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  “Help yourself.”

  He forgot about practicality, professionalism. He forgot about the emotional and physical distance he’d decided would best suit his needs. He forgot about everything but the reality of her, the water-soft texture of her skin, the heady scent, the hot, ripe taste of her mouth when he gripped her hips, pulled her close and kissed her.

  She enveloped him—those textures, that scent, that taste until they were—she was—everything he could want or need or imagine.

  It was a mistake. Taking her now, like this, was a mistake and edged very close to the forbidden. Knowing that only added an irresistible element of danger to the whole.

  He tugged the dress away from her shoulder, set his teeth on flesh. And when her head fell back, he worked his way back toward the little purr in her throat.

  “Something to be said about plans though,” he murmured, and bared her other shoulder. “I’ve got all sorts of plans for you.”

  “I was hoping.” She fumbled her hand back to where she’d dropped her purse on the bed. “You’re going to need this,” she said, and pulled out a condom.

  “At some point, we’re also going to need a defibrillator and a fire extinguisher.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  He grinned. “I could go seriously crazy over you.” He laid his lips on hers again, rubbed. “Is this one of those peel-out-of-it deals? The dress, I mean.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Hot damn, a personal favorite.” He worked slowly, drawing out the process with his mouth on hers until they were both ready to shudder. Then he drew back, took her hand so she could step out of the dress that pooled at her feet. And just looked at her.

  She wore some sort of fascinating female construction of silk and lace that flirted over her breasts so they had little choice but to rise up, threaten to spill out. The black silk skimmed down her torso, nipping in her waist, molding over her hips to end in flirty little garters that held up sheer black stockings.

  “I’m trying to think of something memorable to say, but it’s really hard when all the blood’s drained out of my head.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  “Wow.”

  “That’s what I was shooting for.” She reached out and began to unbutton his shirt. “I like the way you look at me. I did right from the first time. I especially like the way you’re looking at me now.”

  “I see you even when I’m not looking. That’s a first for me, and a little unnerving.”

  “Maybe some people are supposed to see each other. Maybe that’s why this is happening so fast. I don’t care why.” She drew his shirt away, ran her hands up his chest, then locked them around his neck. “I don’t care,” she repeated and crushed her lips to his.

  She only knew she wanted to go on feeling this way, to have these jolts of excitement shocking her system, to tremble with the sizzling flood of anticipation. To know the power of having a man’s, this man’s, complete attention and desire.

  She wanted to be reckless, to take exactly what she wanted in greedy gulps for once in her life, and to think only of the moment, of the pleasure, of the passion.

  When he spun her around, she arched back against him, lifting her arms to hook them around his neck, and gave his hands the freedom to run over her. Over lace, silk, flesh. He fed at her neck, at the curve of her shoulder while he touched her, aroused her. Her breath caught, released on a moan when his hand slid between her thighs. She pressed hers against his, rocked her hips and rose up on that hot wave of pleasure.

  He imagined himself swinging her up, laying her on the bed to take the next stage with something approaching romance and finesse. But somehow they were tangled together on the neatly turned-down sheets in a desperate struggle to touch, to taste.

  Her hair had spilled down, bright fire against the white. The scent of it, of her skin, dazed his senses until he wondered if he would ever take another breath without drawing her in.

  “Do things to me.” Her mouth was wild hunger on his. “Do everything to me.”

  He was lost in a storm of needs and greed, drowning in the heat of them even as he feasted on her, and she on him. As she moved under him, over him, surrounded him, he was rougher than he meant to be in a desperate search for more.

  Her lungs were screaming, her heart galloping to the point of pain. Her skin was so hot it seemed it might melt off her bones. And God, it was glorious.

  His hands were so strong, his mouth so ravenous. She could revel in the sensation of being taken over, body and mind. He tugged and pulled at snaps, impossibly tiny hooks, made her laugh breathlessly when he fumbled and cursed. Made her gasp in shock when he drove into her and shot her over the edge.

  It was she who demanded it all, now, now, now! And arched and opened, who cried out when he plunged inside her. Her vision blurred, her galloping heart stopped. Then everything, everything was clear as crystal, her heartbeat raging, her body racing as they took each other.

  She could see his face, the lines and hollows, the shadow of the beard not shaved since morning, and his eyes, tiger eyes focused on hers. Then going darker, going opaque an instant before he buried his face in her hair and emptied into her.

  Her body was drenched, saturated with pleasure, and her mind calm as a summer lake. She was trapped under his body, and delighted with herself and him. She could hear the ragged sound of his breathing. There was such satisfaction in knowing she’d caused that. Toying with his hair, she closed her eyes and let herself drift.

  “You okay down there?” he murmured.

  “I’m wonderful down here, thanks. You okay up there?”

  “I may be paralyzed, but I’m feeling pretty good about it.” He turned his head so his lips brushed the side of her neck. “Laine.”

  Eyes still closed, she smiled. “Max.”

  “I have to say . . . I have to say,” he repeated as much for himself as her, “this is something I never expected when I . . . took this assignment.”

  “I like surprises. I stopped liking them along the way, but I’m remembering why I always liked surprises. It’s because they just happen.”

  “If surprises deal with finding you at my door wearing a sexy black dress, I freaking love them.”

  “If I did it again, it wouldn’t be a surprise, it would be a repeat.”

  “I can live with that. Where’s Henry?”

  “Henry?”

  He pushed onto his elbows to look down at her. “You didn’t leave him at home, did you? After what happened last night.”

  It wasn’t heat flashing now, but a slow and lovely warmth sliding. He was worried about a dog. Her dog. Any man who’d worry about a dog when he was naked in bed with a woman shot straight to the top of her list of all-time heroes. She dragged his face down to hers so she could rain kisses over it.

  “No, I didn’t leave him alone. I took him to Jenny’s. How can you be so perfect? I’m always looking for the flaws in everything, but you’re just . . .” She pressed her lips to his in a long, noisy kiss. “Absolutely perfect.”

  “I’m not.” He didn’t care for the twinge of guilt. It was a sensation he overcame or avoided. Worse, there was worry tangled with it. What would she think, how would she react when she found out just what his flaws were?

  “I’m selfish and single-minded,” he told her. “I—”

  “Selfish men don’t wander into antique stores looking for a gift for their mother, just because.”

  The twinge became a pang. “That was impulse.”

  “See, a surprise. Didn’t I just say I love surprises? Don’t try to convince me you’re not perfect. I’m too happy with you right now to think anything else. Uh-oh, now I’ve got you thinking.” She ran her hands down his back, gave his butt a friendly pat. “Is she trying to turn this into more than fun and games?”

  “That’s not what I was thinking. And it already is more than fun and games.”

  “Oh.” Her heart tripped, but she kept her eyes steady on his. “Is it?�
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  “That’s what I wasn’t expecting, Laine.” He lowered his head, touched his lips to hers. “Makes things a little more complicated.”

  “I don’t mind complications, Max.” She framed his face with her hands. “We can worry about what this is, or isn’t, what it’s going to be, tomorrow, or we can enjoy it. And each other. The one thing I know is when I woke up at home tonight, I was happy because I knew I wanted to be with you. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”

  “Happy?”

  “Satisfied, content, productive and happy enough. But not dance-around-the-house happy. So about the only thing you could tell me that would make this too complicated for me is that you’ve got a wife and a couple of kids in Brooklyn.”

  “I don’t. They’re in Queens.”

  She pinched him, hard, then wrestled him over onto his back. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

  “It’s my ex-wife who lives in Brooklyn.”

  She straddled him, tossed her hair back. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Well, you collect corkscrews. Some guys collect women. My current mistress is in Atlanta, but I’m thinking of branching out. You could be my Maryland tootsie.”

  “Tootsie? It’s always been one of my driving ambitions to be someone’s tootsie. Where do I sign up?”

  He sat up, wrapping his arms around her and just holding on. Complications, he thought. He couldn’t begin to list them. So he’d just have to deal with them. So would she. But not tonight. Tonight he was going to take her at her word and just enjoy.

  “Are you going to stay awhile? Stay awhile, Laine.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Don’t go.” The moment the words were out of Max’s mouth, he realized he’d never said them to a woman before. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, sexual exhaustion. Maybe it was just her.

  “It’s after three in the morning.”

  “Exactly. So come on back to bed. We’ll just spoon up here and snooze for a couple hours, then order breakfast.”

  “That sounds wonderful, but I’ll need another one of those rain checks.” She wiggled into the dress, forgoing underwear. And erased all thoughts of snoozing from his mind.

  “Then just come back to bed.”

  “I have to go.” She chuckled, dancing out of reach when he made a grab for her. “I need to go home, catch a couple hours’ sleep, change, run back into town and pick up Henry, take him home, then go back into town to the shop.”

  “If you stay here, you could pick up Henry on the way home and save yourself a trip.”

  “And provide the gossip mill with enough grist to run it until next Christmas.” She was small-town enough, in the woman she’d created, to be concerned about such things. “A woman strolls out of a hotel in the morning wearing this sort of dress, eyebrows raise. Especially in the Gap.”

  “I’ll lend you a shirt.”

  “I’m going.” She stuffed her lingerie into her purse. “But if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight . . .”

  “Name the time and place.”

  “Eight, my place. I’ll cook.”

  “Cook?” His eyes blinked slowly, twice, then seemed to glaze. “Food?”

  “No, I thought I’d cook up an insidious plot against the government. Of course food.” She turned to the mirror, pulled a tiny brush out of her bulging purse and swooped it through her hair. “What do you like?”

  He just stared at her. “Food?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Satisfied she was as good as she was going to get, she dropped the brush back into the purse and crossed to him. She leaned over the bed, gave him a light kiss. “See you later.”

  He stayed where he was after she’d closed the door behind her. Stayed, staring at the door with the taste of her lingering on his lips.

  None of it made any sense. Not what had happened between them, not what he felt for her, not who she was. Because his reading of her wasn’t off. He was never this far off, and it had nothing to do with glands.

  If Laine Tavish was mixed up in a multimillion-dollar heist, he’d eat his own investigator’s license.

  It didn’t explain why William Young had come to see her. It didn’t explain why he was dead. It didn’t explain why her house had been ransacked.

  But there were explanations, and he’d ferret them out. He was good at it. Once he had, once he’d cleared her, satisfied his client, done the job, he’d tell her everything.

  She’d probably be a little upset.

  Get real, Gannon, he thought, she’d be completely pissed. But he’d bring her around.

  He was good at bringing people around, too.

  The best way to work through the mess he’d gotten into was to proceed with logic. Logically, Jack O’Hara’s daughter Elaine had severed ties with him, changed her name, adjusted her background and started a life for herself. Everything pointed in that direction, including his own instincts.

  That didn’t mean Big Jack, Willy or any of their associates were unaware of her and her location. Didn’t mean there wasn’t occasional contact, or the attempt to contact.

  And okay, her finances still struck him as dicey, but he’d work on that. A few thousand here or there to put a down payment on a house or start up a business was nothing. Not compared to a share of $28 million and change.

  Willy may have tracked her down to ask her for help, a place to hide out, to deliver a message from her father. Whatever the purpose, he was dead as Moses now and couldn’t be asked. And would never cash in on his share either, Max mused.

  Didn’t that up the stakes considerably?

  Laine didn’t have anything at the house worth worrying about. There was no question of that. Even if whoever’d broken in had missed something, she wouldn’t have left the house unattended for the night to play heat the sheets if she had something hidden there.

  Logically, she didn’t have anything. She’d been in Angel’s Gap when the jewels were stolen. For Christ’s sake, she’d barely finished her first decade when she was shuffled out of Big Jack’s aegis and influence.

  Regardless, to clear her, to cross her name off all lists, he had to cover all the bases. He had to take a good look around her shop.

  The sooner he did it, the sooner they could move on. He checked the time, judged he had a good three hours before daylight.

  Might as well get started.

  CHAPTER 7

  It amazed him that anyone who shared DNA with a thief would secure their own business with standard locks and a rinky-dink alarm system any twelve-year-old with a Swiss Army knife and a little imagination could circumvent.

  Really, if this . . . thing of theirs turned into an actual relationship, he was going to have a serious sit-down with Laine about home and business security. Maybe a store in a town of this type and size didn’t require riot bars, gates or surveillance cameras, but she hadn’t even bothered with security lights, in or out. As for the door, it was pathetic. If he’d been a thief who didn’t worry about finesse, a couple of good kicks would’ve done the job.

  Her current excuse for a system made the nighttime B&E embarrassingly easy. He bypassed the alarm and picked the locks on the back door in case some insomniac decided to take a predawn stroll down Market Street. And he’d walked from the hotel, taking his time, circling the block on foot. Just because something was easy didn’t mean you could afford to be careless about procedure.

  The town was quiet enough so he could hear the rumble of a furnace when it kicked on inside a building. And the long, mournful whistle of a freight train that rose eerily out of the silence. There were no winos, no junkies, no homeless, no hookers or street people populating the night in what would be considered downtown Angel’s Gap.

  You had to wonder if you were actually in America or if you’d somehow stumbled into a postcard printed up by the local chamber of commerce.

  It was, Max decided, mildly creepy.