ItTakesaThief

by Dee Brice

  “Oh, I’m impressed. It’s just that—well, it’s a little like touring all of Hearst Castle in one day. You’re so inundated with beautiful artifacts that you find yourself thinking, ‘Oh, another jade statue. How quaint.’”

  “And?” he prompted, accurately sensing she had more to say.

  “I realize the Colombian tribes were like any other people—happy, sad, passionate—but I prefer another legend, that of Fura and Tena over that of Eldorado.”

  “I do not believe I know that one.”

  She snorted her disbelief, but asked, “Would you like to hear it?”

  “If you would like to tell it.”

  “Ever the gentleman,” she muttered sarcastically, then went on. “In the valley of the Muzo indians, the god Are created the first humans, Fura and Tena. They did not grow old, but lived in ageless innocence until the day a stranger entered their valley and seduced Fura. Tena felt so betrayed that he committed suicide. Even though it was too late to save his life, the gods took pity on the remorseful and grieving Fura. They gave her a gift and turned her tears into the most beautiful emeralds in the world.”

  “But she still lost Eden.”

  “Yes. She still lost Eden.” And the love of her life, the other half of herself.

  “Why does that story intrigue you, while you dismiss the legend of Eldorado like you would a pesky mosquito?”

  TC sighed and wondered if she could explain it, even to herself. “The legend of Eldorado is about greed, while that of Fura and Tena is about forgiveness.” Knowing she had revealed more than she wanted to, she shrugged. “We all make mistakes, Ian. At one time or another, we all deserve forgiveness.”

  Looking down at her, Ian placed a brief kiss on her lips. “We are becoming far too morose.” He took her arm and propelled her along.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere I can have my wicked way with you.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  Moments later, TC heard the vault door close and felt a sudden chill chase down her spine. Her hands were clammy, perspiration formed in the valley between her breasts, at her hairline and upper lip. This was how she would feel if imprisoned. Nauseated. Weak-kneed. Alone.

  “What is wrong?” Ian whispered, snaking his arm around her waist.

  “Nothing,” she muttered, closing her eyes against the brilliance of gold. Row upon row of gold coins, masks, fish and frogs, gods and daggers. One particular mask—lacking eyeballs and teeth but having a golden nose and nostrils—grinned menacingly. The glare made her eyes burn and her head hurt. The press of tourists crowded into the Museo de Oro vault made her feel claustrophobic, hemmed in, without any hope of escape.

  “You are white as a ghost.”

  “Sheet,” she corrected. “White as a sheet or pale as a ghost.” She drew a shaky breath to calm her thudding heartbeat. “I wish you wouldn’t mix your metaphors.”

  Apparently oblivious to her petulant tone, Ian drew her in front of him, put both arms around her and widened his stance. Magically, people shifted away, letting TC draw an unfettered breath.

  “I believe the museum curators crowd people in here so nobody can get their hands up high enough to pilfer anything.” Ian’s voice sounded calm, his lips felt hot as his tongue traced the shell of her ear with feathery strokes.

  She shivered, not from cold, but with lust. How did he do that? she wondered as she angled her head back, offering her neck to his tender ministering. How did he change fear to need? Need to lust?

  “Stop that,” she said without conviction. She loved the rush of pleasure his lightest caress brought her, but she hated feeling out of control, as if her body belonged to Ian more than it did to her.

  Damian chuckled, but eased his body away from hers. Touching her, kissing her—even playfully—did things to him, things he would find embarrassing should anyone notice. She made him feel like a randy teenager discovering sex for the first time. More, she made him feel as if he was in the throes of his first infatuation. Was this how his brother had felt about Yulie? Had she used Michael’s lust to learn his secrets?

  The first thing he had to do was get TC out of here quietly. He knew she did not like being crowded. When she discovered what it took to get out of this vault, she might slug him.

  “Wait,” he said, again folding his arms around her. “There is no sense in rushing the door.”

  “Why not?”

  “Searches.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “They search everyone who comes in here.”

  Glaring at him, she expelled an exasperated huff that slumped her shoulders. “I suppose it can’t be helped,” she muttered, stepping away and looking longingly at the open door and the people shuffling through it.

  “It is not personal, Tiffany darling.”

  But when they stepped out of the vault and into the exhibit room, it suddenly became very personal.

  “What is going on here?” Damian demanded when a policewoman took Tiffany’s arm.

  A barrage of rapid-fire Spanish came at him, but most of his attention was focused on Tiffany. She stood quietly, making no attempt to free herself from a grip that had to hurt like blazes. Beneath the policewoman’s blunt fingers, Tiffany’s arm was flushed, leaving him to imagine the bruises forming on her silky skin. Raising his gaze to her face, he found her expression both grim and resigned, as if she had expected this to happen.

  “What do they want?” she said, her voice revealing a debilitating weariness. And she had either lied about knowing Spanish or the situation had drained her of that knowledge.

  “They want you to take off your clothes.”

  Tiffany laughed, a bitter sound. “Is that all?” With an insouciant shrug, she unbuttoned the top button of her crimson silk jacket.

  “Not here,” Damian said, enfolding her hand in his. Over her shoulder he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure in a rust-colored raincoat. “Wait.”

  He repeated the command in Spanish, then raced away, dodging display cases and curious on-lookers. Around the corner he caught George Fox’s arm, spun the agent around, slamming him into the wall. “What the hell do you think you are doing, Reynard?” he hissed, baring his teeth and crowding the shorter man with his body.

  “At least I’m not consorting with the enemy. Or is it more than that, Hunter? Are you aiding and abetting a known criminal? Is that why Lyons wants you to report, like, yesterday?”

  Ignoring the questions, Damian pushed his face into Fox’s. “A ‘known criminal’, Reynard? Did you turn up some hard evidence? Tiffany’s fingerprints on the bank’s safe deposit box, perhaps? Footprints that can be matched unequivocally with her shoes?” He shook his prisoner until Reynard’s teeth rattled. “Because if you have not, what you are doing is harassment.” Releasing the agent’s lapels, Damian took a step back. “I want this search stopped. Now.”

  “I can’t, not and preserve your cover.”

  Suspecting George was manipulating him, but powerless to do anything about it, Damian swore. “You had better do something, my friend. If they do a cavity search on her, I’ll have your badge. Then I’ll castrate you.”

  Seeing George Fox blanch, pleasure almost as satisfying as smashing Reynard’s nose surged through Damian. Without another word he returned to Tiffany, relieved to find that her guard no longer had a death grip on her arm. Ignoring the commotion behind him, Damian focused his attention on Tiffany’s expressive face. She still looked stoic, but her eyes were beginning to spark with emerald fire. Glad to see her reviving, he prayed she would hold on to her temper until they were safely out of there. To her credit and his overwhelming relief, she merely peered around his shoulder at whatever was happening behind him.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Cartierri?” George Fox said in an unctuous voice that made Damian grind his teeth.

  “Yes.”

  “Come with me, please. Hello, Hunter.”

  “George. Tiffany, this is George Fox, an…acquaintance of mine.”

  Tif
fany’s eyes widened slightly, but she gave no other indication she recognized the agent’s name. Even though it had figured prominently in the English press at the time of the theft.

  “Where are we going, Mr. Fox?”

  At her sweetness, Damian’s eyebrows quirked upward and he ground his teeth.

  “You, and Hunter here, have the misfortune to have been caught in one of the museum’s random—ahem—strip searches. Only down to your—er—”

  “Skivvies?” Tiffany offered helpfully.

  So that was Reynard’s price for silence, Damian thought with grudging admiration. Damian was to suffer the same indignity as Tiffany. Clever of Fox and worth the injury to Damian’s pride if it kept Tiffany from asking questions.

  “Well,” Tiffany said as she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin to a haughty angle, “let’s get this over with, shall we?”

  Chapter Twelve

  All through the long limousine ride back to their hotel, Damian watched the questions massing in Tiffany’s eyes. She said not a word until they reached their suite. Then she turned to him with a weary smile and said in a tired voice, “Would you mind if we ordered up?”

  “Of course not. What would you like?”

  “I’ll decide after I’ve showered.” She paced away with that characteristic sinuous stride that aroused him in the blink of an eye. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Ian Soria,” she said, winking at him over her shoulder.

  Stupid, TC thought, eyeing the showerhead. Nothing could happen to her here, in a five-star hotel. Not one of her acquaintances knew where she was. But she had thought she’d found refuge with the Santanas and look what had happened to her there—shot at, then booby-trapped in her own bathroom.

  Shivering more from fear than from the cold tiles under her bare feet, she reached for the faucet. Hands closed around her waist. Without thinking, she brought her elbows back and smiled grimly when she heard a pained “oomph”. Whirling, she flourished her hands, balanced her weight on her left foot and prepared to kick with her right.

  “Tiffany, love, it is I, Ian.”

  “What the hell are you doing? I could have killed you.”

  “I doubt it, but you might have destroyed our chances for progeny.”

  “That’s not funny.” She pulled her robe closed and hugged her waist. “What do you want?” she asked, taking in his naked torso and the slacks that were zipped, but not buttoned.

  “I thought I would check your stitches. Perhaps you can wash your hair tonight.”

  “So now you’re a doctor.”

  “As close as you can get to one. Even in Colombia physicians must report suspicious wounds. Sit.”

  Disdaining the closed toilet seat as a perch, she leaned her hips against the vanity and lowered her head so he could look at her scalp. Instead, he tipped up her face and brushed her lips with his. “Afraid of the shower, darling?”

  The denial formed in her mind, on her lips, but seeing the concern in his eyes—a depth of caring only the most consummate actor could fake—she nodded and said, “A little.” Ian Soria might be a rogue, but he had treated her with a kindness her own family never had shown her. She could give him her honesty, if not her trust.

  “I thought you might be.” He reached for the faucet, but, putting her hand on his arm, she forestalled him.

  “Thank you, Ian.”

  To her utter astonishment, he blushed. Butterflies stirred in her stomach. Her heart did a soft-shoe tap dance, before settling into a strong staccato beat. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned with tears she would not allow to fall. There was such tenderness, such compassion in this man, she feared she might lose more than her freedom to him. She might lose her heart.

  With a will of its own, her hand slid up his arm, lingered while her fingers relearned his powerful musculature and felt his flesh quiver under her light caress. Feathering over his wide shoulder, up his taut neck, her fingers came to rest on his cheek, then curled around his clenched jaw. And all the while, mesmerized by his unwavering gaze, she felt herself drowning in the dark fire of his eyes.

  “I could come in with you,” he said with a crooked smile that was all the more endearing for the quaver in his voice.

  “We’d never get out if you did.”

  “Sure we would—in an hour or two.”

  Tears suddenly overflowing, she shook her head. “I can’t handle this, Ian. Please, just make sure I’m not walking into something deadly, then get out.”

  “Tiffany, I want you. I need you like I need my next breath.”

  The words sounded sincere, but his voice made her think he’d pulled them out by the roots—like an abscessed tooth. As if he wished he’d said something entirely different. Which was nothing new. One minute he made her feel as if she was the most important person in his life, the next as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

  “I want you too, but I can’t make love with you. There are too many things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you.”

  “Will not tell me.”

  She leaned her forehead against his powerful chest, but resisted the need to wrap herself around him, to let him banish the memories with his mind-stealing kisses.

  “And you do not trust me.”

  “No more than you trust me. Which is not at all.” Sighing, she slipped out of his embrace and swiped away her tears. With a longing look at the bottle of shampoo in the far corner of the shower, she turned on the water. Looking at him over her shoulder, she frowned. “You pick the most inappropriate times to act so cavalierly.”

  “You want me to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have not checked the shower.”

  “It’s fine,” she insisted. When he simply stared at her, she paced away. “See for yourself.”

  “I intend to.” Which he did, while she opened a foil-wrapped packet of French-milled soap and inhaled its light, floral scent.

  “It seems safe,” Ian said finally. “Last offer for my company.”

  “Get out.”

  When he closed the door, she stared at it for a moment longer to make sure he didn’t sneak back in. She considered locking the door, but didn’t want to delay him if something happened once she got in the shower. He hadn’t said anything about her stitches either, she thought, fuming at yet another display of his cavalier attitude. Well, to the devil with him, she intended to wash her hair.

  As she stepped into the tiled enclosure, she felt a moment’s sickening fear. Her knees shook. Her stomach churned. She wanted to vomit. “C-courage,” she told herself, hating this enervating terror, finally able to step under the spray.

  It felt like heaven.

  She had just rinsed her hair when his big, soapy hands closed over her breasts. Mercy, what the man did to her with only a touch! There should be laws against men like him doing things like this to women like…

  “You like this, yes?” he whispered, his hands roving over her, lingering fleetingly at the apex of her thighs, on her pebbled nipples. She felt his erection throb against her buttocks and rubbed her body against his as she turned in his arms. She felt hot, wet, empty. She wanted him inside her, filling her, making them one.

  “Yes, I like this. And this,” she murmured, snaking her hand between their bodies. Touching him. Reveling at the length and weight of him. Feeling powerful, knowing her caresses affected him as much as his did her.

  “Dios, querida,” he groaned, stilling her hand. “If you keep this up, it will be over in a moment—to my satisfaction, but not yours.”

  Licking drops of water from his chest, she whispered, “Giving you pleasure pleases me.”

  “Then let us pleasure each other.” He nudged her legs apart and entered her with a powerful thrust.

  “Ian,” she moaned, weaving her fingers through his thick, silky hair as she pulled his head down and sought his lips.

  He positioned them under the showerhead, then mated his tongue with hers, duplicating the rhythm of his hips. With
the spray pounding over them, she felt as if he were making love to her with a thousand tiny fingers.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Then do not. I shall catch up.”

  “No,” she cried as the first tremors began deep inside her. “Not alone. I don’t —”

  Ian groaned. She took his sighs into her mouth and let her spasms take her, content when he surged deeper and she felt him join her in completion. Wanting to tell him what was in her heart, her lips parted. Quelling the words, she bit her tongue, afraid sex was all Ian wanted of her. All he would ever want.

  Then the memory that had eluded her since they left the gold museum slammed into her mind like a hard right cross to her chin. She didn’t stop these words. She couldn’t. “How is it that you, a simple business man, know George Fox, an Interpol agent?”

  Easing away from her, Damian soaped his hands, then reached for her again.

  “Don’t,” she said, flinching away. “Is that why you fucked me, Ian? So I wouldn’t remember who George Fox is, what he is?”

  Damian met her fury-ridden gaze and said, “I made love to you because that is all I thought about doing the whole bloody day.” Which, as far as it went, was the truth. What he refused to admit was that he had used their mutual need to distract her, that he had prayed she would not remember George Fox.

  “I own an import-export company, Tiffany. Such companies are sometimes used by unscrupulous employees to smuggle illegal items into foreign countries. It is not unusual for Interpol to aid the local authorities. That is, in fact, how I met George Fox.”

  Seeing that she had finished washing, he rinsed off, turned off the water and handed her a towel.

  “Illegal items,” she muttered, glaring at him while she wrapped the towel around her, then flounced out of the shower stall. Snagging a towel for himself, he followed. “Stuff like drugs? Diamonds?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stuff like Isabella’s Belt?”

  “Are you implying that I stole the real Belt? That I murdered two people in cold blood?”