Flirting With the Forbidden

by Joss Wood

  ‘Is that why you were so reluctant to organise the ball?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s too important for me to fail at it...and I don’t want to disappoint my mum. It’s hard, trying to live up to the Moreau name. The family are all terribly well educated—they all have two degrees; my dad has three—and I scraped through college by the skin of my teeth, taking twice the amount of time anyone else did.’

  ‘You just told me that you are not stupid,’ Noah pointed out. ‘Surely they know that too? And as educated people don’t you think that they admire you for trying something outside of your comfort zone? I know I do, and I only have one degree.’

  ‘They keep telling me that. Maybe I’m just scared of disappointing myself.’ Morgan tipped her head back to look at him. ‘What do you have a degree in?’

  ‘Business and history,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘Love history. It’s still my favourite subject.’

  Morgan sighed happily. ‘Then I must show you some of the old diaries from the first Moreau prospectors—the brothers who discovered the mines. They were wacky and colourful and quite unethical.’

  ‘I’d love to read them.’ Noah gently pulled her ponytail. ‘You look exhausted, Duchess. Why don’t you go to bed?’

  ‘I’m tired, but I probably won’t sleep,’ Morgan admitted. ‘My brain is whirling.’

  ‘You need something to de-stress you.’

  He stood up, scanned the bookshelves and found what he was looking for. Yanking the book from the shelf, he sat down again, stretched out his legs and tucked Morgan back into his side.

  ‘If I remember correctly, you were just about to start chapter six.’

  Morgan’s eyes were as big as saucers. ‘You’re going to read to me?’

  Her eyes filled with emotion and Noah winced. Oh, jeez, maybe he’d insulted her by offering to read to her. Maybe she hadn’t heard a thing he’d said earlier about how smart he thought she was...

  ‘I’m sorry. Look, it’s not because I don’t think you’re... Bad idea, huh?’

  Morgan’s fingers on his lips dried up his words. ‘No, it’s probably the sweetest thing any man has ever done for me.’

  Noah grimaced. ‘Sweet, huh?’

  ‘Yeah—very, very sweet.’

  Noah pulled another face. ‘Yuck, that’s not how any ex-Special Forces soldier would like to hear himself described. Now, will you please shut up? I’m trying to read here...’

  * * *

  Noah handed Morgan a glass of champagne and, from behind his dark sunglasses, cast a look down her long, long legs. Every other woman at the Moreau Polo Cup Challenge was dressed to the nines, but Morgan, in tailored white shorts that ended at mid-thigh, and a white and green gypsy top revealing her shoulders and messy hair, looked every cent of the millions of dollars she was supposed to be worth.

  Earlier, just because he was curious, he’d timed her to see how long she took to get ready. Ten minutes. He’d known women who took ten minutes to put on mascara. He really, really liked the fact that she didn’t fuss.

  And that she still managed to look super-hot.

  ‘Do you ride?’ Morgan nodded to the field and the charging, sweaty thoroughbred horses.

  Noah snorted. ‘Not many stables where I grew up.’

  ‘Where did you grow up, Noah?’ Morgan asked.

  Well, he’d cracked the door open... Noah sighed, thought about ducking her question, remembered that she’d shared her biggest secret with him and told himself not to be a jerk. ‘I grew up in Glasgow, in a bad part of town.’

  Morgan kept her eyes on the field. ‘Did you have a tough childhood?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  And that was all he was prepared to say. Besides, it was all such a long time ago. He was with a gorgeous girl at a fancy event and he didn’t want those memories to corrode his enjoyment of this stunning spring day.

  ‘So, tell me about your date for the wedding,’ he said casually.

  Noah frowned as a tall, slim Spaniard in a white polo shirt and jodhpurs streaked with dirt leaned over the fence, placed his hands on Morgan’s shoulders, kissed her on both cheeks and then lightly on the mouth. Morgan laughed, patted his cheek, and conversed with him in passable Spanish. Their conversation ended with another flurry of cheek-kisses and, dammit, another brush of her mouth.

  Noah resisted the urge to reach for his gun.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ Noah asked, unaware of the bite in his voice.

  ‘Juan Carlos. Playboy. Polo player. He taught me to tango,’ Morgan said in a dreamy voice.

  ‘That had better be all he taught you,’ Noah said in a low mutter.

  Morgan’s mouth twitched. ‘A duchess never tells. Andrew—how are you?’

  Kiss, kiss...flirt, flirt...

  Noah looked at his water and wished he could ask for a whisky as she dived into conversation with yet another polo player who’d ambled up to greet her. She would drive any sane man to drink, Noah decided as a bead of sweat ran down his spine.

  He wanted to remove his navy linen jacket but he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to raise questions about why he was wearing a sidearm to one of the most elite social events in the city. He was on constant alert at functions like these; there was no security, people came and went, and anything could happen.

  Unfortunately no one was close to finding the kidnappers and the tensions at the mine remained unresolved; in fact they had just got worse, and they’d all been warned to be on high alert.

  James had flown out to Colombia to try and resolve the dispute, and a posse of CFT personnel were guarding his back. That was why James wasn’t at the Polo Challenge and why Morgan would be handing out the prizes to the polo players—and no doubt kissing eight or more fit, rich, polo-playing numbskulls.

  Oh, joy of joys.

  Polo Boy number two walked away and Morgan pushed her glasses up into her hair and fanned her programme close to her face. ‘What were we talking about?’

  ‘Your date for the wedding.’

  He caught the tiny wince. ‘Oh...him.’

  ‘Yeah, him. Want to come clean, Morgs?’ Noah asked, a smile hiking up the corner of his lips.

  Morgan placed her champagne glass on a tall table and sighed. ‘I lied. I was trying to wind you up—’

  ‘You succeeded,’ Noah mumbled, thinking that it was the thought of her sleeping with someone else that had ignited his temper and led to the urge to kiss her, brand her, possess her. ‘So, he’s fictional?’

  Morgan scuffed the grass with the tip of one of her apple-green wedges. ‘Mmm.’

  Noah slowly pushed his shades up into his hair and looked down into her face, idly thinking that he loved the handful of freckles on her nose that make-up never quite seemed to cover. ‘Do you lie often?’

  ‘No. Only when I’m pushed beyond reason.’

  ‘I’m very reasonable.’ Noah protested.

  ‘Pfft.’ Morgan rolled her eyes.

  Noah rested his forearms on the fence. ‘I’ve been thinking about something you said the other night at the art exhibition.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said something about the cloak you’d like to drop...what did you mean by that?’

  Morgan took a little while to answer. When she did her voice was softer, vulnerable. ‘Don’t we all have cloaks or armour that we drag on to protect us from the circumstances we find ourselves in? Something we do, or say, a way that we act to get us through whatever it is making us feel uncomfortable? A cloak that covers all our insecurities, the real us that we don’t want people to see?’

  Noah gave her words some thought. ‘Your flirty, charming party-girl persona...that’s your cloak? The bright, bubbly, charming flirt? The real you is quieter, more introspective...dreamier.’

  Morgan cocked her thumb an
d extended her index finger. ‘There you go. And you only know that because we’ve been living in each other’s pockets. And your implacable and remote face that discourages all conversation is yours. Your can’t-touch-me mask is supposed to discourage anyone from wanting to dig deeper, to get to know you a bit better.’

  Noah couldn’t help wincing. He did do that—did keep everyone at an emotional distance.

  He rubbed his hand across his face. ‘You’ve come closer than anyone—ever.’ He caught the flash of fear in her eyes, saw her take the tiniest step backwards. ‘And that makes you uncomfortable,’ he added.

  ‘Wary.’ Morgan looked out at the busy field. ‘We can hurt each other... No, let me rephrase that. You can hurt me...if we ever change from friends to lovers.’

  ‘If we change—and I’ll try not to, Morgan—you have to know that I wouldn’t be able to promise you for ever. All I can say is that I would be monogamous, that I’d treat you well as long as it lasted—be it a week or months. But at some point our paths would split and I’d be back in London, doing what I do.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If you want more from me than a fun time in bed then maybe we should just quit while we’re ahead. Stay as Duchess and Soldier.’ Noah folded his arms and hoped she couldn’t see how much he hoped that she didn’t choose option B. Because that would, well...suck. ‘So, what’s it to be?’

  Morgan played with the emerald and diamond studs in her ears. ‘I’m probably going to regret this, but we do have unfinished business between us.’ She sent him a coy look and the humour was back in her eyes. ‘By the way, are you into threesomes?’

  If he’d had anything in his mouth he would have sprayed her, or choked. As it was, he felt he had to pick his jaw up from the floor. ‘What the...? Who? What? Are you being serious?’

  ‘Well, by the time this situation is resolved my friend Sophie from the gallery will be sharing my bedroom. I thought I should warn you.’

  Noah felt his heart slow down to a gallop as her words started to make sense. ‘Morgan, you nearly gave me a heart attack! You bought Johnno Davie’s painting?’

  ‘I did.’ Morgan smiled. ‘It’ll be delivered when the exhibition is over.’

  They turned as someone called her name.

  ‘Ooh, I’m being summoned. I need to go and hand out the prizes and flirt with the players.’

  Noah couldn’t help the possessive hand he put on her back, the growl in his voice. ‘Keep it to a minimum, sweetheart. Remember that I’m armed and dangerous. I’d hate to have to shoot one of them.’

  Morgan touched her lips to his cheek and whispered in his ear. ‘Just to be clear, soldier, Sophie is the closest you are ever going to get to a threesome that involves me.’

  He could live with that. Heck, he was happy fantasising about a ‘onesome’ with her.

  * * *

  A few days later Noah heard the lobby phone chime and got up from the dining table where he had been working on staff scheduling—his normal Auterlochie work hadn’t stopped, so he worked from Morgan’s dining room table or the MI conference room. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Hey, Patrick.’

  He’d become good friends with the doormen—both ex-cops, with excellent service records—and Patrick’s voice boomed in his ear.

  ‘I have Miss Riley here, plus two guys carrying mannequins and stuff. Can I send them up?’

  ‘What? Hold on, let me take a look.’ Noah walked backed to his laptop and pulled up the live feed from the lobby. Patching into the apartment building’s security feed had been his first task when he’d moved into the apartment weeks ago. True enough, there was Riley, chatting to two young guys holding two life-size mannequins.

  Why was Riley bringing mannequins up to the apartment? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  He went back to the phone and thought for a minute. The situation in Colombia had descended into near anarchy and threats were flying. Hannah and Jedd were still not allowed to leave their house in the Cayman Islands. He’d spent twenty minutes on the phone with James earlier that day and they’d agreed that Morgan should curtail her social obligations. So now he had to try and keep her in the apartment as much as possible...which would be a butt-pain, because resisting the urge to haul her off to bed was now on a par with him splitting the atom.

  ‘Put Riley, the mannequins and the bags into the lifts and send the men home. I’ll help her unload on this side,’ Noah told Patrick, and went back to his laptop.

  When the doors had closed on Riley and her plastic companions, he called to Morgan.

  ‘Hey, Riley will be here in twenty seconds with some life-size dolls. Why?’

  ‘Yay!’ Morgan said, coming from the bedroom and towel-drying her wet hair. She draped her towel over the back of the couch and Noah fought the urge to ask her to put it back in the bathroom. He was obsessively neat, courtesy of the army, and she was a slob. Her untidiness drove him nuts.

  Noah opened the front door, and walked over to the lift. As the doors opened he grabbed one mannequin and tucked it under his arm. ‘Friends of yours, Ri?’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  Riley handed him a duffel bag and he walked back to the apartment and dumped them in the hallway. He went back for the second dummy and Riley followed him, carrying the second smaller bag.

  He watched, amused, as Morgan and Riley sat the mannequins—expensive ones, with arm and leg joints—on the colourful couches. Morgan squealed and immediately reached for the duffel bags. Thinking that they probably needed alcohol for whatever they were up to, he went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. When he returned with two glasses in hand his eyes widened at the rainbow-hued lingerie now scattered over the coffee table. No, not lingerie...sexy-as-sin burlesque costumes. Beaded and decorated corsets with fluffy skirts and feathers. And there were some without skirts, skimpy, with oversized clips to attach to stockings.

  His mind instinctively imagined Morgan in one of those outfits and he cursed when his pants stirred. High heels, stockings... He thought of the survival courses he’d taken in the SAS. Nothing sexy about those...

  Thoughts of sex bolted away and his heart ran cold as Morgan picked up a duffel bag and a treasure trove of jewellery rained down on the table. Emeralds, rubies, diamonds, gold...so much gold. Pearls, sapphires... If Morgan had liberated the MI jewellery collection from the walk-in safe on the fourth floor—and he knew she had access to do that—he was going to freakin’ kill her. Slowly, and with much pleasure.

  ‘Oh, my, look at his face.’ Morgan chuckled as she held Riley’s arm and doubled over with mirth. ‘Quick, grab your mobile and snap a pic. We’ll call it Nervous Noah.’

  ‘In a moment you are going to be Mortuary Morgan,’ Noah replied as he approached them. He handed over the wine and picked up a necklace with a canary-egg-size diamond hanging off a gold clasp. He examined the stone, didn’t see the deep sparkle and reflections a diamond that size should have and his blood pressure dropped. ‘Paste. You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  Morgan grinned. ‘They are all paste, and it’s fantastic that we have them to play with.’

  Noah held up his hand. ‘I think I need wine for this...hold on.’ He went back to the kitchen, brought another glass and the bottle back and perched on the arm of the chair. ‘Now, what are you doing, exactly?’

  Morgan crossed her legs Indian-style and with her wet hair and make-up-free face she looked a teenager. Like she had when she was nineteen, when she’d stolen his breath from his lungs. Nothing much had changed there, Noah thought.

  ‘Okay, so you said that we can’t have live models showing off the collection...’

  ‘Categorically not,’ Noah said.

  ‘So, Riley and I want to place mannequins on round plinths throughout the ballroom, each of them in a gold burlesque birdcage à la Moulin Rouge. W
e’ll put them in provocative poses—on swings, bending over, et cetera. The mannequins will all be dressed in burlesque costumes—sexy corsets and stockings, high heels and masks.’ Morgan picked up a handful of lace and stockings. ‘The great thing is that we have paste copies of all the jewellery collection and Riley has the mannequins, so we can experiment before we make a final decision.’

  ‘Why?’ Noah asked.

  Morgan, who was examining a pearl necklace, frowned up at him. ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why do you have paste copies of the jewellery collection?’ Noah asked patiently.

  ‘Oh...a Great-Something Moreau needed to raise some cash to buy another mine and he handed over the collection as collateral. He didn’t want it known that he was cash-strapped, so before he did that he had paste copies made of the jewellery. He got the jewels back but ever since, whenever the family acquired a new piece, a copy was made. Riley and I played with these as kids.’

  ‘Huh. So they are exact replicas?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Riley draped a long string of pearls around her neck. ‘So what do you think of our birdcage idea, Noah? Can the real jewels be secured?’

  Noah thought for a minute. ‘I want an area between the guests and the cages, about a foot and a half, where we can put a pressure plate so that if anyone steps up to a mannequin it’ll trigger a silent alarm.’

  Morgan looked at Riley. ‘We can do that.’

  ‘I want in on the design of the birdcages. I want to put laser beams between the rods, so that if anyone breaks the beam it’ll trigger an alarm.’

  Morgan lifted a bustier of white silk embossed with silver beads and waved his security issues away in order to play with the colourful garments and the fake bling.

  ‘Okay... Look at this one, Ri! Such a gorgeous red, with black inserts, and the feathers make a teeny-tiny skirt. If we teamed it with those striped thigh-highs...dynamite! Let’s dress a mannequin in an outfit, choose the corresponding jewellery and mask, photograph it and do the next one. And where on earth did you find all these outfits?’