Money, Honey

by Susan Sey

  That startled a laugh out of him. “Right,” he said and reached out to stroke his thumb down the pretty column of her throat to the pulse point at its base. She lifted a hand to slap his away, but he gave his head a single, warning shake and put the barest pressure against the hollow of her throat, just enough to remind her of the vulnerability of her current position. Her hand froze midswipe and he released the pressure almost before he’d applied it.

  He shifted his hand to comb his fingers through her lovely, heavy hair instead, lifting it away from her scalp and letting it drift away from his hand like so much spun gold. “I don’t suppose the word hubris means anything to you?”

  Her eyes went hot and narrow as she shook off his hand and glared at him. “You’re so full of shit, Patrick. Why can’t you just admit that you were pissed about working for me again and took a dig?”

  He was on his feet in one smooth motion, had her caged between his arms, his fingers gripping the table on either side of her hips, his gut twisting with frustration and useless want. But he didn’t touch her. He could smell her, could feel the heat of her against his skin, but he didn’t touch her.

  “I wish it were that simple.” He was a breath from her lips, his voice gone to a silky whisper. “But I’m going to spell it out for you, so you don’t do either of us the injustice of underestimating the situation.”

  Her eyes went suddenly wide and wary. “What situation?”

  He struggled for cool control, dragged in a breath, but it was full of her, of her awareness, of her heat, and it coursed through his veins like fire.

  “I want you, Liz,” he heard himself say, a hungry edge on his voice. “More than I should. More than I want to.”

  “You what?”

  He ignored that, and allowed himself the exquisite torture of brushing his cheek against her hair. “Up until now, I’ve been very, very good,” he said. “The image of self-control. I’ve wanted, but I haven’t taken. Haven’t touched. Haven’t tasted. But I realized something just now, something strangely liberating.”

  He nuzzled her hair aside, pressed his lips to the lovely line of her neck. Gloried in the quick, shaky breath she drew. “No matter how good I try to be, I’ll never hold a candle to you,” he said. “You with your badge, your morals, your pristine soul.”

  She made some kind of distressed noise, but he was too far gone to stop now. He just sucked in a lungful of her and plowed ahead. “It’s just occurred to me that maybe fate’s on my side this time. What if it’s the universe that owes me?”

  “Owes you what?” Her voice was thin and wary, but she didn’t move away from him. She stayed perfectly still, and renewed desire clutched at his gut.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A little something for my trouble.” He lowered his face deliberately into the crook of her neck and let it wash over him in one huge sensory moment—the incredible softness of her skin, the slippery coolness of her hair, the way her head automatically dropped ever so slightly to the side to accommodate him.

  “I’ll work for you, Liz.” He pulled back just far enough to smile into her eyes. “With you, I mean. One last time. But it’ll cost you.”

  She lifted her hand slowly, rested it against his chest and applied a questioning pressure. The touch of her hand burned through the light cotton of his shirt, but Patrick seized the threads of his control and dropped back a step. Obediently.

  “Cost me what, exactly?” Her eyes were clouded, though with what he couldn’t tell. Unhappiness? Fear? An answering desire?

  “Nothing you don’t want to give.” He took a second to pull it together, to breathe, to make sure that what he wanted to say would come out in one coherent piece. He tucked his hands into his pockets, nice and nonthreatening. “I’m done taking the high road, that’s all. I want you, and I can be damn persuasive when I try.”

  Her eyes went narrow with comprehension. “What does that have to do with forcing my boss to promote you?”

  “Nothing. That was just for fun.” He smiled at her, though it cost him an effort to keep it smooth. “But it came with an unforeseen bonus.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re an ethical soul, Liz. You would never sleep with an informant. An independent consultant, however, an equal . . .” He let the words trail off into suggestion.

  She rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake.”

  “Hey, if I’m not good for you, if you don’t want me, all you have to say is no. I won’t take anything you don’t willingly give.” He let years of suppressed want loose in his smile, felt it shift from warm to carnal. “But I swear to God I can make you want to give me things you don’t even know exist yet.”

  She stared at him, her lips parted just slightly in shock, eyes maybe a little glazed. An insane rush of anticipation had an unexpected laugh bubbling up in his throat. Why hadn’t he thought of this approach years ago? Either she’d resist him to the bitter end or they’d set his sheets on fire. Either way, he’d get what he wanted—a resolution to the Villanueva issue without going stark, raving mad from suppressed lust.

  He summoned up a level look for Liz. “You still want me on the team, you’ve got me,” he said. “But those are the new ground rules. Take it or leave it.”

  Chapter 7

  LIZ NODDED slowly, watching him. He gazed back, cool and utterly contained. As if he hadn’t just caged her between his arms and practically incinerated her with the heat of his desire. But even then, Liz realized, he hadn’t been out of control. Not really. It was pure, vintage Patrick. The guy could stage a class-one seduction without ever losing his cool. Good Lord.

  “Listen, I get it, all right?” She eased off the edge of the conference table where she’d almost let him do any number of ill-advised things to her person and crossed her limp arms to keep them from flailing around like beached fish. “I know you’re pissed about this. About cooperating with an FBI investigation, especially now that you’re no longer obligated to even be civil to us, let alone work for us. And then I was a colossal bitch to you in front of God and everybody. I’m sorry about those things, Patrick. I really am.”

  “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “I know you want to punish me, to keep me off balance, but purposely injecting a”—she groped for a word; it was hard with her hands tucked safely into her elbows—“a sexual note into our relationship is not only stupid, it’s bad business. No matter what you think of me personally, we’re colleagues of a sort, okay? We can work this out like grown-ups, so knock it off, will you?”

  He took a step toward her, and she took a hasty step back only to meet up with the edge of the table again. He reached for her, and everything in her entire being went hot and liquid with delicious anticipation. Good Lord, was he going to kiss her? She closed her eyes briefly, whether for strength or just to enjoy it, she wasn’t sure. But he only smoothed her lapels, laid his hands on her shoulders and was looking right into her eyes when she opened them.

  “I’m not doing anything, Liz,” he said. She snorted and tried to shove past him, but he held her with an easy strength that had her eyes widening and her knees weakening again. He put his mouth very near her ear and she tried hard not to breathe because she didn’t want the smell of him hanging around her brain doing stupid things. “I’ve always been attracted to you,” he said. “A feeling you’ve returned, whether you knew it or not. I just clued you in, that’s all.”

  He stepped back while she gaped at him, then smiled at her as if he hadn’t just kicked the shit out of her reality. He flicked her hair back over her shoulder and said, “Don’t look so surprised, darling. Everything evolves. You’ll learn. Just keep that badge nice and close.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, but Patrick only gazed at her with fond amusement. She shrugged, as if he hadn’t just tapped in to her most private fear and weakness. “But whatever. If this is what it takes to make you feel better, fine. I’ll . . . deal with it.”

  His mouth curved slightly at that. “You have your agenda, I have m
ine.” He tucked his fingers into the pockets of khakis that looked as comfortable as bare feet in the summer. And they probably were, since she suspected they were custom-made.

  “I can take care of myself,” she said, but in all honesty, she had her doubts. Because, God, her pulse was still jumping, and she could feel those wicked lips against the sensitive skin of her neck like a brand.

  “I can take care of you, too.” A smile spread across his face like warm honey and she felt it all the way to her toes. “If you’ll let me.”

  “No.” She eyed him, then checked her watch. “We have to meet Agent di Guzman in a few minutes. Are we square here?”

  He considered. “Yes. Yes, I believe we are.” He gifted her with a beaming smile.

  “Great,” Liz muttered, and pressed a hand to her stomach. “Fabulous.”

  TWENTY MINUTES later, Liz was back in her element. A giant whiteboard at her back, a squeaky dry erase marker in hand, a case file open in her head, her team assembled in front of her. The air smelled like burnt coffee and hot copy paper, which made her feel right at home.

  The only sour note was O’Connor, but she was prepared to work around him. Work being the operative word. She would just focus on work to the exclusion of all else, and maybe she’d manage to forget that the world’s most beautiful man had targeted her for revenge via seduction. Hey, it could happen. She was good at work. And she was good at focus. Extremely goal oriented. All her performance reviews said so.

  She could only hope that she reached her goal before Patrick reached his.

  “All right,” she said briskly. “An overview of our cover story. After some research, we’ve decided that Patrick will be preparing to write a movie script about the counterfeiter who cracked the 1996 one-hundred-dollar note.”

  “Why the 1996 one-hundred-dollar note?” Patrick asked.

  “It’s without a doubt the biggest single leap the U.S. Treasury ever made, in terms of anticounterfeiting,” di Guzman told him. “It’s all got to do with the—”

  Liz cut her off. “We’ll get there in a minute, Agent di Guzman,” she said. “Let’s get the cover story established, then you can get your hands dirty.”

  “Sure,” she said. “But enough of this Agent di Guzman business. If you can’t wrap your mind around Maria, you can go with Goose.”

  “Goose?” Patrick turned to her, his brows arched in amused surprise. “Please tell me I get to call Liz ‘Maverick. ’ ”

  She laughed, a rich, lusty chuckle that had Patrick’s smile widening with appreciation and Liz gritting her teeth. Liz didn’t, as a rule, pay much attention to other women’s looks, but God help her, she hated watching Patrick admire this woman. Which was stupid. She should be encouraging the attraction, but she’d come too far in the personal honesty department to pretend a spade wasn’t a spade. Patrick watched this woman with a patently male appreciation. He looked at Liz with something completely different, and to her thinking, it wasn’t nearly as flattering.

  “Not Goose as in Top Gun,” the woman was saying, laughing. “Goose as in di Guzman. It happened in middle school, kind of stuck.” She widened her eyes charmingly, as if imparting a grave secret. “I was, ah, tall. And awkward with it.”

  “I can’t imagine such a thing,” Patrick said nobly, and di Guzman chuckled again. Liz breathed through her teeth.

  “If we could get back to the little matter of our criminal investigation?” she asked evenly. At the obedient silence that followed, Liz continued. “You’ll be basing the movie loosely on the life of Art Williams, Jr., a Midwestern counterfeiter who’s been rumored to have printed more than ten million dollars’ worth of the bills in question before he was eventually caught in 2001. He did three years. Here in Minnesota, actually. Waseca.”

  Liz took a slug of her cooling coffee, relished the full-body jolt of caffeine. “You’ll want to know the details of how he did it, and Agent di Guzman—Goose”—she’d rather go with the ridiculous nickname than the musical blur of syllables the woman made of her first name—“will take care of that. But as a screenwriter—reputedly a good one—you’ll want to go deeper. You’ll want the hands-on experience.”

  Patrick watched her thoughtfully. “Of course I would,” he said finally. “In order to write it, I’d want to know how it feels, not only to create the notes with my own hands but to pass them. The rush of actually pulling it off, of turning nothing into money.”

  “Exactly,” Liz said. “And with Goose’s help, you’ll have a few to pass. Not of the best quality, however.”

  Goose smiled, and it spread across her perfect face like spilled syrup. “Not that I couldn’t produce excellent bills, of course. But our goal isn’t to pass good quality fakes. It’s to get our counterfeiter’s attention.”

  “Exactly,” Liz said again. “We’re coming at this from two angles. First of all, we’re assuming that the counterfeiter views himself as a businessman with an eye on the bottom line. This is a small community, and word spreads fast. His money is very good, but it’s not perfect. Maybe a seven or an eight on the Treasury’s ten-point scale. He lets you run tame in his territory passing fours and fives, every cashier in the tri-county area is going to be looking more closely at anybody passing a hundred.”

  Patrick nodded. “Puts too much heat on his operation. He offers to help me out, he keeps us both under the radar.”

  “Right.” Liz finished off her coffee, pitched the crumpled cup into the trash for a solid two points. “The second thing working in our favor is his ego. You’re a big name, a big face. You make it known that you admire his work, that you maybe have a position for somebody with his kind of talent on your writing staff. The profile we have suggests he’ll be extremely tempted to step forward to provide your hands-on experience.”

  “And when he does?”

  “We wire you up, record the meet. Then your work is done and you’re a private citizen again with a meager pay-check and the thanks of your government.”

  “And a working knowledge of making fake money,” Goose put in. “That’s the bonus. Though if you ever put it into practice, I’ll arrest your ass myself.”

  Patrick grinned at her. “Is that supposed to be a deterrent?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Liz said, scrubbing her hands over her face. “I never thought I’d say this, but can we please get on with it? Just teach the guy to make fake money?”

  FOUR HOURS later, Patrick held one of Goose’s bills in one hand and one of the U.S. Treasury’s notes in the other. He had more than a passing acquaintance with the crispness of a brand-new hundred-dollar bill, but when he closed his eyes and rubbed each bill between a thumb and forefinger, he couldn’t tell the difference.

  “That’s impressive,” he said to Goose, who stood by the makeshift clothesline where a small line of fakes was drying. She handed over a yellow felt-tipped pen.

  “It’s a Dri Mark,” she said. “Real currency is starch free, but most of the papers that have the right feel aren’t. Any starch in your bill and the marker turns a nice dark brown.”

  Patrick scored a bold line from end to end of both bills. The lines stayed yellow. Goose beamed.

  “Now check the color shift,” she urged, and Patrick held the bill up to the light, looked at it from an angle. Sure enough, the ink appeared black. He put it back on the table between them and it went back to green.

  “Damn,” he said. He sounded impressed, and he was. “You’re an artist, Goose.”

  She shook her head. “Nah. That’s probably nothing more than a four or five on the scale. I didn’t have time to fiddle much with the microprinting.”

  “So this was, what, a quick scribble, then?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I stand corrected. You’re not an artist.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “You’re a freaking genius. My father would have loved you.”

  Goose laughed and Liz spoke for the first time since Patrick had started putting bills together under Goose’s supervision.
“Imagine,” she said sourly. “She could be a criminal mastermind and yet she uses her powers for good rather than evil.”

  Patrick threw Liz a laughing look over his shoulder. “I’m using my powers for good,” he said. “Now.”

  Liz made some kind of adorable huffing noise, and Patrick tossed a friendly arm around her shoulders. But he made sure to snug her up against his side so that he could feel every soft curve and angle hidden by that very ugly black suit. He would burn it someday, he promised himself. Very soon. Getting her out of her suit would be a reward in and of itself, of course. But he was a greedy man. He’d get her out of the suit and he’d burn it, too.

  “Liz. Darling. Do you know what this means?” She didn’t answer, just frowned up at him from very close proximity. “It means that you and I are going out on the town. We have a counterfeiter to bait.” He released her and snapped the fake bill, delighted in the crisp, new, authentic sound of it. “And we’ve got money to burn.”

  THE LIGHT was going to liquid gold by the time Patrick pulled into Liz’s drive Thursday evening in a sleek little sports car that reeked of Hollywood. Liz watched from the window as he unfolded that long, lean frame of his with the sort of assured masculine grace that probably had women two blocks over freshening up their lip gloss. Even the sun worshipped him. It poured reverently down that perfectly carved profile and put a supernatural gleam on hair that was already black as midnight, curving onto his forehead with the kind of mannerly obedience that only a two-hundred-dollar haircut could buy.

  She caught herself staring and turned abruptly away from the window. Beauty was a dangerous thing, she reminded herself. Especially a beauty as mesmerizing and outlandish as Patrick’s. Did she really need a refresher course in that particular lesson?