by Joanne Rock
She paced the espresso-colored carpet of the small contemporary house she was renting in Palm Beach, searching for a distraction and thinking she’d have to retrieve a few more of her gadgets from storage now that she was pretty well moved in. She had her programmable menu on her refrigerator, and the house came with a nifty chandelier-lowering switch for the huge light fixture in the hallway, but other than that, she had nothing to play with in her spare time.
Her restless, keyed-up and horny-as-hell spare time.
Damn Aidan Maddock for giving her way too much sensual material for her fantasies.
Flicking the shiny chrome chandelier up and down, Brianne decided she should make a master remote for the house so she could control everything from her wrist computer. And she also needed to beef up her security systems. Her experience with a boyfriend gone rogue in New York had taught her the value of efficient security. Now, she stared up at the clock and wondered why she’d agreed to spend her one and only night off in Aidan’s company. The club was closed Mondays, yet she would be with him again today for who knows how long.
Spying a leather portfolio on the bench beside her front door, Brianne remembered Summer asking her to look at the new design plan for the revamped Sweethearts Suite. Seizing upon something—anything—to take her mind off steamy thoughts of Aidan, Brianne cracked open the buttery black case and dropped on to the bench seat to have a look at what Summer had come up with.
Burgundy velvet spilled out on to her lap, followed by a long swatch of deep red satin and a thick strip of black silk. The portfolio was stuffed full with pictures torn from catalogs and sketches Summer had made. At the top of the left-hand page, she’d scrawled Bad-Girl Bordello and had roughed out a drawing of the proposed room.
The burgundy velvet would drape the bed. The dark red satin would be shirred and gathered on the walls. Black silk would trim the bed drapes, the lampshades and the bed skirt. The room would be wildly decadent and immediately sensual.
Brianne loved the concept on sight even as the restless ache for Aidan kicked up another heated degree. Or five. She could see Aidan lying in that darkly sensual bed. Waiting for her.
She flipped the page, unwilling to let velvet visions draw her more deeply into provocative imaginings. Right now she wanted to work, not engage in more erotic fantasies about Aidan.
Of course, the next page was overflowing with ornate gilt mirrors. Mirrors that reminded her of the night she’d played out her long-standing strip search fantasy with Aidan in her office.
Not good.
Turning another page, she found carved stonework figures to decorate the mantle. Little statues in the shape of—she squinted a closer look at the picture— sexual anatomy. Breasts covered by broad, masculine hands. Feminine thighs splayed. A penis of astounding proportion beside it.
Brianne cursed the sexy new bordello design and the fever that seemed to be crawling over her skin. Flushed and edgy, she thrust aside the portfolio.
Just as the doorbell rang.
Oh. No.
She sat there frozen two feet from the front door. Why hadn’t she heard him pull in the driveway? Because she was too caught up in pictures of erect penises, that’s why.
Before she could get her head together and her temperature under control, a shadow blocked the sun through the narrow sidelight beside her door. Aidan’s face hovered in the frosty glass, no doubt spying her there.
Flustered, she jumped up to answer the door. Better to be overheated than have him think for a minute she was nervous. She wasn’t an eighteen-year-old with a crush on him anymore.
Taking deep breaths she headed toward the door and pulled it open. Aidan waited on her front step wearing a gray suit and tie, his backward baseball cap nowhere in sight.
He cleaned up well—she had to grant him that much. His hair was still too long, and he still sported the Fu Manchu beard and mustache combo that made him look a little too dangerous to be on the right side of the law, but otherwise he resembled an FBI agent for once.
And he managed to be sexy as hell at the same time.
He pulled open her screen door and eyed her with heated familiarity. “Red’s your color, Bri. I give it two thumbs up.”
She struggled to make sense of his words until she followed his gaze down to her midsection where she still clutched the burgundy velvet, the dark red satin and the black silk.
The sight of those fabrics made her pulse rev double time. The plush material between her fingers brought back distinct memories of what she’d been thinking about doing with Aidan and the velvet two minutes before he’d arrived.
She dropped them on the bench, sensing the heat climb her cheeks. Not that she was embarrassed, damn it. Just a little more turned on than she cared to admit. “I was just going over some decorating samples—” She was talking too fast, her words breathless and rushed. Slipping into her shoes, she told herself to slow down. Relax. Summer’s advice to “roll with it” flitted through her brain. “The Sweethearts Suite needs to be updated.”
Aidan edged his way inside, even though she’d meant to run out the door before he had the chance to come in today. The last thing she needed was any sort of privacy—intimacy—with this man.
“What are you updating it into?” Aidan stepped around her to take a closer look at the material. “A brothel?”
“Summer’s calling it the Bad-Girl Bordello, but I’m not sure we’ll keep the name.” She held her chin high, struggled for the cool distance she’d managed with him just a few days ago. Where the hell had it disappeared? Probably went up in flames along with her common sense the night she played sexy games with Aidan.
Now, she watched his fingers slide over the soft length of the rich fabrics and suppressed a shiver of pure hunger.
The motion of his hands mesmerized her until the foyer seemed to shrink and the scent of Aidan’s aftershave became a heady aphrodisiac.
“Are these the room designs?” He reached for the open portfolio alongside the bench, perhaps drawn by the sketches and the colored photos taped beside them.
Colored photos of penis statuary.
Brianne scrambled for the book as Aidan let out a whistle. “Good God, woman, what kind of joint are you ladies running over there?”
She reached for the portfolio, but Aidan was totally engrossed in the subject matter now and he held on tight to the leather case as he sank down on to the bench in her hallway.
“Aidan.” She strove for a matter-of-fact tone of voice, but she half wondered how the erotic artwork would affect him.
Was it wishful thinking, or did she notice him gulp a few times?
Brianne backed up a step, not wanting to be anywhere near the man while they both were thinking sexy thoughts. They’d be sprawled across the foyer floor in no time, making yet another huge mistake of judgment.
The phone rang while she observed him. A fortuitous distraction?
She hurried to the kitchen, skirting around a high-tech cooking station that was totally wasted with her non-existent culinary skills to grab the phone. Maybe it was her mother finally returning her call.
“Hello?” Brianne answered.
And waited.
And waited.
“Hello?” There was no dial tone on the other end, but a rather distinct sense of someone there. Listening. Unease crept through her. “Hello?”
The phone clicked and the connection died, a dial tone taking the place of dead air.
A niggle of fear took the place of unease.
Irrational, misplaced fear, but there was fear nevertheless. Because no matter how many reasonable scenarios she could concoct for the three hang-ups she’d had in the last two days, she couldn’t ignore her gut hunch that told her it wasn’t coincidence.
On top of all her other problems this week and despite her best precautions, she had the feeling her psycho ex-boyfriend had located her.
And obviously, he wasn’t trying to find her because he wanted to talk.
8
AIDAN’S AGENT INSTINCTS kicked in the second time Brianne said “hello.” By the third, her voice hit a thready note that gave his libido a knockout punch and sent him into the kitchen to investigate.
She was just settling the receiver back in its cradle, her movements slow and deliberate. Careful. Her pale face matched the floor’s pristine white tiles.
“Everything okay?” He reached out to steady her, his hand settling along her shoulder and the strap of her brown silk tank top. Two minutes ago he wouldn’t let himself touch her for fear he wouldn’t be able to stop. Now, something about her rigid posture made him think she needed to be touched. Reassured.
But damned if he knew why.
“Everything’s fine.” She gave him a phony-as-hell smile. Nodded with a jerky movement. “Shall we head over to my mother’s?”
“What was that all about?” Her skin was cool beneath his hand. Chill bumps ran down her arm, giving him damn good reason to think she was nervous. Maybe even scared.
“Wrong number, I guess.” She charged toward the door and back into the foyer, her heels tapping out a sure rhythm on the tile floor. With restless energy she picked up the length of burgundy velvet and proceeded to fold it into neat halves. “People can be so rude.”
Aidan watched her fold the red satin next, her obsessive attention to smoothing out the wrinkles in the fabric confirming his suspicion she was hiding something. “Has Mel been in touch with you, Brianne?”
Her grip tightened on the satin, her clutched fist introducing a whole new round of wrinkles. “How many times do I have to answer that damn question, Aidan? No, he hasn’t, as I believe I’ve told you more than once.”
“If he’s trying to blackmail you into helping him—”
“That is totally absurd.” She tossed the satin in a heap on the bench. “And just what do you think anyone could ever blackmail me with? I might be helping Summer with the Bad-Girl Bordello, but despite what you’d like to think, I’m not that much of a bad girl. I resent that you continually insist on suggesting otherwise.”
Frustration fired through him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to think otherwise if you’d ever be straight with me. I’d bet the Harley that you’re hiding something from me right now, and I’d bet my retirement fund that it has something to do with that phone call you just received. If you’re not willing to share a damn thing with me, then I have no choice but to think you’re guilty of something.”
The comment put the color back in her cheeks in no time. She looked ready to throttle him. “Has it ever occurred to you I might have a life apart from you and my former stepfather? That I don’t want to tell you about that phone call because it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with your case and it’s none of your business?”
Wrenching a set of keys off a series of hooks by the front door, Brianne yanked her purse off the coat tree. “And for that matter, the only reason you’re in my house today is because I agreed to help you out with this infernal investigation of yours. So in light of my generosity in this, the least you could do is stay out of my private affairs.”
He watched her tug open the front door while she glared back at him, steam practically hissing from her ears. Couldn’t she see he was only trying to help?
Blasted independent woman.
“Fine. If you choose to handle your private affairs by yourself, even though something has you scared, I can’t force you to share it with me. But don’t be surprised if I’m watching you twice as often.” He stepped closer, near enough to catch a hint of the perfume that had driven him crazy the other night. Memories of Brianne’s naked body wrapped around his came screaming back to taunt him. “And don’t be surprised to find me three steps behind you, watching your back.”
Watching you.
He thought it so strongly, he was convinced she heard it. Her grip tightened around the doorknob.
“You’ve got a job to do and I understand that.” She shrugged. “You do what you have to.”
He didn’t just have to. When it came to watching Brianne, he wanted to. Hell, he couldn’t take his eyes off her most of the time anyway.
Her heels clicked down the sidewalk, leaving him to lock the door behind him. Then again, knowing Brianne, she probably had a gadget of some sort that would lock the door from afar. Aidan clicked the lock into place manually anyway, taking one last longing look at the burgundy velvet folded on the bench seat as he did.
He’d wanted to wrap her up in that lush fabric the minute she’d answered the door with it clutched in her hands. He’d entertained brief visions of them rolling around the foyer floor before they went to her mother’s house, but he couldn’t afford to spend time on seduction now.
Not that Brianne would have necessarily allowed herself to be seduced in the first place.
Damn.
He pulled the door closed behind him and stomped his way down to his car in the relentless late-summer sunshine, frustrated on more levels than he could count. Ducking under the low-hanging branches of a squat palm tree at the end of the walkway, he told himself he needed to get his priorities straight soon— like yesterday, maybe—before he blew this case all over again.
“I appreciate you helping me secure an audience with your mother, Brianne. I know you probably had better things to do today than give me a hand, but thank you.” He opened the passenger door for her and swiped a baseball cap off the front seat of his car, determined to get his head on straight.
Therefore, he did not watch the way her black silky pants clung to the curve of her hips as she eased her way in.
Shutting the door behind her as soon as she stepped inside, Aidan didn’t give her time to respond. Instead, he went around to his side of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. “Keeping this case out of the media spotlight means a hell of a lot to me, so the more low-key the investigation, the better. If Mel doesn’t know how much manpower we’re investing to find him, he’s more likely to be drawn out of hiding sooner.” He shifted the car into reverse. “And I’ll be waiting for him.”
Brianne was silent for a moment as they sat in stop-and-go traffic surrounded by landscaped sidewalks and intermittent palm trees groomed to the exact same height. The houses turned from big to palatial as they made the short drive from Brianne’s house to her mother’s.
Instead of swing sets in the backyard, the Palm Beach crowd was more likely to have swimming pools surrounded by gargantuan-screened cages or private tennis courts. Jackson would feel at home here maybe, but the ritzy streets bore little resemblance to Aidan’s upbringing in downtown Miami.
Finally, she turned to him, her perfume teasing his nose. “Why is it so important to you to bring in Mel? You can’t be this obsessive about all your cases. What makes Melvin Baxter such a prize catch for you?”
“I don’t know who told you I wasn’t obsessive about all my cases, but it’s a lie. Injustice pisses me off and I like catching crooks. It’s gratifying as hell to lock up bad guys.” He turned on to her mother’s street, just a few blocks from Brianne’s.
If they lived that close together, they were probably on good terms now, even though Aidan remembered their relationship had been tense ten years ago. Would Brianne have called Pauline to warn her not to say anything to him today? It was a chance he was prepared to take in order to corner Mel’s ex-wife for a few minutes. And he had every intention of keeping an eye out for any telling looks between mother and daughter.
“But I have to admit I’m pretty gung ho to lock up Mel because he slipped away the first time around. There’s a pride issue at stake here.” Maybe a dumb-ass reason, but it was at least partially the truth. He wasn’t about to go into the details of Melvin swindling his grandparents or the inter-agency cover-ups that had ensured he’d flub the Baxter investigation. He didn’t have enough hard evidence to prove all the collusion that went on anyway. At least not yet. “That first case was the only one I ever screwed up, so I’m working to redeem myself.”
His conscience had bothered him for te
n years over the whole debacle. But he’d lost the most sleep over knowing his best friend’s father had been the primary force behind the effort to bury his case against Melvin.
“You didn’t screw up anything. I followed the papers from New York and even the Herald suggested there was no trail to follow. You can’t gather evidence that isn’t there.” She took out a tiny silver mirror from her purse and checked out her reflection. The gesture was totally at odds with everything he knew about her, probably brought on by their proximity to her mother’s house.
She surprised him even more when she took out a tiny pair of black-rimmed glasses and shoved them on her nose.
Very curious.
“Everything went wrong on that damn case from the word go. I didn’t expect Mel to be so slick from his profile, and that was my biggest mistake. You can be damn sure I never underestimated a suspect again.” Aidan had found out later he’d been put in a position to fail because Jackson’s father had invested in Mel’s long-ago crooked enterprise and hadn’t wanted the connection uncovered.
Why else would he have been given bogus leads and a screw-up partner? Sooner or later Aidan would need help uncovering the corruption in the agency. And, painful though it might be, Jackson Taggart was probably the most logical guy to help him root it out.
After Aidan had Melvin behind bars.
Brianne cleared her throat. “And you didn’t expect the crook’s stepdaughter to hit on you, right? Sorry I didn’t stay out of your way back then. I know I caused you some major grief.”
More guilt than grief.
He’d felt like a heel for even listening to her barrage of erotic proposals given her age at the time. Five years difference seemed like a lifetime when the woman in question was eighteen and on her way to college while he was already independent and ready to tackle the world as an agent.