Kingdom by the Sea (Romantic Suspense) (29 page)

“I want you,” she
breathed and pulled on his neck.  He must have understood, because he slid up
next to her so they were face-to-face again.  Now their bodies were sandwiched
close together as both lay on their side, facing one another.  “Are you on
birth control?” he said.  She shook her head no.  “Hang on, I'll get
something.  I think I've got a condom in my wallet.”

He started to sit
up, but she said, “No, I'll get it,” because she was closer to where they had
dropped their clothes.  She turned her back on him and began climbing toward
the edge of the bed, when suddenly she heard him say, “No!”

Abruptly she was
grabbed, the air nearly knocked out of her as Michael pulled her back and she
landed flat on her back on the bed.  “I'll get it,” he insisted raggedly, and
in seconds he was back, on top of her again, leaning up on one elbow, with a
condom in the other hand, and it was kind of a strange moment.  She wasn't sure
why he had stopped her from getting the condom herself.  Was he afraid she'd
see a photo in his wallet or something?  A photo of a wife or girlfriend?  No. 
She pushed the thought out of her mind completely.  This was their perfect
moment and she wasn't going to ruin it.  Instead, she teased him, “And
why
were you carrying a condom in your wallet?”

Almost boyishly
he grinned down at her then.  “It's a guy thing.” 

One long kiss
later, they were hot and heavy again, she was clutching him, gripping his back,
digging her fingers into his flesh, urging him on with soft panting breaths,
and they were making love hungrily.  “Just relax, sweetheart,” he had coaxed
her at one point.  Her last impressions as she drifted into a light sleep were
of Michael tangled up with her, moonlight cutting across the room, the sensual
smell of his skin, and the low, husky sound of his voice when he whispered her
name. 

***

“Tell
me something nobody knows about you.”

“Wow...that's
a lot to choose from.”

“What
do you mean?” Nicole asked curiously, tilting her head up to look at him.  “Who
knows you best anyway?  Your brother?”

Back
to that fake brother he had invented.  Women never forgot anything.  For some
reason it was annoying to him that he was perpetuating that lie. 

But
he supposed a fake answer was just as good as any answer.  The truth was, he
was hard-pressed to think of any close friends he had right now that were not
linked, at least in part, to his financial interests.  “Yeah, I guess my
brother,” he lied.  “What about you?  Those guys Cameron and Trevor?”

“Um,
probably my sisters.”

“What's
up with those guys, by the way?” Michael asked now, glancing down at her.  He
tried to keep the slight edge of jealousy out of his voice.  It was unlike him
to feel proprietary, yet suddenly he did.  But what the hell?  Nothing about
this job had exactly been typical so far. 

For
instance—he hadn't planned on this sexual detour with Nicole.  Though he
supposed once they had started spending time together, he hadn't ruled out the
idea, either.  When that moment came, he hadn't been able to help himself.  There
was no doubt that she was a sweet girl; he genuinely liked her.

In
fact, if it all worked out the way he intended, she wouldn't even know that he
had taken something from the house, or that she'd been deceived.  They would
simply part ways and lose contact the way that men and women did, all the
time.  There was nothing so newsworthy about a fling fizzling out.  Granted,
this girl was hardly the fling type.  Undoubtedly she would be hurt, thinking
that he blew her off.  But crushes and hurt feelings were not the worst things
in the world. 

“What
about Cameron and Trevor?” Nicole said now.  Her eyes were searching and open. 
She was too damn open.  Someone had to tell her about that, warn her about
that.

“Did
you have something going with one of them at one time?” he asked.

“It’s
funny you ask.  Cameron and I did date a few years ago.  We're just friends
now.”

“
You
might be,” Michael pointed out.  “But he's not.”

“No
really,” Nicole insisted.  “I know, they say women and men can't be friends,
but—”

“They
can't,” he interrupted.  Then, despite himself, he grinned.  “Look at us.”

That
inspired a blush.  It was dark in the room, except for the moonlight filtering
through the sheer curtains, yet Michael could see the flushed pinkness of
Nicole's cheek. 

Again
that uncomfortable feeling edged in, the one that made him want to forget this
whole thing.  He thought about Caleb's money.  And then he thought about how it
was all too late.  Even if he wanted to leave with this job unfinished...well,
Lucius wasn't just going to shrug his shoulders and go home. 
Someone
was going to finish the job and if not Michael, then Lucius, or maybe worse
than Lucius—that part he still didn't know.

“You
know, you could always sell this house, Nicole.  You wouldn't have to work for
awhile.”

“True,
but what am I supposed to do if I don't work?  I'm twenty-seven.  That's too
young to live a life of quiet contemplation.  You can only read so many books,
and you can only philosophize so much while wearing a monocle and velvet robe...”

He
ignored her sarcasm.  “You could travel,” he suggested, running his fingers
across Nicole's spine.  Her skin was so soft, it felt almost satiny. 

“But...why
would I want to go anywhere
now
?” she said, blinking up at him. 

He
hoped she wasn’t counting on him to be around.  Guilt edged in again.  His
chest tightened.  With a sigh, he tried to expel the feeling.  This was dumb. 
Nicole was sweet, but sex shouldn't change anything.  This was a gig, a job. 
The chemistry between them was just one of those things.  Why was Michael
stressing so much all of a sudden? 

If he
stressed over anything, it should be the fact that he still didn't know the
identity of Lucius's partner.  Who was this
Chatham
resident?  This person determined
to possess the valuable “little girl in a blue dress”?

There
was no reason for Nicole to get hurt, he told himself again.  Once he found the
painting, he could lift it, broker with Lucius's partner, so that Lucius
couldn't short change him, get Caleb his money back, and then be done with it. 
And everyone would be happy.  Eventually.  Well, hell—who was really happy,
anyway?

Nicole
woke up with Michael's arm wrapped tightly around her; she could feel his face
in her hair and his naked body spooning hers without a hint of space between
them.  She could hear a steady, low-pitched snore coming from him, and she
smiled to herself.  She hated to move because Michael had her in such a cocoon
of an embrace; she didn't want to break the spell or to wake him up.  But then
she had an itch.  It must have been a wisp of her hair that was skating across
her face.  She ignored it for a few minutes, until it just became too annoying
and prickly, and so gingerly she crept her hand up within the wrap of Michael's
arm. 

Of
course, as she feared, Michael stirred beside her.  His snore halted; he
cleared his throat and shifted his body.  Well...he was sort of awake
anyway...and a certain issue was still nagging at her.  “Hi,” she said.  “I
have a question.”

“That's
different,” he mumbled.

“This
one's embarrassing.”  Before she lost her nerve, she asked, “Do you have a
girlfriend at home?”

“Shh.” 
He snuggled closer.  “No, of course not.”  After a pause: “And why is that
embarrassing?”

Relief
swelled in her chest.  “Because...if you did, I would be embarrassed right
now.”

“If I
did, I should be embarrassed, not you.”

Probing
further, Nicole said, “So when
was
the last time you had a girlfriend?”

“Hmm...a
couple of years ago now.”

“Was
it serious?”

“Nah,
not really that serious.”

“What
about your last serious thing?  I mean, have you ever been in love?”

“I
don't think so.”  After a kiss, he drew back and said, “By the way, you know
those 'Future is Wild' shows?  With all the CGI animals?”  Nicole nodded.  “I
love those.  One time I watched a marathon of them on the Discovery channel for
about eight hours straight. 
There
is something no one knows about me.”

Nicole
started to speak but Michael swiftly cut her off.  “No, no more questions.  You
have exceeded your limit for the middle of the night.  Better luck next time.” 
Then he pulled her flush up against him, pressing his erection against her
bottom, and sliding his warm hand down her stomach.  “You're so warm,” he
murmured into her hair.

“So
are you,” she said, because his naked body was like a furnace.

“Warm
all over,” he continued, “inside and out...”  His hand moved lower. 
“Yep...it's like a fire down there...” he said, stroking her between her legs. 
Catching her breath, she sighed and shut her eyes.   Soon the conversation
drifted away.

***

It
was only later that she and Michael swapped ideas about “the treasure.” 

Nicole
went first: she told Michael about the “FLOWERS” clue and how she'd realized it
to be a reference to the hydrangea flowers that had been delivered to the house
when she had first arrived.  How her aunt had been the one to order the
flowers—specifically three Annabelle hydrangeas—which seemed inevitably
connected to “Annabel Lee,” the poem in the book that Nicole had come across in
the library.

Michael
threw her for a loop by first gently brushing some errant strands of hair away
from her face, and then asking out of nowhere: “Does your aunt have a cellar?”

“No...”
she said.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because
I was thinking.  We've been trying to figure out where your aunt is trying to
lead you and we never even considered the cellar.  Maybe the treasure—you know,
assuming there is one—is down there.  But if she doesn't have a cellar, there
goes that theory.”

“No...but
you know, it's funny you say that,” Nicole remarked, just remembering.  “When
Abel showed up he said something about Nina having a wine cellar—but she
doesn't have one.”  The words that followed seemed to form on their own.  “That
I
know
of anyway.”

Michael
raised his eyebrows to her.  “What do you think?  Think maybe Abel knew
something you didn't?  He was your aunt's boyfriend, after all.” 

“Oh
my God, you're right!  Maybe there
is
a cellar beneath the house and I
just never knew.  And maybe there's something in there—and Abel knew it and
that's
why he was so eager to get inside the house!  Preferably without me here!”  It
was all conjecture but it made an eerie kind of sense.  “Oh my God,” Nicole
murmured, feeling her pulse kick up.  “But if there is a cellar, it must not be
accessible from inside the house.  Maybe there's a trap door on the ground,
somewhere around the house?  Maybe covered by shrubs?”

“Sure,
maybe,” he agreed.  “Although there could be an entrance from inside the
house—but not one that's in plain sight.”

“You
think?” she said doubtfully.

Michael
shrugged.  “It's possible.  Let's look around.  If not, we'll check outside.”

Before
they parted, she turned back to him.  “By the way, 'Future is Wild' was a good
start.”

Several
minutes of exploration passed.  Thinking of Caleb's Pub, Michael looked for
wall panels that were really doors, knobs or pulls that served as handles,
anything like that, when suddenly Nicole called, “Come here!  Check this out!” 
He tracked her voice to the kitchen pantry.  It was a large walk-in space with
mostly bare shelves.  Nicole motioned him to the back corner.  “I moved this
out,” she said, motioning to a storage cart beside her.  “It was shoved in this
corner, but look!  Behind it, is this handle, and...”  She pushed it open.

“Good
job!  What made you think of that?”

Hands
out, she shrugged.  “Nothing, really.  I was just looking all around.  And it
occurred to me that I didn't know if this big pantry was always a pantry, or
had been originally part of another room.  It's not like this is a hidden door,
as much as an obscured one.” 

Michael
led the way. 

With
his pulse on edge, he braced himself for anything and nothing.  After all, just
because the place had a cellar, didn't mean the cellar held the answers—or more
specifically, the painting.  But still, it made more sense that at least there
was one.  Considering Nina Corday's house was a traditional home on a large
property—why wouldn't there be a cellar? 

In
near darkness, they walked down the hollow wooden steps.  Since they couldn’t
find a switch on the wall, they had only the light streaming in from the
kitchen.  “Here hold on to me,” he said.  A violent chill seemed to shake
Nicole; Michael felt her shiver fully behind him. 

“It's
freezing down here!  Which, if it
is
a wine cellar, I guess would be
okay since Aunt Nina drank only white wine...we really need a flashlight.”