Flirting With Danger (9 page)

“I don’t think so, your lordship. Not before dessert. And don’t make such a fuss. I’m fine. My guy patched it. I just pulled it open, squatting up there.”

“Get me a clean cloth,” he barked, and Reinaldo reappeared a moment later with a hand towel. Gauging the antagonistic look in her green eyes, he pointed Reinaldo back toward the door. With a half grin, the housekeeper vacated the dining room, closing the door behind them.

“What do you think you’re—”

“Take off your shorts.”

She tried to face him, but he pushed her forward over the table. “This isn’t very romantic. Aren’t you even going to offer me a glass of wine first?” she said over her shoulder.

“You got this saving my life,” he growled, holding her down with a hand against her spine. “Why did you say you weren’t hurt?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is. Now stop fooling around and take off your damned shorts. This isn’t a seduction. I want to make certain you’re all right.” Just then Joseph reappeared, her purse clutched in his hands. “Put it down and get out,” Richard ordered.

Samantha held still for a moment until the door closed again, then, with a not-quite-easy sigh, she unbuttoned the yellow shorts and slid them down.

Noting both her cute pink underwear and her smooth, warm skin, he knelt behind her. Trying to curb his rather ungentlemanly and impractical urge to slide his hands up the
insides of her thighs, he took her purse and dug into it. He’d actually been imagining having Samantha bent over a table like this since she’d dropped through his skylight, but not under these circumstances. “Super glue?” he asked, holding a tube of something in front of her.

With a tight nod, she snatched the purse from him. “This is personal property.”

“Yes, but whose?”

She snorted. “Fuck you.”

“I deserve that, I suppose,” he returned. “Do you really want me to do this? I can call a physician. He’ll be very discreet. I promise.”

“No. Just pinch the sides together, run glue over it, and hold it there for a minute. And don’t get any on your fingers, or we’ll be stuck together.”

“Ah. And we wouldn’t want that.”

He thought he heard her attempt a chuckle, which he considered a good sign. “No, I really don’t want your hand stuck to my ass. Especially with Donner already attached to yours.”

It was a very nice ass, actually, trim and muscular and well suited to her long legs. He gingerly peeled off the tape and the bandage high on the back of her thigh, drawing in a sharp breath at the sight of the wound. “This isn’t just a cut,” he muttered, carefully cleaning the blood from her leg. “You need the emergency room.”

She was silent, and after a moment he noticed how tightly her fists were clenched across the table. God, it must hurt. Wiping at the wound again, he gingerly pushed the two edges together and glued.

To her credit, she did no more than gasp, but it had to be killing her. “Almost there,” he murmured. “Then we’ll have some wine and sorbet.”

“Addison?”

“All right, finished,” he said, blowing gently to make sure the glue had set and carefully moving his fingers, stroking
his palm down her leg as he did so. Nobody had that much self-control. The glue held. “How’s—”

He didn’t finish speaking because she fainted dead away, collapsing bonelessly into his arms.

Saturday, 6:54 a.m.

Samantha awoke to the sound of men muttering. Peeling open one eye, she took in dark draperies inches from her face. “Green,” she mumbled into a soft pillow, trying to remember where the hell she was.

Footsteps approached from somewhere beyond the curtains. “Good morning,” a deep voice rich in faded Brit said, and she remembered.

“Oh, shit,” she breathed, pushing up onto her hands and knees.

“Samantha, it’s all right. You fainted.”

As she shifted, the rest of the room came into view beyond the bed hangings. Addison alone would have been bad enough, but he had someone else with him: A thin, bald man with Drew Carey glasses and a goatee. “Who the hell are you?”

“He’s my physician,” Addison said. “Dr. Klemm.”

She rose onto her knees, silk sheets sliding from her shoulders to her calves. He’d put her in damned silk pajamas, too. Pink ones, yet. Rescuing her hardly called for him to put her
in appropriate nighttime wear. A British gentleman who apparently liked his women in dainty pink. Stifling a half-amused grumble, she squirmed through the heavy luxury to sit on the edge of the bed. “I told you, no doctors.”

“And I told you he would be discreet. You have nothing to worry about, love.”

She had several very good reasons to contradict that statement, but as she opened her mouth to do so she realized that her thigh actually did feel better. Her shoulder did, as well, and she experimentally rotated her arm. When she felt reasonably sure that she was grateful, she looked up at her host.

He was casual again today, once more in jeans and a black T-shirt with an open white shirt over it, and brand-name athletic shoes on his feet. “You don’t look like a billionaire,” she commented, pretending it didn’t bother her that she’d been completely vulnerable for eight hours. Dammit. Passing out had not been part of the plan, and she needed to pull herself together.

“No? What do I look like, then?”

“A soccer player, or a professional skier or something,” she returned grudgingly, admitting to herself that it was true. “One of those guys who pose for jock calendars.”

Addison grinned, the expression lighting his gray eyes. “I’m hell on skis.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Ahem. Well, if anyone cares, your leg took fifteen stitches, young lady, and your shoulder took seven. Super glue is very clever, but I wouldn’t recommend it on a regular basis. Rick said I’d probably never see you again unless you were unconscious, so I put in the dissolving kind of stitches. Don’t pick at them.”

Hm. Discreet and competent. It couldn’t hurt to know a doctor like that—one who made house calls, yet. Sam smiled at him. “I don’t know why Mr. Addison thinks I’m so hostile,” she said, ignoring the sound Addison made. “From the way my cuts feel, I think I owe you lunch, Dr. Klemm. With dessert.”

“Apple fritters?”

Her grin deepened. “My favorite. And I know a place that makes the best in the county.”

“Then you’re on, Miss Jellicoe.”

Addison stirred, stepping between them. “Any other medical instructions, George?”

“Not really. I’d avoid the pool and baths for a week to ten days, but quick showers are fine.” The doctor gazed at her for another moment, his expression mildly amused. “I took the liberty of changing the Band-Aids on your back and slopping on some antiseptic. There’s some more ointment on the table.” He indicated a white tube of something on the nightstand.

“Thanks. I’ll call you for lunch.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Addison gestured toward the main part of the suite. “I’ll see you out, George.” As they left, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Stay there. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She waited on the bed until the hall door closed. Her borrowed shirt and shorts were nowhere in sight, but her pink bra lay on the chair beside the bed.
Great
. So he’d seen her naked. She wondered whether he approved her size
B
’s. Most of the models who claimed to date him were considerably more top-heavy. At least he’d left her panties on.

Trying to convince herself that she didn’t care what he thought didn’t work any better than pretending she didn’t enjoy the attention he paid her. Sam stood and burrowed back into the massive closet, which seemed to have given birth to even more clothes overnight. More jeans and T-shirts and blouses and shorts, most of them mysteriously in her size. Somebody had a personal shopper. Selecting a blue-and-white short-sleeved blouse and some jeans, she retrieved her bra and headed into the main sitting room.

Well, he might have seen her tits while she was passed out, but he wasn’t going to see them this morning. Teasing and flirting was one thing; giving him the grand prize would mean losing her best leverage—and considering the way he made her skin tingle, it would also mean losing her perspec
tive. She locked the main door and headed for the mammoth bathroom, closing and locking that door as well, just for good measure.

The shower felt heavenly, and only stung her cuts a little. She found deodorant, a toothbrush, and toothpaste waiting for her in the medicine cabinet, and by the time she had dried and combed out her hair she felt almost like her usual self. If not for the small matter of an arrest warrant hanging over her head and a very handsome British guy playing hell with her libido, she would have called this a good morning.

She half thought Addison would be sitting in the room waiting for her when she emerged, lock or no lock, but he was nowhere in sight. Then someone knocked on her balcony window, and she nearly popped her stitches. “Jesus,” she muttered, stalking forward to push the curtains aside.

“Hungry?” Addison asked from the far side of the glass door, grinning at her disgruntled expression.

She unlatched the door and opened it. “Don’t you ever work?” she asked, noting the table, two chairs, two place settings, and two stacks of pancakes and glasses of orange juice with what looked like a heaping bowl of fresh strawberries in the middle. Reinaldo stood down on the pool deck, obviously awaiting further orders.

“Coffee, I assume?”

“Diet Coke, if you’ve got it.”

He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Instead, Addison waved at the housekeeper. “A Diet Coke, and tea for me.” He pulled the chair out for her. “Have a seat.”

“Any word from Harvard or Castillo this morning?” she asked, reaching for a strawberry and biting it in half.

“It’s only seven-thirty,” he returned. “Give them a little time. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes.” She grimaced. “I’m not usually like that. I said I would help figure this out, and I will. I guess I was just more tired than—”

“Samantha,” he interrupted, his expression serious, “con
sidering the circumstances under which you received those wounds, you don’t have to make excuses for anything.”

The backs of her thighs tingled at the look in his eyes. Heat. She’d been with men before, but she couldn’t recall one that gave off that masculine heat, the electricity, the way Rick Addison did. Maybe he thought size
B
’s were a nice change. “All right.”

“So eat your pancakes.”

Reinaldo came with the tea and Coke, and Sam occupied herself with popping the tab and pouring it into the very nice glass he’d supplied, complete with palm-tree-shaped ice cubes. She’d acknowledged yesterday that she wanted to trust Addison, when a long time ago she’d learned she couldn’t trust anyone but herself.

“You don’t have to sound so magnanimous,” she commented around a mouthful of pancake and maple syrup. “You undressed me.”

“Yes, but I didn’t look.”

“Liar.”

Addison laughed. The sound was low and genuine, and it made her chuckle in return. Their eyes met, and her laughter faltered a little. Who would have thought—Samantha Jellicoe enjoying the company of someone like Richard Addison. No, not someone
like
him. Him. Over and above the role-playing and the unexpected lust, she was beginning to enjoy
his
company—and that was trouble.

“All right, I looked a little. But it was necessary.” He sipped his orange juice. “I can’t believe you did those acrobatics in my office and threw Tom into the pool while you were injured like that.”

Relieved at the change of subject, she shrugged. “I would bet you’ve been playing hurt.”

“Yes, but I went to the hospital.”

“I saw, on the news.” She reached up and flicked his black hair out of the way, revealing a small butterfly bandage across his left temple.

Addison caught her wrist. “You watched me on the news?” he asked, his lingering smile warming her in some nice places inside.
Keep your distance, Sam
.

“I…wanted to know how much trouble I was in.”

“Have you ever been in this much trouble before?”

He still held her arm, his fingers gentle on the pulse running along her wrist. A light breeze rustled through the bordering palms, stroking along her skin and sending a strand of hair across her left eye. “No. Not that I recall.”

Richard wanted to kiss her. He wanted to lean across the table and touch his mouth to hers, to taste the syrup and strawberries on her lips. If she’d been any other woman in the world, he would have done it. This one, though, required care and caution, and so with surprising reluctance he released her, bending only enough to brush the wisp of hair from her eyes. “We’ll get you out of it.”

The cell phone on his belt rang. When he flipped it open, Tom Donner began barking at him before he could even finish saying hello. “Jesus,” he grumbled, grimacing at Samantha, “will you stop shouting?”

Tom lowered his voice, but it didn’t make his news any more palatable. Halfway through the diatribe Richard cut him off. “Just bring the insurance papers and get over here,” he growled, slapping the phone shut.

“Bad news?” Samantha asked. She’d been watching him during the entire conversation, her absurd Diet Coke in her hands.

With a deep breath he pushed away from the table. “Do you know Etienne DeVore?”

Samantha frowned, her fingers tightening on the glass. “Why?”

“You do.” Coming around the table, he gripped her arm again and pulled her to her feet. The warning came into her eyes, but he ignored it, yanking her back into her borrowed suite. Abruptly he wasn’t thinking of kissing her as much as he was worried about keeping this maddening woman alive. “How well do you know him?” he demanded.

“Not well,” she snapped, pulling free. “Why?”

“He…” Richard counted to five, pacing to the door and back. “The police found him this morning.”

Her fine brow furrowed. “Etienne? You’ve got to be kidding. Spider-Man couldn’t catch DeVore. As for the Palm Beach Po—”

“He’s dead, Samantha.”

Her face went gray. Richard strode back to catch her, but she waved him off, instead sitting on one of the overstuffed Georgian chairs. “Oh. Oh.”

He took the seat beside her. “You
were
close. I’m sorry.” However tough she obviously was, he had no business telling her the news with the finesse of a sledgehammer. At the same time, he wanted to know just how well she’d been acquainted with someone the Paris police referred to as “le chat nuit.” Of course she was a creature of the night, herself—which was why it could well have been her body being dragged out of the Atlantic and identified by Interpol agents.

“How—” She stopped. “Where?”

“North of Boca Raton. They found him washed up on the beach.” He took a breath, abruptly wishing he hadn’t been the one to give her the news. “Donner said they didn’t have an autopsy report yet, but he’d been shot.”

Samantha balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes. “Shot,” she repeated dully. “Etienne said he always figured he’d die old and rich and surrounded by half-naked women on some island he was going to buy.” Abruptly she stood, walking to the patio door and back again. “We never expect we’ll get shot, or blown up, or even caught, you know. If you think you’re going to fail, you don’t do it. But Jesus. I liked Etienne. He was a pain in the ass, but he was so…alive.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, sensing as he had on a few previous occasions that this was the real Samantha—and that above and beyond the lust, he liked her.

“It’s not your fault. Etienne chose to live the way he did, the same as I do. He—” She blanched again. “I need to make
a phone call. Shit.” Spinning toward the hall door, then returning to him again, she actually knelt at his feet. “I need a phone they can’t trace,” she said, her face pale and very, very worried. “I can’t—”

Richard pushed to his feet, grabbing her hand to touch her, even if she didn’t want him to comfort her. Even if he wasn’t certain how to go about comforting her. “Follow me.”

Her hand gripped his with surprising strength, but he pretended not to notice as they strode down the hall to his office. He locked the door behind them and directed her toward the desk.

“You could get in trouble for this,” she said, sitting behind the chrome and steel as he indicated.

“I’ll manage. Line three. It’s direct.”

She picked up the handset, then paused, looking at him. Richard waited for her to ask him to leave; he wasn’t going to volunteer to go. Whatever she decided, though, she didn’t say. Instead she pushed seven numbers in quick succession. A local call, though he couldn’t make out more than two or three of the numbers she dialed.

“Stoney?” she asked, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “No, it’s all right. Shut up. What are biscuits without honey when you golf?” While Richard scowled, she smiled a little into the phone. “How’s your pillow? Good. Good. Bye.”

“What the hell was that?”

She hung up the phone, closing her eyes. “He’s okay. I should have realized, but with Etienne, I wanted to be sure.”

“Samantha, no secrets.”

Green eyes opened again, studying his face. “I don’t know about that,” she murmured. With a deep breath she stood. “But I need your help again.”

“That’s fine—if you explain to me about the biscuits and pillows. Otherwise, forget it.” He’d heard the name Stoney before, from Donner’s fax. Walter Barstone, the man the police had under surveillance. Her “guy,” no doubt.

“It’s code. Once we settled in around here, we came up with an area-specific code. We do that for wherever we are.”