Stay the Night (15 page)

This was unacceptable. She had a job to do; she couldn't let irrational, jealous rage distract her like this. She'd gone to bed with Rob an hour after she'd met him—what the guys in the Chicago office called pulling a four-one-niner. That gave her exactly zero right to be treated as anything else.

“Dennis,” she murmured, knowing her voice would be picked up by the microphone hidden behind the frame of the painting in front of her.

“Yes, ma'am.”

She pretended to wipe off some nonexistent dust from one scroll of the frame. “I've got to grab some aspirin. Let the others know I'm taking five.”

“No problem.”

Chris made her way to the manager's office, slipping inside and locking the door behind her. The state she was in shocked her. Her hands shook, her heart pounded, and she still couldn't catch her breath. Fortunately she wasn't wearing a sound transmitter, and Dennis hadn't bugged the manager's office, so he wouldn't hear her hyperventilating.

She took off her jacket, hanging it on the back of the door, and sat on the edge of one of the client chairs. She had five minutes to pull herself together, and she was going to need every second of it.

 

Robin had watched Chris Renshaw pretending to be an art dealer for some time before she noticed him and the contessa from the other side of the gallery.

Special Agent Chris Renshaw,
he corrected himself as she retreated to a room at the back of the place.
An undercover agent with America's version of Scotland Yard. Agent
sounded especially ridiculous, as if she were a spy. She wouldn't be called a constable or an inspector. No, in this country they called their investigators detectives or cops.

That was a particular thorn in his side: He'd slept with a cop. He, Robin of Locksley, the greatest thief of all time, had rested in the arms of the enemy.

I might as well have taken a Brethren to bed
.

“That scowl on your face makes me think the woman with the titian locks is your Agent Renshaw,” the contessa said. “She was staring at you just before she scurried off to hide.”

“So she was.” Robin guided his companion around a persistent young woman with an appalling head of pink hair and led her to the case containing
The Maiden's Book of Hours
. One glance told him it was the book Brother Crewes had presented to the king just before the greedy bastard had sold Marian to Guisbourne.

Robin was more interested in the door to the office where Chris had disappeared. It remained closed.

“It is such a beautiful thing,” Salva murmured, examining the manuscript through the glass. “I can see why you have coveted it all these years.” She gave him a quizzical look. “But,
caro
, why have you not taken it before now?”

“It was stolen from me and given to my cousin during my human lifetime, and then pilfered from his household and taken out of the country,” Robin said, watching the office door. He didn't care for the fact that Chris had come to Atlanta only to catch him, and had baited the trap with the one prize that had always eluded him over the years. Still, it made no difference. No one had ever captured him, not once since he had turned to the outlaw life seven hundred years ago; she would fail just as thoroughly as all the others.

What he could not accept, what he would not tolerate another moment, was her hiding from him. She couldn't ignore him like this, though, as if nothing ever happened between them. He had allowed her into his home. He had been her lover. He had slept in her
arms
.

The contessa was speaking to him, and Robin frowned. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you tried to recover it from the original thief who took it from England,” Salva said.

Robin forced himself to answer her in a civil fashion. “At the time it was stolen from my cousin, I had to flee the country for my own reasons. It was fifty years before I had the means and time to track the thief. He sold it to a convent in Rome, but it was again stolen from there and resold to the Vatican. It disappeared from their secret archives, then was taken and sold in France, and then Spain, and then Germany.” His hands curled into fists. “Each time it surfaced in the centuries after, some bloody mortal always got to it before I could.”

“How greedy and inconvenient humans can be.” The contessa trailed her scarlet-nailed fingertips over the glass. “I am happy that it will be yours at last, my lord. Shall I go and have the female give it to you after the show, or would you prefer she personally deliver it to your stronghold? Perhaps I could persuade her to crawl on her knees on her way to you there.”

Robin couldn't believe Chris had not yet come out. Not another second would he wait for this faithless mortal to acknowledge his presence.

“I shall see to her,” he told Salva. “Wait here.”

Robin strode to the office, but found the door locked when he tried it. A simple twist of his hand using his Kyn strength broke the locking mechanism and allowed him to enter the room.

Chris Renshaw straightened as soon as he closed the door behind him. He twisted the knob again to jam it shut. “You can't come in here.”

“Yet I have.” He regarded her steadily as he deliberately shed his scent, surrounding her with it. “I had expected you would come and greet me when I arrived. Unless perhaps you have gone blind since last night?”

“I can see fine.” Her eyes remained clear, her pupils normal as she offered him a brief, polite smile. “I apologize for not saying hello. I didn't notice you coming in.”

That proved beyond a doubt to him that she could resist
l'attrait
. “You are a better liar than that, madam.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Rob. I have to get back to the show.” She stepped toward him and glanced up when he didn't move out of her way. “Excuse me.”

“No, I do not excuse you,” he said, enjoying the way his tone startled her. “I know you saw me. Why did you not come to me?”

Chris backed away from him. “All right, I did catch a glimpse of you and your companion when one of the press asked me about you. I didn't come over because I felt awkward about approaching you.”

“Awkward.”

“I didn't want to say anything that might embarrass you in front of your date.” She had to force her next words out. “I didn't mean to be rude. Again, I apologize.”

“You were protecting me. I see.” Robin advanced on her. “Tell me, what did you think would embarrass me most? That you might slip up and mention that you used me for sex? Or perhaps that you never told me your full name? Or that you left my bed this morning without bothering to wake me or say farewell?”

“I wrote you a note—”

“Oh, God, yes, how could I forget? The effusive, affectionate, one-line note of thanks.” He had her pinned against the desk now, and leaned down until their faces were only a breath apart. “I've not earned such an unstinting amount of gratitude since the last time I held a door open for an elderly woman using a cane.”

“Rob.”

“Robin.
That
is my name. Say it. Say all of it.”

“Robin.” Her lashes came down, hiding her eyes from him. “Listen, I've never done anything like that, and I really didn't know what to do except leave. I told you, I don't pick up guys in bars. I don't have one-night stands.”

“There, now,
that
has a ring of truth to it.” He used a finger to trace the edge of her blouse's front placket. “But technically speaking, I wasn't a one-night stand, was I? You didn't stay the night.” He wove his fingertip in and out of the row of buttons. “By my calculations, love, you owe me two more hours. I'd like to collect.”

“I can't—” She stopped as he brought his hand up and used his thumb to pop off the first button at the top of her blouse, and her throat worked as she swallowed. “Don't do this, Robin.”

“Why not?” He circled the second button, watching the frantic throb of her pulse hammer in the hollow between her collarbones. “You liked it well enough last night. You put my hands on you. You wanted me to do it.” The second button fell on the desk.

“That was then. This is my job.”

“Your job.” He moved his fingers down to the third button. “You didn't tell me what that was, either.”

“Someone is going to come looking for me any minute,” she warned.

“Let them try.”

“Robin.” She put her hand over his, trapping his fingers between her cold palm and her warm body. “Please stop.”

Her indifference had shocked him; her lies had enraged him; but the manner in which her voice quavered over the
please
struck him like a burning mace to the side of the head.

He looked into her eyes, as wounded by her fear as her deception. “Did it truly mean nothing to you?”

“Maybe it started out that way,” she said slowly, “but when I woke up and saw you sleeping next to me, and remembered . . . I didn't know I would feel like that.” Her shoulders rounded, and she stared at the floor. “I didn't even think about you, not really. I got dressed as fast as I could, and I ran.”

“You can't regret being with me,” he said, shaken. He ran a piece of her hair through his fingers and looked all over her face. “Not how we were together.” When she didn't reply, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her against him.
“Chris.”

“No. No, I don't.” She spoke as if she were ashamed of that fact. Then her expression cleared, and she touched his cheek. “You were better than any fantasy I've ever had.”

Robin's confusion doubled. “If that is true, why did you run away?”

“Haven't you ever done something amazing and dangerous and exciting,” she asked, “that you later wished you'd never done at all? Because you know it could change everything you have, everything you are?”

“So you ran away because you wanted more.” Bitter memories made him laugh. “Yes, actually, I have done that myself.” Robin urged her closer, folding her against him, and rested his chin against the top of her head. “I believe this is where my severely bruised pride takes a tumble.”

“It's not you. It's me. My life. My choices.” Chris tilted her head back and kissed his cheek. “I am glad you understand. I'll never forget you, or the night we spent together.”

Now she thought he was being understanding. Accepting. Happy to slink off into the night and leave her to her sting operations and undercover work. But at least he had the comfort of knowing that she would never forget having sex with him.

If he left this room without throttling her, Robin thought, it would be a miracle.

“Before you send me on my way,” he said carefully, “and go back to living your life as it was, there is something else I want you to remember.” He put his hands around her waist, lifted her off her feet, and brought her mouth to his.

Chris tried to push him off for all of five seconds before her hands shifted and wound around his neck and her lips parted for his tongue.

Robin groaned. She might look like a posh barrister, his Chris, but she kissed like a Persian courtesan. As she had last night, she met his hunger by offering her own. Her soft, silky mouth tugged and caressed; her tongue stroked and tasted.

His anger had not vanished, and Chris's generous response added resentment to the ire he felt. He knew how to use finesse with a female, but she had brought forth the brute in him, and he took it out on her mouth. She didn't go passive, however. She met his fury with an affectionate indulgence, catching his lip between the edge of her teeth or stroking his face with her fingers, petting him, as if she meant to dare him to do more, take more.

After centuries of embracing softly yielding human females willing to meet his every need, the erotic challenge of kissing this one drove Robin wild. No one had ever made him feel this, and he would not let it end. To hell with the manuscript, the FBI, humanity, the Kyn, and the rest of the bloody world. She would not dismiss him from her life. He would find a way to win her heart.

“Wait.” She gasped the word between ferocious kisses. “Fire.”

He found he had to literally wrench his mouth from hers in order to hear her over the miserable clanging sound in his brain. “What?”

“Alarm.” She tore free of his hands and heaved in a breath, staggering a little as she went around him.
“Fire alarm.”

Chapter 8

C
hris couldn't get out of the office, not until Robin reached past her and jerked the door open. As soon as he did, she heard men shouting and women screaming beneath the earsplitting screech of the fire alarm. A crackling sound drowned out the hiss of water spraying from the ceiling, but she saw no flames or smoke in the air.

As she came around the corner she had to swerve to avoid a huge cage of jagged glass. Inside, three people huddled on the floor, their clothes covered with what looked like white flour. Their teeth chattered as they held on to each other and called for help. All around the gallery the guests were caught in a dozen other identical cages.

“Hold on. We'll get you out.” Chris grabbed the bars, and the cold, slick bars stung her palms. She pulled her hands away and stared at the water on them.

The cages weren't made of glass, but ice.

Robin looked up. “It's the water from the fire sprinkler system,” he told her, his mouth tight. “The spray has been frozen.”