by Zara Chase
“It was a reasonable enough question, given that you’re our guest.”
“A question that you get asked a lot?”
“Not that often. We like our privacy, and not too many people get invited in to see the setup.”
“Then I feel honoured.” She smiled at him, kissed the tip of her forefinger, and placed it against his lips. “You have a story, too, I’m thinking. A reason why you won’t commit to one woman.” She shook her head. “Not that that’s what I’m asking of you. I already told you, I don’t do commitment, either.”
“No big mystery,” Fin said, his expression closing down. “I was engaged to a woman I loved very much, but she was killed in a car wreck.”
“Oh, Fin, I’m so sorry.” She reached up to touch his face, unsure what else she could do to apologize for stirring up memories he’d obviously prefer to keep buried. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah, it was, but it was five years ago now.” He sighed. “Life goes on, and I’m not averse to commitment. I just haven’t found anyone who measures up to Debbie yet.”
“I understand.” She closed her eyes, wishing she could have the past couple of minutes over again so they could talk about something mundane like world peace, the falling stock market, or a cure for AIDS. At least that way she could avoid causing him the sort of pain that had spoiled the mood. “How do you get over something that traumatic?”
“Not easily. All that crap about time being a great healer is garbage.” He glowered at nothing in particular, withdrawing to a place where she couldn’t reach him. “Trust me. I know about what I speak.”
“Is that why you decided to move to Florida? To put it behind you and make a fresh start?”
He kissed the end of her nose. “Perceptive is what you are,” he said softly.
He appeared to have snapped out of his personal version of hell, and she felt closer to him again. Sabine yawned and closed her eyes, feeling comfortable and safe with Fin holding her so protectively against him. She felt even more privileged that he’d told her about his dead fiancée.
“You’re beat,” Fin said. “Hit the shower and then get some rest. We’ll have dinner early and then see how far Otto’s got with his snooping.”
“Hmm, do I have to move?”
He tapped her butt, hard. “Get in the shower, wench.”
“Join me,” she said, snagging her arms round his neck.
Fin laughed and extricated himself from her grasp. “Later,” he said. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
Before she could devise a way to persuade him, he’d dropped a light kiss on her forehead, collected his scattered clothes, and was gone.
“Damn,” Sabine said aloud. Mulligan jerked awake and cocked his head to one side, ready to act as her sounding board. “What do you reckon?” she asked him. “Have I just made a massive fool of myself?”
Mulligan expressed no opinion, but Sabine decided that if she had, she simply didn’t care. She might have come on to Fin, but women were allowed to do that sort of thing in these enlightened times, weren’t they? Besides, he hadn’t taken much persuading. She hugged the pillow Fin’s head had rested on, conscious of his distinctive masculine aroma still clinging to it. She thrust it aside again, telling herself to get a grip.
“It was just sex,” she told Mulligan.
If she said it enough she might actually start to believe it. In truth, it was unlike any sexual encounter she’d previously experienced. Fin was demanding yet considerate, disciplined yet abandoned, wild yet controlled. She sensed that he’d given her an easy time of it today, allowing her to break the rules and express her wishes without waiting to be asked. The next time he’d really want to dominate her and would do a very great deal more than just spank her.
Would there be a next time? He’d implied that there would be and that it would involve more than just him. Incredibly, Gabe and Otto were keen to have a share of her, but would she do it? The prospect of a threesome with her previous lover and another woman hadn’t appealed. The mere prospect of being fucked by three Greek gods simultaneously reheated her body and caused her pussy to throb. It would appear that Sabine Hilton, single-minded and totally focused on one thing and one thing only, had morphed into a stranger.
“Time to have some fun,” she told Mulligan decisively as she left the bed and gave his ears a quick tug.
Sabine headed for the shower and reluctantly washed all traces of Fin from her body before shampooing her hair. Then she returned to the crumpled bed and, mindless of her damp hair, fell into the first dreamless sleep she’d experienced for months.
The smell of cooking woke her some hours later. She was starving—and embarrassed. Fin would have told the others what they’d done. What she instigated, she amended. And now she had to face them. Well, damn it, she had nothing to be ashamed of, and she had no intention of behaving as though she did.
She rummaged through her clothes. It didn’t take long. She owned only what she’d been able to pack into one suitcase before she boarded the plane to come to the States. All her other possessions were in a storage facility back in England. That included the few pieces of her mother’s furniture that she couldn’t bring herself to sell, even though she had desperately needed the money.
Sabine selected a simple sheath dress that had a high neckline and finished just above her knee. She didn’t intend to give the impression that she was trying to lure them into something, even if she was. Whoa, where did that thought come from?
Her hair had dried all crinkly whilst she slept. With a wry grin, Sabine brushed it out as best she could and left it loose. She didn’t bother with any makeup, other than a dash of lip gloss, and examined her reflection critically. There was something different about her that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. An awareness in her eyes, perhaps, following her sexathon with Fin? It reflected her feeling that a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Whether that was because she’d gotten laid or because the guys were helping with the search for Pearson she couldn’t have said, nor did she much care. It was simply the way that it was.
“Here we go,” she said to Mulligan, ruffling his ears. “Do you need to go outside, baby?”
He barked just once, which she took to be a yes. She laughed and they made their way downstairs together. She headed for the terrace so Mulligan could lift his leg against another expensive shrub, thinking she had the place to herself. She was wrong. All three guys sat there drinking beer, sporting identical grins.
“Afternoon, Sabine,” Otto said, saluting her with his bottle. “Sleep well?”
“She didn’t do much sleeping,” Gabe remarked. “Lothario here saw to that.” He gestured toward Fin. “Why is he always the one to get the action?”
Fin leaned back casually on one elbow, all lithe muscle and graceful coordination. He winked at her but didn’t speak. Mulligan ran off after a heron. The bird took off with a loud clatter of wings, which set the dog barking and the guys laughing. Sabine watched his antics, using them as an excuse to delay responding to the guys’ banter. They were teasing her, but not unkindly, and their attitude imbued her with a confidence she was unaware she possessed.
“You only had to ask, Gabe,” she said sweetly, taking the seat next to him.
He placed one warm hand possessively on her knee. “Now she tells us.”
“Drink?” Otto asked.
“White wine, please.”
There was a bar in the corner of the terrace, and Otto got up to fix her drink.
“Thanks,” she said when he handed her a large glass of crisp white wine. She took a sip and closed her eyes in appreciation. “I need this.”
“From what I hear,” Otto said, running a finger down her bare arm, “there’re a lot of things you need that we could help you with.”
She canted her head. “Possibly. Depends what you have to tell me about Pearson.”
“She’s a hard woman,” Gabe said with a theatrical sigh. “Everything’s a trade-off.”
�
��Welcome to the real world, buddy,” Fin said, speaking for the first time.
“Well,” Otto said smugly, “if we’re trading favours, then I get to be head of the queue ’cause I know quite a lot more about Spencer than I did earlier.”
Sabine jerked upright. “Tell me,” she said, all thoughts of flirting with her avengers fleeing her brain.
“He was living in a halfway house in Bradenton.”
“A place for ex-cons,” Gabe explained in response to her quizzical frown.
“I’ve got someone talking to people down there, seeing if he was tight with anyone else, and we should know soon. I’m not holding my breath about that, though.”
“Why not?” Sabine asked, taking another healthy sip of her wine. “I’d have thought that sort of place would be a hotbed of dodgy doings.”
“Dodgy what?” Fin asked, sharing a grin with the others.
“It’s an English expression,” she said loftily. “Do you need me to translate?”
“I think we get the picture,” Gabe said, grinning.
“Yeah,” Otto added. “Those places don’t exactly turn out upstanding citizens, but most of the inhabitants are on parole, too afraid to step out of line for fear of being locked up again.”
“So you think Spencer was recruited elsewhere?” Sabine mangled her lower lip between her teeth as she thought it through. “That makes sense, I guess.”
“My buddy came up with the goods, and it seems he shared a cell for a while with a charming character by the name of Al Cavendish. He’s a well-connected facilitator, apparently. I only just got his name and haven’t had a chance to find out anything more than that yet.”
“The sort of person that Pearson would have been directed toward if he asked in the right quarters for someone to help him out with a problem,” Fin explained.
Sabine’s heart rate increased. Could it be that they were getting somewhere already?
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Gabe said, the hand that was on her knee now gently caressing her thigh. “We need to check this guy out.”
Sabine suppressed a sigh and resisted the urge to open her knees and give Gabe greater access. “I understand,” she said.
“I think she likes what you’re doing to her, Gabe,” Fin said. Needless to say, he’d correctly interpreted her reaction, damn him.
“Where do you find all these people to do your checking for you?” Sabine asked, tossing a frown Fin’s way. “I need to pay for their services.”
“No, you don’t,” Fin said. “We’ve been hired by another client who wants to get Pearson, remember.”
“You never did tell me who that is.”
“A woman who was going to buy one of Gabe’s paintings,” Otto explained. “She had to pull out at the eleventh hour because she suddenly found that she no longer had a boyfriend, and all the spare cash from her account has disappeared right along with him.”
Sabine sat forward. “I need to talk to her.”
“She’s feeling pretty stupid right now,” Gabe said, “which is why she hasn’t called in the police. He hasn’t left her penniless, but everything else she has is tied up in investments.”
“She probably wouldn’t have told us about the guy, except that she felt bad for letting Gabe down and so she explained why she had to,” Fin said. “Gabe, being a sucker for a sob story, said we’d try to help her.”
“Anything for a sale,” Gabe quipped. “Besides, we’d never have met you if we hadn’t taken this on.”
“Good point,” Fin said.
“I understand how she must be feeling.” Sabine’s heart swelled with sympathy at the thought of the poor woman’s plight. “Perhaps if she realizes she isn’t the only one to be conned by the bastard it might cheer her up a bit.”
“I’ll mention it to her, see if she’s up to meeting you,” Gabe promised.
“Okay, that would be good.”
“In the meantime, Otto’s got people running down some other leads,” Fin said.
“Oh, yes, what leads?”
“Well, Spencer had a cell phone with him,” Otto said, “which Fin kindly relieved him of.”
“And there are numbers in it that might help us.” Sabine felt energised. Suddenly, things were happening so fast that she could barely keep up with developments.
“One number only,” Fin said.
“You think it might be this Al Cavendish’s?” she asked.
Fin shrugged. “Could be anyone.”
“Probably a pay-as-you-go, but I’m still hopeful,” Otto said. “I’ve got a buddy—”
“Don’t tell me,” Sabine said, smiling. “He has access to phone records.”
Otto grinned. “No point having friends and not making use of them.”
“We think it was the number he used to contact whoever hired him,” Fin said. “We also think that person can’t know that Spencer had a cell phone, and if the number is attached to a contact, then we have him.”
“You guys certainly make things happen,” she said, encompassing all three of them with a grateful smile.
“Isn’t that what you said to Fin earlier?” Otto asked, sounding aggrieved.
“There’s no need to feel left out,” she said, smiling sweetly. “There’s enough of me to go round.”
“You serious?” Gabe asked.
“Never more so,” she said, realizing that she was. She transferred her attention to him. “Oh, and I’ll pose for you, if you still want me to.”
“If I want you to!” Gabe’s smile was broad and infectious. “Ready when you are.”
“Not so fast. I’m hungry.”
“And I’m on kitchen duty tonight,” Fin said, standing up.
“Do all you guys cook?”
“Yep, otherwise we’d starve.”
“There is such a thing as takeout.”
“Not the same,” Otto said and the other two nodded decisively. “We prefer to know what we put into our bodies.”
“What with their being temples, and all,” Gabe added.
Sabine rolled her eyes. “Just in case you were planning to add my name to the kitchen rota, you should probably know that cooking has never been my thing.”
“That’s okay, babe.” Fin leaned over her and planted a kiss on her lips. “We’ll think of other ways you can contribute to the chores.” He grabbed another bottle of beer for himself and headed inside. “Another ten minutes,” he said over his shoulder.
“Okay.” Otto stood as well. “Just enough time for another drink, then.”
He did the honours and then returned to his seat beside Sabine. Gabe, still ensconced on her opposite side, ran a finger down her thigh.
“Don’t imagine that you have to play with us,” he said. “I’d hate you to feel coerced, and we’ll still try to track Pearson down, regardless of your decision.”
“You trying to talk her out of it?” Otto demanded, doing the same thing to her opposite thigh.
“He won’t succeed,” Sabine said, no longer able to keep her knees delicately pressed together and allowing them to splay. “If you’re chasing down all the leads on Pearson, how else am I supposed to pass the time?”
“First thing tomorrow morning, in my studio,” Gabe said, his lips brushing against her ear and sending tingles of anticipation down her spine. “We’ll get right down to work.”
Sabine smiled, wondering if he was actually referring to painting. “You’re on,” she said, suddenly in a raging hurry to find out.
“Come on, then.” Otto extended a hand to Sabine, helping her up from the low patio furniture. “I daresay the master chef is ready for us by now, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Sabine placed her hand in Otto’s, no longer surprised when his touch affected her profoundly. It happened whenever any of them touched her, which they appeared to feel free to do since her afternoon with Fin. Good! Having three Adonises vying for her affections was just the boost her flailing confidence required.
“Ah, right on time.
” Fin looked up from a pot he was stirring when they entered the kitchen. “Gabe, offer the lady a seat, why don’t you? Otto, you pour the wine.”
“He’s so masterful,” Gabe said in a mincing tone.
“Yes, I found that out for myself this afternoon,” Sabine said, laughing at their banter.
Fin produced an appetiser of avocado mousse and an entrée of whitefish poached in a delicious sauce. There were baby potatoes and crisp asparagus that melted in the mouth. How he’d found the time to do it all after spending most of the afternoon in her bed she had no way of knowing. All she did know was that she hadn’t felt so hungry in almost two years. She even managed a double helping of chocolate-chip ice cream, much to the guys’ collective amusement. Mulligan hovered, looking hopeful, and it seemed that Fin hadn’t forgotten his requirements, which was more than could be said for Sabine. She allayed her conscience as she watched Mulligan wolf down a huge plateful of food in several swallows by reminding herself that she’d had a lot on her mind.
They’d just taken coffee and brandy out on the terrace when one of Otto’s computers pinged. He dashed in to see what was happening and returned to them grinning.
“That number was for Al Cavendish’s phone,” he said, rolling his eyes. “When will criminals wise up?”
“Good job for us that they tend to be cerebrally challenged,” Fin said. “I assume you have an address to go with the name.”
“Whadda you take me for?”
Fin grinned. “Just checking.”
“He’s in Bradenton.”
“What a surprise,” Gabe said.
“I’m gonna run a full check on him right now, but then I’d say it was game on, wouldn’t you?”
Chapter Eight
“Okay, gotcha,” Otto muttered to himself a short time later.
He knew the area and thought the guy must be small-time if he lived in such a dump. He pressed more keys, needing to know who owned the building where Al Cavendish resided and who his neighbours were. It was possible that the elusive Pearson hung his hat there as well and that the two of them had linked up that way. Stranger things had been known to happen.