Oh, bloody hell.
It was, in truth, completely illegal and, on the surface, morally reprehensible—even if the endgame was justice.
How Liam was going to explain all of this to Avy and enlist her aid, he hadn’t the foggiest notion. As soon as he opened his mouth, she would come out swinging . . . and Avy angry was not a pretty situation. On one occasion when he’d made her truly angry, she’d left him trussed up naked, like a Thanksgiving turkey, for his butler, Whidby, to find.
Liam winced at the memory, though Whidby had seen more humor in it, damn him.
Liam checked his watch and saw that Avy’s flight had landed. For security reasons—Interpol had an alert out for him—he couldn’t meet her at the airport.
He texted her from his BlackBerry:
Take bus to Domodedovo metro station. Once there, lose any possible Interpol tail. Take metro to Kropotkinskaya station and meet me at Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer.
Then Liam tossed on his coat and made his way outdoors and to the river, where he strolled around the Kremlin, through Krasnaya Place, and past the statue of Marshal Zhukov. To his left was a spectacular view of the famous Red Square.
He finally ended at Alexander Gardens, very close to the station where Avy would arrive. He found a little café and ordered a lemon vodka, or
limonnaya
, along with a dish of
pelmeni
, meat-stuffed dumplings.
It was a beautiful day, if a frigid one. Liam studied a small pocket guidebook as he ate, memorizing the Cyrillic words and pronunciations for as many metro stops as he could. Unfortunately they might have to hire a human guide for their, ah, more nefarious purposes, since he was a fish out of water in Moscow, and Avy would be, too.
He could just imagine calling the local tourism office. “Hello, how are you? Yes, I’d like to hire an English-speaking man foolish enough to take me to the home of a prominent citizen and help me break into the building. Oh, you have just the gentleman for the job? Lovely, thank you.”
No, this was a delicate matter, one that might just require his slippery friend Kelso’s connections. Kelso had put him up to this, and Kelso owed him.
Liam tapped the tip of his nose with a sterling-silver pen and frowned. Kelso was responsible for him being thrown into an American jail. And yet . . . Kelso was also responsible for hooking him up with the FBI, which in the end had gotten him
out
of jail. Who owed whom?
Liam wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. He needed to get a message to the bloody man, so the next text he sent was to the horrific Sheila, receptionist and office manager at ARTemis.
Seven
Natalie awoke to the gray light of dawn coming through the sheer curtains at the window. A battalion of Lilliputians with sledgehammers were busy pounding her cerebral cortex into mush, and for a bad moment she couldn’t remember where she was.
A gentle snore to her left inspired her to roll over, which sent the sadistic Lilliputians into screaming overdrive. She registered a very buff shoulder, a chest full of reddish gold hair, and a square, stubbled jaw first.
Oh, dear God . . . I didn’t. Did I?
One laser blue eye opened, squinted at her, and then closed. “Good morning,” said the very hot, Newman-like stranger from Reif’s.
I did.
Natalie swallowed, which was difficult because her mouth was dry and pasty and . . . yuck, something had clearly crawled into it and died last night. Something with fur.
“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never done this before. I guess I’ve racked up some big ‘ho points.’ ”
The stranger rolled to face her, opening both eyes this time. “Nah. No money changed hands.” He grinned at her.
He was so good-looking that even with sleep-tousled hair and sheet marks on his face, he took her breath away. Unbelievable. The one time in her life that she had a one-night stand, with a gorgeous man . . . and she couldn’t even remember if the sex was hot or not.
“Um. Your name is Eric, right?”
“Brava, Natalie.” There was no condemnation in his eyes, only deep amusement.
She screwed up her courage. “So. Um. Was it good?”
“You were absolutely amazing,” he said.
Uh-oh. Did that mean shameless? “Please tell me you used a condom?”
He yawned. “On what, the champagne bottle?”
She stared at him, alarmed. Had he done something perverted to her with a
bottle
? She shuddered.
“Relax, Natalie. Nothing happened. You passed out cold.”
Mortification threatened to swallow her whole, and she clutched the sheet to her breasts and sat up, to the rage of those angry Lilliputians still banging inside her head. “I did
not
.”
“Yup. You did.” Eric sat up, too, and then stretched luxuriously. “Not surprising, considering you had at least five stiff whiskeys in the bar and no dinner.”
“I am an idiot,” she said gloomily.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Happens to the best of us. Besides, you were upset about the necklace.”
Horror engulfed her. “I
told
you about it?”
“In living color.”
“Oh, my God. Are you going to—”
“Report you? No. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“You don’t feel a moral obligation to—” She stopped. Eric was laughing.
“Do I look like Dudley Do-Right?” he asked. “Seriously.”
She sat there, again transfixed by his looks and some charismatic quality that she couldn’t identify. All she knew was that she felt almost magnetically drawn to him. She was furious at herself, not for picking him up but for passing out.
“So unfair,” she muttered, unconscious of saying the words aloud.
“What’s unfair?”
She flushed. “I don’t want to say it because your head won’t fit through the door.”
He just eyed her quizzically.
“Oh, fine. I think it’s unfair that the one time I have a . . . a fall from grace and pick up a gorgeous guy in a bar, I manage to go to sleep before anything interesting happens!”
He burst out laughing.
“No, it really ticks me off.”
When he could catch his breath, he winked at her. “The offer’s still good this morning.” Casually, he pulled the sheet tight over his lap, and she almost fainted at what was outlined.
He raised an eyebrow and shot her a come-hither smile. The man didn’t have bedroom eyes; he had bor dello eyes.
“But I don’t have a toothbrush . . .”
“You can use mine.”
Ugh. No, thanks.
“. . . and my head’s killing me.”
“I have ways of distracting you from that, not to mention ibuprofen.”
“But I’m
sober
now,” she wailed.
“So?”
“Well, but—I can’t just—”
“You can’t?”
“No.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Eric pushed the sheet aside and swung his legs out of bed, walking stark naked past a stunned Natalie, who couldn’t look away.
Uuuuunnnnnhhhhh!
Long, muscled legs. Smooth, taut, tight, positively drool-worthy buns. There was some kind of dark, square tattoo on his left one, but she couldn’t quite make it out.
He had wide shoulders that segued beautifully into a trim waist with six-pack abs. And the other side of him . . .
She could
kill
herself for passing out. She was being deprived of the joys of sluttiness before she could even regret anything.
Eric strode past her with vestiges of a naughty smirk on his face. He gave her another wink and then disappeared into the bathroom.
She slumped down under the covers. She was hung-over, she was going to get fired when she went in to work, she’d be lucky if she wasn’t arrested, and she couldn’t even engage in some nice, sweaty, therapeutic sex with a perfect stranger whom she’d never see again. What was wrong with her?
But with sobriety her social awkwardness had returned, and that definitely ruled out getting wild and naked with this guy Eric. In the cold, whiskeyless light of day she recalled that she hadn’t shaved her legs in at least a week, her breasts were small, and her toes were probably gnarled, since her feet hadn’t seen a pedicure since August.
Natalie glanced at the clock and saw with relief that it was barely seven. She still had enough time to go home and shower before hustling to work and facing the music.
She slipped out of bed just in time to model her almost nudity for Eric, who came out of the bathroom. He wolf whistled, his gaze roving straight to her breasts. She clapped her hands over them immediately.
“
Tetas ricas
,” he said with a predatory grin.
“Excuse me?” Her face burned.
“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing.”
“No, translate, please.”
“I said you have great breasts, sweetheart.”
She snatched her skirt off the floor and clutched it to her body. “You shouldn’t have looked.”
“Hey, they were right up front and waving at me. What’s a poor slob to do?”
“Well, it’s not nice to comment.”
“I told you last night—I’m not at all a nice guy.” He flashed white teeth at her.
“Will you turn your back while I change, please?”
“Fine. Seems a little silly, since you slept with me practically nude, but whatever.” He turned and faced the other way. Darn it, she could see only the edge of the tattoo and still couldn’t quite make it out.
“I was not nude. I had panties on,” Natalie said, scrambling into her skirt and then her bra.
“And I coulda had ’em off you at any time.”
Hateful man. She pulled her top over her head and stuffed her arms into the sleeves. The fabric smelled just like the bar. Ugh.
Eric had gone back into the bathroom, and when he emerged he held some ibuprofen tablets and a glass of water. He handed them to her.
“Thank you,” she said. Okay, he wasn’t hateful. But he was still stark naked, and though she kept trying mightily to keep her gaze above his waist, she wasn’t entirely successful. Worse, he seemed to know it, and she was sure it amused him.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Don’t you have to go to work, or do
some
thing?”
He laced his fingers behind his neck and stretched his shoulders. “Not for a while. You?”
She nodded, sat on the bed, and shoved her feet into the toes of her tights. “Yes. I have a nine-o’clock appointment to get fired.”
“Great. Can I take you to breakfast afterward?”
She laughed, despite the day’s gloomy prospects. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I think you’ve got a real cute snore, and I’d like to hear it again sometime.”
“I do not snore.”
“You do.” He walked over to the chair where her messenger bag lay, flap open, and plucked her cell phone out of the front pocket.
“What are you doing?”
He flipped open the phone and pressed some buttons. “Making sure you have my number.”
“It’s nice to ask first . . .”
He raised his head and aimed a wicked blue stare at her. “I thought we’d established several times that I’m not a nice guy.” He finished entering the numbers and then hit the call button. His own phone rang, and he got it out of his pants, which were lying on the floor. “And now I have yours,” he said.
“Great.” She retrieved her phone and bag and headed for the door. Somehow he was in front of it before she got there, blocking it with his body.
He took her face between his big hands and kissed her lips. She melted and her knees went weak; when he lifted his head, she was dazed.
“Natalie,” he said softly. “You’re gonna do fine this morning. And whatever happens today, you were great last night. Funny and entertaining and infinitely seductive. I’d like the chance to sleep with you again.”
Well
.
When he phrased it like that, how could a girl say no?
Eight
Because she was nervous, Natalie was twenty minutes early to work. By the time she’d gotten to the brownstone, she’d almost chewed a hole through her cheek.
Her hands trembled as she put her key into the lock, turned it, and swung the heavy wooden door open. Funny, the alarm didn’t beep, even though all the lights were off and the place seemed empty. It was very unlike Luc to forget to set it before he left for the day.
She shut the door behind her, locked it since they wouldn’t open for business until nine, and flipped the main light switch for the foyer. She’d taken only a couple of steps forward when she heard the moan.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Another faint moan and some weak coughing came from the direction of the kitchen. She was torn between fear and curiosity. Should she bolt out the door or go into the kitchen? She’d almost opted for bolting when she realized that someone could have come in early, as she had, and had a seizure or a heart attack, or had simply slipped and fallen.
Natalie pulled her cell phone from its pocket under the flap of her bag and dialed 911, just in case. Then, her finger poised over the talk button, she crept forward. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Another guttural moan emerged from the kitchen. She rounded the corner and stopped, shocked. Luc, her boss, lay sprawled and bleeding on the old linoleum. His face had been beaten beyond recognition, and blood had dried in horrible rivulets from his nose and a split lip.
“Luc—oh, my God! What happened?” Natalie dropped both phone and bag and ran to him, sliding the last couple of feet on her knees.
He opened his bruised eyes but didn’t move. “
B’jour
, Natalie,” he said with effort.
“Who did this to you?” Her voice had gone high and reedy with alarm. “Luc, are you all right?”
He managed to make a thumbs-up sign with one hand.
“I’m going to call nine-one-one,” she said, crawling back toward the phone she had dropped.