Flirting With Danger (21 page)

“Not necessary. That’s what children are for.”

“Mom,” Olivia giggled again. “We’re not slaves.”

“Yes, you are. Clear, slaves. Clear.”

As they left the patio for the sitting room, Rick waited for Kate to take him aside and interrogate him. He knew Tom had only given her the bare bones of Samantha’s story. But knowing Kate, she’d probably figured out a great deal more about his date than she’d been told.

Thank God he’d gone looking for Samantha when she’d vanished off to the bathroom. And thank God he’d taken a moment to observe, instead of barging in and yelling at her for violating his friends’ privacy. Seeing the way she’d looked at Tom’s photos had abruptly made him wonder what her life had been like before he’d come across her in his gallery.

Mike and Olivia seemed to like her, mostly because she didn’t talk to them like they were children. She didn’t seem to know much about being a kid, herself—not the way the two youngest Donners did. He wondered what kind of childhood she’d had, but without knowing anything much, he already assumed she hadn’t had a mother who baked cookies on a regular basis. Hm. He hadn’t either.

Something during dinner had caught her attention. He hadn’t a clue what it might have been, but she would tell him. Everything about her fascinated him, and the way her mind worked most of all.

She sat in her short green dress between Kate and Olivia, who had brought in a few more of her miniature dolls to show
off. He enjoyed finding items to add to what the children already enjoyed collecting, especially when he could procure something for them that they wouldn’t be able to obtain or afford on their own. His childhood hadn’t been precisely normal, either—perhaps that was why he enjoyed collecting items from other peoples’ lives. Rick gazed at Samantha.
Do we seek what we know, or what we lack
?

Kate stood. “Who wants an ice cream sundae?” she asked.

Olivia’s hand shot up, followed by Tom’s, and then Mike, his own, and lastly, Samantha’s. Obviously she was holding back to see what the correct procedure for dessert might be. Still adapting, though he’d begun to have the feeling that somewhere this evening, the acting had stopped.

“Rick, give me a hand,” Kate ordered, heading for the kitchen.

Ah, here it came. Taking a breath and offering Samantha a supportive smile, he climbed to his feet and followed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, entering the kitchen.

“Grab the bowls out of the cupboard, will you?” she asked.

He pulled six of them down and laid them out on the counter. Kate began scooping mounds of ice cream into them, while he went into the refrigerator for chocolate syrup and cherries. It was a simple routine, and one he’d probably performed at least fifty times.

“Rick, how much do you know about Samantha?”

“Enough for the moment,” he answered. “Why?”

“I don’t like the thought that you’d let anyone…dangerous into this house, with my children.”

“She can take care of herself,” he returned, leaning back against the counter, “and I think someone may be trying to hurt her. But as for her being dangerous to you, never.”

“You’re certain about that?”

“Yes, I am.”

Kate started pouring on syrup, then set the container down again. “I like her,” she said slowly. “But she’s not just an art consultant, and we both know it.”

“And?”

“And so why is she with you?”

“I told you, I like her. And she saved my life, the night of the robbery. We’re working together.” He lifted an eyebrow, challenging her to contradict his statement.

“I can see that,” she said quietly, and shooed him out the door.

Olivia had fallen asleep across her father’s shoulder by the time they stood to leave. To Samantha’s credit, she shook Tom’s hand again, and even accepted a hug from Kate on the drive. Richard couldn’t disguise his surprise, though, when she handed him the keys to the Bentley.

“You didn’t like driving it?”

“I loved driving it. But if you’re behind the wheel, you have to keep your hands to yourself, and I can think.”

He slid into the driver’s side of the car. “Does this thinking concern whatever was bothering you during dinner?”

“Yep.”

“The thing you promised to tell me about?”

“Yep.” She glanced at him as she belted in. “You’re really not angry about the B and E?”

It took him a second to figure out that “B and E” meant breaking and entering. Someone needed to publish a
Thieves’ Jargon to Kings’ English
dictionary. “I’m really not angry.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little, as though she’d expected a fight. “Good.”

“So how much thinking do you have to do?”

“Just drive.”

Chuckling, Rick turned the car down the drive and out to the street. Samantha was right about one thing; if she’d been driving, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her. He’d been vaguely uncomfortable all night, and now that they were alone again, the ache in his groin became much more keen.

She sat in silence for several minutes, staring blankly out the window. Unused to seeing her pensive, Richard turned the radio onto some rock station or other.

Finally, she took a breath. “Okay. This is what I was think
ing. Would somebody like Danté Partino risk his freedom, his reputation, and his career over the sale of a million-and-a-half-dollar artifact?”

“He did, obviously.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Richard nearly missed stopping at a red light. “Beg pardon? You don’t think he planted the fake or the grenades? Why—”

“No, I think he did. But he’s a snob. He likes the prestige of his job. I don’t think he would take a risk like that for one item. And I don’t think you kill people over one item—not unless it’s the Hope diamond or something. He had a fake—and what else would he have it for, except to slip in place of the real one? Why should we assume—”

Making a hard right, he turned them into a deserted strip mall parking lot. He understood what she was saying, and the idea both angered and shocked him. “You think he’s done this before,” he snapped. “Without my knowing about it.”

“Does he do any work at your other properties, or just this one?”

Richard slammed a fist on the dashboard. “He does some acquiring for elsewhere, but he lives in Florida. He likes the weather here.”

“How much time do you generally spend in Florida every year?”

“A month or two during the Season, a few weeks over the rest of the year.”

“Maybe he likes that about the estate, too.”

“You’re taking some huge leaps, Samantha. I mean, I can see that maybe he got carried away and a little greedy, and wanted to put something over on me with the tablet. But you’re saying he’s done it before to me, and repeatedly.”

“I’m surmising, Rick. I don’t know for sure. I’m just saying it makes sense. I need to look at some of your other artworks.”

It did make sense, and that infuriated him. “Shit. Bloody hell.”

“You told me to tell you what I was thinking,” she pro
tested. “Jesus. Forget I said anything. If you’re going to get mad, I’ll just keep it to myself next time.”

“No, you won’t,” he answered. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for not even considering the possibility before now.”

“I’m probably wrong. It could be a fanatic tablet collector, or even somebody who’s just crazy, and he’s got Partino scared to death.”

“We’ll take a look in the morning.”

“In the morn—”

“Yes, in the morning. No skulking about by moonlight—and I want to be certain before your suspicions go any farther than us.”

On impulse, he tugged on her arm, pulling her close so he could kiss her. She opened her mouth to him, slipping her tongue between his teeth to match his own exploration.

His cock, already at half-staff since they’d left the Donners’, strained at his trousers. “Jesus,” he rasped, reaching out to turn off the key and slam the car into park.

She came over onto him, wrapping her agile hands into his hair and sinking into his chest. “You taste like chocolate,” she murmured against his mouth, yanking his seat belt off and sliding a hand down to cup his straining crotch. “Mmm.”

Feeling less articulate, Richard shoved a hand down the front of her dress to fondle her right breast, feeling her nipple bud under his rapt attentions. She pushed harder against his hand, and his head banged the driver’s window. “Damn.”

“Back seat,” she moaned, pushing his hand out from under her dress before she executed a skilled twist over the front seat and pulled him over on top of her.

Richard didn’t pause to admire her acrobatic skill as he balanced between her legs, sliding his hands up her thighs to her waist, pushing her dress up as he caressed her. He wanted to devour her, to bury himself in her, to keep her prisoner with him so she could never escape. Her urgent hands undid
his slacks and yanked them and his boxers down to his thighs, while he took the easy way out and simply ripped off her lacy white panties.

“And I thought you were so in control,” she panted, grinning as she wrapped fingers around him and stroked.

He slipped a finger inside her, half-thrusting against her hand. “Jesus. With everything but you.”

“You wrecked my damned underwear.”

“I’ll buy you more.”

“I don’t want you to buy me underwear. I want you inside me. Now.”

“Body arm—”

“Now,” she repeated in an impatient moan, lifting her hips.

He didn’t need another invitation. Richard plunged into her, burying his cock to the hilt. She gasped, arching her back and wrapping her ankles around his hips as he thrust, hard and fast, over and over, into her tight heat.

God, she made him insane. Like this, when every nerve in his body seemed attuned to her, to the fast beat of her heart and her harsh breathing and her moans and the warm slickness of her body inside and out, he could admit one thing—the fact that she was a thief and a liar and a game player excited him. “Mine,” he growled, lowering his face to her neck as he felt himself building to crescendo. “Say you’re mine.”

“You’re mine,” she repeated with a triumphant groan, digging fingers into his ass and biting his shoulder as she came, pulsing and bucking around him. Even as he realized she was right, he followed her into breathless, mindless oblivion.

Monday, 12:46 a.m.

By the time they pulled up to the gates of the estate, even the cops on duty looked half-asleep. If not for O’Hannon’s murder they would have been gone by now, but Castillo was obviously protective of the community’s wealthy elite. With barely a cursory glance at them one of the cops keyed the gates open, and Rick drove up the winding drive.

Halfway back Sam had realized that her underwear was hanging off the rearview mirror, and with a sigh that he seemed to find very amusing she’d yanked it free and stuffed it into her purse. Okay, so it was funny, and so she felt so relaxed she could barely keep her eyes open as they stopped at the front door.

“Should I carry you in?” he asked, giving her a smug grin as he pushed his door open.

“I’d say ‘bite me,’ but then we’d never make it inside.” Stifling a yawn, she got out of the car. With a self-conscious tug at the short dress covering her bare bottom, she led the way to the door.

Rick unlocked it. “You’re not wearing any underwear,” he
sang in a low voice, bending down to kiss her neck as she passed him.

Her knees went rubbery. “Cut it out,” she snarled, batting at him. “Security, remember?”

“Our photo was in the paper, darling. I don’t think it’s a secret that we’re dating.”

“That’s not dating. That’s…bedroom stuff you just did with your mouth.”

He grinned. “No, it’s not. You should see my bedroom stuff.”

She glanced up the stairway, looking for wires or anything else that shouldn’t be there. With Etienne dead and Partino arrested, they were probably safe—but someone had killed O’Hannon, too. “I saw your bedroom stuff in the car,” she said, unable to resist a sly grin. “Not bad.”

His “bedroom stuff” had kept them out until past midnight, and from the look in his eyes, he wasn’t finished, yet. She’d thought him distracting before, but that had been an understatement. And it wasn’t just the sex, exceptional as that was. There was something intoxicating about a man who walked into a room like he owned it—and knowing that he probably did. For someone in her profession, the members of which spent their time blending in, adapting to whatever situation arose, his blatant confidence was mesmerizing.

She started up the stairs, only to have him grab her elbow. “I’ll go first.”

Sam scowled at him. “Be serious. You do the rescuing, your lordship, and I’ll do the scouting.”

He didn’t like it; she could see that. Rick Addison possessed a great deal of common sense and intelligence, however, and after a moment she thought was more for effect than because of actual disagreement, he nodded and gestured her to proceed.

They passed the Picasso on the landing, and she tried to sneak a look at it. In the dimness she couldn’t begin to see whether it was authentic or not, though, so she supposed Rick had been right to suggest they wait for morning.

In truth, the idea of going straight to bed appealed to her immensely. After last night and the adrenaline rush of this morning, then the fun in the back of the Bentley, she felt tired to her bones, but the idea of having Rick in bed with her again filled her with…satisfaction, even more than it filled her with lust. Too bad she’d decided to go down and check Partino’s office tonight. She could probably have waited for daylight, but she’d already ignored just about every instinct she had. It was past time for a thieves’ refresher course.

“I’m going to check your room and mine, just to be safe,” she said over her shoulder, keeping to the side of the hallway where the moonlight shone brighter.

“Let security check my room in the morning,” he countered. “We’re going to your room, and you’re not my bodyguard.”

“I don’t want you walking into a bomb, Rick. I trust me more than I trust them. I’ll check your room.”

“You’re worried about me,” he announced.

“You grill a good steak,” she said. Great. She’d realized that this…partnership of theirs seemed to be evolving into a complex tangle of her emotions and his, but now even he could see it.

He drew her around to face him, kissing her deep and slow. “Thanks. We’ll both go check tomorrow,” he suggested. “You’ve got to be more tired than I am, and I can barely keep my eyes open. No sense in stumbling about without a good reason—especially when whoever killed O’Hannon is still somewhere around.”

“Okay, okay.” She pulled out of his arms and continued down the hallway. “But I didn’t think people like you ever got tired.”

“Only when we’re around people like you.”

The hallway and her suite were both clear, and she pulled off her dress and yanked on a clean T-shirt and underwear while Rick was in the bathroom. Sam decided to lie down on the bed for a minute while she waited for her turn.

When she woke up Rick lay on his stomach beside her on
the bed, one arm draped across her shoulder, his long lashes shuttered and his breathing slow and even. She felt thick, as if she’d slept too heavily, and she stayed there for a moment, trying to make herself wake up.

He looked so beautiful lying there, and she knew, as she’d sensed from the moment she’d caught that one quick, startled look at him the night of the robbery and then the longer one when she’d hauled him downstairs, that she could never let anything bad happen to him. More than anything she wanted to snuggle closer into his arms and go back to sleep, but if she meant to carry through with her part of this odd partnership, she needed to get back to work.

Carefully, she slid out from under his arm and in the same motion stood, easing her weight off the bed. She shrugged into some shorts and headed barefoot into the main part of the suite. The security guards roaming the hallways concerned her; she had no reason to hide from them, but this was practice, and she wasn’t going to just allow herself to be seen.

Partino’s office was on the ground floor at the opposite end of the hallway from the security room and accessible from both the front utility stairs and the ones at the rear, which also accessed the estate’s private gym. She went down the back way, the quiet and dark like old familiar friends. It did feel good to be using her skills again, though the keen rush wasn’t there; if anyone saw her, they would just nod and let her pass.

Even so, she felt a definite sense of triumph when she slipped into Partino’s office unnoticed. The police had confiscated his computer and desk files, which would likely hold information about any recent transactions. Recent activity, though, didn’t necessarily interest her.

She unfastened one side of the police tape that crossed the front of Danté’s two large file cabinets. Pulling a small length of copper wire from her pocket, in a second she had the first drawer open. The files were in a numerical order which she assumed to be some sort of cataloging in order of acquisition. Sam went back to the desk, but if a master list existed, it was at the police station.

“Okay, we’ll do this the hard way,” she muttered, returning to the file cabinet.

The first file contained a photograph of the medieval tapestry that had been hanging in the gallery the night she’d broken in. Neat writing detailed when the purchase had been made alongside the initials RMA, so she assumed that Rick had made the purchase himself. Price paid, which property housed the item, and its precise display location also filled little squares on the form.

In addition, Partino kept an up-to-date list of current market values for comparable items, dating back ten years. Man, the guy was anal. Anal, but accurate.

She glanced through the files in order, though she only pulled out a few for closer examination. Some items were as small as a single Roman coin, while others were as large as a fourteen-meter fresco by Lorenzetti, painted in the mid-fourteenth century.

She kept slowing down to look at the photographs, wishing she had more time to study them and to see the works in person. Rick had acquired the majority of them himself, despite his stated reliance on Partino. His eye was remarkable.

By the third drawer she realized she hadn’t seen the file for the Picasso from the stairway. With three more drawers to go through, she couldn’t be sure it was missing—yet. The stone tablet file was back in Rick’s office, but something didn’t seem right.

The door handle rattled, and out of pure instinct Samantha dove into the shadows behind the desk. Rick leaned into the room, glanced around, and started to close it again. Then he stopped, his gaze focusing on the open file cabinet. “Shit,” he cursed. “Not again.”

Frowning, Sam rose out of the shadows to his right. “Sorry,” she muttered.

He gave a visible start. “Jesus Christ. You scared the bloody hell out of me. What are you doing down here?”

Rick hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, but stood there in his slacks and bare feet, hair disheveled and eyes sleepy,
much as he looked the first night they’d met. He’d even gotten annoyed with the wrap around his ribs and torn it off this morning. “How did you know I’d be here?” she countered.

“You weren’t there when I woke up.” He yawned, running a hand through his hair and giving it an even more riotous look. “I followed my nose. Scary how well I’m getting to know you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she answered slowly. It
was
scary, and unsettling—and arousing.

“So, explain.”

She flipped on the overhead light, making him blink and give her an annoyed look. “Okay. I’m not quite sure, but I thought I might find something interesting in here.”

“Something the police missed?”

“Something they weren’t looking for, maybe.”

A slight smile touched his sensuous mouth. “All right, Inspector Morse, what did you find?”

“Morse? You’re so
BBC America
. Why not Sherlock, or the American favorite, Columbo?”

“It’s three o’clock in the morning. You’re lucky I didn’t trip over a landmine, darling.” He slipped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. “Talk.”

Taking a deep breath, she nuzzled her cheek against his warm shoulder. “You’re not going to like it,” she murmured.

“I figured that. Try me.”

“I think some of the files are missing.”

“Samantha, I’ve collected antiques for better than sixteen years. That’s a thousand files of past and current acquisitions. And even if a file is missing, it doesn’t mean—”

“Do you have a master list somewhere, or do I need to go through the rest of these?” Her hunches were wrong on occasion, but they were right often enough that she had no intention of ignoring them.

“Stubborn, aren’t you?” he muttered, freeing his arm from around her and opening the top left-hand drawer of Danté’s desk. “Anything to convince you to come back to bed, then.”

She followed his gaze. “If that’s where the list is supposed to be, it’s not there. I already looked.”

“The police must have it, then. I’ll get a copy tomorrow.”

“Rick, there’s something wrong here.” Grumbling, she returned to the file cabinet. “Partino’s got a room at the estate, doesn’t he?”

“Down in the servants’ quarters. He almost never uses it—it’s just for nights he works late or wants to stay the weekend.”

“It’s the nights he works late that interest me, Brit.”

He blew out his breath. “This way, then.”

“You don’t have to come. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Yes, I do. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

The files weren’t in the small room Partino used for his rare overnight stays at the estate. As she looked through the near-empty chest of drawers it was difficult to miss the difference between the lavish suite Rick had loaned her and the tiny room with its twin bed and half bath that the estate manager had for his use.

“I would suppose the next step is to do an item-by-item check to see which of the files is gone.”

“
If
any of them are gone,” Rick amended, yawning again. When she didn’t answer he gazed at her for a long moment, his face shadowed in the dark room. “All right. How certain are you that we have a problem here?”

Sam grimaced. “I’d bet your Bentley that something’s not right with this—and that if we could figure out which files are missing, we’d know what the problem is.”

“Let’s go check the files, then.”

God, that would take hours. And while it would confirm what she already believed, it wouldn’t answer one large question—where the other files were, if they weren’t at the estate. “I have a better idea.”

“If it involves what’s under your shirt, I’m all for it,” he said, taking her hand in his as they returned to Partino’s office.

He liked to hold her hand. She’d noticed that right away,
and while it made her feel…confined, it also gave her a rush every time he went out of his way to touch her.

“Let’s say I’m already sure that the files aren’t anywhere here at Solano Dorado,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll accept that.”

“So, let’s also say I suggest that I go to Partino’s house and take a look there.”

Rick came to a stop so abruptly that she stumbled at the pull on her arm. “Beg pardon?”

“The cops will have been there, but they’re only looking for something to link him to explosives and to the tablet. Those files are important—Partino’s so anal that he wouldn’t have pulled them out of order in the file cabinet otherwise. And he couldn’t have destroyed them without giving himself a heart attack.”

“Samantha, you’re suggesting breaking and entering. B and E. Whatever the devil you call it.”

“And your point is?”

Rick glared at her in the moonlit hallway. Waking up to find her gone from the bed had sent him into an odd almost-panic, even though logic told him she would stay until she’d figured out what was going on. At the same time he’d been dismayed to realize that he was beginning to draw the investigation out. How many “wait until tomorrows” would she accept? Still, this seemed insane. “No, Samantha. We’ll talk to Castillo about it tomorrow.”

She returned his gaze for a heartbeat, then nodded. “Bed, then.”

As she started past him, he yanked her hand, turning her back around. “How stupid do you think I am? No, Samantha.”

Samantha put her hands on his shoulders and gazed up at him, her green eyes luminous in the moonlight. “Look at it this way, Rick. I owe you one. So unless you have a dungeon with a really good lock on it, I’ll see you in the morning.”