Thieves In The Night (21 page)

“It’s been too long,” he said against her breasts, teasing and plundering the gentle swells with his tongue and mouth. “Too long without a taste of you, without your touch. Lord, you’re sweet. . . . Touch me, Chantal.”

And she did, with all the love in her heart, in all the ways he’d taught her in one night.

* * *

“I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.” She rolled onto her side and graced him with a purely languorous smile. “How did your poppa ever afford to feed you?”

“Dad’s in banking. I think he floated a few loans during my growth years. Do you still have that bottle of ketchup and those crackers?”

She giggled and pressed him back into the pillows. “You must be desperate.”

“No, babe, you wore the desperation out of me—”

“Jaz!”

“—and I loved every minute of it, but you left a big hunger.” He lifted his head and smacked a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“How does lasagna and chocolate cake sound?”

“Too good to be true. I wish you hadn’t mentioned it.”

He was beautiful, his rich brown hair fanning out on the pillow, tousled with their lovemaking, his body a sensual pattern of corded muscle and dark skin. Silky strands of gold tumbled over her shoulders and lay in half circles on his chest.

She traced the prominent vein running up his arm and over his biceps. “Do you remember how to work the microwave?”

“I remembered everything else, didn’t I?” he asked teasingly, rubbing his hands up and down her satiny skin and lingering around her small waist.

“Then check the refrigerator, Jaz. You’re in for a big surprise.”

* * *

Jaz fed her the last bite of chocolate cake and set the platter on the nightstand. Stretching his arms above his head, he eased back on the pillows, grinning from ear to ear.

“You ate half of a chocolate cake.” She still couldn’t believe it.

“You had three bites,” he countered in self-defense, then polished off his third glass of milk.

“And two helpings of lasagna.”

“It was great, babe. I didn’t know you had culinary talents.”

Chantal cast her eyes heavenward. “I’ve only got one pound of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast. What are we going to do?”

He pulled her into his lap. “I’ve got a plan,” he said, settling her between his spread legs.

She glanced up at him from under a veil of midnight-black lashes. “Sounds dangerous.”

“I think we’ve proved we can handle danger,” he drawled lazily, playing his fingers through the blond waves framing her face.

“What’s the plan, Jaz?”

“Promise not to panic?”

“I promise,” she said solemnly, crossing her finger over her heart, and then she smiled and gave him a little punch. “You know I never panic. I may run like hell, but I never panic.”

The snappy comeback she’d expected never came. A heartbeat passed, and then another, as he gazed searchingly at her. “Marry me, Chantal,” he said softly.

Surprise widened her eyes and parted her mouth, but the answer was less than a second from her lips, propelled by the surge of happiness threatening to overwhelm her. “Yes,” she gasped.

“Honeymoon on my private beach in Mexico?”

“Yes,” she said with more force.

“No bikini?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Tiny kisses covered his face.

Grinning, he shifted her weight and bent a knee around her hips. “I think I’m on a roll here, babe. Is there anything else I should get while the getting is good?”

She snuggled up closer, pressing a kiss on the smile crease in his lean cheek. “What else do you want?”

“Another one of those kisses, except a little lower and to the left.”

“Don’t you think we should wait for the honeymoon?” she said teasingly, not stopping her kisses for a second.

“Practice makes perfect, babe. I figure it will take a week to get our blood tests and license. That’s not much time to fine-tune a plan and get all the bugs out.” He angled his mouth over hers and said huskily, “We’d better keep at it.”

* * *

Chantal paced the porch of the beach bungalow with awkward steps, sucking on a wedge of pineapple and holding her fuchsia-pink sarong away from her hips. Every now and then she leveled a baleful glare at her husband.

“Jasper, I swear. If you come up with any more plans, do me a favor and make them solo attempts.” She’d taken to calling him Jasper whenever she was upset. Somehow “Jaz” never had the right bite to it.

“Sorry, babe. I thought a fifteen sunscreen would do the trick.” He was sitting and swinging comfortably in the hammock hanging diagonally across one corner of the porch.

“You can just forget tricks,” she said huffily. His smile lacked the correct amount of contrition for her wounded ego and scorched backside.

He groaned, his grin finally slipping. “Don’t remind me. Sweet lady, I’m suffering right along with you. Next time we honeymoon, let’s stay home and ski for a week.”

“Oh, Jaz.” She sighed. “I wanted so much for this week to be perfect. Now I’m a mess.”

“You’re the prettiest mess I’ve ever seen.” Another grin twitched the corner of his mouth and put a devilish twinkle in his eyes. “That shade of pink is real interesting with that shade of lobster red.”

“Don’t tease me,” she wailed, coming to a halt in front of him.

“I can’t help it. You’re so teasable and I can’t kiss you.”

A thoughtful gleam lit the sapphire of her eyes. She pursed her mouth into a pout. “You could if you were real careful.”

“Trust me?”

“With my life.” She leaned forward as best she could and presented her slightly crisped face.

“Umm, pineapple.” He ran his tongue over her lips. “I like it, but you’re wearing a strange perfume. What is it?”

She giggled. “Eau de Solarcaine, about fifty cents an ounce. I wonder if things would have turned out differently if I’d been wearing it instead of my French perfume that night on the roof.”

“No way, babe.” He kissed her once, very carefully, holding his natural instincts in check. He was so used to reaching for her, touching her whenever she was close. “You belong to me. You’ve always belonged to me, and somehow I sensed it the first time I saw you, not even knowing how beautiful you were or how sweet your voice was.”

Chantal edged in closer and rubbed her hands over his shoulders, her pain lessening from his love. “And do you belong to me, Jaz?”

“I always have, babe, since long before I met you.” He traced another gentle line across her lips. “I always will.”

*********

Read on for excerpts from
Avenging Angel
and
Moonlight and Shadows
.

Avenging Angel

Living undercover and on the edge,

Dylan Jones has seen damn few things to give him hope...

until he sees her.

One

The woman. He needed her . . . desperately. He needed her to drag him up, get him out, and set him free
.

Dylan drove with nerveless precision, tearing down the highway, burning up the road and the tires on his black Mustang. Wind whipped his hair through the open window and stung his face with the blast-furnace force of a summer gone crazy with heat. From Chicago, to Lincoln, Nebraska, to Colorado, the asphalt had shimmered to the horizon like the shadow of a mirage on the landscape.

Without taking his eyes from the road, he lifted a Styrofoam cup to his mouth and drained it of coffee. He’d lost the other two times he’d broken his FBI cover to prevent disaster. He’d been too late, too slow, in far too deep to surface in time to save a life. He wouldn’t be too late to save Johanna Lane. He couldn’t be. He’d come up for good and three was his lucky number.

A grim line broke across his face, an expression no one had ever mistaken for a smile. Since when did he know about luck? He had no luck.

In the darkness ahead, a pickup truck pulled onto the highway. Dylan hissed an obscenity, his fist crushing the empty cup before he threw it to the floor. The man had to be blind not to see the Mustang hurtling toward him. When the driver didn’t even speed up to the limit, Dylan cursed him again, taking a lot of names in vain and ending up with half a dozen synonyms of dirty slang for sex.

The oncoming traffic was heavy on the two-lane highway outside Boulder, but Dylan had no time and nothing left to lose except his pulse. Flooring the gas pedal, he roared up on the truck and at the last moment jerked the wheel, sending the Mustang slewing into the other other lane, taking a highly calculated risk and the narrowest of openings in the traffic. Cars scattered onto the shoulder. The truck skidded off the road.

Hard-won skill, not luck, guided Dylan through the hundred-mile-an-hour maze he’d made of a van, a station wagon, and two compacts. Dylan Jones had no luck.

The fact was proved a mile down the road, less than a minute’s worth of traveling time. The flashing lights of a police car lit up his back window and rearview mirror like a Fourth of July parade.

Dylan swore again and pressed harder on the gas pedal, willing the Mustang to greater speed. The city lights of Boulder were seconds away. He’d come too far, too fast, too hard to lose.

He swept through the first stoplight on the north side of town, ignoring its red color. The Mustang barely held on to the ninety-degree turn he slammed it through. The tires squealed and smoked on the hot pavement. The chassis shuddered. Working the steering wheel one way and then the other, he missed hitting a car in the eastbound lane and shot between two westbound vehicles.

The police car behind him missed the turn and came to a jolting stop in the middle of the intersection, siren and lights going full bore, snarling traffic even further. Dylan made the second left-hand turn he saw, then wound through the streets in a frenzied, seemingly haphazard fashion for more than a mile. Finally he slowed the Mustang to a stop on a side street, pulling between two other vehicles, a gray, nondescript sedan and a midsize truck.

The summer night was quiet except for the pounding of his own heart. Expensive houses crowded this part of town. Porch lights were on, smaller, homier versions of the street lamps, but the interiors of the houses were dark. People were settled in for the night, safe, sound, and unsuspecting.

He waited for a moment, checking the street before pulling his duffel bag across the front seat to his lap and slipping his left arm out of his coat. The bag was heavier than clothes would have allowed, the weight being made up in firepower and ordnance. It was the only protection he had, and it felt like damn little compared with what he was up against.

Sweat trickled down the side of his face. At the corner of his eye, the moisture found the day-old cut angling from his temple to his ear. The salty drops slid into the groove, burning the raw skin. He swiped at the irritation with the back of his hand, then yanked open the duffel.

He took out a shortened, pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun and slipped the gun’s strap over his free shoulder. After angling the shotgun down the side of his torso, he put his arm back through his coat sleeve. The duffel went over his other shoulder as he got out of the car. The policeman had been behind him long enough to call in his plates. The Mustang had to be ditched. It didn’t matter. If he lost Johanna Lane, he didn’t much care if he got through the night with his life. He sure as hell didn’t care if he got out with his car.

He walked to the pickup truck in front of him and tried the door, his gaze moving constantly, checking shadows and sounds. The door was locked. The owner of the late-model gray sedan parked behind him wasn’t nearly as cautious. He got in and smashed the ignition assembly with the butt of the shotgun. Then he went to work hot-wiring the car.

Johanna Lane lived at 300 Briarwood Court, and Dylan knew exactly where 300 Briarwood Court was in relation to his current position—two blocks west and one half block north.

* * *

Johanna Lane stood on her third-floor balcony overlooking the street. French doors were open behind her, allowing the night wind to lift and flutter sheer, floor-length curtains. Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
played on the stereo, the classical notes crystal clear, floating on the air with all the purity that the finest digital sound was capable of producing. The stereo system was an indulgence, one of many in the oak-floored, art-deco-furnished apartment.

She turned partway to look inside. In the dining room, an unfinished, candlelit dinner of pasta alfredo and salad was neatly laid out on one end of an intricately carved, black lacquer table. A damask napkin was crumpled next to the still-full crystal wineglass.

She really should eat, she thought, watching the candle flame dip and bow with the breeze. If she wasn’t going to run home to Chicago and her father, she should eat, and she’d decided against running. Running was an admission of guilt, either of a crime she’d been very careful not to commit, or of an act of betrayal she’d never considered.