"It's like seeing my own emotions in a mirror."
He was fighting off a grin, the bastard. Like she would stand there and amuse him just because he liked the idea of them being hot for each other. Angela needed to remind herself how many women he'd probably used that line on in the past.
That was it. Maybe if he kept talking like a pompous ass it would piss her off and turn her off. She dwelt on anger, forcing it to surface. It was the only way she'd walk out of there with any dignity.
"At the rate you're going, I doubt you ever see any of you inside me." The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
Something darkened in his gaze. "Keep standing there and I will definitely see me inside you," he whispered, his tone dangerous.
The heat that swelled inside her was unbearable. "I see how it is." Angela shook her head, praying she appeared disappointed. "Looks seriously are deceiving. You're so strong and incredibly tall, but the truth is you're weak." She dared lifting her gaze to his face. Butterflies fluttered frantically as she stared into smoldering domination. No way he'd see her sweat, though. "The only way you can meet my terms is to insult me, so I'll storm out and leave you alone."
Jake cleared the distance between them too fast for her to react. Grabbing under her arms, he lifted Angela off her feet, holding her in midair so they stared into each other's eyes.
"I never said I planned on meeting your terms, sweetheart," he informed her. "You're hoping if you get pissed off it will soothe the fire that has already ignited between us." Jake lifted her an inch higher as if she were light as air. His thumbs pressed against the bottom of her breasts, torturing her even further. "I'm here to tell you it's not going to work."
"Put me down." She hated the pleading sound in her voice.
Jake lowered her until her feet were once again on the floor. He didn't let her go, though, and she hated thinking if he had she might have teetered backward. When his large hand gripped her jaw and fingers inched their way around her neck, it was as if he paralyzed her. Angela stared as his face moved closer to hers.
"You want me," he breathed, his coarse tone scraping over her already-too-sensitive nerves. "We aren't going to argue that anymore. But also, both of us want the game ended. We're going to work together, use our strength and knowledge as the professionals that we are, and end the game once and for all. And sweetheart, once this case is solved, I plan on enjoying every tantalizing inch of you."
Angela grabbed his wrist, which was so thick she barely wrapped her fingers halfway around it. She sucked in a breath, blowing it out and reminding herself what she was doing here in the first place.
"That's enough, Jake," she said, her solid tone and conviction enough to douse the sizzling lust that had made the air thick. "I know about your playboy ways. Your reputation as a player might be as strong and solid as that of a bounty hunter. Obviously flirting and seducing women is such a part of your nature you might not be able to help yourself. And possibly that is the reason why you fucked up in Mexico."
"I didn't fuck anything up," he retorted, his voice suddenly so thick and dark it was impossible not to look at him. "And where have you heard about me? Because, sweetheart, if you're prone to listening to gossip, keep in mind over half of it is always wrong."
Angela swore she was working more undercover right now, fighting to keep her feelings and emotions under lock and key, than when she'd been with Mario and faked enjoying his attention.
"You're more intent on getting in my pants than you are on working this case." She walked out of his hands' reach, plotting her choice of words. If she left he might sense a victory. It was best to make sure he understood every rule. She needed to spell it out clearly so the gorgeous hunk staring at her would turn off his seduction skills when they were together. "I'm going to put everything in perspective for you." She straightened, clasped her hands in front of her, and stared him down, determined to see him simply as a tool to help solve this case and nothing else. "All you are to me is solid backup. Nothing else matters but this case. Do you understand me? Nothing."
The blank look he gave her in return did a weird number to her insides. Angela forced herself to stay on track. Now wasn't the time to dwell on any type of emotion, good or bad. Angela marched over to the door, this time determined not to look at him but to leave, head upstairs, calm down, and call her father back.
"Do you think I don't know why you've gone undercover?" Jake used a tone she hadn't heard out of him before. It was deadly sounding, bone-chilling, and sent a rush of trepidation prickling over her flesh. "I already know about your case and why you're staying here, in this extravagant hotel, instead of at the small house you own."
She stopped in her tracks, forcing herself not to turn around.
"You're seducing Mario Mandela, working to get him comfortable around you, so you can take him down." Jake was moving, closing in on her. Every tiny hair on her backside stood at attention, as if the sexual charges radiating off his body created some kind of electrical response inside her. When he continued speaking, his voice was just above her ear. "You're calling me a player, a seducer, someone who isn't concerned with anyone's feelings but only interested in getting himself off. Well, lady, that isn't how it is. If all I wanted was to fuck you, I would have simply asked if you wanted to fuck. I'm not trying to trick you into thinking all I want is a piece of ass while I'm here."
"Don't even suggest I spend my time trying to manipulate and seduce men," she hissed. "Mandela is one of the lowest forms of life and I will do anything to take him down." She wouldn't fuck the bastard, though.
Jake moved closer to her. "And it might require anything to take him down," he said, his baritone deepening and sending chills rushing over her flesh. "You're a detective moving into waters so dangerous you very well might not make it out alive."
"You think I don't realize how dangerous this job is?" she whispered, staring at the door handle in front of her when she wanted to turn around and give him a piece of her mind.
"You're not going to do this alone."
"I never said I was. I thought I was working the case with my father."
Jake's phone buzzed and he moved away from her. Angela prayed he didn't see her sigh with relief and her body sag. She reached for the door handle, turned it, and pulled the door open. The door didn't have time to close behind her when Jake grabbed it and stepped outside his room.
"Angela," he said, making her name sound more like a demand.
She waved over her shoulder, refusing to look at him and damned if she'd run to the elevator. "I'll talk to you soon," she said, and pushed the button for the elevator.
His heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Dammit! Would he seriously follow her to her room?
"That was a short call," she said, knowing she was snapping at him when he reached her side.
"I need your cell number and room number." Jake wouldn't give her the chance to claim not to have anything to write with or on. He shoved a small hotel suite notepad in front of her along with a pen.
She took it, jotted down her number, and shoved it back at him.
"Room number, too."
The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. Jake faced her, holding the doors so they wouldn't close, although he didn't step inside with her. The look he gave her was enough to show her he would close them off inside this small space if she didn't give him what he wanted.
"I'm in room twelve-twelve."
Jake let go of the elevator door and it slid silently shut.
* * *
"Okay, Dad, what the hell is going on here?" Angela released all her pent-up frustration on her father the second he answered his phone.
James Huxtable didn't often find humor in situations. He wasn't a morbid soul, but he took life and all around him seriously and treated it with respect. He did the same with his daughter, using his calm, smooth, assuring tone that used to solve her world's problems when she was young.
"I thought you liked Jak
e King," he said.
"Dad!" Angela paced the length of her suite, slapping her hand against her hip. "He is the last thing I need right now. But Jake isn't what this is all about. Something is going on with you."
"I'm fine, Angela." He remained calm, which didn't confirm or deny her suspicions. "All that matters is you stay focused. I'm sure I'll have things wrapped up on my end in no time, hopefully soon enough to help blow the game up once and for all. You can handle everything until I'm back by your side, right?"
It was on the tip of her tongue to answer. All she'd ever wanted was her father's acknowledgment that she was one of the best, top of the line, just like her old man. Angela might be young, but she'd pulled off some moves. The cops in their precinct and the D.A. had all acknowledged Angela's abilities to unravel a crime. But to hear this praise from her father, even in the form of him saying she could hold down the fort in his absence, was enough to make Angela jump on the bait.
She stopped pacing, looked up from the carpet she'd been scowling at, and stared across her hotel room suite.
"You know I can," she told him, but didn't feel the joy she knew would come when her father, the great James Huxtable, told her she was good enough to run lead on one of the most dangerous cases, possibly, in American history. "Something strikes me as odd," she continued, her tone flat.
"It's a tough case, I know." Her father had picked up on her suspicion that he would step away from this case. "The Kings are the best there is, or I wouldn't have pulled Jake in on this one. The fact that you two have already met actually works to your advantage. The second he saw your picture, he jumped on the case. He will protect you to death. I have no doubt."
Again her father had thrown her a curveball. The bait he dangled in front of her was damn near impossible to resist. Angela squeezed her eyes closed, fighting to remain focused. She desperately wanted to know every detail around Jake accepting the case after that small bit of enticing information her father had just offered.
"I'm sure," she forced herself to say. It was what her father wasn't telling her that mattered more than what the most gorgeous man she'd ever met thought of her. "Dad, why are you taking another case right now when we're ready to bring down the game?"
"It won't take long," her father said without hesitating.
Something unpleasant twisted in Angela's gut. The charged sexual energy between her and Jake still zapped at her insides. His aggressive nature and the look on his face when those elevator doors closed had left her weak with need. Angela managed to shove her personal desires out of the way as she collapsed on the edge of the bed.
"Who are you looking for, Dad?"
"No one. All you're to think about is the game, and Mario Mandela. One wrong move--"
"I know that, Dad," she snapped, interrupting him. "And you know that, too. Which is why I find it incredibly odd that you're focusing on another case."
"You need to brief Jake."
"I know what I need to do. Everything is under control."
"Good."
"Why won't you tell me about this missing persons case? It's not like you. You need to fill me in so I know what you're doing. That's how you taught me to work in our business, Dad. Always keep the other one informed, at all times."
Her father sighed. Angela's chest constricted. She held on to her cell tight enough to pinch the skin on her palm. Her mind raced, scenario after scenario playing out as she considered his complacent mood. His continual redirecting every time she asked who he was looking for made her worry even more.
"Who is the missing person?" she asked, her voice tangled with emotions.
"Marianna." This time her father spoke without ceremony. "Your mother called me several days ago to make sure your half-sister had arrived okay."
If Angela hadn't been sitting, she possibly would have fallen over. A small sound escaped her throat as she tried to speak.
"But," she managed, her mind unable to wrap around her father's response. She hadn't come up with any plausible answers her father might give her, but this one definitely did not compute.
"Your mother told me you two had been planning for her to visit us here in Chicago."
"Planning." Angela stressed the word. "We hadn't set a date."
"Marianna flew into LAX over a week ago. I confirmed she got off the plane in Los Angeles. The odd thing was that she didn't claim all her luggage. No one can say where she went after that."
"Marianna flew into LA." She didn't make it a question and still couldn't wrap her brain around any of this. Marianna wasn't missing. She couldn't be. They had talked daily online about Angela's half-sister that she hadn't seen since she was a teenager coming to Chicago. But Marianna was still in Buenos Aires. She had to be.
Angela hadn't checked her e-mail, or Facebook, since the day they'd confirmed Mandela was in Chicago. Angela had immediately been on his tail. Since then, there hadn't been time to chat with anyone. When her life was on hold, everyone else was supposed to know that. But how could Marianna have known that if the last they'd chatted, Angela hadn't been working a case?
"Yes, she definitely was on the plane to L.A., and she disembarked." Her father's matter-of-fact, all business--just the facts and nothing but the facts--tone grated on her nerves.
Angela was suddenly terrified that to her father Marianna was just another client. At the same time, it was also suddenly crystal clear why her father hadn't wanted to tell her. It made sense. Even though Marinna was from her mom's second marriage and her father had never met her, he knew how much Marianna meant to Angela.
Marianna was the radiant sunshine on Angela's cloudy day. She was the hopeful optimist to Angela's jaded world. Marianna was all that was pure, perfect, and untarnished. Talking to her online had always lifted Angela's mood, and over the past year as they'd gotten to know each other all over again, having her come stay with Angela and her father for a while had sounded like the perfect plan.
"We hadn't finalized her coming up here to visit."
The moment she and her father had determined a game player was in Chicago, Angela had forgotten about her own life and she'd gone undercover that evening after trailing Mandela around all day. Her personal life had faded in lieu of the investigation.
Angela moved to her laptop and typed frantically, willing her e-mail to open, and at the same time pulling up Facebook.
"I'll find her, Angela."
She barely heard her father trying to reassure her when her e-mail finally opened. Angela scrolled through a week's worth of junk mail and spam. "Damn it," she hissed, spotting Marianna's e-mail and clicking on it to open.
"What is it?"
"Marianna sent mail to me later that afternoon after we last chatted." Angela stared at the e-mail when it opened and read the excitement and happiness in Marianna's words. Her throat constricted and she swallowed several times before she could speak. "It says she managed to find a cheap flight out of Buenos Aires and she jumped on it since there were only a couple seats left. She flew out later that day," she finished, her voice going out on her. Every inch of her was too tense to catch her next breath. This couldn't be happening. "My God, Dad! Has she been missing over a week?"
"When your mother couldn't reach you, or Marianna, she called me. Marianna hadn't called to say she'd landed safely and she had promised her mother she would call the moment she had a signal."
Her father's words weren't registering in her head. "Mom called you and not me?"
Angela's parents had hated each other enough to reside in different countries after their divorce. Angela had moved with her mom to Buenos Aires, in Argentina. She'd been three at the time. Her father had sent letters often, and Angela always wrote back. When Angela had turned sixteen, she moved back to the states, leaving her younger sister, who'd been only eleven at the time, and her mother, for the exciting life of a detective's daughter.
"The night she called, I was parked in the car outside Enclave. I couldn't believe you got in to that club. The place was packed
and I was watching for you, or Mandela, to come out, which had been hard as hell to do with a nonstop group of people hovering around the entrance. I would have sent the call to voicemail if I hadn't recognized the Argentina country code."
"Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded. Angela fought the urge to scream. Why the hell hadn't her father found Marianna yet? James Huxtable was the best out there and her half-sister had been missing over a week? It made no sense.
Angela pulled up the archives from when she and Marianna had chatted on Yahoo Messenger and scanned their conversations but saw nothing that indicated there was anything Marianna wanted to do in the states other than visit Angela. "Why didn't I check my mail before now? Do you have a trail on her at all?"
"Your mom called when the airline contacted her about Marianna's luggage."
"Her luggage?"
"She picked up one suitcase but not the other."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Her flight arrived at LAX in Los Angeles on Sunday morning," Angela's dad told her. "I've spoken with the airline and one of the stewardesses remembers her being on the flight. She said she remembered Marianna because of her excitement to come see her sister who she hadn't seen for seven years in the states. I've confirmed everyone got off the plane. Marianna picked up one suitcase but left the other."
"So she takes one suitcase off the luggage conveyer belt and leaves the other. Marianna wouldn't have just forgotten it. What was in the suitcase she left behind?"
"It was sent back to Buenos Aires. But according to the description, Mona told me that was the suitcase Marianna stuffed a photo album in, under her clothes. She'd glued an envelope inside the album that had cash and credit cards in it."
"Christ. She left it behind on purpose." Angela felt sick. Marianna was only eighteen, entering a country she'd never been to before, and so excited to embark on her new adventure. "She knew something was wrong. God! My little sister comes to see me, is barely in the U.S., and something terrible happens to her. Dad, where the hell is she?"
Bounty Hunters: 03 Stay Hungry Page 8
