He was going to find out, she just didn’t want to be the one to tell him. She wanted him to look at her like…like he was now. Like she was special. It was crazy. She’d let yesterday throw her off her game, and she hadn’t recovered. Yet, she couldn’t shake the desire that’d taken root for this man.
He was nothing like his brothers or the rest of his family.
He was good.
And she wanted some of that to rub off on her, in a totally R-rated kind of way.
“You not feeling well?” Kade asked.
“Hm?”
“You’ve barely eaten.”
“I’ll eat later.” She pushed it aside.
Food wasn’t what she’d been hungry for since that kiss. For all she knew, Rusty wasn’t coming and this, right now, was just a date.
She slid off the stool, which put her standing in the V of Kade’s legs, trapped between him and the counter. He didn’t make a move to free her, either, which was fine. She braced one hand against his chest and slid the other around to the back of his neck. He sat forward enough that their bodies brushed when either of them breathed. Like now—that pregnant pause before lips met.
Shelby was going to hell, so why not go in style?
Their lips met.
His hand dug into her hair, twining the strands around his fingers. He tugged and she groaned.
He pulled her closer, and she considered climbing right up into his lap. That wouldn’t be too forward, would it? His tongue stroked hers. His hand slid down her back, to the curve of her hip. His hair was just long enough she could twist her fingers around it.
Kade stood, tightening his grip around her and lifting her with him. Their lips never stopped, the connection didn’t end. He set her on the counter, pushing plates aside. Her dress strained around her thighs before she hiked it up for him to get closer.
His lips trailed down her neck, finding every sensitive spot with his tongue. His hands molded her body, his touch firm. Certain. Her body heated, arousal dampening her panties.
Kade could destroy her. Utterly break her, if this didn’t stop. She knew it in her bones. And she didn’t care.
She wanted out of this bra, these clothes. Her skin was too hot, her stomach too tight. Her nipples ached, her sex throbbed. Had someone drugged the wine? If they had, she’d say thank you later, but she doubted that. This was all them. Something unique.
Shelby bent forward, kissing Kade and wrapping her calves around his hips. He rocked against her and she groaned. Hot damn, he would feel amazing inside of her.
His hand slid up over her stomach and cupped her breast. The heat of him seemed to ease the chafing. But only for a moment. She moaned and arched her spine, wanting his touch again.
“I shouldn’t have done that.” His voice was pained.
“I think you should.” She covered his hand with hers and brought it back up.
She was all hips, not much boob, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the feel of a man’s hands on her.
“I just… This is moving pretty fast.” His eyes were nearly black, the brown darkening to match his iris, that lower lip swollen.
She should issue some sort of warning that she liked to nip. But that would mean she meant to be here all along, and she hadn’t. This wasn’t the plan at all. But she wasn’t about to stop him.
“Are you okay with it?” She wasn’t used to being the one trying to fast track things with a man, then again, most of them weren’t the same caliber as Kade.
“This just…” He applied the barest amount of pressure against her breast, massaging it.
She groaned. It felt—
“Feels right,” he whispered.
Shelby tugged on his hair until she could kiss that mouth of his. She was burning up from the inside out, because of him. Because of this weird, unexplored chemistry, and if she didn’t explore it now, she might not get another chance.
He stroked her through the dress and her bra. Could he feel the tight bead of her nipple? Each pass of his fingers had her channel clenching, the breath in her lungs stuttering. The blood roared past her ears, drowning everything out.
“Oh, uh, sorry. I’ll, um—”
Kade rocked back, staring over her shoulder.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asked.
Oh, no…
Rusty always did have impeccable timing.
Kade helped Shelby off the counter. She wouldn’t even glance at the sandy-haired guy hovering in her doorway.
He didn’t look anything like Shelby, so brother was out.
Was Kade getting taken for a ride?
He didn’t share and he wasn’t the threesome kind, that was for sure. He wasn’t old fashioned about much, but he had his boundaries.
“Well, I guess we’ll do this now.” The man slid the loft door shut.
It’d been locked. Kade had watched Shelby lock it.
Which meant whoever this was knew her well enough to have a key. To her home.
“What’s going on, Shelby?” Kade glanced at her, but she’d put a few feet between them. One arm was crossed over her chest. A curtain of hair blocked her face from his, but her posture screamed guilty.
“Hi, Kade, I’m Rusty Rogers.” The man thrust his hand forward, gaze locked on Kade’s face.
“What’s going on?” Kade ignored Rusty’s hand, focusing on Shelby. “Is this your husband? Boyfriend? What?”
Kade took a step back, putting a little distance between him and the other guy. Kade had grown up around thieves, con artists, and the like. The dinner. The kiss. Was this a set up? He was getting the distinct feeling he’d just been taken for a ride. Kade focused on the man, the actual threat in the room.
Wait.
He looked…familiar.
“You were at the accident, you were the other driver.” The pieces clicked into place. Kade had seen this scam before, only they were out of luck. Kade didn’t have anything to steal.
“It’s not what you think.” Rusty held up his hands. “I’m going to reach into my pocket—slowly—and pull out my badge. I’m FBI.”
“What the fuck?” Kade took another step back.
“Here. See?” Rusty pulled out a slim, fold-over wallet, displaying FBI credentials. “Do you want a closer look? My badge is on the coffee table, there to your right.”
“What the hell is going on?” Kade backed up more, keeping both Shelby and Rusty in his line of sight. Kitchens were good for fights. Lots of hard surfaces and sharp things.
“Can we sit down and talk about this?” Rusty gestured to the sofa and arm chairs.
“No.”
“Okay, so we’ll do this standing. Sorry, Shel, I got hung up. Didn’t think to call ahead in case you were, ah, getting better acquainted. And no, I’m not Shelby’s husband or boyfriend.” Rusty planted his hands on his hips. Under normal circumstances, he might be rather disarming, in a friendly way that invited someone to underestimate him. Kade’s middle brother, Anton, had the same sort of demeanor. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Rusty Rogers. No, that is not a fake name. My dad was a big Marvel fan, liked the alliteration. This is Shelby Amos, who you have already met. She’s working with me on a case, and we need your help.”
“Excuse me if I’m not too keen on taking your word for it.” Kade wanted out of here. It was a big room, and he had no idea who—or what—was beyond the maze of easels. He didn’t see another exit, but he was willing to bet there was a fire escape outside one of the windows.
“We’re trying to save your brother’s lives,” Shelby said without looking at either of them.
“What?” That took Kade by surprise. Of all the things he’d expected either of them to say, that was not one of them.
“I wasn’t there yet.” Rusty sighed. “Shelby’s right. We’re working on a case, and your brothers have been brought in under pain of death, or worse.”
“I want to leave. Now.” Kade clenched his fists. He didn’t want to hit a woman, but he had no qualms about punching th
e daylights out of the guy.
“Just listen to him.” Shelby finally turned and gestured at Rusty.
“All right, quick version.” Rusty rubbed his hands together. “Your brothers are in Seattle to do a gig for a guy we’ve been after for a while. Shelby is our asset on the inside, but we’re running into a trust issue. Your brothers do not trust her, and it’s working against us. Now, Shelby’s devised a plan to both pull off this scam and keep everyone from dying or killing people. She’s even managed to get your brothers to think it was their idea, but it all hinges on getting your help. I think I covered everything?”
“You did,” Shelby said.
“Bullshit. My brothers know better than to come to Seattle.” Kade and his brothers had an arrangement. They didn’t come to the west coast, and he didn’t come home. End of story.
“Well, they’re here, now, because I saw them this morning.” Shelby just kept staring at the floor. What? Remorse? From her? That was rich. He’d met her type before, the ones who played the victim to pull a guy in. Yeah. She’d fooled him once, and that was it. No more. “You’re nothing like them.”
“I want to leave. Now.” Damn right, he wasn’t like them, but Kade wasn’t going to discuss that with her. He didn’t believe for an instant this guy was FBI. And if he was? After what’d gone down with Ian and his girlfriend, Kade wasn’t too keen on trusting anything the FBI had to say without more than just their word to go on.
“All right. Fine.” Rusty shrugged. “Will you take my card at least? And do us a favor, don’t mention this?”
“Put it on the counter, there.” Kade figured he could rush the guy and make it out the door if it came to that.
Rusty pried a business card out of his wallet, walked slowly to the very end of the counter, set it down and backed up.
“Shelby?” Rusty nodded to the side.
Shelby finally looked at him. Her stare was flat, her expression blank.
She wasn’t the vivacious woman he’d texted with. She wasn’t the emotional woman he’d chatted with on the sidewalk. She wasn’t the woman with the molten touch, who set his blood boiling. She wasn’t the vixen who’d wrapped herself around him.
She was a con artist. That look? It was the same one his brothers had, and Kade would rot in hell before he’d trust someone like that again.
6.
Shelby thundered down the stairs. Once again, she’d allowed herself to get wrapped up in indulging herself and not what had to be done. It’d been ages since she’d done something so stupid. But Kade… He did things to her head, her body, and she wasn’t sure how to react.
Where the hell was he?
He’d practically sprinted out of the loft before she could find the words to explain herself. This. What they were doing. How things got so messed up.
She’d known he was going to react, that it wouldn’t be good for her, but not like this. She’d thought Rusty would flash his badge and they’d get down to business. But something had happened. What, she didn’t know.
She hit the doors and glanced left and then right.
There.
“Kade! Kade, wait. Please?” She jogged after him, wary of what he might do.
“Leave me alone.” He kept walking, hands in his pockets.
She jogged ahead of him and got right in his path, though her preservation instincts said to put a great deal of distance between them.
“Please, I didn’t mean for…Rusty isn’t making any of this up.”
“Even if you aren’t, I don’t appreciate being taken for a ride.” He stepped around her without even meeting her gaze.
She stuck with him, keeping pace though he sped up.
“Please, think about it? Lives are on the line.” She dared to reach out and touch him. She planted her hand against his chest, stopping them both in the middle of the sidewalk on the deserted street. “If this goes well, we could capture one of the worst criminals out there. This guy buys and sells bioengineered weapons, the plans to make nuclear bombs, the kind of stuff that doesn’t just impact us, but the world.
“Be angry with me, not Rusty. I’m sorry.” Those words killed her a little. She wasn’t truly sorry for kissing him, for reacting the way she had, but this couldn’t be about her—them. It had to be about the case.
“I can’t believe a word you say.”
“I realize that, given your history and the way things went down, I am completely suspect to you. I get that, but—”
“If you wanted my help, if any of this is true, why not ask?” He leaned toward her, those dark eyes of his flashing with a dangerous light. Now that he was finally seeing her, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in his crosshairs.
She swallowed and pulled her hand back, the heat of him burning her down to her bones.
“Because we had to evaluate you for ourselves. I’ve had to work with your brothers—we had questions.”
“I passed your little test? I bet Anton enjoyed it. I’m leaving.”
She fisted his shirt, rage hazing her vision.
“I never kissed your brothers.” Her voice didn’t sound like her, rough and hazed with anger. She forced herself to ease her grasp. “Not everything was a test.”
“Are your parents even dead?”
“Yes.” She winced.
“Oh…”
“But it wasn’t yesterday. I let myself forget. It’s easier that way. Until we started thinking about how to do this.”
“What was a lie and what was truth?”
“The accident was a lie. I wasn’t late to work.”
“You were trying to hook me, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And the rest?”
“You’re a good person, Kade.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need you to tell me that. What I’d like is to go home now.”
She pressed her hands against his chest a little harder, as if she could make him stay. But she couldn’t.
“Please consider what Rusty said? If you don’t believe me, if you can’t trust me, at least think about him?”
“I don’t even know if he’s really a FBI agent.”
“He is.” She chuckled. “I learned that the hard way.”
“Yeah? How’d they catch you? What kind of a con were you running?” He peered at her face, seeing too deeply. “I’ve known people like you. I can’t trust you even as far as I can throw you.”
She pulled her hands back. Kade was a big man, and despite Shelby’s training, she was still a smaller, weaker person. She didn’t think he’d carry through on that threat, but she’d been wrong about people before.
“Okay, fine, but when your brothers come to you—think about what we’ve said? Please?” She stared up at him. Yes, she was a former scam artist. Now she caught the bad guys by thinking how they thought. It was the way she balanced out the scales, how she righted her wrongs.
“My brothers know better than to come to Seattle.” Kade stepped around her, one foot in front of the other.
Shelby turned, watching him go.
Kade was one of the good ones. He’d chosen his path. She was more than a little jealous of him, especially now that she’d gotten to know him beyond the file. Words on a page didn’t capture him. The way he made her feel couldn’t be bottled.
Shelby muttered curses and stared up at the sky.
She’d had a bad feeling about this from the start. Why hadn’t she listened to her gut? Because Rusty had a plan when she didn’t. Her tendency to doubt everything good had blinded her. She could see now that approaching him with anything except honesty was digging themselves into a hole they might not be able to dig their way out of.
Shelby perched on a brick flowerbed and stared at the sidewalk.
A light mist coated everything in a fine sheen of water. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
This was the price she had to pay, when it came to people in her life. They would either accept or reject her.
Kade rejected her.
/> He had every right to. If Rusty hadn’t arrived when he had, she’d probably have jumped Kade’s bones without even the slightest hesitation. Because he’d made her feel. For a moment, she’d been selfish, gobbling all of that up for herself. She’d known where this was going, and she hadn’t even tried to stop it.
She’d been honest with him, and now she’d have to live with knowing that even when she was being truthful, it still wasn’t always enough. She could only hope that Kade’s good streak was wide enough to pick up the slack for his brothers, because she doubted they would be truthful with him.
Iestyn poured himself a liberal amount of brandy into the crystal glass.
He didn’t often come back to Miami. Too many bad memories, but given what was about to go down, he’d wanted to see it. To wrap himself in Sharon.
Except, the house had that musty, stale scent to it.
He’d have to see about firing the service he’d hired to upkeep the place. It should have a fresh smell. Like her clothing, her hair.
He ran a finger along the wainscoting and came back with a thick, black streak of grime.
Clearly, their standards of clean did not align.
What shape were the paintings in?
If one of them was damaged from improper care, he’d make sure to destroy the whole company.
He took the glass with him and pushed open the doors. He’d bought this house back in the early eighties. At the time, he’d envisioned bringing Sharon here, making this ballroom-sized atrium her studio. A place to celebrate all the beauty she created. Now, it was a mortuary for what could have been. It had taken him about fifteen years, but he’d managed to collect most of Sharon Smith’s work to hoard for himself.
Much to his relief, someone had at least drawn the curtains and aired the room before his arrival.
Iestyn turned to admire the work of art, the colors, how the foreground contrasted with all the bits around it.
Soon, he’d make it all right.
His phone vibrated. He peered at the screen.
Yuri Gabor.
If it were anyone else, Iestyn would have ignored the call, but Yuri was the man he needed to talk to.
“Yuri, so good to hear from you.” Iestyn wandered through the room, letting his gaze linger on familiar, painted friends.
Her Prince (Twisted Royals #2) Page 5
