Dangerous Ladies

by Christina Dodd

  “What a good way of looking at it! I’ll remember that.” She glanced behind her. “Is Devlin in his office?”

  “I believe so. After he left the library, he went right there.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I watch the monitors.”

  “I thought the monitors were in his office.”

  “There are monitors on every level—if one knows where to look for them. Every inch of the hotel is kept under constant surveillance.” He sounded as if he were issuing a warning.

  “Except for the rooms.”

  “Except for the rooms,” he agreed. “Did you wish to go to Mr. Fitzwilliam’s office?” Sam asked.

  “No, I think I’ll wander around the hotel a little more.” With an irony she enjoyed, she said, “It’s really a work of art, don’t you think?”

  “It is quite lovely.” Sam watched her walk away, then called, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, be careful where you go. The hotel isn’t as secure as one might like to think.”

  She turned back and stared at him.

  He stared back, his eyes flat, black, soulless.

  Apprehension chilled her. “Are you . . . threatening me?”

  “Warning you.” He walked away.

  She looked around. What was he doing in this corridor? Devlin’s suite was here. Her suite. The suite they shared.

  And their door was open. Had he been in there looking for . . . for what?

  She walked into the sitting room. It looked fine. Nothing out of place.

  Sam was an odd man. He didn’t seem to have friends. He wouldn’t talk about his background. He said threatening things to her. Maybe he really was a serial killer. Maybe she should say something to Devlin.

  But what would she say? You know your secretary? The one you trust? He says sort of hostile things, and the way he looks at me makes me think he doesn’t like me.

  She walked to the bedroom. Nothing out of place here, either. Devlin’s slacks, shirts, and jeans hung in the closet with her sundresses. His underwear was in a drawer next to her panties. He’d ordered enough clothes—clothes befitting every occasion—to keep her here through the month.

  Maybe she should stop worrying about Sam and concentrate on Devlin. A month’s worth of clothes? Why would he want to keep her here so long? And . . . married? Sure, men lied all the time, but they didn’t claim happily-ever-after. If he suspected she was lying about the amnesia and he was trying to smoke her out, that was one thing, but he was telling everybody. Didn’t he worry about what was going to happen when this was all over and he had to explain what they’d been doing?

  Even she didn’t know what they were doing.

  Again the question skittered across her mind.

  What game was Devlin playing? Perhaps she should be a little more cautious. . . .

  She irritably shrugged her shoulders, trying to release some tension. She wasn’t afraid of Devlin. They’d made love so wantonly, so sweetly, and never once had she felt a niggling of anything but joy.

  She needed to find that painting so she could tell him the truth . . . yet what did she think he would do? Give it to her? He wasn’t crazy. The painting was worth a fortune, and it was legally his. When she started the search, she’d believed it was rightfully, if not legally, her grandmother’s, and her grandmother had said it was her inheritance. Taking it from Bradley Benjamin had been one thing. Taking from Devlin Fitzwilliam was another.

  Meadow put her hand to her head. What had started out as an easily justified action had become confusing, and no matter how much she loved being in Devlin’s arms, no matter how fondly she recalled his kindness to Mia and Mia’s son, she had also heard him talk about Waldemar, and possessiveness rang in every tone. She’d listened to his fury.

  A footstep. In the bathroom.

  Who was hiding in there?

  With her gaze fixed on the door, she started backing up.

  Then a maid walked out, carrying a wilted bouquet.

  Meadow collapsed against the wall. All this subterfuge was getting to her. She was imagining threats where none existed.

  “Mrs. Fitzwilliam!” The maid bustled toward her. She was probably sixty years old, short, plump, with curly gray hair and a sweet, rounded face. She looked like somebody’s grandmother.

  But Meadow couldn’t remember her name. Or anything about her. She was usually pretty good at this stuff, but with this woman she drew a blank.

  Should she confess her ignorance, or try to fake it?

  While she hung on the horns of dilemma, the maid said in a lowered voice, “I think I found your painting.”

  Meadow caught her breath. “Really? Where?”

  “In one of the rooms. C’mon; I’ll show you.” She set off at a great rate, her short legs moving so quickly Meadow huffed to keep up with her. For an older lady, she was in good shape.

  Meadow caught up just as the maid took a sharp left turn. She used her key card to unlock the door, turned the handle, and flipped on the light. “The painting’s in here.”

  Meadow peered into the depths of a narrow storage closet. She could see a linen cart, a bucket, a broom, and a long shelf piled with pristine white linens. “I thought you said it was in a room.”

  “I took it out and hid it. It’s leaning against the back wall.”

  “Really?” Meadow stepped inside and shoved at the cart. “I don’t see anything back there that could be a—”

  She turned in time to see the door closing.

  “Hey!” As the latch clicked, Meadow flung her weight at the door.

  It was solid.

  She groped for the handle.

  There wasn’t one.

  She stood staring at the plate with the slot for a key card. “Hey!” She slammed her hand on the door. “Hey, let me out!”

  The insulated metal door remained closed, and it muffled the sound.

  She didn’t understand. Why would one of the maids shut her in a closet?

  She dug through her pocket. Her key card, of course, wasn’t there. She’d slapped on her clothes so quickly she hadn’t even brushed her teeth.

  Ew.

  She yelled and pounded on the door for another few minutes, then backed away and took a deep breath.

  She wasn’t claustrophobic, so she didn’t mind the closet. Really, it wasn’t the closet that bothered her.

  It was the malice behind the act of locking her in. What had she ever done to that woman?

  She looked around. The closet was really pretty big. Sort of overcrowded with the laundry cart and the shelf sticking into the room, and when she went to the back and dug around, she found no painting.

  Wow, big surprise.

  She sat back on her heels and stared at the door.

  Why had that maid done it? Was she even a maid?

  She had to be. She knew about the painting, and Meadow had told only the maids . . . but maybe one of them had talked. Or maybe someone else knew about the painting. Or maybe the maid had heard Meadow was searching for it and thought it must be valuable and wanted it for herself.

  But she had such a sweet face!

  Meadow wrapped her arms around herself.

  Her mother would tell her she had reaped what she sowed, that stealing the painting for even the best of reasons was immoral, and that art as valuable as that painting would of course lead to crime, even violence.

  But Meadow had come so far. She couldn’t quit now. And Grandmother Isabelle said she had saved the painting for an emergency.

  This was an emergency.

  For all the cheer Meadow had heard in her mother’s voice, she knew only too well the ups and downs of cancer treatment. She’d known far too many patients, only to see them leave the cancer ward in body bags.

  The trouble was, she was enjoying herself here at the Secret Garden. With no regard for the truth, to creating good karma, to what might be happening in a little town in Washington, she was falling in love with Devlin Fitzwilliam.

  25

  Oh, no., n
o. Natalie Meadow Szarvas, artist and wannabe thief, was falling in love with Devlin Fitzwilliam.

  How could she be so stupid? He didn’t even know who she really was. And she knew he was lying through his teeth.

  But he was so good at it. Every time he told her a story about their affair in Majorca, she slipped a little deeper into enchantment.

  She didn’t think he kept her here for any good reason. She wasn’t that far gone.

  Still, her heart thrilled when she saw him. She wanted to stand at his side and be what he said she was—his wife. And how stupid was that?

  But it didn’t matter.

  Did it?

  She was doing the right thing.

  Wasn’t she?

  As if in answer, the lights clicked off.

  It took a minute of shock and fear before Meadow realized it was nothing dire. The lights were on a timer; that was all. Having them go off right now was not an omen.

  But it was dark in here. Really, really dark.

  She blundered toward the exit, guided by the thin line of light under the door. She banged her shins on the laundry cart. She kicked the mop. She got to the door and groped for the light switch.

  And someone yanked the door open.

  “What are you doing in here?” Devlin’s dark eyes blazed with fury, and his feet were firmly planted at shoulder width.

  “Devlin! Thank God. This maid shut me in.” Meadow fell into his arms, embarrassed by her panic, guilty about the painting, and grappling with the discovery that she loved him.

  He didn’t hug her back; he only repeated, “A maid shut you in.” He sounded unconvinced.

  She didn’t care. Closing her eyes, she inhaled his scent.

  Yep. She was in love. His scent was ambrosia. Touching him made her melt all over him. And at the bedrock of her soul, she believed he would always be there to save her.

  “Devlin,” she whispered. “I knew you’d find me.”

  “You are so . . .” For one moment he shook violently, as if he fought his instincts. Then his arms came around her almost ferociously. He backed her into the closet. The door slammed behind him, and when she lifted her head to ask what he was doing, he kissed her—kissed her as if this kiss were as necessary as breathing.

  The darkness wrapped them in intimacy. The odor of clean, bleached sheets mixed with the potent scent of Devlin’s sexuality.

  She loved him. She needed him—now.

  And he needed her.

  He held her head in his hands and held her still, and each stroke of his tongue called to a primal part of her no one had ever touched. She let him take her breath, then took his in return. Frantic desire swept them along, melding them together in the darkness. She grew damp with longing, and she felt him against her, erect, hard as one of the marble pillars that surrounded the Secret Garden.

  She pushed him away, tugged at his shirt, heard a ripping sound.

  Briefly the little noise brought her back to sanity, but only enough to make her realize she was in too much of a hurry to care whether he was completely naked. She wanted him—now.

  She reached for his belt.

  He unzipped her jeans.

  Together they struggled against the fastenings, stripping each other with speed and urgency.

  She kicked off her sandals, her jeans, and her panties, and reached for his penis. He was so hard, so hot.

  He handed her a foil pack.

  She ripped it open and rolled it down the length of his penis.

  He groped behind her, shoved stuff aside, lifted her, and placed her on the shelf.

  The painted board was rough under her bare skin. He tilted her backward, pressed her shoulders back until they rested on the wall. Sliding his hands up her thighs, he spread her legs wide, exposing her. The cool air shocked her; the fire of his body promised her pleasure. He stepped between her legs and pressed the heel of his hand over her clit.

  She pressed back, started to shudder with climax.

  “No.” He pulled back. “Not yet.”

  She whimpered, in such need she ached.

  But he waited, although she could feel the tremors of passion that shook him. Then he explored her, and when he discovered the dampness that awaited him, he muttered, “Perfect.” He positioned himself. The head of his penis felt impossibly large, searing her flesh. With tiny rocking motions, he pressed inside.

  She moaned, taking him into her body, growing so full she couldn’t imagine a moment when he wasn’t with her. She sank her nails into his shoulders, and the small pain sent him surging forward.

  For a brief moment he pressed close. Outside, his groin ground against her clit. Inside, the tip of him incited the deepest part of her. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see a thing, but she felt surrounded, inside and out, by him—by his scent, his passion, his caress, his breath on her hair.

  When he withdrew, a slow and torturous process, she wanted only one thing—to have him return deep inside her. With her feet behind his back, she pulled him close.

  They grappled with each other, both reckless with the need for satisfaction.

  The darkness intensified each sensation. Nothing he did could stop her. Her breath grew constricted. The dark flashed with colored lights. She sobbed softly, needing everything he had to give, reaching but not quite able to release. She needed . . . something . . .

  “Come now.” His voice told her clearly that he wasn’t asking—he was commanding. “Come now.” He thrust hard.

  She screamed. In an agony of rapture she curled toward him.

  He drove into her, taking her, his hips coiling and striking over and over, and the motion carried her into another climax, and another, until she couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.

  Between her legs and beneath her hands, she felt him tense. Every muscle went rigid, and he climaxed so hard her fingers slipped as sweat sheened his skin.

  As suddenly as they’d started, they stopped. She breathed so harshly her lungs hurt. She trembled from the effort she’d put out, and she couldn’t understand what had happened.

  One minute he’d been opening the door. The next, they’d fallen on each other with a violence of lust. She’d never imagined such a mating—no tenderness, only heat and desperation.

  Then his hand found her face, and he pushed her hair off her forehead. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She was wicked and wanton, desperate for him, in love with him, wanting what she couldn’t have . . . but she was all right.

  “Are you sure? I didn’t hurt you?”

  “No. You didn’t hurt me.” She would walk like a rodeo barrel racer for the rest of the day, but he hadn’t done anything to her she hadn’t demanded.

  Slowly he withdrew.

  She bit her lip against a protest. Their relationship was so easy here in the dark. So basic. No lies, no deception, only two bodies straining together, searching for, achieving one goal.

  If only love were so easy.

  He lifted her off the shelf and steadied her while she found her feet. He pulled up his pants, zipped up, buckled his belt.

  “Ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he turned on the lights.

  She flinched, shielded her eyes. When she looked up at him, her expression could not have been more embarrassed, more guilty.

  What the hell was he doing? When had he lost all pretense at civilization and started fucking without restraint, without control, behaving like a sailor on shore leave?

  But that wasn’t fair; he didn’t slam every woman into a closet, rip off her jeans, and thrust himself inside her.

  Only Meadow.

  “I, um, can’t find my panties.” She stood bare from the waist down, her jeans in her hand, looking helplessly around at the jumble of linens he’d shoved off the shelf and onto the floor.

  He knelt, looking for her underwear, distracted by the length of her legs, which ended in the small, trimmed froth of copper curls over her slit. He wanted to spread her legs again, to taste himself on h
er, in her, until she once again cried out.

  She filled his mind. She filled his senses. It didn’t matter how many times he screwed her; he always wanted to do it again, and as soon as possible. He’d managed to wait long enough to get a condom on—yay, him—but only because he’d had to clear a space on the shelf to fornicate. If she had not been so efficient at rolling it onto him, he would have dispensed with safety and taken the chance of making her pregnant—again.

  He was not like his father. He was not.

  At least, he never had been before.

  “Here.” He handed her the tiny lacy thong and tried not to watch her pull it on.

  Damn it. What the hell was he going to do about her? About the little liar who lived under his roof?

  Because that was what had triggered his aggression.

  She had lied to him. She had lied to him again.

  Somewhere along the line he’d lost sight of his original goal—to use Isabelle’s granddaughter to stick it to Bradley Benjamin.

  Instead he’d been doing everything he could to make Meadow trust him. He’d given her every opportunity to tell him the truth about who she was and what she was doing here.

  Instead she’d fed him some garbage about some maid shutting her in the closet, when in fact, she’d been looking for the painting and shut herself in.

  He knew it because Sam had watched her every move on the security monitor. Sam had reported her movements to Devlin. And Sam never lied, and Sam never made a mistake.

  26

  Devlin walked Meadow to their bedroom, then paused at the door. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He sounded so courteous, Meadow wanted to fling herself off the cupola. She was in love, and he was . . . remote. “I’m fine. Are you?”

  “How could I not be?” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “But I’m very busy.”

  “Do you want a description of the maid who shut me in the closet?”

  The motion of his hand stopped. “Of course. Tell me what she looked like.”

  She told him about the sweet-faced grandmother in the uniform.

  “She doesn’t sound like anyone who works here.” His voice was very even, very calm.