by Dee Brice
Reminding himself that Yulie had looked this forlorn and devastated when they told her about Michael’s death, Damian backed away from Tiffany. She was more than a person of interest in the Paris fiasco. She was his only suspect. No matter how much he wanted to…fuck her, he thought, ruthlessly rejecting more tender emotions, he would not.
If he proved her guilty of the theft and murders, he would not give her the means to destroy him. He would not become the fool for love that his brother had been. No matter how much he wanted to…make love with her, he would do his duty.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, after a long talk by telephone with Nick Troy, Damian again confronted Tiffany in her bedroom. With what he now knew he could have her arrested, but he wanted to see if she would come with him willingly.
“I’m not going to Paris,” she said unequivocally, as if she knew what he had unearthed. Or rather, what had been handed to Interpol on a sterling silver platter.
Lounging on a chaise, Damian clenched his teeth and strove for a nonchalant tone of voice to match his sprawl. “Why not? This evidence sounds like just what you need to clear you.”
Turning from the French doors, she fixed him with a glare of total disbelief. “I didn’t realize I was under serious suspicion,” she drawled, her voice dripping sarcasm.
Damian snorted. “Do not play the fool with me, Tiffany Cartierri. You were in the bank the morning of the theft. The bank where the Belt was secured pending installation in the Luxemburg museum.”
“So?”
“Nick says you have led a rather colorful life. One that has brought you to Interpol’s attention on several occasions.”
“Nick says, does he? He, of course, has personal knowledge of my ‘colorful life’. Knowledge that gives him insight into my motives for stealing Isabella’s Belt.”
“Of course.” Ticking his fingers, Damian said, “One, greed. A woman can never be too beautiful or too rich in her own right. Two, lust to own something no one else in the world owns. Three, revenge for a falling-out among thieves.”
“Nick has a wild imagination.”
“What Nick has is opportunity and motive.”
“But not the means. How did I do it? Sneak in through the sewers?” Sneering, she added, “You’ve seen too many movies.”
At her sudden flush, Damian suspected she had revealed something she had not intended to reveal. Was it possible to get into the bank through the sewers? he wondered, silently noting to have Nick check. He tried to decide how an innocent Tiffany could know such a thing, but did not like the answer. An innocent Tiffany would not know.
Rising from the chaise, he crossed to Tiffany’s side and captured both her hands in his. “Why will you not come to Paris with me?”
“Aside from the fact that Interpol could arrest me, you mean?” Shaking her head, she freed her hands and stepped away from him. “The answers aren’t in Paris, Ian, they’re here.”
“How do you know?” He did not quibble over the fact that Interpol could not arrest her—that if she went to Paris, only the Paris police could do so.
“Because you… Nick would have heard something more than this cockamamie story about evidence to prove me innocent.”
“How do you know Nick has not heard anything?”
Her sudden smile made him grin back. “You’re still here.” Patting his cheek in a way that caused him to clench his teeth again, she said, “If you had heard so much as a whisper, you’d be off like a shot.”
Before the woman finished with him he would have worn his teeth to stubs, he thought, unable to fault her logic. But he could not allow her to continue intimating he was a cop.
“Why do you persist in thinking I am involved with the law? I assure you, Tiffany darling, I am nothing more than a simple businessman.”
Tapping the side of her nose, she uttered an expletive he translated as ‘manure’.
“If it talks like a cop, thinks like a cop and smells like a cop, it usually is a cop.”
“And you have had vast experience with the police?”
Waggling her eyebrows like a female Tom Selleck, she gave him a shove that nearly put him on his ass. “Ask Nick. He knows all about my ‘colorful’ past.”
“Damn it, Tiffany,” Damian snarled, catching her arm and whirling her to face him, “this is not a game.”
“I know that! It’s my life on the line here, Ian. But there are others whose reputations are at stake, as well. I won’t risk accusing the wrong person, letting the real criminal, the m-murderer, go free just to satisfy your curiosity about my supposedly lurid past.” She snuggled against him and looked up at him with a melting gaze. “And if you ever manhandle me again,” she murmured, rubbing her leg against his groin, “I’ll make sure you never have children.”
Damian released her and stepped back with a swiftness he might have found funny in a movie. He did not find it at all amusing now, however. It reminded him that this woman was potentially lethal.
“What will it take for you to open up to me?” he asked, a note of pleading in his voice he despised. Without touching him, the woman was making a eunuch of him.
“Bribery, Ian? My, my, how low the high-and-mighty have fallen.”
“An exchange of information. You tell me who you suspect and I tell you who Nick suspects.”
“No.”
She regarded him with an implacable stare, a look that conveyed determination to hold her ground and disappointment in him. The disappointment, he supposed, was justified. His tactics reeked of betrayal. Of Nick, ergo possibly of her.
“Okay, fine. You stay here and look for monsters under the bed. I shall go to Paris and return with the evidence to clear you.”
“Just how are you going to do that, Mr. Simple Businessman? Walk into Interpol and say, ‘My bird’s in a spot of trouble with you blokes. I want to clear her, so hand over the goods.’ Get real.”
Damian threw up his hands and stalked away. She had done it again, made him behave like a man whose brain served solely to separate his ears. Perhaps if he confirmed, in part, what she already suspected, she would help him. And herself.
“All right, you win. I sometimes do a bit of work for Interpol.” Indirectly, when on loan from his insurance fraud investigation company, or when Michael had asked for his assistance.
“Really?” Her face wore an expression of drop-dead shock that made him want to laugh. “You have identification, of course.”
“Not on me,” he said cautiously, uneasy with the way his stomach jittered as if he had driven into a deep dip and left his guts on the crest of the hill. “You might have searched my luggage and found me out.”
“Yes, well, I found you out anyway.” She tapped the side of her nose once more.
Resettling on the chaise he had vacated earlier, he said, “How does a cop smell?”
“With his nose?” she suggested in a sugary voice that made him snigger despite his resolve to impress upon her the gravity of her situation.
“Seriously.”
“I was having dinner in a cafe in Humboldt County—that’s California marijuana country and the locals are very protective of their crops. Anyway, people kept glancing furtively at this one table of rough-looking men. I figured they were local businessmen,” she said, slanting him a pointed look, “but my friend set me straight.
“‘Narcs,’ she whispered.
“‘How can you tell?’ I whispered back.
“‘The same way kids can tell an undercover car, despite all the disguised antennas and hidden microphones,’ she said and tapped the side of her nose.”
“Have you ever considered an acting career?” Ian asked, admiring her antics while deploring his reaction. Somehow he had to make her see reason.
A bleak expression overwhelmed the merriment in her eyes. “In a way, I’ve been on stage all my life.”
Yes, Damian thought, recognizing the truth in her words, yet unable to smother the insistent voice in his head that kept repeatin
g, Sucker, she has done it to you again.
Feeling like Prometheus bound in chains and having his liver eaten by a vulture, Damian ground his teeth. Maldicion del dios! Somehow he had to force the truth from her. He could have her arrested. When faced with imprisonment she might—finally—tell the truth. Might. The woman was stubborn enough to take her secrets to the grave. If intimidation would not work, he would use another means to win her to his side.
He tilted her chin. Something in his eyes must have given him away because she looked down at his crotch, then licked her lips. His cock pulsed. Her pupils dilated and her breath soughed out on a shaky exhalation. Her hands jerked to his chest as if she intended to push him away.
“Querida,” he murmured, wanting to haul her into his arms.
Her fingers dug into his sweater, then curled around his neck. Rising on her tiptoes, she brushed his lips with her own. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Then do not fight.” Mierda, he wanted in her. “Shit,” he said against her lips.
He wanted to rush as much as she did. Anger at her refusal to come with him and guilt over using her passion against her still rampaged in his veins. Sadness and mistrust filled her eyes. He needed to slow things down. They had done fast and furious and only succeeded in building the issues keeping trust at bay higher and higher. Perhaps sweet and slow could punch a few holes in her stubbornness.
“Querida,” he repeated, sifting stands of ebony silk through his fingers, massaging her scalp as well.
Pain flared in her eyes as she shoved at his hands. “If you don’t want me—don’t want to have sex—just say so. I don’t need you—”
“But I do need you.”
Cupping her face, he placed gentle kisses over her forehead and temples. Her hands stilled. Her fingers curled around his wrists as her eyelids drifted closed. Pleasure sounds, part sigh, part purr, escaped her open mouth. Her tongue swept over his lips, an invitation to taste her.
Brushing her lips with his, he returned to sip and nibble as she pressed her body to his. Her back muscles felt tight under his hands, but soon softened as he stroked his hands up and down. Their lips continued to meet as if for the first time, a tender voyage of discovery. In complete accord, their lips parted and their tongues began an ageless dance. They relearned each other’s taste and the textures of teeth and cheeks and mating tongues.
She trembled. He drew back to rest his forehead on hers, her sighs wafting over his face. Her hands covering his, she guided them to her breasts. The nipples rose in his palms. His cock pulsed against her mons, making her press her lower body even tighter to his.
“I don’t think I can stand much longer,” she whispered, easing back her head to look into his eyes.
“You must. At least long enough for me—for us to undress each other.”
Her lips parted on a soft smile and her hands drifted to his waist. “You first.” Tugging on his sweater, she pulled it over his head before running her tongue down his neck to his already hardening nipple. One hand toyed with his unsucked nipple while her other hand sought his belt.
“You are rushing again,” he said.
Moving her hands to her blouse, she tore it open. Buttons flew as she yanked it off then followed it with her lacy bra. “That’s rushing,” she murmured, rubbing against him. “And I think you like it.”
She cupped his balls, squeezing gently until he grabbed her ass, lifted her and then carried her to the bed. Tossing her onto it, he followed her down and then pinned her hands on either side of her head. Fear flashed in her eyes, soon replaced by feral need.
“You like knowing I can overpower you, yes?” Her tongue darting across her lips, she nodded and rubbed her mound against his thigh. “I like it as well. But I also like this.” Using his knee, he spread her legs open then cupped her mons. He slid the material of her skirt and panties over her folds and felt her juices flood the garments.
“Hmm.” Arching into his hand, she found his zipper and freed his rigid cock. “We’re still wearing too many clothes. Me more than you,” she added, noticing he had gone without underpants. “That seems really unfair, Ian.”
“It does.” He tugged off her thong, but resumed stroking her through her skirt.
“Ian,” she moaned, unable to keep it contained. She had no control over her body. Where his skin met hers, she burned. Her breasts pressed to his chest felt so swollen, they ached. The fabric he tormented her with was soaked with her own juices. Need built to the point of agony only he could ease.
Even his eyes on hers added to the flames skittering over her flesh, sparking deep within her pussy. Intent, as if gauging every caress and its effect on her body. She could almost hate him, he seemed so uninvolved. She wanted to shove him away, gather the tattered remnants of her pride and ignore the tears of frustration stinging her eyes.
“Mierda,” he whispered.
In that single word, he revealed a longing equal to her own. His hands shaking, he yanked down her skirt and helped her kick it aside.
“Open for me,” he demanded from between clenched teeth.
“Lie back.” Shoving at his shoulders, she rolled on top, glorying in the power he granted her.
“Pillows.” Even his arms trembled as he helped her push several under his shoulders. “Now,” he said, holding his cock away from his belly. “Ride me, querida.”
Inch by inch, she took him into her body. Inch by inch, she celebrated the lust building in his dark eyes. Reveled in every drop of sweat dotting his forehead and upper lip. Inch by inch, she rode him until he canted forward, pushed her breasts together to suckle each nipple in rapid succession. His hips rose and fell, hers a counterpoint of fall and rise, each stroke rubbing her clit.
Her body tightened with the agony of reaching for release. Her pussy clenched at his cock as he plunged, clutched to keep him inside when he withdrew. Every stroke, out or in, tormented her clit. Frenzy building, his cock pulsing deep inside sent her soaring, her cries of release melding with his. As the waves subsided, she collapsed over his chest, luxuriating in his scent and his hands stroking up and down her spine and buttocks.
She was on the verge of falling asleep when his words crashed down on her like an avalanche of glacial snow.
“Come to Paris with me,” he whispered.
Pulling free, she left him without a word or a backward glance. And if her entire body screamed at her to return to him, to go with him…that was the price it would pay for betraying her.
He’d made love—had sex—to seduce her into accepting to his demands. But she knew Paris was the last place she should go. In Paris he could have her arrested, the final nail in the coffin of his perfidy.
* * * * *
Something about the anonymously sent evidence to clear Tiffany rang bells in Damian’s mind. But as he dressed in his own room, he found himself blaming her for what had just happened between them.
Tiffany was lying, her sudden sadness and vulnerability merely a performance to arouse his sympathy and protectiveness. He would not be the first man who fell victim to such a ploy. From Eve to Yulie Cardoza, women had employed such wiles upon unsuspecting, gullible men. Like his brother. Men like Damian himself, who let Tiffany lead him around by his prick.
If Tiffany were innocent, why was she so adamantly opposed to returning to Paris? An innocent woman would risk arrest if ultimately it meant vindication. So what was Tiffany afraid of? That the evidence would prove her guilt?
* * * * *
In the morning, Damian argued with Tiffany for over an hour, but she still refused to leave Colombia. They were doing a masterful job of ignoring making love yesterday, resuming their argument about her returning to Paris. At last, realizing if he did not get out of her room he would wring her lovely, stubborn neck, he threw up his hands and strode toward the door. The uncharacteristic terror in her voice stopped him.
“Where are you going?”
“I have some business in Bogotá. I—”
�
�What kind of business?”
Returning to her, looking down into her anxious, drawn face and unable to stop himself, he took her hands and brought them to his lips. “I need to see a friend,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. He was not certain he could trust his friend Nick Troy, but knew he no longer trusted George “Reynard” Fox at all. Reynard had committed the unpardonable sin. By withholding Tiffany’s real last name, he had withheld information about a suspect.
“Can’t you call him?”
“I could,” he said slowly, unwilling to admit he suspected his godfather might have tapped his own telephones, “but I need to pick up a few things as well.” Under other circumstances, when he did not feel as if time was their greatest enemy, he would have found Tiffany’s slight pout adorable. He let her distract him momentarily, kissed her, then strode to the door. “I shall be back tomorrow night.”
“What should I do?”
“I shall tell Madrina—Esmeralda—that you are exhausted and intend to rest until I return. She will see that no one disturbs you.”
“So, you intend to starve me while you’re gone.”
Laughing, relieved to see her courage and sense of humor reasserting themselves, he crossed the room and kissed her again.
“If you don’t trust the phones, you could email,” she pleaded, again surprising him with her sharp mind.
“Tiffany darling, the sooner I leave the sooner I shall come back.”
While he continued to hold her in a loose embrace, she disengaged her arms from his neck, then stepped away from him. “You’re right. I’m just a little,” she grinned, a wobbly, little smile that gradually firmed, “gun shy.”
“That is my girl.”
Her eyebrows quirked at the patronizing words, but she said, “When you get back, we’re going to talk.”
“That, my love, you can count on.”
When Ian closed the door behind him, TC stuck out her tongue. “‘That is my girl.’ As if yesterday had never… As if he didn’t have his tongue so far down my throat he could have licked his own cock. As if I tied him up and forced him—raped him.