by Pamela Clare
“Adios, amiga,” Arturio said.
She smiled. “Hasta luego, amigo.” She watched him head down the hall to the elevators. Last night she’d made an extra Brie and caramelized onion pizza for him. They’d eaten together watching a double feature of reality shows, plus a Venezuelan telenovela. He was of Italian heritage, but he spoke fluent Spanish and it had been nice to converse with him—her Spanish sometimes got rusty, and it made her self-conscious around other Latinos.
And unlike Cole, Arturio treated her respectfully.
But it was Cole she wanted. He was a jerk who was messing up her life. And she wanted him.
Stay away, she told herself.
Cole was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that was a faded blue, and it was worn enough that the collar hung loose off his neck, revealing a sprinkle of chest hair.
She closed the door. “You could’ve called.”
“Well, I didn’t. No time like the present to start acting our roles, right, honey? I’m the kind of guy who drops by. You’re always ready for me.” Cole walked into the living room. “We need to get a few things straight between us if you’re going to pose as my new girlfriend. There’s been a complication.”
“What?”
“The boss invited us to dinner.”
“Excuse me? Borgola?”
He took the chair he’d taken before. Apparently that was his chair now. “It’ll be fine. He’s taken an interest in me. He’s more grateful on the returning-the-diamonds bit than I’d thought.”
“Good interest can be as dangerous as bad interest,” she said.
He smiled like a Cheshire cat—a handsome, brilliant Cheshire cat with dark golden hair. “Is that so?” he said.
Angel’s stomach jumped. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
Don’t toy with me. Don’t bait me because you know I want you. He would’ve noticed how her pulse shot up when he came near. He was a man who noticed things. “Don’t mess with me,” she finally said.
“But it’s so fun.”
She shot him a look and he straightened up his smirk. She felt nervous enough without all this. Going back to Borgola’s wouldn’t be easy. Though she trusted Cole to get the details of the job right; he was clearly in some sort of high-functioning criminal organization. And there was that disarm last night—he was lightning fast and not afraid to play dirty.
“Anyway, the good news here is that we’ve only just begun dating,” he said, “so it’s not like we need to know everything in the world about each other.”
“What about the tapes of the party? I’m on those tapes. Should we say we met there?”
“Nah. The timing will feel suspicious. Plus, anybody who’s reviewing the tapes, I guarantee, even if they’re looking at the women, which they’re not, but even if, let’s just say you’re looking different enough that they won’t recognize you. It’s quite the little advantage you have.”
“Being able to change my boob size?”
“You have more latitude with disguises in general, being a woman.”
“Oh, it’s as much a disadvantage as an advantage, believe me. I know you don’t think that.”
He had that fiery look in his gray eyes. “Gotta use what you can.”
She heard the edge in it. “And you don’t like being fooled.”
“Best if you don’t do it again. You won’t like how it ends.” He crossed his legs. “Got any coffee, honey?”
“I’m not your honey.”
He said, “If you want to blend in as my girlfriend, the first person you have to convince is yourself. You care about me. Right now, you’d be thinking, I want to make my hot, virile hunk of man meat comfortable and happy. Access your motivations.”
She gave him the droop-eye that Macy sometimes used. “You don’t want to know my motivations.”
“How did you do that with your eye?”
“Little thing called practice.”
“Look…” he held up his hands as if in surrender. “Let’s do this right. I started this out wrong.”
“Yes, you did.”
He got up from the chair, went back to the door, opened it a couple of inches and then shut it. “Heya baby.” He smiled. “How is it that you can be all morning-ish in sweats and no makeup and still be the hottest thing I’ve ever goddamn seen?” He lowered his voice. “Come here.”
Her heart skipped a beat. It was better when he was being jerky. “You want some coffee?” she snapped.
“Yeah,” he said. “The usual. No cream. No sugar.”
She poured him a cup. “I take cream and sugar,” she said. “A lot of sugar.”
“Good to know. This is good.” He grabbed his mug. The picture on it was a sheep with a hat. “So where did we meet? Where do you hang out?”
“The beach, the gym. My coffee shop. The nail salon.”
“Ah, the life of a jewel thief. You tell people you’re an interior designer.”
“I am an interior designer.”
“That actually sounded convincing.”
“I am one,” she snapped.
He looked around. “Well, I guess nobody has to see your place.”
“Excuse me? My place is awesome.”
“It’s girly.”
“I’m a girl. If I were designing your place, it would be more masculine.”
“It would have to be extremely masculine.”
“And in the living room I’d put a giant, blown-up photo of your washboard stomach, since it’s apparently your pride and joy.”
He smiled. “I think it would be more appropriate here. You can moon over it while I’m away.”
“Or use it as a dartboard.”
He sipped his coffee. “That attitude won’t do. Because I need to inform you, you’re way more into me than I’m into you.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s part of our cover story.”
She glared at him. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or haul off and hit him. This guy was kind of outrageous.
She kind of liked it.
“Sorry,” he said, “that’s how it evolved in my conversation with Borgola. You want a relationship. I want sex. So when we’re around Borgola, no talk of dartboards, okay? You have to act really into me.”
“Aren’t covers supposed to be vaguely plausible?”
He pushed up his shirt. “Girl, you just can’t get your mind off this action, can you?”
She snorted. “Stop it.” She turned and grabbed a bag of rice cakes. Uh, it was a little bit true—she couldn’t get her mind off the way he’d slid his hand over his abs in her bedroom, pulled out her gun and set it down on the nightstand, then lowered his hand, sliding his fingers over his belly, letting them linger on his snaps—oh, it was insanely sexy. She’d wanted him to keep going, unsnap his pants, pull his shirt right off, to go to her, to say those things about her wanting that action. She loved that smart, cocky confidence.
“And I missed your birthday chasing down the diamonds, so I’m going to show you an extra special birthday over the next few days. Which, incidentally, he’s given me off in thanks for a job well done. This is good coffee.”
“It’s half decaf,” she said.
“Why? Why do people do that?”
“You want me jumpy and shaky when we get to the secret safe?”
“Fair enough,” he said. “So we met at a coffee shop maybe three weeks ago. The Savannah on Grand—does that work for you?”
“Sure,” she said.
“How did we start talking?”
“I was dog sitting for my neighbor. Dogs always get people talking.”
“Good,” he said. “The dog’s name is Norman. An Irish setter mutt. And we took him to the beach together.”
“It was a Tuesday,” she said. “Let’s make this our four-week anniversary.”
He pulled out his phone, flipped through some screens. “That works for my schedule. And then our first date was Italian food. How about Mito’s. Y
ou know that place?”
“Fancy. Looks like you had some high hopes for our first date,” Angel said.
“And every one of them came true.”
She rolled her eyes. “You wish.”
He rose and walked over. Her breath hitched; he was going to kiss her.
He grabbed the bag of rice cakes from the counter instead. “Got any real food?”
“This is real food. If you’d wanted me to make you breakfast, dear, you should’ve called first.”
“Got any peanut butter?”
She huffed and pulled some peanut butter out of the refrigerator, then grabbed him a knife and plate and slammed them down.
“Thank you, honey.” He went to his seat on the other side of the kitchen island, unscrewed the lid, and went to work slathering a thick layer over the rice cake. “You are too kind to me. So very kind.”
God, something perverse and wicked inside her desperately enjoyed him there in her home with his cocky humor, playing the bad boyfriend. It wasn’t fair. She’d sworn off guys like this!
Really, scientists in a laboratory couldn’t have designed a more ideal version of her bad boyfriend type than Cole, what with his with his wrong attitude and his badass skills and that burning intellect just under the surface. And then there was his dangerous, potentially doomed plan. Her bad boyfriends always had to be on their way to jail or death or something.
Except he was dragging her with him.
“We need details. A story,” he said. “I’ll start—you were amazing in bad that night after our first date at Mito’s.”
“What?!”
“A wildcat. Even at the restaurant we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”
“Uh, no. That’s not how it would go, honey.”
“No? Because, judging from a certain smokin’ hot kiss at a certain party…”
“I only kissed you like that because we needed to know why you were watching us. Informational purposes only.”
“Informational purposes only?” He gave her a smug look. “That kiss?”
“Yeah. I’m a prude in real life. So, after our date at Mito’s, I maybe kissed you on the cheek but that’s all. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I’d keep dating you. Actually…” She smiled, lowered her voice, “you seemed like a bit of a dip to me.”
He frowned. “A dip?”
“Yes, a dip. I recall giving you a pity peck on the cheek.”
He barked out a laugh. “No, no, no. I’m sorry, but that’s not how I remember our first date at all. No, no, no, not at all.” He captured her with that devastating smile of his; he had a way of mesmerizing her. Her heart pounded.
Was he doing it on purpose?
He lowered his voice. “At the restaurant, you couldn’t keep your hands off me.” He spoke in a smooth, wistful way, like he was really remembering it. “All through dinner, all you could think about was that we’d finally be alone, and where I would put my hands. What I would do to you.”
Her face heated.
“Where I would put my mouth,” he continued.
She fought to keep her expression bored. “Uh-huh.”
“You had a skirt on. And by the time dessert arrived, you had your high heels off under the table and you were exploring me.”
She snorted. “Exploring you?”
“Mercilessly, Angel.” He lowered his brows. “Mercilessly.”
“Nope. Definitely didn’t happen.”
“You invited me in for dessert afterwards. Fresh baked cookies from that dough you keep in the fridge. But we never got that far.” He spread more peanut butter onto the rice cake, moving the knife slowly across the surface, creating heavy, velvety ripples. Even spreading peanut butter was a sensual activity for Cole. It wasn’t the sort of thing she should be noticing.
But she was noticing.
He looked up at her then, and she could feel his gaze all over her skin; it was as if it had cool weight and substance, as if it chained her into place, put her at his mercy. “Dream on,” she whispered.
“You looked so hot, standing right there. You stood right where you are now, Angel, and you melted my mind. Don’t you remember?”
“No,” she said.
“Oh, I think you do.” He added another dollop, spreading slowly, creating a sensuous new layer. “And I kissed you right up against that refrigerator, pushing your warm, soft body into that cold, hard surface.” He paused and looked up. “God, you felt good against my skin—so damn good. And you were so ready to go. I pressed my fingers between your legs through your skirt—right at the spot that drives you wild. Kneaded you slow and sure.”
She laughed in shock. “Kneaded me?”
“Yeah, and you ground into my hand, what little you could move. You were so wet for me, you were practically dripping.”
“Can’t say I recall that,” she said as his words invaded her senses, sliding over her skin like silk. And he knew—she could see it in his eyes. He knew, and he was taunting her.
“Then I pushed up your skirt. Slowly. You begged me to go faster begged me to fuck you. You were so ready to go, baby, you were so ready to go. I couldn’t make you wait as long as it would take to carry you to the bed. I slid my hand into your panties. I slid my finger along the seam of your pussy…”
She swallowed, blood racing. There he stood, clear on the other side of the kitchen island, but she felt like he was touching her, invading her.
“My whole finger, Angel, all along your seam. The long, firm length of a man’s finger, all slicked-up and calloused, running all along, front to back. Back to front. Front to back, slowly invading, pressing deeper. Do you remember how you moved with me?”
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
His bangs had fallen in front of his glasses but he didn’t flick them away. It made him look out of control and slightly dangerous. “We were relentless together. You begged me not to stop, and then you bit my earlobe. Well, I have an ear thing, as you quickly learned.” He paused and licked the knife. “Feel free to take notes.”
She was beyond notes. She was thinking about the finger.
His eyes danced with humor. He knew, of course. He was diabolical, this man.
“You were helpless under my touch. A good helpless. The kind you like, Angel. I had you in the palm of my hand. Literally. You would’ve given me anything not to stop. And I took pity on you. I didn’t stop. I’m not the kind of guy to put a horny woman through the paces or make her beg. At least not until the third date or so.”
She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her nipples felt taught with sensation. He pinned her still with that gaze.
“Now, where was I? Oh, right. You. Begging. Helpless under my touch. I kept it up, all that endless friction of my finger, my rough callouses slicked up. Slowly and relentlessly traveling along your folds, pressing into you.”
Her heart slammed against her chest. Keep going.
“I touched you, invaded you, owned you with just the roughness you enjoy. You know what I’m saying, baby. And then you broke apart. You screamed. You were so gone that I had to hold you up. And all those flower magnets there on the refrigerator door? They all fell off as I let you slide to the floor.”
She was aware of her lips parting, her mouth falling a little bit open.
“It was at that point,” he said, “that the fucking began.”
She felt swept up in his story, swept up in him. It felt good. And why not? “That’s enough.” She shook herself back to her senses. This guy was threatening her, blackmailing her!
“You don’t want me to remind you how—”
“Enough.”
“But certainly you’d agree that qualifies as more than a peck on the cheek. That’s my point here. Getting the story right.”
She stared at him. It was like she could feel him on her, touching her. He licked the knife. Slowly.
“Stop it.”
“Stop licking the knife?”
“You know what you’re doing.”
&n
bsp; He smiled lazily. A potent pause grew between them. “Got any raisins?”
“And FYI, that would never happen.” She pulled a box of raisins from the cupboard and slammed it down on the counter. Hard.
He pulled the rubber band off the box, smiling. “Nevertheless.”
“Darling Cole, you’re not remembering what a prude I am. That entire scenario would never happen. Don’t you recall my religious upbringing?”
She watched his face, saw when he got the idea she was saving herself for marriage. Then he laughed. “You’re also a jewel thief. You take what you want.” He began to embed raisins into the peanut butter at precise intervals.
“Borgola isn’t going to need that level of detail for dinner conversation, right?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had dinner with him.”
“Never?”
She watched him push another raisin into the peanut butter. “What are you making, a snack or a geometry diagram?”
“I like one raisin per bite. You should note that down next to likes ear stuff.” He crunched into his rice cake. “Mmm,” he said. “This is delicious, honey.”
She sipped her coffee, trying to come down after the things he’d said. Now they were supposed to have a normal conversation? It was like they just had sex for the first time. No—it was more intimate.
“Raised Catholic,” he said. “You’re telling me you’re into it?”
“Yup. My whole family is.”
“I won’t ask you to define into it.”
“Good.”
“So why did you leave? What went wrong? Why did you run away?”
She snapped the rubber band around the raisins. How did this guy know so much about her past? “None of your business.”
“Come on. What broke things for you and your family?”
“Forget it.”
“They look like good people on paper, but I know looks can be deceiving.”
She didn’t appreciate the grilling, but there was something else—a driven quality to his questioning. This guy had issues. Maybe even demons. “They were good people,” she said simply. That was the shame of it. They’d given her everything and it hadn’t been enough for her. She’d failed them. She’d been a shitty daughter and a shitty sister.