The Black Sheep and The English Rose. Donna Kauffman
from the hamper—“or something more personal.”
“With the Russian connection dissolving at dinner, I seriously doubt he came back here to dally around with someone just for the fun of it,” she said. “It had to be business of some sort.”
“Of course,” Finn added, smiling, “you don’t work with a partner, either. Until now. Desperate times, and all that.”
She arched a brow. “Meaning you think he was backed into a corner? Calling in a few favors?”
“Or performing them.” Finn shrugged, and grinned in the face of her glare. “Whatever works.”
“Honestly, Finn.”
“Here,” he said, clearly enjoying her huff far too much, but then he was handing her the glass with the lipstick, a napkin wrapped carefully around the stem and saying, “Let’s get back to my place and see what we can find out about our tarty mystery guest.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I keep a place in town.”
Her surprise must have shown, because he lifted a broad shoulder and said, “You keep a car; I keep a brownstone. We need what we need.”
“Are you in town all that often?” A tingle of heightened awareness shivered over her as she wondered how many times their paths might have crossed in the past two years, given how often she’d done Foundation business in Manhattan. She’d thought him buried in the rural pastures of the Virginia countryside, running his little charitable organization or some such. In fact, she’d prided herself on not doing more than a cursory check or two on him after he’d left her in Prague. But the truth was, even though she’d thought that not giving him more of her actual time and effort would help to diminish the continued impact he had on her thoughts and quiet moments, it hadn’t helped one bit.
She thought about him every time she accepted a new assignment, wondering if this was going to be the time he’d pop up again. And there were other times, usually when she woke up too early, restless and pent up, feeling needy and more alone than a woman of her means had any right to complain about. It was during those times she’d close her eyes and remember what it had been like, what it had felt like, to be with him. She was a confident woman, who handled her affairs, both private and public, with relative ease. But only with Finn had she been such a complete and total wanton. No one had tapped in to her inner core as he had done, and he’d done so almost effortlessly.
“Shall we?”
She snapped out of her reverie, realizing she’d been staring at the champagne glass in her hand. Finn likely thought she was brooding over not getting the attentions of John Reese. Fine, she thought, let him think that. More the better for her if Finn never knew the level of fascination she’d had for him. Still had, apparently. Dammit.
She tried her best to appear unaffected and coolly in control as she sailed out of the hotel room in front of him, the carefully wrapped glass tucked into the Hermes tote she kept stashed in the town car in case of spontaneous shopping trips. But Finn’s long-legged stride kept him right at her back. And she could feel him there, just behind her, in a rather primal way that had no bearing whatsoever on what was actually taking place. She blamed it on the damp towels and lipstick-smeared champagne glass. All too suggestive for her suddenly overheated imagination.
Finn reached past her and pressed the elevator button. When he stepped in after her, she felt a bit claustrophobic, as if he was suddenly taking up way too much space, using up way too much of her precious air. And yet, he was standing a respectable distance from her, not so much as looking at her. Which did nothing to stop the little mini fantasy from playing out in her mind. She couldn’t seem to keep herself from imagining what would happen if she suddenly jammed the emergency button, stopping the lift between floors, then catching his reflected gaze in the mirrored walls.
Mirrored walls that would show them from every angle as he saw the need in her eyes, pushed her up against the silvery tiles, and pulled her legs up around his hips. He’d shove her skirt up her thighs as she wove her fingers into his hair and took the weight of his mouth on hers. Their tongues would be dueling, mirrors steaming, her panties—snapped from her hips—in a crumple on the tiled lift floor.
She knew exactly, remembered perfectly, the depth and breadth of him, the way he filled her so fully, so completely. She would arch into him, taking him as he drove her back up the wall, spine arched, chin tilted, exposing her neck to his greedy mouth, gasping as he shoved her higher so he could nip and tear at the tiny row of buttons keeping her dress closed, her nipples aching to the point of pain from wanting his warm breath, his damp tongue, caressing them, sucking them. She’d moan, and thrust her hips, and—
“Have a problem with tight spaces?”
She blinked her eyes open at the sound of his voice, then flushed furiously as she realized that last little moan hadn’t taken place in the fevered depths of her highly realized fantasy. “Not usually,” she managed, wishing her own tight spaces would stop reminding her of the problem she was currently experiencing. Namely wanting the man next to her to invade them. Often, and with great fortitude.
Finn let her lead from the elevator, though the cooler, damp air of the underground parking garage did little to calm her steamed thoughts. Or body. He held the door to her town car open as he had before, only this time she wasn’t nearly as composed. It was lack of food, she was certain, causing her to experience such dodgy behavior. They’d ended up skipping John’s offer at Antoine’s, leaving the tea and biscuits she’d shared with him earlier as her only source of energy for the day.
“I don’t suppose you have a chef on duty at your place?” she inquired, wanting like mad to find her way back to solid ground.
“Hungry?”
Ravenous, she thought, only she wasn’t picturing food as she had the thought. She glanced out the window and summoned up her most regal intonation. “I could do with a light meal, a sandwich or salad perhaps. I’m afraid all I’ve had today is tea and champagne, and a few biscuits.”
“And here I was hoping you were thinking about dessert.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t. The last thing she needed right now was him baiting her in any way that was remotely sexual. She was baiting herself quite well, all on her own. “First things first,” she somehow managed, knowing full well she’d likely need a whole lot more than a full meal to give her the strength she apparently needed to deal with him on a continued one-on-one basis. Especially seeing as she was going to be behind closed doors, in private with him, at least for the next several hours. With a bed handily nearby. She sighed a little, not caring at this point what he thought.
“I’ll see what I can scrounge up,” he said, a hint of concern in his voice. “We shouldn’t dally too long, though. Reese has to be making plans to set up a buy as we speak. We need to get a handle on his partner and/or buyer, then move on it as fast as we can.”
She trembled with a bit of relief. No dallying. She was perfectly fine with no dallying. She didn’t even feel bad for making him worry just a little about her. The fact that he did made it just as hard on her anyway. “You have equipment to do a fingerprint trace from the glass?”
“I have access there to a lot of things.”
She let that bit of news sink in, wondering now if his reasons for keeping a place in town were more business oriented than sentimental or personal. A convenient way to keep the various tools and technology one needed in a profession such as his handy and available. If her every move wasn’t so keenly followed by either her Foundation board or the folks who employed her for her other services, she’d consider making a similar investment herself.
The more she thought about it, the more the idea of having her own private little oasis appealed to her. Imagine a place where no one could track her every moment, her every scheduled breath. Not an impersonal hotel room, or one of her family’s ancestral holdings, complete with gossipy staff, but her very own, very private, very personal little place.
She