Devil's Bargain (28 page)

The door read, Jazz’s Room, in shiny black letters, along with Authorized Personnel Only. Inside the room, things looked like a normal bedroom—like her old bedroom, in fact, down to the curtains and the battered furniture—but outside, it was still disorienting to see that it was a freestanding cubicle sitting in the middle of a concrete warehouse floor.

Not that the place was empty. Over to the right was the freestanding kitchen, to the left was the curtained-off entertainment room, and beyond that was Manny’s private space where even she didn’t dare go.

The lab, however, was directly in front of her, and as she looked in that direction, she saw Manny pull off a pair of safety goggles and make safe an automatic pistol. He spotted her standing in the doorway, and waved, then looked awkward.

“Um—did I wake you up?”

“With the gunfire?” She gestured at the pistol he’d just put down, and the ballistic tank of water he’d fired into. “Oh, no. Had to get up anyway.”

“Sorry. It’s just that—”

“Never mind, Manny. Really. I’m awake.” She stretched, realized she was still armed and dangerous, and went back to replace the pistol in its drawer next to her bed. When she came back, Manny was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. He handed it to her and leaned on the counter, staring at her with one of his puppy-dog expressions.

“Manny, why are you test-firing a gun? Since you don’t do violent-crime work?”

“Yeah, well…” He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of getting back into it. A little. This is nothing, though. The insurance company wants to prove that the owner of the gun shot up his own house and then claimed it was a drive-by. Oh, here. Message.” He reached over for a pad of paper and slid it across to her. Written in Manny’s neat calligraphy was
Call Borden cell phone
. “He didn’t want to wake you up.”

She yawned and nodded. “What time is it?”

“Six o’clock.”

She froze, blinking.
“In the evening?”

“Yeah,” he said apologetically. “I thought you—the doctor said you should sleep as much as—”

“Manny, I was supposed to go to the office!”

“Yeah, well, you really don’t need to go until—”

“Manny!”

“Sorry.” He held up his hands and turned away, shoulders hunched. She glared at him for a second, then shook her head and grabbed the cordless phone from the counter as she headed for the bathroom.

It was impossible to stay mad at Manny, especially in the bathroom, which was very possibly the most heavenly place she’d ever seen. Marble, massaging jets of water, a tub big enough to hold three or four…it was hard to hold a grudge. She still thought of it as Manny’s bathroom, but really, it was hers now, too. For the time being.

Weird.

As she toweled her hair dry with one hand, she dialed Borden’s cell phone one-handed. He answered on the second ring.

“Are you in town?” she asked.

“Well, across it,” he said. “Meeting with some corporate clients. Just finished.”

“I was planning on going to the office, but Manny’s blown that by forgetting to tell me to wake up.”

“That’s his job now?”

“Shut up.”

“Who’s a grumpy late riser?”

“I’m starving. And I want dinner. I heard you eat, sometimes.”

“When the company’s agreeable,” Borden said. “I’ll be there in—twenty minutes. Tell your boyfriend not to shoot me on the way in, okay?”

She smiled and hung up on him, but he had a point about Manny. Not the boyfriend part, the shooting part. Manny was taking guard duty way too seriously. Even Lucia thought he’d gone a little loony on the subject.

She put extra time in at the mirror, experimenting with makeup and blush and eyeliner, and when she was finished, she decided it wasn’t too humiliating. She still looked like Jasmine Callender. Just not the one who got drunk and beat up truckers.

After some thought, she chose a black pantsuit with a plain white French-cuffed shirt—Lucia’s shopping influence—and some mid-heeled shoes. By the time she was slipping them on, Borden’s rental car appeared on the security monitor, and she had to race to tell Manny not to activate his more extreme self-defensive measures.

She met Borden downstairs, in the garage, and found him leaning against his sedan, looking tall and lawyerly. Very legitimate.

His eyes widened at the sight of her, and he straightened up. She deliberately slowed down, enjoying the effect.

“Counselor,” she said, and gave him a long, measuring look. “Something wrong?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there are some laws being broken, I’m just not clear on which ones.”

He walked around and opened the door for her. Handed her in, fingers warm around hers.

She didn’t let go. She tugged hard on his hand, tipping him off balance and down to her seated level.

Grabbed his tie and kissed him.

Warm, slow slide of lips, just as hot and sweet as she remembered from that strange, dizzying day at Simms’s prison. His lips parted, and she plunged her tongue into the opening, tasting coffee and caramel. His tongue scraped hers, teased, stroked. She moaned, deep in her throat, and grabbed a handful of his hair to try to get him deeper into her. It was unbelievable, really, how much she wanted this.

Wanted him.

She let him go, but he didn’t go far, one arm draped over the car door, staring at her with those warm eyes. He licked his lips slowly, tasting her, and said, in a voice she hardly recognized, “What was that for?”

“For—” She couldn’t think of a single thing to say, and suddenly it came to her, foolish and charming and strange. “For not hating me.”

He reached down and fitted his hand along her cheek. His thumb brushed over her damp, parted lips. “Who says I don’t?” he asked. “Sometimes.”

“Are we going to sit here all night?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

“You’re a complete bastard.”

He smiled. It was such a satanically beautiful smile that she felt herself light up inside, light up and burn, and he stood, shut her door and walked around to the other side.

“I’m taking you someplace special for dinner,” he said as he backed out of the garage.

“Is it quiet?”

“No, it’s very loud. Mariachi bands. Small children screaming. People talking on cell phones. And there’s a buffet—”

She grinned. “Sounds perfect.”

He was staying at the Marriott, the nicest one, and valeted the car and ushered her into the lobby with a hand at the small of her back. Like they were about to dance. Guided her to the elevator and pressed the button for the ninth floor.

She watched him in silence as the floors flashed by.

“The restaurant’s on the ninth floor?” she asked.

“Best in town,” he agreed. “Very exclusive.”

They didn’t touch. He led her down the carpeted hall once they’d arrived on the right floor, down to a door at the end of the hall, and opened it with a flourish.

It was a suite. A nice one, with a king-size bed and a respectably sized bathroom and a view.

He shut the door, watching her.

“Where’s the food?” she asked.

He reached over and swung open the minibar. Tiny little bottles of liquor. Miniature champagne. Candy bars.

“Screw the food,” she said, and then he was on her, hands in her hair, pushing her back against the wall, and she couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was weak, because there was no way on earth she had the strength to push him away, not now.

Not ever.

His hands moved under the jacket, trailing fire, tugged the hem of her shirt free and found a path beneath it. She gasped into his mouth, arching against him, as his palms stroked over her breasts and circled her nipples into hardness, then slid around to the small of her back to pull her tighter against him.

His mouth was hot and hungry and all over her, all over her neck, traveling down, tongue tasting every pulse point as she gasped for breath.

He moved her hands back, pinning them up against the wall, and she felt something fierce and hot shudder through her. Something powerful.

He felt it, too, and raised his head to meet her eyes. This close, his eyes were enormous, hot, full of something too dangerous and too violent and too perfect.

She moaned and let her head fall back, surrendering.

Just…finally…for the first time in her life…surrendering.

Everything we do matters.

She lost thread of that in the stroke of his skin on hers, in flashes of heat and light and a fast, almost brutal rhythm thudding in her head, in her heart, her back against the wall, climbing, struggling…

“James,” she whispered, and felt him shudder and spiral into her, heat and light and a perfect crime of passion, committed in hot blood and without regret.

Guilty as charged.

The next morning, she woke sore and exhausted and utterly filled with light, and rolled over to find Borden sitting on the edge of the bed, already dressed.

“Hey,” she murmured. He smiled. It looked sad, that smile. Not what she’d expected. She sat up, instinctively pulling the covers close over her skin. “What?”

He reached out and touched her hair, pushing it back from her eyes, caressing the tender skin at her temples. Long, gentle fingers. His thumb brushed her lips, a soft echo of the need in the night.

“We missed the hearing,” he said. “McCarthy’s hearing. They held it off-schedule, because he was designated at-risk in the prison. The judge admitted the photographs into evidence and the prosecution moved for the conviction to be vacated.”

She felt an odd stab go through her. “We…we missed the hearing? What happened?”

“Ben’s out,” Borden said. “He walked away a free man an hour ago.”

She let out a cry. It was half fury, half joy. He’d been set free, and she hadn’t been there, hadn’t been there—how could that have happened? How could she have missed that moment, after all this time? All this work?

Had he looked for her? Been disappointed not to see her?

“We have to go,” she blurted. “We have to go see him—”

“Jazz, he’s okay. Lucia was there, he’s with her,” he said. “There’s something else. Lucia got a red envelope thirty minutes ago. Hand delivered.”

“And?”

“So did you,” he said, and turned to pick it up from the foot of the bed. “Someone slid it under the door while I was getting dressed.”

She took it from him and pulled out the sheet of paper. It was on the letterhead, not of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, but of Eidolon Corporation.

And it said, in printed, plain block letters, ONE OF YOU HAS MADE A MISTAKE.

She looked up at Borden. Thought about the night, about the fury and perfection of it.

Thought about Ben McCarthy, walking free from murders he didn’t commit.

About the look in Lucia’s eyes at the prison.

Everything you do matters.

“Why would they send this?” she asked. “It’s nothing, right? A mind game?”

Borden shook his head and reached out to pull her head close and plant a burning kiss on her forehead.

“I don’t know,” he murmured against her hair. “I don’t know.”

Don’t miss the next
RED LETTER DAYS
novel,

DEVIL’S DUE, coming in January 2006.

Only from Rachel Caine and Silhouette Bombshell!