The Black Sheep and the English Rose (5 page)

Finn knew he was being baited. What he hadn't expected was how hard it was not to let it get to him.

“Oh, John, don't sound so pompous,” Felicity teased, interjecting herself into the conversation with casual ease. She spoke to Reese quite comfortably, like old friends. Or lovers.

Finn hated the doubt that began to creep in.

She rested a hand briefly on Reese's forearm. “Tell us what exciting deal you're cooking up with Yvgeny, here.” She gifted the Russian with a fast, charming smile. “We're being quite rude, intruding on your business dinner, but it's so rare John and I get the chance to catch up, what with him always in a rush, and me being so tied up all the time.”

Her smile spread, and Finn felt her toe nuzzle his ankle as she continued talking. Flirting was more like it, not that the Russian was buying anything she had to sell. Yet. Finn would have enjoyed sitting back and watching her work the table if he hadn't had to stay so alert to every nuance of even the slightest reaction in either man.

“Come now,” she continued, “the least we can do is allow you a moment to gloat over whatever wonderful item it is that John has craftily secured for you. I'm certain I'll be jealous and wish it were mine.”

It amazed Finn how innocent and sincerely enthusiastic she came off. Not that either Reese or Andreev were falling for it, but it was good to know just how broad her range of acting skills was. They both might need them before the evening was over.

“I promise to pout only for the briefest of moments when I hear what fabulous find I've missed out on.” She looked at Yvgeny. “I'm afraid I'm quite the spoiled child my father—bless his departed soul—always accused me of being when it comes to acquiring new baubles. I can be ever so determined, to the point of petulance, when I don't get my way. But never let it be said that on the rare occasion I don't emerge the victor, that I don't extend the lucky winner my heartiest congratulations for a battle fiercely won.” Her smile spread. “Though, I'll admit that I do keep track of those lost opportunities. You never know when they might surface again.” She glanced at Reese. “And I so hate to lose anything twice.”

Andreev gave up eating all together, his dead stare presently pinning Reese squarely to his seat.

To his credit, Reese didn't exhibit the slightest shred of panic, despite the fact that it was clear the Russian was visibly quite unhappy now. “My darling Felicity Jane, I'm well aware of your rather obsessive proclivities, but, as even you must know, you can't have all the toys.” He turned his most charming smile on the three of them, white teeth flashing now. It was a striking difference from the man they'd first walked in on, and very effective. “Whatever would the rest of us do for fun?”

Felicity rewarded his blatant attempt to lighten the suddenly tense mood with a delighted laugh and swat at his arm. They were saved from further conversation when the sommelier arrived with Felicity's requested bottle of champagne. She turned a charming, confident smile on all three men, as if commanding the attention of a room full of admirers was quite the normal evening activity for her. For all Finn knew, it probably was.

“I thought it only fair that I come bearing gifts. I hope you'll see fit to forgive me, Yvgeny,” she went on, favoring the Russian with the full force of her charm. “Please, enjoy a glass of some wonderful champagne, won't you?”

Andreev stared at her for a second that stretched quite uncomfortably. Finn was a heartbeat away from coming out of his chair, as every protective instinct he owned flared to life. But Andreev abruptly stood instead and turned his attention to Reese. He spoke in rapid Russian, then ended in English with, “I'm afraid I shall no longer be requiring your services. I'm certain you will be hearing from my employer.” He shoved his chair back roughly enough to draw attention from several nearby diners, but exited the dining room swiftly and quietly, with no further dramatics.

The noise in the room quickly resumed normal levels. Except at their table, where the tension remained high, as did the resulting echoing silence.

Reese very calmly folded his napkin and laid it across his plate, his dinner half eaten. “I'm afraid I've also lost my appetite.”

Felicity's lips formed a distressed little moue, but the light in her eyes gave away her true feelings. “I'm so sorry if our intrusion had anything to do with that.”

Reese signaled the waiter, then stood as the young man crossed the room. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said to them, then looked to the waiter. “Please include their dinner and anything else they desire on my bill, Edgar.” He pushed in his chair, then lifted a satchel Finn hadn't noticed he'd tucked under the table. “I trust you'll also enjoy the remainder of your stay in New York. You'll have to forgive me if I say I hope our paths don't cross again.” He looked to Finn. “Pleasure meeting you, Dalton.” He glanced at Felicity, held her gaze for a moment longer than necessary, then favored her with a brief smile before turning and exiting the dining room as well.

Felicity picked up a menu left behind by the waiter and flipped it open. Not so much as glancing in the direction of the departing Reese. “Well,” she said, sounding quite satisfied, “that went rather splendidly.”

Finn didn't know whether to throttle her, go after Reese, or order dinner. Chasing Reese right now would be pointless, as the man almost certainly had a town car waiting at the curb and would be long gone before Finn could exit the room. Felicity Jane could be supremely frustrating, but she was far from stupid, so he trusted she already had a few ideas about where Reese was likely to go next. Which left dinner.

He opened his menu and skimmed over the list of entrees.

A moment later he felt Felicity's toes stroking the inside of his ankle. He didn't look up.

She merely laughed and stroked his leg a bit higher. His body—traitor that it was—leapt to life.

“Don't be put out with me,” she said, amusement still clear in her voice.

He continued to look over the menu.

She sighed, and stopped toying with his pant leg. A moment later she folded her menu, took a sip of champagne, then quite casually said, “Order quickly, darling. We have a hotel room to break into.”

“H
e won't come back here.” Finn crouched in front of the hotel door and slipped the demagnetizer through the key card slot. “We're breaking and entering for no reason.”

Felicity angled her body so anyone exiting the elevator wouldn't immediately see what Finn was doing. Or trying to do. “I could have gotten the key card from the bellman; then we wouldn't be breaking into anything. Technically.”

Finn stood and opened the hotel door, motioning her inside first. “After you.”

“Always a gentleman.” She moved past him with a swish of her skirt. “And I agree with you. It's doubtful he'd come back here after our little dinner party earlier. I'm sure he's changed hotels by now.”

“If not cities,” Finn groused, following her inside. “So, pray tell, what are we doing here?”

“Looking for clues before the cleaning service gets to work.”

Finn glanced around, taking in the perfectly pristine dresser top and nightstand. “Because someone like John Reese would write fully detailed directions on hotel stationery and leave it carelessly by the bedside telephone?”

Felicity wandered slowly around the room, eyeing every detail, from the clean surfaces to the way the blinds were set. Then she turned and walked over to the ice bucket and lifted the lid. “Ah.”

Finn was in the process of opening every drawer in the place, but paused to look at her. “Ah, what?”

“Ice bucket with melted ice.” She turned once again in a slow rotation. “Gauging from the water left and the state of the ice cubes, I'd say he did come back here after dinner. Surprising.”

“To pack and check out, most likely, so he could get the hell out of the city.”

“If so, why get ice?”

Finn folded his arms. “Maybe he needed a drink to calm himself down after his lovely dinner plans went to hell.”

“Possibly. Except…I'm thinking he didn't just come back here to pack.” She wandered into the master bathroom. “Bingo.”

Finn came to the door and leaned against the frame. “Because?”

Felicity turned, holding a long-stemmed crystal glass that still had a sip or two left in it. She swirled it, then sniffed. “Champagne. And quite a good vintage.”

“You can tell that from a sniff?”

She smiled. “I'm sure some dedicated enthusiasts probably could. Not me.” She stepped around the partitioned shower and picked up the black and gold bottle. “Chantal Neuf. Distinctive packaging. I guess he must have liked the one sip he had at dinner. Or, knowing John, he's had it before. I'm surprised the hotel would have it in their cellar, though.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her just how well she really knew John Reese, but instead, Finn walked over and picked up the second glass, careful to use a napkin so as not to smudge prints. “Nice shade of red lipstick.”

Felicity glanced over her shoulder. “A bit tarty if you ask me.”

Finn grinned. “What, Reese didn't treat you to expensive champagne?”

She set the bottle down and opened the shower door. “The only thing I want from John Reese is that lovely little bauble he's squiring about town.” She leaned back to look at him around the frosted glass door. “And I'm not talking about the two-legged, tarty one.”

Finn laughed. “Any ideas who the woman is?”

“I was rather hoping that was something you'd uncovered in your background search. I wasn't able to learn anything about his personal life, other than he didn't seem to have much of one. Apparently he takes being discreet quite seriously. Bully for him, but not so lovely for us.”

At least that smudge of lipstick somewhat explained his complete disinterest in her earlier this afternoon. She'd oh-so-cleverly had him meet her for tea in her penthouse suite, ostensibly to discuss Foundation business, then make small talk about why he was in town, wheedle a little information. She'd met him at the door with her hair in a towel, covered head-to-toe in a hotel bathrobe, claiming she'd lost track of time after her massage and would he be a dear and pour tea while she dressed?

She wasn't one to use sex as a ploy, in either of her avocations, but then, she hadn't actually planned to have sex with the man. Though, if she were a different sort of woman, it admittedly wouldn't have been much of a sacrifice. He did have a way about him. A far too clever way, as it turned out.

She'd left the door to her bedroom carefully ajar, enough to allow him a glimpse of her in her lingerie as she moved from bathroom to closet to dress. She'd called out for him to take off his jacket and make himself at home, hoping her casual slip-into-something-comfortable demeanor would encourage him to let his guard down, perhaps turn his attention more to her personal needs than her business ones.

Her backup plan if he hadn't been feeling chatty was to ply him with as much tea as she could muster while drawing him out on the subject of Foundation business, and, if she was lucky, slip a hand into his jacket pockets later while he was making use of the bathroom facilities.

And her backup plan had worked beautifully, too, netting her a small card case that had included, among other things, a card from Antoine's and, beneath the cards, a small silver key. She recognized it as a train station locker key, probably belonging to the locker where her lovely sapphire was currently residing. She'd been overjoyed with her finds and quite happy with herself. Right up until the moment she'd heard the private penthouse lift kick into gear, signaling the return of their waiter. And, unfortunately, causing her to completely miss the sound of the toilet flushing. She'd been caught red-handed, as it were. A rare slip for her, but a very costly one.

She'd tried to talk her way out of it, but Reese was no fool. He'd put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Foundation business wasn't really why she'd been maintaining contact with him for the past several years.

To his credit, Reese had been quite the gentleman while divesting her of her dress and hosiery. He'd already retrieved the card case, with key, from her possession, but had ignored her offer to let bygones be bygones. Five minutes later she'd been bound quite efficiently to the bed with her own stockings and his tie.

Less than ten minutes later, Finn had found her.

“I do know he doesn't work with a partner,” Finn said, drawing her attention back to the matter at hand. He was turning the glass so he could look at it under the bright bathroom lighting. “Which makes this either a business meeting to set up another buy”—he carefully set down the glass on the counter, then leaned down to scoop up two damp bath towels from the hamper—“or something more personal.”

“With the Russian connection dissolving at dinner, I seriously doubt he came back here to dally around with someone just for the fun of it,” she said. “It had to be business of some sort.”

“Of course,” Finn added, smiling, “you don't work with a partner, either. Until now. Desperate times, and all that.”

She arched a brow. “Meaning you think he was backed into a corner? Calling in a few favors?”

“Or performing them.” Finn shrugged, and grinned in the face of her glare. “Whatever works.”

“Honestly, Finn.”

“Here,” he said, clearly enjoying her huff far too much, but then he was handing her the glass with the lipstick, a napkin wrapped carefully around the stem and saying, “Let's get back to my place and see what we can find out about our tarty mystery guest.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I keep a place in town.”

Her surprise must have shown, because he lifted a broad shoulder and said, “You keep a car; I keep a brownstone. We need what we need.”

“Are you in town all that often?” A tingle of heightened awareness shivered over her as she wondered how many times their paths might have crossed in the past two years, given how often she'd done Foundation business in Manhattan. She'd thought him buried in the rural pastures of the Virginia countryside, running his little charitable organization or some such. In fact, she'd prided herself on not doing more than a cursory check or two on him after he'd left her in Prague. But the truth was, even though she'd thought that not giving him more of her actual time and effort would help to diminish the continued impact he had on her thoughts and quiet moments, it hadn't helped one bit.

She thought about him every time she accepted a new assignment, wondering if this was going to be the time he'd pop up again. And there were other times, usually when she woke up too early, restless and pent up, feeling needy and more alone than a woman of her means had any right to complain about. It was during those times she'd close her eyes and remember what it had been like, what it had felt like, to be with him. She was a confident woman, who handled her affairs, both private and public, with relative ease. But only with Finn had she been such a complete and total wanton. No one had tapped in to her inner core as he had done, and he'd done so almost effortlessly.

“Shall we?”

She snapped out of her reverie, realizing she'd been staring at the champagne glass in her hand. Finn likely thought she was brooding over not getting the attentions of John Reese.
Fine
, she thought,
let him think that
. More the better for her if Finn never knew the level of fascination she'd had for him. Still had, apparently. Dammit.

She tried her best to appear unaffected and coolly in control as she sailed out of the hotel room in front of him, the carefully wrapped glass tucked into the Hermes tote she kept stashed in the town car in case of spontaneous shopping trips. But Finn's long-legged stride kept him right at her back. And she could feel him there, just behind her, in a rather primal way that had no bearing whatsoever on what was actually taking place. She blamed it on the damp towels and lipstick-smeared champagne glass. All too suggestive for her suddenly overheated imagination.

Finn reached past her and pressed the elevator button. When he stepped in after her, she felt a bit claustrophobic, as if he was suddenly taking up way too much space, using up way too much of her precious air. And yet, he was standing a respectable distance from her, not so much as looking at her. Which did nothing to stop the little mini fantasy from playing out in her mind. She couldn't seem to keep herself from imagining what would happen if she suddenly jammed the emergency button, stopping the lift between floors, then catching his reflected gaze in the mirrored walls.

Mirrored walls that would show them from every angle as he saw the need in her eyes, pushed her up against the silvery tiles, and pulled her legs up around his hips. He'd shove her skirt up her thighs as she wove her fingers into his hair and took the weight of his mouth on hers. Their tongues would be dueling, mirrors steaming, her panties—snapped from her hips—in a crumple on the tiled lift floor.

She knew exactly, remembered perfectly, the depth and breadth of him, the way he filled her so fully, so completely. She would arch into him, taking him as he drove her back up the wall, spine arched, chin tilted, exposing her neck to his greedy mouth, gasping as he shoved her higher so he could nip and tear at the tiny row of buttons keeping her dress closed, her nipples aching to the point of pain from wanting his warm breath, his damp tongue, caressing them, sucking them. She'd moan, and thrust her hips, and—

“Have a problem with tight spaces?”

She blinked her eyes open at the sound of his voice, then flushed furiously as she realized that last little moan hadn't taken place in the fevered depths of her highly realized fantasy. “Not usually,” she managed, wishing her own tight spaces would stop reminding her of the problem she was currently experiencing. Namely wanting the man next to her to invade them. Often, and with great fortitude.

Finn let her lead from the elevator, though the cooler, damp air of the underground parking garage did little to calm her steamed thoughts. Or body. He held the door to her town car open as he had before, only this time she wasn't nearly as composed. It was lack of food, she was certain, causing her to experience such dodgy behavior. They'd ended up skipping John's offer at Antoine's, leaving the tea and biscuits she'd shared with him earlier as her only source of energy for the day.

“I don't suppose you have a chef on duty at your place?” she inquired, wanting like mad to find her way back to solid ground.

“Hungry?”

Ravenous,
she thought, only she wasn't picturing food as she had the thought. She glanced out the window and summoned up her most regal intonation. “I could do with a light meal, a sandwich or salad perhaps. I'm afraid all I've had today is tea and champagne, and a few biscuits.”

“And here I was hoping you were thinking about dessert.”

She wouldn't look at him. Couldn't. The last thing she needed right now was him baiting her in any way that was remotely sexual. She was baiting herself quite well, all on her own. “First things first,” she somehow managed, knowing full well she'd likely need a whole lot more than a full meal to give her the strength she apparently needed to deal with him on a continued one-on-one basis. Especially seeing as she was going to be behind closed doors, in private with him, at least for the next several hours. With a bed handily nearby. She sighed a little, not caring at this point what he thought.