by Joanne Rock
Real life collided with the image on the monitor as Brianne walked in on Aidan and the cigarette girl in a liplock to set a woman’s heart racing. The stacked little blonde pressed every one of her considerable curves against Aidan and practically climbed her way up his tall body.
Brianne lounged in the door frame, determined not to allow any stray feelings to tangle themselves up in what needed to be accomplished here.
Instead, she steeled herself against the sultry over-load of hormones in Honeymoon Heaven and took command of the room in her best director voice.
“Am I interrupting something?”
AIDAN MADDOCK HAD BEEN waiting to hear that throaty purr all night.
He hadn’t particularly wanted to hear it while he had Daisy Stephenson clinging to him like a honeysuckle vine.
Luckily, Brianne Wolcott had the kind of take-no-shit attitude that even a little rebel like Daisy respected. She leaped off him like a scared rabbit and scampered out of the room before he could discreetly thank her for her minimal spying efforts this week. He paid her to be an informant, not a sexual booby trap, but he’d have to wait to explain that until next time they met.
Now, he needed to focus all his attention on Brianne as they were suddenly very alone.
“Nice to see you again, Brianne.” Aidan mentally scrambled to cross swords with the stepdaughter of his recurring nemesis. The same man who’d been at the root of his first-ever FBI case had eluded Aidan and half the police force in Dade County. He would need to be on his toes tonight if he was going to gather any useful leads. “You look…” Hot. Sexy. A hell of a lot better than he’d even remembered. “…great.”
Understatement of the year. The body that had already been slender and seductive at eighteen was worthy of its own pinup calendar ten years later. Her stark black skirt and blouse were slim-fitting and simple, accentuating the sleek, elegant curves of her body. With her long auburn hair and creamy pale skin, she possessed the hot-to-trot attributes of one of those too-cool female cartoon characters in a kick-ass video game geared toward guys.
Not that he ever wasted his time playing video games or anything.
She snapped her handheld computer closed. A half smile kicked up one corner of her soft, peach-colored lips. “Thank you. Although I can’t imagine you’re finding it all that nice to see me since I’ve not only busted you in an off-limits zone, but I also caught you with your pants down.” She let her gaze wander southward to his jeans. “Figuratively speaking, at least.”
The supercharge jolt to his libido was immediate and dead-on accurate. If Daisy Stephenson was a sexual booby trap, Brianne Wolcott was nothing short of dynamite.
He whistled, low and long, like a kettle hissing off steam. “You left Miami as a sweet young thing with big dreams, and now you come sauntering back like hell on wheels. What exactly did those New Yorkers do to you, Bri?”
She tilted her head against the door frame, obviously unruffled by his observation. “Nothing I didn’t want them to. Now, are you going to leave quietly, Maddock, or am I going to have to call security?”
She used to be so damn sweet. So trusting. She’d been naive enough to trust him when he had been gunning for her stepfather in a federal case ten years ago.
“Come on, Brianne. We both know the extent of your new security team is you. For now, at least. Why don’t we sit down and catch up for a few minutes instead? You can tell me all about your stepdad’s latest scheme.” Bottom line, he was here on a mission.
He needed information on Rat Pack ringleader Mel Baxter, a slick crook with a knack for pulling off big scams and walking away clean. After Aidan’s investigative efforts had failed to produce enough evidence to convict Baxter a decade ago, Aidan’s professional reputation was riding on this investigation. He did not need a so-sexy-it-hurts woman from his past fogging up his brain cells.
Brianne straightened in the doorway and strolled closer. Her black outfit clashed with the sticky-sweet white lace fabrics in Honeymoon Heaven. Aidan realized he was tracking the progress of her hips with his eyes and ruthlessly wrenched his gaze upward.
“I made the mistake of having loose lips around you once before, Maddock.” She stopped just outside his personal space, leaving him all of six inches to breathe. “And I guarantee it’s not going to happen again.”
His jaw tightened along with every other movable body part. What sort of freaking perversity made it impossible not to want a woman who declared herself off-limits?
He should have felt ashamed at her obvious reference to the one time he’d slipped up and returned her enthusiastic kiss in those last months before she left for New York. But all he could feel was overwhelming curiosity about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of a kiss like that now.
“Never say never.” He had to keep this conversation light, nonconfrontational if he ever expected to cultivate Brianne’s help. God knows, he needed a break somewhere if he was going to catch up with his quarry. “Haven’t you heard it’s dangerous to tempt fate?”
“Is that a warning, Agent Maddock?” She leaned fractionally closer, getting in his face as boldly as any sparring partner he’d ever encountered. The tough-girl effect was mitigated, however, when a sexy strand of auburn hair slithered out of place and fell forward over one shoulder.
“Just a little friendly advice from your local FBI guy, that’s all.” He tried hard not to imagine what it would feel like to run his fingers over that shiny red curl. And failed. “Because I like you, Brianne, I’ll give you another tip. You’d be doing yourself a favor if you let me know when Mel gets in touch with you.”
She rocked back on her heels, the first sign she might not be as cool, calm and collected as she wanted him to think. Her eyes widened just a fraction before she pivoted away.
Aidan’s professional instincts went on high alert. “He hasn’t already tried to contact you, has he?”
Brianne flipped open the miniature computer she’d been carrying in one hand and checked the tiny monitor screen. “I’m not certain I’d be discussing it with you if he had. But rest assured, I don’t want anything to do with Melvin and he knows it. He’s my ex-stepfather, and he has been for a long time, remember?” She closed the computer again and her gaze connected with Aidan’s. “Look, I don’t have time to escort you to the parking lot since I’ve got to get back to work. I just came up here to tell you to get out of my business and don’t come back.”
She edged around a half-erected piece of scaffolding and headed for the door.
“Wait, Bri—”
“Oh, and because I like you, Aidan,” she turned when she reached the gilded archway of cherubs and vines that led to the hall, “let me give you a little friendly advice.”
Hell, this meeting had gone so abysmally, maybe he ought to be taking advice from the crook’s daughter. He folded his arms and waited.
She cocked a hand on one gently curved hip. “Next time you want to pull a covert snooping mission, why don’t you choose a room that’s not under camera surveillance?”
Aidan would have liked to have argued he hadn’t been trying to be sneaky. But of course, that would have been a flat out lie. By the time his gaze discovered the tinted panel in the mirrored ceiling, Brianne’s high heels were already clicking their way down the Moroccan tiles of the hallway floor.
Didn’t that go over well?
He was supposed to be investigating Florida’s biggest thief of the last decade yet he waltzed in here tonight making rookie mistakes left and right because Brianne Wolcott was involved in his case.
Sure, he’d wanted Brianne to find him tonight—he’d needed to talk to her. But he hadn’t meant for her to discover him kissing the cigarette girl or to record his antics on film. His mistake in not noticing the camera panel ought to damn well teach him not to wear sunglasses past dusk.
Brianne had been right. She had, without a doubt, caught him with his pants down.
But not for long. Aidan might have been surprised at the
level of awareness she sparked in him, but next time they met, he’d be prepared. He’d think about baseball while he spoke with her, if that’s what it took to safeguard against inappropriate thoughts.
He was going to have a real conversation with Brianne now. A talk that didn’t involve sexual innuendo or past recriminations. A talk that focused solely on his case.
Chucking his shades in a cupid-covered trash can on the way out the door, Aidan rooted around his brain for enough baseball trivia to stifle all sexual thoughts while he talked to Brianne. As if that were possible.
He could read Baseball Weekly cover-to-cover and not find enough to distract him from mile-long legs and her I’m-in-charge strut.
Nevertheless, as he made his way through the lobby toward the offices at the back of the club, he started ticking off slugging percentages for the whole Marlins’ roster.
OBVIOUSLY, BRIANNE HAD been immune to the Good Fortune Potion. Having the FBI show up her first night in business definitely equaled bad mojo. Especially when the guy with the badge happened to be the object of an embarrassing ancient crush.
She wound through the darkened resort lobby on her way back to her office, all the while wondering why the federal investigator assigned to her smarmy stepfather couldn’t have been fifty and balding. Or a woman. Or even a guy who looked remotely like a Fed was supposed to—sharp suit, regulation haircut, clean-shaven.
Instead, she got all six-foot-four of non-conforming Aidan who looked more like a Hells Angel.
Sighing, she slipped into the safety of her office and cursed her predilection for rebels. Hadn’t she learned anything from dating that psycho guitarist in New York? Sure, his tortured music had appealed to her as a fellow social outsider, but maybe she should have taken the electric-blue highlights in his hair at face value. Jimmy had been out of control.
Not bothering to flip on the light, Brianne checked her monitors and slid out of her shoes, padding silently around the glass-and-mirror studio in her bare feet. Summer had puzzled over how anyone could work in an environment so coldly sterile, but Brianne had never been one to reveal too much of herself. She preferred her remote haven to the raucous party taking shape on monitor number one.
She turned up the volume on the video feed from the stage camera in the Moulin Rouge Lounge. The floor show was just getting underway with dancers in white-feathered headdresses that were far more elaborate than their skimpy costumes. Yet as Brianne absorbed the images of half-dressed women striking deliberately erotic poses, all she could think of was the even more enticing video in her possession.
The archived footage of Aidan Maddock prowling around Honeymoon Heaven.
Assuring herself she only wanted to look at it for a minute, Brianne flicked the appropriate switches on her control panel until the cupid quarters flashed up on the main screen. The gilded white room was vacant now.
Maybe Aidan had realized Club Paradise was exactly what the new ownership purported—a legitimate business out to recoup the losses of its former incarnation. All the women involved in rejuvenating the scandal-mired resort either wanted a chance to make back the money they’d lost when the Rat Pack left town, or they wanted an opportunity to prove themselves career-wise. Some of them were hoping for a little of both.
Brianne rewound the archived footage until she found the moment Aidan entered the room—only about five minutes before she’d discovered him. She smiled in spite of herself as she watched him in action. Instead of breaking out his fingerprint kit or high-tech phone tap equipment, Agent Maddock had pumped six quarters into the hospitality cabinet to earn himself a Milky Way bar that was probably a year old.
Then, as if testing the mattress, he’d bounced on the heart-shaped bed for a minute before peering into every nook and cranny of the saccharin-sweet accommodations.
Her gaze drank in the sight of his rangy body. He’d been that tall ten years ago, but his frame hadn’t been quite as solid. Muscles filled out his Harley T-shirt now, stretching the well-worn fabric in a way that made Brianne’s mouth water.
No doubt about it. Aidan Maddock still sizzled her from the inside out and no amount of her in-your-face bravado was going to change that.
She just hoped to God Aidan would never realize as much.
No sooner had the thought occurred to her, then the office door swung open behind her. An awful premonition flitted through her mind—a scenario she did not want to contemplate as she stared up at the big-screen version of sexy Aidan Maddock.
Please let it be Giselle with another round of Good Fortune Potions. Or maybe it was Summer ready to yell at her for watching television in the dark again.
Please let it be anyone except…
“Looks like you couldn’t wait to see me again after all.” A far-too-cocky voice filled the studio. A masculine bass that definitely hadn’t originated on her tape.
…Aidan.
2
BRIANNE REACHED FOR the remote to pause the videotape, but Aidan’s hand beat hers to the control.
“I’ll take that.” He swiped the electronic device behind his back, allowing the tape of himself to continue rolling. “I want to see the part where you walk into the room. I’ve never seen anyone make an entrance quite like you, Bri.”
The man could be all charm when the situation warranted. No wonder she’d fallen for him a lifetime ago.
Good thing she knew better now.
“My entrance isn’t until after Daisy’s.” Brianne tried not to notice when the curvy blonde sashayed her way across the television screen in her micro-miniskirt. “But by all means, enjoy the show until then. You wouldn’t want to miss the footage of your lip lock.”
Aidan hit the pause button on the remote, stilling the picture on the television just as Daisy entered Honeymoon Heaven.
“Actually, I’m not here for the show. I’m here to discuss Club Paradise.”
Brianne stiffened, recognizing the FBI-guy tone creeping into Aidan’s voice. “If you want to talk business, maybe you’d better make an appointment.”
“Does that mean if I want to talk personal, you’ll listen to me now?”
Was it her imagination, or had he somehow moved closer? The heat of his body warmed Brianne’s purposely sterile office. If she let him stay in here long enough, she had the feeling he could single-handedly steam all the mirrors and glass.
“I’m saying, make an appointment.” She held out her hand for the remote. “Can I have my equipment back? I’m trying to run a smooth operation here tonight—a fact you seem to be repeatedly forgetting.”
But Aidan was already walking away from her, keeping her remote hostage in the back pocket of his jeans. Damn the man.
Of all the places she wouldn’t touch, he couldn’t have picked anywhere more off-limits.
“You’re pretty interested in technology gadgets, aren’t you, Bri?” He trailed a finger across her master control board, an action that drove techno-types as insane as nails on a chalkboard.
“Touch my buttons and you’re dead, Maddock.”
“Seems like I’m already hitting all your buttons.” He gave her a wicked grin and dropped into a black leather chair in front of the control panel. “Seriously, I heard you studied some major technology while you were at film school. I thought you’d always wanted to be a director?”
With his big body sprawled across her office furniture and his thinly disguised nosy questions, Aidan might as well have hung his FBI shingle on her front door. Despite his lazy posture and casual approach, Agent Maddock was clearly at work.
Brianne sighed, sinking into the leather chair beside his. She didn’t stand a chance of getting any work done until she’d answered at least a few of his questions. “I am a director. As I’m sure a professional snoop like you already knows. I just happened to enjoy the engineering aspect quite a bit.”
His gray eyes held hers a second too long, reminding her of the best kiss of her life….
“You always were into electronic contraptions, wer
en’t you? Remember that remote key finder you gave me?”
Her cheeks warmed. Did he have to remind her of her schoolgirl crush on him?
She frowned, hoping maybe he’d think she gave useless widgets to everyone she met.
“It’s the envy of every Fed in my office,” Aidan continued, oblivious to her discomfiture while he warmed to his topic. “I left my keys in a Chinese restaurant once and that remote led me right to my beeping key chain. Of course, I had to dig through a little chow mein in the back alley to retrieve them, but it beat walking home.”
Brianne blinked, surprised at the genuine appreciation in his voice. “I’ve progressed since then,” she found herself saying before she could question the wisdom of sharing anything about herself with this man. “Now I can program a menu into my refrigerator so that it reminds me what to take out of the freezer every morning.”
“You’re kidding.” He looked at her like she’d just solved one of his cases. “You ought to work for the Bureau, Brianne. Sort of like Q in those James Bond flicks.”
She had to admire his skillful way of bringing the conversation back around to business. Frankly, she welcomed the distancing reminder of their opposite worlds. She’d been enjoying their conversation just a little bit too much. “Joining the Bureau isn’t going to make me start spilling secrets about Melvin Baxter. I have no idea where he is.”
His gaze met hers as she denied it, as if he was subjecting her to some sort of mental lie detector test.
“Do you think your mother has been in contact with him?” Aidan leaned forward in his chair and pulled her remote control out of his back pocket to study it, as if he didn’t place much importance upon her answer.
Brianne saw straight through the act. Aidan took his job seriously and he was on a mission tonight. She couldn’t buy into his cool FBI guy with a Fu Manchu facade this time around. Aidan might look laid-back, but she knew firsthand he tracked down his personal “most wanted” with single-minded focus.
“I don’t know, Aidan. Even if I did, I’m not certain that I’d discuss it with you.” Too much ancient history between them. Too much hormonal short-circuiting if she sat within touching distance. “Now, can I have my remote back? I’ve got work to do.”