Through the Night (3 page)

Interesting
was putting it mildly.

With that knowing, sexy twinkle in his eyes, the man was nothing short of a rogue. While he seemed to look forward to their future interaction, she was wondering if she’d survive the sizzling attraction between them. Now that she’d learned of his psychometric abilities, she wondered if her fiery response to him was due to their combined psychic gifts, if the strong energy surrounding them was the reason why she was so super-sensitive to his touch.

It was the only thing that made sense.

Feeling restless and mentally unbalanced, she stood and took a few steps away from him. “Honestly, I know little to nothing about antiques, so I’m not sure that I’ll be of much help to you.”

He straightened from his chair, his expression suddenly serious. “I wouldn’t have agreed to take on a partner if I didn’t believe you’d be of some service, even before I knew who you were,” he said meaningfully, and in reference to their earlier run-in downstairs.

He sounded so certain, and at this point she had to trust that both Caleb and Steven believed she’d make a difference to Chase’s quest for this unattainable antique. Which meant sharing a meal with Chase to get to know him, and the case, better.

She checked her watch. “I guess I’ll go ahead and call the maître d’ at the hotel restaurant and reserve us a table for dinner.”

He shook his head, drawing her gaze to the golden streaks in his tousled hair, the kind of natural highlights from time spent in the sun. “I’d rather we discuss everything in a private setting so there aren’t other people around to overhear our conversation. How about you come up to my suite say, about six thirty, and we’ll have dinner there and talk.”

Where they’d be completely alone. She’d prefer an open, public area where she felt more in control of him and the situation, but he wasn’t offering her a choice, and that assertive attitude of his gave her a glimpse of yet another facet of his personality. The man was used to taking charge and probably didn’t hear the word no very often. Especially when it came to women.

She tipped her head to the side and regarded him with a slight smile. “Do you always get what you want?”

He looked initially surprised by her question, then laughed in a combination of amusement and sexy arrogance, the low, deep sound stroking across her skin like a silky caress. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Dear Lord, that’s exactly what she was afraid of, because the heated look in his eyes clearly stated that he wanted
her.

Chapter Two

Chase headed up to his suite at the Onyx, a smile on his lips and his mind completely occupied with the intriguing woman in Caleb’s office. The one who’d been assigned to assist him in acquiring what everyone believed to be nothing more than pieces of a walking cane Al Capone had custom designed, then had deliberately disassembled before being incarcerated for tax evasion back in the 1930s. Once the cane was restored to its original condition, it would be a unique piece of old-time gangster memorabilia for Steven’s extensive collection, just as the man wanted.

But for Chase, that cane led to something far more priceless and valuable.

When Steven Wilkes had recommended that Chase take on an assistant to help him with the search, he’d been annoyed by the suggestion that he couldn’t handle things on his own. As someone who went to great extremes to acquire rare, valuable antiquities, Chase didn’t play well with others, and he always worked solo.

The fact of the matter was, he’d never needed a partner, not when his psychometric abilities usually led him to the object he coveted. Sometimes the discovery happened quickly and easily. Other times, like now, he had to work for it, which was fine with him. He enjoyed a good challenge, but this was the first time that the item in question remained just out of his reach.

It was frustrating as hell, and the truth was, Chase needed a break of some kind, because every road he’d traveled down thus far resulted in a dead end, and he still had no other components to go with the top ivory piece of the cane he’d discovered, quite by accident, at an estate auction six months ago. He might possess the awesome ability to read tangible objects, but if he didn’t have something authentic to lead him to what he was searching for, then he was shit out of luck.

That summed up his current position.

But his situation wasn’t all bad, considering whom he’d be spending time with for the next few weeks, Chase thought as he let himself into the over-the-top opulent penthouse suite he’d been given for his stay in Vegas. Seeing Valerie walk into Caleb’s office and finding out
she
was his assistant had made the prospect of having a sidekick more tolerable and oh-so appealing. He was a guy who had no set rules against mixing business with pleasure. Hell, he was a rule-breaker to the extreme and lived by the motto that life was too short, and if it felt good, do it—and often.

And touching Valerie felt good.
Really
good.

These days, not many things took Chase by surprise, but he was still a little taken aback by the surge of heat and lust that accompanied both their handshakes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so instantly and overwhelmingly attracted to a woman. He’d forgotten how exciting it felt to be so enticed and tempted. How fun it was to have to work to get a lady’s attention beyond the normal flirtatious grin and charming conversation. How much he loved the thrill of the chase because it made the surrender that much hotter.

He’d never lacked for female companionship or offers of no-strings-attached sex—like the redhead earlier at the craps table who’d made it clear with her actions and words that she was more than willing to spend an evening in his bed—but his interaction with that other woman had been too easy. Too trite. Too predictable. And no challenge whatsoever.

Valerie provided that sexual stimulation he’d been missing for a while now, both mentally and physically, and there was no doubt in his mind that the awareness was reciprocated. He’d seen the flash of desire in her eyes, had felt the wild beat of her pulse beneath his fingers when his hand clasped hers, along with something more. So why not let their attraction take its natural course and see where it led?

He supposed their joined psychic abilities were partly responsible for heightening the sensual vibes between them, but he’d also been blown away on a gut level as well. He didn’t know the complexities of how psychometry meshed with other extrasensory perceptions, but there was no denying that this thing with Valerie was different from anything else he’d ever experienced with a woman.

Everything about Valerie fascinated him, even if he couldn’t come up with a logical rationale to justify their strong visceral connection. Then again, he’d long ago stopped dissecting his gift and trying to find a scientific reason to explain how a lightning strike had been the catalyst for his unusual talent of reading historical objects.

As his wise old grandfather had once told him, sometimes there were no clear and easy answers to life’s mysteries, and you just had to accept the unexplained. Unfortunately, his family didn’t feel the same way. His parents, brother, and sister had long ago disowned him because they believed he made a living as a charlatan, and someone who preyed on others’ misfortunes.

There was no convincing his close-minded and judgmental family otherwise. He’d tried, only to have his father issue him an ultimatum to get a respectable job. But Chase wasn’t cut out to be a doctor or lawyer, as his parents expected, and by saying no to his father’s demands, he’d found himself essentially written off as their son.

It was just another painful reminder of how he’d always been the black sheep, and never really fit into the Pierson family dynamic. Instead of his parents accepting him for
who
he was, they’d turned their backs on him without ever trying to understand what had happened to him the day he was struck by lightning.

He hadn’t asked to become psychic as a result of that accident, and he would gladly have traded all the wealth he’d amassed in the years since he discovered his talent if only he could go back in time, change the events of the past, and save his childhood best friend. Doug’s death on that very same day would haunt Chase for the rest of his life—especially since it should have been
him
who died that fateful day.

While some people turned to alcohol or drugs to cope and numb the pain of that kind of loss, for Chase, it was all about going on high-risk adventures and the surge of adrenaline that pumped through his blood when he faced the possibility of danger head-on. It was the only thing that made him feel alive and allowed him to forget the past for a while, and eased the pain of survivor’s guilt.

But no matter what wild and reckless activity he indulged in, once the exhilaration ebbed, there was no escaping the deeper level of anguish and regret that weighed so heavily on his conscience. Despite his fun and exciting profession, he was always aware that something more meaningful and significant was missing from his life. Chase was hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this elusive treasure of Capone’s would finally fill that empty void deep inside his soul, and allow him the contentment he’d been searching years for.

With a little over a half hour until Valerie arrived at his suite, he fired up his laptop and pulled up his notes on the missing pieces of Capone’s cane. He knew every written detail by heart, but he reread them anyway, always hoping he’d come across some subtle clue he’d missed somewhere along the way that would give him the
aha
moment he was looking for. But again, nothing new came to light, confirming that he’d well and truly exhausted all his own personal connections.

Which made Valerie’s presence on this case all the more necessary, he admitted grudgingly.

Releasing a heavy sigh, he closed the document and checked his e-mail. A message came through from Tony Angeletti, Steven’s newly hired curator, who was managing Steven’s extensive collection of mobster memorabilia and was in the process of getting the pieces logged and ready for an upcoming exhibit at the Onyx. Tony seemed just as excited as Steven was to be able to display Capone’s cane in its entirety, and had been Chase’s main contact over the past month.

As Chase had requested, the e-mail contained hotel reservations and flight times for his trip to San Francisco the following afternoon—his and Valerie’s first stop to reassess the information he’d discovered through his own personal investigation and see where it led, based on Valerie’s intuition.

At 6:30 sharp, a knock sounded on the penthouse door. He shut down his computer and walked across the marbled entryway just as she knocked a second time.

As soon as he opened the door to greet Valerie, that inexplicable pulse of awareness they shared hit him like a blast of sexual heat and spiraled right to his groin. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, and he knew she’d felt that strange electrical charge on her end, too.

Damn, he didn’t even have to touch her to be sucker-punched by all that overpowering sexual chemistry simmering between them.

“You’re certainly prompt.” He let an easygoing smile lift his lips, keeping things light and casual, even as his gaze took in her feminine features—beautifully sculpted cheekbones, lush pink mouth, and soft brown eyes that made him wonder how they’d look in the throes of passion.

But as much as he desired her, there was no mistaking the reserve on her end, and the last thing he wanted was for her to feel like a lamb to his wolf.

She shrugged her shoulders, drawing his eyes to the way her cream silk blouse shifted and slid across her full, firm breasts like a lover’s caress. “I hate to keep people waiting—or be kept waiting myself.”

“Well, just for the record, you’re worth waiting for,” he replied in a lazy drawl as he opened the door wider for her to enter.

Seemingly growing used to his flirtations, Valerie just shook her head and laughed. Accepting his silent invitation, she walked past him into the penthouse, deliberately giving him a wide berth. Obviously, she was taking great care not to come into any kind of physical contact with him, for risk of setting off another round of fireworks between them.

He stifled a grin as he closed the door and then led the way inside. He quite enjoyed the sparks they generated together, and was looking forward to “accidentally” touching her at some point tonight. Just for the fun of it, because watching her get all flustered made him hot. And yeah, focusing on their attraction kept him from thinking about the strange and unfamiliar
need
she stirred in him that went beyond his awareness of her.

“Wow, so this is how the other half lives,” she murmured from behind him, her voice filled with awe as she got a better view of the entire penthouse.

“It’s a perk of the job, as well as of being in business with the owner of one of Vegas’s most opulent hotels and casinos.”

In his line of work, and being a successful and sought-after treasure hunter, Chase was used to living the good life, and he enjoyed all the fringe benefits that came his way. Yet he was always aware of what his gift had ultimately cost him. The life of his best friend, the respect of his family, and the possibility of a normal future with a woman.

Over the years, he’d learned just how difficult it was to form a lasting relationship with a woman, most of whom were skeptical of him once they discovered he possessed a psychic ability. After being burned by the people he’d trusted the most, his family, he’d come to realize it was so much easier for him to keep his real emotions locked up tight, instead of opening himself up to yet another rejection of who he was as a person.

If he didn’t let anyone close enough to know the real Chase, then he didn’t have to deal with the pain of the past that still haunted him, and that was perfectly fine with him.

Hell, most days the only thing that kept him relatively sane was the adventure of his job, and those life-or-death risks he took that deliberately stared the grim reaper in the face and dared him to complete what he’d left unfinished all those years ago.