Cleve was pissed now, but so was she. He had her tight, he could break her arm. “I mean it,” she said.
“Man tells you he loves you and you want to break his jaw for his trouble.”
“I got you out of trouble, what more do you want from me?”
His lips against her head. He rubbed them back and forth, nibbling the flowers on her tattoo. “Everything you’ve got.”
She tried to take advantage of his loss of focus to break out of his hold, but he laughed. “Say uncle.”
“Never.”
He laughed. “That’s my girl.” His other hand went to her belly, on the skin not covered by shirt or pants. His palm was hot and he pressed her back into his body while his lips hit her neck and made her shiver.
She dropped her head to his shoulder. “You’re hurting me.”
“You like it.”
Bastard was right. She squirmed against the pain of his grip and the pleasure of his lips, and the need to get away, to be closer at the same time. “This is what I get for risking myself to save you.”
“Let’s talk about that, shall we?”
“I don’t care if we never talk again.”
He sucked on a spot behind her ear and slid his palm under the waistband of her loose-fitting shorts. “Such a bad liar, Aria. I expect better. You didn’t need to come to my rescue. You could’ve let me tough it out alone with my shark lawyer.”
“If I’d known that, I would’ve.” She wasn’t wearing much in the way of underwear and he discovered that. They both hissed when he cupped her and her temperature went nuclear reactor.
“I let you go twice. The first time was an accident. The second time was, hell, that was your fault too, you made me do it. I’m not letting you go again.”
He’d let up the pressure on her arm, though, and it ached as blood started to flow. “You will let me go. Eventually. Everyone does. My own father did.” Love was for storybooks and TV shows and other people.
His fingers danced across the silk of her G-string and his lips were back on her head. She wanted to give in, but where would that get her? “I’m not your father,” he said.
“We were young. We didn’t know any better.”
“There is no better than you with me.”
“I was difficult, impossible, you’d have grown tired of me, or I’d have done something you didn’t like and you’d have turned away. Don’t pretend that’s not how it would’ve been.”
He spun her abruptly so they were face to face. “What we were isn’t over.”
“We don’t know each other anymore.”
“I know you right to your heart, Aria, and you know me.”
She broke away and took a step back. “That’s just romantic bullcrap.” This was Cleve with his honey-dripping tongue, his gift of persuasion, wanting something she didn’t have to give.
“Our romantic bullcrap.”
She’d helped him stay free. He could at least respect that and leave before he made her weak again. “You need to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere unless you’re with me.”
She turned away, going for the door. She needed him gone before she begged him to stay. “Like that’s happening.”
He was on her from behind, a hand to her belly, another to her throat. “You can punch and kick, buck and threaten all you like, but I’m holding on to you. Nothing you do will make me stop. Start speaking in tongues or wearing pink, I’m still yours. Take up boot-scooting or crocheting or scrapbooking, I’m yours. Get religion, yours. Stand naked on the street hollering, yours. Aspire to being a soccer mom, yours. Tattoo your whole body with creepy ancient idols or killer critters, yours. Turn me in to those guys in the van out there, still yours. Are you hearing me?”
She might shake apart from the strangeness of what he was saying.
“I’d have taken any punishment, a long stint in prison, rather than see you reduced by one tiny hair on your shaved head.” He tightened his grip on her. “Nod if you understand.”
She didn’t understand. There was no way he meant all this. He was a professional liar. She shook her head. He was grateful, high on being free, that’s all this was. Maybe a little guilty about Celestia. She wasn’t the type of person who other people stuck with. Pari was her only real friend and that friendship had started out as a business deal.
He turned her body into his and got right in her face. “Get fat, I’ll love you with meat on this ass. Grow a beard, I’ll thread daisies in it. Take a vow of silence, I’ll listen to your eyes. Fuck up, I’ll laugh at you and help you fix it. I’m done being out here on my own, Aria. I’m done missing you. Fair, foul, legal, illegal, now and always, I’m for staying by you.”
She found her voice. “But—”
He stopped the sentence with a hard, quick kiss. “Let’s deal with the buts.”
“I’m not a proper person. I don’t have any skills except graft and corruption.”
His brows took wing. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”
She’d said that to him not so long ago. “You were a worthy successor to my father. He was right to discard me and leave it all to you.”
“He was an uptight, anal, misogynistic psychopath with a god complex who hated his own daughter. The chicken bone did us all a favor.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I always thought you respected him.”
“I was terrified of him, and I should’ve convinced you to run with me the week I met you.”
“I hated you then. We never said a word. How could you have known what I was thinking?”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, thumb rubbing the tight muscles there. “First time I saw you, everything about you told me you needed to be away from here. It just took me two years to really hear you,” he lowered his voice, “and I’ve had a decade to regret that.”
Just his hand on her neck was enough to make her own regret begin to dissolve. “If you’re lying to me, I fucking swear—”
He shut her up with knee-bending kiss. “Yeah, you have a foul mouth and I love that too.”
He was making it too easy, and nothing worthwhile was ever this easy. Nothing this close to happiness had ever been so within her reach. “You’re really going to split the sale of the Celestia with me?”
He laughed. “You’re greedy and I like that too.”
“But you don’t love it?”
He grinned. “I’d love it more if the subject of your greed was me.”
Too easy, this had to be a scam. The con job of her life. “You want to be with me?”
He stroked a hand over her head. “I want to be with you.” He didn’t roll his eyes. He didn’t trivialize this in any way. It wasn’t a joke to him. It wasn’t a sleight of hand. The only thing she could read in his face was honesty. It took her breath away. “Do you want to be with me, baby?”
Happiness wasn’t something she’d prepared for. It made her feel desperately uneasy. “I—”
His face fell. “Ah, shit. I thought...”
She put her hand to his lips to stop his doubt. “I do. I want to be with you. When you first arrived, I wanted to be you. To have your freedom, to have his attention. I didn’t want to fall in love with you but I did, and it made being me okay. I’ve missed that, I’ve missed you so much. I love you, and if you want me I’ve won the greatest shell game ever.”
“No game, pure and simple. Aria Viola Harp, you hoodwinked my heart.”
And Cleve Jones had set hers free.
“Never apart again.” A constraint she could live with, feel safe with. “But we can’t stay here.” Too many bad memories she’d rather pack away.
“We’re not cut out for Cambridge Square. And I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need to lay low for a while. Can you hand
le that?”
With him she could handle anything.
“How do you feel about retiring, at least from the diamond heist business?”
“What would we do?” She had a few ideas, a number of them revolved around soft beds and hard man and food. She was never not hungry; he might yet have a fat partner in crime.
“Sleep, read, eat, talk, shave each other’s heads.”
Oh she liked where he was going with this. She wrapped herself closer to him, and he whispered the word, “love,” against her lips and she knew to the bottom of her rebellious, bruised heart, she’d stolen the most valuable thing in the world.
And she was never giving it back.
* * * * *
Also available from Ainslie Paton
Grease Monkey Jive
Getting Real
Detained
Floored
Hooked on a Feeling
Insecure
Incapable
Inconsolable
About the Author
By day, Ainslie Paton is a mild-mannered corporate storyteller working in marketing, public relations and advertising. She’s written about everything from the African refugee crisis and toxic shock syndrome to high-speed data networks and hamburgers. Nights and weekends she writes cracking, hyper-real romances, rights wrongs and sets up escape plans.
You can find out more about her books and newsletter at www.ainsliepaton.com.au.
You can chat to her when she’s avoiding work on Facebook or on Twitter.
Rough Edges
By Emma Sinclair
She’ll steal his heart to get to the diamond
The Staffordshire diamond is sixty carats of pure perfection. Not only is it a stunning treasure on display for others to admire, it’s a priceless keepsake that’s been in Anastasia Staffordshire’s family for generations. But sentimentality means nothing to her corrupt cousin Leonard. He plans to sell the jewel. And Anastasia plans to take it back.
There’s only one thing standing in her way—bodyguard Jake Hoffman. Family friend and Anastasia’s longtime crush. Seducing the diamond out from under Jake is no hardship, but one night in his arms leaves Anastasia rethinking her heist.
Torn between love and family, Anastasia must decide if being with Jake is worth saying goodbye to a priceless heirloom. And she needs to make the decision fast, before they’re both caught red-handed.
This book is approximately 26,000 words
Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Deborah Nemeth
Dedication
For everyone who believes in a Happily Ever After.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
The Staffordshire Diamond. It was just over 60 carats of absolute perfection, unmatched in any of the four Cs of diamond grading. The emerald cut and polished facets, with nary a flaw, shone under the bright lights. It was the centerpiece of a necklace that held another 150 carats of precious gemstones, but Ana only had eyes for the diamond.
It was hers.
Or at least it was going to be.
She made her way around the small private museum’s hall of gems, which had been transformed to look more like a glittering ballroom, careful not to focus too much on the diamond. There were other pieces of jewelry in the museum, stones grander than the Staffordshire, but none held Ana’s attention like the stone that shared her last name. Still, she didn’t want to look like she was casing the joint, so she took champagne from a passing waiter and made small talk with people who’d known her family for ages.
“Miss Staffordshire, I’m surprised to see you here.”
Ana spun on her heels, a smile plastered on her face. She’d recognized the voice immediately, a contemporary of her late grandmother. He used to sneak her extra dinner rolls at dinner parties when the other grown-ups weren’t looking.
But she hadn’t seen him in years, not since her grandmother’s funeral.
“Mr. Barnes, it’s lovely to see you.”
He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. He smelled of the same Old Spice cologne he’d always worn. It always hung around the rooms of Staffordshire Hall after he left. His short beard scratched her cheek.
“Mr. Barnes,” he said, tut-tutting. “I used to be Uncle Robert.”
“Yes. Well, we all used to be different things, didn’t we?”
She hadn’t meant to be a bitch. She saw the hurt flash in his light blue eyes, eyes that had more wrinkles surrounding them than she remembered. But her words couldn’t be taken back. Nor did she want them to be.
“I was so sorry to hear that your cousin was selling the diamond. It’s been in your family for generations.”
“It is his to do with what he pleases,” she bit out even as everything inside her screamed it’s mine!
Uncle Robert didn’t look convinced, looked like he wanted to say more, but a tall, willowy blonde approached him, demanding his attention. Ana took the opportunity to sneak away.
She stuck to the perimeter as she walked around the large gallery. This particular Manhattan museum had been the home of the Staffordshire Diamond for the past three years. It held artifacts from some of New York’s oldest families. Many of those families were here tonight, and most of them were here to see and be seen. No one else cared about the museum exhibits. Sure, they were gorgeous and expensive, and any one of these people would love to be decked out in the jewelry on display, but at the end of the day, they were just baubles. The jewels were much less important than whose photograph would show up on Page Six tomorrow.
Ana caught another glance of the Staffordshire Diamond through the crowd of people. Her cousin Leonard looked at the stone and saw only dollar signs. He’d been as irresponsible as an adult as he had been unpleasant as a child, and had burned through his share of the Staffordshire fortune. Now he was selling the necklace, stone and all, to the highest bidder—the highest bidder who wasn’t Ana. She’d offered him all the money she had, and he’d refused her. Whether it was out of spite or because he was getting more for it, she couldn’t say.
She’d been planning and waiting for years to finally get her hands on the diamond. Tonight was her last opportunity. She had no qualms about stealing from her cousin, but she drew the line at stealing from other people.
So tonight it had to be.
Over the past five years she’d taken gymnastics classes, pole-dancing classes, technology classes, anything she thought would be able to help her make the diamond hers. Becoming a cat burglar had been much harder than she’d ever thought, but the end result would be worth it.
Only one thing stood in her way.
“Hello, Anastasia.”
And there he was.
His warm breath heated the back of her neck, her shoulders, sending warmth coursing through her body. She must have been much too lost in her own thoughts for him to get this close without her noticing. She turned toward him slowly, never mentally prepared for the effect he had on her. He was always taller than she remembered, towering over her five-ten plus four-inch-heeled frame. His jet-black hair was slicked back, though it rarely stayed that way and would soon be falling over his forehead. His eyes were almost as dark as his hair and, good Lord, did the man know how to wear a suit.
“Jake,” she said, the word coming out like a purr. That always happened when it came to Jake. She turned from a responsible, self-assured woman to a quivering sex maniac. “I’ve been here for forty minutes already. I’m surprised it took you this long to find
me.”
He didn’t smile, his lips never moved, but his eyes twinkled and creased at the corners.
“Leonard and I just arrived. You know how much he likes fashionably late entrances.”
In reality, Leonard was an asshole who liked the power play of making people wait for him.
“Of course.” Ana couldn’t tear her gaze away from the play of his suit across his muscles as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. His suits always fit him immaculately. She knew he was armed, he always was, but his suit gave no indication of a weapon-shaped bulge.
“You’re not here to make trouble tonight, are you, Princess?”
She crossed her own arms, forcing her breasts up so that they strained against the sweetheart neckline of her strapless dress, and mirrored his pose. “You know I don’t like to be called Princess. I’ve told you enough times over the years.”
This time, his lips actually did quirk into a smile, though a quick one. She’d always liked that she’d been one of the few people in the world who could make Jake Hoffman smile. His smile made her want to drop her panties then and there, an unfortunate side effect. At one time, she thought maybe they’d end up together, but their lives had gone different ways.
“I know,” he said. “And I’ve told you I don’t care. I like the way you look when you’re annoyed.”
Her smile came unbidden. She could never seem to stay annoyed at Jake. “How are things with the lizard?”
Leonard, the lizard, had earned the nickname at her family’s summer cottage on the beach when she’d been about eight years old. Jake would have been ten, Leonard twelve. Leonard had pleaded all summer for two pet lizards and when he finally got them, he’d been absolutely terrified of the tiny animals. Ana and Jake had been merciless, though the jerk deserved it after he tried to get rid of one of them in Ana’s bed. And when that hadn’t worked, he’d turned to torturing the poor creatures until Jake had intervened and set them free. Legend had it there were still little lizards running around the former Staffordshire property.
Caught in the Act: A Jewel Heist Romance Anthology Page 10
