That was a change.
Up until now, she’d seemed reluctant to truly hunt for the diamonds. She’d been clinging to some notion of absolution for her stepdad, but for the first time, he saw a real determination in her eyes, and heard it in her voice.
He liked it. Liked it a lot.
“Yes, absolutely. Tell me what you learned at the sex-toy party,” he said, resting his palms on the wood of the table and listening to her talk. She segued into work mode quickly, too, telling him what she uncovered about the gallery expansion plans, as well as her stepfather’s security concerns at the club. Then he told her what he suspected from this morning’s bank recon. “My original thought was he kept the diamonds at the house and, bit by bit, batch by batch, had been converting them into money. But he must keep them elsewhere or he moves them in small batches. The next thing to do is to figure out where else they might be.”
She snapped her fingers. “Penny! She used to do some work for my dad. She’s supposed to be at the boat party later this week. We could talk to her. She might know something.”
Damn, she was indeed changing her tune.
He smiled. “Perfect. You seem more gung-ho than you were before.”
She shrugged. “I suppose it’s the cherry Popsicle. Or it might be seeing the diamond on Isla’s throat. Made me mad.”
Anger was good. He could work with that.
“I still don’t want him to go to prison, though,” she said.
Jake held up his hands. “Not my job to put people behind bars. I work around the law, not for the law.”
“You’re not going to turn him in to the SEC or something?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I work for clients, not government agencies. When I find the diamonds, I return them to their rightful owners. Andrew and the Eli Fund. Simple as that.”
She quirked up the corner of her lips, as if she was considering all he’d said. Then she nodded. “Fair enough.” She picked up her Popsicle, licked it one last time, then set the stick on the table. She placed her chin in her palms. “OK, let’s play truth or dare.” She waved her hand in the air. “Wait. No. Just truth.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re pissed that I didn’t tell you what I was planning tonight?”
She held up her thumb and forefinger to show a sliver of space. “It feels a teensy bit deceptive.”
He leaned forward. “Steph, I did it because I knew we’d have a better chance of pulling it off if you didn’t know.”
“Do you think I’m not a good partner?” she asked, her gaze intensely serious. “Tell the truth.”
He scoffed. “I think you’re great.”
“But yet you didn’t think I could pull off being in the house and knowing you were there.”
“Next time I’ll tell you. Does that work for you?”
She nodded. “Good. Now, the next truth. How was it?”
“How was what?”
“Sneaking into his house?”
“Fun,” he said, since that was wholly true. His job came with an adrenaline rush that he craved.
Her gaze drifted to his arm, and the scar he’d recently acquired. “Truth again. That’s not from a fishing accident, is it?”
He held up his hands in surrender and laughed.
“How did it happen? Tell the truth this time. If you even can,” she said, but her tone was teasing, and he sensed they’d moved beyond her annoyance over feeling tricked. Especially when she dropped her hand to his wrist and ran a finger along the scar.
He shook his head. “Knife fight in Paris. Couple of thugs who stole a Strad.”
“Did it hurt?”
“At the time, yes.”
“And now?” she asked, running her fingertip along the line of raised white flesh. His breath hitched.
“No,” he whispered.
He blinked and did a double take when a brunette walked by. She wore cat’s-eye glasses, and something about her looked familiar. Then he remembered. She was the woman who helped him at the diamond shop. Monica.
He took Steph’s hand. “Truth or dare?”
She flashed him a grin. “Dare.”
“I dare you to go for a walk on the beach with me.”
“I thought we were trying to focus on work, not on ridiculously romantic situations that are going to make it hard for you to resist throwing yourself at me?”
He laughed, loving her sense of humor. Then he did his best job tricking himself when he said, “We can just talk shop.”
He tossed some bills on the table for a tip and headed along the sand as the ocean waves gently beat against the shore in a peaceful night rhythm. “You said you appointed yourself private detective. What made you want to do that? For your mom, you said.”
Steph nodded and sighed heavily. “Eli screwed around on her for years.”
Jake burned. He nearly growled as he narrowed his eyes. “There’s a special place in hell for people who do that.”
“Maybe there is.”
“Did she know about it?”
Steph shrugged. “I don’t think so at first. I knew by the time I was a teenager, and I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to be wrong. He was such a good dad that I tried to deny it, telling myself maybe he just had friends who were women. Maybe they were colleagues. I didn’t want to think he was cheating, that he’d hurt our family like that. I sort of hid from the truth at first, but even when it was clear what was going on, I wasn’t sure if I should say something or not. Is it my place to tap my mom and say, ‘Hey, your husband’s screwing the assistant?’ Eventually she learned on her own, and he groveled, and she tried again. But it didn’t work.”
“She’d had enough of him?”
She nodded. “At that point, my brother and I were both out of the house and living on our own, so she didn’t feel that obligation anymore that I think was the biggest driving factor for her in staying with him when I was younger. So they got divorced, but he’s a very shrewd man and knows how to manipulate anything. He was able to get away with pretty much everything and leave her with very little.”
Jake scoffed. “That’s just shitty.”
“Yup,” she said with a nod, then ran her finger over the treasure chest necklace she wore. “We’re really close. I basically adore her. She’s incredibly supportive of me and my business. She made this for me. That’s what she does—makes jewelry.”
Gently, he brushed his thumb across the miniature treasure chest, grazing the soft skin of her chest. “It’s lovely,” he said. He wasn’t just talking about the necklace.
She swallowed and breathed a quiet thank you. “And look, it’s not like she’s destitute from the divorce. She’s not living on bread and water. But he took everything, and it just seems so wrong. My God, she helped him start his business with money she earned from selling jewelry at craft fairs.”
“It’s completely wrong. Completely unfair. Especially when she made his business and livelihood possible,” he said, agreeing.
“She’s very giving and very generous, and that’s one of the things I love about her. That’s why I came here early to try to figure out what happened with the money. Like I’m Robin Hood or something. And that’s why I want to help—” Then she stopped talking. Like she’d simply sliced off the end of the sentence.
“Are you OK?” he asked gently, as his heels dug into the sand. He placed a hand on her elbow. He was unable to stop touching her.
“Why am I telling you this?” she asked, but the small smile forming on her lips gave her away. She wanted to trust him.
“Because I’m easy to talk to,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. He turned serious. “You haven’t mentioned your dad. Is he gone?”
She nodded. “He died of a heart attack when I was three. Never really knew him.”
He squeezed her hand. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, then sighed deeply, as if the air were refueling her. “What about you? Why do you do this?”
“This is just
a job for me,” he said, trying to keep his tone even.
She turned to him and knocked on his forehead.
“Knock. Knock.”
He laughed. “Fine. I’ll take the bait. Who’s there?”
“I don’t believe a word you’re saying, that’s who.”
“Just a job,” he repeated, toeing his own party line. He didn’t like to give up pieces of himself. He’d been burned the last time he let someone in.
But this woman wasn’t going to let him get away with that.
She stopped in her tracks and parked her hands on his shoulders. “Nothing is just a job,” she said, tipping her forehead to the inky black of the sea at night, starlight dancing across the water. “Take what I do. I do adventure tours because I love it. But also because the water is where I’ve always felt most at home, especially after my dad died. It’s this very special place to me. The ocean made me feel peaceful again, and it felt like a part of me. The part that made me whole. So what’s your story, Jake Harlowe? It’s only fair. We partnered up, and you know my motivation. I want to know what your story is. All I really know about you is that you have two sisters and you’re kind of a recovery specialist.”
He heaved a sigh and pointed to the sand. Walk and talk. Here it went. Serve up a piece of yourself. This wasn’t something he did terribly often. He didn’t like to revisit the shittiest days of his life. But she’d been honest, and he owed it to her to do the same.
“I have a little brother, too. There are four of us. And I do what I do because I’m good at it. Because it pays the bills. Because my older sister and I are responsible for my younger sister and younger brother.”
“Ah,” she said with a nod, an understanding one as she quickly processed what this meant. “When did your parents die?”
“They were killed by a drunk driver when I was in high school.”
She cringed. “Oh no. I’m so sorry.” She reached for his arm again, wrapping her hand around it as they walked through the sand.
“And the fucker got away with it,” Jake added through gritted teeth. A bout of long-simmering tension curled through him, winding in his veins, twisting through his blood as memories flashed before him.
The cops at the door.
The knock.
The solemn look on their faces as they took off their blue caps, came inside, and told them the news. Died on impact. The car had skidded off the road and wrapped itself around a tree.
“I was seventeen, Kate was eighteen, and the younger ones were only seven and eight.”
“Wow. I can’t even imagine. That’s so sad. Did they find the guy?”
He breathed in sharply. “Yes, but nothing happened.”
Those words—nothing happened—contained all his anger, all his frustration, and all his reasons.
“What do you mean?”
“He was some twenty-three-year-old trust-fund baby, smashed out of his mind, and he lawyered up and got away with it. I think, if memory serves,” Jake said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, “he did have to put in fifty hours of community service. Reshelving books at the library. I’m sure that taught him a big lesson.”
Steph huffed. “Amazing how just hiring a lawyer and fighting like an asshole can enable you to get away with stuff.” She squeezed his arm. “And that’s why you do what you do? Because you don’t like it when the bad guys get away with it,” she said, and she got it. Not like it was hard to connect the dots, but it was a relief not to have to.
“I guess I’ve found my own way to try to see justice done.”
“You’re Batman,” she pronounced, and that made him laugh. The serious moment started to fade away, like grains of sand pulled out to sea. “So that makes us Batman and Robin Hood, then?”
“Seems like it. Except I don’t have that weird nipple armor.”
She stopped walking, darted out her hand, and splayed it around the fabric of his shirt. She pretended to assess his nipple armor, or lack thereof. “Confirmed. The subject does not have nipple armor. However, he does have insanely hard pecs, and quite possibly the firmest chest we’ve ever felt.”
He chuckled deeply as he backed up, leaning against a lifeguard stand, unoccupied at this late hour. The bar wasn’t far away, but he felt like they were in their own corner of the night. He couldn’t deny there was something nice about the moment shifting so seamlessly from heavy to light. That the harder conversation was had, and they weren’t going to linger or wallow in it. They were speeding toward the path of innuendo again and that had its own risks.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
He clasped his hand over hers, tugging her closer.
“This whole just-work thing is working out really well, isn’t it,” he said in a low voice as he held her hand against his body. He craved her touch. Hell, right now, a part of him seemed to need it. Not just that insistent organ in his pants knocking on his fly. But his heart. That organ. Because he liked this woman. Liked her humor. Liked her heart. He still didn’t want to get involved on a job . . . but he knew one thing for sure—he wanted her.
Badly.
Despite all the reasons he was supposed to stay away from complications, he was having a hell of a time walking away. Maybe it was foolish, maybe it was risky, but this second, being with her felt only right.
“Incredibly well,” she whispered, running her thumb in a circle across his chest.
“Steph,” he said in a warning.
“Jake,” she said, like she was pushing back. “I thought we agreed . . .”
“We did.” He guided her hand across his chest and down to his stomach.
She inhaled sharply as she traced his stomach, her touch like a torch, setting his nerves aflame. He tried so damn hard to be practical, to be focused, to refuse to give in. He had a job. He had responsibilities. But he didn’t know if he’d last any longer holding out. “You have sand here,” he said, pointing to her ear. His voice came out like dust.
She ran her finger over it. But missed.
“No. Right there,” he said, reaching for her ear and brushing off the grains, and then catching a faint whiff of that coconut smell again. Drove him wild. He let his fingers drift into her hair. Looped them farther, cupping the back of her head. “What is it about you that I can’t resist? Your kisses are my kryptonite.”
He wrapped his hands in her hair, grasping the back of her skull as he kissed her on the beach by the lifeguard stand. Her lips were delicious, all cherry sweet from the Popsicle. As he deepened the kiss, she murmured against his lips, kissing back with all she had. It was a kiss you’d write home about or watch on a movie screen. He couldn’t even pinpoint what made it so damn good. He couldn’t deconstruct the kiss and say it was the shape of her lips, or the softness of her tongue, or the depth of the kissing.
It was something else entirely.
Something unknown. Something that drove him on. She kissed with such passion, such vulnerability, as if his kisses were the only ones she wanted, the only ones that would ever make her feel this way. She held nothing back as she melted into his arms and pressed her body to his in a full-body kiss—lips, tongue, hands, hips. Every part of her aligned with every part of him.
Even though they were fully clothed on the beach, she started rubbing against him, her crotch grinding into his erection. His body thrummed with lust. Whatever reasons he’d had not to touch her again seemed woefully unimportant compared to the rush of heat in his veins from her closeness.
“You taste so good,” he whispered hotly as he broke the kiss.
She flashed him the sexiest grin. “So do you.” She ran her fingers along his jawline, tracing his stubble and brushing her thumb across his face. Even that small touch turned him on fiercely. This was risky, but yet, his brain was urging him to roll the dice.
Or maybe it was his dick calling the shots.
He cupped her ass and tugged her closer, and soon, she was practically riding him vertically by the lifeguard stand. She moaned into his mouth, and his erection knocke
d against his shorts. He broke the kiss, grabbed her hand, and climbed up the lifeguard stand.
“Jake,” she whispered with a naughty grin.
“What? The view’s better up here. I can see the water perfectly,” he said as he sat down on the weatherworn white wood and held her hand as she reached the last rung. “Climb on top.”
They were far enough away from the bar that they weren’t making a spectacle of themselves, and the dark of the night shielded them the rest of the way. He tugged her on top of him, so she straddled him, her knees pressing into the wood.
“Ride me,” he said in a low voice.
She arched an eyebrow, asking an unspoken question.
No, he didn’t expect her to fuck him like this, though the image sent blood to all the right places. But he wanted her close, wanted to answer the call he felt in her body. Her need. Her desires.
“Like this?”
“Yes.”
Like high school. Like college. Like dry humping. Which could be pretty fucking awesome when you wanted a woman with this kind of intensity. She lifted her skirt and pressed against his hard-on through his shorts.
He wrapped his hands around her rear and squeezed, then pulled her closer, guiding her moves. She parted her lips, a sexy sigh escaping as she rocked against him, the full length of his erection against her wet panties. She swiveled her hips and jammed down hard on him.
“I’ve been picturing this,” he said as she rocked back and forth against his hard-on.
“Just like this? Clothes on?”
“On. Off. Doesn’t matter. Ideally off. But I’ll take this,” he said, groaning as she picked up speed. “You look so fucking hot on top of me and you feel incredible.” He could only imagine how fantastic she’d feel when he was buried deep inside her, her wetness gripping his dick. Desire crashed wildly through his body as she moved faster, building friction, seeking release. “I bet you’d look crazy hot under me with your legs spread, and you begging me to slide into you and fuck you ’til you come hard.”
The Sapphire Affair (A Jewel Novel Book 1) Page 17
