“I don’t hate you,” she said softly.
Oh, God, no. Quite the opposite.
Chapter
Twenty-six
T he fact is, we have no freaking idea where they are.” Tristan dashed Janine’s hope and excitement with one cool, quick dose of reality.
He leaned against a desk in the casino’s security office, a few feet from where she sat in a stiff metal-backed chair. He unbuttoned one cuff of a blue oxford shirt, rolled it up precisely two times, tucked it, and repeated the process with the other. He seemed remarkably unruffled for a man who, two hours earlier, had been on the floor of the baccarat room dodging bullets.
“No freaking idea,” he repeated. “Do we, Paul?”
“We do not.” The other agent stared at a laptop computer with Luc hovering over his shoulder. “Do we, Luc?”
“Luc” looked up and caught her gaze. “We will,” he assured her.
She didn’t respond, but turned her attention back to Tristan. “Can you prove that Benazir was behind Albert’s death?”
“We’ll know more when he’s alert and can talk,” Tristan told her. “They’ll keep him overnight in the hospital, and then we get custody. His closest henchman, Amod Surjeet, was killed in the baccarat room. He might have been easier to break than Benazir. But we’ll be working with the bureaus in L.A. and Paris and Dijon to make a case.”
Janine toyed with the edge of the Band-Aid on her hand, sighing in frustration.
“Everyone at Versailles is being investigated,” Tristan assured her. “And the minister of culture’s interrogation has already begun.”
What a mess. Not only had the Plums vanished from the computerized radar, but the highest-level officials in France were under suspicion for stealing them—and for murder. The exhibit was closed indefinitely, and by morning her name would be all over the whole sordid affair.
She’d be lucky to have a basement office in the Art History Department when she got back to UCLA. Looking up from her hands, her gaze fell on Luc—Nick. She simply couldn’t think of him as Nick. He was Luc, unkempt and looking more like a renegade ruffian than someone working firmly “on the side of the angels.” When she turned back to Tristan, she knew she’d been caught studying him.
“Do you need names of people in the department?” she asked lamely, trying to cover the fact that she’d been ogling a wounded criminal.
Tristan shook his head. “You’re both fairly useless to us,” he said, and then flashed a quick, devilish smile. “I mean that in a sympathetic way, Dr. Coulter. You should get some rest. No one is going to find the vases at three in the morning. Sleep, and tomorrow we’ll strategize.”
“Really?” Disappointment squeezed her.
“He’s right,” Luc agreed, pointing at the laptop. “This isn’t a programming problem with the GPS. Something’s wrong in the tracking device. It’s not sending a signal.”
“What does that mean?” Janine asked.
Paul shrugged and clicked a key. “The transmitter’s been removed.”
“Not possible,” Luc said. He was French again, she noticed. For the benefit of Agent Dunne, no doubt. What would it be like to live with a human chameleon, never knowing who you’d wake up with each morning?
He looked at her, and his determined expression melted when their eyes met. “Ne t’inquiétes pas,” he said softly. A rush of affection warmed her blood. She was worried, and not just about the Plums. She was worried about her heart.
Maybe she just wouldn’t care about those chameleon qualities. Maybe there were more important things in life than…consistency.
“It’s possible the Plums have been destroyed,” Tristan offered.
Luc gave Tristan a harsh look. “It’s also possible that they are hidden somewhere that prevents the signal from coming through. Benazir has the answers.” He straightened from his position over the computer and winced in pain, absently massaging his bandaged arm.
Paul stood suddenly. “I’m going up to check on their progress in Benazir’s suite. There might be a clue somewhere.”
After he left, Luc took Paul’s seat and started poking at the keyboard again. “Lisette’s computer might still have the original coordinates,” he mused, almost to himself. “I need to get into the memory on that system.”
“We’ll look into it,” Tristan said pointedly.
At his tone, Luc looked up.
Tristan repositioned himself on the desk and cleared his throat. “We’d better talk about Lisette Soisson, Luc.”
“So, talk.” He was American again.
Tristan glanced at Janine. “Maybe you should—”
“She knows everything,” Luc interrupted him, his attention back on the computer. “Anything you want to say, you can say in front of her.”
Tristan just stared at him for a minute, his normally piercing gaze wide with surprise. “Anything?”
Luc stabbed at a key and cursed under his breath. “Something is not right here.” He tilted the laptop screen down and looked at Tristan again. “Yes, Tris. I trust her.”
Janine’s eyes narrowed. This didn’t have anything to do with trust. Benazir had spilled the truth. If he hadn’t, she’d have gone blithely along thinking Luc was super-man undercover crime fighter.
“We’re going to have to arrest Lisette,” Tristan finally said. “She’s involved. We don’t know to what degree, but she is involved.”
Luc nodded.
“Then we have to talk to the director about your next assignment.”
The two men shared a long look that spoke volumes, but Janine couldn’t begin to decipher it.
“I’m in no hurry,” Luc finally said, his gaze sliding to her. Something deep inside tumbled and rolled at the intensity of his look.
Tristan turned a quick snort into a cough. “Some of Benazir’s men might still be out there. We don’t know how much they know. The director might be in a hurry, even if you aren’t. I don’t think he wants you gallivanting around France with the chance that more people know…who you are.”
Luc’s dark eyes burned at Tristan, his brows locked together. “I don’t gallivant, Tris. And the only people who know who I am—the only people who matter—are in this room.”
Tristan eased himself off the desk and kept his gaze steady on Luc. “A day. Maybe two. You don’t get time off for good behavior, Nick.”
Nick slid his card key into the lock of the suite.
“I’d rather go find my Plums than sleep,” Janine said, as she walked into the room. “Isn’t there anything else we can do tonight?”
“You can barely walk.” He didn’t bother with a survey of the room; Benazir was in custody. “You need a shower and a long night’s sleep.”
She groaned softly. “Thank God for that steam room. I’m going straight in there.”
His whole body tensed at the image that flashed in his mind. “You do that,” he agreed quickly. “I’ll just…” Fantasize. “See you in the morning.”
She paused midstep, but didn’t turn to him. The only sound in the room was a quietly ticking clock and the gentle hum of the refrigerator. For a fraction of a second, he thought she might…what? Issue an invitation to join her? He held his breath and waited.
“Okay,” she said. “Good night, then.”
She disappeared into the hall, and he heard her door close. But not lock.
He exhaled long and slow, then went to the wet bar for some cognac. His foot hit the bottom of the refrigerator and he paused, leaning over to examine the metal hinges on the side. How the hell did she get that door off? He smiled as he poured a generous amount of the amber liquid into a snifter.
He closed his eyes and let his imagination travel into the steam room. But the only image he conjured up was the look on her face when she held that vase over her head and gave it to Benazir for all she was worth.
And man, she was worth a lot.
He took a deep drink, willing the burning liquid to descend straight to the throbbing pain in his
arm. As soon as he had a shower—a careful one that didn’t soak his bandage—and a few more slugs of cognac, he’d crash and forget all about the woman sleeping in the next room.
No. The woman taking a hot steam in the next room.
He emptied the glass, poured another, and took it into his room.
The glass remained untouched on the bureau while he took a shower, shaved, and pulled on a pair of running shorts. Restless, he picked up the snifter, then put it back down. He didn’t want any more cognac. It didn’t dull the pain, anyway—at least not the one in his chest.
Only one thing could ease that. Janine.
Running a hand through his wet hair, he opened his door and looked across the hall. Her door remained closed. But unlocked. Maybe she wanted a cognac.
Holding the full snifter in one hand, he tapped on her door and waited. After a minute, he slowly turned the knob. The room was empty and dark, but for a sliver of light through the crack of the bathroom door.
He tapped on that. Still no answer. He entered. This time he recognized the hiss of the steam. This time he knew exactly where she was, how she looked. This time…he couldn’t walk away unless she told him to.
He turned the corner. The glass door had turned opaque with white puffs of steam. He nudged it with his good arm.
“Luc?”
He could make her out on the bench, hastily snatching a towel as she tried to sit up and cover herself. “It’s Nick,” he said. “Can I join you? I’m dressed.” His running shorts were already damp from the humidity and tented over an erection, but he was dressed.
She managed to wrap a towel around her.
“You don’t have to put that on,” he said, sitting next to her on the hot, wet marble. “I’ve seen you. More than once.”
Her hair was slicked back off her face, and her skin glistened with steam and perspiration. A smudge of makeup under her eyes gave her a fragile, haunted look.
“What do you want?” Her voice was husky, as warm as the cognac in his hand.
He held the snifter to her. “To see if you wanted something to…help you relax.”
Through the fog, he could see her skeptical look. “Liar.” She took the glass and sipped.
He shrugged in agreement. “I wanted to see if you’re all right.”
She swirled the cognac and held it up in the steam. “Liar.”
“Okay,” he smiled. “I came in here to see if there’s any chance we can still be friends.”
“Liar.”
He laughed out loud at that and watched her fight a smile as she took another drink, long and slow. When she finished, she lifted her face and skimmed her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. “Let’s try again, Nick.” She leaned forward, her fist holding the towel at her chest. “What do you want?”
The room sizzled with palpable heat and translucent clouds of white steam as they locked gazes.
“I want you,” he finally said.
She reached down and set the cognac glass on the tile floor, then faced him. Wordlessly, she spread her fingers and let the towel fall to the bench. “I like it when you tell the truth.”
His gaze fell to her exposed body, and the sight of her hit him in the heart and fanned the fire that already raged in another part of him. Sucking in a breath of steamed air, he closed the space between them and kissed her. She tasted like the cognac, hot and sweet and potent. As her tongue probed his mouth, he angled his head to get more of her, pulling her onto his lap, her legs open around his hips. Slowly, he lay her back onto another towel.
She lifted her arms in a feline stretch, then folded them under her head. He took one of her legs, lifted it on the bench, and let the other dangle down.
With a single finger, he trailed a path over sunkissed curves and silky flesh, from her hipbone, across the concave dip, over her navel, then straight down to the golden patch between her legs. Her eyes fluttered as her muscles tightened, but she held his gaze.
“I’ve seen you in here before,” he said, his voice raspy.
Her eyes flashed. “When?”
He leaned over and treated himself to a single kiss on the middle of her stomach. “Was it just this morning?” He shook his head at the impossibility of that. “I came into your bathroom and you were back here.”
“I never heard you.”
He smiled. “I’m a professional.”
“So I’ve heard.” The soft ring of her laughter warmed his heart.
With his hands planted on either side of her on the ledge, he licked the moist skin between her breasts and felt her quiver.
“What did you see?” she asked.
His tongue explored the undercurve of her breasts, loving the feel of her warm, soft flesh. “I saw you…”
She quivered under him. “You…watched me?”
“Only for a minute.”
Her breath was already uneven, ragged with each touch. “I was thinking about you.”
“I know,” he said, twirling his tongue around the pebbled tip of her breast. “What were you imagining?”
She closed her eyes and rocked her hips toward him in a silent invitation. “This.”
He suckled gently, then added pressure as her fingers curled into his hair and forced his head against her.
“And that,” she whispered.
He filled his hands with her, nibbling her heated, slick skin, his mouth unable to consume enough of her. Hungrily, he made his way down, down, down to taste the essence of her.
Her fingers dug into his skull as she lifted herself toward him. He kissed the silky skin of her thighs first, teasing and torturing her until he heard her slow, pleasured moan. She tasted like honey and steam and sweet sex, bucking once before she found a steady rhythm that matched his thorough tongue’s. She tightened her legs around his head, and he pulled back, sliding his finger over the pulse point of her mound.
She arched again, her fingers twined in his hair as he fondled her.
“Oh, oh.” She shuddered in his hands. “You’re such a magician.”
He chuckled, his breath on her flesh earning a gasp of delight. Her response made his erection throb with the need to be in her, but he tasted and played and teased her until she teetered on the edge in his mouth, clutching his hair and vibrating with pleasure.
As she quaked with an orgasm, he held her hips and kept up relentless pressure with his tongue, loving the way she lost control. Slowly he kissed his way back to her beautiful face.
She was lost. Transported. Did he make her forget who he was? At least he could hope that she no longer cared.
He reached her mouth and kissed her hard and furiously, finding his place between her legs and pressing his erection against her. Only the shorts separated them, and that wouldn’t last for long.
He kissed her cheek, her throat, her ear. “I want to make love to you, Janine.”
Without waiting for permission, he scooped her into his arms and carried her out of the steam room. She wrapped her arms around his neck and dropped her head back, letting her hair fall over his arms.
He laid her on the sheets and joined her. As he did, she gently caressed the white bandage on his arm.
“You saved Tristan’s life, you know,” she said, looking in his eyes.
He bit back a surprised laugh. “He saved mine once,” he responded, focusing his gaze on the mouth he wanted to taste again. “So we’re even.”
He leaned down to kiss her, but she dodged him with a sneaky smile. “You don’t really hate each other. You know that, don’t you?”
Fighting a frustrated sigh, he lifted himself to look at her. “Do you really want to talk about it now?”
She shook her head. “I just…I just want you to know that you’re not as bad as you think.”
“Thank you.” He managed a half smile, although part of him wanted to throw his head back and howl with happiness. “Now if you stop talking, I’ll show you just how good I can be.”
She bit her lip and slid her hand down to the waistband o
f his shorts, inching them lower until they were off. “Yes, please.” She urged him into place between her legs, the tip of him just touching her moist flesh. “Love me. Please love me, Nick.”
The name cut through his heart with the same force as the bullet that had grazed his arm. He wanted to drag this out for hours, wanted to tease her to a dozen more orgasms, but his willpower dissolved at the sound of his name on her lips.
He closed his eyes and thrust himself into her with a guttural groan. The sensation shocked him, and he froze for a second, then slid out and back in with a force he couldn’t control.
“Nick. Nick.”
She whispered his name and dug her nails into his back and lifted her hips to meet his every lunge into her. Again and again he lost himself in the beauty of her, in the tight envelope of love she wrapped around him. Again and again she called out his name, locking her legs around his hips and grasping him with a strength he didn’t know she had.
The overwhelming pull took over his whole body, blinding him, killing him with the need to release himself in her. He looked down to where they joined, her beautiful woman’s curves arched to take his frantic, hungry body. It looked so right, so completely, absolutely right.
“Nick. Nick.”
The name tore at him, propelling him harder and faster toward the pinnacle of satisfaction. With his gaze locked on the place where he disappeared in her, the place where he belonged most in the whole world, he sucked in a violent breath and spilled helplessly into the one woman who knew his secret…and let him love her anyway.
Dawn rose over the Alps in heartbreaking shades of peach and plum. The morning hues reflected off the snowcapped peaks and into the blue black waters of Lake Geneva. They’d forgotten to close the drapes, Janine thought drowsily as she opened her eyes. She was awake too early, but the reward was a sensory overload. She smiled. Her whole body tingled with satisfaction, warmed by the powerful arms around her and rock-hard chest that pressed against her back. She listened to Luc’s even breathing and inhaled the sultry scent of their lovemaking that clung to the sheets and her skin. All while enjoying one of nature’s most brilliant works of art.
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