by Cindy Dees
Gratitude flooded through her. He seemed to anticipate her needs before she was hardly aware of them, herself. “He’s so upset by the theft, he’ll hardly notice. Let me just go say goodbye. I’ll claim that I have to get up early to rehearse.”
“Early rehearsal. Got it.”
She grinned up at him as his green eyes twinkled down at her. “I don’t make a habit of lying, I’ll have you know. But sometimes with Harold, it’s so much less complicated to just gloss things over a little.”
“I completely understand. Go do your thing with Daddy. I want to have a quick word with Rebecca. And Matt.”
It felt weird to step away from Austin. Like part of her was suddenly missing. She’d become so accustomed to his big, safe presence plastered to her side that she felt naked without him. How was she going to manage without him once he went back to whatever war zone he’d come from? The thought was too awful to contemplate. She forcefully pushed it out of her mind.
And then Harold was looming before her, still blustering and cranky.
Taking a cue from her surprisingly adept stepmother as she hugged him goodbye, she murmured sweetly, “Thanks for arranging to have Austin guard me, Daddy. He’s wonderful. You’re the best.”
Harold fussed and acted gruff, but she could tell he was pleased. Hmm. Who’d have guessed that he would be susceptible to feminine flattery? Apparently, old dogs could learn new tricks after all. Or at least they could when a madman was threatening them and all they held dear. But then she caught the calculating gleam in Harold’s eye as he glanced back and forth between her and Austin.
No. He wouldn’t.
He would.
Could he really be scheming to throw her and Austin together?
The idea sent a jolt of exultation through her.
Whoa, there. No Silver and Austin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-SI-N-G. Austin had made it perfectly clear he wanted nothing to do with a relationship with her.
But dang, it would be nice if he were interested in her. He was a heck of a catch, the kind of man she could see herself being happy with forever.
Sighing, she turned to join him. And her pulse raced. Austin was looking straight at her. Studying her intently, in fact. Her skin warmed and her insides felt mushy all of a sudden. And what was that look in his eyes? Was that actually a spark of desire, calculation even, that she’d glimpsed before he carefully masked his expression?
Could it be?
Was it possible?
No way.
Were Harold and Austin in cahoots to tear her away from Mark? If so, what did that say about the night she’d spent with Austin?
Chapter 11
Austin watched Silver in the shadows of the limousine’s interior. An evening with her family had been good for her. She seemed more relaxed, more open, in spite of the drama over the stolen ring. The Rothchilds hadn’t been what he’d expected. He hadn’t expected them to be that…nice…in the midst of the opulence they lived in. Silver suddenly seemed much more like a regular girl to him. Approachable. Hell, touchable. His life would’ve been a whole lot less complicated if the Rothchilds were snooty, pretentious socialites and Silver one of them. But no such luck.
At least he’d had a stroke of luck with Rebecca. Sure enough, her paste copy of the Tears of the Quetzal had disappeared not long before Candace’s murder. She hadn’t thought anything of it when it came up missing; apparently the Rothchild jewelry collection was extensive, and it wasn’t uncommon for a piece to be removed from the safe for cleaning or appraisal. It did explain how Candace’s appropriation of the original was spotted so quickly, however. With both pieces gone, their absence was perfectly obvious.
And wasn’t that an interesting little tidbit about Candace? Not too many women would waltz into their father’s safe and help themselves to a priceless ring. Ballsy woman. Rule breaker. Make that a dead rule breaker.
When he’d asked Rebecca about where and when the copy of the ring had been made, he’d struck out. It predated her marriage to Harold, and that was all Rebecca could tell him about it. At least he’d made out the name of the jeweler stamped inside the band. Delvecchio’s. If he was lucky, that would turn out to be a local outfit. And just maybe the thief had inquired about the Tears of the Quetzal there.
He knocked on the blacked-out glass partition behind his head and it lowered immediately. “How long until we reach the Grand?”
“Fifteen minutes, sir.”
“Thanks. And don’t sir, me. I’m hired help, too.”
The driver grinned at him, and the partition started back up.
“Wait!” Silver called out, startling Austin. “Turn up the radio!”
The driver did as she asked, and she closed her eyes, listening intently to the now blaring country music tune.
Austin didn’t recognize the song. Unfortunately, the remote corners of Afghanistan didn’t offer much by way of American country music radio stations. Silver began to hum and then to sing along, her eyes still closed. As she gained confidence with the tune, her voice grew in strength and volume. She began adlibbing harmonies in a pure, clear tone that soared above the melody, weaving in and around the male artist’s voice as seamlessly as if the song had been meant to be recorded that way.
Austin was stunned. He’d known she was a good singer, but he had no idea how good until hearing her in person like this. She didn’t sound the slightest bit like the pop star he knew her to be. Gone was the street slang, the riffs, the urban rasp. Her voice seemed tailor-made for this unapologetically mournful ballad of love and loss.
The song ended, and her singing trailed away to humming and then to silence. Her eyes fluttered open and she didn’t look like she knew exactly where she was. The glass quietly slid closed, and they were alone again.
“Wow,” he said in awe. “That was gorgeous. You ought to record a duet with whoever was singing on the radio.”
She smiled ruefully. “Nobody who listens to country music has the faintest idea who I am. Besides, a star that big would never record with me.”
“Methinks you underestimate how famous you were in your day.”
She shrugged. “‘Were’ being the operative word. The music business moves fast. You’re last week’s news in a year or two. I’ve been out of the game for a lifetime.”
“All the more reason you could get away with going in a new direction,” he countered.
She laughed lightly. “I can’t exactly picture myself prancing around the Grand Ole Opry mostly naked, doing vulgar hip thrusts all over the stage.”
“I dunno. It worked pretty well for Elvis. Although the white jumpsuits would be a radical change of image for you. But you do sound like you were born to sing love songs to a twangy guitar in the back of a pickup truck.”
“I don’t even own a pair of cowboy boots!”
“We’re in Nevada for God’s sake. A girl has to be able to get a decent pair of boots around here, somewhere. And aren’t we going shopping in the morning anyway?”
She shook a playful finger at him. “You’re a bad influence, Austin Dearing. My record label and Saul would kill me if I did something that different. My fans wouldn’t stand for it, either.”
“I’m not so sure of that. They’re all seven years older, too. They’ve gotten married and started having kids and are holding down mortgages and real jobs, now. You might be surprised at the kind of music they’re listening to these days.”
“Good grief, you make me sound ready for the Lawrence Welk show.”
He laughed. “Hardly. I’m just saying I think you could get away with growing up. Your fans have.”
She studied him intently, as if the concept were intriguing.
And then it dawned on him what he’d just said. He’d just made another plastic pop star gaff. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. You’re plenty grown up. I was talking purely about your performing image.”
She nodded. “I caught that. But thanks for clarifying. Most thirty-year-old women
wouldn’t be too thrilled at being told to grow up.”
He huffed. “I’m a man of action, not words.”
One of her graceful eyebrows arched humorously. “I’m not so sure about that. I haven’t gotten all that much action out of you today.”
His jaw dropped for a moment before he realized she was intentionally baiting him, then his gaze narrowed threateningly. “You’re not challenging my manhood, are you?”
“If the shoe fits…”
“You are a brave woman. Or else a very foolish one.”
She waved a breezy hand at him. “I dare say I’m the latter.”
Whether he slid forward off his seat first or she slid off hers first, he couldn’t rightly say. But before he knew it, they’d met in the middle of the cavernous vehicle on their knees—hands plunging into each other’s hair and tearing at each other’s clothes, heads tilting for a voracious kiss.
Damn, he couldn’t get enough of this woman. His body was already hard and ready. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she was crawling all over him like she couldn’t get enough of him, either. One of her legs wrapped around his waist, and he growled deep in his throat as her heated core scalded him through his slacks. The smell of her desire, spicy and sweet filled his nostrils, and then her hands slipped around his waist, joining her leg in urging him closer.
“Honey, we’re in a car…”
“You’ve been rolling around on floors with me ever since we met,” she murmured back, laughing. “You gonna do something about it or are you wimping out on me?”
He conceded reluctantly. “I’ve never met another woman who’d bait a man capable of the things I’m capable of like you do.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she laughed. But then she lifted her mouth away from his to gaze up at him seriously in what could only be interpreted as adoration. “Seriously. I’ve never felt as safe as when I’m with you. I love that about you.”
He was such a sucker for those soulful eyes of hers. One look like that from them and he was putty in her hands. “The floor, huh?”
Her mouth curved into a vixen’s smile. “Actually, I was thinking more in terms of you on the floor and me on you.”
“Come here, baby. Show me what you had in mind.”
He carried her down to the carpet with him, stripping her out of her panties as he went. He guided her knee across him, relishing the sight of her panting lightly over him, her eyes glowing with desire.
But then she took over, unzipping his pants and catching his flesh as it sprang forth from its confinement. Her eyes took on a look of sleepy anticipation that all but undid him. Smiling down at him, she stroked him into a frenzy of red-hued lust that all but drove him out of his mind. Brazen and beautiful, sexy and innocent all at once, she literally stole his breath away.
As she continued squeezing and stroking him, his pleasure turned to torture of the best possible kind. Gritting his teeth, he hung onto control by the most fragile of threads. And then he begged. Shamelessly. Laughing, she positioned herself over him, her moist heat lapping at the tip of his throbbing flesh.
In a blinding and truly painful burst of belated rational thought, he swore violently under his breath.
“What?” she asked, alarmed.
“I don’t have any protection with me.”
She laughed. “Not to worry. I’ve got the birth control angle completely covered. You don’t have any diseases, do you?”
“After two years in the field without a woman? Nope. You?”
“I don’t get enough action these days for it to be an issue, but no, I just had a physical. I’m good.”
And with that, she slid him home. He gasped as sensation exploded all through him. He released his breath on a long, low groan of pleasure. Her dress pooled around them as she began to rock, a slow lullaby at first, building gradually to a frenzied ride that had her clapping both of her hands over her mouth to muffle the cries.
He grabbed onto her hips and hung on for dear life, thrusting helplessly into her, his body desperate to touch the very core of her. She met every thrust with one of her own, her internal muscles gripping him until he thought he was going to die from the pleasure of it. And when his release came upon him, her body milked him relentlessly, drawing out the exquisite agony of bliss until he actually did black out for an instant.
And then light and heat…and joy…came crashing back in on him all in a rush that was almost too much to stand—almost better than the orgasm itself.
Damn, that woman was something else.
She lay collapsed on his chest, breathing hard, her delicate skin flushed with sex and bursting pleasure, a smile of satiation radiant on her face. And he’d put it there. Soul-deep satisfaction flowed up from someplace deep within him, filling him with a sense of undeniable rightness. No doubt about it. She was The One.
She murmured lazily, “Am I squishing you?”
Hardly. He opened his mouth to tease her about weighing a ton, but the words died in his throat as her cell phone trilled in her purse.
Both of them went tense.
It would be just like Sampson to ruin this moment of delicious afterglow for them.
Silver sighed reluctantly and sat up. She swung her leg over his hips and went digging for her phone in her purse.
Reluctantly he sat up, setting his clothes to rights. He lounged back, still sitting on the floor, and watched her with hooded eyes. How was it that he felt like he was cheating on Mark Sampson with the guy’s girl? Silver had made it crystal clear that whatever was between her and Mark wasn’t meaningful to her.
And Lord knew, she couldn’t keep her hands off of him any more than he could keep his hands off of her.
Sampson was a pig and treated Silver like dirt. The guy didn’t deserve to wipe her shoes, let alone date her. Austin swore under his breath. To hell with scruples and keeping his hands off another man’s woman. Any man who treated his woman that lousy deserved to lose her.
“Hello?” Silver all but whispered into the phone. A pause, then her voice rose to a normal tone. “Oh. Hi, Conner. Is there news on the ring?”
She listened for a minute, a frown gathering steam on her brow the longer he talked. Finally she replied tartly, “Just because I used to hang out with Darla St. Giles doesn’t mean I still do. In case you haven’t noticed, Conner, I haven’t been arrested or peeled off a sidewalk drunk off my butt in years.” She shook her head. “Candace and Darla stayed close, but not me. I haven’t even spoken to Darla for a couple of years.”
Another silence while Conner spoke, followed by a sigh out of Silver. “Last I knew, she lived over on the west side of town in the Mountain View Villas. Number 24.”
Conner got off the phone fast after that, and Silver disconnected the call pensively.
“Everything okay?” Austin asked.
“I don’t know. Conner thought he saw an old acquaintance of mine, Darla St. Giles, hanging out across the street from the police station when he came out of it. He thinks she might know something about the theft of the Tears of the Quetzal. He wanted to know where she lives.”
Austin nodded, immensely relieved that the call hadn’t had anything to do with Sampson. He held out his hand. “May I have your phone for a minute?”
She passed it to him and he flipped it open and started rapidly pushing buttons.
“What are you doing to my phone?”
He looked up grimly. “I’m blocking Sampson’s phone number.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“So I don’t have to sit through you talking to him.” And so he didn’t have to see that haunted look on her face every time her damn phone rang. Sampson was holding something over her as sure as the sun rose and set. The trick with blackmail victims was to get them to realize that no exposed truth was as bad as a secret eating out their guts.
Really. How bad could it be? Some pretty nasty things had been revealed about her in the tabloids over the years, and he was still crazy for her. In his line of wo
rk, he saw some seriously eyebrow-raising stuff. He was damned hard to shock. Now he just had to convince her of that.
The limo turned into the private, underground entrance to the Grand and commenced winding down the ramp. He couldn’t make out her expression in the sudden dark. First order of business—get her to admit that Sampson was blackmailing her. “Tell me what you see in him. Please,” he said quietly. “I’m completely at a loss to explain you two.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Can’t because you don’t know yourself, or won’t because there’s no good reason for it?”
“Oh, there’s an excellent reason for it. It’s just none of your business.”
He sat back, frowning. It wasn’t exactly an admission that she was being blackmailed, but he could work with the tiny opening she’d given him.
As the limo pulled to a smooth stop, he said, “Honey, everything about you is my business. There’s no corner of your life that isn’t my business if you expect me to keep you alive. I’ve already told you I’ll keep your deepest, darkest secrets, and I mean it. But you can’t hold out on me if you expect me to do my job.”
Looking dismayed, she stared him down, finally breaking the stalemate by murmuring, “Aren’t you supposed to get out of the car first?”
Damn. He’d almost had her there. Scowling, he climbed out of the vehicle and looked around carefully. Just because he was frustrated didn’t mean he got to be sloppy or lazy. After trading nods with the hotel security man standing at the hotel door, Austin spoke over his shoulder. “It’s clear, Silver. You can come out.”
She stepped out of the limo lightly, her movements elegant. Classy. No sign of their recent sex or their more recent conversation showed on her face. She merely said politely, “Thank you, Austin.”
They walked inside, where another security man held an elevator door open for them. Austin whisked her into the small space and scanned his room card. The elevator jumped upward into the night. What the hell. Time to go for the jugular.
“What’s Sampson got on you, Silver? The guy’s got to be blackmailing you because there’s no way you would voluntarily spend two minutes in the same room with him otherwise.”
