by Alison Kent
“McLain?”
“Out here,” he called to his client, who had generously offered him a place to stay—though it worked in the other man’s favor, saving him from having to pay the cost were Finn to lodge elsewhere.
He hadn’t heard the front door open; the sound of the waves rolling in kept him from hearing anything else—a big part of the reason he liked spending his mornings in the company of the surf and the sun.
Glancing down, he quickly closed up the folder of Olivia’s photos just in case his instincts were off and his gallery-owning client and her gallery-owning friend weren’t one and the same.
He was pretty sure they were, and that had him considering fate and coincidence as Dustin Parks settled gracefully into the chair on the other side of the table, crossed his legs, adjusted the crease over his knee, and closed his eyes.
“I don’t come out here often enough. I really don’t. I forget there’s more to South Beach than tanned skin and six-pack abs cut sharply enough to slice butter. There’s actually sunshine and air that’s delicious to breathe.”
He opened his eyes, his gaze crawling from the end of his deck to the water’s edge. “You know, this would be the perfect spot for beach volleyball. I wonder what it would take to sponsor a charity tournament. I must get Jodi on that.”
Finn remained silent, watching as Dustin pulled his iPhone from his waistband and typed himself a memo. He and Finn were of similar size, height, and build, making it possible for Finn to fit into Parks’s clothes. Body type was where the comparison ended, however.
Finn was dark, his skin ruddy from exposure to the sun, his hair black and longer than he’d ever worn it in his life. He wasn’t big on looks, only used a mirror for shaving when he bothered. Yeah, he’d become quite the bum since his move. Parks, on the other hand, was pretty. Finn could be completely hetero and still recognize the other man’s blond-haired and blue-eyed Brad Pitt appeal.
“So,” Parks began, having finished his note. “Have you learned anything that I wasn’t able to learn for myself?”
Finn slid the folder containing the pictures he’d taken of Roland Green across the table. “It doesn’t look like it.” He waited while Parks studied the photos. “There was an altercation outside of his place of employment—”
“I see that.” Parks held up one of the shots Finn had taken of Green arguing on the sidewalk with the Latino. “That’s Tomás Bebé. Carmen’s boyfriend.”
One mystery solved. Er, part of it, anyway. “Carmen?”
“Carmen Miranda Jones. She and Roland are the managers of Splash & Flambé. Tomás runs a hotshot delivery service, which Livia uses.”
Livia. Not Olivia. Yeah, Parks had to be her gallery owner friend who wanted the photographs of her doing her thing. Finn wasn’t sure he wanted to dwell on why. “Livia. That would be Olivia Hammond?”
Parks glanced over, his eyes hidden by what Finn figured were designer sunglasses costing a mint. “You know Livia?”
Finn shrugged, looked back out across the water, at the far horizon. “I met her. I don’t think that counts as knowing her.”
It was a loaded comment, one heavy with unasked questions. Finn knew Dustin could give him some of the answers; he was familiar enough with Olivia to know she let people look, and to want pictures of her doing the same. But Finn had a thing for privacy, a hard respect for confidentiality. And though Olivia hadn’t told him to keep mum on their arrangement, it went against the grain to talk about one job to a client who’d hired him for another.
“You’re right,” Parks finally said. “Meeting Livia and knowing her are worlds apart. We’ve been friends forever. And I still don’t know but half of her secrets. She is very jealous of the ones she keeps to herself.”
Finn didn’t say anything. He just nodded politely, biting his tongue for propriety’s sake and his sanity. Dustin not knowing all there was of Olivia had Finn’s investigator’s antennae singing.
“Get to know her, McLain. I insist.”
What? Talk about out of nowhere. “Insist on what?”
“That you get to know Livia Hammond. She works too hard. She doesn’t date. She needs to date. She needs a fling.”
Finn’s ears perked higher than a Great Dane’s.
Parks sat forward in his chair, bracing both forearms on his crossed knee. He cast Finn a sly glance, his sunglasses hiding his eyes, not his intent. “You seem very laid-back. Livia could use that in her life.”
“Her life probably needs someone laid-back who’ll be around. I don’t plan to be in Miami much longer.”
“I’m not planning a wedding here, McLain. Though a night out wouldn’t be out of the question.”
What was the question? “Are you setting me up?”
Parks launched out of his chair, turned, and stared down at Finn. “Tomorrow night. Come to my gallery. I’m hosting a private showing for an exhibit that will open on Friday. Livia will be there. It’s evening casual, and you’re welcome to whatever you can find in my closet.”
This was the last time Finn left home without packing for every occasion. He might not like being manipulated, but he did like the idea of seeing Olivia without her putting on a facade to see him. “On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t tell her I’ll be there.”
Parks’s mouth slid into a smile. “You know her better than you’re letting on, don’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You want to watch her, to see what she does, without her being aware that you’re looking on.”
Finn reached for his coffee. It was tepid, the rim of the mug salty. He drained the contents, anyway, deciding Parks’s comment was best left alone. “You have a card with the address? And what time should I be there?”
Parks pulled a pen and small leather case from his pocket, jotted a note on the back of a card, and then handed it to Finn. “Eight, and call my assistant Jodi if you need directions.”
Tapping the card against the table, Finn asked, “Do you want me to stick with Green a while longer? Or do you have what you need?” What Finn had was a big, fat zero. He’d discovered nothing about Green’s personal life except that he spent a lot of it alone.
Parks looked away, as if he didn’t like considering that Finn’s failure might be his own. “He’ll be at the gallery tomorrow night. I’ll be too busy with my duties as host to spirit him away. If you can find anything more substantial, I’ll pay you double your hourly fee. If you don’t, you can send me a final bill, and I’ll find a new place to shop for my clothes.”
“That sounds pretty drastic.”
“Drastic, dramatic, dire, and doleful. Such is unrequited love, n’est-ce pas?”
Nine
Livia couldn’t remember the last purely social night out she’d had. She wasn’t counting Tuesday evening spent with Finn. Their time together had been strictly business, even if they’d hardly talked business at all.
That was okay, because the type of business they’d be doing together required a simpatico understanding, which she didn’t have to consider when it came to Splash & Flambé. For Finn to capture her digitally or on film the way Dustin wanted, he needed to know her—even if he didn’t understand her.
And the way they’d ended things Tuesday evening, she doubted he ever would.
Accepting a flute of champagne from a passing server and smiling as she ducked around a couple admiring one of the Noir Purrfection pieces, she decided she was wasting time worrying about what Finn McLain thought of her.
His opinion wasn’t any more a part of their arrangement than his insight into who she was and why she did what she did. He had to know her only well enough to be comfortable taking the photos Dustin wanted.
Dear Dustin. He’d never questioned her exhibitionist tendencies, and though he knew more of her history than she’d shared with Finn, he didn’t know everything. And though he didn’t, she could understand Dustin sitting in judgment of her actions. Not Finn.
And was judgment the right word? Was he judging her? Or was it more a case of trying to figure her out and using his own moral compass to do so? She’d been thinking about it for two days and was no closer to understanding her feelings now than she had been on Tuesday. She couldn’t think about it any longer. Besides, tonight was about Dustin and about, well, naked women and their cats.
Literally. Cats.
She brought her drink to her mouth, smiling as she touched the rim of the flute to her lower lip. The exhibit tickled her. Probably tickled the subjects of the photographs, too, she thought, with a bit of irreverence.
The photographs were reminiscent of early pictures of Clara Bow, with a very “It girl” look and feel, the models wearing appropriate scarves and jewelry, as well as stockings and shoes from the same era, but nothing more.
Each was dramatically posed, with her legs spread and a full-grown cat sitting between, or draped strategically over her thighs. The arrangements were very well done, the looks on the subjects’ faces broadcasting their indifference to their sexuality while being completely magnetic.
Livia moved behind a couple studying a photograph of a woman lounging on a chaise, her orange tabby matching the cloud of strawberry blond curls on her head. The next photo showed a full-frontal view of its female subject leaning back, her elbows propped on a Grecian column, which Livia thought resembled a plant stand, her bare breasts thrust pertly upward. A second column, thigh high and positioned in the foreground, held her sitting cat, an exotic Siamese, with its own pert nose in the air.
Livia was busy comparing the tilt of the woman’s nipples with that of the feline’s nose when a voice at her ear said, “Kinda makes you want to say, ‘Here, kitty, kitty,’ doesn’t it?”
She knew the voice, didn’t have to turn and see that it was Finn, and so she didn’t. She continued to face the photograph and grip her champagne flute, willing her fingers to relax before the glass shattered and the drink ruined her dress.
She wouldn’t forgive herself if she let that happen, and not because of the dress. No, she wouldn’t forgive herself, because reacting so strongly to a man was not in her nature. She refused to allow it to be. Refused to admit the chill settling at the base of her spine had anything at all to do with Finn McLain.
“Actually, I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort.”
“For the obvious reason,” he said from her shoulder.
She waited, not looking at him yet, enjoying the tension between them, which was in no way one-sided, and enjoying that, too. “Which would be?”
“Me man. You woman.”
Well, that was a rather caveman attitude. “Because I’m a woman, I can’t enjoy looking at others, is that it? Do you think the artists who’ve painted the female form through the ages have done so only for men to appreciate?”
“I think it was a lot of work to get those cats to sit still.”
Able to evade with the best of them, was he? “Which one’s your favorite?” she asked, turning, her shoulder brushing his chest, her elbow grazing his ribs.
She stayed there, touching him softly, their body contact absolutely innocent, she told herself, bringing her drink to her mouth, disappointed to find the bubbles gone when she sipped. Finn signaled a passing server, replacing her flute and taking one for himself as if sensing her dilemma.
She kept her face averted from his, kept her focus on the artfully lighted photographs. Or at least gave the appearance of doing so. Her focus, no matter how successfully she’d convinced everyone otherwise, was on the man whose body had created a cradle for hers.
She could stand here the rest of the night, happily unmoving, breathing in the light scents of his soap and shampoo. It was a strange sense of intimacy enveloping them, but then she had taken off her clothes at his command. And she had to admit surprise at finding herself so topsy-turvy, her stomach tumbling with a giddy joy she barely recognized.
“I’m kinda fond of the big Maine coon,” he said finally, angling his chin to draw Livia’s gaze to the right. She’d almost forgotten asking him which cat, ahem, he liked.
The portrait he indicated featured a woman straddling a piano bench, one hand on the instrument’s keyboard, one at the curve of her waist. A massive feline sprawled on the seat, between her legs, hiding not only her sex but half of her belly as well. She was a larger woman than the others Livia had seen, her breasts voluptuous, her hips full and shapely.
It made Livia curious. “Why that one?”
“I like her tits,” he said, and Livia nearly sputtered her drink.
“Well, that’s being honest.”
“I always am. You get the truth, or you get nothing at all.”
She couldn’t let that go without a test. “Why her tits and not those of the woman with the tabby? Her nipples look like little strawberry gumdrops.”
“I’m more a brown sugar, caramel, gold chain, and not-so-little kinda guy.”
“I see,” was all Livia could say, her voice choked off by the tightness in her throat.
They hadn’t talked much about his telling her to strip. Not at any length, or in any depth. The night they’d had drinks at Cigar Paolo, they’d touched only briefly on the events of the morning before, and even then their discussion had remained primarily impersonal.
What he’d just said to her about caramel and brown sugar and gold chains? Definitely personal. Definitely inappropriate. And definitely making her glad she’d chosen to wear this dress—except to get him to properly appreciate it, she was going to have to move away.
She gestured toward the next lighted recess and the photograph there on display. “What are you doing here, anyway? This showing was by invitation only.”
“I have one.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “You know Dustin?”
He nodded—she saw the movement in her peripheral vision—but remained otherwise noncommittal.
Then she had the strangest thought and finally turned to face him. “You aren’t the photographer, are you? Who did this series?”
He shook his head, a shock of his shaggy dark hair falling onto his forehead. “Me. Not a photographer. An investigator. Remember?”
An investigator who had been hired out of Key Largo, was staying in his client’s beach condo, and who knew Dustin…Why would Dustin have hired a PI? And why would that PI have been parked in front of Splash & Flambé?
Crossing her arms while still holding her flute of champagne, she stepped in front of him, blocking his view of the Maine coon and the tits he liked. “Are you working for Dustin?”
He pressed his lips together tightly in answer.
“I’m not asking for details, just whether or not he’s the one who hired you.”
“Investigator-client privilege.”
“It’s obvious that he did. You’re here. You’re staying in your client’s condo.”
“I’m pretty sure there are more people than Parks who own one.”
“Yes, but you’re just a guy working on your beach house, remember? Not a guy who circulates in Dustin’s world.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes, and you still haven’t told me why.”
“I was invited. Isn’t that reason enough?”
She shook her head. “You’re not Dustin’s type.”
Finn tossed his head back and laughed. “What type am I then?”
Originally, she might have been talking about Dustin’s sexual orientation and the fact that Finn was too…messy to appeal to the other man. But Finn’s question prompted a response that required answers of its own. “You’re the type to come here only for a specific reason, and if Dustin invited you personally, then you’re here to do something for him.”
He stared at her while she finished her second flute of champagne, his eyes dark when she’d expected them to light with the same irreverent mischief she’d seen in them that first morning in front of her store. Instead, what she saw had he
r holding her breath, waiting for the words the intensity in his gaze promised would send more than a chill down her spine.
It was a promise that held true when he said, “I’m here because of you.”
Ten
Roman had no idea what he was doing here. Hell, he had no business being here. The heroin he’d been waiting months for Tomás to deliver would be arriving tomorrow at Splash & Flambé. And Roman was supposed to spend tonight as Roland Green, acting like there was nothing he’d rather look at than cats and women’s tits.
His touching base with his task force hadn’t gone as planned. Had, in fact, brought up a brand-new scenario. Why were they in such a rush to bust Tomás Bebé, when waiting a week would give them his buyers?
And if his buyers then demanded more product—seeing as how they’d be given a choice between doing that and life without parole—then another few weeks, months maybe, would put the DEA one step closer to the top of the chain and the motherfucker supplying the shit.
Tonight Roman had come to the gallery alone. Sure, he was meeting Jodi, but doing that here was a lot more convenient than picking her up and hauling her back to her place at the end of the night.
Not to mention a lot safer than having her and her legs and all that blond hair in his car. Having her sunshine scent linger to tease him every time he climbed behind the wheel was more mind game than he wanted to play.
His head was already FUBAR because of her. Yeah, he knew who he was, knew his place, his role, and his goal. Work was not a problem, and he wasn’t going to let her make it one. That didn’t mean his personal deal with her wasn’t giving him the devil’s sort of hell.
“There you are,” said his object of X-rated lust, her voice at his shoulder, her fingers closing around his biceps and squeezing, her breasts pressed to his back. “What do you think about the show?”
He searched for the right response, hoping for a high note to bring his mind out of the gutter. “I think the photographer has a lot of explaining to do.”
