Hidden Gems (8 page)

“I don’t re—” Her brain wasn’t working right, all stutters and stops. She shook her head, remembering the clatter of the falling shoe, the face staring up at her. “They came off.”

He tucked her cold feet in beneath the blanket. “I’m going to leave you here for a minute while I go downstairs to check this out.”

She clutched him, worried for the cat but more worried for Jamie. “Don’t do that. They might be there.”

“I doubt it.”

“But they could be. He was looking for something.”

“The burglar? What?”

“I’m not sure.” She burrowed deeper into the blanket, her mind settling enough to thank God for keeping her safe before it turned to the confusion of the attempted burglary. “Something I brought home from the Caymans.”

“Hmm.” Jamie paced out his front door and listened for sounds from the stairwell. His hair was tousled and he wore only a pair of boxers. Muscles flexed, tight with tension. The patch on his chest was thicker and darker than she remembered. He seemed macho, even…lusty.

Marissa shivered. Maybe it was the danger, giving her a new perspective. Climbing the stairs, desperate with fear, she’d pinned all her hopes on reaching Jamie. She’d known she could count on him to be there for her.

He stayed out in the hallway, leaning over the stair rail. “It’s okay, babe.”

She tried to figure out what the intruder might have been looking for, which only made her remember the horror of being captured in the thief’s arms. She pushed that out of her mind.

Stay cool, remember to breathe. Every time she inhaled, she felt better. The soft woolen blanket smelled like Jamie. The comfort of that calmed her, sliding through her like warm butter.

When he came back into the room, she opened her arms to him. “Hold me.”

He climbed up beside her. “Cold?”

“No, I want—” Her voice caught. What she wanted was a surprise. Her blood hummed with desire. “Just hold me,” she begged, aware that her need was entwined with the adrenaline from her escape and a kind of achiness that was also tinged with homesickness. She was restless, ardent, aflame. She wanted to get close to Jamie—body-on-body close. Skin-to-skin. Tongue-in-mouth.

A reaction to the danger…or a decision on their relationship?

Did it matter?

“Kiss me,” she said. “Make me warm.”

Jamie was nonplused, but the gleam in his eyes told her that he was tempted. “The police will be here—”

“Then hurry.” Giving him no choice, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the bed. On top of her. His hands went to her breasts. No mistake. One hand on each breast, his fingers tightening on her flesh, kneading it, massaging the surface sensation into a deeper passion that made her tremble and moan and open her mouth against his jaw.

His stubble scraped her lips. But then his sleek mouth and supple tongue took over and she was lost in the hot suction that pulled pleasure through the center of her body in an electric current. Her hair raised at the roots. She couldn’t stop moving, hips squirming, legs working.

Her hands traveled over Jamie’s bare back. His skin flinched at her touch. Muscles jumped, tensed. He couldn’t hold back a groan.

She felt the solidness of him beneath her palms. Gratitude spread through her. He was so alive, so present, so real. There was no pretension about Jamie. She was damn lucky to have him.

So go ahead and have him.

She reached between them, trying to lift her own top.

“Wait,” Jamie said against her mouth.

“Wait? Wait? You’re not supposed to say wait when I’m taking off my—”

“Allow me.” He chuckled at her impatience and slid his hands under her shirt.

She sighed with her entire body and let the assertiveness go. For what felt like the first time in her life, she didn’t have to be in charge.

How astonishing that the man who could take over was Jamie.

Maybe she should have seen that coming. Friends first. She’d learned to trust him all the way.

It might have been awkward to have her good friend Jamie kneeling between her legs with his hands under her shirt and his thigh pressed where she was hot and swollen and tingling with arousal. It might have been weird to see the bright spark of lust in his eyes.

But somehow it just seemed right.

Anticipation caught in her throat when he rose up enough to straighten his arms, his intense concentration targeted on her breasts. He strummed her nipples. She gasped and arched her back, inhaling again when the motion rubbed her sex against his leg. Her short skirt was flipped up across her hipbone. Underneath she wore a pair of bikini panties. One thin layer of cotton, dampened and sticking to her skin, begging to be torn away.

Jamie wasn’t in a hurry. Slowly he dragged up the hem of her skimpy little top, a silk shell trimmed in lace that scratched her rib cage and caught on the tips of her nipples. He hesitated there, looking at her, then deliberately lifted his hands away.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

She felt precious, valued. Loved.

“And we’re stopping.” He tugged the lace hem down.

Talk about your buckets of cold water. She struggled up to her elbows. “We’re stopping?”

“The police are on the way. And…”

She pressed her thigh between his legs. He was hot and hard.

“I’m not rushing,” he said through gritted teeth as he moved her thigh away and swung his legs off her. “When we do this, it’s going to be with forethought and all the time in the world.”

“Due deliberation?” She dropped flat on the bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering if she should count to ten and find that her sizzling need had gone away. Maybe after a thousand.

“That’s nice and all,” she said, watching his face with her head lifted an inch off the pillow, “but who says we can only do it once?”

He lifted a wicked eyebrow. “Not me.”

The promise of that thrilled her. She closed her eyes and pictured him doing her with all due deliberation, taking his time as he licked and sucked every inch of her before finally thrusting inside, deep inside, so very deep inside.

In her stomach, butterflies took flight. She gave him a wry look to counteract the fluttering. “This is so strange, to be having this conversation with you.”

“Ugh. That’s what I wanted to avoid.” He swooped over her, bringing his face so close that her vision blurred. Her eyes shut again and she concentrated on his mouth, moving against her lips in a talking kiss. “Don’t think.”

The sudden, stark desire had made her voice husky. “There’s a way to stop me from thinking.”

“Ah, but that won’t last forever.”

“Oh?” Why was she disappointed? She wasn’t prepared to think in terms of forever, or so she’d told herself each time another guy disappointed her.

“I…meant…sex,” Jamie said, planting wet, plucking kisses between every word. “We can’t do it all the time.” He pulled the blanket around them like a hood. She was warm—very warm. And still very aroused. “In between, you’ll think of reasons to screw up the relationship.”

Her smile curved into his next kiss. “Not if the other kind of screwing’s any good.”

He touched his lips to her forehead. “No pressure, hmm?”

She was surprised by the amused confidence of his tone. When had Jamie become so sure of himself? She’d always been the lead dog in their friendship, the one who came up with plans and issued invitations, from the very first day when she’d arrived at his hole-in-the-wall apartment in the East Village with an ice pack for his nose and box seat tickets to the Yankees. Back then, his approach with women had been boyishly self-effacing, even a little bit bashful. Since he also happened to be good-looking, plenty of women had found him adorably date-worthy.

They were such close friends, Marissa hadn’t really noticed that he’d changed. But he had.

He’s a man now, not a boy.

“You’re pretty sure of yourself.” She took his hand, directing it toward her breast.

His fingers folded up. He wouldn’t touch her there. “And you’re a temptress. Don’t get me started.”

“Such resolve.” She flung out her arms, giving up on persuasion.

“That’s easy when I’m committed,” he said, kissing her once more as a siren blasted out on the street.

She didn’t get to ask him what that meant, but merely the word made her heart go thump.

Not necessarily in a good way.

“Let me see.” Cradling Harry to her chest, Marissa squeezed past the police officer and the bureau that had been upended when the intruder forced the door. She was wearing an old Lollapalooza sweatshirt of Jamie’s. Barely an inch of skirt showed beneath it, making her legs look even longer and definitely more naked.

Jamie had seen the pair of officers checking her out. Butch and beefy in their uniforms, they’d puffed up their chests and gained much enthusiasm for the call when Marissa had met them in the hallway. She was so sexy and tousled even the man in the moon would have noticed if given a peek.

A small jewelry box had been knocked off the dresser. She let Harry go and he sprang onto the bed with a yowl, still upset that he’d been deserted despite Marissa’s reassuring hugs. She dusted off her hands and poked through the scattered jewelry, then moved around the room, checking for missing or misplaced items.

“Actually, I don’t think he was in here,” she said, coming back to the overturned dresser. “This mess happened when he forced the door.” She gestured over her shoulder at the unmade bed and pile of dirty laundry. “That mess is normal.”

Jamie smiled. Marissa never apologized for her lack of housekeeping. At times, he even believed that she wore the trait as a badge of honor. Her mother, she’d said, had devoted her life to waxing the linoleum and polishing the sinks.

Seeing the grin, Marissa pursed her lips at him. No comments from the peanut gallery.

One of the cops, O’Connor, scribbled in his notebook. “You sure nothing’s missing in here?”

She surveyed the closet again. A gold cross necklace was clasped between her palms, the chain looped around one delicate wrist. “Doesn’t look like it.”

The cop asked Jamie to help him right the dresser. After it was back on its legs, drawers askew, he said to Marissa, “Check the underwear drawer.”

Jamie blurted, “What?”

“We get a lot of weirdos,” O’Connor explained matter-of-factly. “They like to take souvenirs.”

Marissa screwed up her face and opened a couple of the drawers wider. Jamie glimpsed molded plum satin bra cups and frilly silk pastels. She had a lot of lingerie.

A tangled black thong had spilled over the edge. It dangled off one knob, so impossibly tiny it looked like Johnny Depp’s eye patch. Both men stared, until Marissa casually scooped up the garment and tossed it in a drawer. “There. All unmentionables accounted for.”

“How can you tell?” Jamie asked. His scalp was hot.

She gave him a sidelong look. A small tease of a smile. “I know when my panties have been touched.”

Jamie made a choking sound.

The officer snorted.

Marissa sailed out of the room. Harry darted after her. “The thief must not have gotten to the bedroom before I came home and interrupted him. He was looking for something specific and he hadn’t found it.”

“But you don’t know what?” asked the other cop, who’d been examining the locks on the front door. “He popped this, picked the dead bolt, then snapped the chain. Probably took less ’n five minutes.”

“You’re getting new locks,” Jamie said. “One of those huge iron bars that go right across the door. Maybe a moat. With crocodiles.”

“I’ll call a locksmith in the morning. Then a zoo.” Marissa toed the items scattered near the door. “Can I touch these?” The cop shrugged. “Because the guy said he wanted something I brought back from vacation, and other than my laundry…” She picked up a straw purse. “This is it.”

Jamie looked into the emptied purse. “What’s it?”

“My passport.” She found it on the floor. “The camera. A magazine. Odd bits and pieces that don’t mean a thing as far as I can tell.”

The cop loomed. “This was no ordinary break-in. Nothing’s missing. Not your jewelry. Not the TV or other electronics. Do you keep cash in the house?”

Marissa shook her head. “Not much to speak of. I had my wallet with me.”

Jamie had retrieved the pieces of the camera. “You might be able to get this fixed. The film is ruined though. You won’t have any pictures of your trip.”

“Not that I want to remember it,” Marissa said wryly, “but I loaded a fresh roll after I got home.” She waved a hand at the broken pieces. “You can toss that out. I needed a new digital camera anyway.”

“So we’ve got minor damage and nothing stolen,” the other policeman said. “Not much to go on, I’m afraid, Miss Suarez.”

“What about fingerprints?” She put a hand to her throat and shuddered. “Damn, that’s right. He wore gloves.”

Jamie moved closer, patting her back when what he really wanted was to stuff her in a bank vault under twenty-four-hour guard.

“And you didn’t see his face,” the officer reiterated. He’d already said there was little hope of an arrest.

“No, but I can tell you that he was a drinker who needed to see the dentist. Not much to go on.” Marissa shook her head, then suddenly brightened. “Oh! I forgot to say there was a second guy, at the bottom of the fire escape. He looked up at me. I saw his face. If he was the lookout, he wasn’t a very good one because he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.” Jamie squeezed her hand. “And it was strange, because something about him was familiar.”

“Like you might have known him?” O’Connor asked hopefully.

“No-o-o, not really. But I could have seen him around the neighborhood.”

“Casing the joint,” Jamie said, trying to make her smile.

O’Connor was all business. “That might be. Give me a description, ma’am. Height, weight, distinguishing characteristics.”

“That’s not so easy.” Marissa frowned. “It was dark. There were shadows. And he was dressed in black.”

“Race?”

“Caucasian. His face was pale. Narrow, with sharp features, so I’d say he was not very heavy. He had dark eyes and stubble.”

“Visible tattoos?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Could you identify him from a mug shot?”

“I can try.”

“Come by the precinct. I’ll set you up.” O’Connor gave her a card. “Here’s my number, for, uh, you know.”

Not all business, Jamie noted. The man’s face was getting ruddy and he kept glancing at her legs.

“Thanks,” Marissa said easily. She was accustomed to men stumbling over their tongues around her.

The cop tugged at his equipment-laden belt. No Freudian meaning there. “Do you have a place to stay?”

Jamie said, a little too loudly, “She does.” Marissa smiled at him, the slightly swollen look of her lips triggering his renewed arousal. He wished the police would hurry up and finish.

Muscles in the officer’s jaw bunched as he looked between them. “Gotcha.”

Marissa showed them to the door. “I’ll be in touch about the mug shots.” They insisted she should come in as soon as possible, while her memory was fresh.

“We’ll go together to the police station, but first we’re calling a locksmith,” Jamie said as soon as the officers were gone. “Seriously.”

She rubbed her neck. “Let’s get some sleep first.”

Sleep. Jamie’s heart dropped.

But she was right, of course. She’d been traumatized. She needed to rest, recover. He’d waited this long, he could wait another night, even though he suspected she’d change her mind about making love with him. If a short delay was all it took, then she was too unsure and becoming lovers wouldn’t have been right anyway.

So he told himself. His semihard dick wasn’t as understanding.

He shifted. Think about something else, bud. Anything but how stupid you were to put the brakes on when she’d been raring to go.

“Your suitcase,” he said.

“My suitcase?”

“Where is it?”

“Under the bed.” She rolled her lip between her teeth, blinking in thought. “Jamie! Do you think the mugger—the one on the street—was after my suitcase? Mine, specifically, I mean.” She clasped his arm, jogging it a little. “He could even be the same person that was here tonight!”

“That’s possible. Let’s go see.” They hurried back to the bedroom.

“It’s still here,” she said, pulling the bag out from beneath the bed. “Empty.” She sank down onto her knees and flipped it open to show him. Harry immediately appeared to jump into it, sniffing the corners and butting his head against the flap. “I dumped the suitcase in here when I got home, but the next day I took everything out so the damp swimsuits wouldn’t funk it up. See?” She made a face. “I’m not a total loss in the domestic department.”

He’d seen her in a bikini and funky wasn’t the word. Neither was domestic goddess. Just goddess.

“So what else was in the suitcase?” Harry was rubbing his ears against the zipper.

“Nothing but dirty clothes and a few pairs of shoes. I packed light.”

“The mugger didn’t know that. I think you’re right about him. Too much of a coincidence if the incidents were unrelated.”

“So they’ve made two attempts.” She leaned her head against the bed. “I just don’t get it. What do they want from me?”

Jamie sat and pulled her up beside him, disturbed by her fragility. For all the kick boxing and Pilates classes, she was a featherweight. It was up to him to keep her safe.

“Let’s go over it again. What did you bring back from the islands? There must have been some item you’ve forgotten. A souvenir maybe?”

“I wish I could produce a tiki god with a diamond embedded inside.” She shook her head. “But the only thing I bought on Grand Cayman was the straw purse. I needed a beach carry-all. That can’t be what the thief wanted. He threw it aside.”

“Okay, so what did the burglar say, exactly?”

She went quiet, mulling it over before finally answering. “He asked ‘Where is it?’ I didn’t know what he meant. I brought it home, he said.”

Jamie tried to examine the puzzle from another angle. “Then it’s possible the vacation had nothing to do with this?”

“It has to. I had the impression—” She made a sound of frustration. “Let me think. I swear he said something about me bringing it back from vacation.” There was a pause, then suddenly her head came up. “The airport! His exact words were that I brought it from the airport.” She dropped her voice, quoting. “And ‘We know what you did.’ Does that make any sense?”

Not to Jamie. “It’s almost as if they think you smuggled something in. Call it the tiki god theory.”

She tilted her chin. “So I’m Latin. That makes me look like a drug mule?”

He touched her cheek. “Marissa, full of grace.”

“Don’t charm me. I’d rather be mad than scared.”

“There are other emotions.”

“Like what?”

He knew what his body wanted him to say, but Marissa was first in his thoughts. “You should feel safe, secure. Comfortable.” His fingers brushed through her hair, combing the shining strands into a ponytail laid across her shoulder. The amber-flecked fire in her eyes dimmed as she relaxed, leaning toward him with a soft sigh.

He allowed himself a moment to breathe in her scent, before nudging her with his nose. “Hey, babe. Pack a few belongings and let’s get out of here. You’re staying at my place.”

“All right.” So compliant, for Marissa. “I need to leave a note for Shandi.”

“Shandi?”

Marissa winced. “Yes, she’s still staying with me.”

“What happened to the lice and cockroaches?” he teased, before an odd thought hit him. “Where is Shandi?”

“We were out together. She took off with a guy. I don’t expect her back for hours, if at all, but I want to leave a note anyway.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Marissa had gone to the closet. She pulled a hanger, frowning at him over her shoulder. “What does that tone mean?”

There were things about Shandi that Marissa didn’t know. She wasn’t a friend to count on, especially around men. Jamie had never thought it was his place to tell Marissa that. Not only because he’d rather gouge out his own eyes than see her hurt. He’d figured that Marissa already knew her friend’s character quite well and was choosing to overlook the negatives. Despite the toughness she projected, she believed in the essential goodness of human nature.

He evaded. “Just that it might be smart to get your keys back.”

“She already turned them over.”

“Oh.” And the lock had been picked, which was proof of nothing except that the burglar didn’t have keys.

“Again with the ‘oh.’” Marissa stared, clearly astounded. “Are you suspecting Shandi now?”

“She’s not the most reliable person, and she always needs money.”

“You’re way off the mark. If she’d wanted to rob me, she could have emptied the apartment while I was on vacation.”

“But you came back early, right?”

Marissa threw a dress at him. With the heavy wood hanger still in it.

He batted it down. “All right, I’m sorry. I was only trying to figure this out. Don’t hang me for it.”

“Ha, ha.” She went to a lingerie drawer, grabbed a couple of skimpy little silk things and balled them in her hand. “You catch Harry and then let’s go.”