Into Temptation

by Jeanie London

  She gave another squeeze. Joshua groaned this time, and the sound echoed through the dark, through him, proving the hunter finally had her prey.

  Another lick. Another squeeze. And he spread his thighs and sank his butt into the straw, trying to shift away enough to gain some control of the sensation.

  But Lindy wasn’t letting go.

  She just drew him back inside her mouth with a sucking pull that made his whole body jerk unceremoniously.

  “Mmm-mmm,” she whispered, the vibration of sound shocking him like a Taser.

  He was coming unglued fast, and Joshua tried to think enough to come up with a defense. But with Lindy buried between his thighs, paying homage with her mouth, he had to ask if he really cared who was in control. What would be so bad about taking his pleasure?

  He’d recover soon enough to turn the tables.

  But there was something about the thought of giving in that stopped him short of meeting her next slow stroke.

  He couldn’t trust this woman, couldn’t allow himself to expose such vulnerability.

  Lindy met him dare for dare. She bested him sometimes. She felt like his match, in every way they’d explored so far. She wielded so much power, too much as she pushed him dangerously to the edge of his restraint. Joshua wondered if she had so much power because he recognized her on so many levels.

  The need to push, to test, to conquer.

  When she finally pulled her hands away, he willed his head to clear, willed the tension from his body. Slowly his muscles relaxed, coming back under his control. As he shifted his position to ease the ache in his arms, he wondered what she had in store for him next.

  This wasn’t over by a long shot.

  So he watched as Lindy rose above him, considering whether he should catch her in a wrestling move, flip her onto her back and turn the tables. She’d resist, but even off balance, he knew his strength would eventually win out.

  Before he’d decided, Lindy stripped off her shirt.

  Her skin gleamed pale in the darkness, a sight meant to entice, to touch. Unfastening her bra, she let her breasts spill out in an eager tumble.

  “All gone,” she said, arching her shoulders to slide the bra down her arms, her breasts swaying tantalizingly.

  Joshua had been grateful for the handcuffs, for their distraction…until now when he wanted to reach forward and fill his hands with her, hear her moan. She was so wonderfully responsive and just the memory of his mouth on her cost hard-won control.

  “I want to touch you,” he said, unable to stop himself. Surely the time had come for satisfaction.

  “I know.” She bowed low over him, and palming her breasts, she caught his erection between them. “We’re touching.”

  He could hear the laughter in her voice, the pleasure, and he wanted to answer, say something that would at least create the illusion of some control….

  But then Lindy pressed against him, rode the length of his erection with that swell of soft skin, and the only sound to escape his lips was a groan.

  She stroked again, purring against him, swirling her tongue around the head of his dick, sucking him in as far as her position would allow. A shock wave followed, and Joshua knew she finally had him.

  There was no defending himself against her knowing rhythm, no denying his need. Not when her nipples hardened and her hips rocked as she caught her own pleasure.

  He was a goner.

  Some vaguely functioning part of his brain urged him to flip her onto her back and stop this erotic assault. Joshua only got as far as lifting his hips to meet her next thrust, to realign his thigh to catch her in a place that made her gasp against his hot skin.

  Then he lost himself in her rhythm, the need building and consuming, until that stubborn reasoning assured him he should be grateful he’d hung on so long under her assault.

  Joshua didn’t feel grateful though, only overwhelmed when he exploded in an orgasm that dragged out a cry from him that he didn’t even recognize as his own.

  Then Lindy finally freed his arms, apparently satisfied.

  For a moment, he blinked stupidly into the fading darkness, then took a sharp turn toward awareness as she tossed the handcuffs into the straw.

  “Prove your point?” he asked.

  “Quite.”

  The smugness in her voice provoked him enough to get over his own pain and demand some sort of compensation.

  Wincing, he reached out and caught her, pulled her down. She didn’t resist, but curled her long body around him, snuggling close, her curves aligned in all the right places. He savored the feel of them lying together, of holding her close, his body weak from her assault, his thoughts stunned by how good she felt in his arms.

  Maybe it was exhaustion, but he could imagine spending time with this woman, long nights stretching into days where he could hold her and explore the way she felt.

  Or maybe it was knowing he couldn’t have her.

  Not as Lindy Gardner or as Melinda St. George.

  He’d learned more about the woman behind the agent since his Northumberland investigator had first text-messaged her name. The man had been peeling away the layers of Lindy’s early life. Right before Joshua had headed off for the Santa Lucia chancellery, he had received his first report.

  Melinda St. George was the only child of a fairly well-to-do couple from Kirks Moor. She’d excelled at school academically and athletically. She’d attended École Swiss, graduated cum laude from university before becoming a member of the local police force at twenty-three. Within two years, she’d been recruited for MI6. No surprise considering her talents.

  Ironically, he’d been recruited, too.

  His ability to get out of scrapes during his hardscrabble youth had brought him to the attention of some powerful people. It hadn’t taken long for the money and high-flying lifestyle to overtake him. Somewhere along the way, he’d convinced himself that anything could be justified as a means to an end.

  Funny, but he couldn’t remember exactly when.

  But without the choices he’d made or his underworld connections, he’d probably still be living that hard-knock life in a poor part of Michigan, a place where there wasn’t much hope and even fewer people who cared about him.

  No matter what alias he hid behind, Joshua knew this woman wasn’t for him, no matter how right she felt in his arms. There was a part of him that wanted… And he despised himself for wanting to know.

  “So why didn’t you?” He pulled the blanket over them, tucked her closer.

  “Why didn’t I what?”

  “Declare yourself to the polizia. MI6 could have pulled strings and had you back on the street in less than an hour.”

  She didn’t reply at first, and he wondered if he’d get an answer. Then she exhaled heavily, a breath that warmed his skin.

  “I would have had to give you up.”

  Had she only been worried about her case? It shouldn’t have mattered but it did. Joshua wouldn’t ask, couldn’t have trusted her answer, knowing how much she wanted a link to Henri.

  But there was something that wouldn’t let go, some instinct that hinted he wasn’t the only one conflicted, even enough to make choices that might have far-reaching consequences. He might be answering to Henri, but Lindy answered to MI6, and she’d already mentioned her boss’s displeasure.

  Another bond they shared.

  Funny, he thought, how they could be alike in so many ways, yet so impossibly different. So right and so wrong.

  San Remo, where the sparkling sea beckons in this resort city on the Italian Riviera, tempting lovers to outrun fate.

  LINDY FLIPPED the lock on the loo door. She crossed the mirrored foyer and made for the sink area, which was the farthest she could get from the door. Withdrawing her notebook computer from her bag, she propped it on the counter and depressed the power button, hoping these interior walls wouldn’t interfere with her uplink.

  But SIS provided top-notch equipment, and while this bathroom was fairly b
uried within this marina in the Italian town of San Remo, the signal bounced into space where it belonged.

  Pixels coagulated on the display, and Blythe appeared.

  “Long time no see,” she said dryly.

  “Glad you missed me. No time to catch up. I’m on the time crunch today—in a public loo. I figure it’ll take anyone who wants a toilet five minutes to find a manager to unlock the door. Ready?”

  Blythe nodded.

  “Sitrep on Vienna. Then I want you to have a look at the Santa Lucia chancellery in Venice and tell me if anything has been reported missing within the past twenty-four hours.”

  Lindy could hear the rapid-fire clicking of keystrokes as Blythe worked international databases, shifting her gaze between displays. “Vienna. No reported break-in at the site. No reports of any stolen artifacts from any museums, art galleries or private residences within a five-mile radius during your time frame. Building security called in a disturbance. The local police investigated. Didn’t turn up anything.”

  While Lindy had lived that investigation firsthand, she was relieved to learn that nothing had gone missing during her watch. So what had Joshua gone to Vienna to fix? “Any obvious connections between my target and any occupants?”

  “None.”

  “What about Henri Renouf?”

  “No again.”

  “Download the occupant list and I’ll take a look when I get a free second. Now, what’s coming up on Santa Lucia?”

  Blythe spun in her chair toward another display, and Lindy held her breath. She’d been debating how to handle this situation all the way from Joshua’s country hideaway, located somewhere between Genoa and Cremona as best she could gauge from their journey back into civilization.

  Not only did she need information about what Joshua had been doing inside that chancellery, she needed to start damage control with Malcolm. He’d have to clean up her mess if he wanted to send her back into Venice again without risking exposure. He would not be impressed that the Venetian authorities had spread the word of her escape with Joshua through all the local provinces.

  She and Joshua hadn’t been impressed, either. They’d deliberated long and hard on the best way to get out of Italy. Crossing the border via land wasn’t even an option—the authorities would be questioning all couples traveling together.

  The airport was no better. Their disguises served them while traveling through the countryside, but they didn’t want to use their identity papers. Joshua’s alias was in shape, but hers had required doctoring just to pass a cursory inspection. It would be sufficient for encounters within the country, but if the real owner had reported her papers stolen, the authorities might run a list of all women who tried to cross the border. Even an overworked and understaffed police department would be able to track exactly how Lindy left the country.

  She made a mental note to have Blythe work up a few aliases as her first order of business after returning to London.

  “Okay, here we go on Santa Lucia.” Blythe squinted at the display. “Looks like more than a wee bit of trouble. Local authorities reported a break-in. The perps escaped, but the police are still searching. They’ve alerted all the stop points along the border.”

  “Really? What’s missing?”

  “That’s the interesting part—nothing.”

  “Hmph.” Lindy had a bad feeling. “What are they after? Seems a lot of trouble for what might have been vandalism.”

  “Police think they interrupted a terrorism attempt. Apparently the pastor has some pretty high-profile ties to Rome and has recently received some threats.”

  Damn bad luck. She wondered if Joshua had known.

  “Is this your bloke?” Blythe asked. “If it is, he’s working with someone.”

  She only nodded. No one in London needed to know who’d been in that chancellery with Joshua yet. Not until she secured his full cooperation to discuss Renouf and could justify her actions as a valid means to an end.

  Blythe slanted her gaze toward the other display. “From what I’ve got here, your perps rummaged through the files. Looks like intel gathering.”

  “How important is this pastor? Santa Lucia is tiny compared to other churches around there.”

  “Says here there are some important artifacts.”

  “The altarpieces?”

  Blythe nodded. “Maybe it has something to do with the Florenzia.”

  “I know that name.”

  “Two men strolled right into the national gallery and overpowered the guards in broad daylight. They shattered the display case, nabbed the most famous Italian gem and escaped by motorboat. The authorities don’t have a clue where they went.”

  Ah, now Lindy remembered. A one-hundred-carat yellow diamond that had been part of the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s treasure from his marriage to an Austrian empress. She wondered if Renouf had been behind that heist.

  “Check Jean Allard’s whereabouts during the time frame of the Florenzia’s disappearance. I’d like to know if there’s any connection to Renouf.”

  Blythe inclined her head but didn’t shift her gaze from the display. “You might be on to something. Says here the federal government passed legislation to protect the national treasures after the Florenzia. You know those Italians—a stubborn, proud bunch. They’re probably pissed your guy gave them the slip and they can’t figure out what to pin on him.”

  Lindy would consider that. She couldn’t help wondering if searching Joshua’s pockets when she’d had the chance might have been smarter than searching his naked body. He’d been carrying a camera and she still didn’t know what he’d done with the White Star.

  “All right. Thanks, Blythe. One more thing. Be a love and tell Malcolm that I’ll be off the grid for a few days.”

  “Trouble?”

  She shook her head. “Opportunity to get close to my target. I’m all over it. Not sure when I’ll be able to make contact.”

  Blythe narrowed her eyes. “Oh, no you don’t, Gardner. Tell him yourself. He’s already in a lather because you’re not keeping him up to speed. You’re in the field, but we have to listen to him throw a fit.”

  “No, Blythe, I’ll just—”

  Too late. The screen snapped to black before pixels converged into her boss. “Lindy.”

  “Hello, Malcolm.”

  “Are you purring yet?”

  Not exactly… “I’ve gotten close to our target. Making contact might be hit or miss for a few days.”

  Malcolm’s face tightened in a scowl she knew all too well—he knew that what she was saying and what she was doing didn’t line up.

  They’d been here before. It was never pleasant. But Lindy had never been quite this vulnerable before, either, had never walked such a tight line. She had a little leeway—there were definite perks to Malcolm’s trust in her, but there were negatives, too. He knew her too well.

  “Anything you want to share?” he asked.

  “Not yet, if you don’t mind.”

  There, she’d acknowledged something was up.

  His scowl deepened. A suspended moment passed while she tried not to look inconvenienced. Joshua was making arrangements to rent a boat under his alias, and she’d excused herself to use the loo. She didn’t want him to know she was checking up on him.

  “Need backup?” Malcolm finally asked.

  “No thanks. I’ve managed to get close. Don’t want to frighten him off. He’s good. Very good.”

  “I told you that.”

  “I’ve almost got him.”

  More silence. Then he exhaled heavily. “All right, Lindy. We’ll run this your way. For now.”

  She nodded, unable to offer more reassurance when she was silently hoping this situation didn’t blow up in her face.

  “I do have something to share,” Malcolm said. “Thought you’d be interested to know your old captain caught a hacker digging through their ’94 through ’96 personnel records.”

  “That’s when I was there. Should I be concerned?”
>
  He shook his head. “We erased your files when you signed on with us, but your old captain never misses an opportunity to harass me about stealing you out from under his nose, so he called as a professional courtesy.”

  “Did he track the hacker?”

  “Unfortunately not. Whoever this person was must have had protocol to alert him to a trace because he made a clean break from the system.”

  “Do you have exact times of the attack?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “Have Blythe transfer them to me.” She wanted to see where Joshua had been then. She wouldn’t put anything past the man. Glancing into the mirror, she thought the new red hair made her look cheeky. “What do you make of it?”

  Malcolm’s gaze pierced the distance as if they were face-to-face rather than bouncing over satellite signals. Lindy forced herself not to squirm beneath those penetrating eyes that saw too much.

  “I might be able to evaluate if I had a clue what was really happening on this case.”

  Right.

  11

  Monte Carlo, where warm sea breezes, smooth white beaches and idyllic hotels offer the perfect place to hide from the world.

  JOSHUA MANEUVERED the speedboat through the channel, heading toward navigable international waters. He’d plotted a course along the coast from the town of San Remo to the port of Cap d’Ail, where they could lose themselves in the busy principality of Monaco.

  The conditions couldn’t have been more perfect for an excursion. Warm southern breezes drifted off the Mediterranean, the sky gleamed clear overhead, and the sun sparkled off turquoise waters. Their rented vessel rode the swells smoothly. Joshua stood at the helm, hand on the wheel, feeling a sense of peace surround him, a feeling unique to being on his own boat in the pristine waters of the French Riviera.

  A feeling as if he’d left the world behind.

  He’d never closely analyzed the feeling, had always been content to indulge himself in a hobby that consumed him whenever work permitted. But when he thought about it, sailing had been nosing out other entertainments. He’d found himself turning down invitations that had once kept him jet-setting around the globe in favor of long weekends on his boat.