Mischief 24/7 (22 page)

“If you say so, sure. Shoot.”

“All right,” Court said, wondering if he should consider someday writing his memoirs for his grandchildren. Bear Man would make a great entry. “We’ll be leaving in a little while, Miss Sunshine and myself, for an appointment downtown. I don’t anticipate any problems, but I do know that the man we’re going to see isn’t exactly happy with either of us at the moment, and that he travels with a bodyguard. A man named Leslie.”

“Leslie?” Bear Man put a fist to his mouth that didn’t quite cover his snort of laughter. “You want maybe I should send my grammy Yablonski, instead? She can beat him up with her walker.”

Court laughed. “Names can be deceiving,
Carroll.
”

Bear Man sobered quickly. “That’s not funny.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a strange day, Bear Man. Please forgive me. But you’ll do it? Nothing overt, but I’d like to be able to point the man out to you so that you can watch him. He shouldn’t bother us, but the guy seems to have a pretty quick temper.”

“He makes a move, I’m on him like white on rice, whatever that means. Put him down, show him the Bear Man Mangle hold. No problem.”

Court belatedly realized he might have wanted to choose another phrase besides
nothing overt.
“Our friend Leslie might be carrying a gun,” he added, as he felt it necessary to point out that possibility to Bear Man.

Bear Man only shrugged. “Okay, so I’ll do what I did when Chief Iron Claw and me turned bad guys for a while. I’ll use the Bear Man Massacre. That means I’ll come up on him from behind and dropkick him in the kidneys. For real.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Court said, knowing it was about all he could say. And then he heard the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle coming up the hill outside the gates and turned to watch as the motorcycle stopped.

“Don’t look much like a reporter,” Bear Man said, turning for the gate. “Hey, you! This look like one of them rest stops to you? Move it, buddy. Go pee somewheres else.”

The rider and the bike were both pretty impressive. The bike was a Harley-Davidson, vintage, with a terrific paint job and chrome so shiny it reflected every ray of the sun. The rider, who was
big
even still straddling the bike, was dressed all in black. Black jeans, black boots, black leather jacket with silver studs, black leather gloves that went halfway up his forearms, shiny black helmet with a black visor. Darth Vader comes to suburban Philly.

“Bear Man, wait,” Court said, watching as the rider reached for his helmet and pulled it off. “Son of a gun, she did it. She got him to show up. So now what?” he breathed quietly, and then shook his head, knowing the coming interview wasn’t going to be easy. “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water—Bear Man, it’s all right. This is the guest I told you about. Let him in.”

“If you say so, Mr. B,” Bear Man said, retreating into the gatehouse to push the button that opened the gates. “Hey, would you look at that—it’s Sam and Miss Jolie. I didn’t know they were coming back today.”

Court watched as the gates opened and Jermayne rolled his bike on through before pulling off to the side of the drive and letting the Town Car pull up and stop beside Court.

The rear side window rolled down, and there was his cousin Sam, grinning at him. “Hey, Court, it’s nice of you to come down here to welcome us home. I didn’t expect rose petals strewn in our path, but where’s the confetti?”

“Hi, Court,” Jolie said, leaning across Sam’s lap to wave at him. “Hop in and we’ll drive you up to the house.”

Court looked at Jermayne, who was suddenly looking like the world’s biggest, blackest rabbit, and about to run like one, too. “Uh, no, that’s okay. You guys go ahead. Jade might still be down near the pool with Ernesto. You want to tell her Jermayne’s here to see her? Just first tell me what you’re doing here. We thought you were flying to Ireland in a couple of days.”

“My co-star slipped on a blonde last night getting out of the bathtub and dislocated his shoulder,” Jolie told him. “Shooting is postponed for six weeks, minimum, so we thought we’d fly back here and surprise you.” She grinned. “Surprise!”

“C
OURT BECKET
in the flesh, this is a nice surprise,” David Langsdowne said, his gaze on Jade even as he held out a hand to his boss. “And here I thought the negotiations were going pretty well.”

“As far as I know, they are,” Court said, shaking the man’s hand. “Let me introduce you to my friend, Jade Sunshine. Jade, this happy, smiling man is David Langsdowne. He’s about to make the Beckets casino-hotel owners, aren’t you, David?”

“It’s so nice to meet you, David,” Jade said, forcing a smile as she simultaneously tried to take in the over-the-top decor of the hotel lobby. “This is the hotel you’re buying, Court? It’s, uh, very nice.”

David, a tall, black man with a rather uncanny resemblance to Denzel Washington, gave a discreet snort. “Nice?
Pul-eeze.
This place is backstage Hollywood 1930s Babylon on acid, Miss Sunshine. If the gods are kind and we get this deal done, the whole evil empire comes tumbling down like the walls of Jericho—keeping with the biblical analogies, not to say that Vegas isn’t still Sin City.” He winked at her. “Even if it is, the kiddie rides and all that family-fun nonsense to one side.”

Jade didn’t know what to say to the man, so she just looked at Court, who was laughing and shaking his head. “Did David just say you’re going to buy this place and
then blow it up?”

“That’s the plan, yes. The hotel has a fairly small footprint compared to the newer casinos, so we need to devote the entire ground floor to the casino and then just go up, up, up. Still, it will be a relatively small hotel. We’re going for quality, not quantity, and targeting high rollers—whales, as they’re called. David, I’m assuming you’ve found room for us somewhere?”

David handed him a small folder with a key card inside. “I was on it, Court, the moment I heard you were here. Top floor. One of the high-roller suites, or so they tell me. I hope you don’t mind pink bathtubs. I have a meeting in ten minutes with the owners, who are taking one last shot at playing coy. They’ll stop that when I pull out the financial statements for their last three operating quarters. I’m in full shark mode today, especially now that our Fearless Leader is on-site. I hope to see you later, Miss Sunshine.”

Once David melted back into the aimlessly milling crowds of tourists, Court offered her his arm and they walked toward the bank of elevators. “Jade, you look so amazed.”

“That’s because I am,” she said quietly. “When you said you were thinking about buying a hotel and did I want to go see it, I didn’t think you meant you were going to buy a hotel and then blow it up.” She looked at the two-story-high frieze she was pretty sure was meant to denote a sultan’s harem room complete with concubines, and winced. “Although, on second thought, it might be a good idea, actually.”

“Sorry you came?”

She shook her head. No, she wasn’t sorry she came. She was sorry about the argument she’d left behind her, and the last words she’d said to Teddy:
I’m old enough to make my own decisions.

And his answer:
Old enough to make your own mistakes, you mean. And this, my starry-eyed little fool, is a doozy. Your name might be Jade, but in your heart, you’re Margaret Mary. Don’t you forget that.

Jade knew she shouldn’t have been surprised by the argument. She and Teddy had only maintained an uneasy truce since the day she’d shown him the roses Court had sent her. In fact, it might have been the charged atmosphere in the Sunshine house that had her saying yes five days later when Court had called and asked if she wanted to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend.

They’d spoken every day on the phone, but Court had dropped her back in Philadelphia on his way to England and round-the-clock meetings on some project or another. She’d met him at the airport six hours ago, and after he’d kissed her hello he’d pretty much apologized for being so tired and then lain back in his seat after George handed him a blanket. He’d slept all the way to Las Vegas, trying to make up for so many changes of time zones.

She’d spent most of that time marveling at the scenery they passed over and watching him sleep, and she’d enjoyed every moment of her quiet vigil.

Now, in what seemed to be a blink of the eye, she once more had been transported from her rather ordinary life and plunked down in Court’s world, one that couldn’t be more alien if he had lived on Mars.

“You live in a whole different world than I do, don’t you, Court?” she asked as they stepped into one of the elevators and he pushed the button for the top floor. When the other occupants got off on the seventh floor, she said, “Maybe even a whole different universe. My question is, what am I doing here with you?”

She imagined he thought the swift, hard kiss that had her clinging to him mindlessly was a good answer. Actually, it was. A very good answer.

The elevator doors opened and Court waved her out into the hallway, looking at the room number arrows before taking her hand and quickly leading her to their left. He fished the key card from his pocket and opened the door, once more waving her ahead of him.

“Oh… my…
God,”
she said as she stepped into the suite, and then put her hands to her mouth to hold back the giggles. “You’re right, Court. You have to blow it up. Quick!”

The room was enormous, she’d give it that, but that only meant there was more space to fill with gilt and pink silk and faux-marble pillars and filmy, flowing sheer draperies and X-rated statues and… “Is that a fountain?”

“Watering hole for the camels, which are also probably pink,” Court muttered, and then swore under his breath.

Jade turned to look at him. He seemed genuinely disgusted, not even slightly amused.

“Come on, we’re leaving, right after I break David’s neck for not checking out the suite before he gave me the key, short notice or not. I’m sure we can get a suite at another hotel.”

“Court, no,” Jade said, laughing. “It’s all right. It’s funny. Look. You can lie on that couch over there and I can peel grapes and feed them to you. Unless the ghost of Rudolph Valentino shows up to woo me away. Then, as we high rollers like to say here in Vegas, all bets are off.”

“This isn’t how I planned our weekend,” Court said, still looking upset, even embarrassed. The big business tycoon, flustered, looking so very masculine in the middle of this cotton-candy-pink fantasy room. She liked that; it made him less intimidating, more human.

“No? How did you plan the weekend, Court?” she asked him, slipping her arms around him as she laid her cheek against his chest. “Tell me. Did it start with a seduction?”

He kissed the top of her head. “That would be in the way of a rhetorical question, I hope. God, Jade, I missed you. Phone calls aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, not when all I want to do is hold you, make love to you.”

He kissed her then, and any doubts that had haunted her during the time he was gone, after the arguments with Teddy, disappeared in that instant, banished if not vanished as she returned his kiss, as they somehow made their way toward the trio of faux-marble stairs that led to the dais holding the ridiculously large, pink-silk-festooned bed.

The one with the rather unique ceiling above it.

Jade, lying on her back, with Court delightfully nibbling on her right earlobe, started to laugh. Silently, trying not to interrupt the moment. But since Court was sprawled half on top of her, he could feel her body shaking, probably sense that she was holding her breath for some reason.

“What?” he asked her, raising his head to look into her face. “You’ve got a ticklish earlobe?”

Jade couldn’t hold back her laugh. “No! But… but you’ve somehow picked up a bit of string on your… Wait, I’ll get it.” She pulled the length of pink string from his rump and held it between them so he could see. “All gone.”

He looked at the thread, looked at her. “How did you know there was a… Oh, for crying out loud.” He grabbed on to her and rolled over onto his back, so that he could look up at the ceiling and their reflection in the large, gold-veined mirror.

“Let me up, Court,” Jade said, not sure she was showing her best side at the moment. “You’re right, we should go somewhere else. Someplace where the words
den of iniquity
aren’t in their advertising slogans. Court? Court, let me up. What are doing?”

He had one hand on her waist as he eased down the long zipper on her simple green sheath dress. Slowly lowered the zipper. “Interesting. Sort of a do-it-yourself striptease. Nice bra. The black is a nice contrast to your creamy white skin.”

“Which is a not-so-interesting-or-nice contrast to the embarrassed red in my cheeks,” Jade said, trying to twist away from him. “We’re not kids, Court. Cut that out.”

She felt the snaps of her bra release.

“Court? You’re not listening to me.”

“Probably not, no. Long zipper Ah, and now the black panties. Anyone would think you dressed for the occasion.”

“I did, smart-ass. Just not
this
occasion.” She closed her eyes, swallowing hard as he slipped his hands beneath the low-riding waistband of her panties to cup her buttocks, pull her more tightly against him. “This is turning you on, isn’t it?”

“You noticed?” he asked, breathing the words into her ear. “You have the most incredible body.” He moved one hand, trailing it up the length of her spine and then back down again, sending shivers through her. “How do we get rid of this dress?”

Jade had given up trying to fight him. He took his hands off her and she pushed herself up, straddling him as she slipped her arms out of the dress and her bra straps. He helped her push up her hem until she could get a good hold on the material she then lifted up and over her head, sending both the dress and the bra flying onto the floor.

She was about to slide off her panties when he stopped her. “No, not yet.”

Jade felt an immediate tightening between her legs, a highly pleasant physical reaction not only to his words, but his tone.

“Take my hands,” Court said, and when she did, he let her pull him up until, wearing only her black panties and her black heels, she was straddling his lap.