by LETO, JULIE
Lucienne murmured something, but with the bass-drum beat of his heart and the echoes of the wailing alarm, he couldn’t hear her.
“Perdóneme?”
“What are they looking for?” she whispered.
“Us?”
“Why?” she asked. “You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”
He couldn’t contain his laughter, though he did manage to keep his volume down. “I’m afraid it’s more likely you’re the one in trouble.”
If there had been space for her to jump away from him, he was certain she would have. As it was, she stiffened…and unfortunately for her, the effect was not as icy as she might have imagined. In fact, the feel of her body going rigid against his only acted like a flame to very dry kindling.
“Why would you say that?” she asked, her voice quavering.
She shook all over. He supposed he should be terrified, too, but as he fisted one hand in his pocket and concentrated all his self-resistance on keeping the other one from caressing her backside, he realized he was completely cool. They were trapped, but safe. Even with the bookshelf out of place, he doubted the thieves would figure out precisely what brick to pound in order to open the secret door. For the next few minutes at least, he had her captured up against him, his body growing more and more accustomed to hers, the danger outside as fine a reason as any to revel in their forced and delicious proximity.
“Look at all the trouble you’ve caused me. Trying not to stare too boldly when you were bent over a particularly fascinating necklace. Resisting the urge to touch you when your fingers were just inches from mine while we pored over authentication documents or bills of sale. Dreaming about having your body just like this—pressed hard and tight against mine. Though perhaps in less tense circumstances.”
This elicited a sweet, yet incendiary smile.
From what seemed like a distance more miles than inches, Alex heard the thieves retreat from the office. The whine and wail of sirens taunted the edges of his awareness. But the only sound his brain acknowledged was Lucienne’s satisfied moan when he wrapped his hands around her bottom and then kissed her with the full crush of his pent-up desire.
She tasted like mint and coffee. Her tongue tangled with his, skimming across his teeth and igniting nerve endings usually reserved only for the richest port wines. He reached down with both hands and bunched the tight hem of her skirt up her thighs so he could lift her against the wall.
Free from the constraints of her skirt, she opened her thighs and the fit of his body to hers sparked an explosion of sensations that launched them into a world where only they existed. The darkness, the tight quarters and Lucienne’s hot and willing body had him dizzy with need. When she raked her hands through his hair and guided his face back to hers, he knew he had to have her. Not here. Not now.
But somewhere.
And soon.
5
SHORTLY AFTER HER fourteenth birthday, Lucy had started to run with a dangerous crowd. She’d gone on joyrides, played lookout for felonious friends and dallied with boys who even in their youth were too far gone for reformation.
And yet, none of these things seemed nearly as dangerous as kissing Alejandro Aguilar.
Pushing aside the myriad of secrets she kept from him—her true identity and purpose in coming to work for him—the man invaded her system like a drug. Their first kiss had rocked her to her core. This second round, even amid the passageway’s collected grime and dirt and the possibility of harm from the assailants on the other side of the wall, nearly knocked her off her feet.
Or, more accurately, spirited her into a state of complete and utter hunger.
In the split second before lust disengaged her brain, she’d registered the fact that they were relatively safe in here—free to burn their pent-up adrenaline with a kiss that melted her insides to hot, bubbling goo. The lock operated from the inside. The invaders could press every stone from today until next Tuesday and the passageway wouldn’t open. She’d found similar hiding spots in two other sections of the building, though each had been much more spacious than this one.
Not that she was complaining.
Then suddenly, her pleasured moans echoed off the compressed walls. The sound of Alejandro suckling her neck just above her pulse point thundered in her ears.
The security alarm had stopped.
The sirens were silent.
They could still hear voices, but they rang with calm authority rather than desperation.
Alejandro set her down, panting.
“La policía está aquí,” he whispered.
She understood enough Spanish to realize the cavalry had finally ridden to the rescue.
Just in time? Or too damned soon?
“If we come out too quickly, they might shoot first and ask questions later,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not die today.”
“I agree,” he said, his voice ragged and torn with what she recognized as hard-won control. “But we can’t stay here too long.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
She tugged her skirt down and did the best she could to straighten her clothes, a task complicated by the feel of his rigid cock against the curve of her belly. The pressure tantalized her with promises she couldn’t afford for him to keep. She’d entertained her fair share of naughty fantasies about making love to Alejandro here at the auction house, but none had included a dark, dirty passage with very little room to move.
“A man can only contain himself so long. You’ve pushed me to the limits and all I’ve kissed are your lips. All I’ve touched is your sweet, round bottom. I can’t help but wonder what magic will happen when I am inside you.”
The simmering thrum of her heartbeat accelerated and a tiny drop of moisture kissed the inside of her thigh. It was one thing for a man to talk dirty at a wholly inopportune moment. It was something else entirely when he did it with a thick Castilian accent.
“We barely escaped with our lives and you’re thinking about sex?”
“You’re thinking about something else?”
He brushed his mouth over hers, but denied her another kiss, intensifying the yearning ricocheting through her system.
“Not at the moment, no,” she confessed.
His smile lit his eyes like fireworks. Hot, explosive, sky-illuminating fireworks.
But before she knew it, he’d reached above her head, disengaged the lock and latch until the hidden door creaked open and light poured into the dark crawl space, blinding them both.
The police acted much as Lucy expected. With guns drawn, they ordered Alejandro and Lucy out into the office with their hands clearly visible. Yet, in minutes, Alex had clarified their identities and the tension melted away. Lucy was shuttled to a chair with Alejandro’s jacket draped over her shoulders, where she was left alone to mull over a different kind of tension—the kind she’d shared with Alejandro.
One that, until now, she hadn’t known existed.
She’d had a fair amount of sex during her adulthood—even a couple of backseat explorations while still in her teens. She’d burned off her urges with a football player, a law school student, the guy she’d met when he came over to hook up her surround-sound and a neighbor in her condo building who worked as a professor at a small, local college. She’d even gone on a few dates with men she’d met at the market, while having coffee in the Embarcadero, or at the library doing research on some rare and priceless antiquity that Daniel had decided to steal and that she’d had to figure out how much to charge for on the black market.
Each and every one of her liaisons had started with a wild wave of lust. She’d always believed lust was just as good an emotion as any other for sparking a short-term affair. In fact, it was preferable. A hell of a lot better than anger or fear. Miles above sympathy or compassion.
Love hadn’t even been in the running.
Love meant commitment. Complications. Heartbreak.
And her reliance on lust hadn’t chang
ed with Alejandro. A powerful, driving need had drawn them together even before they’d hidden in the secret passage and it would be a powerful, driving need that would fulfill the forbidden fantasies Lucy had entertained since she’d first met him. But with their desires so intertwined by the ring, Daniel, the auction, and now an attempted armed robbery, lust had no choice but to burn hot and die quickly.
But what a death it would be.
“Cómo estás, querida?”
“Me?” She looked up at Alejandro, who was flanked by a man in an off-the-rack suit. She assumed he was a police inspector. “Just shaken up, but I’ll be fine. Do you need me yet? To help determine what’s missing?”
Alejandro laid a protective hand on her shoulder. “Not yet. The police want to ask you a few questions first.”
“Didn’t you tell them what happened?”
Acid churned in her stomach—a bitter, corrosive blend of antagonism and hatred for law enforcement that had aged inside her belly since her father’s arrest. Flashes of men in uniform dragging him away from the dinner table. Her mother’s screams. The flood of tears she’d shed for years and years, too young to understand that the cops weren’t the bad guys, even if they had taken her father away.
“We’d like to hear it from you,” the inspector explained. “Maybe you saw something or heard something that will lead us to the suspects.”
“Have you checked the security cameras?” she countered. “They’re placed at all the entrances and were fully functional when I came in this morning.”
Since she’d meant to disable the system herself once she’d found the ring, Lucy had made it her business to know the complete workings of the security setup. Ramon hadn’t installed the latest gadgets and wizardry, but his devices were solid and well-cared for—more than sufficient for day-to-day operations.
But what happened today wasn’t normal. An armed attack? In broad daylight? Without cutting off the burglar alarms first?
Either these guys were desperate or they were amateurs. Either one meant danger.
“The police are reviewing the recordings,” Alejandro replied, then turned to the detective and speared him with a look that was at once commanding and indisputable. “Make it quick, Inspector. I won’t have Ms. Bonet subjected to more distress than she already has been.”
The inspector inclined his head. “Of course.”
Lucy stifled a tiny gasp. The cop had actually bowed to Alejandro.
Her lust spiked just enough to make her wriggle in her seat.
As promised, the police detective asked his questions quickly and efficiently. For once, the truth was on her side. Talking to law enforcement proved a lot easier when she wasn’t trying to cover her or Danny’s tracks. Only when the detective asked for her name did her heartbeat trip, but thanks to years of practice, her voice remained steady and certain.
“And you didn’t see anyone?” the inspector asked, for the fifth time.
“No,” she answered. “I slammed and locked the door and Señor Aguilar blocked it with the furniture. By the time the thieves made their way inside the office, we were already hiding in the secret passage.”
“Lucky you found that,” he said nonchalantly.
Lucy narrowed her gaze. Police inspectors asked no questions without an underlying purpose. Her instinct to insist that her job expectations had forced her to explore every nook and cranny of the auction house was hard to fight—but not impossible.
“Very lucky,” she agreed.
After one more recounting of events, the detective left. She wandered into the gallery. Her chest ached at the destruction. Suits of armor lay defeated and disarmed on the polished wood floor. The remnants of a dozen different figurines and statuettes crunched under the feet of the crime scene technicians. The paintings that hadn’t been tossed to the ground were hanging at skewed and uncertain angles. Her gaze then fell on the two trays of jewelry she’d taken out earlier to photograph. Everything was gone, even the opal and emerald earrings she’d shown to Special Agent Dawes.
“Did you call your brother?” she asked when Alejandro sidled up beside her, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his mouth curved into a deep, intimidating frown.
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Don’t you think he might have some pull with the investigation?”
“The police seem to be taking this seriously without outside influence. This is Michael’s legacy. His mother’s financial future. I don’t want to alarm him before we know precisely what is missing.”
“Did they get the safe downstairs?”
“No,” he replied. “But they tried.”
Her brain whirred. It was an odd thing to be on the other side of a crime scene, but she might as well put some of her considerable knowledge to good use.
“Did they try a combination? Like maybe an old one we don’t use anymore?”
With no live security guards on the premises and a cache of bitter former employees on the loose, Lucy had convinced Alejandro to change the vault and alarm codes. He might not have a lot of experience with thieves and lowlifes, but she did—and she wasn’t about to let someone else beat her to the punch when she had the inside track.
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. There are marks on the lock.”
“What kind of marks?”
With the elevator occupied by crime scene investigators taking photographs and dusting for fingerprints, he gestured toward the stairwell that led downstairs. They reached the door, but had to wait for one of the detectives to clear them for entry.
As the safe had not been breached, the police had finished quickly with the area, though they asked Alejandro and Lucy to refrain from touching anything. So when Lucy leaned in to peer through the gray smudges of fingerprinting dust to examine the marks beside the small, wagon-wheel shaped locking mechanism, Alejandro cupped his hand on her shoulder to keep her from getting too close.
Even with his wool jacket still draped over her shoulder, the heat of his hand seared.
She glanced up at him. “I know what I’m doing,” she said.
He countered with a wicked smile. “Perhaps, but when presented with an excuse to touch you, I couldn’t very well allow it to pass.”
“I hate men who make excuses,” she said.
He slung his hands back into his pockets. “And I hate women who are insufferable teases, but we all have our crosses to bear.”
“You’re going to pay for that crack, Señor Aguilar.”
“I do hope you’re a woman of your word.”
AS LUCIENNE LAUGHED, the warmth that spread through Alex’s system was a magical combination of hot lust and sweet anticipation. Like a balm, her seductive chuckle lessened the guilt and self-recrimination that had racked him once he’d witnessed the full breadth of the thieves’ destruction. On his watch, he’d lost part of his father’s legacy—the part entrusted to him by a brother he hardly knew. But no matter his horror over the loss of necklaces, rings and baubles, he couldn’t forget the crack and splinter of the bullet hitting the doorframe any more than he could erase the sensation of Lucienne’s quaking body pressed hard and close against his in the hidden room.
But they were alive. They were together. And soon, they’d make good on the promises exchanged during hot, desperate kisses.
Alex stepped back, appreciating the curve of Lucienne’s backside while she concentrated on the marks on the safe. She held up her hand to estimate the spacing of the scratches and nicks, then turned to face him, her sweet lips pursed in deep concentration.
“They tried to break the combination using an auto-dial device,” she said, authority ringing in her voice.
“Qué?”
“It’s a mechanism that safe-crackers use to break the combination of a target vault. They attach it to the computerized lock here.” She indicated the area with her finger, though she didn’t touch the steel. “It’s usually a very model-specific device, meaning that the thief had to know what kind of safe Ramon owned in or
der to bring in the right apparatus. A generic auto-dial would take hours and this was clearly a smash-and-grab.”
He’d known Lucienne was knowledgeable about a wide variety of periods in art and culture, but he’d never expected her to talk as if she’d recently graduated from the police academy.
“You know quite a bit about security,” he said. Despite the dodgy backgrounds of most of Ramon’s former employees, there had not been—to his knowledge—a single successful break-in while his father operated the business. If what Lucienne said was true, this might have been what the Americans called “an inside job.”
“I’ve been in the auction business a long time,” she said, turning quickly as if to examine the door again. “I expect you also know quite a bit about protecting your investments.”
Alex watched her make her way down the corridor, touching nothing, but inspecting every inch of space between the stairwell and the storage rooms. God, he could spend an eternity watching the woman move. She had an otherworldly rhythm that entranced him, like starlight against a velvet black sky.
“My uncle is ex-military,” he replied. “He handles all the security concerns for the House of Aguilar.”
“Well, I expect you’re about to take a crash course in the subject.”
For some unexplainable reason, this thought made him smile. “Maybe I should hire someone as a consultant. Not as an employee, per se, but more like a partner.”
“A partner in crime?” she asked, chuckling at her own play of words.
“To a definition, sí,” he said.
She arched a brow. “Have anyone in mind?”
“I believe you’d be the perfect woman for the job, if it gives you a reason to stay rather than run from this place, screaming for your life.”
“I don’t scream,” she assured him.
He poked his tongue into his cheek to squelch a wholly inappropriate grin. “That remains to be seen, querida.”
Despite his innuendo, she made quite the show out of shrugging with ennui even as she sauntered nearer to him and slid her hands up the front of his shirt. “I don’t know. Thanks to that check you handed me earlier, I don’t need the work.”