The Gilded Chain

by Lauren Smith

  She couldn’t bear it. The second he touched her, she wanted him, even knowing the monster that he was. Her body betrayed her, warming up to him. Have to get free, get away. She flung herself off the bed, ducking from his reaching arms.

  Her sudden flight from his arms apparently confused him. “Are you sore after sex in the bathtub?” He sat up and shoved the covers back. He’d put on a pair of black cotton pajama bottoms, but his chest was bare, smooth, and too enticing. If only he wasn’t…She shuddered again.

  “Yes, I’m sore.” It took her a minute to remember what he’d asked. It was a lie though. She wasn’t sore.

  His eyes narrowed. “You can’t lie to me, darling. I can read you like a book. Why are you running from me?” His tone was soft, seductive, but she heard the note of worry there. Why would he worry about her? Unless he was already guessing she’d found him out.

  “I…uh…” Her mind blanked. She couldn’t think of a darn thing, not when looking into his eyes and seeing that cobalt so dark now they seemed almost obsidian.

  “Don’t run. You won’t like it when I catch you,” he cautioned, but her instincts overrode everything else and she bolted for the door. She’d get a taxi, ride to a hotel, and call Fenn for help. He could wire her money. She’d pay him back if she could just get away.

  She was fast. All those years of running on the ranch trails for exercise paid off. She was out of the apartment and sprinting to the elevator, hands clutching the robe tight about her body. When she got inside she slammed her finger onto the first-floor button and then hit the close button. Wes was running toward her, but the elevator was already closing. An instant before he reached her, the doors sealed shut. She held her thumb on the close button, praying it wouldn’t open. For several seconds nothing happened.

  Then the doors slid back open.

  Callie opened her mouth to scream but Wes lunged inside and muffled her with a hand over her mouth as he shoved her back against the wall of the elevator. He didn’t hurt her, but the impact knocked the wind out of her and he shoved one thigh between hers, using his full weight to pin her helpless. Immobilized and silenced, she watched as he let the doors close and then he pressed the emergency stop button.

  She was sealed inside an enclosed space at midnight with a mad man…Tears blurred her vision and she blinked rapidly. Wes watched her eyes, studying the tears as they traveled down her cheeks and bumped into the hand he held over her mouth.

  “What is the matter with you?” he growled. “Don’t ever run from me like that. If you want to play that game, we do it my way. Not like this.” He still looked confused, but angry, too.

  Callie shut her eyes. Was he going to kill her now? How long would it take him to figure out that she’d seen his underworld dealings with Dimitri tonight?

  The hand on her mouth dropped away and settled on her shoulder. “Darling, talk to me. You’re scaring me,” he said.

  When she opened her eyes, she looked up at him. “Please don’t kill me. I won’t tell anyone what I saw, I swear.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” He fisted his other hand in her hair and tugged lightly, urging her to tilt her head back. His hips were still pressed to hers, keeping her prisoner against the elevator wall.

  “I saw you and Dimitri,” she confessed. There was no use hiding it now. He’d probably torture it out of her if she tried to stay quiet.

  “You did?” His lips pursed into a tight line as he seemed to wait for her to say more.

  “What exactly did you see?” he demanded.

  Callie was ashamed of herself in that moment more than she’d ever been ashamed in her life. There was no way she could avoid telling him what she’d seen. She was terrified and there was no natural bravado in her to give her strength and defiance. She’d let this man into her body and her heart. Any damage, emotional or physical, was enough to scare her senseless.

  “What did you see?” he repeated, surprisingly patient, and that only scared her more.

  “I saw you beating up that man and taking something from him. It’s drugs, isn’t it? You’re involved with the Russian mob or something, right?” She swallowed, but her throat was cracked because it was so dry.

  To her horror Wes burst out laughing. “Oh, Callie, darling. I think I adore you. Drugs? Russian mob? I’ll have to tell Dimitri that. He’ll find it amusing, I’m sure.” Wes pressed a kiss to her lips and she didn’t fight him. Now she was the one confused. He wasn’t acting like a man who’d been found out, or a man who was going to kill her for knowing about his drug involvement.

  “But…that’s what you were doing, right?” Her voice shook as the words came out clipped.

  He stroked her throat, a devious smirk on his sensual lips. “Oh no. Nothing like that. I don’t touch drugs and I have no mob involvement. You were really frightened of me, weren’t you?” His fingers found her pulse, which still beat wildly. She licked her lips and nodded.

  “I’m still scared. I don’t know what you were doing. I know what I saw though. That man was in a trunk…and you punched him.”

  Wes raised one hand for her to see his bruised and bloodied knuckles. “I hit the wall next to him, not him. And he is the bad man, not me.” As he spoke he slowly slid the bathrobe off her shoulders and pulled her forward a few inches to let the robe drop to the floor. Callie fisted her hands and smacked his chest, trying to push him away. She needed answers. But he had other ideas. His hands cupped her ass cheeks, giving them a hard squeeze. Callie hissed in outrage, but he silenced her with a deep, penetrating kiss.

  Before she could even muster up a proper defense, he was jerking his pajama bottoms down and kicking her legs apart. His kiss was too potent. The erotic way his tongue played with her mouth, demanding surrender, made her wet and throbbing between her thighs. He grasped her right leg behind her knee and tucked her leg over his hip and began to work his way inside her. Through the haze of lust, she knew she needed him to explain what she’d seen…after they’d sated the wildness rising between them like an unstoppable force.

  The blunt head of his erection parted her channel, driving in slowly, but filling her until she couldn’t breathe. He hoisted her up, one hand under her ass as he pinned her against the elevator wall and fucked her. There was no other word for it. The movement of his hips changed from slow and gentle to hard and deep, almost punishing, but that thrilled her all the more. He wasn’t gentle now, but purely animalistic. She cried out softly each time he slammed into her, not from pain but from the surprise at the pleasurable riot of sensations his possession created.

  He was close to her, inside her, part of her. Wes’s tongue taunted, teased, his cock ravaging her with the wicked thrusts. She’d never known something so dirty and rough could feel so good. He was fucking her in an elevator and she was completely naked. The whole idea made her skin flush with heat and her womb clench around him.

  “Baby,” he whispered raggedly against her throat, “you feel so good.” He nipped her throat. He was losing that stiff formality, and he was just a man driven by lust and instinct. A man she couldn’t resist.

  The way he’d said “baby” made that delicious pressure inside her shoot that much higher and closer to that beautiful orgasm she knew was a breath away.

  “Oh God, Wes!” She arched her back, and he seemed to plunge even deeper, and he responded with a guttural growl, slamming into her over and over. When he nuzzled her neck, then bit down on the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder, she exploded. Flames seemed to lick along her skin, singeing her with an overwhelming rush of pleasure. She swore he came at the same time she did, his body stiffening, his breathing harsh and ragged as he rode out both their climaxes with continued thrusts a few moments longer. She was weightless and shaking, her whole body out of control. If he put her down, she’d fall right on her ass.

  “Fuck, that was…” He shook his head with a smile. “Callie, darling.” He nuzzled her cheek and she started to almost purr, like a contented cat. The man
had just destroyed her in the best way. She was completely and irrevocably his.

  “Wes.” She let his name escape her lips, but she couldn’t seem to find the words for anything else.

  “Come on, let’s get you back into bed.” He set her down on her feet and she clung to him, afraid she’d fall. With a quick jerk, he tugged his pajama bottoms back up over his lean hips and then retrieved the terry cloth robe from the floor and tucked her arms through the sleeves and secured it around her snuggly. He pressed the emergency button, turning it off, and the doors opened immediately, revealing the hall back to his apartment. She loosely held the robe closed and then squeaked in surprise as he lifted her into his arms and carried her back in.

  “I can walk,” she grumbled, albeit too drowsily as she tucked her head against his shoulder. She was getting used to being carried. It was nice. On the ranch, she was always carrying things, doing it herself, working until her muscles were sore and aching. Now she was being carried, and she felt so safe and secure.

  “Sure you can. After an orgasm like that, darling, you’d fall right on your face, and I like your pert little nose far too much to see it bruised.” His rumbling chuckle vibrated through her and she closed her eyes for a moment before the rush of memory of why she’d ran from him flooded back.

  “Wes…are you going to tell me about what I saw tonight? I have to know what you were doing. It looked bad. To be honest, it scared me to death.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “Enough that you ran from me in the middle of the night, naked as the day you were born. I won’t forget that anytime soon.” This time he was the one muttering. “But I promise, I’ll explain everything. I’ll even show you.” They both remained silent all the way back to his bedroom, and despite the anxious flutter in her stomach, she couldn’t get up the nerve to ask him again. Instead, she ran through every bad scenario in her head that could account for what she’d seen, but she couldn’t think of any reason for what she’d seen him do.

  When Wes set her down in the pile of rumpled sheets and blankets, he caught her chin in his head and tilted her head back.

  “Move from this spot, and I’ll chase you down again, and spank you. That’s a promise,” he warned. Then he left the room.

  Callie regained her breath and pulled the robe close around her shoulders. Adrenaline still pumped through her, but it was wearing off and she would soon crash from exhaustion.

  Wes returned to the bedroom, the white tube in his hands.

  He eased down on the edge of the bed and removed the cap on the tube. Then he slid the contents free.

  It wasn’t drugs or money or anything else she might have expected. It was a painting. He spread it out carefully, as though he were handling a priceless artifact. She leaned forward to get a better look at the painting. A woman in deep concentration was standing and overlooking a cliff side.

  “This is one of Goya’s paintings. A rare one.”

  “It’s so small.” She touched the edge of the canvas, careful not to touch the oil. It was little bigger than a sheet of paper.

  “The Mortons are friends of mine who live in Weston. I helped them procure this painting a few years ago through Sotheby’s. A month ago it was stolen from their house during a party. It was the night before I flew out to see you and give you your party invitation. When you and I met Dimitri for dinner, I asked him to check into his contacts on the black market to track this painting down.”

  Callie tensed, shooting her gaze up to his. “Black market?”

  Wes carefully rolled the Goya back up and put it into the tube. “Yes. The man you saw tonight, that was the man who bought the Goya from the thief. Dimitri and I were encouraging him to talk.” He showed his bruised knuckles to her with a roguish grin. “I got a bit carried away. You shouldn’t have witnessed it.” When he brushed a lock of hair back from her face, she didn’t flinch. She’d misjudged him and she hated how the guilt seemed to choke her.

  “Are you still afraid of me?” His blue eyes seared her, plunging deep into her and shining a light in the hidden depths of his soul.

  “I’m not scared anymore. I feel awful, Wes. I jumped to crazy conclusions.” It sounded so childish to have been afraid of him, but she hoped he’d understand what she meant.

  “I did haul a man out of a trunk and rough him up.” He raised one eyebrow and then pounced on her before she could defend herself. Wes tugged her legs apart and she fell flat on her back, gasping when he pressed a kiss to her belly, then trailed his mouth down to her mound. She yelped in surprise at his sudden sensual assault, writhing beneath him as he licked her again and again, the torturous pleasure zinging straight to her clit. She clawed at the bedding, arching her back. He was relentless in his seduction, feathering light kisses on her mons, then flicking his tongue inside her until she was mindless and begging.

  Then he lifted her legs up, throwing her ankles over his shoulders as he positioned himself at her entrance. He thrust inside her and they shared a soft moan as he filled her again. She was sensitive, so needing, that each inch he surged deeper felt too good and too much. Her head thrashed as he took his time entering her, slow and deep, his eyes locked on hers. That cobalt blue captivating her.

  “That’s it, baby,” he growled. “I’m all bad and you’ve only had a taste of me.”

  Chapter 16

  Wes’s eyes were like the waters of Atlantis. They captivated and bewitched her with impossible dreams. Everything he did was for her, every smile, every kiss, every gift. All for her. A woman could fall in love with a man who courted with such perfection.

  He was perfection. Each circle of his hips, striking that deep secret spot inside her that blacked out everything except the feel of him. His dark red hair was a crimson halo about his face. It was as if the goddess Diana gave him the ability to hunt down and seduce any woman into his bed.

  Wes Thorne was a sex god. A god who at that moment was focused solely on her pleasure. He doubled his speed and the sensation of him fully merged with her was all it took to send her careening off the edge into bliss. The man could fuck her into unconsciousness.

  Her lashes fluttered closed, and she lay limp and exhausted, letting him disentangle their bodies. He left the bed and she heard the faint sound of water running. She curled up in a ball on her side and started to drift to sleep. He joined her, pulling her body flush to his and he kissed her mouth, a slow, soft kiss with a surprising bit of tenderness. A lover exploring his love’s mouth and tasting her like fine wine, sampling, drinking in. It was soft and full of emotions that were subtle and made her heart sing.

  This was how she’d envisioned her first kiss. That kiss in the tack room had been an inferno. Was that how all great loves started? With a lightning strike upon the body followed by the tender warmth of a kiss tamed by sweetness and true affection? Both were perfect and exciting in their own ways and just as fulfilling. She’d never dreamed she’d ever experience both, and certainly not with a man like Wes.

  “Darling, I’m sorry I scared you.” He nuzzled her cheek and hugged her closer.

  Callie felt so close to him that she surrendered to her desires and wrapped her arms about him, further connecting them. Invisible threads seemed to bind her to him and him to her. What was happening between them was past casual. They were beyond the point of no return.

  Callie refused to let that scare her, not tonight. Everything felt right, felt wonderful. How often had she been this lucky? Never.

  “Wes, in the morning I want you to tell me more about the art thief,” she said when their mouths finally broke apart.

  “Not tonight?” he said and chuckled, stroking a fingertip down the top of her nose.

  “Just kiss me, damn it.” She giggled and curled her fingers around his neck, urging his head back down to hers.

  “As you wish,” he murmured and stole her breath with a kiss of fire and passion. A kiss to defy all others in its perfection.

  * * *

  A black wraith crept along the prope
rty line of the Thorne estate on Long Island. Security guards and closed-circuit cameras had been played like fiddles to the shadow’s tune.

  “While the cat’s away, the mice will play.” The shadow laughed silently as it picked the lock on the balcony door of a first-floor bedroom.

  Thorne was not in residence and his servants were lax in their duties, which was just the way the Illusionist liked it. Padding like a large jungle cat down the steps, he searched room by room.

  No Monet, no Renoir…none of the most expensive pieces the shadow sought. He could steal the less expensive pieces, but that would spoil the plan, and Thorne would realize his defenses had been breached. Better to wait and find a means of getting access to wherever the real pieces were hidden away. He could wait. Thorne wouldn’t get any warning. There would be no fun if he got wise and moved the priceless art off the island.

  The Morton job had been perfectly executed right down to allowing a cracked frame to give away the fact that he’d stolen the painting. Just as he planned. Wes would rush to the rescue and offer one of his paintings as bait. It was only a matter of time. No one would ever suspect the shadow was so close to Wes. No one.

  He passed in front of a handsome painting depicting the view of the Seine River. The colors used were lovely, the composition almost perfect. The artist’s name was an unfamiliar scrawl of black paint in one corner. Why did Thorne have so many pieces created by unknown artists? It made little sense. Art only held value if the creator had value. A person who painted just like Monet was irrelevant if he wasn’t actually Monet. So why did Thorne stock his collection with such items? The man touched the tip of the frame with one gloved fingertip, nudging a painting into a level-hanging position.

  His eye for precision was what made him a master. He could replicate any painting to perfection and, therefore, if the opportunity arose, steal original works and replace them with his forgeries, undetected. He’d stolen half a dozen pieces from the rich fat cats on Long Island already, and only the Mortons had realized their Goya was missing. That had sold quite well to one of his connections in France. A Brit named Giennes owned a back-door gallery close to Montmartre and buyers always paid well to get whatever Giennes had hanging on his walls. A Goya was easier to sell but less satisfying financially. A Monet or Renoir though…those would line his pockets for the next decade.