by Toni Blake
But when Carlo said, “Don’t worry, boss,” that was enough to catch Max’s attention again. It was one thing to find out he wasn’t working alone, but another to discover he wasn’t even the guy in charge. “I’ve got it all under control. You’ll have the stuff before you know it.”
Max put his hand on Kimberly’s shoulder, his way of saying silently: Did you hear that? But of course he was already touching her someplace else, too—this one not quite as innocent.
And big news or not, he decided that as soon as Carlo left the room, he wanted to pull Kimberly down onto the floor with him, let their limbs and bodies get completely entwined, and then he wanted to pound into her, hot and deep, until she screamed.
Not that he could really do any of that under the circumstances. But it was the fantasy invading his brain. Come on, Carlo, get off the phone before I lose my remaining control, little as it may be.
Kimberly took a deep breath and tried not to move. The slightest flinch or waver and she would feel him that much more, pressing into the cleft of her ass. And she would want him that much more.
She yearned to stomp her feet in frustration. She wasn’t going to feel this! She just wasn’t!
But she did.
It didn’t matter what she’d told herself a little while ago about being a professional. And it didn’t matter how angry Max made her with his irrational reactions. Despite her best intentions, it felt like an eternity since Max had touched her by the pool today. She hadn’t fully let herself acknowledge the intensity of her own hunger—but now she needed him. She needed his touch. She needed his body pressing up against hers.
She currently had the second part.
And even as she knew how badly she desired it, it was killing her inside.
She wanted to cry at the way she ached for him. It wasn’t fair! When would this job be over? When would she get Max Tate out of her system once and for all?
And then an overwhelming sadness hit her, even amid her wild longing.
Because she would probably never get Max out of her system. If three years hadn’t been enough to do it, how many years would? She had the very scary feeling that she was going to be in love with him for the rest of her life and that there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Oh God. Now she wanted to lean back against him even closer, wanted to be wrapped in his arms, wanted him to just hold her and let her savor these strange moments in case they were the last physical connection with him she would ever experience.
“All right then,” Carlo said into the phone. “See you after I get what I came for.” And concluding with a soft laugh, he hung up.
Even so, Kimberly bit her lower lip, still thinking far more about being pressed against Max than listening to Carlo. Oh Max, Max—sweet, sexy Max.
Well…he could be sweet when he wasn’t being resentful. And he was always sexy. She sighed and again berated herself for the terrible mistake she’d made that day three years ago with Margaret Carpenter.
Outside the closet, Carlo could be heard moving around—putting his shoes on, she guessed. Then everything went quiet and she knew he was gone.
And inside, she and Max remained still. And she closed her eyes and did what she’d done before—savored the moment, savored the connection with this man she loved, this man who lusted for her, this man who could never love her back because he thought she’d betrayed him.
Finally, he whispered, “Well, I guess you’d better, uh, open the door now.”
“Right,” she whispered too gently, then slid the door to the left, admitting daylight from a window and ending the strange, forced intimacy they’d just shared.
Stepping away from him to exit the closet was more difficult than she’d imagined and left her feeling oddly empty, oddly alone. Still, she wasted no time before moving toward the door, tossing over her shoulder in a voice still far too breathy for her liking, “I’m gonna go freshen up. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Kimberly, wait.”
The request stole her breath. She turned to face him, summoning the courage to cautiously meet his eyes.
“I’m…sorry about that,” he said. “In the closet.”
Oh God. She didn’t want to talk about. She couldn’t…wouldn’t. “Sorry about what?” She shook her head lightly, feigned ignorance.
He blinked. “You know. About …”
But she only shook her head again. “No. I don’t know. What?”
He sighed and now it was his turn to give his head a vague sort of shake. “Nothing. Never mind.”
Good. “All right. I’ll meet you downstairs in a minute.”
And then she was out of the room and in their suite and in the bathroom, holding onto the counter and peering at her forlorn reflection in the mirror as a desperate question assaulted her. How much longer can I do this?
A few minutes later, she connected with Max at the bottom of the stairs. “Where is he?” she whispered.
“Back out by the pool,” Max replied with a roll of his eyes in Carlo’s general direction. “He loves that thing.”
She simply nodded. And unwittingly relived the memory of Max’s arousal pressing against her in the closet. Part of her wanted to leap on him. And part of her still wanted to cry. She prayed neither desire showed on her face.
“So how about that phone call?” Max said then, smiling. A real smile—honest and unguarded and without even a hint of malice. She adored that smile, and she had missed it—apparently more than she’d realized, because it warmed her heart nearly to bursting.
“Pretty insightful,” she managed to choke out.
“So Carlo’s just a middle man,” he mused. “Possibly even low man in the operation.”
“Sounded that way to me,” she agreed.
“This explains why he’s never been caught with any evidence.” He continued to grin, and she smiled back at his sudden exuberance over this discovery—trying to be happy for him, happy for them both that they were making a little headway and discovering information the police hadn’t.
But it was difficult to feel any real joy considering all the heartbreak and frustration she still suffered on the inside.
By the time they finally left for dinner with Carlo, she managed to feel a little better, a little more confident. She had to, after all—she had to be in character, and she still wanted to play her part perfectly and pull this off for Max. Not just to show him she was a good P.I. now, but also because it was nice to see him happy.
It was only when they reached his Porsche that they realized they had a problem. It was a two-seater. “Hmm, this won’t work, will it?” Max murmured, clearly trying to hide his troubled expression.
“How about taking the Mercedes?” Carlo suggested. The one he’d seen in the garage. The one that not only didn’t belong to them, but that they also didn’t have keys for.
“Uh, well …” Max stammered.
And Kimberly rescued him with what she hoped wasn’t too lame of an answer. “That’s cute, honey, but you don’t have to be embarrassed to tell Carlo the truth about the cars.”
Max looked up at her, eyes half alight with hope but also with the silent question: Where are you going with this?
“The thing is,” she said, turning to Carlo, “Max babies those cars to death. Only takes them out once or twice a year, and that’s when we’ve checked the weather report to make sure there isn’t a drop of rain in sight, and the route to make sure there’s no dusty construction. And even then he won’t park them in a parking lot where there are other cars—too afraid of getting a ding in the door. They’re his hobby. Aren’t they, Max?”
“Um, yeah.” He nodded.
“You should see him, out here waxing them, polishing the dashboards. I think he dotes on them more than I do my diamonds.”
Max tossed her a glance, admiring the quick thinking. Good girl, Kimberly. Then he looked back to the other man. “So now that you know my little secret—and the Porsche here is just my everyday car—you would
n’t mind driving us to dinner, would you, Carlo?” he asked with a slightly embarrassed laugh. He even stepped up to slap Carlo on the back.
“Well, I’d love a ride in the Mercedes, but…what the hell.” Carlo smiled. “Hop in.”
The ride to the bistro in Carlo’s late model Camaro was fairly uneventful except for the fact that Max cringed each time Carlo shifted gears because his hand got so close to Kimberly’s perfect knees. She rode in the front, of course, and Max sat in back. But he kept a close eye on those knees—the perfection of which he’d never really noticed so much before right now.
Getting out of the car, Max decided to deter any touchy-feely plans Carlo might have for his “wife” by taking her hand on the way into the restaurant. She peered up at him, a flicker of surprise flashing through her gaze, but he gave her a quick wink and hoped she understood that he was just doing his part to keep Carlo’s hands off her.
As a hostess escorted the trio to an umbrella-covered table on a stone patio that edged a wooded hillside, Max couldn’t help thinking it would make for a pleasant evening if Carlo hadn’t been here. His hunger for Kimberly in the closet hadn’t exactly faded over the half hour since it had happened, and he could easily envision having a quiet dinner with her as dusk fell to night around them, their passion escalating with the decreased light.
He could imagine reaching out to touch her, first his hand on hers, then letting his fingers glide sensually up her arm in a whispery caress. They would read the need in each other’s eyes until he’d say to her, low and slightly raspy, “Let’s get out of here.”
And they’d share a silent but sexually-charged ride to his place or to hers, their bodies both humming with heat along with the car, and then finally he’d get her alone and slowly strip that pretty little dress off and—
“Max?”
Her voice jolted him from the fantasy and he looked up to see that a waitress stood looking at him, poised to write down an order.
“Drinks,” Kimberly informed him, enunciating like he was slow. “She’s waiting to hear what you want to drink.”
“Uh, bring me a beer. Whatever you have on tap.” The waitress nodded and went on her way—and Max immediately realized he’d stepped out of character. Wealthy stockbroker Max Tate would have ordered wine or at the very least, an imported beer.
But Carlo, as usual, was too busy mooning at Kimberly to notice, leaving Max thankful he hadn’t slipped up on anything more important. Get hold of yourself, Tate, before you screw this thing up.
Whatever was going on in his head for Kimberly was trouble, plain and simple. And when he caught her smile just then…damn, it actually felt like…well, like a little more than the lust he’d labeled it earlier. Because he couldn’t deny feeling it in his gut just as much as in his pants, and lust was usually a very straightforward thing for him—a pants-only experience.
But then again, they had a history. Kind of a big one. So it made sense if lusting for her was a little more complicated. He shook his head. This was not what he needed. No way. Just one more day, pal. Hang on for one more day and then you can go home and be done with this silly charade.
After their drinks arrived and they ordered dinner, Max turned the conversation to something that might be useful, trying to casually wheedle out of Carlo anything about who else he knew in the city, who his friends were, what he did in his free time—but the guy wouldn’t give an inch. He claimed he’d just moved here a few months ago and didn’t know anybody.
“That’s why it’s such a pleasure to get to know you and Kimberly,” he said. “I mean, I really appreciate you taking the time to educate me about the stock market, Max, but more than that, I’m grateful that you’ve opened your home to me this weekend, as well as allowed me the opportunity to get to know your lovely wife.” And then, of course, he grinned lasciviously in her direction, because he couldn’t seem to be in her presence for more than a few seconds without doing that.
Kimberly gave her pretty head a coquettish tilt, returning the smile, and Max’s stomach tightened.
Then Carlo leaned toward her and said, “Oops. You have a little speck of something right…” he lifted a fingertip to the corner of her mouth, “…here.”
She giggled in response and it all served to make Max go even crazier inside. He wanted to fly across the table and rip Carlo’s arm from its socket. He knew it was simply some combination of ego combined with desire, but that didn’t help the impulse.
Instead of flying across the table, though, he opted for a much calmer and more effective reaction. He, too, leaned forward and deftly slid his hand onto Kimberly’s cheek, gently turning her face toward him.
Her eyes widened on him prettily, tonight looking as rich and green as the foliage beyond the patio, and he liked what he saw in her gaze. Despite all the ups and downs of the day, she still wanted him, just like she had by the pool. “What?” she whispered.
“Just, uh, checking to make sure Carlo got whatever it was.” He’d spoken throatily, not by design but because that’s just how his voice came out when he was touching her. He focused his gaze on her lush mouth.
“Don’t worry,” Carlo said. “I got it.”
But for Max, Carlo wasn’t even there anymore. There was only her perfect mouth, half open and delectable, and her perfect eyes, all wide and wanting.
He leaned forward to kiss her…slow, gentle, short, chaste—and electrifying.
Pulling back after, he drank in the weakness in her gaze, and the very sight shot a bolt of longing to his pants, arousing him all over again. He knew he shouldn’t have indulged that urge, but damn him to hell, he had anyway.
How was he possibly going to stand this temptation for another whole day?
Kimberly felt like she’d been run over by a truck. This had been the longest day of her life.
At least on the day when she’d lost her job and Max at the same time, it had happened all at once, quickly. But this—this was a nightmare. Between Carlo’s unwanted touches and Max’s scintillating ones, her poor body didn’t know what to feel. It was hard going from repulsion to desire and back again, over and over and over.
She bit her lip, remembering Max’s kiss at dinner. What on earth had that been about? Was he trying to save her from Carlo or remind her that he thought she’d taken the touchy-feelies too far with their suspect? Or was it just more lust? That, Kimberly, was blatant lust. The words from earlier rang in her head, and they still hurt to remember. And yet, maybe lust was better than nothing. Even if he didn’t love her, she couldn’t deny that it excited her to know he still wanted her.
Alone in the master suite, she sat on the bed playing with the faux diamonds from the safe. This was actually the first easy chance she’d had to familiarize herself with the jewelry as Max had instructed her to when they’d first arrived. She’d left the two men sitting by the pool with glasses of wine a few minutes ago—dinner had yielded no new information on Carlo, but Max was still working at it. She, however, was more than ready to be off-duty, thankful for a precious bit of privacy.
She pulled extravagant necklaces and bracelets from the round box, enamored of their exquisite beauty—fakes or not—but almost too tired to concentrate on what she was doing. Still, she tried to examine them and commit them to memory, and she practiced working the clasps—admittedly a good idea on Max’s part because some of them were unusual and took a little study to operate efficiently.
“Ouch,” she bit off. Then she dropped the necklace in her hands to the pile that now streamed from the velvet box onto the comforter. Had she actually just pinched her finger in a necklace clasp? Obviously, she was too exhausted for this. Perhaps she’d take a break, get ready for bed, then look at them a little more before returning them to the safe.
She used a switch on the wall to dim the lights—even her eyes were tired, and besides, a bright moon shone through the balcony doors to gently illuminate the room. Then, reaching behind her to unzip her dress, she let it drop to her ankles, stepp
ing free of it and her shoes at the same time before stashing them away in the closet.
She was well ready to retire for the night—God knew she needed some serious sleep to recover from this day and get her wits about her for tomorrow—but first she needed to figure out what to wear to bed. And as she’d concluded earlier, no way would she be caught dead in any of her little nighties. Considering all that had happened today, Max would surely think she was trying to seduce him and she had no intention of even risking that.
For one thing, she refused to give him that kind of satisfaction. Considering how their relationship had ended so abruptly, she didn’t want him to think she missed him or needed him as much as she still did—physically or otherwise.
And for another, she simply didn’t think she could take it. Oh sure, she could take it. She’d love to take it. But afterward. She didn’t know how she’d cope. Being close to him was hard enough, but to have sex with him… Even as she longed for it with every ounce of her being, she also knew it would be disastrous for her. She couldn’t get that close to him again, have that ultimate connection with him again, only to say goodbye tomorrow when this was all over.
A knock came on the door. Oh drat—she wasn’t ready yet. In fact, a quick look through her stuff had just confirmed what she already knew—she had nothing suitable to wear.
And then an idea hit her! Maybe she’d snoop through the stuff in the closet that wasn’t hers—and maybe she’d find some nice full-length pajamas. Afterward, she’d wash and return them and no one would be the wiser.
Well, no time for that now. She was standing there in a pink lace bra and panties, and Max was at the door. He knocked again, impatiently this time, as if to remind her.
“Just a minute,” she called. Then she took a quick scan of the closet until she spotted a short satin robe hanging on a hook behind the door. It was fairly slinky, but it would have to do—so she snatched it up and slipped it on, quickly cinching the tie in front. After all, if she was going to borrow things from the lady who lived here, why not start now?
