His Hot Number

by Shannon Hollis

  The wine appeared with magical speed, and as it did, she felt a hand slide up her bare back from waist to shoulder blade.

  “I love a bad girl in red.”

  She controlled the reflex in her right arm that would have decked him with an elbow to the chin, and turned slowly.

  “Richard?”

  Raw-silk suit, flawlessly cut. Diamond stud. The coldest blue eyes she’d ever seen above a nose that had been broken at some time in the past. Square face, smiling. Shoulders that belonged to an ex-football player. Hadn’t worked out in a while, but still more than a female operative without extensive martial arts training could safely take on in a fight.

  Rick O’Reilly in the flesh.

  “I love the way you say that. Damn, but you are hot.”

  Her lashes dropped and then swept upward slowly, provocatively, until she met his gaze. “You make me sound like something illegal.”

  “I hope you are. Come on. I have a table.”

  He picked up her wine and she followed him to the rear of the room, out of the direct range of the speakers, where it was marginally quieter. When he held a chair for her, she seated herself, crossed her legs and took her glass.

  He sat down in the chair that put his back to the wall. To her left, gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes, were Cooper and Jim. She resisted the dual urge to laugh and to scan the room for Kellan, and wondered how long he’d give her with the target before he came over and played Jealous Guy.

  “So Dean let you out to play, did he?” O’Reilly looked her over with approval, as if she were something he’d just spent a fortune on.

  “I told you on the phone there was no ‘let,’” she replied coolly. “I’m simply here for a visit. Dean and I have been friends for a long time, but he doesn’t own me.”

  “Friends?”

  “Yes. Very good friends.”

  “You’re sleeping with him.”

  “Of course.” She managed to sound a little surprised that he would ask. “What girl wouldn’t?”

  “A girl who was sleeping with me.” He leaned over and ran one finger over the back of her hand. “You can bet you wouldn’t be going out with other people. I know how to keep a woman satisfied.”

  “So I understand.” She slanted him a look over her wineglass that implied his prowess was legendary. From the corner of her eye she saw Jim bury a grin in his glass of beer.

  “What do you mean? Who have you been talking to?”

  “Why, you, darling. Didn’t you tell me you had a little something in your bedroom? And I don’t mean…” She flicked a lazy glance at his crotch.

  He leaned back in his chair. “You’re a fast worker, aren’t you? Not before we get to know each other real well first.”

  She shrugged and sipped her wine.

  “I can show a lady a good time without any extras, you know.” He sounded a little defensive.

  “I’m sure you can. But I find it adds to the experience.”

  “So, what, you don’t play without it?”

  She smiled and held his gaze. “There would have to be quite an incentive.” Think you’re man enough to have sex with me without drugs?

  If he had been a bullfrog, he would have swelled up. As it was, he put down his glass and skewered her with that hard blue gaze.

  “I’ll give you incentive. As soon as we—”

  “You know, O’Reilly, I didn’t think you’d go through with it.”

  Linn and the drug dealer looked up at the same time. Kellan Black stood over them, his arms crossed so that his silk dress shirt pulled tight around the bunched muscles in his arms, looking as if he’d like to start a fight then and there.

  O’Reilly grinned. “Dean. Since when have I ever backed away from a challenge?”

  “I don’t remember any challenge. Mind if I join you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad.” He pulled a chair over from Cooper and Jim’s table and straddled it. His glance at Linn held resentment. “Having fun, baby?”

  She smiled at him.

  “I thought when you came all the way over from England that you’d be spending time with me.”

  “I have been spending time with you, darling. We’ve been in bed for two days.”

  “So, what, now you’re bored and want to see the sights? You could have said something, and I’d have taken you out.”

  She slid a glance at O’Reilly that practically smoldered. “You said you were busy. And Richard made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “He did, did he? And what would that be?”

  “That’s between me and Caroline,” O’Reilly put in.

  “Get that smug look off your face. At least you could have taken her to the St. Francis or something, not this two-bit dive.”

  “It was convenient.”

  Linn saw Cooper straighten. Did that mean O’Reilly’s safe house was somewhere near here? Maybe even within walking distance? If so, tailing him would be simple.

  But investigations were never that simple. For all they knew, he could be hiding across the Bay in Oakland and all he meant was that the hotel was close to a train station.

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad this is convenient for you. Carrie, honey, come on. It’s time to go.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’m with Richard at the moment, love.”

  He stared at her, plainly flummoxed. “You spend two days in the sack with me and now you’re with someone else? Just like that?”

  “I came to visit you, Dean, darling. Not marry you.”

  “Yeah,” O’Reilly put in. “You don’t have any claim on her. And like she said, I made her a better offer.”

  Kellan looked from one to the other. “What does that mean?”

  O’Reilly fingered the inner pocket of his jacket, where his cigarettes probably were. But there was no smoking indoors in California, even in a bar. “Maybe it’s something you want.”

  Kellan leaned over and spoke in low, threatening tones. “You’ve been stalling for a week. I want that introduction. The money’s ready to go. Do it now or don’t do it at all.”

  O’Reilly grinned, and his gaze returned to Linn, sliding down her throat and stalling on the front of her dress. “Let’s see if your lady can convince me. Somewhere other than here.”

  7

  “SHE’S NOT GOING anywhere with you,” Kellan said flatly. It wasn’t just an act. He meant it. It was too risky to have her go to an unknown, unsecured location with their target. Any time Linn spent with O’Reilly had to be on CLEU’s terms, carefully monitored, with surroundings as safe as they could make them for the operator. Which meant Linn had to call the shots and make O’Reilly do what she wanted.

  Here was where he hoped he’d read her right. That she wouldn’t work outside the lines, but that she knew an operator’s territory well enough to stay strictly inside it.

  “Dean, really,” Caroline—Linn, dammit—purred. “I’ll decide, thank you.”

  “Fine.” He waved his hands as if shedding all responsibility. “Do what you want. Just don’t expect me to give you a place to stay when you’re done. In fact, you know what?” He glared at O’Reilly. “Why don’t you just tell me where your little love nest is, and I’ll send her stuff over for you.”

  O’Reilly grinned, evidently pleased he’d managed to get under Dean’s skin for once. The address, Kellan urged him silently. Give me your safe house so we can raid it and get something on the Colombian.

  “Depends on whether I decide to keep her for a week. I’ll let you know after tonight.”

  Abruptly, Linn pushed her wine away and stood, giving Kellan an eyeful of those legs and sky-high shoes. “This is ridiculous.” Coldly, she looked at both of them. “Keep me, indeed. The pair of you are more interested in your little territorial fights than in what I want. I don’t need that.”

  She sounded so royally, Britishly pissed off. Not to mention the woman was hot as hell when she was angry. She spun on one four-inch heel and stalked away, if that f
igure-eight sway of her beautiful rear end could be called stalking.

  “That is one fine woman,” O’Reilly said. “Too bad you’re going to lose her to me.” He tossed a twenty on the table and took off after her.

  Kellan exchanged a glance with Coop and Slim. “Lobby,” Coop said.

  “She doesn’t get in his car.”

  “Right.”

  The cover team stayed out of sight when they caught up to Linn and O’Reilly, who were standing at the bottom of the staircase that led to the mezzanine floor. Linn looked imperious, and O’Reilly, for all his size and power in the underworld, looked as though he were begging.

  Kellan would give a week’s pay to know what they were saying, because it probably wasn’t going to go in her report.

  Finally it looked as though they had come to some kind of agreement. O’Reilly slipped an arm around her and they walked out the front door, but not before Kellan saw his hand dip into the deep V of the back of her dress, and slide around her waist—inside the fabric.

  Adrenaline prickled into his veins. He was going to kill the rat. She wasn’t wearing a bra. O’Reilly could cop a feel on the way down the front steps and there wouldn’t be anything anybody could do about it.

  Kellan didn’t take the time to analyze why another man’s hands on Linn’s body infuriated him. The cover team’s first priority was to get out on the street and make sure she was safe. And that meant preventing her from getting into his car.

  Kellan approached the front door in time to see O’Reilly flag a taxi and put Linn into it.

  Alone.

  The cab signaled and pulled out into traffic, and Kellan yanked his cell phone out of his pocket, flipping the switch that made it a walkie-talkie.

  “You and Slim stay with O’Reilly,” he told Coop. “I’m going to debrief Nichols. We need to know if she’s set up another meet with him, and how soon.”

  “Four,” Coop said, using an abbreviated form of the ten code, and disconnected.

  Victor-21 was parked a block away. Kellan gambled that she’d go home instead of back to the office in that dress and those shoes and drove down the peninsula to San Mateo as fast as he dared. He still didn’t beat her crazy cab driver, who must have been doing forty miles over the limit.

  She answered his knock so quickly she must have just closed the door. “Kellan.” Her voice held surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Debriefing.” He shouldered past her without an invitation and swung the door closed. “You all right?”

  “Of course.” She looked a little puzzled at the urgency in his tone. “I was going to have a drink. Want one?”

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Baileys.”

  He grimaced. “I’ll have a beer if you have it.”

  She brought him a beer and took a sip of the brown stuff in her glass. “I’ll just be a second. I have to get out of these clothes. Every draft in San Francisco is trying to get in. I was freezing all night.”

  “That wasn’t all that got in.”

  “What?” She put her drink on the table and looked at him from across the room.

  “I saw where O’Reilly’s hands were when you went out the door.” He needed to do something. Brief her. Kiss her. Fight with her. Anything to dissipate the adrenaline coursing through his system.

  She made a face. “Oh, that. Well, when a guy can’t get what he wants, he takes what he can have.”

  He put his beer down. “And he can have you?”

  “Are you still being Dean?”

  Did he really sound that jealous? “No, I’m me.” Suddenly he didn’t care how he sounded. “So you let the target cop a feel?”

  She tilted her head and gave him a quizzical look. “What’s it to you if I did? I was working. Playing a part.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Kellan, what is the matter with you? Of course I didn’t like it. He’s a slimy creep. But it was my job to make him want to see me again, so I did.”

  “So you let him touch you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, and now I need to take a shower. Happy?”

  With that, she turned away and walked off down the hall. Kellan slouched into the colorful cushions on the couch and rubbed his face with both hands. This was what he got for spending too much time in a role. Jealousy? Because a lowlife touched his imaginary girlfriend? How twisted was that? If he were a real leader, he’d be concerned about her well-being and safety instead of lecturing her about where she’d let O’Reilly put his hands. Guilt prodded him off the couch and he followed the sound of the shower down the darkened hall.

  “Linn?”

  “What?” she said from inside the bathroom.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Kellan can talk to me. Dean can go take a hike.” Her voice sounded muffled, as if water were cascading down her face and she was trying to talk through closed lips.

  Okay, so it was a little strange to do a debrief through a bathroom door, but if she was willing to let him, after the debacle of the previous night, he’d do it.

  The door hadn’t quite latched. He leaned against the wall and spoke into the open crack, doing his best not to think about hot water and soap and this woman’s beautiful body.

  “So what did you get on O’Reilly’s plans?”

  “He wants to arrange a weekend together.” The water splashed and hissed. This was a bad idea. He should have waited until she was dressed and back out in the living room.

  “Some kind of house party up in the wine country,” she went on. “You, me, some friends of his, and, quote, a friend who owns the vineyard, unquote. You can see why I was concentrating more on getting information out of him than where his damn hands were.”

  She had a point. “He said that? This friend owns the vineyard? The Colombian is supposed to own property in California.”

  “So your file said.” The water shut off, and he straightened. In a moment he heard the shower door slide open.

  Step away from the door.

  But his feet didn’t move. Instead he stood in the dim hallway, and listened to the quiet, intimate sounds she made. The quick brush of a towel making its way down her body. The soft flump of a robe settling on her shoulders. The emphatic rustle of a belt being knotted. A little cloud of steam puffed out of the half inch of space that allowed him to hear but not see.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slowed down enough to simply stand and listen. In his experience, a shower was either a quick necessity or an excuse for wet sex. But strangely, he didn’t want to barge in there and try to get something going with her. He was just content to stand outside the door and talk, to experience the odd intimacy that was usually the result of living with someone. Not that he’d ever done that.

  Not successfully, anyway. He’d tried it once or twice over the years, back when he’d believed that loving someone meant practical little things like finding a place to live together, trusting each other, thinking more than a weekend ahead. But both times he’d come back to find his partner gone, physically the first time—though she’d left a nice note—and emotionally the second time. A natural reaction, Donna had said defensively as she’d packed her boxes, to his never being there when she needed him.

  Well, trusting someone to be there when you got back was a little harder than it sounded, too. He wondered if Linn had the same problems.

  Go back to the living room.

  This time, his feet seemed inclined to obey, but before he’d taken more than a step away, she spoke again.

  “How do I get out of spending that much time with him?”

  “Maybe you don’t.” His voice was lower, now that he didn’t have to communicate through the sound of water. He leaned on the wall and continued to speak through the opening. “This could be it. Maybe it’s a stretch to think the Colombian will actually show. Maybe O’Reilly’s just jerking our chain. He’s done it before. But if it’s real and he does plan to introduce me, we need to be ready.” />
  In the silence, several small sounds told him she was running a comb through her wet hair. “Kellan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you normally debrief people while they’re in the shower?” The door swung open and she stood there, her hair slicked away from her face, her skin scrubbed and rosy. A cloud of steam scented with lime touched his face. She wore a dark-green terry robe, so soft and thick his fingers would probably disappear into it if he put his hands on her shoulders. The robe concealed everything from neck to ankles and made her look about seventeen.

  “That’s why you smell like limes,” he said inanely. “The soap.”

  “You should go into police work.” He was sure she meant to be flip, but the words came out a little too breathlessly.

  He tried to focus on the briefing, but instead he seemed to be focusing on the hollow in her throat, which was all that the robe allowed him to see. “Did he say anything more about this friend?” he asked with an effort.

  “Not much. But the tone of his voice was different. As if he had a secret and was trying to keep it back.”

  “These guys don’t confide in women. Hint, lie, confuse, but not confide.”

  “I haven’t met many that do,” she agreed. “Kellan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are we standing in the bathroom door?”

  He thought for a second. “Because I like the smell of limes?”

  That was only part of it. He liked seeing her this way, in her own environment, without the protection of the businesslike clothes she wore or the shell of the tough State agent that she created with words and actions. He liked the sense of peace and near intimacy. They’d actually managed to get through an entire ten-minute conversation without antagonism.

  “You do?”

  “Let me rephrase that.” He leaned in and took a deep breath. “I like the smell of limes on you.”

  THE CONSTRICTION in her chest told Linn she’d stopped breathing, and she dragged air into her lungs—air that was filled with the scent of her soap and hot skin and a whiff of something that had to be Kellan’s cologne. It was a delicious mixture, and threatened to go straight to her head.

  His lips touched the side of her neck, as gentle as a question, and she shivered at the contact.