-high heels. I wasn’t. That didn’t stop me. I sprinted through the devil’s lair like a regular speed freak, my arms flailing about like I was a roller derby queen.

  Nothing could stop me.

  Until—

  A trio of businessmen blocked my way. They were trying to look up a model’s skirt when she bent over to pick up her earring.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” I busted out, knocking off a Japanese businessman’s glasses when I zinged past him. Then I slammed into a waiter carrying a tray of empty plastic champagne flutes. Down we went like dominos. I heard the loud crunch of plastic under my butt as I landed.

  Ouch.

  Huffing and puffing, pulse racing, I yanked off my silver-heeled kicks and then got to my feet and took off. I ran out into the hallway and looked up and down, but Ms. Sims had disappeared.

  Damn.

  I figured she was hiding in the bathroom, when—

  There she was. Heading toward the exit. Two purple potted palms stood on either side of the private elevator.

  I took off, my bare feet gliding over the plush plum carpeting so fast I was almost airborne. I was determined to grab her before she got into the elevator.

  “Stop, FBI!” I shouted out. I have no idea where my courage came from to falsely identify myself as a fed, but it seemed like a good idea. I opened my purse and pulled out an expired department store credit card and flashed it under the overhead light.

  Gold, it wasn’t.

  Tarnished pewter, maybe.

  Like my ass, if I didn’t make the collar. Talk about being in the moment, as Cindy would say. Anyway, Ms. Sims turned around and saw my feeble attempt at pulling this off.

  She threw back her head and laughed. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “No joke, Ms. Sims,” I said, so close to her I could smell her revolting perfume. “I—I’m with the FBI.”

  Technically, I wasn’t lying. I was with the feds, but I wasn’t one of them. Yet I had sense of belonging, knowing I’d helped them get the dirt on these two. I knew now Ms. Sims was the instigator and poor Mr. Briggs was her patsy. His kingdom for a lay. Why did men always fall for that stunt?

  What mattered most to me was that I didn’t give up. Didn’t let my fears sidetrack me. I could do this. I got a funny chill then. A strange sense this was what Steve wanted me to feel, that I had the moxie to make it as a federal agent.

  I soon discovered it wasn’t all about flashing a badge and giving a shout out.

  The doors opened and Ms. Sims raced into the elevator all smiles and then pushed over a potted plant to block me from following her. Dirt flew everywhere.

  “I always said you were dirt under my feet.” She jabbed the elevator buttons to make the doors close.

 
; “You won’t sweep me away that easily,” I shot back, and then I shoved my bod through the doors seconds before they closed on my boobs.

  Ms. Sims was one angry conspirator.

  She smashed her palm into my face and then pulled my hair. I refused to let her petty chick move throw me off balance. I kicked her in the shin. She yelped, but that didn’t stop her. She ripped off the pin attached to the front of my low-cut dress with her claws, scratching my shoulder and making me wince.

  Oh, yeah? No one takes my decoder pin.

  I grabbed her wrist and squeezed hard until she dropped it. She yanked on my exposed bra strap. It broke and my breast fell out of my C-cup.

  What the hell?

  I wasn’t going to let a bare tit stop me.

  I’d shown more skin at the sushi restaurant.

  I dove at her while she tried to get the doors open; she sidestepped me. I pushed her; she shoved me back. She punched the buttons, the doors opened, she tried to get out. I tripped her. She went down like a long-legged giraffe with an angry lioness hot on its tail, her butt up in the air. I jumped on her back and straddled her before she had a chance to kick me, and then I pulled her arms back toward me and did what any good FBI agent would do if they didn’t have a plastic zip-tie.

  I cuffed her with the long chain on my silver-sequined purse.

  * * *

  “I couldn’t have hogtied her better myself, Pepper,” Steve said, wrapping a black velvet tablecloth around my shoulders. I shivered when his hand slipped to my bare breast. Thank God, no one could see him.

  “Too bad you missed the foxy catfight,” I said, loving his touch. He was giving me what I wanted and needed, and I would take down the inglorious Ms. Sims all over again if he promised not to stop.

  “Thank God, you weren’t hurt,” he said. He nuzzled his face in my hair, his breath hot on the back of my neck. I got all warm and fuzzy inside, hearing his words.

  He hustled me through the chaos, taking control, answering the questions thrown at us. Even in the dim light, I could see his eyes were on fire, his whole body moving in exact precision. As if he were in the heat of battle. Orchestrating the takedown of Mr. Briggs and Ms. Sims smoothly and with the expertise and know-how of a trained field agent.