She pointed at him. “Let’s start planning now. But nothing else. Got it?”
“You mean, no more rubbing up against my stuffed socks?” he asked drily.
“And no more ripping my clothes off on the beach.”
He set down his fork and held out a hand to shake. “Partners.”
“Platonic partners,” she added.
“Platonic partners,” he repeated as they shook across the cake. He could do this. He could absolutely keep his hands off her, no problem. “Let’s have some cake and work on our plan. To prove we can just eat cake and work together.”
“Instead of trying to gobble each other up?”
“Gobbling? We were gobbling?”
“That’s what Marie said it looked like at the Pink Pelican.”
He took a forkful of the cake. Soft and spongy and delicious. “Funny. I wouldn’t have called it gobbling when I kissed you so hard you melted in my arms.”
She rolled her eyes. “What would you have called it?”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Devouring. Kissing you was like a sweet devouring.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She’d planned for this contingency.
While Steph was not a clubber, she’d anticipated needing to walk through the doors of Sapphire on this trip. She’d packed accordingly, and the slinky black dress hugged her hips and boosted her breasts, leaving little to the imagination. That was the point of the Little Black Dress in a woman’s wardrobe, even though 99 percent of Steph’s closet consisted of shorts, bikinis, and tank tops. But the dress helped her to blend in once inside the glittery, sparkling blue club that pulsed with music, liquor, and dark lights.
The beefy security guard lifted the velvet rope for her, ushering her inside.
“Welcome to Sapphire, Ms. Anderson,” the guard said.
“Thank you so much.”
She’d opted to enter as a VIP. If Eli was offering special treatment, there was no reason not to take it. Jake had made a great point that she couldn’t entirely slip through town unknown, so it was better to use her access to her advantage.
Their advantage now.
So weird that last night she’d kissed the man like there was no tomorrow, and tonight they were hands-off partners. After lunch, she’d called Andrew, and he’d confirmed that Jake was his man, so that made her feel better about partnering up with him. Besides, she was pretty sure she needed him, and he’d made a good pitch that they could crack this “case” much faster together. Though she was entering the club solo, she wasn’t alone. Jake had arrived earlier, texting her that he was here.
A chestnut-haired beauty with a curvy figure joined Steph at the back door. “I’m Clarissa. I’m the assistant manager. Ferdinand is tied up, but I would love to show you around,” the woman said, and she shot a bright, white-toothed smile at Steph. The woman had the skin tone of a local, and Steph briefly rewound to Devon’s comments about Eli bringing many jobs to the island. Maybe Clarissa had benefitted from his supposed largesse? A bead of frustration wormed through her. It was irksome that Eli could still manage to do some good, even if he was doing it with someone else’s money.
Steph shook Clarissa’s hand. “So great to meet you. I’m excited to see the club.”
“Let me give you a quick tour, and then we’ll make sure you can be up front when Jane performs.”
With a hand on her lower back, Clarissa guided Steph through the club. Though it didn’t take any special insight to figure out the long mirrored bar was, indeed, the bar, or that the black hardwood floors were, in fact, the dance floor, the VIP treatment was welcome when Clarissa plowed through the crowds on the winding staircase that led to the second level. A balcony wrapped around all four sides of the dance floor up top, giving a perfect view of the crowds below.
Including Jake.
He leaned casually against the bar, a glass of what looked to be Scotch in his hand. No Tommy Bahama shirt tonight. He wore a black T-shirt that showed off his toned, muscular arms and a pair of dark blue jeans. Simple, yet totally hot, even from a distance. She made eye contact, but that was all. That moment was enough for him to walk away from the bar.
On cue.
“Eli loves to watch the crowds from here,” Clarissa said, gesturing to the throngs below—young women in tight dresses and guys in shorts and short-sleeve shirts. “You can just feel the energy radiate, can’t you?” Clarissa said, inhaling as if she were drawing in that very energy.
“Oh yes, absolutely.”
“And,” Clarissa continued, pointing a French-manicured nail toward the ceiling, “We have a dozen disco balls. They just make the whole place light up, don’t they?”
The silvery disco balls swirled above the floor, casting slivers of rich purple, royal blue, and lush red rays of light on the dance floor. They were retro and seventies, but somehow they weren’t cheesy at all. They worked.
“Gorgeous,” Steph said, and she meant it.
“Come. Let me show you our VIP rooms,” Clarissa said, gesturing to a hallway lined with three paintings—a square, a rectangle, and an oval in black tubular frames that maintained the geometric theme of the art.
“The art is lovely. Anything special to them?” she asked.
“They’re from the gallery around the corner. Isla’s gallery.”
“Ah, but of course.” Naturally, Eli would shower his fiancée’s business with greenbacks.
Steph peered at the name of the artist in the corner: Lynx. So Lynx liked to make shapes, and Eli liked to buy them. The question tugged at her—was the art connected at all to the missing funds? Jake had said they originally thought the fund’s missing money had been channeled into art, but now they were sure it had gone into gems. Even so, given Eli’s affection for art, she and Jake wanted to know if art played a part.
As a hiding spot.
As they walked down the hallway, the hair on her neck stood on end. She sensed Jake was nearby. That was the plan—as she received the tour, he’d follow behind, peeking into corners, checking out secret passageways, assessing locations for a safe. Steph swallowed nervously. She’d never tried to pull off this sort of cloak-and-dagger routine. But she reminded herself, as Clarissa gave her a tour of the VIP rooms with blue velvet couches and bottle service, that she wasn’t the one who had to slink around.
Jake needed to ghost through the club, and he seemed to be doing a damn fine job of it.
He slowed as they passed the three paintings that matched the style he’d seen in the gallery yesterday, though it was hard—no pun intended—to tear his gaze away from Steph’s ass. That dress was clinging to her body in all the right places, stirring up not-so-distant memories of how she’d felt in his hands this afternoon on the beach.
The way she’d rubbed against him. How her breath had caught when he’d squeezed those cheeks. Damn. He could use a little breathing room in his jeans right about now.
He zoned in on the art to get his mind away from the off-limits woman who rounded the bend in the hallway, out of sight.
What was the deal with these paintings? They didn’t seem very good, but then he knew little about art. He was more interested in what they might be hiding. Most people were creatures of habit. They had their routines, and they followed them, including criminals. Even the smartest of thieves. They might unearth more clever cover-ups and devise trickier schemes, but human nature was human nature, and that didn’t change even for the best con men.
That often meant a thief’s likes and dislikes were guideposts on the path to cracking a case. Passwords, combinations, and locations were rarely truly cryptic.
Eli liked art.
So Jake needed to study the art. Even if art was no longer the item in question, the art here at the club might tell him something.
As he strolled down the hall, he lightly ran his hand along the frame of the first one, looking for any clues. He didn’t expect Eli had hidden a safe right here in plain sight, but something caught his interest. The f
rame looked awfully heavy for such a light, airy, contemporary piece of art. Didn’t modern art have simpler frames? Or no frames at all? But this was a sturdy bastard, and he was damn curious why.
Before he could investigate further, a group of people walked by. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and struck his best just-a-guy-wandering-down-the-hall pose. Seconds later, Steph and Clarissa emerged from a VIP room, their backs to him.
“And here’s Eli’s office,” the woman said, pointing to a door at the end of the hall. “Now, let’s get you out to the dance floor. Jane is about to start.”
They left his line of sight.
He wandered past Eli’s office, contemplating nudging the door open and sniffing around. Then his shoulders tensed, and his spine straightened when someone opened the door.
He caught sight of artwork hanging on the office wall before the man crossed the threshold, his jaw moving back and forth as he crunched loudly. Jake adopted his best how-did-I-wind-up down-this-hallway look as he scratched his head.
The big man turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Just heading back to the dance floor. Looks like it’s that way.”
The man smiled. There were nuts in his teeth. Cashews, maybe. A snake tattoo curved down his arm. Raising his hand to his lips, he popped into his mouth a handful of more nuts, presumably, then emitted a low moan of culinary delight as he turned to the office door and locked it.
Tonight wasn’t the best time to scope out that room.
Jake could have left when the tour was over. He could have taken off after the first song. But the music was lively, the crowd was wild, and the woman was impossible to look away from.
That was the problem.
A trio of college guys was checking out Steph as she danced near the small stage, her arms over her head, her hips swaying back and forth. Her blonde, wavy hair spilled down her spine, and she danced like she was one with her body, like he imagined she moved underwater. Graceful, effortless, natural.
He stood watch by the edge of the dance floor, the darkness of the purple lights from overhead eclipsing him. He alternated between keeping an eye on her and not letting the guys out of sight. Didn’t like them. Before Steph had arrived, he’d spotted them at the end of the bar, and he swore the blond dude with the stupid-ass grin had dropped something in a drink. Jake had no clue what had become of the drink, but he was going to make damn sure the guy didn’t try to pull that shit with Steph or anyone else.
She was smart, and he doubted she’d take a drink from a stranger, but when the guy inched closer to her, a glass of clear liquid in his hand, Jake wasn’t going to take a chance.
The blond dude smiled and said hello to her.
Oh hell no. That was not going to fly.
Quickly threading through the packed crowd on the dance floor, he found his way to her and dropped a hand on her hip. She flinched at first, then glanced back at him.
“Oh. Didn’t realize you were still here,” she said.
“Still here,” he said, meeting her blue-eyed gaze. They hadn’t talked after their recon mission—she’d gone straight to the stage, and he didn’t want to spend too much time with her in public, though a few minutes now, by the darkened edge of the stage, amid the huge crowd, was safe enough. Jake’s eyes drifted briefly to the blond guy who hadn’t quite gotten the message. He was standing far too close, so Jake tugged her near him. “A woman like you doesn’t need a frat boy,” he said in a low voice, just for her.
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that so? What does a woman like me need?”
The guy flubbed his lips and walked away. Mission accomplished.
Jake could walk away, too.
But he didn’t. He was mere millimeters from her, and that coconut scent was in his damn nostrils again. Reminding him of how her skin tasted. How she smelled when he’d kissed her. And how goddamn much he wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.
Digging his thumb into her hip, he answered her. “Someone who knows how to savor a stunning marine biologist.”
That earned him a sparkling smile. She raised her chin as the music pulsed from the stage. “Savoring is your specialty, I take it?”
While he hadn’t cut across the floor to flirt, he found himself unable to stop. Being this close to her short-circuited all his brain cells. “Oh, believe you me. I am excellent at that pursuit,” he said, letting go of her hip, so his fingers drifted across the fabric of her dress to her belly.
“How would you do that? Savor me, that is.”
He flicked her belly button ring through the material, and her breath caught in response. “I’d run my tongue across this ring, then properly kiss you all over. Every inch. That’s what you need. That’s what you deserve.”
“Proper kissing? Everywhere?” she asked, her voice breathy and low, but he heard every word because they were only for him.
He splayed his palm over her flat belly. The club goers crowded them in, crushing them closer together, and the press of bodies and the tightness of the space made it so hardly anyone could tell who was with whom. “Everywhere,” he said as his thumb dropped lower, tracing a line along the waistband of her panties, making his intentions clear. “Everywhere along your beautiful body.”
She shivered, and her lips parted, but she said nothing. Maybe she was wondering why the hell he was saying these things when they’d agreed to cool it. Hell, he was wondering, too. “You deserve someone who craves the taste of your lips. The feel of your body. Most of all, a woman like you deserves a man who understands the three-to-one ratio.”
She scrunched her brows together. “What’s that?”
He brushed her blonde strands away from her ear, cupped a hand over it, and whispered, “I would make sure you come three times before I even do once.”
She gasped, and her lips fell open.
He wrenched back. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at two. I’d better go before someone sees how much I want you right now.”
Because he wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t supposed to want her this badly.
He made his way to the exit. The same guy from last night was manning it. Jake cleared his throat. “I believe there’s a gentleman in there who might be slipping something into women’s drinks,” he said, then described the blond guy.
Cal Winters nodded a thanks. “I’ll take care of it right away.”
Then Jake returned to his hotel room and pictured working on that three-to-one ratio.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Shorts and T-shirt, skirt and tank top, or sundress? What on earth do you wear to a . . . stakeout?
Was this even a stakeout?
Steph shook her head, answering her own question.
No. It was more of a mission. An intel-gathering mission, to be precise. And her role was playing the getaway driver as well as the diamond babysitter.
Still, she couldn’t decide what to wear. Her bed was a mess, littered with clothes and bikinis, because one should always have a bikini handy in a beach town. She grabbed the pink one with polka dots, tugged it on, pulled on a sundress, and slid into flip-flops. There. Seemed a suitable wardrobe for this next phase of the plan.
She was grabbing her purse when someone rapped on the door.
She froze.
She’d hoped to be in the lobby at two and meet him there. Because Jake in her room? That would test all her sweet-devouring, three-to-one, do-bad-things-to-me resolve.
You totally did not fantasize about him last night. You were not thinking of him whatsoever and the way his fingers danced across the outline of your panties on the dance floor.
Another knock.
She smoothed a hand over her dress. She was steel. She could so do this.
She opened the door, and her willpower was ready to wave the white flag. Even in the cheesy palm-tree button-down shirt and touristy hat with the slogan IT’S BETTER IN THE CAYMANS, the man was just too good-looking to be real. Starting with those arms. So fir
m and strong, they were the image of temptation. She suspected they’d feel good to touch as he moved over her.
There it went—another roller-coaster dive of butterflies inside her.
And that chest. Broad and sturdy. She pictured her hands spread across his pecs.
Then, those eyes. Those see-into-my-soul green eyes that crinkled at the corners.
But most of all, her gaze lingered on his lips. She was already acquainted with their talents. She could only imagine what else they could do.
“Let me just grab the stone,” she said, and started to close the door and leave him in the hallway before she combusted from staring at him.
He stuck his foot in the door. “I’ll join you.”
She waved him off. “That’s OK. I’ll be super fast.”
He flashed her a dirty grin. “I want to prove I can keep my hands to myself. Just like I did last night.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I seem to recall your hands were on me. But by all means, show me your willpower,” she said, opening the door, because now he was testing her resolve and she wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.
“I thought you might enjoy seeing that feat of strength from me,” he said with a wink, reminding her of why she’d liked him so damn much the first night. The man was charming.
And . . . the man also thought her stepfather was a criminal.
“Nice costume,” she said, reminding herself to keep the conversation light between them. To avoid the dicier topics of guilt or innocence, as well as the more dangerous matters of lust.
He gestured to his getup. “I know you’re a big fan of the way I look in Hawaiian shirts.”
“You are definitely one hundred percent pure tourist,” she said, and shut the door behind her, then pointed to the small room. Best to be completely casual and friendly with Jake, nothing more. “It’s not the fanciest hotel on the island, but it’s home sweet home for now,” she joked, as if a hotel room would reveal details of who she was. But it did, in a way. The beige tile floor was littered with her tour supplies—snorkels she’d picked up earlier in the day and mesh bags full of underwater masks, as well as climbing gear. The nightstand boasted a paperback she’d been reading—a true-life adventure of a man who’d hiked across China, as well as her e-reader for when she needed something saucier.
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