Under Surveillance
Her eyes considered the concrete ramp that stretched in front of the SUV. Even with the headlights shining down it, she couldn’t see a thin spill of red anywhere.
Her purse was also down there, she remembered. And more important, so was her wallet.
There was nothing in either that was irreplaceable, but it would be a hassle. Besides, they should still be there. She doubted those thugs had had the presence of mind after he’d finished with them to search for them on their way out.
“My evening bag’s down there,” she said. “Somewhere between the foot of the ramp and the elevator.”
She turned her head, focusing again on the man in the darkness on the other side of the car.
“They snatched your purse?”
“I threw it to them. I thought maybe they’d take it and let me go, but…I don’t think they were after money.”
For some reason, she wasn’t comfortable putting into words what she believed their motives were. Not to him.
“Maybe they wanted that.”
He had inclined his head in her direction, but it took a couple of seconds before she figured out what he meant. She reached up to touch the replica of the diamond necklace Hepburn had worn in the movie. The central stone, had it been real, would have been between fifteen or twenty carats.
“It’s paste.”
“You think they knew that?”
It made sense. As much as anything about tonight.
“I’ll get your purse,” he said. He slammed the rear door of the SUV, the sound echoing under the overhang as the driver’s side door had earlier.
Only when he started down the ramp did she realize she was about to be left up here alone. Although the headlights illuminated the ramp, the area behind his car was dark and shadowed. She shivered, remembering the hard fingers of the boy closing around her arm.
“I’ll show you where he threw it.”
She had already taken a step, attempting to catch up with him, before she realized she still held her sandal in her hand. It would take longer to put it on than to take the other off.
Balancing on one foot, she slipped the second shoe off as she watched him walk down the concrete incline. The fabric of the tux, illuminated by the car lights, emphasized the play of muscle in his back and shoulders. Regretfully pulling her eyes away, she laid her shoes on the hood of his car. Then, picking up her skirt as she’d done before, she hurried after him.
He slowed briefly, plucking her stole off the railing where it must have landed when she’d dropped it. Without stopping, he held it out to her. The wisp of fabric looked very delicate dangling from those long, dark fingers.
She grabbed the stole as he let it trail behind him and wrapped the material around her shoulders as he continued to stride ahead of her.
When he reached the end of the ramp, he turned toward the elevator area where there was more light. Apparently he spotted her bag and wallet at the same time she did.
She glanced nervously toward the outside exit to the deck, still expecting the reappearance of her assailants. When she looked back, the man who had rescued her had already picked up her belongings and was holding them out to her.
For the first time she could see his face. He was dark enough that there was already the shadow of a beard on his lean cheeks. A discoloration, which she suspected would become a very colorful bruise by morning, marred the line of his jaw.
She raised her eyes from that injury to meet his. A cut, still bleeding sluggishly, had been opened above his right brow. Under it, the eye was beginning to puff.
Despite that, a jolt like the one she’d felt as she’d met those same dark eyes while descending the runway stairs tonight seared a path like lightning through her chest.
Same eyes. Same force-field intensity. Same man.
Chapter Three
“I’m John Edmonds, by the way.”
“Kelly Lockett.”
He didn’t make another jibe about her name, despite the fact that this was the second time she’d given it. She hadn’t liked the crack he’d made before, and in all honesty, he couldn’t blame her.
From everything he’d read, and that had been quite a bit since Griff had given him this assignment, she had never embraced the Lockett lifestyle. She might have rejected their example of conspicuous consumption, but it was clear, both by her comments from the dais about her brother and her reaction to his remark, that her rejection hadn’t extended to her family.
“You told me,” he said.
Watching her blush would have been highly diverting in other circumstances. The color started just above the top of the strapless gown and spread upward. It wasn’t blotchy or unbecoming, just a flush of pink under the smooth porcelain of her skin.
It was increasingly obvious why they’d chosen the Hepburn gown for her. There was a resemblance both in the glossy, dark hair, arranged tonight in a classic French twist, and in those big brown eyes. And her features had the same kind of elegant purity.
The only difference was there was nothing in the least waif-like about Kelly Lockett. She was slim, but undeniably a woman. She filled out the bodice of the red dress in a way the actress never had.
“You should check that everything’s there,” he suggested, slightly lifting the purse and billfold he was holding out to her, one in each hand.
“He didn’t want anything,” she said, reaching out to retrieve them. “He thumbed through the money and then tossed the bag aside without taking it out.”
As she described the boy’s gesture, she repeated it, quickly counting the cash in the wallet’s bill compartment.
“Not enough to be interesting?”
Her eyes came up at his question. “That’s what I thought, but I’d forgotten that I cashed a check. There’s a couple of hundred in here. Far more than I usually carry.”
“Even if they were after the necklace, I would think they’d have taken it. That’s not pocket change.”
Or maybe it was for her. Still, it bothered him that those kids hadn’t taken the money. It didn’t make sense. Not even if they believed the necklace she was wearing was real. Not even if the motive had been something besides robbery, as she’d hinted.
“You said you didn’t think robbing you was what they were after.”
“The one who grabbed me…” she began and then faltered. “There was something… I don’t know. It just felt…wrong.”
“You thought he was going to rape you?” he asked bluntly.
Another hesitation. “I didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’t like him touching me.” Her shiver was strong enough to be visible. “Maybe that was just my imagination.”
“They’re gone now,” he said, choosing to comfort rather than confront, although her instinctive assessment of the boy who had grabbed her was probably right on the money. “Would you like me to follow you home?”
Her pupils dilated slightly. Shock? Or anticipation? Yeah, right, he mocked himself. In your dreams.
Then, almost immediately, wariness invaded her eyes. She was trying to decide if she wanted to tell him where she lived, unwilling to surrender even that much of her closely guarded privacy.
What she didn’t know, of course, was that there was no secret about her address. Or about her any of her personal information. Not to someone with the sources he had.
He wasn’t going to confess to those, however. There were too many things he didn’t know about Kelly Lockett. And he had a feeling from what she’d said about her brother that there were a few things he knew that she might be completely ignorant of.
“I’m very trustworthy,” he added, letting her hear his amusement.
“It isn’t that…” she began and then had the grace to pause, color moving along the line of her throat. “You probably saved my life. At the very least you saved me from what would have been a highly unpleasant experience. How could I not trust you?”
“Easy. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
Unconsciously as he talked, he put his fingers over the cut above his eye, which had begun to sting. He brought them away covered with blood. And it hurt like hell to move his jaw, he realized, experimenting.
“I know that you got that defending me.” Her gaze touched on the injury beneath his brow.
“Reflex action.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. Her eyes had left their contemplation of the cut to refocus on his. “Not many people would have come to my aid. Not these days. You were very lucky they didn’t have a gun.”
“Hell, they were lucky I didn’t have one.”
Again her eyes widened. She was probably one of those people who believed nobody should carry a firearm, not even cops. Whatever ground he’d gained for knocking a few heads together on her behalf, he’d just destroyed.
“They were lucky I didn’t have one.”
It took a heartbeat for what she’d said to sink in. When it did, he laughed.
Her smile in response was nothing short of spectacular. He deliberately reminded himself of the advantages of being able to afford good orthodontic work and collagen injections. All the same, something hot and hungry stirred deep within his body.
“Actually, I’d be very grateful if you’d follow me home,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve got a Band-Aid or two tucked away in a drawer somewhere.”
Occasionally in this line of work things fell into your lap. No operative worth his salt turned down those opportunities. The going theory in intel was that it was better to be lucky than good. He couldn’t argue with that. Certainly not in this case.
“Nurse Ratched, I presume,” he said, bowing slightly.
“I believe Florence Nightingale is the analogy you’re searching for,” she corrected.
Her smile hadn’t quite faded. And he knew he was going to be damned disappointed when it did.
“MAYBE I SHOULD give you directions in case we get separated.”
“We won’t,” he promised, following her around the back of the vintage silver Jag. “Nice car.”
“It was my brother’s.”
“The one you mentioned tonight?”
There was another of those telltale hesitations before she answered. “Chad.”
“I’m sorry.”
He was. More than she could imagine. Despite her attempts to keep her feelings private, it had been obvious at the auction that she’d been moved by that spontaneous tribute to her brother. And equally obvious that she was still grieving for him.
He imagined Bin Laden’s family had loved him, too. That didn’t necessarily mean they’d been unaware of his faults.
“Thank you,” she said in response to his expression of sympathy.
She inserted the key into the driver’s side door and opened it. The interior light came on, illuminating the darkness on this side of the Jag. It also revealed that the convertible was sitting at a peculiar slant.
He stepped back to check the rear tire, which, as he’d begun to suspect, was flat. As was the front.
“That’s what he was doing back here,” she said. “Letting the air out of the tires.”
Her attackers had apparently left nothing to chance. Nothing except the one thing they couldn’t control—that someone else might stumble onto the scene. And if he hadn’t been watching her all night, he wouldn’t have been aware of when she left. Considering her choice of exits, very few people at that party had been.
“Get a wrecker and have it towed,” he suggested. “Unless you have two spares.”
“No, but I do have a membership in a very good auto club.”
She bent, putting her knee in the center of the leather driver’s seat to reach across the low car. Red silk molded to a very nicely rounded derriere. Definitely not waif-like, he thought again.
She straightened, bringing a cell phone out of the car with her. “It wouldn’t fit in my purse,” she explained.
He pretended to examine the tires while she made the call.
“They say it’s going to be a while.”
He looked up to find her standing over him. Without rising, he pivoted on the balls of his feet to face her.
“How long?”
“Maybe an hour. They keep only two units on call this late, and they’re both out.”
“Let the brake off, lock it, and leave it to them. I’ll drive you home.”
He could tell she was torn. Maybe it was the thought of leaving the Jag to the mercies of some unknown wrecker service. Or maybe it was the thought of getting into a car with a stranger after what had happened tonight.
“I’m harmless, I promise,” he added, willing to convince her.
Her lips tilted. It wasn’t the smile that had dazzled him a few minutes ago. This one was more subdued, almost self-deprecating.
“Okay, but if I were you, I wouldn’t call on the kids who did this to back up that claim.”
She looked tired. And why shouldn’t she be? he thought. It was nearly 3:00 a.m. She had been involved in the preparations for the auction since early this morning and for several days before. He knew that, because he’d been watching her since Griff had given him the assignment. A task he’d found extremely pleasant. Dangerously so.
And then she’d played Miss Social Butterfly all evening. He’d watched her do that, too, recognizing that it wasn’t a role she was comfortable with. She’d gotten better as the night progressed, but it had been an effort.
“How about if I call you as a character witness instead?” he suggested.
“I know I’m being ridiculous—”
“Not after this,” he interrupted, looking back at the deflated tires. “Look, if you want to wait—”
“I don’t. I want to go home. I want to get out of these clothes…”
He would have bet that flush of color was again staining her throat. Despite the interior light in the Jag, he couldn’t see her well enough to enjoy it this time.
“And into bed,” she finished.
The last few words had spilled out in a rush. He suspected she’d intended to move away from the slightly suggestive remark she had made about taking off her clothes. It hadn’t quite worked out that way.
“Release the brake and lock it,” he advised again, ignoring the trap she’d laid for herself.
“Should we call the police? File a report or something?”
“Only if you want to spend the next couple of hours answering questions. Those kids are long gone, and on the scale of high priority crimes in D.C., this isn’t even going to rank on the cops’ list. They’ll give the appearance of going after them, because of who you are, but they’ll never make an arrest.”
It wouldn’t be to his advantage to have the cops show up, of course, but everything he’d just told her was the truth. Doing the paperwork on this would be a waste of time.
Putting his hand on the trunk of the car, he pushed himself to his feet with a small grunt of effort. The adrenaline that had flooded his system during the fight had faded so that he was beginning to feel the effects of the blows to the body he’d taken. He was fairly certain his ribs weren’t broken, but he was going to be reminded of those baboons every breath he took for the next couple of days.
She had already leaned back into the car in order to follow his instructions about the emergency brake. Hearing that involuntary intake of breath, she straightened, looking back at him, instead.
“Sore?”
“Nothing a few aspirin and a long, hot shower won’t fix.”
“I can provide the aspirin. And the sooner you take them, the better. In the morning, you might want to get a doctor to take a look at—”
“I’m okay. I will accept the aspirin, however.”
“As soon as we get to my place.”
My place or yours? For a second or two her eyes held on his. Then she turned away, completing the motion she’d begun to release the parking brake.
Yes, sir, he thought, sometimes things just fall into your lap. The problem then became knowing what to do with them when they did.
“THROUGH HERE,” Kelly directed, leading the way down a wide hallway.
There were photographs along each wall. He wanted to stop and check them out, because he recognized more than one famous face. She had already flicked on the light in a room a little farther along, however, and disappeared inside.
He followed, stopping in the doorway of a bathroom that was more than twice the size of his bedroom. There had been no expense spared in either the design or in the facilities. The round glass shower stall would have held a jury of his peers; the whirlpool, only a few less.
“Nice,” he said.
He had refrained from comment as they’d made their way through the rest of the house. It had an understated elegance that, even to his untutored eyes, indicated it had been professionally, and expensively, decorated.
“The house was my brother’s. I didn’t see any sense in not using it while I’m in town.”
She hadn’t looked at him while she gave that information. She was busy searching through a cabinet that had been hidden behind a large panel of mirroring. He suspected the rest of the full-length wall of mirrors covered a variety of storage units. One by one she set the items she took from shelves down on the counter: gauze pads, alcohol, cotton balls, a tube of salve, a prescription medicine bottle, tape.
“It’s a very small cut,” he said as she continued to rummage.
She turned to look at him this time, her hand hesitating over the next selection.
“A Band-Aid’s fine,” he added.
“It needs to be cleaned. They weren’t.”
He was at a loss until he realized she meant the teens who’d attacked her. “The kids weren’t clean?”
“Not the one who grabbed me. His shirt was dirty, and he smelled.”
“Okay. Alcohol and a Band-Aid then.”
“Followed by an antibiotic salve.”
“Whatever floats your boat,” he said agreeably.
He still couldn’t quite believe he was here. As frightening as tonight’s experience had been for her and as sore as he knew he was going to be in the morning, this had been an incredible stroke of luck. He didn’t intend to blow it.
“I think the light’s better over here.”
Since you could have shot a movie in the place, he couldn’t see what difference a few feet made, but obligingly he walked over to the area she’d indicated. She tilted the bottle of alcohol and poured some of it onto a cotton ball.
Its strongly antiseptic tang pervaded the pleasant scent of the room. Unthinkingly he tilted his head back, avoiding it.
“This will sting,” she warned, moving toward him.
She was close enough now that, even above the bite of the alcohol, he could smell whatever perfume she was wearing. She reached up, bringing the soaked cotton ball near his forehead. He closed his lids to protect his eyes and braced for the burn.
It didn’t come. After a couple of seconds, he cautiously opened his eyes to find that, although she was nearer than before, the hand holding the cotton ball still hovered in midair. Given the difference in their heights, she was at a distinct disadvantage.
“This would be easier if you sit,” she suggested.
Obediently he settled one hip on the black marble counter behind him, keeping his other foot on the floor. He closed his eyes again, waiting. Still she hesitated, long enough that he finally opened them once more.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, moving forward until she was standing between his legs. The fragrance he’d noticed before, something dark, undoubtedly costly, and entirely suited to that strapless red gown, surrounded him.
“This is going to hurt,” she warned again.
He hoped so. He hoped it hurt like hell. Enough to take his mind off what he was thinking. And if she got an inch or two closer, she was going to be in no doubt about the direction of his thoughts.
She put her free hand on his face, positioning her thumb under his chin, so she could turn it up to the light. He closed his eyes, determined to keep them that way as long as her cleavage was so temptingly near.
He wanted to bend his head and press his lips into the shadowed hollow between her breasts. To run his tongue along the top of that low-cut dress. He knew how her skin would taste.
The touch of the alcohol against the wound was cold and painful, exactly the distraction he needed. He flinched, pulling his chin away from her fingers.
“Sorry,” she said, her warm breath feathering against his face. “Just a little more, I promise.”
“It’s okay,” he muttered. “It was just…cold.”
She dabbed at the wound again, more forcefully this time. When he didn’t respond, she scrubbed away at the dried blood until the cut had been cleaned to her satisfaction.
She stepped back to survey her handiwork, allowing him an opportunity to open his eyes. Her face was right in front of him, although her gaze was still fastened on the injury.
“It’s not too bad,” she said, her eyes shifting to meet his.
He didn’t know what they revealed about what he’d been thinking, but obviously something. Her lips parted, and she took a breath, deep enough to lift her breasts. He could see the pulse beating in her throat.
“You should probably have a stitch or two,” she said, her voice thready.
“It’s fine.”
Again he raised his hand, intending to trace the cut in order to estimate the extent of the damage by feel. Her fingers quickly wrapped around his wrist, preventing him.
“You’ll contaminate it,” she said.
“Look, I don’t think this is life-threatening…”
He hadn’t intended to mock what she was doing. It was evident by the way her expression closed, however, that she had taken it that way.
“Just put some salve on it and tape it up,” he said, modulating the impatience in his voice. “It’ll be fine, I promise.”
She nodded, but he could tell she was still hurt. Way to go, idiot. You get the break of a lifetime, and you can’t keep from being a smart-ass long enough to take advantage of it.
She took a step back, tossing the bloodstained cotton ball into a small, gold-toned garbage can before she reached for the tube of antibiotic salve she’d set out. She removed one of the gauze pads from its cellophane wrappings and spread a generous layer of ointment across it.
Then she moved back into position between his legs. He had thought he was better prepared for her nearness this time, but when she leaned in, her hip rested against the inside thigh of the leg that was not in contact with the floor.
Heat flooded his groin. And this time there was no astringent bite to take his mind off the growing attraction.
She smoothed salve along his eyebrow, her concentration on the task nearly palpable. This time he didn’t close his eyes.
Even from this proximity her skin was flawless. The smooth, perfect arch of her brows like wings. Her lashes incredibly long and dark.
After a few seconds she became aware that he was watching her. Her eyes met his again as the hand holding the gauze pad stilled.
He waited for her to break the contact between them as she had before. When she didn’t, he went with his instincts, leaning forward so that there were only a couple of inches between her lips and his.
Again he waited, giving her a chance to step back. To put her hand against his chest. To do anything that would signal this wasn’t something she wanted, too.
Instead her chin tilted slightly upward. Her eyes closed, lashes falling like fans against her cheeks, as her lips parted.
There probably wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t have taken advantage of the opportunity.
Certainly not this one.
Chapter Four
Her lips were exactly as he’d expected them to be. Soft and warm and responsive. And they opened willingly to the invasion of his tongue.
The resulting kiss was no tentative touch and retreat. It was long and deep and openmouthed, expressing a hunger they both seemed to feel. Some of the niggling guilt that he might be taking advantage of the situation began to fade as she moved into his arms.
After all, as far as he knew, she might be in the habit of picking up strange men and bringing them home. Women had long ago staked their claim to the same kind of sexual freedoms men enjoyed. In the back of his mind, however, lingered the memory of her blush and those faltering sentences about wanting to take off her clothes and get into bed.