Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2016 Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “If I pay you a dollar, can I get the special tour?” Lissa murmured playfully from beside him.

  He glanced down at her. “For you, the special tour is free of charge. But you have to take those ridiculous heels off. It feels strange having you be so tall. You reach practically to my nose in those things. Besides, there’s no need to be formal with me.”

  With a sigh of relief, she kicked off the stilettos and wiggled her toes. It turned out her toenails were painted a sassy shade of scarlet. He didn’t usually consider himself a foot man, but hers made him reconsider. They were small and shapely and perfect, just like her.

  He strolled through his home with her, pointing out his favorite pieces of art and standing quietly beside her while she studied a number of them intently, as if listening to them speak to her.

  “Your collection is extraordinary, Max.”

  “Thanks. I’m fond of it.”

  “Where’s the pièce de résistance?”

  He frowned at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Surely you saved your favorite piece of art for your bedroom. It is a person’s private sanctum, after all.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Are you trying to get me into bed, Miss Clearmont?”

  Her dark eyes sparkled. “What if I am?”

  “Then come with me.” He threw open the double doors to his bedroom, which was a study in darkness compared with the rest of his apartment. In here, the walls and carpet were charcoal gray, the furniture was dark and the decorations were monochromatic. The only splash of color in the room was a large painting, hung at the foot of his bed and bathed in bright light.

  It was a picture of a mother hugging a chubby little boy in her lap, painted in the late impressionist style.

  “That looks like something Mary Cassatt would have painted,” Lissa commented.

  He smiled. “She did paint it.”

  “Oh, my God. That’s an original?”

  “It is.”

  With a gasp, Lissa moved to stand in front of the piece. As was appropriate with great impressionistic art, she examined it up close and then stepped back to look at it from a distance. The back of her thighs bumped into the foot of his bed.

  “You have to be lying in bed to look at it properly,” he said drily.

  She looked up at him, awe written in her expression, and all thoughts of Cassatt and impressionist painters exploded out of his mind. This woman was here. With him now. And looking at him as if he was some kind of conquering hero.

  He stepped close to her and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. He ran his fingertip lightly around her earlobe and savored the shiver that passed through her whole body. “Are you cold?” he murmured, taking note of the goose bumps rising on her arms.

  She laughed a little. “Not in the least. In fact, I was wondering how long it’s going to take you to unzip this uncomfortably warm dress.”

  He took another step forward until her chest touched his and reached behind her for the offending zipper. “It is a hot dress, by the way. It’s going to look fantastic in a pool on my floor.”

  Staring deeply into her infinitely dark gaze, he slowly pulled down the zipper. It was the only sound in the room besides her light, rapid breathing.

  “You’re sure about this?” he asked.

  Her lips turned up in a wise, mysterious smile. “Oh, yes. Very sure.”

  He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.”

  “Would you really have let me go and taken me home if I said no?”

  “Absolutely.” He stood straighter, a little offended that she would even question him.

  Her arms went around his neck. “Come here, you, and kiss me. I didn’t mean to offend you and your unshakable honor.”

  She might as well have stuck a knife in his gut. If he was truly honorable, he would tell her to leave his condo right this second. But instead, he leaned his head down and kissed her hungrily.

  If he was a good man, he’d walk her to the door and call her a cab. But he invaded her open mouth with his tongue, sipping at the sweet taste of her and loving the way she groaned in the back of her throat.

  If he had integrity, he’d tell her to stay far, far away from him for her own safety. But instead, he slipped his hands inside the gapping bodice of her gown and skimmed it down over her hips, letting it slither to the floor at her feet.

  Oh, hell. She wasn’t wearing a bra. And that sexy little black thong hardly qualified as underwear.

  If he was a decent man, he’d warn her that being with him was a one-way ticket to disappointment and heartache. But instead, he let her untie his bow tie and pull it from around his neck. He let her pop the studs out of his shirtfront and cuffs and strip the starched shirt off his shoulders.

  She stood back in admiration to stare at him, and he took advantage of the moment to do the same. She didn’t seem the slightest bit self-conscious, which was rare in his experience with women. Who needed beautiful paintings to look at when she stood before him, nearly naked, and every inch a sexy, confident, beautiful woman, inside and out?

  Then she stepped close to him again and pressed her lips against the center of his chest, murmuring, “I just want to eat you up.”

  He laughed a little painfully. “I know the feeling.”

  Her clever fingers undid his belt buckle and pulled the leather from around his waist. His own zipper went down, and then her warm hands were plunging inside his trousers and boldly cupping his privates.

  “Oh, my,” she declared.

  “Lights dim,” he declared. The spotlight on the Cassatt painting diminished to a bare hint of light, casting the room in deep shadows and Lissa’s face into sepia silhouette. He took both of her cheeks in his palms and stared down at her for a long time, drinking in the magnificent lines of her brow and nose and lips. And then he kissed them all, while she shoved his pants down over his hips.

  Impatience overtook him, and he swept her off her feet and up into his arms, carrying her to his high king-size bed. He didn’t bother pulling back the comforter, merely deposited her on its cool raw silk surface and followed her down, covering her body with his.

  “We’re good?” he murmured in her ear as he nibbled at it, enjoying the little sounds she was making in the back of her throat.

  “You don’t have to keep asking me,” she replied.

  “Yes, I do. It’s called rolling consent, and it’s important. I don’t ever want there to be any doubt that you’re enjoying yourself and want me to keep doing what I’m doing.”

  “Thank you, Max. Please keep doing that.”

  “Which part? This?” He nibbled on her earlobe lightly. “Or this?” He cupped her breast in his left hand and let his thumb drift lightly across the eager tip that rose to meet it.

  “Both!”

  “Or maybe you’d prefer this...” He kissed his way down her neck, across her collarbone and down to the gentle valley between her breasts. At the same time he let his free hand drift lower, skimming down her hip and thigh to the back of her knee, which he raised. His fingers traced back up the inside of her thigh.

  “Umm, yes. That’s better. Oh, my. Much better...”

  He smiled against her velvet skin as she gasped and arched up into him.

  He was surprised, however, when she returned the favor and reached for his stomach with her hands. Her fingers explored him every bit as boldly as he was exploring her until he was the one gasping in surprise and delight.

  When he could take no more, he grasped her wrists and pulled them up by her ears, pinning her hands in place by twining his fingers with hers. He pinned the rest of her in place with his body, but he was careful not to crush her.

  “Are we—”

  She cut him off. “We are not going
to be good if you don’t get busy soon. I’ve been thinking about this nonstop ever since the night I met you, and my patience is wearing very thin! I’m on birth control, I don’t have any sexually transmitted diseases and there’s no one else in my life. Now can we get on with this?”

  He grinned down at her, enthralled by her frank desire for him. She rose up off the pillows to kiss him, and he rolled onto his back, taking her with him, wrapping her in his arms and reveling in how her breasts pressed against his chest.

  Despite the difference in their physical statures, they fit each other perfectly. She crawled all over him and covered his body with hers as they explored each other with growing intensity. He met her boldness with his own, claiming her body with gentle force and claiming her sighs, and then cries, of delight with his mouth.

  They reversed positions, and she arched up against him eagerly, meeting his thrusts with her own, helping him drive deeper and deeper into her body and soul. And, oh, how she welcomed him in, surrounding him with love and acceptance and joy...all the things he’d been denied his entire life. She wrapped him in her arms and showered him with it all, and he was powerless to do anything but let down his guard and humbly accept it.

  At some point, they pulled back the covers and ended up between his black Egyptian cotton sheets. She straddled him and drove him into oblivion at another point, and he returned the favor at yet another.

  They made love for hours, resting and making out in between more athletic bouts, but the end result was complete and total satiation of body, mind and soul. As Lissa sprawled across his chest, exhausted, he stroked her hair and murmured, “Sleep.”

  “Mmm. Hmm.”

  So. Was this what happiness felt like?

  And that was the last thing he remembered thinking before blessed darkness claimed him.

  * * *

  Lissa woke gradually, perplexed by the various aches and pains of having exercised excessively until she regained enough consciousness to recall the exact form said exercise had taken last night. And then she popped to full awareness all at once, simultaneously registering smooth, warm flesh beneath her cheek, the smell of aftershave and the caress of cotton against her skin. All of her skin. Oh, right. She was naked in bed with Max Smith in his magnificent condo full of art after an even more magnificent night with him.

  Well, then. This normal life thing was going smashingly well, if she did say so herself.

  And to that end, she eased carefully off his outstretched arm and out from under the covers. He deserved breakfast in bed after the spectacular night he’d gifted her with.

  She picked his discarded tuxedo shirt off the floor and slipped it on. Buttoning it absently, she padded down the hallway in search of a kitchen. Woo baby, did the man ever have a kitchen! She looked around in delight at the high-tech gadgets tucked neatly into alcoves all along the quartz counters.

  One of the gadgets was a coffeemaker, and she fiddled with it until it flashed to life and commenced what appeared to be the preliminary steps of making coffee. As best she could tell, it already had coffee beans and water in it. That was Max. Always thinking one step ahead.

  For the first time since Max had swept her off her feet in the garden, she had a mental moment to herself to ruminate on last night’s revelations. Almost all the people at that party had known her aunt. Some of them well. Which was a shade alarming given that she’d picked up a strong impression that most of the partygoers worked for the same illegal criminal organization.

  Oh, they thought they were being tricky and secretive about how they couched their questions to her about their psychic readings. But they didn’t seem to grasp that she could see a great deal more than their words revealed. Interesting business associates Max had. Was he one of them? And if so, why hadn’t being around him flooded her with the same violent images and nefarious intent? Did having the hots for someone blind her to his true nature? Alarm exploded in her gut at the notion of being blind like that.

  Whoa. Wait. She wanted blind. Right? Blind meant normal. How did regular people live like this, not knowing for sure who they were dealing with? Panic rippled through her.

  Desperate to distract and calm herself, she turned her thoughts to the last set of psychic images to come to her, clinging to them like the lifeline they were. No matter that they were the pile of violent images that had flooded her last night.

  One in particular had struck her. It was an image of a young girl, a teenager with a mop of bright red curls, who looked a lot like Lissa, crying.

  If she didn’t know that Julio G. was safely in police custody across town, she would have wondered if maybe she’d picked up on another one of that guy’s victims. Although the impression of the crying girl didn’t feel recent.

  As Max had told her the stories of the mansion last night, she’d assumed the crying girl must have lived in the home at some point. But now that she thought about it without Max’s distracting presence nearby, she revised her conclusion. That image of the crying girl had come out of someone’s mind at the party, not out of the walls of the house. Of course, that didn’t explain why the image had struck—and stuck with—her so strongly.

  She opened Max’s refrigerator door and was pleased to find eggs and bacon within. She popped a whole pound of bacon into the oven to bake, because there was no such thing in life as too much bacon, and wandered out into the condo while it got a head start on the eggs she would fry up.

  There was a small painting in Max’s office she wanted to look at again. For all the world, it looked like a Picasso sketch. She was no great expert on art, but she wasn’t a complete ignoramus about it, either. She’d taken as many art classes in college as she could fit in around the entirely boring degree in business that her parents had forced her to get.

  Max’s office was as sleek and neat as the rest of his house. It looked as if the man didn’t actually live there. It was decorated too well to be labeled sterile, but the white walls, pale bamboo floors and modern furniture were only a step or two short of it.

  She glanced at a perfectly stacked pile of papers on his desk and picked up the top one out of curiosity. It was written in what looked like the Cyrillic alphabet. Of course he spoke Russian, too. She started to put the paper back, but the next letter in the pile caught her eye.

  Dear Mr. Kuznetsov, Thank you for putting us in contact with the auction house...

  Kuznetsov? Who the hell was that? He’d told her his name was Smith. Max Smith. It was one thing to suspect his name wasn’t Smith. But it was another to know for sure that he’d lied to her.

  This “being normal” crap was for the birds. In the future, she would rip into the mind of every man who got close to her whether they liked it or not. Normal human judgment was horribly, fatally flawed, and, furthermore, she clearly sucked at it.

  Particularly after last night. How could he sleep with her, when he hadn’t even told her his real name? What else was he lying about? And what about the things he’d said while they were making love? Things about never having known a woman like her. Had any of that been real, or had the whole thing been nothing more than a casual hookup to him?

  CHAPTER 7

  Fury and fear and humiliation mingled in her gut, and an urge to flee overtook her. But her clothes were in his room. Scowling, she found a laundry room just past the garage entrance and a basket of laundry. She didn’t care if it was clean or dirty. She just grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt and yanked them on, her hands shaking she was so mad.

  Granted, she’d suspected Smith wasn’t his real name, or at least not all of it. Why hadn’t she listened to her instinct? It had been trying to tell her. But no. She had to go and be all regular and gullible and trusting.

  She needed a ride home. Her place was miles away from here. The keys to Lola were on a credenza in the front hall where he’d tossed them last night. She
scooped them up and raced down to the garage, frantic to get out of there before Max or whatever his name was woke up.

  She hit the garage door opener and started the car, then backed it out carefully into the street. A moment’s awareness that she was engaging in grand theft auto passed through her mind, but she angrily dismissed the misgivings that came along with the revelation. He deserved it.

  She touched the accelerator, and the Ferrari jumped forward, scaring her into yanking her foot off the pedal. She tried touching the pedal more lightly, and the sports car accelerated more cooperatively. Gingerly, she guided the car across town. Intuition tickled her spine, and she angrily and eagerly tuned into it. A vision of Max royally pissed off that she’d taken his car flashed through her head. Good. The least she could do was repay his lie with a big scare. Jerk. And she would return the darned car to him, anyway. But not now. Right now, she was so mad she could spit.

  * * *

  Max woke up to the smell of fresh coffee—and was that bacon?—and smiled up at the ceiling lazily. That had unquestionably been the best night he could ever remember. He’d searched his entire life for a woman who could love him for himself, just the way he was, and he’d finally found her.

  He jumped in the shower. When he emerged, he wrapped a towel around his hips. Hmm. The bacon smelled a little burned. But his euphoria was such that Lissa could serve him charcoal this morning and he wouldn’t care. He padded toward the kitchen, where the burning smell became more pronounced.

  “Lissa?” he called.

  No answer. Maybe she was in the guest bathroom washing up. He opened the oven door, and smoke poured out. He swore, grabbed a hot pad and pulled a cookie sheet covered in strips of blackened bacon out. The smoke alarm let out a piercing scream, and he dived for the kitchen window, opening it wide. He turned on the ceiling fan and went into the dining room to open that window, as well.

  His eyeballs actually hurt from the piercing noise by the time the smoke alarm finally went silent. That crisis solved, he headed for the guest bedroom and bath. Odd that Lissa hadn’t come out to see what all the fuss was about—