Read Touched by a Thief Online
Authors: Jana Mercy
A play of emotions ran across his face, but revealed nothing that he didn’t want her to see. “Not much more than you do. It’s a precious gem Kincaid’s stolen and there’s a high price for the return.”
“It’s return to whom? Who did Gerard steal the Degassi from? And since when did he start stealing jewelry?”
Ian eyed her for long moments. “How did you learn Kincaid had the diamond?”
“How did you?” She tossed back at him.
“I’m a jewel thief.” He lifted one shoulder nonchalantly. “It’s my job to know.”
“That’s my line.” She eyed him suspiciously. He shrugged again and leaned back in the luxurious seat, looking completely relaxed. As if they weren’t in the middle of a conversation, his gaze dropped to the paper he’d been reading earlier.
Her time in prison had given her a lot of time to think, to replay every moment spent with Ian, had given her time to look for clues that she shouldn’t have trusted him. “Are you really a jewel thief, Ian?”
Would he tell her the truth even if he wasn’t?
His dark gaze lifted from the newspaper he’d been reading. With great care he folded the paper and set it down on the screwed down table that separated their seats. “What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I knew the answer.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He had her there. She might. To see if he’d lie to her. Of course he’d lie to her. This was Ian. Everything between them had been a lie.
“Are you?”
“I wouldn’t think you’d have to ask me that. We met inside the Vandenberger Estate when we were both attempting to steal a certain diamond tiara once worn by the Queen of Sweden.”
“But you’d been hired to return the tiara to Sweden.” At his raised eyebrow, she gasped. No. “You lied to me.” Of course he’d lied to her. Hadn’t she just admitted to herself that everything had been a lie. “You tricked me into giving you the tiara.”
She’d had plans for the money she’d have gotten for that tiara. But he’d prayed upon her love of history and sense of fair play. He’d told her the royal family had incandescently hired him to return one of their missing treasures. And she’d bought his lies hook, line, and sinker. How he must have laughed at her handing over what must have easily netted him over a quarter mil.
“I’m a treasure hunter. Finding rare and beautiful things is my job.”
“And taking those things as your own?”
“On occasion, but usually I work for hire to the highest bidder.”
“Gerard is currently the highest bidder?”
“Currently.”
“And what treasure was it that he hired you to bring him?”
Ian’s mouth split into a wry grin. “You.”
She took a moment to digest the implications of his answer, of Ian confirming her suspicions. Gerard had masterminded everything that happened between she and Ian. Well, not everything, but he’d masterminded her arrest, masterminded her time in prison, her release, her gratitude toward him. The attraction had already been there, but Gerard had known that wasn’t enough to win her loyalty.
The only thing that didn’t make sense was why he’d leave Ian in the picture when he had to know she’d connect the pieces of the puzzle.
“Which doesn’t explain why you’re still on Gerard’s payroll.”
“No, it doesn’t, does it?”
“Quit answering me with questions, Ian. I deserve better than that.”
“Do you?” He leaned forward, a menacing gleam in his eyes. “Do you really?”
“Yes.” She clamped her lips closed to keep from saying more.
“Odd, last I recall you claimed to love me and yet four months later you’re fucking like a dog in heat with an old lover.”
He sounded like a jealous lover, but she knew better than to buy into that. Ian was manipulating her, trying to throw her off balance, something he excelled at. “Last I recall you set me up to take a fall so I’d be ingratiated to said past lover.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing with Kincaid? Expressing gratitude?” he sneered, the amused light once again snuffed out of his eyes. “A simple thank you wouldn’t work, Monty?”
“My sex life is none of your business.”
“Odd, this morning your sex life was most definitely my business.”
He had her there. Lord, why had she let him inside her?
Her gaze lowered over the black t-shirt wrapped enticingly around his broad chest, over where that broad chest tapered into flat abs, a narrow waist that disappeared into tight black jeans. Not that Ian wore his jeans overly tight. But at the moment his threatened to burst at the seams.
Because his massive arousal pushed against his zipper.
Excitement slid into her belly and danced merrily around.
No! She wouldn’t give in to this man’s charms again. Nor would she give in to her own weaknesses. Her biggest weakness. Him.
“Old habits can be hard to break. Besides you go four months without sex in any shape, form, or fashion and then you can throw the first stone.”
Something shifted in Ian’s gaze. No way.
It couldn’t be. He was deceiving her again. Ian hadn’t been imprisoned, hadn’t had a reason to go without. He’d been free, had been gloriously exuding sexual appeal wherever he went and no doubt women had been falling at his gorgeous feet.
What had flashed in his eyes was just another manipulation, another deceit. No doubt many women had warmed his bed.
Damn him.
And damn her jealousy.
Still, Monty wasn’t above using his apparent desire for her to her advantage. She leaned forward, giving him a clear view of the bra-less cleavage on display beneath her black tank.
His gaze took the bait and hot emotion flashed.
It struck her that they matched up in every way. In clothing. In deceit. In the games they played with each other. Because for all his hard-on, he was toying with her just as much as she was toying with him. Sad, but she knew it was true.
Which unfortunately didn’t damper her body’s response to his nearness.
Ian made her panties wet, made her pussy hungry for what he alone could give her.
The predatory look in his eyes as he undid his seat belt said he knew she was wet. For him.
He didn’t say anything, just reached down and undid her safety belt as well and pulled her to her feet. In one quick downward tug, Monty’s tank bunched beneath her bare breasts, lifting her breasts. Why hadn’t she worn a bra?
Ian’s gaze feasted on her puckered nipples.
That was why. Because she’d known a bra would only be in the way. Would only provide yet another unnecessary barrier between them.
He grazed his thumb over her nipple, not rough, but not gentle, either. The peak hardened, strained toward him, begging for his mouth. Its jealous twin did the same.
Monty didn’t move, didn’t dare take a breath.
She should stop him, but wouldn’t. How could you stop the moon from rising in the night sky?
She needed him as surely as an addict needed their next fix. Needed him more than pride could abate.
Her breasts rose and fell in heavy breaths, aching with her need, aching with their addiction to Ian’s touch.
“I smell your desire, Monty.” His thumb continued its torturous circling. “Sweet and intoxicating, but poisonous, too.”
Poisonous? “Should I remind you who betrayed who?”
“Betrayal comes in many forms.”
His answer startled her, momentarily distracted her from the electric sensations whirling through his mid-section. “I never betrayed you, Ian.”
“Didn’t you?”
She stared at him long moments. “Are you afraid of me, Ian? Is that what Sumner’s was about? Why you set me up even after everything we’d shared?”
“No,” he denied. But she wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t yet again lying to her. That knowledge pushed her forward a step, causing her breasts to smash against the soft material of his t-shirt. “But you should be afraid of me, Monty. Very afraid.”
“You’ve already hurt me in the only way you can, Ian,” she reminded. “And because of that,” she ran her foot up his calf, “you no longer have access to that part of me.”
“Don’t I?”
Arrogant bastard.
“Not from the moment you made the decision to let me take the fall for a job you botched.”
He didn’t deny that his mistake had alerted the alarm system, that if she hadn’t returned for him, she’d never have been caught while he slipped away.
Instead, his palm covered her breast. “But I still have access to this?”
He squeezed her breast, hard, sending a spasm of pleasure straight to the core between her legs.
“You watched me with Gerard. Surely you figured out the truth?” She liked how his eyes darkened, how his lips scowled, how his free hand went around her, dug into her back making her press more intimately to him.
“What truth?” His hand possessively worked her breast.
“I enjoy sex. I have no qualms admitting that, despite your faults, you’re a good lover. Those abstinent months in jail only served to increase my sexual appetite.”
Surprise registered at her admission, but only briefly.
“That’s what this,” he ground his hips against her, letting his hard cock dig into her belly, “is about?”
She wanted him, but would never admit the real reasons. Not ever again. Not to herself. Not to him. Not to anyone. He’d used her for sex, used her for the tiara, for the Sumner heist that had been estimated at several hundred k, used her for Gerard, used her for who only knew what. This time, she’d do the using, the hurting.
She’d use him and get the Degassi for herself.
“Don’t fool yourself, Ian. This is what it’s always been about. You didn’t really believe me when I said I loved you?” She sounded sincere even to her own ears and that sincerity prompted her to continue. “People like us don’t love, Ian. Not beyond ourselves at any rate. Brilliant you used me before I got the chance to betray you.” She shrugged as if what had happened between them hadn’t shattered her heart. “You one-upped me and I didn’t see it coming. My blindness hurt, but you? You never meant more to me than any other talented lover I’ve had.”
“I never meant anything to you?” He didn’t sound convinced. She wasn’t sure if that came from not wanting to believe or just that his giant ego wouldn’t let him.
“Never,” she lied, stroking his other giant ego through the denim of his pants. “Just a means to an end. A pleasurable end.”
“Liar.” To prove his point, his mouth lowered to hers and set about seducing an admission.
One she’d rather cut her tongue out than give him.
Then again, dueling with his plundering tongue in her mouth provided a much, much better distraction from making an admission or cutting out traitorous body parts.
Chapter Six
She was lying.
Ian’s gut instinct said so and he’d learned long ago to trust his instincts despite what the facts around him said.
Then again, what did he really know about Monty? She’d been a mark from the beginning. One he’d gotten more entangled with than he should have, but a mark all the same.
A mark he had no business being entangled with at the moment. None whatsoever.
Then again, he’d always lived on the edge.
Kissing Monty pushed him over that edge, made him freefall to dark, empty unknown chasms.
Places that made him grind his body into hers.
He wanted her. Fiercely. Unrepentedly. Desperately.
Damn, they had too many clothes on.
No one else was on the plane. Just them, the pilot, and co-pilot who wouldn’t dare disturb Kincaid’s guests. It was hours before they’d land at Heathrow.
But that didn’t slow the urgency within him.
He undid her pants and had them off of her in the bat of an eye. She wasn’t wearing underwear. He’d watched her dress, knew she hadn’t been. Perhaps that had added to the way he’d been silently bubbling over for the past couple of hours as they’d left the New York penthouse via limousine and headed to JFK to board the private plane.
He wanted her. Had always wanted this woman.
At the moment she was his for the taking.
He wasn’t a fool. Nor was he a saint.
He’d take what she offered. That and more. For all he knew, this plane trip would be the last opportunity he’d have to feel Monty’s tight wet pussy clench around him. He planned to have his fill.
Oh, yeah, he liked to live life on the edge and the path he was walking was razor sharp, but there was no turning back.
He’d always been more of a plunge forward kind of man anyway.
She lifted her arms, removed the tank that was bunched at her mid-section, and stood before him. Naked, proud, sexy as hell. She hadn’t bothered with make-up. She rarely did. Never needed to. She’d pulled her long hair up with a rubber band, the long strands still sweeping low on her back.