Agent down. Send in the cavalry.
Fumbling the case back together, she passed the watch over Jean-Claude's still form. Shadows hid Nick's face, but there was no mistaking the edge to his voice when he inquired when she'd planted that particular gadget.
"This morning, while you were in the shower. I intended to remove it after our talk at the flower market, when we agreed we wouldn't keep any more secrets from each other. I got busy and forgot."
“Is there anything else you forgot to tell me?'' The question sliced through the night like an ice-cold laser.
"Nothing I can think of at this particular moment," she retorted.
Nick got the message. His jaw snapped shut. With a look that promised they'd continue this discussion when they weren't perched above a flaming wreck, hanging on to a steep cliff by their fingernails, he worked his way out of his tux jacket and tossed it to her.
"Put it on."
"I'm not cold."
"Put it on, dammit. Your shoulders and arms are scraped and bleeding. It'll give you some protection if you slide down anymore."
Until that moment Mackenzie hadn't felt any of her bumps and bruises. She became aware of every one of them, though, as she wiggled into the tux. Still warm from Nick's body, it wrapped around her like a blanket. Rolling up the cuffs, she reached over to help him loosen the chauffeur's tie and shirt collar. She knew better than to straighten his bent limbs, but the blood seeping from a laceration on his left temple worried her.
"He must have cracked his head against the side widow."
Tearing a wide strip from her now-ragged slacks, Mackenzie folded it into a pad and pressed it against the wound. A scrabble of rocks on the other side of his unconscious body told her Nick had decided not to wait for the cavalry.
"Stay with him," he ordered tersely. "I'm going for help."
Mackenzie's eyes followed the white blur of his shirt as he climbed slowly up the slope. He was almost out of sight when she caught the distant wail of a siren.
It was long past midnight before they returned to the Negresco. With the poor driver in a coma and the limo a smoldering wreck, the police would advance no theories yet as to the cause of the accident.
The Negresco's manager met his battered and bandaged guests at the door. Called by the night staff, who'd been informed of the accident by the police, he'd pulled on his cutaway frock coat but hadn't quite managed to knot his gray-striped silk ascot.
"We are so distressed by this dreadful accident. We'll take care of all expenses incident to your visit to the hospital, of course."
Of course. Anything to avoid adverse publicity or a possible lawsuit. Running his anxious gaze over their assorted scrapes and bruises, he dogged them across the lobby to the elevator.
"Please tell me, is there anything we can do to ease your discomfort?"
"Send up a bottle of armagnac," Nick rapped out, stabbing at the up button. "1950 Chateau La Bataille."
‘‘Yes, sir. An excellent choice, if I may say so. I believe... Yes, I'm sure we have a bottle in the cellar. I'll have it brought up immediately. And perhaps a tray of fruits and cheeses? Baked brie and some...?"
The elevator door swished shut, cutting him off in midcourse. Sighing, Mackenzie propped her shoulders against the burled walnut panels. With her dirt-streaked face, patchwork of gauze bandages and what was left of her bloodied pants showing below Nick's tux, she knew she looked worse than she felt, and she felt pretty grim. At least she hadn't lost the emeralds. Fingering the collar, she wondered whether their owner had ever experienced anything close to this heart-stopping excitement while decked out in the jewels.
Her pathetic appearance provoked little sympathy from Nick. When the door to their suite slammed behind them, Mackenzie took one look at the tight line to his jaw and abandoned any hopes they could retire to their separate bathrooms to wash up and change while they waited for the cognac.
"All right, let it out. You're still torqued about the tracking device in your watch, right?"
"Torqued doesn't begin to describe it. But that's not at the top of my list right now."
"What is?"
"You. I want you on the next plane out of Nice."
Stung, she jerked up her chin. ‘‘Why?''
"Because you could have died tonight," he snarled, startling her with his vehemence. "That's twice now you've dodged a bullet meant for me."
"So you don't believe our little adventure tonight was an accident?"
"Jean-Claude lost control of the car on almost the first turn. I doubt if there'll be enough left of the limo for a decisive finding, but no, I don't believe our little adventure tonight was an accident."
Mackenzie had entertained her own suspicions. Hearing them voiced aloud didn't make them any easier to swallow.
"We still don't know for sure you're the target," she argued. "It doesn't make sense for me to leave until... Hey!"
She'd forgotten how fast he could move. Closing the distance between them in two swift strides, he wrapped his hands around her upper arms and practically lifted her onto her toes.
"Don't you understand, you idiot? I don't want you used for target practice. Or sent over a cliff. Or burned alive at the bottom of a ravine."
"I'm not particularly keen on any of those options, either! But we're a team, Nick. We're in this together. We do this together or..."
His grip tightened. "Or what?"
Obviously, the man didn't take kindly to threats, implied or otherwise. His combination of icy anger and savage concern for her safety reminded Mackenzie all too forcefully of her own wild swings of emotions. The fury when she'd spotted the countess wrapped around him. The jolt when she'd remembered she'd staked no claim on Nick that would keep the Dianthes of the world away from him. That heart-stopping moment after the limo nosedived off the cliff, when regret that she'd turned down Nick's offer tasted as bilious and as bitter as her choking fear.
Gulping, Mackenzie finally admitted the truth. Despite everything she'd done to keep Nick Jensen at a distance, the blasted man had gotten under her skin. Into her head. Around the barriers she'd erected to protect her heart. She didn't need another near-death experience to shatter her stubborn resistance. Or make her admit that some lines had to be crossed. She might regret this tomorrow, but tonight...
Tonight she had to touch him, taste him, take all he had to offer and give what was in her heart. With a little wrench, she pulled free of his hold.
"We're not finished here," he warned in a low growl.
"No, we're not."
Her pulse hammering, Mackenzie marched to the pedestal table set against the paneled wall. A Baccarat crystal ashtray sat on the table and held a book of matches encrusted with the hotel's seal in heavy gold foil. Her fingers closed around the matches. With a growing sense of absolute certainty, she faced Nick.
Bits of grass and leaves decorated his blond hair. Dirt streaked his white dress shirt. Unlike Mackenzie's, his slacks were still more or less intact, but she only now noticed that he'd lost one shoe. He looked tough and uncompromising and too damned impossible to resist any longer.
Her certainty leaped into hunger. With a thumping ache that had nothing to do with her scrapes or bruises, Mackenzie flipped up the embossed cover, struck a match and held the tiny flame up between thumb and forefinger.
"What the hell...?"
Confusion blanked Nick's face. He must have thought she was reacting to his burnt-alive crack. An apology was forming in his eyes when they suddenly narrowed. Mackenzie saw comprehension dawn in their blue depths and dredged up a shaky smile.
"You told me to strike a match when I'm ready, remember?''
"Yes."
She held his gaze above the tiny, dancing flame. "Tonight convinced me. I got my fingers burned once, but I don't want to go through life without ever feeling the heat again."
He didn't pounce. Nick wasn't the type. She saw his shoulders tense under the torn shirt, felt her own ner
ves coil as he absorbed her sudden change of heart.
“I seem to have missed something here. How did we get from putting you on the next plane out of Nice to playing with our own brand of fire?"
"I discovered I don't like seeing you used for target practice, either. And during our short, never-to-be-forgotten ride down from the countess's house, I realized I'd lied. To you and to myself."
The flame singed her fingertips. Hastily, Mackenzie dropped the match in the ashtray. The embers glowed a golden red, reflected many times over in the crystal. She pulled her gaze from the bright speck and met Nick's intent stare.
"I want what you offered me this morning at the flower market," she confessed with soul-searing honesty. "I've wanted it since my first weeks at OMEGA."
He was across the room almost before the words were out. When he pulled her into his arms, Mackenzie wasn't sure which Nick to expect. The sophisticated charmer who'd raised goose bumps all over her flesh when he'd clasped the emeralds around her neck or the primitive male who'd pinned her to the carpet last night.
This Nick fell right somewhere between the two. He made no attempt to disguise his hunger, but he was careful of her bruises when he buried his fingers in her hair and angled her mouth up for his kiss. Mackenzie's lips opened under his. Her hunger mounting with each dart of tongue against tongue, she dug her fingers into his shoulders for balance as he backed her against the wall.
The hard press of his body set the spark to hers. After the terrifying plunge down the cliff, she needed this searing contact of warm flesh and eager mouths. She needed to feel this sudden surge of life, to let her blood rush wildly through her veins.
She needed Nick.
Her heart raced, pulsing with life, with greed, with desire. She angled her head to keep his mouth fused with hers while her hands splayed across his shoulders. His muscles bunched under her fingertips, hard and roped and all male.
Everything female in Mackenzie thrilled to the urgency he communicated with his mouth and hands. And to the efficiency with which he stripped her of his tux jacket and the tattered remnants of her evening wear.
Within moments, he had her down to her silk bikini panties, a few gauze bandages and the emerald collar. A little growl rattled around in the back of his throat as he ran his palm down her front, from her neck to her breasts to the hollow of her belly.
"This is how I imagined you when I pocketed that necklace the other night," he told her gruffly. "Your hair tumbling around your shoulders, your skin all flushed and hot, wearing only the emeralds."
His palm slid lower, yanked down her panties. Mackenzie didn't have any problem fulfilling his fantasy. After denying her desire for this man for so long, she burned for him.
Her head went back against the wall. Her mouth opened eagerly under his. Her breasts scraped his shirtfront, the nipples hard-tipped and aching. When he found her hot, wet center, every muscle below her waist clenched.
She almost climaxed then and there. Her eyes flew open. Desperate to quell the spiraling sensation, she jerked back.
"No!" she gasped. "Don't...end...it...yet."
Exerting an exquisite pressure on the slick, sensitive spot between her thighs, he brushed her mouth with his.
"Don't worry, Comm. This is just the beginning."
* * *
With the supreme vanity of all males, Nick had envisioned various scenarios for Mackenzie's eventual seduction.
None of those scenes included pinning her against a wall, with one of her calves hooked around his and her back arched while he used his hands and his mouth to wring a climax from her shuddering, rippling flesh. Yet Nick couldn't have stopped at that point if he'd wanted to, which he sure as hell didn't.
She was liquid incandescence, all bright, searing heat. She flamed around him, under him, her skin flushed with need, her mouth and hands as urgent as his. When she suddenly stiffened, a groan tearing loose from far back in her throat, raw male triumph slashed through him.
Only after the shudders died and she went limp against him did he carry her into the bedroom and stretch her out on the satin-covered duvet. He was already hard and aching, but her sensual sigh as she wiggled deeper into the feather-filled comforter and stretched her arms over her head came close to putting a permanent kink in his gut.
"That," she purred, "was wonderful. Just what every girl needs after sailing off a cliff." She eyed him from beneath her lids. ‘‘What about you, Nick? What do you need?"
"Give me ten seconds and I'll show you."
His watch went first. He tossed it on the bedside table with a sardonic reminder to himself to have Mackenzie debug it. Later. Peeling off his one shoe and socks, he attacked the silver studs in his white dress shirt. Impatience and the sight of Mackenzie's dusky-tipped breasts and full, swollen mouth had him ripping at the damned shirtfront. The studs popped and scattered. What was left of the fine spun cotton shirt hit the floor. He'd just yanked down his zipper when a rap sounded on the sitting room door.
"Hell!" Frustration reddening his cheeks, Nick yanked the zipper up again. "That must be the ar-magnac. Don't move."
"Like I could right now."
Grinning at the wry response, Nick padded barefoot and bare-chested through the suite. His entire body was wire-tight and aching, but he withdrew a thin length of razor-edged steel from the sheath strapped to his ankle before putting an eye to the peephole. The blade remained nestled against the inside of his right wrist when he opened the door.
"Compliments of the management, monsieur. Fruit, cheeses, and..." Reverence filled his voice. "A bottle of 1950 Chateau La Bataille."
‘‘Merci.''
Relieving the waiter of his heavy silver tray, Nick promised to leave a hefty tip with the empty bottle and kicked the door shut in his face. The baked brie trailed a warm, yeasty scent as he carried the tray to the bedroom and deposited it on the table by the bed. The wicked blade slid down his wrist to lie beside it.
Mackenzie plucked a grape from the heaped bowl of fruit and popped it in her mouth, watching as he uncorked the squat, dust-streaked bottle. "What is armagnac, anyway?"
"A particularly fine cognac. This vintage is from the Grand Bas Armagnac region, west of here."
The bottle in his hand had probably been sold at auction and cost the equivalent of a midsize car. Smiling in carnal anticipation, he centered the bottle over Mackenzie's bare middle and tipped the neck.
"Nick!"
Laughing a protest, she hollowed her belly to keep the golden liquid from spilling onto the duvet. Laughter gave way to a breathless gasp when he set the bottle aside and stretched out beside her on the bed. Slowly, deliberately, he ran his tongue from her breasts to her belly. The cognac fired his taste buds, but Mackenzie's warm, rippling skin stirred the ravenous hunger he'd fought to keep under control until this point.
She tasted like nothing he'd ever imagined, and he'd woven more than a few erotic fantasies around this woman. Delicate, like a fine Chantilly creme. Salty in spots. Dark and warm and rich where the liquor dribbled down through the hair at the apex of her thighs.
He took his time, savoring her flavors, using his tongue and his teeth to stir his own appetites as well as hers. She was writhing when he rasped the last of the cognac from the inner folds of her slick flesh, panting when he rolled atop her. Positioning himself between her knees, Nick slid one arm under her waist to cant her hips.
Mackenzie didn't even try to delay the inevitable this time. She felt him slide into her. Felt her muscles stretching and pulling and clamping around him in tiny, exquisite spasms of pleasure. Determined to take him with her, she locked her ankles behind his thighs and matched him thrust for thrust.
"Mackenzie..."
The hoarse growl thrilled her to her core. He couldn't hold back. Had lost control. They were fused together. With a fierce stab of satisfaction, she clenched her muscles.
Chapter 10
Mackenzie drifted awake the next morning, co
nfused by the weight draped over her waist and the unfamiliar sensation of being cradled against something solid and warm. Dreamlike images floated through her mind like fingers of morning mist. Glamorous gowns. Glittering flashes of green. Inky darkness shot with flames.
Muttering, she snuggled her bottom into the reassuring heat behind her. In response, the dead weight draped over her middle tightened. There was a rustle of sheets, a slide of cotton on cotton, and the hard platform under her thighs shifted.
"Morning, Comm."
The husky greeting pierced the last of her sleepy haze. Her eyes flew open. She took in the ornate armoire across the room, the sliver of bright sunlight slanting through drawn drapes, the remnants of Nick's white dress shirt tossed carelessly on the carpet.
Good grief! It wasn't a dream. None of it. Not the stolen necklace or the horrifying ride down the hillside or those mindless moments with her back to the wall and Nick at her front.
Having him behind her was almost as disconcerting as having him at her front. His chest hair tickled her shoulder blades. His muscled thighs rode high and hard under hers. And if that insistent prod at the back of her thigh was any indication, the man was a whole lot more awake than she was.
Desperately, she tried to sort through the conflicting demands of unbrushed teeth, a body sticky all over from several marathon sessions and a fully aroused Nick. She'd barely swiped her tongue over her fuzzy teeth when he eradicated all other considerations by the simple expedient of raising one knee, lifting her bottom a few inches and sliding into her.
Mackenzie let out a little breathless gasp at the invasion, another when Nick nipped at the lobe of her ear.
The toothbrush could wait.
* * *
Unfortunately, the rest of the world couldn't.
She was hanging on to another sheer precipice by her fingernails when a series of staccato beeps penetrated her screaming senses. Panting, she raised her head a few inches.
To Love a Thief Page 9
