Hunt Me (Love Thieves #3) (16 page)

Her muscles took a moment to adjust, but she clung to him, staring up into his desire-laden eyes, and her heart squeezed at the want in them—the want and the tenderness. He held himself still, letting her get used to him. But she didn’t want to wait. The delicious ache of being so full increased the pressure and pleasure tangling inside. She wrapped her legs around his hips, giving him freedom to thrust.

Every stroke of his cock driving home thrashed her with need, and she dug her nails into his back, arching her hips to meet him. They dangled on the precipice, every glide of his skin scorching her, each kiss digging deeper into her soul until he pushed her over the edge and his mouth claimed her scream as he followed her.

He collapsed and rolled to his back, draping her atop him as they panted. Their legs tangled, and her heart soared as the reality echoed her earlier imagining. She tucked her head against his chest, listening to the mad thrum-thrum of his heart. His fingers tangled in her hair, stroking her scalp lightly. He didn’t let her go, a possessive arm locked around her waist, he kept her fastened to him.

She didn’t want to go anywhere. The scent of their passion perfumed the air around them, and she felt dizzy from wanting and having him all in the same embrace. She didn’t want to move.

Ever.

“Jarod….”

“The time for second thoughts is long past, Kit Kat.” His voice roughened, sleepy and more than a little arrogant. Arrogance he fully deserved.

“No second thoughts.” She shifted to rest her chin on his chest and gaze up at him. He still panted, and tremors raced through his body. A sense of power flooded her—she made him feel so much.

“Good.”

“But….”

He groaned and pinched her bottom. “Yes, I love your ass.”

Laughing, she nibbled a bite of his skin—hot, salty, and completely masculine. Her sex clenched around his softening cock, and he hissed out another breath. “Thank you, but I was trying to say thank you.”

Lifting his head, he gazed at her, the stern expression completely gone, replaced with a naked tenderness which snapped shackles around her heart. “For what?”

“For trusting me.”

He tugged her up and their mouths collided in a sweeter kiss, soaked in passion. They clung to each other, exploring, teasing, and adoring. She sighed. He owned a piece of her whether he realized it or not. Her secret agent man had infiltrated her heart and set up shop when she hadn’t paid attention. A tear splashed down her cheek, and Jarod pulled back to look at her.

“Hey….” Concern darkened his voice.

“I want to—no—I want and I need to tell you the truth, now.”

He stroked her hair back from her forehead. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.” She did. She recognized baring the soul wasn’t for everyone. “Keeping it from you—it wasn’t about protecting me or holding myself back, but now it feels like it is, and I don’t want lies between us.”

Blowing out a slow breath, he nodded, and, with one arm against the bed, he shifted them both up until he rested against the pillows and she snuggled against him. “You haven’t lied to me, Kit Kat.”

“No, but I haven’t been completely honest, either.”

“Arguably, neither have I.” His swift agreement and aligning himself on her side bolstered her confidence. He’d not lied to her either. They’d omitted a lot, but they’d fought for truth in every stage of the game.

She opened her mouth, but he pressed a finger against her lips and stared at her steadily. “Whatever you tell me, whatever ‘truth’ you reveal, changes nothing between us.”

Pondering his words, she shook her head. “Truth always changes things.”

“No, truth only changes the illusion. I know you, and I don’t have any illusions. You have a life and a past, and you’ve made choices. But you’re not flippant or reckless or entitled, no matter your upbringing. So I know the truth of you, Kit Kat. Tell me what you feel the need to, but you don’t have to.”

The anxiety twisting her stomach settled, and she nodded slowly. “The same goes for you, you know?”

A wry grin curved his lips. “My life is a lot darker than yours, Kit Kat, and there are things I can’t tell you.”

“National security.” It wasn’t a guess.

He said nothing, but massaged her back in gentle, circular strokes.

“Okay.” She accepted his silence as the answer. “I won’t put you in the position of having to explain.”

His expression softened, and she laughed, shifting to wipe the traces of damp tears from her face. “You realize this is a completely odd conversation.”

“I’ve had stranger,” he teased. “But not with anyone as lovely or as interesting.”

“Good.” She exhaled. The time for putting off the truth was over. “I told you about my mother….” She waited for his nod before continuing. “When I went looking for her, I also found my grandfather—her father—a man named Sebastian Kant. He was a thief.”

Chapter Ten

Located on about fifteen acres, the hospice offered a park-like setting for both recuperating patients and those soon bidding farewell to the world. The serenity of the location, coupled with the competent staff and the latest technology, offered the best possible care, and they’d done everything she asked for the cantankerous old man she adored. Several of the staff recognized her when she walked in, tote bag in hand. They gave her quiet smiles of welcome, friendly nods—each served up with a dose of sympathy.

Sebastian was not long for this world, a fact she’d had more than a year to accept, and yet grief still clawed at her throat. She walked down the long corridor toward the private suite ensuring him his dignity and comfort. The medical reports said he rarely roused from his bed most days and his brightest moments came when she called.

Regret flickered like a candle guttering in a hard breeze. She could have spent the last year with him, save for the wretched phone call so many months before when he confessed to sending someone out to steal
The
Fortunate Buddha
. She didn’t think she’d understood him and cut short a ski trip and business negotiation to fly halfway around the world. His mind wandered sometimes—congestive heart failure depriving his brain of critical oxygen and blood supply. They were fortunate he didn’t have more strokes.

At the door to his room, she paused to collect herself. Farther down the hallway, the door to the stairwell swung closed, but she didn’t see anyone.

“Go see your grandfather and don’t worry about anything. You’ll have your time with him.”
Jarod’s promise echoed in her ears. She ignored the closing door, exhaled a long breath to release the anxiety, and let herself into Sebastian Kant’s room.

Machines beeped in quiet testimony to his heart’s continued efforts. The big man lay against the sheets, nearly as pale as the blankets covering him. His weathered face, once tanned and filled with laughter, was solemn in sleep. Wrinkles fanned out in deep grooves from the corners of his eyes. The old man lying there bore only a passing resemblance to the vital man she’d gotten to know and adore over the years. The shopping bag’s weight cut into her hand.

“Grandpa?” She pitched her voice low, unwilling to disturb him if his rest was deeper than a doze.

He blinked, revealing a pair of pale-green eyes—they’d been a deeper color once upon a time. The first time they met, she’d seen her own eyes reflected back at her. Neither of her parents had green eyes, so she’d never understood the visceral connection to another the way she did to her grandfather.

Until Jarod.

“Hello, baby girl.” He wheezed the words and punctuated them with a cough.

Brushing her lips against his cool, dry cheek, she forced the tears burning behind her eyes to stay there. “How are you?” She perched on the edge of the bed and set the bag on the floor near her feet.

“Better now you’re here. Missed you.”

“Missed you, too. I’m sorry it took me so long to get back. I’ve been trying for a while.” Morocco. Geneva. New York. A long while. She sniffed, swallowing the mourning ache and keeping her expression warm and teasing. “But I knew you’d wait for me.”

“As long as I can.” In his prime, Sebastian Kant had been a handsome, dapper man. A con man from a young age, he used his charm to woo wealthy women and men alike. The women all fell a little bit in love with him, and the men wanted to be his friends or partners. He took his act from small time to large with a series of jewel heists that earned him notice and prestige. His best friends were also his thief buddies, and the stories he used to tell would make her sides burn with laughter. Quite the rogue, he took on more and complex jobs, acquiring priceless artifacts and gems from around the globe.

“The doctors told me you haven’t been eating and they want to give you a feeding tube.” The utter indignity of the last call had come before her meeting in New York. The doctor insisted Sebastian wasn’t in his right mind anymore and his refusal to eat was tantamount to suicide.

“You told them no?” Wandering and exhausted as the old man might be, he fixed her with a sharp look.

“Of course I did. I made you a promise, and I’ll keep it. But you do need to try and eat,” she chided him.

Sebastian didn’t want to be kept alive by machine. The vitality of the man seeped away with every passing month, but his pride remained intact. His only regret—or at least the only one he ever expressed to her—was the failure ending his lucrative career all those years before. The failure landed his best friends long prison sentences—in a foreign country.

They both died in Thailand, leaving Sebastian to mourn them with a laurel of guilt and responsibility he wore to this day.

“Louis called. The boy is in town and promised to come see me.” He coughed again. She’d expected as much. Sebastian had mentored Louis when the viscount was at university and while her relationship with Louis was adversarial at best, Sebastian still saw him as a rebellious young man and not the psychopath he’d grown up to be. “He tried to get the Buddha for me. I gave him the plans. But the partners he brought into the deal…they stole it.” Sebastian sighed. “I almost had it once, did I tell you?”

A thump in the hallway pulled her attention, but the door didn’t move, and she saw no one in the rectangular observation window. “Yes, sir. I remember.”

“Pete, Jim, and I—we were riding high on the best summer of our lives. We’d toured Europe, courtesy of the wealthy.” Sebastian rambled now, his wheezing straining every third word. “But Pete heard about the temple and the Buddha, and he said to me, ‘Sebastian, it’s the score of a lifetime. They say if you rub his belly, you’ll be blessed with good fortune for all your days. Think about what we could do if we had it.’”

She could recite the story with him, but she didn’t interrupt, taking his almost papery, thin hand in hers and rubbing it between her palms. “So you found a way to take the train from Paris to India—an exotic journey to be certain.”

He coughed and grinned. “Exactly so, and, from there, we hiked or borrowed cars until we reached the mountains. We were nearly out of funds by the time we got to Thailand, but we didn’t care—it was a lark, an adventure, a wild ride.” Then his smile faded. “We found the temple, studied it, knew when the monks prayed and when they were out in their gardens. We knew the security layout, the location, and we were ready.”

It didn’t matter how well she knew the tale. Her heart always began to hammer when it came to this part. Another impact—this time a clang—punched through the sound barrier of the door. She glanced back but found the door to his room remained shut.

“It was late and dark. The monks’ final prayers were done. We climbed up the rocky slope, scaling it like three drunk fools, without rope. We could handle it. Plenty of crevices and places for us to get handholds. It went fine, we made it into the temple, and there he was, all golden and waiting for us. I picked him up—he’s smaller than you might expect—but the craftsmanship…. It’s as though he winks at you.” Sebastian coughed. “I was about to put him in my bag when the army showed up.”

This part of the story blurred the lines between reality and guilt. “They flooded into the room like ants. I still had the Buddha in my hands. We raced to the wall overlooking the ravine. I’d barely slung a leg over when they grabbed Jim. He yelled for us to keep going, and Pete gave me a shove—but I dropped the Buddha—it wasn’t quite in my bag—and then they had Pete. I let go of the wall and slid down the rocky outface, cutting my hands and arms, but I made it to the bottom and away. They didn’t.”

He sighed, coughing until she could get a cup and straw to his lips. He drank, but his watery gaze remained shrouded in sorrow. “If I hadn’t dropped it, they would have gotten away. The luck would have held, and it was when everything went wrong.”

“I know Grandpa.” She set the cup down.

“And it’s not for me I wanted Louis to fetch the Buddha. You know…we have to break the cycle. Your mama wouldn’t have left you if it hadn’t been for me.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him her mother’s addictions were not the fault of some Asian artifact. They’d argued this point before. Her grandfather believed it. Just as he believed by dropping the Buddha, he’d broken his lucky streak and sentenced his friends to die in prison far away from home. Losing the job broke something in him, something he’d never been able to repair.

“Grandpa….”

“This is important, Kitten. You have to get Louis to help you find whoever took the Buddha from him. I know he paid someone—I gave them all the instructions, the layout, everything. But the man ran off with it rather than give it to Louis.” He tried to sit up, and she pressed a hand to his shoulder, but it was too late. He shook with the coughs racking his body.

“Grandpa, listen to me. You with me again?” She searched his face, and, when he nodded slowly, she helped him take another drink before picking the bag up off the floor. “Louis wasn’t bringing the Buddha to you and never intended to. He was auctioning it to the highest bidder.” Twice, she wanted to add, first to the French ambassador and then later, in Geneva, after he’d smuggled it home from Morocco. She’d intended to intercept it, but the diplomatic pouch he used cut short her plans.