Fool Me Forever (Confidence Game)

by Ainslie Paton

  And with that, the beast was mollified. But he was not tamed. “I have no need for art.”

  Halsey recognized the bluff and called it. He made a show of relief, shaking his head. “I’m pleased. I was sorry I’d mentioned it as soon as it was out of my mouth. I would not like to have to compete with you for a Kandinsky or a Warhol.”

  “You know of works by these artists for sale? That would be highly unusual.”

  “Yes.” He rubbed his forehead. Time to cut and run.

  Lenny was by his side in seconds. “Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister. Halsey, have you given yourself a headache,” she asked, with a hand to his shoulder.

  “Too busy talking to eat,” he said, nodding, his hand still on his head.

  “We should go. You don’t want it to turn into a migraine.”

  Agreeing, he stood and took her hand.

  “A moment,” said Cookie Jar. “I would be honored if you would allow me to accompany you to see these artworks.”

  Halsey feigned annoyance, which is what Cookie Jar wanted him to feel. “You have me at a disadvantage, Prime Minister.”

  “I feel sure you will withstand it.”

  “I’ll be in contact with your embassy about a time to view the paintings. The gallery is accepting sealed bids.” Competitive honor made Halsey offer his hand. “It was good to talk to you.”

  Cookie Jar stood, and they shook, and with Lenny on his arm, Halsey led the way around the table saying their farewells.

  He took his first big breath of air when their feet hit the boardwalk. His stomach was growling, and his tie was strangling him. Lenny’s perfume was in his head. He tugged the tie undone, took it off, and shoved it in his pocket with the hand not gripping Lenny’s as if it were the fifty-plus million dollars he was hoping to sting Cookie Jar for.

  “Did you just try to sell Cookie Jar a painting?” she said, face tipped up, amusement on her lips that made nerve endings down his back and over his thighs sting with pleasure.

  “Yes, my little cue reader. I am about to sell that crook a fake painting he will pay a fortune for in order to beat me to it, because I won’t let him have the thing he wants more.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “An investment in a nonexistent cryptocurrency that will bankrupt him.”

  She laughed. “If I called you a devious genius, how would you react?”

  “By doing this.” He caught her close, shielding her body from passers-by while he traced a finger from her collarbone, down the edge of her neckline, over the swell of her breast, and to the point that ended where a woman’s bra normally would, but where he felt nothing except Lenny’s warm skin and the hiccup of her breath. His own got shallow, rasped in his throat.

  “I like that reaction,” she said, eyelids gone heavy.

  He had plenty more where it came from. A hot center of hard lust Lenny had prodded into existence.

  It was a bonus to not have to pretend with her. It was a delight he no longer needed to keep secret. He could admit his desire for her and act on it. “I’m far more devious than you know.”

  She pushed against his finger, her eyes sparkling “Are you?”

  He flattened his hand briefly over her breast and groaned at the spike of arousal that brought on, as he leaned down to kiss her. He’d do more if they weren’t in public. “If I didn’t feel so lightheaded I would work my deviousness against you till you squirmed, but if I don’t eat, I might need you to carry me.”

  She pulled away laughing. He tugged her back and kissed her breathless. A quick cab ride took them to the nearest diner, where Halsey ordered a steak sandwich and devoured it while Lenny talked about Ida. How she’d promised D4D a donation, about the photo that would appear in the social pages, and how Mallory would love a ninety-two-year-old with a diamond and sapphire skull ring who admitted to having a piercing other than in her ears—but wouldn’t say where.

  He enjoyed her chatting freely. When she stole a fry from his plate without asking first, he mentally punched the ceiling at the easy familiarity. They’d come a long way from hanging up on each other.

  “What’s next?” she asked when their coffee came.

  “I meet Cookie Jar at the auction house, and Zeke sells him a fake painting. Of course, he won’t know it’s a fake till later.”

  “Clever.” Lenny tapped her spoon against her lips. Un-fucking-fair, how that made him harden again. “But he’s still holding the nation ransom.”

  “If it all goes well, not for long. We seed a story that the painting is a fake, and that will embarrass our friend the prime minister, make him desperate to find a quick way to get the money he lost back. I’ll express my horror at us having both been scammed. He’ll buy that, but he’ll still hold me accountable for his loss and want revenge.”

  She waved her spoon at him. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Not good for Cookie Jar. He won’t see me coming. He’ll think he’s got me on the back foot, that he has leverage over me. I’ll try to placate him with a big donation, but his ego will demand he pushes for more.”

  “Your cryptocurrency.”

  “Which I’ll continue to hold out from letting him invest in while we make sure he knows from third parties how special it is and how much he’s missing out.”

  “What third parties?”

  “I’m thinking my mom.”

  Lenny laughed then frowned. “I’m enjoying this too much.”

  He grazed his little finger across the back of her hand where it lay on the table. He wanted the right to touch her all over like that, lightly enough to make her shiver before he made her whimper.

  The con had gone surprisingly smoothly so far. “You don’t need to be involved any longer if you want to back out now. I can run things from here.” He’d hate doing that. He moved his hand away; there was only so much provocation his body could take. He’d promised to keep her safe from the fallout. The sooner he removed her from Cookie Jar’s orbit the safer she was. That was their deal, and he’d do everything he could to stick to it, even if he knew already there’d be a Lenny-shaped hole in his heart.

  “I don’t want to back out. I’m having more fun than I’ve had for a long time, and this won’t last forever.”

  That first part was a hallelujah chorus, a line of heat zipping under his skin. The part about not having a forever, he was hell-bent on ignoring for now.

  “If there’s a role for me by your side reading hand signals and interrupting conversations, I’m happy to be PowerPoint Girl. And don’t forget I get to show my face at events I’d never get invited to and meet the Ida Daltons and the Princess Ketijas of the world. It’s good for me.”

  “Is there anything else you don’t want?” If it were possible to trip on his smile, he’d have face-planted the table. They had the place almost to themselves. The only other couple were horribly drunk and tucked in a corner making out, as if his overcharged blood needed any more stimulation.

  “I believe I would straighten my Mirena for you.”

  He blinked twice. “You’d what?”

  She laughed in a way that made a burst of fireworks go off in his chest. Forget forever, snatch this time with this woman and make it count.

  “Never mind.” She tapped his foot with hers. “What did you mean by your question?”

  He captured her hand. The way her features were arranged seemed extraordinary to him, the light in her eyes was a tease, and the quirk on her lips was asking to be kissed until her whimpers cranked his gears to breaking point. “How do you like to be loved, Lenore Bradshaw?” Hell, the boldness of that question, following the con he was on his way to pulling off. He was a different person when he was with her.

  She leaned across the table and he did, too, their noses almost touching, their breath mingling. “Skillfully,” she whispered, making all the fine hairs on his body stand up and take notice.

  “That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.” If his voice had any more gravel in it, they’d both en
d up with a rash.

  “Start out slow, treat me nice. Listen to my body, give me yours. Wind me up and make me fly. Stay the night and cook me breakfast in the morning.”

  It couldn’t be that easy. She’d be in his lap half-divested of that dress, if there weren’t a table between them.

  She sat back. “But not tonight.”

  He made a wounded sound that was too loud and too close to telling her exactly how inspired he was with her game.

  He was distinctly lacking in cool around Lenny, but she stood, leaned over, and grabbed his face, smacking a kiss on his forehead. “You’re kind of cute for a con artist.”

  Given the dirty thoughts he was having, she let him off lightly.

  As she slipped out of the booth she added, “It might be an idea to milk that while you can.”

  He watched her sashay toward the counter, loving what that dress—made to showcase her body—did to him. A need that hurt in the best way. It took a minute to collect himself and go after her. “Any advice on how I do that?”

  She waited till he caught up and stood behind her before she leaned into him and said, “What? I have to do everything?”

  “You won’t mind if I use a little initiative?”

  She shook her head, and he used said initiative to cup her ass, groaning at the contact as he moved past to pay the check.

  All the way home to her place in the back of a cab, they made a play of holding eye contact and subtle smiles, of hands that flirted and bodies that curved toward each other. Lenny’s clasped together knees were wholly erotic. The line of her neck was a siren song; the little hairs that didn’t make it into her updo and curled at her nape were a cruel tease.

  Every move she made, every uptick of her lips and shift of her shoulders lit dangerous brush fires in him. He couldn’t remember ever being like this about a woman, and he didn’t trust this feeling. How much of it was Lenny, and how much was the knowledge that he’d succeeded tonight and was on his way to crushing one of the truly bad guys using skills he didn’t know he had.

  He didn’t trust it and he didn’t care, because it felt like skydiving—an open chute, an impossibly breathtaking vista and knowing you were going to land safely, but that part of you might not ever come down, was permanently altered by the experience. Bonus safety points, no one was going to break a limb; they both knew the score.

  He paid off the cab in front of her place. “Are you going to invite me up?”

  “Are you going to misbehave?”

  He stepped into her personal space. “I was planning on it.”

  She plucked at a button on his shirt. “Using your initiative. I like it. Tell me more.”

  “I’ll start out slow like you wanted, treat you nice, put my lips on your neck, feel your pulse beat, and take your temperature so I have a reference point.” He said that with his nose close to her jaw, breathing in deeply. “I want to kiss down the line of this dress to the heart of you, let the scent of your skin intoxicate me.” He was already drunk on her. His index finger traced that path, hooking into the lower edge of the dresses neckline and tugging, making Lenny gasp. “Once I take your mouth, I’m not giving it up. I’m keeping it hostage. And when we’re both aching, wanting, fuck near coming apart…” Exactly how he felt, like all the glue holding him together was coming apart. He stepped back but kept one of her hands, and as Lenny rocked on her heels, he steadied her. “I’ll say good night.”

  She spun around and pantomimed falling into his arms, so he ended up with her nestled against his chest. “I don’t stand a chance of resisting you,” she said.

  If that was true, he wouldn’t fear how little time they were going to have before Lenny resumed her law-abiding life. There were only four weeks of Cookie Jar’s stay in the city left, and once Sonny Ozols jetted off home, Halsey’s excuse for being at her side was vaporized.

  They rode the elevator in a frenzy of ignoring each other, and the moment they got inside Lenny’s apartment, she said, “Mallory is on a sleepover and I need kisses, but I need to get out of my underwear before it cuts off my circulation.”

  Not quite what he’d expected. Better. He raised a brow and gave her a rakish look. “You mean slip into something more comfortable?” Hell, yes.

  “I do mean that.”

  “By all means, lose the underwear. I’m standing by, ready, willing and able”—and damn near vibrating out of my skin—“if you should need help.”

  She laughed and bopped his nose, making him blink hard.

  “Wait.” He caught her hand and stopped her moving away. “Let me.” He put his lips to her neck and kissed up to the place where her jaw and her ear met and then down the line of her carotid artery till he felt her pulse thud strongly, in a duel with his. He was doing what he’d promised, slow and nice, and by the time he turned her body to kiss along the neckline of the dress, she was moaning most satisfactorily.

  He kissed over her collarbone, open mouth dragging along the inside edge of her breasts, the top of her sternum, her throat, then all the way to her ear. She had one hand on his chest—she had to be able to feel his heart roaring—and the other in his hair, and it took a supreme act of will that made him groan not to help her out of the dress when he found the zipper under her arm.

  “Oh God.” She sighed that out, swaying against him. “I’m almost ready to let you discover where the Hollywood tape is, and that I’m wearing a scuba suit under here.”

  He smiled into her hair. He wasn’t the only one who said unromantic things, although that “oh God,” said lustfully, so not appropriate for church, acted like rocket fuel revving him further.

  “Say it, again, Lenny.”

  “Scuba suit,” she moaned, and they both laughed, and the next thing they did with their mouths was full of “oh God.” He managed to kiss her while losing his coat and navigating around walls and furniture and onto the couch in the dark where he pulled her into his lap. She wasn’t going anywhere but deep into this greed and reverence.

  He gave his heat and his hands and lips. He learned what she liked to feel, and he let the thrum inside him build and build, giving him waves of muscle-tightening pleasure.

  Lenny got his shirt out of his pants and his buttons undone and made him say “oh God” in a voice he barely recognized as his own as he got a cufflink tangled in her hair when she kissed his chest.

  “You still want to change?” He’d worked out where the tape was, and it wasn’t much of a barrier, but he didn’t want to embarrass her by sliding his hand past it and inside her dress without being sure she was okay with that.

  “I want too many things. I want to see you without this shirt with some lights on, I don’t want to stop kissing you, and I want to invite you to stay the night and shut up, Lenore,” she said. They went back to lip-on-lip action, and it lit him up inside to have her like this, no judgments, no hesitation.

  He was well past sensible consideration of where they were, had Lenny on her back, had his hand on the smooth skin of her thigh, and his head brimming with the scent of her perfume mixed with her heat of arousal. He had a slow hip grind going down that made Lenny writhe and put him right on the edge when the lights came on, blinding them, and a voice said, “Hey, accountant, I’d better see a condom before you get anywhere near my sister’s intrauterine.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Ida Dalton had said the disreputable rogues were the best to have in your bed.

  Lenny didn’t need to be behind the one-way glass at the mock auction house. It’s not like Halsey required her PowerPoint Girl skills, and really, she should’ve stayed away for the principle, but this was where she could best watch Halsey being disreputable, and she hadn’t near had her fill of watching him, and certainly not of having his touch.

  This was preparation for having him in bed.

  Strangest foreplay ever.

  Also, she couldn’t resist wanting to see Cookie Jar drop a bundle on a fake painting. And after being caught out by Mallory, she needed an exc
use to see Halsey before their next formal date. Any excuse.

  Cookie Jar was late. Halsey was nervous—she knew how to read that in him now. He focused his energy on an object, a cufflink, or something in his hands. This time, it was his phone. The screen was dark, but he kept running his finger around the outer edge.

  “He’s not coming,” he said to Zeke, who was playing the part of art consultant to the uber rich. Useful they didn’t look like brothers. Zeke’s hair raven wing dark, and Halsey’s the color of wheat, shot through with caramel shadows. The kind of color treatment you’d pay a fortune for.

  Zeke was stalking about the gallery, adjusting paintings and playing with the lighting. There were a dozen fake famous paintings, including a Caravaggio, a Renoir, two Picassos, a Van Gogh, and three Andy Warhols. Lenny knew nothing about art, but there was nothing fake looking about the paintings, even though they were all painted last week by an eighty-year-old forger from Flushing.

  “He’s deliberately late. Keep your shirt on,” Zeke said. He stopped moving and looked directly at Lenny in her hiding place. “Unless you’d like to see the shirt off?”

  “Yes!” she shouted at the glass, knowing they couldn’t hear her. Yes. She’d had her hands all over Halsey’s chest over his shirt, and she very much wanted to see what promised to be impressive. And she might have, if one of them had had the presence of mind to turn a lamp on before they got hot and heavy, and before Mallory had her fight with Ginny and came home unexpectedly to scare the lust out of them.

  Was there anything more humiliating than having your baby sister catch you dry humping your fake accountant on the couch?

  Possibly having your mark not show up to his own conning.

  Zeke slapped Halsey on the shoulder. “Has she already seen the shirt off? Not impressed with those regular daily workouts?”

  Did he work out daily? How very Excel Boy disciplined. The advantage of the one-way glass was they couldn’t see her slack-jawed expression.

  Zeke’s messing about wasn’t helping Halsey relax.

  Lenny had shouted at Mal to get out, but Halsey had kept his head and asked her nicely to switch the light off so they could have a moment. By the time they’d faced Mal, their clothing was back where it was supposed to be, but Lenny’s sense of humor wasn’t. Halsey had been the one to smooth things over, though he looked gorgeously tousled while he did it.