by Myla Jackson
Amira settled back and enjoyed the ride back to her Manhattan apartment, realizing she’d had enough excitement in the past hour to last for a while. Next time she decided to ditch her bodyguards, she’d think twice.
Fifteen minutes later and following a thorough chastising from her father over the telephone, Amira stripped out of her damp clothes and, in her bra and panties, padded through her penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park. A drink was what she needed. A drink and a long soak in the tub. She made it as far as fixing the drink, but ended up collapsed on the brown leather sofa, curiosity getting the better of her. With a triple martini balanced in one hand, she ripped the tape off the box Mr. Baumgartner had given her earlier. What the hell was so special about the pretty blue-green bottle that two men had chased after her on the streets of New York?
Tape removed, she opened the lid and set her martini on the mahogany coffee table.
She dug into layers of tissue paper until she reached the bottle. Nestled in tissue, it didn’t look all that important. Its long, thin neck appeared a darker shade of blue-green than the onion-bulb shape of the base.
Amira eased the bottle from the tissue and held it up to the light. She gasped when every hue of the rainbow rippled across the surface.
“It’s beautiful,” she said aloud, her voice echoing against the walls. So what? The bottle was pretty. But pretty enough to chase after someone to get it? Not hardly. Valuable enough, maybe. She tipped it upside down and searched for markings.
Nothing.
So what was the big deal?
She set the bottle on the table, reached for her martini and then leaned back against the cushions, sipping her drink and staring at the bottle. Who were those men? Maybe Mr. Baumgartner would know about the men who’d chased her.
Amira dug her cell phone from her purse and speed-dialed Mr. Baumgartner’s number at the museum. After five rings, the museum operator picked up. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to speak with Mr. Baumgartner.”
“Oh, ma’am, I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident.”
Her stomach clenching, Amira grabbed the phone tighter. “What accident?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve been instructed not to give out information to anyone but family. Are you family?”
“No. This is Amira Nassiri, one of the museum’s benefactors.”
“Oh, well. Then I guess it’s okay to tell you.” The operator’s voice dropped to an intense whisper. “There was a break-in inside the warehouse today and Mr. Baumgartner was attacked.”
“How is he?”
“We don’t know yet. He’s unconscious and the paramedics are with him now.”
“Oh my. Thank you for the information.” Amira hung up and paced across the room. “What the hell?”
She stopped in front of the bottle, anger building at the inanimate object. Not that she really liked Mr. Baumgartner very much. The man gave her “gifts”, but he always expected something in return. Usually, hefty donations. Still, she didn’t wish ill on the man and it sounded as if he’d met with a lot of ill. Probably dished out by the two men who’d chased her for several blocks.
Amira froze at her next thought. Would Mr. Baumgartner have told them who she was? Would they come looking for her here? She lifted the house phone and started to dial security on the front desk. Halfway through the numbers, she hung up. What would she say? That she thought she’d been followed and that someone was after her? Where was her proof? She’d look like a paranoid rich girl and it would be reported back to her father. He’d be back from Italy faster than she could finish her martini.
No. She had to handle it herself and trust in the building’s state-of-the-art security system her father had paid dearly for. She glanced through the windows out at Central Park, in the early throes of spring, where young leaves were just budding from gray branches.
Rain ran in rivulets down the floor-to-ceiling glass panes, blurring the view. Amira pressed her forehead to the cool window. Why did things have to happen the way they did? She’d finally taken a step on the wild side and what happened? Freakin’ everything. Was it a sign she should follow her father’s advice and remain cloistered behind security systems and bodyguards for the rest of her life?
She threw her hands up in the air. “I’m tired of living my life in a bubble, dammit!” But she wasn’t brave enough to face a scary world alone. Catch-22. She stared at the bottle across the room. “It’s all your fault.” The need to throw something propelled her forward until she stood in front of the onion-shaped bottle, the lovely bluish-green reflecting off the glass of the coffee table. She grabbed the neck of the bottle and held it over her head ready to smash it against the wall and watch it shatter into a million satisfying pieces.
Once her hand wrapped around cool smoothness, her sky-rocketing anger died to a sulky fizzle. No matter how mad she got, she couldn’t destroy a thing of such ageless beauty. She brought the bottle to her chest and dropped onto the couch. “What’s the use? I don’t even have the guts to throw a stupid bottle.”
Exhausted by all the events of the day, Amira stared at the martini glass, empty but for the olive resting against the bottom. Like her. Empty. So what did the olive signify? Her dreams? If she didn’t fill her glass with life, would her dreams and desires shrivel up?
She wished she could find someone to love, to share her world and thoughts with. Someone who would whisk her away to his secret hideaway. Maybe a desert sheik, determined to make her his one-woman harem, content to love her and her alone. A man who couldn’t care less about her money.
“Ah, what’s the use?” She leaned her head back, the bottle still cradled against her chest. Her hand rubbed over the bulbous base, feeling every wave and crest in the glass, marveling at its simple beauty. She snorted softly. “I can see me now. I’ll be an old maid collecting bottles instead of children.” Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes, letting exhaustion claim her.
A rumble pierced the sound of the teeming traffic traversing Fifth Avenue far below, jerking her awake. “What the heck?”
Amira rose from the couch, struggling to stand as the floor shook beneath her feet. Earthquake? In Manhattan? A flash of light blinded her, followed by a huge clap of thunder. Had the city come under attack, again?
Amira tucked the bottle under her arm and dropped to the hardwood floor, covering her face with her free arm. Now would be a good time for those bodyguards to show up and save the day.
Then the world stopped shaking, the rumbling ceased and the paintings on the walls stilled.
Was it safe to come up for air? Amira stayed flat on the floor for a few seconds longer, afraid to pull her head out from under her arms in case a second tremor followed the first and the ceiling decided to crash in on her.
When the second tremor didn’t happen, Amira sat up and looked around, her gaze making a slow pan of the room.
The windows were intact, no cracks, no broken glass. The walls stood as straight and unblemished as before. Everything appeared unfazed by the tremors. If the Rousseau painting weren’t tipped slightly to the left, Amira might have questioned the vermouth in her martini.
She had just set the bottle on the coffee table when a deep groan sounded from the other side of the leather sofa.
Amira screamed and leaped over the coffee table, grabbing the designer lamp from the end table beside her and holding it like a baseball bat.
“Who’s there?” she asked, angry that her voice shook.
“What the—” A man sat up, his head appearing over the top of the couch, his blond hair sticking up straight and his amazingly broad shoulders bare.
Amira’s mouth went dry. “Don’t move or I’ll use this.” Amira shook the lamp at him.
He frowned at the lamp. “What? Are you going to shoot me with a ray of light or something?” His gaze narrowed and he blinked. “Amira? What the heck—”
“Mitchell West?” Had she dreamed him up? No, she could feel his hot gaze as if he�
��d run his hands over her semi-naked body. “What the hell are you doing here? And stop staring at me!” She had to take the upper hand, even if all she wore was her bra and panties. A man with shoulders as broad as his could easily take control of a woman and…and…rape her or something. Her blood heated, his naked shoulders doing crazy things to her concentration. She eased toward the coffee table where she thought she’d left her cell phone. The table was empty except for the martini glass and the stolen bottle. Where the heck had the cell phone gone? “How did you get in here?”
“I can’t help staring at you. You’re…well hell, you have a great body. What did you expect?”
Her skin heated and she tossed her mane of rich black hair over her shoulder. “It’s my body, damn it, and you have no right to stare at it, so quit!” Wow, did she really sound that stupid? Hell, he’d had his chance and blew it.
“Yes, Miss Nassiri.” The man averted his eyes. God, he was gorgeous with sandy blond hair and startling blue eyes, like a golden Adonis, all buff and beautiful. But that wasn’t the point and she wasn’t any nearer to getting him out of her apartment.
“You didn’t answer my question. How the hell did you get into my apartment?”
He faced her, for which she gave him a dirty look, and he looked away again. “I don’t know how I got here, but I think it had something to do with a stone.”
“Stone? Is it some kind of code word or something? You know, who cares? The fact is that this is private property and you’re trespassing. Get out or I’ll call security and have your ass thrown out.”
“Look, Miss Nassiri, I’d gladly leave, except one major problem.” He glanced down.
Amira rose on her toes to see past the couch to whatever the man was looking at. “What problem?”
He gave her a wicked grin. “I seem to have lost my clothes.”
Chapter Two
The lamp dropped from the Amira’s hands, the bulb shattering on the hardwood floor. She stared at him her face flushing deep red. “You’ve what?”
So she wasn’t completely immune to him after all. Good. It might help him extricate himself from an embarrassing situation. Before her father got wind of it. “I seem to have lost my clothes.” Mitch West had never been in quite such an embarrassing situation before. Sure he’d been caught in a woman’s bed by her unsuspecting boyfriend or fiancé, but never had he found himself naked in a woman’s apartment and not remembered how he had gotten there. What the hell had happened to him? Why was he here and why couldn’t he remember? Had he been on an all-night bender?
Amira’s liquid-brown eyes widened, her full, sensuous lips forming an O. Then she shook her thick mane of ebony hair over her shoulder, backing toward the kitchen where a phone hung on the wall beside the bar. “I’m calling security.”
He couldn’t let her reach the phone. If the security guards picked him up, he might end up in some jail cell—a misunderstanding he couldn’t afford in his line of business. Business. He was a stockbroker on Wall Street. Shit! What would his customers say if they got wind he’d been arrested as some sort of pervert sneaking into the apartment of the daughter of one of the richest men in the country, Ram Nassiri? Especially after Ram Nassiri had threatened not only his career as a broker, but his life if he so much as showed up on the same street as his daughter. Not that he usually let threats scare him, but Ram Nassiri had assured him that Amira wanted nothing to do with him. That she found him beneath her and nothing more than an unfortunate fling. That last part had hurt him more than he’d cared to admit. For the first time in his life, he’d met a woman he could envision being with, and she had turned her nose up at him.
That she’d dumped him, left him feeling used and angry. If she called security, her father would get wind of it and follow through on his threat to ruin his career. He’d be damned if he let a poor little rich girl ruin his career. Mitch leapt to his feet and raced to reach the telephone before Amira.
The result?
She crashed into his chest so hard, she bounced back and would have fallen if he hadn’t circled an arm around her, pulling her close. Too close.
Her warm, soft skin collided with his from his chest to points farther south, hardening points, reminding him he was completely naked and she wasn’t too far from the same condition. Couple that with the fact she was a knockout, if you went for dark-haired, exotic beauties of Middle Eastern descent. And his body knew her body as if they were forever connected by that one night they’d made love.
Mitch’s cock twitched in recognition of her. Down, boy. The woman wasn’t receptive, didn’t want him, used him like a gigolo. He had no intention of going there again.
“Let me go!” She pressed her hands against his chest and shoved backward.
He didn’t release her completely, unwilling to let her have the opportunity to call security. “Look, let me explain.” Shoot, he’d have to remember first to be able to explain.
“I don’t want to hear your explanations, they’ll be full of the lies you like to tell. If you don’t let me go, I’ll scream.” She sucked in a deep breath.
Before she could let it go in what was sure to be an ear-splitting shriek, Mitch clamped his mouth over hers, muffling the sound that would have shaken the rafters.
She pounded against his chest, her small fists barely hurting. After a few long seconds, her fingers opened and splayed over his muscles, her lips softening beneath his.
What had started as a defense mechanism morphed into something he could have predicted on his part. He must have wanted to kiss her on an instinctive level. But his mind told him he was treading in dangerous waters, given his suspect arrival in her home. He inhaled her scent, triggering memories of the night she’d opened herself to him, given willingly of her body. That night she’d smelled good. Real good. Like oranges and some kind of flowers all wrapped up in a sexy package he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off.
Her fingers contracted, pulling lightly at the smattering of hair covering his chest, just like they had when she’d come into his arms the first time.
Automatically, Mitch’s tongue slipped between her teeth and dove in to tangle with hers. His arms tightened around her, his hands capturing her slim waist, the skin soft and sleek. One hand traveled lower, cupping the rounded globe of her ass, drawing her cunt against his cock, nothing but a scrap of satin panties between them. He rubbed his dick against the slick fabric, wanting more than anything to touch the fine and silky hair beneath, to set her on fire like she ignited him.
At first soft and compliant, she leaned into him, her breath warm against his throat. Then she gasped and stiffened.
Uh-oh. Here it comes. Mitch braced himself for the pounding he’d receive for daring to come on to her. Hell, he deserved it. What made him want to kiss her, when she’d made it clear through her father that he had no place in her life? Was she playing him for a fool again? That’s what he got for thinking with his dick.
Fuck! He didn’t need to be arrested for indecent exposure or attempted rape. A stockbroker relied heavily on his reputation. At this rate, his entire career would be flashing before his eyes. Was it too late to extricate himself from this disaster? If he could use the phone, maybe he could call his neighbor Edie and have her bring some clothes from his apartment.
Edie.
Memory flooded him like a gargantuan tsunami, at the same time the dark-haired beauty shoved him backward and slapped him hard on the cheek.
“You jerk! Do that again and I’ll have you up on attempted rape charges.”
He rubbed the stinging area on the side of his cheek, scrambling to absorb the memories and maintain his bravado at the same time. “Seems like you were giving as good as you got, little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl, so don’t call me that.”
Oh Mitch knew she wasn’t a little girl, but she was petite and she had the tiniest waist he’d felt in a long time. A waist he couldn’t seem to let go.
“Release me!” Amira pounded her fists
onto his wrists.
As if coming up for air from the murky depths of some swamp slue, Mitch let her go and stepped backward.
She glanced at him then at the phone behind him.
Rather than risk her calling for help, he ripped the phone from the wall, cable and all, tossing it onto the counter.
Her dark skin blanched. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“I can’t let you call make that call until you hear me out.”
“You can’t stop me.” She inched away from him until she was out of his reach and then dove for the hall.
“Oh yes, I can.” Mitch followed, but she was surprisingly fast.
She ducked into an open bedroom door and threw herself across the bed, reaching out for the phone on the nightstand. She had it in her hand and was about to punch the first number when Mitch cleared the door.
He launched himself across the room, landing in the middle of the bed on top of her, but not before she tucked the phone beneath her.
“Give it to me,” he said, his cock pressed between the cheeks of her ass. Saints preserve him, he wanted to grind his dick into her and take her there. She was a hellcat with the body of an angel and his own body couldn’t forget that, couldn’t erase the memory of being buried deep inside her warm wetness.
But she had the phone and the way she bucked beneath him made him horny as hell and indicated she was probably still punching buttons.
Mitch eased his weight off her and flipped her over onto her back, dropping his full length on top of her to keep her knees from connecting with his swollen member aching to enter her. He snatched the phone from her hands and smashed it against the nightstand. The pieces fell to the floor, completely useless.
“You bastard!” Her hand connected to his cheek in another hard slap, the sound echoing against the tall ceiling.
“Maybe so, but I really didn’t have any intention of harming you, but keep this up and I might change my mind.” He clamped her wrists together and jerked them up over her head. “There. Now will you listen while I try to explain what the hell is going on?”
