CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

by Nina Bruhns

  He looked amused. "You must want them back very badly."

  Nearly giving in to the impulse to lean over the table and smack him silly, she tamped down on her frustration. "Yes. I do."

  "Are you offering what I think you're offering?"

  She broke eye contact and concentrated on the view from the balcony. She had to get that necklace back. "If I were, would you agree?"

  "No," he said quietly.

  Surprised, she glanced back at him.

  "I like my women to think of me as slightly more desirable than a root canal."

  "Ouch." She couldn't help smiling. If only he knew. "Well, if it's any consolation, my dentist is a whiz with the Novocain."

  "You prefer being numb, eh?"

  "Beats the heck out of hurting."

  He shook his head, a wry tilt to his sensual lips. "If it hurts, you're doing it wrong."

  She looked away. "Sugar, it always hurts."

  Beau leaned back in his seat, grateful he wasn't the impulsive type. It was all he could do to resist going to her and pulling her close. She was trying so hard to pretend that her bland statement hadn't come from the soul, that it was just part of their teasing banter. He longed to ease her down to the balcony floor and show her it could feel good, so good, to share love with a man. The right man.

  But of course, he knew she didn't mean the actual making-love part, but the part that came next—the part where the man got up, thanked her politely and refused to get involved. Hell, he'd done it often enough to know. Often enough to know he was not the right man.

  "Now that's a cryin' shame," he murmured.

  She drained her mimosa. "Doesn't matter. Like I said, too busy anyway."

  He watched her get up and rest her arms on the balcony rail. She was pretty as an Atchafalaya sunrise, backlit against the pale blue shimmer of the hot desert sky. Her mile-long legs and curvy derriere, offered up for his viewing pleasure by the bend of her body over the railing, were making him break out in a cold sweat. Mercy. Better think about something else.

  "Who's Ricky?" he asked, looking for a cheroot to occupy his suddenly itchy hands.

  She turned, biting that plump lower lip. He wished like hell she'd quit doing that. It was giving his brain more fodder for mischief than he could rightly handle. He patted himself down, intent on finding a cigar. Where were the damn things?

  "He, uh…" Her gaze snagged on his hands, roaming his undershirt. "He's my assistant I take him along on … on business trips sometimes."

  "I see. Kind of an accomplice." He suddenly remembered he never smoked until after dinner, and grabbed his glass instead.

  She nodded distractedly.

  He took a large swallow of mimosa, absurdly pleased when she continued to stare at his chest, her eyes tracing over the muscle-enhancing outlines of his undershirt. "And you share a room with him."

  "Hmm? Yeah. On trips. Cheaper that way."

  He saw clearly when her nipples beaded into tight little points, poking at the front of her cropped T-top. His steely resolve crumbled to dust. Forget Ricky. Whatever it was she was fantasizing, he wanted in.

  He rose and strolled over to her. "You keep looking at me like that and I may have to seriously reconsider my position on your offer."

  "Offer?" She dragged her gaze up and met his. Suddenly her eyes widened. "There was no offer. Just a hypothetical question."

  She stepped back. He followed.

  "Feeling in need of a little Novocain?"

  She crossed her arms tightly. "Got any?"

  Yeah, she looked real worried. "Fresh out."

  "I should be going." She tried her best to sidle past him to the French doors, but he shot an arm out and trapped her between him and the outside wall of the room.

  "You wouldn't need it with me."

  She eyed him bleakly. "Oh, yes I would."

  "Not if I don't touch you."

  "Good idea. Now, if you'd just let me—"

  "You see, I know how to kiss a woman without touching her."

  "Except for your lips."

  "No lips, either. Nowhere."

  "Sure, Beau." She gave an unladylike snort. "I'll have you know that's the oldest trick in the book. If you think—"

  "Ah, but you forget I'm from the land of bayous and voodoo. An old witchy woman taught me how."

  She scoffed, but he could tell she was weakening. The curiosity in her eyes was obvious. He pressed his advantage.

  "Still doubt me? How about a little wager?"

  She frowned. "What kind of a wager?"

  "Ten bucks says I can do it."

  She gave him a long, probing look, but he'd plastered on his most innocent air. The one that had fooled hardened felons into thinking he wouldn't arrest them if only they'd confess.

  She didn't stand a chance.

  "Okay. I'll bite."

  Lord, he surely hoped so.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Beau unconsciously licked his lips, and in that second Kit knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

  He slid his body in front of hers, trapping her between his strong arms. His powerful thighs spanned her legs. When his broad, as-good-as-naked chest moved to within a hairbreadth of her breasts, her heartbeat went off the Richter scale.

  She must be completely out of her mind.

  No matter that he wasn't touching her. He didn't have to. Every nerve ending she possessed pitched into red alert, caught in the floodlight of panic between flight and surrender.

  "Relax," Beau crooned, and she almost jumped out of her skin. "Close your eyes now, and let yourself enjoy this."

  She swallowed, calling herself every kind of idiot for going along with this utter madness. The last thing she needed in this investigation was more complications. She'd already screwed it up royally by losing the necklace to the wrong man.

  Now that same man was tempting her to get up close and very personal—the biggest no-no of all.

  In a minute she'd have to find the strength to resist him. Before it was too late. But his warm, masculine scent scattered her better judgment. She surrendered to his gentle urging and eased the tension in her muscles. Just a bit.

  Just for a minute.

  "Are you ready?" he whispered.

  Slowly, she raised her leaden eyelids and nodded.

  He inched his body even closer, so close she felt the electricity coursing between them. And the heat. Lord, the heat.

  His mouth was just above her cheek, his languid breath tickling the fine hairs in its path, sending a shiver down her spine. He paused at her ear and blew a gentle stream of air around the outer shell, behind her lobe and down the column of her throat. She heard a low, needy sound and realized with a start it had come from her.

  "Ah, chère," he murmured, his sultry breath tracing along her jaw and around the other side, where he repeated his bone-melting torture. She wanted to turn her face and capture his teasing lips with hers, make him take her mouth in a bruising kiss. But she stood perfectly, achingly still, letting him ravish her with just the life breath of his body.

  When he moved to her nose, her forehead and her eyes, her knees grew weak. He shifted infinitesimally, and a whisper of ribbed cotton grazed the pebbled tips of her breasts. She jerked back, gasping at the sensation, unexpected and incredibly erotic.

  "Beau," she pleaded.

  "Hush, baby doll. Open for me, now."

  In a trance, she parted her lips. Still he wouldn't meet them with his. He hovered, so close they breathed each other's air, the tang of mimosa and coffee and the sweetness of maple syrup filling her nostrils. His tongue flicked into her mouth, testing, flirting, and she longed to feel its moist, supple caress. The barest suggestion of his lips on hers, soft as the brush of a summer breeze, coaxed a ragged moan from her throat.

  With a matching groan, he wound his fingers in her hair, his body pressing hers against the rough wall of the hotel. He kissed her long an
d hard and it felt better than anything she had ever felt before in her life.

  "Better than Novocain?" he whispered, shifting for a better angle.

  "You said you weren't going to touch me," she rasped.

  "Oldest trick in the book."

  She couldn't decide whether to kiss him first or just go ahead and kill him.

  His hands stroked down her back and onto the bare strip of skin between her leggings and top. That decided it. She wound her arms around him and kissed him until they were both breathless.

  "You lose, Beaulieux," she said, gasping for air and sanity when their lips finally parted. "Where's my ten bucks?"

  His chest heaved against her breasts. "My wallet's in the bedroom. Wanna go double or nothing?"

  About a hundred thousand warning bells went off in her head, and it took every one of them to wake her from the delicious languor created by his body pressing into hers.

  What the heck was she doing?

  Gathering all her fortitude, she snatched her fingers away from his chest, prying his out from under her top. "Beau…"

  "Don't stop now. We're just getting to the good part."

  Didn't she know it. "I'm sorry. I—"

  She had a job to do. At best, Beau was a distraction. At worst, he could scuttle this investigation for her. She hadn't come all this way to fail. She wanted to keep her job more than anything. It was the only thing she had in life that was hers alone. Without it she would be nothing, nobody, and the independence she'd fought so hard to achieve and the identity she'd sacrificed everything for would all be for naught. She'd be left with nothing.

  She could never allow that to happen. She had thirteen days left to make sure it didn't. She would succeed. She would.

  And this mad attraction would not deter her.

  She was not in the market for romance. Not with a handsome con artist, not with a cop. Not with anyone. Not long-term. Not even a one-night stand. Certainly not with a strong, powerful man like Simon Beaulieux. She'd had her fill of strong, powerful men, their stifling demands and suave deceits. Never again would she allow herself to trust a man with wealth and position. She knew better. Once had been more than enough to learn her lesson.

  Yet here she was kissing Beau, and in danger of much more.

  "Kit?" he whispered, his voice cracking with passion.

  "I'm sorry. I can't."

  Beau clamped his jaw shut and leaned his forehead against hers. "All right. All right, just give me a second."

  He straightened, raked a hand through his hair and walked over to pour himself another mimosa. She shook her head when he lifted a brow in query, smoothing her hands nervously down her arms.

  "I'm sorry," she began again, but he waved her off. Obviously he didn't want to hear her excuses. Intense frustration was etched in his every movement, and in his eyes when he looked at her.

  She just hoped he could see the same frustration in hers.

  Backing into the suite, she snatched up her purse and practically ran out the door to the hall, stammering that she'd call him later.

  * * *

  Beau listened to the door slam and sighed. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen it coming. Still, being allowed a taste of paradise and then having it jerked away was enough to try any man's control. Setting down his glass, he went inside.

  C'est la vie. Just as well. The woman was nothing but a disaster waiting to happen, anyway. He didn't know what had gotten into him, letting his libido get so far out of hand. Not his style at all.

  Besides, how would he have explained getting out of bed and straight onto a plane? Hell, she'd probably insist on going with him, and then what would he do? Buy her a ticket? Despite himself, his imagination came to life. The thought had definite possibilities.

  But since he still had the necklace, he figured she'd turn up soon enough in California even without an invitation. In fact, he'd bet his badge on it. As he packed, he put in a call to Doug, his deputy, and left a message for him to run a background check on her. He wanted to know everything about his delicious, dangerous kitten before she showed up at his hotel door.

  He closed up his suitcase and phoned the reception desk. "I need a bellman to deliver a dress to room 5713, and a porter to collect my luggage. I'll be flying to San Diego this afternoon. Can you make hotel reservations for me?"

  Anyone should be able to follow a trail that obvious.

  The only question was, how should he greet her—with a kiss or a pair of handcuffs?

  * * *

  "Be careful, Kit. Remi's never hurt anybody, but we don't know squat about this Simon guy."

  "He's a cop, Ricky. He might be dirty, but he won't risk hurting me. It would give away his cozy little racket."

  Still, Ricky's words rang in Kit's ears as she pushed her dark, oversize glasses up on her nose and peered out from behind her newspaper, searching for a sign of Beau from a lobby chair in the fancy San Diego hotel she'd followed him to.

  She'd instructed Ricky to find out anything he could about Simon Beaulieux. He should have called her with something by now, but the cell phone had been silent in her purse all morning.

  Suddenly, a pair of lizard-skin cowboy boots came into view under her paper and paused in front of her. Her heart leaped into her throat. Preparing herself to look surprised, she lowered the newspaper. But it wasn't Beau. She could tell from the build as the man retreated after picking up the sports section from the chair opposite her.

  Bother. Impatiently, she got to her feet. Maybe she should check outside again. Hurrying down the steps to the Olympic-size swimming pool, she abruptly stopped to compose herself. What would she say when she saw him? She hadn't even thought to come up with a plausible excuse for being in the same—

  "Well, well. What a coincidence." Beau's voice rumbled in her ear. She spun around and nearly fell backward into the deep end.

  He grasped her arm to keep her from toppling. "You wouldn't by any chance be following me, would you?"

  Raised raven brows dared her to deny it. She opened her mouth, groping for an answer, but got sidetracked by the sight of him.

  He was dripping wet, wearing nothing but a pair of fire-engine-red trunks and a towel around his neck. She snapped her mouth shut so she wouldn't drool.

  "Of course I'm following you," she improvised, reclaiming her arm and putting some much-needed space between them.

  "Why?"

  Good question. What she needed was a diversion. "Have you eaten? The meal they served on the plane wouldn't have fed a decent-size hamst—"

  "Come on." He grabbed her arm again. "You can order room service while I take a shower."

  "This is hijacking," Kit mumbled as he hustled her into the elevator for the trip to the nineteenth floor.

  "Hey, you're the one following me." When they arrived at his suite, he nudged her inside, effectively blocking any chance of escape. "And I am deeply flattered. But I'd still like to know why."

  Good grief, the man was persistent. Well, her daddy always said, when in doubt, go for the truth. "I want my necklace back."

  "And me thinking it was my charm and good looks."

  She glanced up. The memory of their kiss raged through her blood, and that roguish smile of his—which never failed to double her pulse—slithered onto his mouth as if he was reading her mind.

  "So, what are you going to do now?"

  "Do?" She tore her gaze from his lips and tried desperately to remember why she was there.

  "To get the necklace?"

  "Uh…" The necklace. Right. "Ask real nice?"

  His smile split into a saucy grin. "What the hell, I'm easy."

  A warm tingling seeped up her cheeks. She sent him a withering glare. "Too bad I'm not." She ground the words out.

  "Maybe." He walked into the bedroom, tossing his key card on the bed.

  The single, king-size bed.

  "And maybe not," he murmured, fixing her with a look that said he hadn't missed her reaction to either him or the bed. "Why don't yo
u order some food while I take my shower?"

  She didn't know why she let him take such liberties. She certainly had no intention of staying with him. In his room.

  Or in his bed.

  She was only interested in one thing—and it wasn't what he had in mind.

  But she couldn't have walked out to save her life. She swallowed heavily when he pulled the towel from around his neck, winked and turned toward the bathroom.

  "All I—" She cleared her throat and tried again. "All I want is my necklace," she called out after him.

  She almost had herself believing it, too. If it weren't for the fact that she couldn't get her hands to stop shaking.

  "I'll just take it and be out of your hair forever."

  "Sorry, chère. Can't do that," came the muffled answer.

  Why couldn't she snap out of this crazy attraction? Beau was getting past all her carefully constructed defenses and she knew it. There was just something about the way he devoured her with those Rhett Butler eyes. And his mischievous smile and sensual drawl. The way his merest touch sent shock waves through her whole body.

  This was a forceful man. Clearly capable of blowing her neat, comfortable world to smithereens without half trying, leaving her standing all alone to pick up the pieces, the same way she had last time she'd been involved with a man like him.

  Her ex-fiancé, Michael Z. Fontaine, had been everything Beau was—rich, powerful, and used to getting his own way. She'd learned all too painfully the lengths to which a man like that would go to ensure he got it. Even if it meant grinding her own dreams and aspirations to dust in the process.

  She just couldn't understand how she could be so attracted to a man she knew she shouldn't trust.

  Just get the necklace, Kit.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures. Maybe she could find the necklace and be out of there before he was done with his shower.

  Quickly, she located his suitcase on a rack in the corner of the room and searched it, then felt through the pockets of the clothes hanging in the closet. No necklace. Opening the top desk drawer, she thrust her hand to the back and hit something hard. She'd just pulled it out when Beau's voice from the bathroom door stopped her dead.

  "This what you're looking for?"