ItTakesaThief
Page 20
Knowing her hands alone could not support her weight, she braced on her forearms with her ass in the air and ignored the blush scorching her skin. He fumbled, groaned in frustration that matched her own, but finally filled her with his cock. His fingers worked their magic on her aching nipples, stroking, pinching with his every thrust and withdrawal. She missed the rub of his cock over her clit. He seemed to read what little remained of her mind as he parted her curls and then glided his fingers over her needy, rigid bud.
He whispered praises to her body, the words felt in every fiber of her being more than heard by her feverish mind. She’d wanted to do this to him, bring him to this mindless madness, to this fierce fire only she could quench. Instead, he had done it to her.
No, she realized with that small part of her mind still capable of rational thought, they had done it together. “Together,” she whispered as her body shattered into a thousand shards of pleasure. Still caught in the ecstasy he’d given her, she bucked faster and faster and brought him home. His last spasms had her pussy milking him until he collapsed on her and warmed her even more with his full weight.
Later, while he slept with his head pillowed on her breasts and she ran her fingers through the heavy strands of his dark hair, she realized they couldn’t go on like this. Mortal enemies one minute, passionate lovers the next. For most of her life she’d taken calculated risks, but this was one she couldn’t take without knowing more about Ian Soria.
This time more than her freedom was at stake. This time her life and her heart were in danger. She could lose them both to the man in her arms.
Chapter Fourteen
“You are trying to frighten me to death,” Damian shouted over the wind as Tiffany gunned the cream-colored Mercedes convertible and tore out from under the hotel entrance portico.
“Not yet,” she shouted cryptically.
In her dark sunglasses, her luxurious hair covered by a black scarf of some gauzy material, she resembled Jacqueline Kennedy during her first widowhood. Damian disliked the comparison his subconscious had conjured and found himself wondering what her black outfit signified.
Widow’s weeds, he thought for perhaps the twentieth time since they had left the hotel. Was she still mourning William or was she trying to convince Damian that they had no future together? Last night they had not talked. This morning she had disappeared. When she returned all she would say was that she had a surprise for him.
Now, studying her classic profile, he considered what he would do if she kissed him off. He grinned. If she tried to leave him he would call in every marker, use any trick at his disposal to convince her that such an action was imprudent. He was not above abducting her, taking her to Kratzistan, holding her prisoner in his friend Nadim’s harem.
The more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. He would have her dressed in veils, or better yet, nothing at all, until she admitted they belonged to each other.
“Ian,” the object of his fantasy said, a hint of impatience in her throaty voice.
As if she had pricked him with a pin, he started, then took stock of his surroundings. The narrow street they now stood in, having vacated the car, was cloaked in shadows. Not even the setting sun touched the rooftops that loomed over them like malevolent giants. The hairs on the nape of his neck bristled. He reached instinctively for the weapon he usually carried when traveling in dangerous territory. He swore under his breath. Remembering that Tiffany had convinced him to leave the gun in their hotel room, he scowled at her and wondered if she was trying to do more than frighten him to death.
He did not know where she had brought him, but he recognized the potential danger. They had to get out of here. Fast.
“Get back in the car,” he ordered.
Instead of obeying, she flashed him a brilliant smile and reached through the open car window to tap the horn three times.
Although no light heralded him, a figure appeared from the deep shadows of the preternaturally silent street. Tiffany rounded the Mercedes’ bonnet. Taking Damian’s arm, she brushed against him, letting him feel the unmistakable press of a gun to his ribs.
“We need to get off the street,” she murmured in a reasonable tone that fueled his rising anger.
“We need to get out of here,” he countered, muscles tensing, prepared to take the gun away from her, then run like hell.
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” she drawled. “We’re surrounded.” With a slight angling of her head, the gesture camouflaged by the removal of her scarf, she drew his attention to the additional figures that had emerged silently from the enveloping darkness, cutting off any avenue of escape.
“I hope you know what you are doing.”
With a wry smile she handed his own weapon to the first man and said, “So do I, darling. So do I.”
Stepping over garbage, expecting to be stabbed in the back or shot, Damian followed Tiffany into the pitch-black, sour-smelling alley. Just when he thought he would rather risk dying than endure another second of the stench—the torment all the greater due to his temporary blindness—a door opened and light spilled out.
Determined not to be light-blinded even momentarily, he quickly lowered his gaze to his feet. Before their escort could discern what was happening, Damian whirled and planted his fist in the man’s rock-hard stomach. His adversary swayed, but showed no signs of suffering. On the other hand, Damian felt as if he had broken all his knuckles.
“That was a stupid thing to do,” Tiffany scolded while he alternately shook his hand and sucked his fingers.
“Yeah, well, I am not going one step farther until I know what the hell is going on here.”
“If you will come in, Señor Soria, I shall explain everything,” said the man standing in the open doorway.
Grateful for the shadows falling over his own face and hiding his shock, Damian stared into the deeper darkness. Dios, he must be dreaming. His fantasies about harems and Tiffany must have drawn the memory of that deep voice from the depths of his subconscious.
Forcing an indifference he did not feel, Damian shrugged and stepped through the open door. Quick, impersonal hands moved over his body while Tiffany gazed about her as if fascinated by the tiled foyer in which they stood.
“If your friend does not kill us both, I shall throttle you,” Damian promised, with his betrayer following after their host.
“Such vitriol,” the man said while removing his striped caftan to reveal white pantaloons and an embroidered vest that exposed a hairy, barrel-like chest and powerfully muscled arms. He looked like a throwback, the kind of barbarian who rode Middle Eastern deserts and stole women and riches at will. “Please sit.”
Seeming perfectly at home, Tiffany sank onto a divan that was littered with pillows in virtually every color of the rainbow. Damian perched on the edge of a straight-backed leather chair and watched the interplay between his lover and the man he knew to be a collector of the rare and valuable, a man who reputedly did not care how he acquired the items in his collections.
Despite her somber garb, Tiffany looked as if she belonged there amidst the glowing jewel-like colors of the pillows and drapes, among the gilded vases and jade figurines. Not only that, she was staring at her friend as if he were the epitome of virility and masculinity.
“Your home is lovely,” she said, her throaty voice lower, sexier, than Damian could recall hearing it—except when they made love.
“Have tent, will travel.” The man smiled, revealing even white teeth in his deeply tanned face. His eyes, the gift of some abducted ancestress, flashed a green nearly as dark as Tiffany’s.
Tiffany laughed. Damian swallowed a feral growl and thought he had never hated anyone as much as he hated Prince Bandin of Kratzistan. His good friend, Nadim.
“Have you heard anything?” TC asked, pulling her attention to the reason she had contacted this man and away from his almost mesmerizing magnetism. Nadim Al Bandin was far too sophisticated for her taste. She preferred a man who had
a few rough edges. Like Ian, she thought, her gaze straying to her lover.
At his belligerent expression, her eyebrows took on a life of their own and arched upward. Okay, she’d kidnapped him in a way. But she had to know if the prince, well known in certain circles for his private and questionably acquired art collection, knew or knew of Ian Soria. And if he did, in what capacity? Simple businessman, Interpol agent, or her would-be murderer?
Just then, however, the silent combat between the two men captured her attention. The prince, looking splendidly, outrageously barbaric, appeared relaxed and deeply amused. Ian looked as if he wanted nothing more than to clasp the prince’s powerful neck and wring it as he would a chicken’s.
Why? Was Ian afraid Nadim would tell her something about himself that he didn’t want her to know? A shiver skittered up her spine. Or was Ian’s stormy expression attributable to jealousy? If so, he knew nothing about the oil-rich prince and his modern, worldwide harem. One woman would never be enough for Nadim and TC had never liked to share.
“Not a whisper,” the prince said, his green eyes never leaving Ian’s face. “But don’t despair, my jewel. My sources have uncovered a curious anomaly and are pursuing it.”
“What is it? Nadim, I have a right—”
At last he looked at her. “I am remiss in my duties. We must have refreshments before we talk. Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?” the prince added, refocusing his mocking gaze on Ian’s face.
“Scotch, thanks.”
“And you, my jewel? Your usual Turkish coffee?”
Sighing, resigned to the delay, TC nodded, but refused to look at Ian. She didn’t want to see his anger or his jealousy.
While they waited, Nadim said into the silence, “I was saddened to hear of William’s passing. I can only imagine how devastated you must feel.”
TC just gaped. On more than one occasion, Nadim had offered to ease her loneliness, to make her feel like a woman, to cherish her…for as long as he could. He had merely tolerated William and had made no secret of his true feelings. He thought her a fool for wasting even a minute of her life on her husband. Sighing again, silently adding the words, “Especially when you could have me,” she bowed her head.
“I’m grateful William’s at peace.”
“You would not be in this predicament had William been a real man.”
“Please, Your Highness, it pains me to talk about him.”
A finger tucked under her chin forced her to look up at him. “Your clothes are an abomination, an artifice I find insulting.”
“I would have insulted you, Highness, had I dishonored William’s memory.”
“Insulted me or encouraged my hope, my jewel?” Waving dismissively with one hand, with the other he grasped her elbow and helped her to stand. Raising her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm, he winked, then shook his head imperceptibly.
From the corner of her eye, TC saw Ian approaching and quickly withdrew her hand from the prince’s warm grasp.
“I hope we shall meet again,” the Kratzistani prince said silkily, failing to offer his hand for Ian to shake, a rudeness TC could not help but notice. And why was Nadim suddenly so anxious to get rid of them? He had enough self-control, surely, not to get into a fight with Ian over a woman.
A primitive, possessive look in his eyes, Ian flashed a wolfish grin. Slipping an iron arm around Tiffany’s waist, he drew her against him, his grip so firm she could scarcely breathe. “Count on it, your high-ness.”
Nadim bared his teeth, a parody of a smile. “Hassan will show you out. The front door this time,” he added to his butler, who had appeared as if summoned by magic when the prince said his name.
Knowing the man was a deaf mute, TC usually commented on Nadim’s Rasputin-like abilities. But tonight, as she and Ian followed the wizened little gnome through his master’s Colombian house, her mind buzzed with unwanted thoughts.
She’d learned what she had set out to discover. She just couldn’t comprehend why Nadim had lied to her. Nadim Al Bandin knew Ian Soria. She’d bet her life on it.
* * * * *
Afraid she would shriek in frustration if she so much as opened her mouth, TC drove to the El Dorado airport in silence. Ian also seemed disinclined to talk. He occupied himself with changing stations on the radio until, growling, he snapped it off. Staring through the windshield, arms folded over his chest, his silence condemned her.
She pulled the sleek two-seater into Santana, Incorporated’s private hangar, shut off the engine and waited for Ian to pounce. Before seeing Nadim, she and Ian had agreed to return Emilio’s emeralds in person and try to reconcile with the older man, but she doubted Ian would go anywhere with her now.
In the distance she could see planes gliding over the runway like giant swans until their ponderous weight brought them to a shuddering halt and they lumbered toward their nests. Nearer, other planes jittered toward their takeoff points like standard-transmission cars driven by inexperienced teenagers. Adjacent to the hangar, Emilio Santana’s VIP Huey rested on its runners, a fuel tanker hooked by an invisible umbilical cord to its tanks. Emilio had made the copter available to his godson, a gesture towards reconciliation, she supposed. Although how Emilio would react when he saw her with Ian…
TC’s vision blurred. Flashing lights of red, green and white blended like traffic signals and cars’ headlights on a misty, rain-streaked night in San Francisco. Choking on sudden tears of loneliness, she got out of the car and strode toward the waiting helicopter, the pilot an alien silhouette in the eerie greenish glow of his flight panel lights.
“Tiffany.”
Like a puppy feeling an unwelcome pull on its leash, she stopped her headlong flight toward the helicopter and freedom from the man whose footsteps echoed in her ears like the beating of her own heart. Turning slowly, as if her limbs were encased in congealing concrete, she met Ian’s compelling black eyes. When it came to captivating women, Rasputin and Prince Nadim Al Bandin had nothing over Ian Soria. She couldn’t trust him one iota, but she had readily given him her heart.
Seeing the stubbornness in his dark gaze, knowing he would come no closer, aching for the haven she could find only in his arms, she ran to him.
“I think I love you,” he murmured as he caught her to him.
“You can’t love me,” she protested between bestowing kisses over his beguiling face. “You don’t trust me. You think I took you to Nadim to have him kill you!”
“I want you.”
Weak with need, she barely registered the movement of his arm. Locked in his embrace she felt rather than saw him signal the helicopter pilot to take off, to leave without them. Lost in a haze of longing, she thought the blast at her back simply a manifestation of her lust. But when she catapulted forward, propelled by the explosion behind her, she knew better.
Sirens wailing in the distance, acrid smoke threatening to smother her, she lay sprawled atop Ian in a parody of lovemaking. Looking down at him, she saw her own emotions flung back at her.
He might as well have shouted, “Bitch, you tried to kill me.”
She hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t, but after all the other attempts on her life, could she say the same of him?
And then nothing mattered anymore, because the world was going black. Her last conscious thought was that Ian Soria had succeeded. She was dying.
* * * * *
“Ah, there you are,” Prince Nadim Al Bandin said when TC opened her eyes again. “Back among the living at last. Are you in pain?”
“Thirsty,” she croaked, her voice squeaking like rusty hinges on a basement door. After she drank, small sips and not nearly enough to dispel the cottony feeling in her mouth, she discovered the prince staring at her, an enigmatic expression on his handsome face.
“I must look like hell.” Smoothing her hair with shaking hands, she discovered another bandage at her hairline.
“Now you have matching scars.”
“All in devotion to symmetry. Interesting.”
“Trying to stay alive.” Chagrinned by her caustic tone, she lowered her gaze, then raised it again to take in her surroundings. Except for the hospital bed and the three-legged pole that held an I.V. solution, she might have been in Nadim’s own bedroom in Kratzistan.
“Where are we?”
“Someplace safe.”
“Am I a prisoner?” Her gaze darted around the heavily draped walls. If he’d delivered her to jail, it was luxurious.
“Do you want to be? I can arrange it, you know. In an hour, less if you are feeling strong enough, we can be on our way to my home in Rome. There, I will keep you, a willing prisoner of love.”
“How you wax poetic.”
“Come away with me, my jewel. I promise to keep you safe.”
“For how long? A week? A month? A year or two? Nadim, you are as inconstant as the moon. And I wouldn’t have you any other way,” she added, intending to soften the blow to his ego her refusal obviously had inflicted. She supposed, in his way, he loved her. Just as she loved him. But she valued his friendship too much to destroy it by becoming his mistress.
Besides, she had taken a lover and look what a mess she had made of that!
“Is Señor Soria under arrest?”
“No thanks to you, I am not,” her nemesis proclaimed from the doorway. Limping to her bed, he glared down at her, then said to Nadim, “Get out.”
She tried to steel her heart against him but failed. The mere sight of his face, battered with abrasions, scarred with little nicks as if he’d cut himself shaving, made her want to kiss each wound. In the time it took him to cross the room, she realized he couldn’t have planned to kill her. That explosion had been meant for both of them, whether he realized it or not.
“I’m here to mediate,” Nadim said, pulling a chair to her bed, then strong-arming Ian into it. “I think we should wait until we’ve all had breakfast, however. Negotiating on an empty stomach often leads to war.” Not waiting for a response, the prince crossed to the telephone and spoke in a soft but firm voice.