“Do?” Robert asked, shocked, his eyes still trained on his bed.
“Yeah. About the crew that cleaned that guy’s place out.”
Robert’s first thought was an image of Frank Pugh’s greedy eyes on Cleo’s bare thighs and cleavage. He’d wanted to tell Stevie that it sucked he’d been robbed, but maybe he should spring for his own home security system. He’d wanted to tell Stevie that their contract was with Kismet, not Frank Pugh, so there was nothing for them to do. He’d wanted to scoff and tell Stevie that it sucked that bastard got robbed, but he didn’t actually care.
But then his mind had pulled forward a picture of Cleo’s face. Her eyes were big and sad, her lush mouth had drifted into a frown. He’d asked her if she wanted a drink and wherever her brain had gone, she looked… regretful, hurried, sad. And he knew in that moment that whoever the hell Just Cleo was, she was connected to Frank Pugh’s robbery.
“Get me a copy of the police report as soon as it’s in the system,” Robert had said, heading back downstairs. He’d grabbed the keys to the Porsche and headed out the front door. “And ask Detective Flores if he can put a discreet BOLO out on my Jag.”
“Your car got stolen?” Stevie asked.
Robert’s hand had stuttered toward the ignition and stopped. He took a deep breath, contemplating all his options. “No,” he finally said. “I’m letting a friend borrow it. But I need it back.”
He’d almost said “her.”
It took him nearly four months to figure out that Just Cleo was Cleo Wright. He burned through every contact he had, on the wrong and right sides of the law, investigating crimes that seemed eerily similar to Frank Pugh’s casual home invasion. Along the way, he’d been frustrated, angered, and eventually even a little bit impressed at Cleo’s gang’s reputation and her impressive collection of wigs.
There was an international notice for a group of indeterminate composition wanted in the EU for a string of art heists; a woman with long bone-straight black hair was suspected of colluding with them. In Argentina, a group “of some size” was suspected of swindling nearly three million dollars from a famed winemaker in a counterfeit land deal, and the winemaker suggested that a Black American woman with honey blonde hair “and a large beautiful posterior” might be involved, although he stressed that he would not like her to be arrested. The unofficial word on that case was that the winemaker would like to marry the woman who might — “or might not, he keeps saying” — have been involved in the theft. Domestically, there were too many crimes for him to even wrap his head around. A car theft ring in Las Vegas that was maybe connected to robberies of vacation homes in Lake Tahoe, that may or may not have grown out of some fake Airbnb rentals in the area but were definitely connected to a cross-country black market in identity theft. It was staggering. Impressive. Terrible.
And none of it made Robert any less obsessed with finding her again.
He spent months digging through grainy surveillance images from all over the world, focusing on the blurry images of the woman suspected of being involved in a string of robberies targeting rich, horny men, too embarrassed to fully disclose their relationship with her or reluctant to tie a woman they hoped to get back with federal crimes. Besides, few people were certain it was the same woman in all of these cases, and Robert could understand that. The image quality was so low-grade and the woman’s hair seemed to change constantly, so Robert could understand why there was such confusion on the part of people who’d never met her. But Robert recognized Cleo immediately. He didn’t focus on her ever-changing hair or even bother trying to decipher facial features in such bad images. Instead, his gaze traversed the contours of her body. He would know her hips anywhere; he’d dug his fingers into them so hard while she rode him that he’d probably left marks. He’d traced every inch of her soft thighs with his hands and his mouth. And he’d spent every day since she’d disappeared with his father’s watch and his favorite convertible reliving every second they’d spent together.
Robert Shimizu would have recognized Cleo Wright anywhere.
But figuring out who she was, was only half the battle. Once he knew, he had to find her, and that proved none too easy.
In the meantime, Robert had been forced to use those security images to… slake his thirst. He hadn’t planned to download them a month after she’d disappeared. Or pull them up that night as he walked naked around his bedroom “to get a bit of work done before bed,” the same bed where she’d fucked him to sleep. By the time he was pouring lube on the head of his dick, however, planning didn’t matter; all he could feel was lust as he jacked himself off to those blurry images of the con artist he was methodically – albeit desperately – searching for.
It was during one of those… sessions… that he realized the best way to find Cleo was to make her come to him.
Somewhere in the back of his mind — probably the same place where he’d buried that persistent voice that said he didn’t just want to find Cleo, he had to — he’d hoped she might show up at his doorstep. She hadn’t. And she probably never would. And then his plan was clear. All he had to do was lay out some bait and set a trap. And what better trap for a woman who liked to relieve rich men of their money and prized possessions? A charity gambling tournament.
A scammer’s buffet.
seven
Cleo took a step back for each step Robert Shimizu took toward her — although not a big one.
When the back of her legs hit the registration table, she took a deep breath, and he took hold of her right forearm. His grip was firm, but not too tight. To an onlooker, it probably looked casual, but there was nothing casual about the flips Cleo’s stomach was doing, or the hard flint in his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was going to hand her over to the police or bend her over the table and fuck her for everyone to see. She shouldn’t have, but she shivered at the uncertainty of it all. In response, his other hand gripped her waist, much too hard to be casual, and pulled her body flush with his.
Robert’s head dipped forward. Her lips fell open as his mouth came closer and closer to hers.
“Did you miss me?” he asked.
Her soft gasp was the only answer she could offer, and it was so inappropriate. She should have been terrified, but she was thrilled, her pussy especially. She should have been trying to figure out how to get out of his grip, this hotel, this state asap, but all she could think about was what his thick beard — a new addition — would feel like rubbing across the hard points of her nipples. She tilted her chin up, not enough to brush their mouths together; not yet.
His fingers dug into her thick waist and she was certain she felt a hard protrusion between them.
“Did you miss me?” he whispered again.
She licked her lips, the tip of her tongue just brushing his mouth. “Depends. You here to arrest me or get on your knees?”
His hands involuntarily clenched around her, obliterating any confusion about whether or not he was hard. She imagined slipping her hand between them, unzipping his pants and stroking his dick right here, right now, in the middle of this crowded event. In fact, Cleo had spent six months dreaming of all the things she wanted to do to Mr. Shimizu if she ever saw him again.
“I’m not a cop,” he said. “But I can get some handcuffs if that’ll get you wet.”
“I’ve got an entire drawer full of handcuffs. And I’m already wet. So if you’re not here to arrest me…”
“Just because I’m not a cop doesn’t mean I’m just going to let an international con artist go.”
Cleo melted into his hold and smiled up at him, flashing her long, false eyelashes seductively at him. She put her hands on his broad chest. His perfectly tailored suit felt butter soft and expensive.
“You think I’m an artist?” she asked in the kind of come hither purr most men loved.
“I think your body is art, and I think anyone who can steal as much money from as many men as you have, isn’t stupid and definitely shouldn’t be trusted.”
/> “If you’re trying to distract me with compliments while you wait for the cops to show, it’s working. Compliments make me horny,” she admitted.
“So do fast cars,” he said. The right side of his mouth tilted up into an almost smile and his head dipped just a fraction of a fraction of an inch closer to hers.
She licked her lips again. Licked his lips.
“What if I told you I wasn’t going to turn you in?”
“I’d remind you that you just said I’m not stupid. Try again. Or just ask me to fuck you one more time before you let me go. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
He smirked and jutted his hips forward to rub his erection against her thigh. “What is it that you want?”
“You seem to have done your homework. You can answer your own question, don’t you think?”
“Tsk tsk tsk,” he said softly.
Cleo had to swallow the moan that tried to claw its way up her throat.
“Talk nicely to me,” he whispered against her lips.
“Why?” she gasped. “What are you going to give me in return?”
If she’d thought Robert’s eyes were hard flints before, they were something wholly different now; dilated, burning pits of desire that mirrored her deepest fantasies, the ones that had been banked inside her for six months.
“Did you miss me?” he asked again.
“Yes.” The word was a breathless admission, the most honest she’d ever been with a man as rich as Robert Shimizu.
“Good. Come with me,” he said, backing away from her.
For a dizzying second, she felt bereft, cold, alone.
But Robert’s hand never left her arm. He tightened his grip and pulled her around the registration table, deeper into the hotel. Instead of heading toward the bank of poker tables in front of them, he took a quick left toward a hidden elevator. Cleo spotted two obvious bodyguards on either side of the elevator door and another standing not so casually by, pretending to be sipping on a cocktail. When the guards saw them, one pressed the elevator call button. The doors opened and they didn’t even have to stop.
They stepped inside the small elevator and Robert pressed the button to the penthouse. Even when the doors were closed, he never let her go.
“You know, this is a small elevator. You don’t have to hold me so tight. Where am I going to hide?”
He turned to her and looked her up and down. She could tell that the look wasn’t a consideration of the possibilities for escape; it was just because he wanted to see her and it made Cleo’s mouth dry. She returned his gaze because she wanted to see him too. And suddenly she understood why he wasn’t letting her go, for the same reason she’d practically pressed herself against him earlier. They both wanted to feel each other; to reassure themselves that this was real.
“Did you miss me?” she whispered to him.
His answer was to crash his mouth to hers, his soft lips prying hers open. Robert’s tongue was sure as it pressed between her lips. He stroked her tongue with deep swipes, tasting every corner of her. He finally let her arm go, only to wrap his arms around her and grab her ass in a grip that was just as hard as the one on her forearm.
Cleo wrapped her arms around his neck and dug her fingers into his hair. She moaned and pulled at his silky strands.
Robert groaned into her mouth and pressed her back against the elevator wall.
She spread her legs as he settled that bulge in his pants against her mound. Cleo was in heaven when he used his grip on her ass cheeks to lift her into his arms.
“Oh fuck,” she breathed, wrapping her legs around his waist.
If the elevator ride had been long enough, Cleo had no doubt that she would have fucked Robert inside it and happily. Unfortunately, as soon as the car started moving it stopped. When the elevator dinged, Robert backed quickly away from her and straightened his suit coat, his eyes narrowed in lust.
His face was smeared with a bit of her foundation and lipstick. His hair was disheveled and the fall of his pants was beautifully disturbed by his big dick. He looked perfect. He looked like hers.
“Business first,” he ground out, grabbing her forearm again.
“What’s second?” she asked with a playful giggle as he dragged her into his hotel room.
“What the fuck is going on?” Alex screamed in her ear.
Cleo let Robert lead her into the penthouse while Alex tried to modulate her voice to hide the way it shook with fear. This was the danger of working with her sister. The part of herself that would always be the big sister – the one who’d had to take care of her when their parents were preoccupied with her mother’s slow decline and death – only wanted to shield her from all the pain and fear in the world. But she couldn’t, not really, but she could take control of this moment and give her sister breadcrumbs to calm her the best way she knew how.
“Nice penthouse,” she said. “I liked your house in Kentucky better.”
It wasn’t a lie. The penthouse was the kind of Miami luxury people paid too much money for. The open-plan living area was all oriented toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out at the ocean. If someone were to look down, they could see the bustling Miami streets, and she could imagine that at night, the lights made it look like one of those fake artsy long exposure photographs white boys on Instagram love. But the point of the penthouse was to ignore all that and find peace in the water at the city’s edge. That’s why all of the furniture was faced the windows and nothing in the skyline obstructed the view. It was a beautiful, if generic, hotel room, and it would be difficult for Cleo to get the hell out of here undetected. That was one thing the Kentucky house had over this place, but it wasn’t the first thing in Cleo’s mind. This room was cold, fake tropical, all glass and marble tile. That house — or at least the little she’d seen of it — had been dark hardwood, soft fabrics, lots of places to hide, lots of knickknacks to slip in her purse, and warm. Like him.
“Okay, so this dude is from the Derby job?” Alex whispered in her ear. “Is he the one-night stand you disappeared with?”
“Well, girl, he sounds fine, so I’m not judging you,” Marcus mumbled in her ear.
“Sit,” Robert said, gently pointing at a white wicker chair with a light blue throw pillow before he let her go. She missed the weight of his hand on her, but she did as he said.
He moved around the small glass coffee table to the matching seat and sat across from her. He leaned back in his chair and gracefully crossed his long legs at the knee. Cleo draped her arms across the arms of the chair and mirrored Robert’s posture.
His eyes dipped to her big brown thighs. And then he grunted. That sound, after so long, did something to her body. She could feel her insides warm just watching him watch her. Her skin tingled. Her pussy was wet.
“Is this where you proposition me?” she asked him, breaking the tense silence between them.
“Yes.”
“Someone better be recording this,” Gina chimed in.
“Been on it since they were making out in the elevator,” Brian added, voice still bored.
Cleo had to force herself not to roll her eyes. “I’m listening,” she said to Robert and her trifling crew.
“Girl, us too, the fuck?” Marcus said.
“I don’t want to turn you in to the police,” Robert said.
“Pussy be yankin’,” Marcus sang.
“Shut up,” Alex hissed.
“Pussy that good?” Cleo asked.
A small smile lifted the corners of Robert’s mouth. “You know it is,” he said softly. “But that’s not why I don’t want to turn you in. I want to use you.”
Had five words ever made Cleo’s pussy quiver before? No. Did she have to grip the chair for a second to keep from touching herself? Absolutely. Was this man dangerous? Definitely.
She swallowed. “Use me how?” Her voice was thick with lust. Robert’s smile lifted a fraction of an inch. Maybe he knew that what she’d wanted to say was, “Use me, please.”
<
br /> “I’ve been researching you and your team. How many of you are there?”
“Oh, baby,” she said with a forced laugh. “There’s only one me.”
He rested his elbow on the side of his chair and rubbed a single finger across his lips as he stared at her, nodding contemplatively. “I agree,” he whispered softly.
Cleo shivered.
“That was an audacious plan. How long did it take you to come up with it? How did you decide to hit Frank Pugh’s house on the same night it was filled with hundreds of people, including a dozen highly trained security guards? Did you know you would get away, or just hope?”
“Sorry, I don’t speak law enforcement.”
He huffed a laugh.
“How can we strike a deal, Cleo, if you don’t give a little?”
“If I remember correctly, I gave you more than a little,” she said with a wicked smile as she pulled a Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, uncrossing and then re-crossing her legs.
Robert’s eyes didn’t miss the movement.
“Use me how?” she asked again, trying to get his mind back on track and his eyes off her thighs since it was only stoking the arousal in her veins.
“Did you know I was head of security?”
“Excuse me?” she asked, sitting forward in her chair.
“He’s what?” everyone on her team yelled.
“On it,” Brian said.
Robert squinted at her, clearly trying to decide if her reaction was genuine. “Hmmm. That’s surprising.”
That wasn’t the word Cleo would have used. She pushed herself up and began to pace around the periphery of the room, fuming. As soon as she got out of here, she was going to fly to wherever the hell Brian was, beat him with her favorite pair of Louboutins and implement a new requirement that every brief for future jobs include all security personnel’s names and pictures so they’d never have this problem again.
This problem being that she might accidentally meet someone, fuck him, and then have him spend half a year looking for her. She didn’t think the odds of this happening again were high — especially if she was going to jail — but she didn’t think it could hurt to be too thorough.
Grand Theft N.Y.E. Page 7
