Hidden Gems (20 page)
Authors: Carrie Alexander
Tags: #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Man-Woman Relationships, #Love Stories, #Adult, #Category, #Women Lawyers, #White Star
“You don’t want to give it up.”
Nodding. “I’d keep it forever if I could.”
“You look like a desert princess. Your skin, your eyes, the black hair.”
She came into his arms, crumpling the newspaper between them. “I feel so…oh, I don’t know. Different.”
He played with a loose tendril of her hair, curling it against her pinkened cheek. “Different how?”
“I can’t explain. If I was the mystical woo-woo type of girl, I’d swear it’s the amulet. As if it has a special power.” She gave a skeptical laugh, but he could tell that some part of her believed what she’d said. “Whatever’s happening, I know that I’m more sure than I’ve ever been.”
“Sure of what?”
She blushed. “Of you and me. How much I love you.”
His heart might have stopped. Or maybe it was time that did. The rotation of the earth, the ocean tide. Something—anything—to mark this moment of pure joy.
“I love you,” he said, gently tilting her face for his kiss. The difference was there, too, a covenant that flowed between them like a river rushing into a waterfall. Sweeping them up, carrying them away.
They held each other for a long while, sharing soft kisses and sweet words, woven in the promise and power of love. He felt as if he could conquer the world.
Reluctantly she pulled away. “I should take this off, on the chance that it is genuine,” she said, stroking the ribbon. “The amulet’s probably very fragile.”
He followed her into the bedroom, smoothing and folding the newspaper before tossing it onto the bed. Her hands lifted to remove the necklace, but he said, “Wait.” Stunned by her beauty. “Let me look at you.”
Smiling, she lowered her arms. “Take your hair down,” he said.
She undid the bun, the braid, shaking her hair across her shoulders in a rippled ebony wave. “There’s a look in your eye,” she said. Her lips puckered into a kiss that he swore he felt from across the room. “What do you have in mind?”
As if she didn’t know. He was brimming with lust. “Wear the amulet.” Each word was distinct and separate and momentous. “Only for tonight.”
Her expression showed her inner struggle. “I can’t.” Reluctantly she removed the necklace and laid it carefully on the bedside table. “If it’s real, it must be worth a lot of money.” She turned to him. “Do you still want me without it?”
“As if there’s a question.”
She smiled, her bare arms curving into an invitation.
He pulled the lace curtains. The light diffused, throwing spangled lacy patterns across Marissa’s white dress and golden skin.
Savoring the moment, he approached slowly. She waited, her hands clasped. Different, yes, she was different. Patient and still. But also the same. The woman he knew so well that she’d become a part of him.
He slid the dress off her shoulders, kissing each inch of skin as it was revealed. Her nape, her back, her shoulders, her breasts. The garment fell away, pooling around her feet. He knelt, slowly peeling away her underpants. His fingers brushed across her hipbone, the flare of her hips, her legs like slender stems. His lips followed the same path. He breathed deeply, tantalized by her scent.
He glanced at the amulet. There was something fascinating about it, almost otherworldly. He sensed its power, even though ten minutes ago he would have scoffed in disbelief that such a thing might be true.
Marissa had begun to tremble. He scooped her up, laid her on the bed that had been stripped to its sheets. She sighed and relaxed, stretching out her arms so her hands dangled off the sides of the bed. Her face was serene. A goddess, giving herself over to a higher power, surrendering to fate.
He forgot about the amulet. Marissa, pure and bare and true, was fascinating enough for him.
Her lashes fluttered. A small smile appeared. “Don’t just stand there. Make love to me.”
That was her, all the way. He was almost relieved.
“As you wish, goddess.” He removed his clothing, letting the potency wash through him as she gazed at him with equal awe. There had been times he’d wondered if he was really the right man—enough man—for her, but now he knew. He felt it.
They would be together forever.
He lowered himself, taking her mouth first. She was sweet and fresh. Then her neck, the smooth skin of her shoulders. Her arms. He kissed the inside of her elbow and she sighed and wiggled her hips, nestling his erection against her flat belly. So hot and slick down there that he shuddered.
“Love you, babe.” He nuzzled at her breast. She shifted, sweeping her hands along his back in a luxurious stroke. Her fingers worked through his hair and she pressed, directing his mouth to her nipple. He teased it with his tongue, then suckled.
Her legs spread. He felt the honeyed heat of her like a magnet, inexorably drawing him in. The first thrust went deep and she flung back her head, her arms and legs flying in every direction as she was pinioned. Other times, he would have slowed, but his instincts were driving and she was squeezing down on him and he needed to be there, at the throbbing heart of her, where they merged into one.
They moved together, passion and pleasure becoming a molten flow. His blood pounded. She cried his name, holding nothing back.
Their climax was transporting. Transcending.
Then it was over, and they were utterly spent, gasping for breath as they floated back to earth. Even when their breathing quieted, there were no words that sufficed. He satisfied himself with holding her within the shelter of his crossed arms, counting the beats of her heart beneath his palm.
“You felt it, too,” she whispered.
“God, yes.”
“The amulet.”
“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
She said no more.
He kissed the back of her shoulder.
Her butt snuggled into spooning position. Paper crackled. She kicked a foot. “I’ll get it,” he said, reaching down to fling away the newspaper.
“Wait.” She plucked it from his hand. “I want to see the photo again. In my heart, I know that we have the amulet, but the cynical part of me says there’s no way it should be.”
“Love is a mystery. But I always knew there’d come a day for us. It’s the lace and flowers.”
She rattled the paper. “What lace and flowers?”
“In this bedroom. You’re a closet romantic.”
“Um.”
“I’m wrong?”
“I sublet this apartment, remember? The woman who had it before me was the one who decorated. If I ever get around to changing the decor, I’ll have Spanish tiles and white plaster walls with a bed made of bamboo. No lace. No flowers.”
“Oh.” He was taken aback for a moment or two. Then he threw back his head and laughed heartily. The joke was on him, but he didn’t care. Her heart had revealed itself, regardless of her preference in curtains.
She rolled onto her stomach to study the paper. “I don’t see what’s so darn—huh.” She gripped the page between her hands. “Wait…I know him!”
“Who?”
“This guy. This one.” She’d sat up and was stabbing the paper excitedly. “I recognize him from the airport.”
“Jean Luc Allard,” Jamie read. Sisman’s article delved into possible suspects in the Stanhope theft. They were identified by picture and name. Allard’s photo was a distant street shot, fuzzily enlarged and cropped on his face. “Are you sure? The photo stinks.”
“It looks like him. And he’s French.” Marissa bounced the heel of her palm off her head. “Of course. The cigarettes. The smell has been haunting me. He reeked of them at the airport and then—” She blinked. “Oh, my God. Allard is the one who’s been following me. He’s the smoker. And that must have been him at the bottom of the fire escape!”
“Wait a minute. If this Allard stole the White Star, how did it wind up in your bag?”
“He must have put it there. A woman bumped into me, and I fell, and he picked up my passport, I remember that. There’s your opportunity.”
“But why would he do it? If you’d been leaving the country, sure, he might use you to smuggle the amulet out. But you were returning.”
“Yeah, you have a point.” She frowned, thinking. “Okay, here’s the thing. There were a lot of guards and police around that day. If Allard thought they were going to pick him up, he might have wanted to ditch the amulet any way he could. In my bag. And since he looked at my passport, he got my address. So he could watch me.” She crowed. “That’s it!”
“Could be.”
“He tried to get it back. Coming home, remember? The mugger who went for my suitcase.”
“What about Freddy Bascomb? Were they working together?”
“I doubt it. Paul has no connection to the amulet.”
“Bascomb was stabbed…”
“Two blocks away.” She went white. “If Allard was keeping an eye on me all this time, he might have thought that Bascomb had taken the amulet.”
“This is making a weird kind of sense.”
“All those times I thought I was being watched,” she mused. “It was him. In the lobby, on the street—” She arched her brows at the barred window. “Probably even on my fire escape.”
“So we can’t blame all of it on Paul,” Jamie said, frowning.
“There’s enough blame to go around.” Marissa picked up the paper again. “At least now we know what’s been going on. After the White Star is out of our hands, life will go back to normal.”
“Will it?” Jamie asked. Do you want it to?
“You know what I mean.” She threw the paper aside and curled up beside him. “Here’s what we’ll do. In the morning, I’ll call my friend Trish. Her brother, Alex, works at an antiquities museum. We’ll have one of their experts take a look at the amulet to be sure it’s the original before we go to the authorities. That’ll save us some embarrassment in case we find out it’s a fake.”
“It’s not a fake.”
“Ah, yes, Allard,” she said, resting her chin on his chest. “Of course.”
“Allard’s not the proof.”
Marissa’s eyes met his. She was beginning to smile. A complex, knowing, slightly mysterious smile. The smile of an exotic goddess who’d captured his heart.
“This is the proof,” he said, reaching an arm past her as if he were going for the White Star on the nearby table.
His hand landed on her shoulder instead. Her brows rose with a question.
A question answered when he took her mouth in a kiss that was all the testament either of them needed.
There might be only one chance. He had to be vigilant.
The waiting and watching had taken their toll. He was restless, jumpy. His instincts hummed. Every noise from the apartment building made him twitch with anticipation.
He was on the other side of the street, lighting a cigarette in the shadow of a double-parked delivery truck when the door of the brownstone opened and Marissa emerged. Too late for work—a worrying detail. Accompanied by her troublesome boyfriend.
Allard pinched the cigarette from his mouth. Something was wrong.
She wore jeans and a clingy sweater, with a leather bag strapped across her chest, cradled in protective hands. The boyfriend was scanning the street. He hustled her toward a cab that had pulled up to the curb.
Allard tossed away the cigarette and sprinted across the street, coming within reach of their vehicle as it pulled away. He knew…he knew…
Allard whistled for a passing cab that didn’t stop. He ran it down, swearing in French as he saw the other cab signal for a turn. They were heading uptown.
He threw himself into the car, told the cabbie to floor it.
He couldn’t lose them!
They had the White Star. Even without the clues, he would have seen it in her eyes.
His greatest fear was that they were going to the police. His employer would never tolerate that.
But after a harried ride through traffic, they stopped outside a large gray edifice with Doric columns and tall windows capped by carved lintels. The letters etched above the columns read: Museum of Antiquities.
Allard’s pulse raced in step with the pair as they flew from the cab and up the stone staircase. Attempting a chase was not necessary. He’d accessed museums before, and would do it again, in a ploy more clever than running through the streets in broad daylight.
The White Star could change hands a dozen times over, but her fate would never be altered.
His were the hands she wanted—quick, skilled, secretive.
His were the hands she’d get.
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