Hidden Gems

by Carrie Alexander

  He breathed heavily against her neck, making the small dangling stones of her earring sway. “Tell me where it is and I’ll let you go.”

  His hand was still clamped over her mouth. He didn’t get that she couldn’t talk until she made a choking sound in her throat.

  He dropped his hand to her neck. “Don’t scream, bitch,” he warned as his grip on her wrist tightened. He sharpened the angle of her arm. A stinging pain shot through it, lodging a burning coal in her shoulder.

  Her eyes darted over the mess, wishing for a weapon or a clue. What had he been looking for? Other than a few pricey designer items from her wardrobe and the gold crucifix her parents had given her for confirmation, she had nothing of great value.

  “But I don’t know what you want,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “You brought it home.”

  “What? When?”

  His fetid breath made her face contort. “From the airport,” he said. “We know what you did.”

  Her voice rose to a soprano pitch. “I brought noth—”

  The hand covered her mouth again, smothering the denial.

  She whimpered. A pitiful sound, but she wasn’t as tough as she’d thought.

  Jamie, she called silently. Please help. Maybe if she could get free, tip over a chair or slam a door. But he was two floors above. He’d never hear.

  “My luggage,” she blurted. “The bag, there.” She nodded toward the big straw purse, but obviously he’d already been through it. Her passport had been tossed aside, the fashion magazine lay splayed with torn pages. The camera was in pieces, apparently smashed against the floor.

  “Where’s the rest of it?”

  “In the b-bedroom.” Marissa’s lungs seized. ¡Dios mio! she didn’t want to go in there with him!

  He dragged her toward the dark end of the apartment. Marissa pretended to stumble over the coatrack and he loosened his hold, reaching past her to push the tall column aside.

  With a stab of pain, she wrenched free. Her captor let out a roar as she leaped like a gazelle across the coatrack. He grabbed at her, but she was too quick. He got only a fistful of long black hair.

  She ran into the bedroom, slammed and locked the door, knowing it wouldn’t hold even before his body crashed against the barrier. She leaned her weight against it. Bang. He hit it again. The door bulged inward. She wished she’d eaten more pancakes and Twinkies.

  Bang. The entire wall reverberated. Surely someone would hear and call 9-1-1.

  She scanned the top of the nearby chest of drawers for a weapon, then realized she still had her bag. The lightweight evening purse was strung across her chest on a narrow strap, but it had become twisted so the beaded bag was at her back. She didn’t dare let up her stance to wrestle out the cell phone.

  Bang. The intruder cursed. “Let me in and you won’t get hurt.”

  Really. Did anyone ever believe that cliché?

  “Stand back,” she called, giving the doorknob a jiggle. He’d have to be an idiot to believe she’d let him in, but she needed only a few seconds. Risking that he was that dumb, she stepped away from the door and with all her might shoved the bureau a few feet over. That wouldn’t hold him, either. But she might have time to crawl out the window.

  The knob rattled. “Bitch!” Bang.

  She crossed the room in a flash. She grabbed at her purse, but the window was stuck and she had to use both hands to wrench it open. Praying that Harry had hidden himself well, she scrambled out onto the fire escape. One of her shoes fell off, bounced off the open metal stairs and dropped thirty feet to the cracked pavement.

  She glanced down. Her stomach lurched. Incredibly, a second man in black stood at the foot of the fire escape, looking up at her. His glare was lethal. She had the strange sense that she’d seen him before.

  They stared at each other, paralyzed. Only for a moment before Marissa’s senses returned. She became aware of the aches in her body, the cool air against her hot skin, the rough bite of the metal platform on her bare sole.

  There was a great crash from inside the bedroom as the bureau tipped over. She jerked out of her trance to let out a gut-busting scream.

  She began climbing. “Jamie! Help!” The staircase structure shook alarmingly as the burglar followed her onto it.

  Gasping desperately, she climbed faster. “Oh, please, someone help.” Her foot skidded. Damn high heels. She kicked away the other shoe, hoping it would knock her pursuer in the head.

  She was so exposed. If either of the men had a gun…

  Don’t think. Climb!

  Above her, a light blinked on behind the curtains. It grew brighter, a precious salvation pouring out of the building as the curtains were drawn aside. The window opened with a screech of the sash. Silhouetted head and shoulders appeared.

  “Oh, God, Jamie. Call 9-1-1!”

  He didn’t. He was out of the window in a shot, dangling himself by one arm through the stairwell to grab hold of her hand and pull her up. She seemed to fly the last few feet.

  With a sob, she threw herself into Jamie’s arms. He was rock-steady, warm with sleep. “Go, go, go,” she urged. “They’re coming!”

  He looked down. “Who?”

  “The burglars.” She peered past the railing. The fire escape was empty. “I swear, they were—”

  “Get inside,” Jamie said, boosting her through his open window.

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you.” He climbed in after her and shut the window, then swung an iron safety gate back in place with a heavy clink—the type of device he’d asked to install at her place. She’d put him off.

  Her teeth chattered as she opened the purse. “He was in my apartment when I got home. I climbed out the window.” She gave the cell phone to Jamie. “You call.”

  Jamie kept his arm around her while he made the emergency call. Then he walked her to the bed—a pullout sofa—and sat her down on it. He wrapped her in a blanket, telling her that the police would arrive soon. Not always the case, but they were top priority as a crime in progress. “What happened to your shoes?”

  “I don’t re—” Her brain wasn’t working right, all stutters and stops. She shook her head, remembering the clatter of the falling shoe, the face staring up at her. “They came off.”

  He tucked her cold feet in beneath the blanket. “I’m going to leave you here for a minute while I go downstairs to check this out.”

  She clutched him, worried for the cat but more worried for Jamie. “Don’t do that. They might be there.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “But they could be. He was looking for something.”

  “The burglar? What?”

  “I’m not sure.” She burrowed deeper into the blanket, her mind settling enough to thank God for keeping her safe before it turned to the confusion of the attempted burglary. “Something I brought home from the Caymans.”

  “Hmm.” Jamie paced out his front door and listened for sounds from the stairwell. His hair was tousled and he wore only a pair of boxers. Muscles flexed, tight with tension. The patch on his chest was thicker and darker than she remembered. He seemed macho, even…lusty.

  Marissa shivered. Maybe it was the danger, giving her a new perspective. Climbing the stairs, desperate with fear, she’d pinned all her hopes on reaching Jamie. She’d known she could count on him to be there for her.

  He stayed out in the hallway, leaning over the stair rail. “It’s okay, babe.”

  She tried to figure out what the intruder might have been looking for, which only made her remember the horror of being captured in the thief’s arms. She pushed that out of her mind.

  Stay cool, remember to breathe. Every time she inhaled, she felt better. The soft woolen blanket smelled like Jamie. The comfort of that calmed her, sliding through her like warm butter.

  When he came back into the room, she opened her arms to him. “Hold me.”

  He climbed up beside her. “Cold?”

  �
��No, I want—” Her voice caught. What she wanted was a surprise. Her blood hummed with desire. “Just hold me,” she begged, aware that her need was entwined with the adrenaline from her escape and a kind of achiness that was also tinged with homesickness. She was restless, ardent, aflame. She wanted to get close to Jamie—body-on-body close. Skin-to-skin. Tongue-in-mouth.

  A reaction to the danger…or a decision on their relationship?

  Did it matter?

  “Kiss me,” she said. “Make me warm.”

  Jamie was nonplused, but the gleam in his eyes told her that he was tempted. “The police will be here—”

  “Then hurry.” Giving him no choice, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the bed. On top of her. His hands went to her breasts. No mistake. One hand on each breast, his fingers tightening on her flesh, kneading it, massaging the surface sensation into a deeper passion that made her tremble and moan and open her mouth against his jaw.

  His stubble scraped her lips. But then his sleek mouth and supple tongue took over and she was lost in the hot suction that pulled pleasure through the center of her body in an electric current. Her hair raised at the roots. She couldn’t stop moving, hips squirming, legs working.

  Her hands traveled over Jamie’s bare back. His skin flinched at her touch. Muscles jumped, tensed. He couldn’t hold back a groan.

  She felt the solidness of him beneath her palms. Gratitude spread through her. He was so alive, so present, so real. There was no pretension about Jamie. She was damn lucky to have him.

  So go ahead and have him.

  She reached between them, trying to lift her own top.

  “Wait,” Jamie said against her mouth.

  “Wait? Wait? You’re not supposed to say wait when I’m taking off my—”

  “Allow me.” He chuckled at her impatience and slid his hands under her shirt.

  She sighed with her entire body and let the assertiveness go. For what felt like the first time in her life, she didn’t have to be in charge.

  How astonishing that the man who could take over was Jamie.

  Maybe she should have seen that coming. Friends first. She’d learned to trust him all the way.

  It might have been awkward to have her good friend Jamie kneeling between her legs with his hands under her shirt and his thigh pressed where she was hot and swollen and tingling with arousal. It might have been weird to see the bright spark of lust in his eyes.

  But somehow it just seemed right.

  Anticipation caught in her throat when he rose up enough to straighten his arms, his intense concentration targeted on her breasts. He strummed her nipples. She gasped and arched her back, inhaling again when the motion rubbed her sex against his leg. Her short skirt was flipped up across her hipbone. Underneath she wore a pair of bikini panties. One thin layer of cotton, dampened and sticking to her skin, begging to be torn away.

  Jamie wasn’t in a hurry. Slowly he dragged up the hem of her skimpy little top, a silk shell trimmed in lace that scratched her rib cage and caught on the tips of her nipples. He hesitated there, looking at her, then deliberately lifted his hands away.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  She felt precious, valued. Loved.

  “And we’re stopping.” He tugged the lace hem down.

  Talk about your buckets of cold water. She struggled up to her elbows. “We’re stopping?”

  “The police are on the way. And…”

  She pressed her thigh between his legs. He was hot and hard.

  “I’m not rushing,” he said through gritted teeth as he moved her thigh away and swung his legs off her. “When we do this, it’s going to be with forethought and all the time in the world.”

  “Due deliberation?” She dropped flat on the bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering if she should count to ten and find that her sizzling need had gone away. Maybe after a thousand.

  “That’s nice and all,” she said, watching his face with her head lifted an inch off the pillow, “but who says we can only do it once?”

  He lifted a wicked eyebrow. “Not me.”

  The promise of that thrilled her. She closed her eyes and pictured him doing her with all due deliberation, taking his time as he licked and sucked every inch of her before finally thrusting inside, deep inside, so very deep inside.

  In her stomach, butterflies took flight. She gave him a wry look to counteract the fluttering. “This is so strange, to be having this conversation with you.”

  “Ugh. That’s what I wanted to avoid.” He swooped over her, bringing his face so close that her vision blurred. Her eyes shut again and she concentrated on his mouth, moving against her lips in a talking kiss. “Don’t think.”

  The sudden, stark desire had made her voice husky. “There’s a way to stop me from thinking.”

  “Ah, but that won’t last forever.”

  “Oh?” Why was she disappointed? She wasn’t prepared to think in terms of forever, or so she’d told herself each time another guy disappointed her.

  “I…meant…sex,” Jamie said, planting wet, plucking kisses between every word. “We can’t do it all the time.” He pulled the blanket around them like a hood. She was warm—very warm. And still very aroused. “In between, you’ll think of reasons to screw up the relationship.”

  Her smile curved into his next kiss. “Not if the other kind of screwing’s any good.”

  He touched his lips to her forehead. “No pressure, hmm?”

  She was surprised by the amused confidence of his tone. When had Jamie become so sure of himself? She’d always been the lead dog in their friendship, the one who came up with plans and issued invitations, from the very first day when she’d arrived at his hole-in-the-wall apartment in the East Village with an ice pack for his nose and box seat tickets to the Yankees. Back then, his approach with women had been boyishly self-effacing, even a little bit bashful. Since he also happened to be good-looking, plenty of women had found him adorably date-worthy.

  They were such close friends, Marissa hadn’t really noticed that he’d changed. But he had.

  He’s a man now, not a boy.

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.” She took his hand, directing it toward her breast.

  His fingers folded up. He wouldn’t touch her there. “And you’re a temptress. Don’t get me started.”

  “Such resolve.” She flung out her arms, giving up on persuasion.

  “That’s easy when I’m committed,” he said, kissing her once more as a siren blasted out on the street.

  She didn’t get to ask him what that meant, but merely the word made her heart go thump.

  Not necessarily in a good way.

  6

  “SO THE ENTIRE PLACE was tossed,” said one of New York’s finest at the door to the bedroom.

  “Let me see.” Cradling Harry to her chest, Marissa squeezed past the police officer and the bureau that had been upended when the intruder forced the door. She was wearing an old Lollapalooza sweatshirt of Jamie’s. Barely an inch of skirt showed beneath it, making her legs look even longer and definitely more naked.

  Jamie had seen the pair of officers checking her out. Butch and beefy in their uniforms, they’d puffed up their chests and gained much enthusiasm for the call when Marissa had met them in the hallway. She was so sexy and tousled even the man in the moon would have noticed if given a peek.

  A small jewelry box had been knocked off the dresser. She let Harry go and he sprang onto the bed with a yowl, still upset that he’d been deserted despite Marissa’s reassuring hugs. She dusted off her hands and poked through the scattered jewelry, then moved around the room, checking for missing or misplaced items.

  “Actually, I don’t think he was in here,” she said, coming back to the overturned dresser. “This mess happened when he forced the door.” She gestured over her shoulder at the unmade bed and pile of dirty laundry. “That mess is normal.”

  Jamie smiled. Marissa never apologized for her lack of ho
usekeeping. At times, he even believed that she wore the trait as a badge of honor. Her mother, she’d said, had devoted her life to waxing the linoleum and polishing the sinks.

  Seeing the grin, Marissa pursed her lips at him. No comments from the peanut gallery.

  One of the cops, O’Connor, scribbled in his notebook. “You sure nothing’s missing in here?”

  She surveyed the closet again. A gold cross necklace was clasped between her palms, the chain looped around one delicate wrist. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  The cop asked Jamie to help him right the dresser. After it was back on its legs, drawers askew, he said to Marissa, “Check the underwear drawer.”

  Jamie blurted, “What?”

  “We get a lot of weirdos,” O’Connor explained matter-of-factly. “They like to take souvenirs.”

  Marissa screwed up her face and opened a couple of the drawers wider. Jamie glimpsed molded plum satin bra cups and frilly silk pastels. She had a lot of lingerie.

  A tangled black thong had spilled over the edge. It dangled off one knob, so impossibly tiny it looked like Johnny Depp’s eye patch. Both men stared, until Marissa casually scooped up the garment and tossed it in a drawer. “There. All unmentionables accounted for.”

  “How can you tell?” Jamie asked. His scalp was hot.

  She gave him a sidelong look. A small tease of a smile. “I know when my panties have been touched.”

  Jamie made a choking sound.

  The officer snorted.

  Marissa sailed out of the room. Harry darted after her. “The thief must not have gotten to the bedroom before I came home and interrupted him. He was looking for something specific and he hadn’t found it.”

  “But you don’t know what?” asked the other cop, who’d been examining the locks on the front door. “He popped this, picked the dead bolt, then snapped the chain. Probably took less ’n five minutes.”

  “You’re getting new locks,” Jamie said. “One of those huge iron bars that go right across the door. Maybe a moat. With crocodiles.”

  “I’ll call a locksmith in the morning. Then a zoo.” Marissa toed the items scattered near the door. “Can I touch these?” The cop shrugged. “Because the guy said he wanted something I brought back from vacation, and other than my laundry…” She picked up a straw purse. “This is it.”