ItTakesaThief (17 page)

“You are white as a ghost.”

“Sheet,” she corrected. “White as a sheet or pale as a
ghost.” She drew a shaky breath to calm her thudding heartbeat. “I wish you
wouldn’t mix your metaphors.”

Apparently oblivious to her petulant tone, Ian drew her in
front of him, put both arms around her and widened his stance. Magically,
people shifted away, letting TC draw an unfettered breath.

“I believe the museum curators crowd people in here so
nobody can get their hands up high enough to pilfer anything.” Ian’s voice
sounded calm, his lips felt hot as his tongue traced the shell of her ear with
feathery strokes.

She shivered, not from cold, but with lust. How did he do
that? she wondered as she angled her head back, offering her neck to his tender
ministering. How did he change fear to need? Need to lust?

“Stop that,” she said without conviction. She loved the rush
of pleasure his lightest caress brought her, but she hated feeling out of
control, as if her body belonged to Ian more than it did to her.

Damian chuckled, but eased his body away from hers. Touching
her, kissing her—even playfully—did things to him, things he would find
embarrassing should anyone notice. She made him feel like a randy teenager
discovering sex for the first time. More, she made him feel as if he was in the
throes of his first infatuation. Was this how his brother had felt about Yulie?
Had she used Michael’s lust to learn his secrets?

The first thing he had to do was get TC out of here quietly.
He knew she did not like being crowded. When she discovered what it took to get
out of this vault, she might slug him.

“Wait,” he said, again folding his arms around her. “There
is no sense in rushing the door.”

“Why not?”

“Searches.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They search everyone who comes in here.”

Glaring at him, she expelled an exasperated huff that
slumped her shoulders. “I suppose it can’t be helped,” she muttered, stepping
away and looking longingly at the open door and the people shuffling through
it.

“It is not personal, Tiffany darling.”

But when they stepped out of the vault and into the exhibit
room, it suddenly became very personal.

“What is going on here?” Damian demanded when a policewoman
took Tiffany’s arm.

A barrage of rapid-fire Spanish came at him, but most of his
attention was focused on Tiffany. She stood quietly, making no attempt to free
herself from a grip that had to hurt like blazes. Beneath the policewoman’s
blunt fingers, Tiffany’s arm was flushed, leaving him to imagine the bruises
forming on her silky skin. Raising his gaze to her face, he found her
expression both grim and resigned, as if she had expected this to happen.

“What do they want?” she said, her voice revealing a
debilitating weariness. And she had either lied about knowing Spanish or the
situation had drained her of that knowledge.

“They want you to take off your clothes.”

Tiffany laughed, a bitter sound. “Is that all?” With an
insouciant shrug, she unbuttoned the top button of her crimson silk jacket.

“Not here,” Damian said, enfolding her hand in his. Over her
shoulder he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure in a rust-colored raincoat.
“Wait.”

He repeated the command in Spanish, then raced away, dodging
display cases and curious on-lookers. Around the corner he caught George Fox’s
arm, spun the agent around, slamming him into the wall. “What the hell do you
think you are doing, Reynard?” he hissed, baring his teeth and crowding the
shorter man with his body.

“At least I’m not consorting with the enemy. Or is it more
than that, Hunter? Are you aiding and abetting a known criminal? Is that why
Lyons wants you to report, like, yesterday?”

Ignoring the questions, Damian pushed his face into Fox’s.
“A ‘known criminal’, Reynard? Did you turn up some hard evidence? Tiffany’s
fingerprints on the bank’s safe deposit box, perhaps? Footprints that can be
matched unequivocally with her shoes?” He shook his prisoner until Reynard’s
teeth rattled. “Because if you have not, what you are doing is harassment.”
Releasing the agent’s lapels, Damian took a step back. “I want this search
stopped. Now.”

“I can’t, not and preserve your cover.”

Suspecting George was manipulating him, but powerless to do
anything about it, Damian swore. “You had better do something, my friend. If
they do a cavity search on her, I’ll have your badge. Then I’ll castrate you.”

Seeing George Fox blanch, pleasure almost as satisfying as
smashing Reynard’s nose surged through Damian. Without another word he returned
to Tiffany, relieved to find that her guard no longer had a death grip on her
arm. Ignoring the commotion behind him, Damian focused his attention on
Tiffany’s expressive face. She still looked stoic, but her eyes were beginning
to spark with emerald fire. Glad to see her reviving, he prayed she would hold
on to her temper until they were safely out of there. To her credit and his
overwhelming relief, she merely peered around his shoulder at whatever was
happening behind him.

“Excuse me, Ms. Cartierri?” George Fox said in an unctuous
voice that made Damian grind his teeth.

“Yes.”

“Come with me, please. Hello, Hunter.”

“George. Tiffany, this is George Fox, an…acquaintance of
mine.”

Tiffany’s eyes widened slightly, but she gave no other
indication she recognized the agent’s name. Even though it had figured
prominently in the English press at the time of the theft.

“Where are we going, Mr. Fox?”

At her sweetness, Damian’s eyebrows quirked upward and he
ground his teeth.

“You, and Hunter here, have the misfortune to have been
caught in one of the museum’s random—ahem—strip searches. Only down to
your—er—”

“Skivvies?” Tiffany offered helpfully.

So that was Reynard’s price for silence, Damian thought with
grudging admiration. Damian was to suffer the same indignity as Tiffany. Clever
of Fox and worth the injury to Damian’s pride if it kept Tiffany from asking
questions.

“Well,” Tiffany said as she squared her shoulders and tilted
her chin to a haughty angle, “let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Chapter Twelve

All through the long limousine ride back to their hotel,
Damian watched the questions massing in Tiffany’s eyes. She said not a word
until they reached their suite. Then she turned to him with a weary smile and
said in a tired voice, “Would you mind if we ordered up?”

“Of course not. What would you like?”

“I’ll decide after I’ve showered.” She paced away with that
characteristic sinuous stride that aroused him in the blink of an eye. “You
sure know how to show a girl a good time, Ian Soria,” she said, winking at him
over her shoulder.

Stupid
, TC thought, eyeing the showerhead. Nothing
could happen to her here, in a five-star hotel. Not one of her acquaintances
knew where she was. But she had thought she’d found refuge with the Santanas
and look what had happened to her there—shot at, then booby-trapped in her own
bathroom.

Shivering more from fear than from the cold tiles under her
bare feet, she reached for the faucet. Hands closed around her waist. Without
thinking, she brought her elbows back and smiled grimly when she heard a pained
“oomph”. Whirling, she flourished her hands, balanced her weight on her left
foot and prepared to kick with her right.

“Tiffany, love, it is I, Ian.”

“What the hell are you doing? I could have killed you.”

“I doubt it, but you might have destroyed our chances for
progeny.”

“That’s not funny.” She pulled her robe closed and hugged
her waist. “What do you want?” she asked, taking in his naked torso and the
slacks that were zipped, but not buttoned.

“I thought I would check your stitches. Perhaps you can wash
your hair tonight.”

“So now you’re a doctor.”

“As close as you can get to one. Even in Colombia physicians
must report suspicious wounds. Sit.”

Disdaining the closed toilet seat as a perch, she leaned her
hips against the vanity and lowered her head so he could look at her scalp.
Instead, he tipped up her face and brushed her lips with his. “Afraid of the
shower, darling?”

The denial formed in her mind, on her lips, but seeing the
concern in his eyes—a depth of caring only the most consummate actor could
fake—she nodded and said, “A little.” Ian Soria might be a rogue, but he had
treated her with a kindness her own family never had shown her. She could give
him her honesty, if not her trust.

“I thought you might be.” He reached for the faucet, but,
putting her hand on his arm, she forestalled him.

“Thank you, Ian.”

To her utter astonishment, he blushed. Butterflies stirred
in her stomach. Her heart did a soft-shoe tap dance, before settling into a
strong staccato beat. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned with tears she
would not allow to fall. There was such tenderness, such compassion in this
man, she feared she might lose more than her freedom to him. She might lose her
heart.

With a will of its own, her hand slid up his arm, lingered
while her fingers relearned his powerful musculature and felt his flesh quiver
under her light caress. Feathering over his wide shoulder, up his taut neck,
her fingers came to rest on his cheek, then curled around his clenched jaw. And
all the while, mesmerized by his unwavering gaze, she felt herself drowning in the
dark fire of his eyes.

“I could come in with you,” he said with a crooked smile
that was all the more endearing for the quaver in his voice.

“We’d never get out if you did.”

“Sure we would—in an hour or two.”

Tears suddenly overflowing, she shook her head. “I can’t
handle this, Ian. Please, just make sure I’m not walking into something deadly,
then get out.”

“Tiffany, I want you. I need you like I need my next
breath.”

The words sounded sincere, but his voice made her think he’d
pulled them out by the roots—like an abscessed tooth. As if he wished he’d said
something entirely different. Which was nothing new. One minute he made her
feel as if she was the most important person in his life, the next as if he
couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

“I want you too, but I can’t make love with you. There are
too many things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you.”

“Will not tell me.”

She leaned her forehead against his powerful chest, but
resisted the need to wrap herself around him, to let him banish the memories
with his mind-stealing kisses.

“And you do not trust me.”

“No more than you trust me. Which is not at all.” Sighing,
she slipped out of his embrace and swiped away her tears. With a longing look
at the bottle of shampoo in the far corner of the shower, she turned on the
water. Looking at him over her shoulder, she frowned. “You pick the most
inappropriate times to act so cavalierly.”

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes.”

“I have not checked the shower.”

“It’s fine,” she insisted. When he simply stared at her, she
paced away. “See for yourself.”

“I intend to.” Which he did, while she opened a foil-wrapped
packet of French-milled soap and inhaled its light, floral scent.

“It seems safe,” Ian said finally. “Last offer for my
company.”

“Get out.”

When he closed the door, she stared at it for a moment
longer to make sure he didn’t sneak back in. She considered locking the door,
but didn’t want to delay him if something happened once she got in the shower.
He hadn’t said anything about her stitches either, she thought, fuming at yet
another display of his cavalier attitude. Well, to the devil with him, she
intended to wash her hair.

As she stepped into the tiled enclosure, she felt a moment’s
sickening fear. Her knees shook. Her stomach churned. She wanted to vomit.
“C-courage,” she told herself, hating this enervating terror, finally able to
step under the spray.

It felt like heaven.

She had just rinsed her hair when his big, soapy hands
closed over her breasts. Mercy, what the man did to her with only a touch!
There should be laws against men like him doing things like this to women like…

“You like this, yes?” he whispered, his hands roving over
her, lingering fleetingly at the apex of her thighs, on her pebbled nipples.
She felt his erection throb against her buttocks and rubbed her body against
his as she turned in his arms. She felt hot, wet, empty. She wanted him inside
her, filling her, making them one.

“Yes, I like this. And this,” she murmured, snaking her hand
between their bodies. Touching him. Reveling at the length and weight of him.
Feeling powerful, knowing her caresses affected him as much as his did her.

“Dios, querida,” he groaned, stilling her hand. “If you keep
this up, it will be over in a moment—to my satisfaction, but not yours.”

Licking drops of water from his chest, she whispered,
“Giving you pleasure pleases me.”

“Then let us pleasure each other.” He nudged her legs apart
and entered her with a powerful thrust.

“Ian,” she moaned, weaving her fingers through his thick,
silky hair as she pulled his head down and sought his lips.

He positioned them under the showerhead, then mated his
tongue with hers, duplicating the rhythm of his hips. With the spray pounding
over them, she felt as if he were making love to her with a thousand tiny
fingers.

“I can’t wait.”

“Then do not. I shall catch up.”

“No,” she cried as the first tremors began deep inside her.
“Not alone. I don’t —”

Ian groaned. She took his sighs into her mouth and let her
spasms take her, content when he surged deeper and she felt him join her in
completion. Wanting to tell him what was in her heart, her lips parted.
Quelling the words, she bit her tongue, afraid sex was all Ian wanted of her.
All he would ever want.

Then the memory that had eluded her since they left the gold
museum slammed into her mind like a hard right cross to her chin. She didn’t
stop these words. She couldn’t. “How is it that you, a simple business man,
know George Fox, an Interpol agent?”

Easing away from her, Damian soaped his hands, then reached
for her again.

“Don’t,” she said, flinching away. “Is that why you fucked
me, Ian? So I wouldn’t remember who George Fox is, what he is?”

Damian met her fury-ridden gaze and said, “I made love to
you because that is all I thought about doing the whole bloody day.” Which, as
far as it went, was the truth. What he refused to admit was that he had used
their mutual need to distract her, that he had prayed she would not remember
George Fox.

“I own an import-export company, Tiffany. Such companies are
sometimes used by unscrupulous employees to smuggle illegal items into foreign
countries. It is not unusual for Interpol to aid the local authorities. That
is, in fact, how I met George Fox.”

Seeing that she had finished washing, he rinsed off, turned
off the water and handed her a towel.

“Illegal items,” she muttered, glaring at him while she
wrapped the towel around her, then flounced out of the shower stall. Snagging a
towel for himself, he followed. “Stuff like drugs? Diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“Stuff like Isabella’s Belt?”

“Are you implying that I stole the real Belt? That I
murdered two people in cold blood?”

“No!” She had the grace to blush, but would not meet his
eyes.

“You do believe it,” he said, trailing after her, watching
her pick up the clothes she had dropped on the floor on her way to the shower,
feeling his world falling apart. The woman he was falling in love with thought
him capable of murder. Either that or—he narrowed his eyes in a glare she did
not see—she was attacking him to deflect suspicion from herself.

“I don’t believe it,” she insisted, finally looking at him.
She raked her damp hair back from her face and sighed. “Look, we’re both tired
and I, for one, am starving. Let’s table this for now, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. What do you want to eat?”

“Those enormous shrimp—”

“Gambas,” he provided.

“Gambas, Caesar salad, steak—rare—with baked potato and all
the fixings. A nice cabernet or gamay wine. You decide.”

“And for dessert?”

TC noticed the hint of amusement in his deep voice and that
his eyes were hooded, leaving her feeling oddly deprived of his openly admiring
gaze.

“We’ll see.”

“Indeed we shall.” Whistling, he pulled on a pair of faded
jeans that hugged his powerfully muscled legs and buttocks. And, she noted when
he turned to face her, the burgeoning bulge at the apex of his thighs. If she
didn’t know it was anatomically impossible, she’d swear he was deliberately
taunting her with his maleness. That his mastery of his own body—of his growing
cock—was as total as his control of hers.

With a cheeky grin, he left the room.

She couldn’t stop her answering smile, but soon her euphoric
mood faded. Just when she thought she might begin to trust him, something or
someone like George Fox came along to make her instincts scream that she
couldn’t trust anyone. Especially not a man who called Interpol agents by their
first names.

But, damn, she was tired of fighting alone. How wonderful it
would be if she could tell Ian the whole story, to let some of her burdens rest
on his wide shoulders. But she couldn’t. Not now, when her life, her freedom,
hung on her ability to prove her innocence.

Rummaging in her dresser drawers, she pulled out a pair of
lacy emerald-colored bikini panties and the matching bra Ian had insisted on
buying her. A shiver chased down her spine. She appreciated the maid’s putting
away their purchases, but disliked the idea of a stranger handling her clothes.
It felt like an invasion of her privacy, of her most intimate thoughts and
dreams.

She was being silly, she assured herself as she tried to
close the drawer, but could not. What the hell? Opening the drawer, she
discovered a large velvet pouch. Its strings had caught over the back edge,
preventing the drawer from closing. Digging in the bag, she went cold to the
marrow of her bones. In the soft velvet bag were a dozen stones, emeralds of
the finest quality, she would wager, wishing for her jeweler’s loupe to better
gauge their quality.

Shivering, shaking uncontrollably, she dug deeper and pulled
out a somewhat smaller bag of the same black velvet. Sickening premonition
tightening every muscle in her body, she opened the pouch, then crumpled to the
floor. Isabella’s Belt slipped from her suddenly numb fingers.

How? Who?

The answer to that was patently clear. Ian Soria’d had the
Belt planted, probably by that toady George Fox, but possibly by that cherubic
traitor Nick Troy! But why plant the other gems as well? Wasn’t that a bit of
overkill, even for an unmitigated fiend like Ian Soria? Feeling as if she’d
been used for a punching bag, she struggled to her feet and forced herself to search
the rest of the dresser. When she found the Walther PPK380, she smiled grimly,
reminded that Ian had called her Ms. Bond, that the Walther was James Bond’s
favorite weapon. Was this the gun that had killed the bank staff?

Rage flooded through her. She’d had enough of waiting for
the axe to fall. She’d find out who had killed those men, who had tried to kill
her, who had planted this incriminating evidence in her suite. And if Ian Soria
tried to get in her way, she’d…

Overcoming her distaste for what she had to do next, she
ransacked Ian’s side of the dresser, only mildly surprised to find not one pair
of handcuffs but two. Unfortunately, neither set was big enough to fit around
his treacherous neck, but they would serve her present needs. She dumped her
discoveries on the bed and dressed. She had to get out of there before the
police, whom Ian no doubt had called while she dawdled, arrived.

Slipping the bag of emeralds into the one containing
Isabella’s Belt, sliding the Walther into the waistband of her slacks, she took
both sets of handcuffs in hand and let her fury claim her.