Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (71 page)

Charlie gathered his pictures into the manila file folder. He’d made it through this time with Juliana without making love to her. He’d better vamoose while both their good intentions were intact.

Juliana walked him to the door. He turned, his gaze sweeping from her tousled waves down to her glossy-painted toenails for what might be the last time. Her face hadn’t changed; it was the same one that was branded on his heart. But her body had become a sexy, desirable one, one that he’d explored in the most intimate ways mere hours ago. One he wanted to explore again.

She studied him, too. Her eyes were soft with memories, perhaps the same ones playing in his mind.

Her full lips beckoned. What could it hurt to kiss her good-bye? He knew what, but he couldn’t fight the urge to taste their succulent warmth one last time.

Charlie moved closer and leaned down to her. Juliana’s eyes widened and her lips parted. He took possession of them. Desire surged up inside him. His arm stole around her bare waist and he pulled her to him, pressing her tight against his hungry flesh. He kissed her again and again, trying to assuage a need only she awoke. His erection was a burning brand between them.

Juliana’s arms climbed his back. Her hips strained against his aching cock. She made needy sounds against his lips.

Need clawed at him. He turned with her and pressed her against her apartment wall. The file folder slid from his hand. Her thigh climbed his hip, opening her to him. He tore at his pants fly, snapping off the button in his haste. Juliana’s hands interfered as he worked at getting his pants open. He gave way to her insistent fingers, instead reaching for the condom in his pocket. Had he known, suspected . . . or hoped? Rational thought fled when she thrust her hand into his opened slacks and dived into his underwear to grip his cock. He groaned. It felt so good.

Charlie had enough brains left to push his pants and underwear down. Juliana helped him with the condom, although she nearly ended the encounter with her sensual handling. Then he slid his hands under that inviting skirt—did he have a thing about skirts?—up her smooth, firm thighs to her hips, and hit skin all the way.

“No panties,” he panted.

Juliana lifted her leg in invitation. “They get in the way.”

Charlie pressed his cock between her legs. “Too right.” With one urgent thrust he filled her. They both groaned. Her pussy gripped him tight, her body’s adjustments caressing his length.

God, it felt so good to be inside her again. But he had to move. He pressed her against the wall as he stroked into her tight body. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to bare and suck her succulent breasts. But need overpowered all else, the need to fuse his body with hers.

He felt imminent orgasm and gritted his teeth to hold it back. He wasn’t finished yet. It hadn’t taken long enough. He gripped her bare butt, pulling her hard into his thrusts. But the urge was too strong, and when Juliana’s internal spasms rhythmically milked his cock, he let go of his control. He swore he saw stars his orgasm was so powerful. His groan seemed to echo against the wall.

Charlie collapsed against her and moved his hands from her firm buttocks to wrap tight around her waist. Her heart pounded hard against his chest. Their breaths sawed in and out, slowing gradually.

He’d been fooling himself to think he could come here and not make love to her. And despite just having an orgasm, he wasn’t done with her. He had to have her at least once more.

“I want to do that again slowly, very slowly. And I want it to take a very long time. And I want us to be naked. But first I want to kiss you and suck your breasts, and then I want to suck your clit.”

Her pussy squeezed his still-erect cock. He shuddered.

“You have a lot of wants,” she murmured in a husky voice.

“Yeah. Do you object?”

“No. I have some wants of my own.”

“It might take awhile. Do you have the time?”

Juliana turned her head so she could look at him. “Do you? You’re on an investigation.”

Charlie gave her question serious deliberation. He had a lead he should pursue immediately. But buried to the hilt in Juliana’s exquisite body he knew there was no place he’d rather be.

“I’m not done plumbing the depths of this lead.” He thrust so she could feel he was serious about making love to her again.

“Umm,” she hummed.

Charlie shuddered again, his body hungry to begin what he hoped would take hours. “We can use your uniform again. This skirt is nice, but there’s something about a Catholic girl.” He nuzzled her neck.

Juliana pushed his face away. “Charlie, I’ve grown up. Does the skirt represent the girl you knew back then?”

Charlie frowned. “No. I just think it’s sexy. I think you’re sexy now, too. I think you’re sexy naked. I know you’ve grown up and I love the changes. I’d like to explore the changes if you’ll let me.”

She smiled and pulled him close for a kiss. But when he wanted the kiss to linger, she turned her head away. “I believe you said something about getting naked.”

“Oh, yeah. We can play cops and robbers. You can be a suspect. It would involve frisking.”

“Male officers can’t frisk female suspects.”

“I don’t follow the rules. Especially when the suspect is as sexy as you.”

“You may have to stay the night to interrogate me,” she suggested. “I’ve got a lot to hide.”

Charlie’s smile felt like it split his face. “I believe this investigation is going to take all night. Perhaps a body cavity search is in order.”

“Every nook and cranny,” she agreed.

“Definitely. I have a long nightstick to probe those with.” He thrust with his words.

She gasped. “You’ll have to be ruthlessly thorough.”

“Then I’ll have to probe again and again.” He put actions to words.

Her breath hitched. “Do whatever you have to do. I’ll be interested to see your methods of interrogation.”

Charlie watched the sun rise over Dalton Montgomery’s South Beach estate. Even at this early hour the estate showed activity. Through his binoculars he saw a delivery van arrive with the rental tables and chairs. A guard waved them through. Aha!

He waited five minutes after the truck disappeared into the estate, then drove up to the gate. With his brown contacts, black goatee, t-shirt and jeans, he looked like a young Latino.

The guard leaned down to the window. “State your business.”

Charlie allowed an exaggerated Spanish accent to color his words. “I’m with Palisades Rentals but I missed the truck. I overslept, see, because I was with my honey last night. You know how it is,
amigo
.” He didn’t have to feign the effects of a night spent making love instead of sleeping. Two nights in a row. “I been chasing the truck since the warehouse, but the light turned red, see, and there was this cop at the intersection. Please, I’m in such trouble and I need this job.”

“Follow the drive around the left to the pool house.”

“
Gracias!
” Charlie drove through the gate. He kept his elation in check until he was driving past the manicured green lawn.

The house looked impressive as he approached. Two and a half stories of sprawling white surrounded the huge circular drive. The sheer number of windows should have presented him a daunting task of how many rooms he’d have to search for the sculpture. But he’d grown used to the mansions in Beverly Hills. Montgomery’s house wouldn’t thwart him.

Too soon he saw the split off to the pool house and took it. He parked away from the rental truck and approached it with a confident stride. He’d learned people assumed you belonged somewhere if you acted like you did.

Two men were pushing a cart full of white chairs down the ramp attached to the back of the truck.

“They told me to help,” Charlie said. “I’m Chuck.” He’d left his Latino accent at the gate.

The men looked at one another.

“You can push that cart.” The bigger, brown-haired man gestured to another cart full of chairs off to the side. “Into the pool house. Danny’s inside. Big guy, red hair. You can’t miss him. He’ll show you where to put it.”

Charlie grunted acknowledgement and did as he’d been instructed. The pool house was bigger than his parent’s three-bedroom home. The floors were shiny cream tile. The cart’s rubber wheels made little sound as he pushed it down the short hallway to a room that looked like a small ballroom.

He spotted Danny immediately. “Big guy” had been an understatement. He was at least six-four with biceps as round as soccer balls.

Danny spotted him, too, and strode toward him. “Who are you?” It wasn’t a casual question.

“Chuck. They told me to help you unload.”

Danny’s green eyes narrowed. “We’re not going to steal anything.”

Charlie shrugged. “I go where I’m told to go.”

Danny’s jaw muscles clenched. “Put that cart with the others. And for God’s sake, don’t run it into the columns.”

Charlie bit back a smile. “Yes, sir.”

Danny walked away cursing under his breath.

As Charlie went back and forth to the truck, he studied the layout of the house and grounds. There was the four-leaf clover pool Juliana had described. The property stretched to the ocean, where a small yacht was moored at the dock. He didn’t know if that entrance to the estate was guarded like the front was, not that he planned to wait until nightfall to make an assault from the ocean. No, this wedding frenzy was the perfect cover to get in and out of the grounds. But he needed to get into the house. He was confident the sculpture wasn’t in the pool house.

He watched for guards as he worked. He’d seen two more patrol the grounds. They could have been mistaken for businessmen in their lightweight suits, except for the slight bulges where they wore their guns and the cold look in their eyes. Charlie knew about guns. It had been part of his P.I. training. He knew how to fire one and practiced regularly with an actor friend, although he’d yet to purchase one of his own. He hadn’t run into a situation where he’d needed to use one.

When the truck was emptied, Charlie wandered back to his car frustrated. He still hadn’t gotten into the house. Boss man Danny ran a tight ship, and the few times he hadn’t been close by, one of the guards had been patrolling. Charlie had listened to the Paradise Rentals workers, but hadn’t learned much about the wedding. He needed details.

His shirt, the hair at his temples, and the back of his neck were damp with sweat. As he wiped his face and neck with a towel and gulped down water, another truck and a car full of Paradise Rental workers pulled in. Danny hadn’t said anything about more chairs. In fact, he’d said they had five hundred, which to Charlie meant that was all of them. And they’d unloaded tables, too. What more could be coming?

He debated helping again as he stood under the relative shade of a palm tree, thankful for the ocean breeze, and sipped the remainder of his water. Other than the grounds layout, where the three sets of back doors were, and the guard patrols, he hadn’t learned anything important in the forty-five minutes he’d been here. Unloading trucks wasn’t his idea of a productive investigation.

One of the men he’d seen patrol by stopped as the driver pushed up the rollaway door of the truck. “That the tent?”

“Yep.” The man didn’t even stop to answer. The other men from the car stood waiting.

The guard turned and walked directly to the house.

Charlie straightened, all his senses on alert. Something was about to happen, and he needed to be in place when it did. He tossed the towel and empty bottle back in his car and sauntered to the truck. Again he gave them his story about being sent to help, and again they accepted him without question.

As they unloaded the heavy white tent, two people approached from the house, followed by the patrolling guard. Charlie tried not to stumble as he recognized Dalton Montgomery and his daughter, Haley, from the newspaper articles.

Dalton was a tall, well-groomed man with stylish brown hair. Haley was a slender twenty-two-year-old blonde who looked like she’d spent the night as Charlie had, and was irritated to be awakened at this hour. Her bee-stung lips told a story of recent use. Her red-and-white halter-top barely restrained her surgically enhanced breasts, and Charlie could see her erect nipples right through the fabric. Her skimpy red shorts should be illegal.

But he couldn’t help comparing this ho look-alike to Juliana in ho drag. Juliana won in the sex appeal department hands down. Haley just looked like a spoiled brat.

Speaking of Juliana, Charlie wished she were here now to tell him what she could about Montgomery’s involvement with the sculpture. He didn’t look like a man who’d sent someone to steal it. Then again, he didn’t look like someone entrenched in Miami’s criminal underworld.

“My daughter will show you where she wants the tent,” Montgomery said to the group.

“Yes sir, Mr. Montgomery,” the driver replied.

The group of men took hold of the heavy tent and toted it past the pool onto a wide green lawn. The dew had dried under the hot Miami sun, which explained why the tent delivery had arrived later than the chairs.

“I want it here.” Haley pointed to the ground at her feet.

The guard stepped forward and handed the driver a sheet of paper. “Here’s the sprinkler layout so you can avoid puncturing the lines.”

The driver nodded. “We’ve done this lots of times and no one’s had a problem.”

Charlie managed to get a spot close to Montgomery and his daughter as the Paradise workers began the arduous task of erecting the tent.

“The orchestra arrived last night,” Montgomery told his daughter. “They’re settled into the Hilton on the floor below the other guests.”

Charlie noted the name of the hotel.

She huffed. “I hope they’re not going to disturb the guests.”

“I’m sure they won’t.”

Haley looked longingly toward the house. “I don’t know why you had to get musicians from overseas.”

“Only the best for you, Haley. It shows other people that we understand quality.” Montgomery dropped his voice so Charlie had to strain to hear as he held onto the tent’s rope, waiting his turn for the rope to be staked to the ground.