This was different, somehow, from when he’d kissed her the other night and tried to convince them both that it was practice for getting into their parts. Maybe it had been. Or maybe she was just far too susceptible to him and she didn’t care whether it was practice or not.
Because this gentleness was undoing her even faster than passion could. He knew she was undressed and vulnerable, and the hallway was dark. Their voices had been low and intimate. Was that it? Was the siren call of intimacy making her respond to him in a way she hadn’t the other night?
His mouth had reached her ear now, taking her earlobe tender prisoner and touching it with his tongue. She shivered again, unable to help herself.
“Are you cold?” he whispered.
“No.” On the contrary, her body temperature jumped a couple of degrees every time his mouth moved.
There was something sexual and elemental in him that called to the corresponding part of her that she’d buried in her fight to succeed. That part of her was hungry and reckless and wanted to embrace the bad boy, to take the risk, to say to hell with the consequences as long as they could find satisfaction in each other.
But what about him? What had made him come to her house and stand in the dark talking to her while she showered? What element in her would make him take the risk? Because he had the most to lose in their working relationship. He was the one in charge. Was it only the dangerous, sexual Caroline that attracted him? Or something else?
Suddenly she had to know, before this went any further.
“Kellan,” she whispered just as his lips completed their leisurely exploration of her jaw and arrived at the corner of her mouth.
“Mmm?”
“Are you—”
But as her lips parted on the you he kissed the rest of her question into silence, and in the next second she forgot what she’d been going to say anyhow. His kiss was just as slow and sensual as it had been when she’d acted like Caroline. His mouth played over hers, coaxing, drawing her in, then stroking her tongue with his own as though they had all night to discover each other.
She slid her arms around his neck and pressed into the kiss, her thighs moving between his. Her hands touched his hair and settled on his shoulders, palms flat against a silk shirt that held the heat of his body. The robe parted halfway down, and the lightweight wool of his trousers, soft and a little scratchy, brushed the insides of her knees.
His hands settled around her waist. She felt a tug and then coolness as the tie fell away and her bathrobe opened all the way down the front.
Warm hands. Warm hands splayed on her ribs, then curved to follow the indent of her waist and the flare of her hips. His kiss changed angle, and she made a soft sound in her throat as it deepened and increased in urgency. Both of his hands slid up her rib cage as though he wanted to lift her, but instead, they slowed and, an inch at a time, moved to cover her breasts.
This time it was he who made a little sound, just before he broke the kiss. His hands felt wonderful as they cupped her flesh, soothing the ache, testing their fullness.
Her heart leaped in her chest as her brain caught up with her body and she realized what they were doing. She’d made no move to stop him. In fact, she didn’t even want to—
A two-note beep and a burst of static came from the living room. “Victor-21?” asked a deep male voice.
Linn jumped back, grabbing both sides of the robe and clutching them together. “Who’s that?” Had the team followed Kellan to her apartment? Was she about to be caught half-naked in the hallway by all the men she worked with?
Kellan made an exasperated noise. “It’s Coop. On the phone. I forgot to turn off the walkie-talkie.”
“Victor-21, you in service? Sierra-5.”
With a sigh, he released her and went into the living room. She knotted the tie on her robe even more tightly than it had been before, and looked around the corner. He stood in front of the coffee table, his phone flipped open.
“Victor-21. Go.”
“We’re in pursuit,” Coop said.
“Where’s our target?”
“Not sure.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he gave the valet his ticket to get the car, but instead of waiting for it, he went into the dining room and took a table. By the time we got there and got set up, he’d gone to the men’s. He never came back.”
“You lost him?” The answer was so obvious that Linn hardly expected Cooper to reply. “So where did the valet go with his car?”
“Considering you told us to stay with the target, not his car, I couldn’t tell you.”
“He probably took it around back or something, and O’Reilly just went out through the kitchen.”
“So how’d the debriefing go?” Cooper’s tone was a little nettled.
Linn met Kellan’s glance. “Looks like Dean and Caroline are going to be invited to a house party at some vineyard in the wine country. And get this—there may be an introduction to the guy who owns the property.”
“You think it’s the Colombian?”
“I don’t know. Could be.”
“When do we find out it’s a go?”
“I’m riding O’Reilly about an introduction, and he wants to spend time with Caroline, so I’m betting it’s soon.”
“We’re back to square one, waiting for him to call The Girl.”
“Yep. Why don’t you head back to the Dominion? See if you can persuade the valet to talk to us.”
“Will do. Coming?”
Another glance at Linn. “Yeah.”
He clicked off, then switched the little unit back to telephone mode and pocketed it. “Once again, duty calls.”
She felt let down—frustrated—ready to push him backward onto the couch and climb on top of him, and he’d gone from lover back to cop as easily as if she hadn’t been standing there.
“You should go, then.” He was doing his job. It wasn’t personal.
Yes, it was. It was getting too damn personal.
He made a movement toward her, but the look on her face must have stopped him. And then, before she could do anything to change it, he was gone.
8
LINN DRAINED THE LAST of the Baileys in her glass and set it on the nightstand with a click. Tessa’s red shoes lay on the floor, one upright and one on its side. Red shoes, dim lighting and chocolate. All the props and not a man in sight.
There had been nothing else he could do, of course. Kellan couldn’t very well have said, “No, I’m going to stay here and finish undressing Linn,” now, could he? And if he’d stayed more than a few minutes after agreeing to meet the other members of the team, they’d have known something was up, and they’d have asked questions. Before you knew it, gossip about the two of them would be all over the office.
She’d wanted him to stay. Call her a glutton for punishment, call her reckless, but there was a reason her brain had shorted out when he’d undone her robe. She’d wanted him to do it. Had craved his kiss, had practically climbed his legs trying to get closer.
And he’d known it.
Known it and left, anyway.
Abruptly, Linn swung her legs off the bed and hooked two fingers through the straps of the shoes. She needed to get them out of her room. The shower had taken care of the memory of O’Reilly’s hands on her skin, but nothing would erase the feel of Kellan’s mouth on hers or the way her body had responded to his hands.
Tessa might have her idiosyncrasies, but she was still willing to dish the dirt late at night. Linn would run the shoes over to her and get her mind off Kellan Black.
At the lobby door of Tess’s apartment building, Linn reached to push the buzzer. But before she touched it, the door clicked open. Maybe the system was malfunctioning.
Tess met her at the door of her third-floor apartment. “Hey.”
“Sorry about coming over without calling first. You should tell the super about the front door. It just clicks and lets people in.”
“No, it
doesn’t. I knew you were there.”
“Oh, right. You magically knew it was me about to ring your buzzer, and not some psychotic with a blade in his pocket?”
“No.” Tess grinned. “You need a new muffler. I heard you come up the street, and I can see the front walk from my window.”
Linn had to laugh. “Okay. Debunk your own mystique. Here, I brought your shoes.”
“Did they work?”
“They got the job done. I sure wouldn’t want to run for my life in them, though.”
“They’re not made for running, silly.” Tess leaned in the bedroom door and tossed the shoes inside, then came back into the kitchen. “They’re made for catching.”
“Believe me, the only catching I want to do is my target.”
“Not the Emperor?” Tessa reached for the kettle to make a cup of the boiled grass and seed pods she called tea. Linn drank it out of love because she knew Tess liked the stuff.
“Who’s the Emperor?” Linn asked, as if she didn’t know. State regulations said she shouldn’t have let him into her house. But once she had, her own desire said she shouldn’t have let him out of it.
“I think you know.”
“All right, smart mouth. I do. He’s my team lead.”
Tess nodded, a wise woman in a ponytail and a San Jose Sharks hockey sweatshirt. “Uh-huh. That powerful guy for whom you have to put business before pleasure?”
Only Tess got her whos and whoms correct in her own kitchen. “That’d be him. You can add some honey if you want.” If she had to drink liquid grass, at least she’d get some flavor out of it.
Tess handed her a mug and led the way over to the couch. “Since when does pleasure come into it, anyhow? I thought there were all kinds of rules against fraternizing among the troops.”
“There are.” Linn contemplated the pale-gold liquid in her mug. “Tons of them. And for good reason. But my problem is that I’m supposed to be playing this guy’s girlfriend.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No. You should see him. The guy is incredible.”
“Single?”
“Yup.”
“Straight?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Available?”
“So it would seem.”
Tess tucked her legs beneath her. “It’s simple. Right now is a bad time. But when the case is closed, you guys are both free to get together.”
Linn pursed her mouth and took an experimental sip of her tea. Yuck. “It’s complicated.”
“The only complication I could see is if he had someone already. Or a bunch of kids by various mothers.”
She may as well just come right out and say it. “He thinks I’m someone else. And the someone else is who he really wants to get together with.”
Her sister’s brows knotted. “Run that by me again? I thought you worked together. Had ID badges and all that. That should straighten him out pretty quickly, I would think.”
Linn sighed. It sounded ridiculous when she put it into words. “I’m doing an undercover op playing a British jet-setter named Caroline. She’s the one who wears red shoes and hooker outfits. The target wants to take her—me—away from Kellan and I’m supposed to use that. And Kellan—that’s my team lead—has the hots for Caroline, too. He says we have to play like we’re in a sexual relationship, and he keeps acting like we are. Coming on to me.” She put her mug down, leaned her elbows on her knees, and sighed. Her fingers curled into her hair on either side of her head. “Making me absolutely crazy.”
“Coming on to you, or you when you’re playing Caroline?”
“Me when I’m playing Caroline.” Except for tonight. Tonight had confused her all over again, because once she’d shed the red dress, she’d shed Caroline, too. And he’d still kissed her as though he’d meant to make love to her.
Linn’s hands dropped to her thighs, and she leaned back into Tessa’s squashy secondhand couch. “Most of the time we don’t get along worth beans when I’m myself.”
“How is that possible?” Tess’s tone was full of wonder.
“Like this.” Linn pulled the elastic band out of her hair, shook it out, and pulled Caroline on like a cloak. “I don’t know who you’re calling ‘Emperor,’ darling, but it’s not my habit to allow a man that much control.”
Tessa’s eyes grew round. “Wow! How do you do that?”
Linn took a deep breath and felt her face tighten back to normal. Gathering up her hair, she pulled it into a ponytail and snapped the elastic around it. “I didn’t even know I could, until this past Wednesday. A natural talent, I guess.”
“I can’t believe it. The eyes. The mouth. The boredom with the world. Not to mention the accent. It’s amazing.”
“Well, amazing or not, it’s that person he wants to make love to. Not me. Which is good,” she added hastily. “Getting involved with my team lead would totally screw up my chances in CLEU.”
“That’s what it means,” Tess breathed. “The Star. When I did your cards.”
“Tess, for God’s sake, I’m trying to have a rational conversation here.”
“No, no, just listen. In the Love position one of the meanings of the Star card relates to clarity about yourself. Remember I told you there was some aspect of yourself that needed development? Well, this is it!” She sat back, a plainclothes prophet, pleased with her own brilliance.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Linn said flatly. “I think I’d better go. Thanks for the tea. And the shoes.”
“Linn, you are so structured and ordered you don’t even know there is a box, much less that you can think outside of it. This is where the creativity comes in. The aspect of yourself that needs development is her. Caroline. Your sexy self. Don’t you see?”
“My ability to out-think lowlifes is what makes me succeed. I cross logic with intuition and it works. None of this weirdness where you pick definitions of people’s lives out of cards like it was some big metaphysical lottery.”
“Don’t be mad at me, Linn. I’m trying to help. You need to exercise your sexual identity. Caroline is just an aspect of you that you’ve sublimated your whole life. Come on. When was the last time you actually had sex?”
“With Jordan the Jerk. And don’t remind me.”
“Sorry.” Tessa made a face, but it was obvious she wasn’t finished yet. “You know what I think? I think you don’t trust anything that makes you get emotional. You picked Jordan because he’s a robot who puts starch in his undies, and you had a built-in excuse to dump him. You have a hard time relating to Mom and Dad because they celebrate their emotional lives in paintings and books.”
“One book.”
“Don’t quibble.”
Not for the first time, Linn wondered how she’d landed in a family like this. When her parents weren’t off finding their emotional selves in Israel or Nepal, they were hanging out in the Haight with friends and relatives who hadn’t figured out that the sixties were over. If the truth had to be told, her big teenage rebellion had consisted of getting straight A’s in school and going not to Berkeley or Santa Cruz, but to Stanford. And a career in law enforcement after that, just to spit in her father’s eye.
“You can call it celebrating their emotional lives if you want,” she said to Tessa. “I call it selfishness and irresponsibility.”
“Why?” Tessa demanded. “They got us launched into the world. What’s wrong with zooming around in a motor home if they feel like it?”
“Because they’re not here for you and me. They’ve never been there for us…even when they were here.”
Her sister gave her a long look. “You have a very different view of our childhood than I do.”
“That’s because you’re like them!” The words popped out of her mouth before she could hold them back. She had nothing to lose, so she plunged on. “You do what you want, you say what you want, your emotions are right out there for everyone to see. Just like Mom’s paintings. Don’t you guys know how dangerous
that is?”
“It’s only dangerous if you let it be that way,” Tessa said slowly. “If you don’t trust the people around you. If you don’t trust yourself to be an emotional woman, a sexy woman. Is that the problem, Linn? Here’s this team lead of yours who wants to put your relationship on a whole other level and you don’t trust him with that woman. You’re running as fast as you can to get away.”
“Not all the time,” Linn confessed, driven to it by Tessa’s uncanny knack for the truth. No wonder she was doing a degree in psychology. Climbing into people’s heads and camping there seemed to be second nature for her.
Could Caroline really be an aspect of her sexual identity? No way could she trust that. She had proof that letting Caroline out of her cage for any reason but business was a bad idea. In fact, Caroline only needed to be on display when she, Linn, was with Rick O’Reilly. Working.
Because Tessa was right. She didn’t trust that side of herself to stay away from the cliff edge of control where her family lived all the time. Anything else might put her over that edge, and she needed to remember how high the risks were.
Especially as far as Kellan Black was concerned.
THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS when the team met the next day was Rick O’Reilly’s house party and how much security the team could provide for Linn and Kellan if the invitation to the winery were real. After sitting for two hours in the stuffy conference room while everyone else debated strategies and decided on equipment and surveillance coverage, the team finally figured out that she had something to contribute, too. They followed Linn down the hall to the glass interview room where the “hot number” waited. There was nothing left to do now but confirm that the meet was actually scheduled, and for that they needed Caroline.
Some of the investigators from the other teams picked up the scent of potential entertainment and left their cubicles to join them. Linn glanced up from the phone, where she was attempting to get over feeling left out and get into character.
“I’m going to charge you guys admission. Would you back off?”
His Hot Number Page 8
