He pulled back and she opened her fluttering eyes. "You were drooling. I had to do something," Sebastian explained.
Lauren swallowed and worked to keep her heart from pounding with so much force that it threatened to implode. "Tell me one thing. Have you changed your mind about me being an art thief?" Her body told her one thing, but she had to be sure with her heart.
Sebastian studied her face, moving from her eyes to her mouth. Yes, definitely lingering on her mouth, before moving back to her eyes. "After tonight, I've decided there's no way for you to be an art thief without your whole family knowing everything about it—and everything else in your life, for that matter. And that includes your sister-in-law, Maureen. She managed to slip a packet of condoms into a pocket of my trousers and made a point of letting me know that Johnny Budworth was a total creep—her words not mine—and that you deserved better."
Lauren picked a piece of nonexistent lint off her pants. "You sure she wasn't just trying to cop a quick feel. It's being pregnant, you see. Her hormones are raging."
Sebastian bit back a smile. "And here I thought it was my overwhelming charm." Lauren snorted softly—well, not that softly. "Mock me, but I got to tell you, your brother Carl also pulled me aside—"
"He gave you condoms, as well?" Lauren was stunned.
Sebastian ran the back of his finger along her jaw. "No, he wanted to let me know that he wasn't going to tell your parents about the break-in."
Lauren wet her lips as his gentle touch moved closer to her mouth. "No need, they already know."
He cupped her chin. "I rest my case."
She peered down at his hand. "But what if the whole family is really a bunch of art thieves? What if they're all in on it? Tell me your suspicious mind hasn't considered that?"
He angled his head and brushed his face against her hair. "Please, with your mother's taste in wallpaper, there is no way she would recognize a Caravaggio let alone works by Nicola Pisano."
Lauren inhaled his scent, his heat, him. "You're right. Did you see how she even wallpapered the refrigerator?"
"I didn't want to say anything, but yes. Please tell me you're not going to let her have a free hand with your apartment?" He pulled away to look at her.
Lauren grinned. "She has been wanting to take me to paint and wallpaper stores, but so far I've begged off."
"Well, be polite but stand firm." He kissed her lightly on the lips, then resettled into the driver's seat and put on his seat belt. He glanced at her and waited. In the glow of the street lamps, his dark brown eyes seemed larger, darker. Frankly hot.
She had a feeling her own blue eyes were also larger, darker. Frankly, hot. And it wasn't just her eyes. "I tell you what, why don't you pull out from the curb and do a U-turn. Then take a left at the light. That'll take us to the hotel in twenty minutes or so."
"And then what happens?"
"I promise you, we won't be saving herb gardens."
It took Sebastian fifteen. But then the traffic lights had been in his favor, and he also got the first parking space in the garage.
"You know what I like about you?" Lauren asked outside his hotel room.
"That I pick up my dirty laundry?" Sebastian unlocked the door.
She stepped over the threshold and set down the doggy bag of cake. Her insides were jumping around so randomly, she was sure that at any moment her spleen would merge with her appendix, causing a rupture of cataclysmic proportions.
"That's an important factor, but not what I had in mind." She was still able to talk, so her organs must not have shifted too much. Other things were definitely shifting, however.
He tossed his keys on the side table and flipped on the lamp. "So there's something else I excel at?" he asked slyly. It was becoming difficult to walk, impossible to think, he wanted her so much.
She grinned back. "Why, it's your uncanny ability to get the best parking space. You seem to find the right spot anywhere, anytime. Anyplace." She rested her hand on his lapel.
He raised his chin. "What about now?"
She loosened the knot of his tie. "I'd say right now you've got the best spot in the house."
Sebastian placed a hand on top of hers. "Then how about a reward for all my troubles?"
"Reward?"
"I was thinking along the lines of a tie for a tie?"
Lauren's fingers itched under the weight of his. "Tell me more."
"It's like this—I take off my tie, then you take off yours."
"The only problem is, I don't have a tie."
"Well, then we'll just have to improvise, won't we?" His look was an open invitation.
And she took it. Then and there, she yanked off his tie. And didn't bother to wait as she feverishly worked at undoing his buttons.
"Hey, you're getting ahead of me," Sebastian protested. So far, he'd managed to wrest off her jacket, spilling the contents of one pocket and slightly tearing the lining at the shoulder.
"You're objecting? Jeez, did you have to wear a shirt with so many buttons?" She was having tremendous difficulty unfastening the damn thing.
"All right, go ahead. Rip away."
She stopped momentarily and looked up. "Are you crazy? This is a custom-made shirt. I can't just 'rip away,' as you so blithely put it."
"Forget the cost. To quote Engelbert Humperdinck, that god of seventies lounge singers, 'release me.'"
And she did. Every last button popped off and sailed across various parts of the carpet.
And somehow they ended up on the carpet, as well. Sebastian without his jacket, tie and shirt, Lauren clothed in her bra and pants. They kicked off their shoes—and she kicked him in the process. Only he didn't seem to mind. Not with his hand unzipping her trousers and his fingers snaking between her legs to find the silky material of her panties, already moist with desire.
Come to think of it, she didn't mind, either. Lauren struggled with the zipper of his pants and managed to get it halfway down before she lost total patience and just plunged her hand inside. She pushed down his boxers and eagerly found his engorged penis. She ran her hands up and down its length.
Sebastian hissed. He shimmied out of his pants and underwear and helped Lauren lose the rest of her clothes. Stopping only to grab a foil packet, he rolled on the condom and positioned himself above her naked body. He looked into her eyes, then bent down and suckled one nipple.
Lauren bucked from the floor.
He switched to the other breast. She started to moan. He put his hand between her legs and, with his thumb working her clitoris, plunged a finger deep inside her, removed it, and plunged again.
It started. The intense buildup that seized her body and sent it careening over the edge. She felt her muscles repeatedly spasm with a force that left her senseless, blocking out all light, all sound. She knew she was crying out his name, but she couldn't hear anything coming out of her lips.
All she knew was that she wanted him, all of him, inside her now, together. She grabbed his hips and forced him to lower his pelvis. "With me. I want you now," she moved her lips, begging—yes, begging—that he could hear her.
And he did, entering her in one thrust. He pulled back, but she didn't want him to. She raised her hips in search of his heat, his fire. "Don't hold back," she called out in a strangled cry.
And he didn't. He moved into her over and over, somehow deeper, harder, merging every sensation, every fiber of their bodies, and every element of their souls. And just when the intensity seemed to be too great, and Lauren was tempted to hold back, Sebastian found her throbbing center once more and penetrated a final time.
The result was sheer anguish coupled with over-the-top bliss. It was like floating and crashing all at the same time, simultaneously an out-of-body experience and an overwhelming internal awakening.
She was losing it, totally. And she wanted more. More of Sebastian.
If her body was ever capable of functioning again, that was.
He fell, exhausted, on her chest—their moist sk
in meeting, squeaking as they touched, their chests rising and falling with each forced breath.
He nuzzled her behind her ear and bonelessly patted her hair. "Just promise me one thing." He inhaled deliberately.
Lauren found her eyelids stuck together and gently pried them apart. "I'm not sure I can deliver anything at the moment, but what?"
Sebastian flopped his hand to the carpet. "Just be sure you never tell anyone that I quoted Engelbert Humperdinck while in the throes of passion."
* * *
10
« ^ »
"So, what are you up to this morning?" Sebastian toyed with a few strands of Lauren's hair. She lay on her back next to him, her head resting on a pillow, her eyes shut. Despite appearances, he knew she was awake—because of the smile on her face. And because of what they had just done that had put that smile there. He had no doubt that the same pleased-as-punch-I-could-just-lie-here-all-day glow was affixed to his mug, as well.
He propped himself up on an elbow and enjoyed the view. In the early morning light, Lauren's pale skin achieved a translucent glow, and her fine bones had the grace and delicacy of a Renaissance oil painting by Duccio—the high cheekbones, the fluid arch of small brows, the pointed chin, the swanlike neck. Except, she wasn't carefully applied colors on a wooden panel, but flesh and blood. She was giving and gentle, fiercely competitive and cooperative at the same time. Their lovemaking only accentuated the contradictions. Three times they had come together, twice in a fervent heat, once in a slow, tortuous languor. And one of those times they had made highly inventive use of the pineapple upside-down cake—upside-down had been the operative word, in fact.
Maybe the sex did have something to do with the way he was feeling now. But it wasn't all. It was also the revelation of who Lauren was.
She was street smart and intelligent as hell, but she was innocent—and not just regarding the crime. For the first time, he had met a woman who was true blue, genuinely good—with a mouth, mind you, but down-to-the-core pure.
She was an angel with an attitude, an attitude that she could take on the world no matter what. Look at the way she coped with the aftermath of the fire and the break-in at her apartment.
But the thing of it was, her very disdain for neediness under circumstances that cried out for help, also underscored her vulnerability—the same vulnerability that had gotten to him from the get-go.
That vulnerability made him want to reach out and outline her cheekbones—which he did just now—and cradle her chin—which he did, as well. It was a feeling of sweetness, of intimacy, that was completely distant to him, but as welcome as his childhood memory of sitting under a vine-covered pergola and dipping crusty chunks of warm bread into freshly pressed olive oil.
It felt like … it felt like home, which was absurd here in a hotel room in a strange city with a strange woman who somehow wasn't strange—mysterious and inviting, but not strange at all.
So when she smiled and opened her eyes, eyes that conveyed sated desire, Sebastian smiled back, proud that he was the one who had put that look there. "So what are your plans for the day, Sleeping Beauty?" he asked again.
At his appellation for her, Lauren blushed slightly. She reached out and lightly stroked his bare chest, its hard contour of muscles and dark hair now so familiar to her. "Other than letting you have your way with me, I was planning on hitting the records office at the Center City precinct—you know, what I said yesterday about checking up on the missing persons and DOAs. Pretty tedious stuff really, but who knows, I may get lucky."
"You think they're just going to open up their files to you?"
She cocked an eyebrow. "You don't know the half of my persuasive powers." What was it about being with Sebastian that brought out a sense of sexy playfulness in her? It wasn't as if she'd been a sexual novice before they met. But she'd never considered herself a flirt, let alone a vamp, by any means. That's what this affair had done for her—helped her discover her inner vamp. Lauren wet her lips and smiled more broadly.
"Only the half of your persuasive powers, you say, darlin'?" Sebastian locked his eyes on her luscious lips and skimmed her collarbone with the back of his fingers. "It's not for lack of trying, I assure you."
His touch felt so good that Lauren let her head sink sideways into the pillow. Which actually gave her a great view of the alarm clock, a sleek Alessi number—naturally, only the finest in design for the Rittenhouse. Reluctantly, she stilled his hand. If he didn't stop what he was doing, they would likely be here until the next leap year. "As delightful as this is—and to salve your male ego, it truly is delightful—I've really got to get up and face the music."
She let go and swung to the side of the bed.
"So you really think you'll find something at the station?" he asked without moving.
She ran a hand through her hair, succeeding in mussing it up even more. It was all Sebastian could do not to yank her back and ravish her once again. "I don't know. But it's worth a try, and, yeah, I'm pretty sure I can get access to the records—having grown up with half the beat cops and met the remaining ones during my years on Metro."
She looked back over her shoulder. The sheet rode low over Sebastian's stomach, and she had no trouble imagining what lay beneath. No trouble at all. She sighed and rose to her feet, bravely pretending it was no big deal to stand naked in broad daylight in front of the watchful eyes of an Adonis. Especially when she was sure the stretch marks on her hips, left over from her days as a chubbette, were still faintly visible.
"You can stay here you know," she said with a calm she certainly wasn't feeling. "It's bound to be pretty boring, and I know you have other things to follow up on. That phone call from eastern Europe in the middle of the night sounded urgent."
His damn contact in Zadar never could calculate the time difference correctly. "No, it can wait." In truth it couldn't—according to his source, a cache of stolen Russian icons was waiting on the docks ready to be shipped out to Malaysia and from there, to points unknown. He really needed to get a warrant to search the boat, and put a guard in place immediately to make sure the goods didn't do a disappearing act.
All that took haggling, along with deep pockets and the knowledge of whose palms to grease. He'd have to get the job done. He usually did. But this time it'd have to fit in with other things.
Things like the car that had followed them from Lauren's parents' home back to the hotel. It had stayed too far away for him to get a read on the make, other than to tell it was a dark compact car with Pennsylvania plates. Now, more than ever, he was convinced that the break-in at her apartment hadn't been some random act of urban crime.
Given Lauren's stubbornness, he figured it was prudent not to tell her. He had no doubt she would refuse to curtail her activities despite the threat. No, the best thing was to keep her in his sights—here at the hotel and on the street.
He rose from the other side of the bed. "Actually, I think I'll come along with you. You know what they say about two pairs of eyes being better than one? Besides, I want to be there to fend off any advances from those members of Philadelphia's finest who feel duty-bound to replace your infamous fiancé."
Lauren waved off his comments. "Please, they are so out of the picture."
Her words shouldn't have mattered. They did. Oh, boy, did they.
"And as to my fiancé—he wasn't so much infamous as unmemorable. I look on that period of my life as one of relative growth—I grew into adulthood while he regressed into self-absorption."
"So why did you get engaged?"
"Because he asked. Because he was from the neighborhood, and I felt like somehow I was retaining the comfort of home. You know." She shrugged and entered the bathroom without waiting for a reply.
Sebastian stood and listened to her turn on the shower. "No, actually I don't," he answered to the empty space. But he had more pressing matters to deal with than the lingering hollowness in his stomach, the same hollowness that had followed him around all his lif
e and that he had gotten used to ignoring.
"So, darlin', you mind telling me why I get the suspicious look and the reluctant handshake, while Detective Zagarola practically lifts you off the ground with a bear hug?" Sebastian asked, sitting in a swivel chair next to Lauren. "I know, say it. He played football for your high school."
"Actually, he threw shot put for the track and field team. Besides, he was just being nice."
"Nice was not how I'd describe the way he looked at you."
"Don't be ridiculous. He's married with kids. Besides, I think it was the six boxes of Girl Scout cookies I ordered from his daughter's troop that got him to agree to let us track down information."
"Trust me, you could have bought a whole case of Thin Mints and it wouldn't have had a fraction of the impact compared to the tight jeans you're wearing."
Lauren bit back a smile and continued to scroll through the files on the computer screen. So it had been worth struggling into them this morning when Sebastian was in the shower—not so much for the detective's reaction as for Sebastian's.
It was awful, she knew, but there was something highly flattering about having a man display a little jealousy. She had a feeling it wasn't a quality that Sebastian was prone to. She turned to him and grinned, finding herself charmed in the middle of a room with bad fluorescent lighting, cracked linoleum tiles and computers older than even the Sentinel's. "You know, Alberti, there isn't anyone I'd rather be searching DOAs with."
He offered her a slight smile. "All right, but I still want half the cookies."
Lauren rubbed her upper lip and enjoyed staring at Sebastian's smiling face for one more lingering moment before getting back to work.
Since Harry Nord—the real Harry Nord—would have been physically incapable of carrying out a delicate heist, she zeroed in on Bernard Lord. The files showed that in the six months since Lord last collected his veteran's check, there had been four unidentified male DOAs. Two floaters—one in the Delaware, the other favoring the Schuylkill—a gunshot victim minus a head, and one body recovered in various bits and pieces due to the misfortune of having been crushed in a car compactor. One of the drowning victims was identified as over fifty, the other drowning and the headless guy most likely in their twenties. The jury was still out on the bits-and-pieces guy. In other words, just your usual walk in the park. Come to think of it, there weren't any fatalities in the parks in that period.
THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY Page 12