Danger and Desire: Ten Full-Length Steamy Romantic Suspense Novels

by Pamela Clare

  “Not surprising. What do you want to do?” Tadeo asked.

  “Head back to the hotel. I want to take some more pictures. We’ve still got half an hour before the display closes.” Even though he was still waiting for the building plans from Ellie, he and Tadeo were doing as much recon as they could. So far they had the daytime guards’ schedule down, but he knew there had to be a shift change sometime after hours. Unfortunately there was no way to find that out without a big risk of being exposed. The casino was open 24/7, but not the display area and they had no business being on that floor after a certain time. Sure, they could come up with an excuse, but it would make them memorable. Something he couldn’t risk.

  “You sure she’ll come through?”

  “Yeah.” He sounded more confident than he felt, which was good. He had to keep up appearances for Tadeo. He might like the guy but Kevin couldn’t let his guard down. Not when he knew Tadeo would always look out for number one. Not that he blamed him. It was the law of survival, something prison had grilled into him even more.

  When the phone Tadeo had given him buzzed in his pocket, he glanced at the incoming text message and didn’t hide his smile. “She’s got what we need and will give it to me tomorrow. Wants to set up a meeting at a public place.”

  “She might have backup. That big guy doesn’t seem like he’ll let her out of his sight, especially not after that car bombing. Did you see those guards on her?”

  “This’ll be a good way to test if she’s lying.” He texted back with the location of a private park and a time.

  Her response was immediate. I’ll give you the time and place tomorrow. You’ll have fifteen minutes to meet me at the designated place.

  Her demanding attitude pissed him off, but she held the cards and clearly knew it. He might be threatening her, but he needed something from her. Once he got it though, it would be a different game. Forcing himself to remain calm, he texted her back. Soon he’d have to ditch this phone and the other burner he’d texted her with.

  After he’d seen her entering that media event from the floor of the casino he’d waited until the room had been locked down to text her. He just wished he’d been able to see her expression when she’d received it and the mention of her shirt color. She’d probably thought he had a visual on her right then. Which was what he wanted.

  Ellie needed to stay on her toes, to be worried that he was watching all the time. Her fear would keep her from doing anything stupid, like trying to double-cross him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “She’s safe in the suite. We both swept and secured it before letting her enter,” Roman said the moment he picked up Jay’s call.

  “Thanks,” Jay said, hating that he wasn’t with Ellie right now. He was downstairs getting the room directly underneath the one that housed the Dragon Collection prepped for the would-be robbery, but it felt as if he was hundreds of miles from her.

  She was in good hands though. The twins were better trained than anyone on the security team and the fact that Wyatt had been willing to give Ellie two of his best men said a lot. “What’s she doing now?”

  “Not sure. She kicked us out. Said unless someone came down from the roof and had a glass cutter, no one was getting in the room and she wanted privacy.” Roman chuckled lightly. “She’s right too. Wyatt had this floor built with security in mind.”

  “I know.” He’d been there when his boss had gone over the extra design features with the architect. Plus he knew Ellie had one of his weapons with her. He wouldn’t have left her unarmed even with guards.

  “I’m pretty sure we were followed,” Roman continued.

  His heart rate increased a fraction, even though it wasn’t totally unexpected. “How many?”

  “I saw two vehicles, but I think the second was following the guys tailing us.”

  Jay frowned, but listened as Roman went over the details about both vehicles he’d spotted. As of now Roman and Logan just knew that there was an increased security threat and Ellie was a top priority. They were being vigilant and doing their job, but not asking more questions, something Jay was thankful for.

  Jay had already heard from Ellie that she’d texted Kevin with vague meeting details for tomorrow. Which was something Jay couldn’t even think about right now. He didn’t want her anywhere near that piece of garbage, but the file she needed to give him was simply too big for email. They’d discussed using cloud storage via a file hosting system but it was still too risky that the information she was giving him could become public or even be accessed by an employee of the hosting system. So in-person it was.

  Once they disconnected, Jay relayed everything to Vadim who’d already tracked down the phone Ellie had received the text from. A standard burner phone with no other incoming or outgoing calls. Basically useless for now. V was still keeping tabs on the other phone Kevin had called her from though. Whatever his relationship with the owner of the phone, Tadeo Bejar, they seemed to be decent enough friends from what V had been able to pull up on the two men.

  Jay wanted a tail on Kevin 24/7 but knew that would be a stupid move. If the man got even a hint that he was being watched it could screw up their plans. And it would only have to be one small thing to tip him off. He couldn’t risk Ellie getting hurt.

  “Check this out.” V held out his laptop to Jay.

  Taking the laptop, he eyed the screen, watching himself and V on the live feed. They were sitting in the middle of the empty room directly underneath the display case for the Dragon Collection—which was being replaced with fake jewels as they spoke. Wyatt was going to put the real ones in one of the vaults and he and Iris would be the only ones who knew exactly where they were.

  “Tell me what I’m looking at,” Jay said.

  “Hold on.” He reached over and tapped a button.

  On screen, a small light green crisscross pattern covered the entire ceiling. Jay looked up and saw nothing. “The invisible sensors?”

  “Yes. I made the openings tighter and I’ve linked the silent alarm to send alerts to all of our phones.” Meaning, him, V, Wyatt, Iris and Hayden. In a couple hours Wyatt would be filling Roman and Logan in on everything but for now they were keeping everything close to the chest. “And after tomorrow I’ll temporarily disable the alert to the police station.”

  “Wyatt’s orders?” Jay asked. It was against the insurance company’s requirements. The police alert had to be live at all times so in the event the jewels were stolen, they would be covered by the company.

  “Yeah, if a call goes out over the radio, Wyatt doesn’t want anyone listening to scanners picking up a message.”

  Jay nodded. They had the robbery part ironed out, but Wyatt was still working out the logistics of coordinating with the police. And his boss was being very quiet about everything, though they were supposed to get the final details tonight. “You done in here?” Jay asked, handing the laptop back to him.

  “Yeah.” He stood and Jay followed suit. “Let’s head to the security room. I should have gotten some hits by now.”

  Jay knew he was talking about the facial recognition software the casino used to weed out people who’d been banned, or for other potential serious threats. V had plugged in Kevin and Tadeo’s pictures earlier so if they’d been in or on the premises recently, the team would know soon enough.

  Upstairs in V’s office, Jay and the others all stood in front of the four screens on the wall. Each of the security team with management titles had something similar in their office.

  “You’re sure that’s him?” Iris asked, eying the video critically.

  Vadim nodded, his expression stoic. “Yeah. I got sixty percent of his face and the ears are right. It’s a high statistical improbability that the computer screws up those measurements.”

  A man wearing a baseball cap, jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt stood in front of a slot machine, almost absently pulling on the lever as he watched the nearby elevators. He kept his face angled down, as if he didn’t want to
be seen by any cameras. And he must know there were a ton of them considering he was in a casino.

  Jay tensed as he watched Ellie exit the elevator with Roman and Logan surrounding her. It didn’t matter that this was a recording, he hated that her ex was anywhere near her after what he’d done. The car bombing wasn’t an idle threat. Wyatt was behind her with his team, but the man never took his eyes off Ellie, watching her head toward where Jay had been waiting for her earlier this afternoon.

  “And I’ve got a couple more clips of him,” V interrupted Jay’s rage-fueled thoughts that Murrell had been so damn close to Ellie.

  So close and Jay hadn’t even realized.

  On one of the other screens, a recorded feed of the showroom for the Dragon Collection appeared. The place was busy, people milling in and out and sure enough, Kevin was there. “He’s taking pictures,” Jay muttered.

  “Yeah but so is everyone else,” Iris said. “He’s acting like a perfect tourist.”

  “When was this?” Jay asked.

  “An hour before the shot with Ellie.” He paused the feed, then pointed his controller at another screen. “And this is right after Ellie leaves with Roman and Logan.” There was a clear shot of him getting into a minivan, but the windows were tinted, not giving them a visual of the driver.

  “I bet it’s his buddy, Tadeo. You get the license plate?” Hayden sounded as annoyed as Jay felt.

  “Yep.” V sounded smug. “There’s no such license plate.”

  “As in the numbers don’t exist in any system?” Wyatt asked.

  V nodded. “They probably took two halves of different plates, then welded them together.”

  “Smart, impossible to trace so even if the vehicle is stolen we wouldn’t know where to start looking,” Jay said. Vadim shouldn’t even have access to DMV records but he wasn’t going to ask how the man knew the license plate didn’t exist. If he didn’t know, it gave him plausible deniability.

  “What’s interesting is this vehicle…” V trailed off as he zoomed in on a dark truck that pulled away after the minivan. “I was able to track them for a couple miles by hacking into CCTVs and this truck was definitely tailing them. I ran the plate and it exists, but I couldn’t find out any details about the owner which tells me it might be a government vehicle.”

  “It is,” Wyatt said, causing all eyes to turn to him. Even Iris looked surprised.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Because I know the driver. I couldn’t say anything until I was certain we were good to go, but remember Cody from the strip club?” Wyatt asked, looking at Jay.

  Jay nodded.

  “His full name is Cody Hurley and he’s a detective. He doesn’t normally do undercover work, but the job at Teaser’s was part of his cover for…something. I don’t know what. I just know it’s over now and he’s back at work. He and another detective—who I trust—know about what’s going on and what we’re planning. As soon as Ellie makes the drop to Murrell, he’s going to have the SWAT team on standby indefinitely. They want to bring down De Luca in the worst way and with Murrell’s link to him, they’re foaming at the mouth for the chance. Unfortunately they think De Luca might have a contact in the department. No one high level, but with enough knowledge that De Luca’s avoided prosecution too many times. It’s the only reason Hurley is sitting on this. It’s also why I’m having the police alert turned off. Hurley will be contacted directly by one of us in this room when everything goes down.” He looked around at all of them. “After Murrell and his team leave with the jewels, the plan is for SWAT to infiltrate the meet for the Dragon Collection.”

  “Are we putting a tracker on the fakes?” Jay asked.

  Wyatt shook his head. “No. I don’t know how they know, but apparently Hurley says they’ll make it to the meet place even if they lose Kevin and his crew. If I had to guess, I’d say he has a CI or something working for him, but frankly, I don’t care. Even if the worst case scenario happens and Murrell gets away with the jewels, they’re fake. De Luca will probably kill him for that alone. Which gets rid of Ellie’s problem.”

  Jay nodded slowly, absorbing everything. It made sense that Hurley had a CI—a confidential informant—or he might even have an actual inside man. If the plan didn’t work and Murrell realized that the jewels were a fake before meeting with De Luca then Murrell would know or at least suspect that Ellie had set him up. If that happened, Jay would deal with the problem then. “Do the police know everything we know? Everything V has done to get information on Murrell and Bejar?” Even though he thought he knew the answer, Jay asked anyway.

  Iris snorted at the same time Wyatt shook his head. “They know what they need to know. At this point Hurley knows that we have a credible threat against the Dragon Collection. I told him it’s a tip we received from a concerned citizen in exchange for compensation. If all goes well he’s going to get credit for bringing down De Luca and the SWAT team will publicly get the accolades they deserve. It’s a win-win for them. If Hurley knows more, he’d have to disclose it.”

  So he wasn’t asking questions. Jay liked that. “All this sounds good. Ellie still needs to set up the drop-off location for tomorrow and we’ll need to go over the location and pinpoint exactly where everyone will be, but we can do that in the morning. I need to relieve the twins anyway because I want them with us tomorrow. Should I send them down here?” he asked Iris.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll brief them on everything.”

  “Take this with you if you have a chance for some light reading.” V handed him a binder with information on Murrell and Bejar, no doubt.

  At this point Jay didn’t care, but he took it. He would read it in the morning because something told him he wouldn’t have a chance to tonight. He just wanted to get to Ellie. Especially if she planned to wear what she’d promised. Shoving that thought aside for now, he spoke to his brother for a few minutes in private before heading upstairs. He texted Ellie to let her know he was on his way up and she told him to meet her on the balcony. It was private and they were so high up that it would be damn near impossible for anyone to get to her, but still, he didn’t like her outside. He didn’t like anything about this entire damn situation.

  Even though he told himself to hold off reading the file, he flipped it open as the elevator ascended. As he scanned the basics on Murrell, he could feel his anger ratcheting up so he snapped it shut when the doors whooshed open on their floor.

  After stepping out he immediately spotted the twins and two other members of his team waiting outside the suite door. Good, they were ready for a shift change which meant he didn’t have to call them in as replacements. This was why he was selective about his hires. He needed people who knew what needed to be done and did it without being told. Jay nodded at everyone. “Roman, Logan, head down to the security floor. Iris needs to go over some stuff with you. And get some sleep tonight. We need you alert tomorrow.”

  He knew they must have questions, but professionals that they were, they just nodded and headed for the elevators without even a crack about him being a squid. After he talked with the other team members for a few seconds, he headed inside.

  Soft music filtered in from somewhere and there were flameless battery-operated candles everywhere. Some he recognized from their home and wondered how the hell she’d gotten them here. Since she’d said she was on the balcony, he dropped the file on the nearest couch and made his way to the open French doors. The sheer white curtains billowed softly, flapping open to reveal even more flameless candles on one of the decorative mosaic tables outside.

  As he stepped outside, he froze. Ellie was stretched out on one of the cushioned lounge chairs, wearing exactly what she’d said she would. With just a jacket and that skirt he loved to hike up to her hips, she was his walking wet dream. The jacket was unbuttoned but still covered her breasts, only giving him a flash of skin. She was also wearing wire-rimmed glasses he knew she didn’t need and had piled her hair on top of her head in a messy bun.r />
  Smiling seductively, she pushed up from the seat, her four inch heels clicking against the stone. “Can I help you check out a book?” she asked, her voice pure sex and sin as she took on the naughty librarian role.

  Jay’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth as he tried to formulate an answer, but his mind went completely blank at the erotic sight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ellie couldn’t remember ever being so nervous around Jay. Their first time together had been intense and hot and not much had changed since then. But they’d never done any sort of role playing or dressing up. She wasn’t sure if this counted, but when he’d mentioned envisioning her as a naughty librarian she’d decided to go all out. Thankfully Sierra had been able to snag some costume glasses for her from one of the casino shows.

  If the hungry expression on Jay’s face was any indication, Ellie’s look was perfect. He seemed almost frozen to the spot. His tie was loosened sexily around his neck, his top button opened and his jacket was perfectly rumpled.

  It was a little chilly so high up, but she didn’t care. Striding up to him, she watched as he visibly swallowed, his heated gaze raking over her from head to toe. When he landed on the bare expanse of her stomach and in between her covered breasts, that gaze went molten. As soon as she was within touching distance, he reached for her but she swatted his hands away.