“Thanks, Tina,” Jason said again, dryly this time. Tina gave him a monitory look and stepped back. Mick called another thanks over her shoulder as the golf cart got under way.
“She likes you,” Jason said.
“I like her, too. But considering the company she keeps, I’m not all that flattered that she likes me. Her instinct for people seems to be off.”
That was clearly aimed at him, and Jason made a face in reply. If Mick was still stuck in the whole cop-criminal dynamic, she would get over it soon enough. Just as soon as it finally sank in that she had crossed over to the other side for good.
Although he suspected acceptance wasn’t going to come as quick, or as easy, as he might have wished.
It wasn’t far to his house, just a few hundred yards up the beach, although because they were in the golf cart, which didn’t travel well in sand, he went the other way, back through the grass and over the rise. Mick didn’t speak again as they sped along, and, preoccupied with his own thoughts, Jason didn’t, either. The bay looked black as ink except where the moonlight hit it and brightened a shimmering stripe of water to a midnight blue. The bushy line of wild jasmine trees that formed a hedge separating the two properties rustled faintly in the breeze. It was thick with white blooms that looked pale as the moon overhead against the glossy dark foliage, and their exotic scent perfumed the air as the golf cart drove through the gap in the hedge that had been created for just that purpose. That brought them within sight of his house, a long, low, white stucco structure that fronted the bay.
Home, sweet home. But instead of experiencing the usual rush of exhilaration that generally hit him when he got home safely after finishing a job, he felt—what? A little tense? A little wary? Slightly on edge?
The thing was, he had a serious jones going on for the woman beside him. She was spending the night—actually, it was looking like many nights—in his house. Hopefully, in his bed. But maybe not. The vibe he was picking up from her right at present wasn’t exactly moonlight and roses. Or his preferred alternative—sex and sleep—either.
He had little doubt about his ability to get her into bed. He’d already had ample evidence that she was as hot for him as he was for her. One kiss, one touch, and the thing was as good as done. But his problem with that was twofold. First, he didn’t want her to feel like it was some sort of quid pro quo arrangement, where she was having sex with him in return for a place to live and her keep. And second, they’d progressed way beyond the point of a casual hookup.
The hard truth he was having trouble facing was that there was nothing casual about the way she made him feel.
Leaving the golf cart under the portico in case of rain, which in the tropics could and did happen at any time without warning, they went in through the kitchen. Like the rest of the house, it was modern and uncluttered, the way he liked it.
“Mi casa es su casa,” he told her, setting the suitcase down and flipping on the light. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked around.
“This is gorgeous,” she breathed. The words were surprised out of her, he thought, but she recovered fast. “Whoever said the wages of sin are death clearly hadn’t seen this place.”
Jason smiled. Her tone was acerbic, the look she flicked at him reproving. “That was the Bible,” he replied, “and if you’re going to quote it at me, there’s nothing I can say.”
Mick didn’t answer as she walked a little away from him, taking everything in. Following her gaze, he tried to see the house through her eyes. In the kitchen, the cabinets, like the walls in the rest of the house, were white. The rarely used stainless steel appliances gleamed. The black marble countertops shone. Unlike Jelly’s, his place had an open floor plan, with the kitchen flowing into the living and dining areas to form one huge, high-ceilinged space. The furnishings were minimal, neutral, with sleek, contemporary lines. The bedrooms, two enormous master suites, were located in separate wings on either side of the living area. For the entire house, except for the supporting beams, the wall fronting the bay was solid glass. Some of the panels slid open, the ultimate sliding glass doors, offering access to the covered lanai, with its cushioned loungers, and the pool beyond. The curtains were open, so that even from where they were in the kitchen, the pool, the beach, and the bay unfolded in a breathtaking, panoramic view.
From where he was standing, though, the most breathtaking part of that view was Mick as she tossed her hair and looked back over her shoulder at him.
He said, “I need to stash my ill-gotten gains away in a safe place, so go ahead and make yourself at home.”
She turned all the way around to look at him, her eyes suddenly bright with interest. “You just keep it here? In your house? All that cash? Where?”
“There you go, sounding like a cop again.” He picked up the suitcase. “You want to see the safe? I’ll show you.”
He made a gesture toward the short hall that led to what was supposed to have been a walk-in pantry, which he had had retrofitted as a state-of-the-art safe. It was one of the few areas of the house that didn’t have floor-to-ceiling windows. In fact, it didn’t have a window at all.
Her eyes challenged him. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”
“At this point I’m willing to take a chance.”
An expression crossed her face that he couldn’t quite decipher, and then she turned away from him, hunching a shoulder almost petulantly.
“I’d rather grab a shower. I feel grubby.”
He was fine with that. “There are two bedrooms, with bathrooms off each. One on either side of the living room. Both of them have showers. Take your choice.”
“Which one of the bedrooms is yours?”
“The one to the left.”
“Then I’ll take the one to the right.”
Okay, then. Jason smiled a little ruefully as he watched her walk away from him. Of course she wasn’t going to make it as easy for him as all that. Nothing about Mick had been easy from the beginning.
Which was probably one of the reasons he liked her so much.
“Towels in the cabinet beside the sink,” he called after her and went to put the money away with the rest. Tomorrow, he would start funneling it through his bank accounts. As he knew from personal experience, keeping a lot of cash on hand was a good way to get yourself robbed.
When he was finished, he headed for the second bedroom to check on Mick. He paused just outside the door, which she had closed. He could hear the shower running, so he went along to his own bedroom and took a quick shower himself.
He was just starting to towel off when he heard her scream.
Chapter
24
“Mick!”
Jason came barreling out of his bedroom maybe a split second after Mick stopped screaming and started feeling foolish. Wrapped in a fluffy white bath towel, which she had almost dropped when, in the midst of blow-drying her hair, she’d suddenly become aware of being watched, she stood in the living room, courageously facing her stalker, who was coming from the direction of her bedroom.
She glanced back at Jason. “I’m all right.”
Seeing that she obviously was, he slowed down. He, too, was clad only in a towel, which he had hitched precariously around his hips. The hard planes and angles of his face were thrown into sharp relief by the moonlight pouring in through the wall of windows. Except for the faint light spilling out of the open doors of the two bedroom wings, the moonlight was all the illumination there was. Sparing a single admiring look for his broad-shouldered, muscular torso, and noticing in passing that he was carrying a pistol, which he was cautiously lowering even as he came toward her, she shifted her attention back to the original object of it.
“What is that thing?” she asked, her voice remarkably even. The prehistoric-looking creature had stopped chasing her and now crouched about ten feet away, looking as placid as a cow in a field. Its dark red eyes watched her as she pointed at it. Its warty cheeks puffed in and out, and the crest of spikes running d
own its spine quivered.
“Oh, that’s Iggy. He’s a blue iguana. I probably should have told you he might be somewhere around.” Looking back over her shoulder at Jason, Mick saw that he was starting to grin as he padded up behind her. “Did he scare you?”
She turned a little so that she could talk to him and keep a wary eye on the iguana at the same time. “Seeing that the thing’s almost as big as a German shepherd, looks like a dragon and was napping in the bathtub”—the glass-walled shower she had used was in its own separate enclosure—“I’m not ashamed to say yes. Apparently the noise of the hair dryer woke him up. He came crawling over the side of the tub and plopped down almost at my feet.”
“Whereupon you went and screamed and upset him. Poor Iggy, he’s sensitive.” Jason was openly laughing at her now. Mick cast him an indignant glance that turned into a reluctant smile. With water droplets glinting on his heavily muscled shoulders and wide chest, his face freshly shaved and his black hair gleaming wet, he looked younger and carefree and so handsome that he stole her breath. He set the pistol down on the coffee table that anchored the seating area of gray leather couch and two matching club chairs, all very high end and expensive-looking. She watched the rippling muscles of his back and arms, and the play of moonlight over damp, sleek skin, and felt the tiniest of inner thrills.
“You could have warned me.”
“I didn’t think about it. Anyway, he’s not a pet, or at least not officially. He was living here in the garden when I bought the place, and he’s apparently learned how to use the doggy door. He just kind of comes in and out as he pleases. You’ll get used to it.”
“I doubt I’ll be here long enough.” Unsmiling now as the grim reality of the future intruded, she looked up at him, gripping with one hand, for a little extra security, the place where the ends of the towel conjoined. She shook her cloud of not-quite-dry-enough-to-keep-it-from-waving-wildly hair back from her face, the better to read his expression. He was amused, relaxed, happy even. She hated to rain on his parade, but there was no point in pretending, either. The truth had to be faced. Then there was a slither and a thump to her left as Iggy started to move. Despite her brave front, Mick’s eyes riveted on the lizard. She took a quick, involuntary step closer to Jason as it surged forward before veering off to head, apparently, toward the kitchen.
“You got somewhere better to be?” His hands closed on her arms just above her elbows, steadying her as her leg bumped into the couch in her effort to put as much space as possible between herself and Iggy. Even as she watched the iguana’s long tail swish out of sight, she was burningly aware of Jason’s hands on her skin. The size of them, the heat of them, converted that first tiny thrill into a shiver of electricity that turned the heat up on every sensitive place she had.
“I can’t just live here with you.” Sex with Jason—that’s what was suddenly, annoyingly uppermost in her mind. Both of them were as close to naked as it was possible to be—one dropped towel each away from the full monty. It would be so easy to succumb to temptation, to give in to the attraction that had been present practically since she had first set eyes on him, to finish what they had started in the sleeping bag the previous night. Just remembering how hot he’d made her then made her hot now.
But if she slept with him, it would make what she had to do just that much harder.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because I can’t.” She shook her head. “You know as well as I do that I’m going to have to go back to Detroit. In a day or two, maybe, after I’ve had a little time to regroup, but still.”
His brows snapped together. His grip on her arms tightened. The sudden tension he emanated was palpable. “Like hell I do. Mick, you can’t go back. What part of ‘bang-bang, you’re dead’ don’t you get?”
She was burningly aware of how powerful his body was. Some primitive part of her liked that he was bigger than she was, stronger and more muscular than she was. Her own body responded by tightening and quickening deep inside. Traitor, she accused it silently.
But she could sleep with him. There was no real reason to walk away from the sizzling electricity they generated together. Except for what he was, and what she was. And the fact that there was no future in it. At most, they would have one, or maybe two, passion-filled nights.
That would do nothing but complicate an already complicated situation.
“I have to straighten things out. I have family. Friends. A life. I can’t just disappear forever.”
He looked down at her like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You say that like you think you have a choice: you don’t. You have to stay here.”
With both of them barefoot, the top of her head barely reached his chin. Looking up, she drank in every detail of his lean, hard-jawed, handsome face—including the determined snap of his blue eyes, the impatient curve of his mouth, the hard set of his jaw. He was in subjugation mode, she could see. Which at least part of her was glad of, because it made her decision to stay out of his bed that much easier. She was the last person on earth to ever let herself be subjugated.
Pulling her arms free of his hold, she took a few steps back and glared at him.
“I don’t have to do anything.”
His eyes narrowed in reply. “Tell me you’re not too damn stubborn to listen to what I’m saying. Detroit is over for you. When you came with me, I thought you understood: there’s no going back.”
“Okay, I admit it: when I agreed to come with you, I wasn’t thinking clearly. So sue me. I should have let you go and gone straight to my captain. By running away like this, I’m letting those thugs get away with murder. I’m letting them blame me—and you—for murder.”
“By running away like this, you’re saving your own damn-fool life.”
“I swore an oath—”
“To hell with that.”
“That’s what somebody like you would say.”
“Somebody like me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do indeed, Investigator.”
“Jason. Don’t you see? It’s not the robbery the authorities are concerned about anymore, it’s the murders. If you’re worried that I’ll tell anybody about you and Jelly and Tina, don’t be. If they ask about you, I’ll say you dumped me somewhere and I don’t know where you went. I’ll take a commercial flight back, one with connections so that it’s not so easy to trace.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
That got her hackles up. “You think you can stop me?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “I know I can.”
“How? Keep me locked up in this house forever? Never let me out of your sight? Or—oh, wait, this one will actually work—kill me?”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t tempt me. And I sure wouldn’t mention that last option to Jelly.”
“I shouldn’t have come here with you. I made a mistake. I’m going to put it right.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed, is what you’re going to do.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Forget it.”
“What do you mean, forget it? You can’t tell me to forget it.”
“I can and I am.”
“You know what you can do with that.”
She got the impression that he was grappling to hang on to his temper. “You know what? This conversation is over. I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.”
“You’re right: this conversation is over.” Whipping around, keeping one wary eye peeled for Iggy, she marched back toward the bedroom she would be using, flinging the bottom line over her shoulder at him. “I’ll probably leave tomorrow, if I can get a flight. No later than the day after.”
“Damn it to hell and back anyway.” She heard him coming after her. Glancing back, she found him right behind her. From the glint in his eyes and the grim set to his mouth, she got the feeling that his hold on his temper was slipping. “So how are you going to pay for your ticket? What are you going to
use for ID to get on the plane? Want to tell me that?”
It hit her like a baseball bat to the head: she didn’t have a penny. Or any identification. That she hadn’t thought of, and in an instant she realized what a huge problem it was. Stopping dead, she turned to face him.
“You’d love to be able to use that to keep me here, wouldn’t you? I’d appreciate it if you’d help me out. If you won’t, I’ll have to call my captain. Under the circumstances, I’m sure he’d be glad to get me a plane ticket home and do something about my lack of ID. Of course, I’d have to tell him where I wanted to fly back to Detroit from, which you might have a problem with.”
His eyes flared. “Are you threatening me?”
“Hell yes.”
“Unbelievable. After I saved your damn life.”
“I saved yours first.”
“You’re actually going to stand there and try to make me think I owe you.”
“That’s because you do.”
“Let’s get real. The only reason you helped me back at Marino’s house was because you were saving your own ass at the same time.”
“So? Your ass got saved.”
“So did yours. And guess what? You’re here and you’re staying here. You’re not calling anybody. And you’re not going anywhere.”
She smiled at him. It was not a nice smile. “Try and stop me.”
His lips compressed. He scowled down into her eyes. She stuck out her chin and scowled right back at him. After a couple of seconds in which neither of them gave an inch, his eyes slid over her face, and he made an exasperated sound. “Goddammit, Mick. Do you have to be a pain in the ass about every single thing we do?”
“Just for the record, there’s no ‘we’ in this. There’s me, and there’s you. Cop and crook. Dog and cat. Oil and water. All those things that don’t mix. Got it?”
“Oh, yeah. I got it.” Reaching out, he caught her upper arms and hauled her hard against him. If it hadn’t been for her less-than-secure towel, Mick would have taught him the dangers of that in an instant. But even as she fantasized about slamming him to the floor, she felt the sacrifice she would have to make to do it—allowing the towel to drop—would be a mistake. Already she could feel heat sizzling where their bodies touched. It did nothing to soothe her. “But you’re wrong about that. In case you’ve forgotten, we mix just fine.”
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