Silk Confessions by Joanne Rock Read Free Book Online Page B

a single person had been linked to prostitution or violent crime. He’d flagged two sex offenders who had snuck through the screening process, however, and re ported them to police stations in California and Wisconsin where the profiles originated.
    Tempest couldn’t help but admire his thorough approach to his work and the noble intentions behind it. She could appreciate the importance of his job, even if it put her on the defensive as owner of the dating company.
    Sipping from a small glass of orange juice, she stole past the small desk for the tenth time in the last few hours, curious about his work but not wanting to get too close to him. He’d warned her about sitting beside him last night and she’d taken him at his word. No way would she send him any signals that implied sexual interest.
    Even if she felt it.
    “If you told me what you were looking for, maybe I could help you find it.” She set down her juice to wave her laptop in front of him. “I could work at the table and review files from there.”
    But Wes scarcely seemed to hear her, his concentration devoted to the text onscreen, which he’d enlarged. “Take a look at this.”
    She started to lean over his shoulder and then decided she’d be better off just pulling up a chair, since he seemed engrossed in his work anyway. Settling next to him, she retrieved her juice in an effort to keep cool around the sexy detective. “It’s the coding for one of the profiles, right?”
    Her gaze scanned along the text that suggested the woman who’d written it was especially adept at blow jobs.
    Tempest nearly spewed her orange juice.
    “Yes. But it’s unusual coding since it includes this graphic of an asterisk here and I can’t see any explanation on the site for what significance an asterisk has. Do you know?”
    Blinking her way past the shock of blow jobs writ ten in sixteen-point font, Tempest tried to focus on his question and not wonder if there was actually a technique to goodblow jobs. What other key pieces of sex advice had she been missing out on all her adult life?
    “I don’t know what the asterisk means. Perhaps it only has significance to the site managers?” She congratulated herself on her calm, intelligent words despite her ridiculous thoughts. “Maybe it means the woman in question is a repeat customer or received a good rating from her dates or something.”
    “But why put it there unless the Web site wants customers to see it?” Wes turned toward her, swiveling in his chair until he faced her head-on.
    “Valid point.” She half wondered if the asterisk denoted adept blow job givers. “I can put in another call to the MatingGame people and see what they say.”
    “What if it denotes the prostitutes in the crowd so that visitors who are aware they’re available can make sure they choose from the right pool of women?”
    “I don’t know.” Shrugging, she found it hard to believe MatingGame had anything to do with prostitution. Or was it just that she couldn’t bear for her business instincts to have been so dead wrong? “Did you check out other women who have the asterisk graphic on their page?”
    “I’ll put someone on it. I know you don’t want one of your companies to be found guilty of trafficking in sex, but one way or another, I have to get to the bottom of it.”
    “I’m just as eager as you are to figure out what’s going on.” She didn’t need her board of directors questioning her business decisions now.
    Reaching down to the floor, she picked up her lap top to show him how helpful she could be in his case.
    Except that her arm brushed his leg as she moved. J UST AN ACCIDENT ?
    Wes might have written off the barely-there touch asunintentional, except that coincidences were piling up as fast as he could count them in this investigation. His murder case just happened to be linked to Tempest Boucher, who seemed to be the target of an intruder bent on destruction. And he still wasn’t comfortable with the fact