Billionaires Prefer Blondes (5 page)

She pulled out her lipstick and mirror, glancing at Rick as she did so. If he didn’t want her to take a look behind her, he would let her know. Instead, though, he glanced over at her, his eyes dancing. “How does Crawford look?” he breathed.

Taking a peek, she touched her lip with her pinky and then lowered the mirror again. “I’d give him another quarter million, and then he’s going to either barf or pass out. You’ve got him.”

“Don’t you know it, sweetheart.”

Even as she chuckled, she added an addendum to her note—“Hands off Mike.” “Mike” was short for Michelangelo, their code for artwork in general. Paintings specifically were Vince—for Van Gogh—but Rick had just purchased a Rodin, too, after all. The thieves’ code said Martin should pass on Addison’s take just because she had the closer connection, but her dad had never exactly played by the rules when he could avoid it. And Martin was definitely out hunting.

Whether Rick ended up with the second Hogarth or not, she wanted to be able to talk to Martin without either of them risking arrest. She had a big basketful of questions for him—and for herself, when she had a few minutes to think in private. Hell, her father was
alive
. And that was huge. Huge, and very worrying. Forcibly she pushed those thoughts away to be stewed over later.

“Ten million eight. Do I hear ten million nine?”

Samantha shifted a little, for a moment wishing she was
one of those girls whose only concern in life was not messing up a fresh manicure. It would be boring as hell, but safe except for the worry over hangnails.

“Getting impatient?” Rick murmured at her. “Or bored?”

“Just anticipating the victory celebration,” she whispered back, brushing her thigh against his.

“So am I. Let’s test your theory about Crawford, shall we?” He lifted the catalog again. “Eleven million,” he said in a carrying voice.

The audience muttered admiringly. Yes, her fella would spend an extra half million just to get a little more fuck time with her.

“We have eleven million from Mr. Addison.”

She lifted her mirror again. “Crawford just shook his head. Wuss.”

“Shut up,” Rick murmured. “Don’t rile the potential competition.”

“Mr. Crawford,” Smythe said, “I can take fifty thousand, if you don’t wish to go by hundreds. No? Very well, then. Our phone bidder, Jenny?”

“Eleven million two,” came from the short woman holding the phone.

Smythe gestured from her to Rick. “We have eleven m—”

“Twelve million,” Rick interrupted, gazing at Jenny rather than the auctioneer.

The poor thing looked rattled as she repeated the amount into the handset. Samantha couldn’t blame her. Rick could be pretty formidable, even toward the messenger. After a moment her expression eased into relief, and she shook her head. Game over.

“No further bids? Then”—The gavel slammed down—“sold to Mr. Addison for twelve million dollars. Congratulations again, sir.”

The room burst into applause. Samantha joined in—until Rick stood, pulled her to her feet, and smacked a kiss on her mouth in classic Victory Day style. Little as she liked both being confined and public displays, she swept her arms around his shoulders and hung on as he bent her farther backward.

“Was that the victory celebration?” she asked, as he sat her upright and she could breathe again.

“Hardly,” he replied, taking her hand in his as he kissed her again. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

Not until she’d made sure all of his purchases were safe. “What about our art?” she asked, resisting his pull.

“I’ll have it shipped to England.”

Every fiber told her what a bad idea that was. “Can’t we bring them to the townhouse? You suggested it, anyway.”

He lowered his eyebrows. “Not the Rodin. It weighs half a ton.”

“The Hogarths, though?” she pursued, wishing for a moment that her past would stop biting her in the ass. “Come on, Rick. I used to steal paintings that were set aside for shipping. Leaving ’em here makes me jumpy.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’ll go have a word with Talmadge.”

“Thanks.” Ron Talmadge was Sotheby’s director of sales, though she wondered how he’d managed to keep his job for the last nine years when she’d personally taken about eighty million dollars’ worth of paintings from the premises. For a second she wondered whether Rick had any idea that her visits here had netted her nearly fifteen million bucks. Of course,
netted
wasn’t exactly the right word; thieves had a lot of people to pay off if they wanted to keep out of jail.
Staying in the shadows could be damn expensive. Still, she was a member of the millionaire club, even if he’d surpassed that level.

As soon as Rick walked to the side of the room and signaled Talmadge, Samantha folded her note deep into her palm and headed toward the restroom. As she passed her father she took a shaky breath and slipped the note into his pocket.

Her fingers brushed the wool of his coat and she shivered, speeding up her retreat. Jesus, she’d touched him, and he hadn’t vanished into smoke. He was real. Martin Jellicoe was actually alive. And she’d just made an appointment to see him in four hours. Life was very strange.

Tuesday, 10:53 p.m.

D
eep satisfaction ran through Richard as he waited near the Sotheby’s entrance for Samantha. He had the Rodin, a classic painting, and one never-before-seen Hogarth, which left the rest of the evening with nothing to do but indulge his passion, his obsession, for Samantha Jellicoe.

She appeared a moment later, all mesmerizing green eyes, silky auburn hair, and very fine red dress. Whatever had been eating at her during the auction she seemed to have resolved, because her smile on seeing him could melt granite. It made his knees weak, and at the same time made him want to do great deeds worthy of someone as unique and exceptional as she was.

He took her hand as she reached him. Even after five months, he needed to touch her as frequently as possible, to assure himself that she hadn’t vanished into the night.
“I called Ben,” he said, drawing her up close to him. “He’s waiting out front.”

“And the Hogarths?”

“Wrapped and ready to join us.”

She nodded. “Good.”

They reached the doorway, and Richard held the door open as Samantha and a handful of Sotheby’s employees, two toting paintings and the rest providing security, exited to the sidewalk. Ben already had the limousine doors open, and they stowed the Hogarths behind the driver’s seat. Putting them in the trunk seemed…insulting.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Richard said, accepting another round of congratulations and ignoring the swarming paparazzi as he helped Samantha into the back seat. She could do it herself without any trouble, but as she liked to point out, he enjoyed playing the knight in shining armor. It ran in his blood, apparently.

“Satisfied?” Samantha asked, as Ben closed their door and hurried around to the driver’s seat.

“I got what I wanted. Mostly.” Reaching over to cup her cheek in one hand, he leaned in to kiss her, slow and deep. She was more intoxicating than champagne.

She kissed him back, reaching behind her with one hand to hit the button raising the privacy panel between the passengers and the driver. “So a fortune in art isn’t enough for you?”

Slowly he slipped one of the red spaghetti straps down her shoulder, kissing her skin as he did so. “Not when you’re here.”

“Smooth,” she breathed, the edges of her voice a bit unsteady. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until we get back to the townhouse?”

“I can’t,” he replied, sliding a hand up her thigh beneath the silky red skirts. Reaching back to the console on his door panel, he pushed the intercom button. “Ben, take the long way,” he said.

“Yes, s—”

He flipped it off again.

“Great. Now Ben knows what we’re doing.”

“You think he didn’t know before?” With a tug, Richard lowered the front of her gown to her waist. She hadn’t worn a bra, so he didn’t have to waste any time with that. He lowered his head, tasting her soft breasts, feeling her nipples bud beneath his tongue. She gave a shivery gasp that nearly had him splitting the zipper of his trousers.

“What if some photographer’s following us with an infrared camera or something?” she squeaked, arching against him.

“There is a point where you’re taking paranoia too far, Sam,” he said, nudging her onto her back along the leather seat.

“Would this be the point?” she asked, sliding a hand down to gently cup his crotch, her green gaze holding his with an innocence that could still fool him on occasion. “Mm, somebody’s happy.”

“That is precisely the point, my love.” He pushed her skirts up, bunching the dress at her waist. “Christ,” he murmured, looking down at her. “Red thongs.”

She grinned breathlessly. “I thought you’d like those. I’m trying a new style.”

“I like them better off.” While she lifted her hips, he slid the thongs down her thighs and her knees and off over her red high-heeled shoes. No hose for Samantha, unless it was a dress requirement. And thank God for that. “Are you
going to tell me what was bothering you in the auction room?” he asked, tossing the underwear over his shoulder in the direction of the Hogarths.

“Nothing. It was just…weird, being on the legit side of things. Now, are you just going to kneel there, or are you going to do something?”

“Oh, I’ll do something.” Straightening, he unzipped his trousers, shoved them and his boxers down to his thighs, and moved in over her. As she wrapped her ankles around his hips, he slowly pushed inside her. Tight and hot and his. “How’s this?” he grunted, elbows on either side of her face.

She shuddered, and he felt it to his roots. Wordlessly Samantha pulled his face down to kiss him openmouthed. Tangling her hands in his hair, she kept him against her as he pumped his hips into her, hard and fast. Finesse and taking his shoes off could wait until they were out of the damn car.

He felt her come, felt her thighs and her body tighten convulsively around him. It didn’t make sense, that that sensation could make him feel more powerful than closing a multimillion-dollar business merger, but it did. He slowed, drawing the sensation out for both of them even though every muscle wanted to hurry and thrust and claim the territory for himself. It was already his, reluctant as she was to admit it aloud, and loath as he was to force her to do so.

“Rick,” she moaned, shifting her hands to his arse. Lowering his head beside hers, he let loose, shoving in and out until, with a hard shudder and a groan, he came.

“Your tie clip’s digging into my stomach,” Samantha said after a moment, her voice deeper with amusement and her breathing still hard.

“Apologies.” He shifted, his knee lowering onto air. “Da—”

They thudded onto the wide floor of the limousine, him
on the bottom. Samantha, curled catlike across his chest, shook with laughter. “You are so smooth,” she chortled.

“Shut up.”

The intercom buzzed. “Sir? Uh, Miss Sam? Is everything all right?”

Richard lifted his foot, smashing his heel onto the arm console. “We’re fine. Carry on.”

“I’m glad you didn’t unroll the window or open the door, doing that,” Samantha said, shifting upright to pull up her dress.

“And I’m glad nobody put an elbow through one of the Hogarths,” he returned, chuckling as he lifted his hips to pull his trousers up.

“Where’s my damn underwear?” Samantha, shoving the skirt of her dress back down to her thighs, crawled to the front of the passenger compartment.

He finished zipping. “I didn’t see where it landed.” A moment later he spied the red scrap, hung over the wrapped corner of one of the paintings. Richard leaned over and snagged it for her. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Now I’ll only have to buy six replacements this week.”

“You haven’t misplaced a pair since we came to New York.”

“That was yesterday, Brit.”

Richard watched as she sat down and pulled up the thong, smoothing her dress down again. “Samantha?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

She crawled back over to sit next to him, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I love you, too.”

He smiled. He couldn’t help it. She’d said it a handful of times over the past two months, but rarely enough that it still
felt fragile and precious and new. He would have liked it more if she had said it first, but one thing at a time. “And you’re certain nothing’s troubling you? You didn’t see an old partner casing the joint or something, did you?”

Samantha snorted. “‘Casing the joint’? Sometimes I think you speak thieves’ lingo better than you speak American.”

“Yes, sometimes I push my own boat out.”

“You do what?”

“Outdo myself. I certainly speak better English than you.”

“That’s debatable.” She sat back on the seat again, taking his hand to pull him up beside her. “Nothing’s troubling me. But I am curious—what did you tell your minions about me walking into your office in my maternity getup earlier? Did they freak?”

He had gotten a few looks when he’d returned to his office, but he’d be damned if he was going to explain Samantha away. It had been rather amusing, actually. “You nearly gave
me
a heart attack, but I don’t think anyone else was affected.”

“Did I scare you?” she asked, digging into her tiny purse for a mirror to check her hair. “Me, or me having kids with you? Or you having kids?”

For a long moment Richard gazed at her. Generally he could at least read her mood, but tonight she was being difficult. “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that any answer might prevent me from having more sex with you tonight.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve never once mentioned it, and I know you have to have thought about it. Doesn’t the Marquis of Rawley need an heir or something?”

“Of course I’ve thought about it.” He pulled her across his
lap and kissed her. “And I’m not answering tonight,” he said, then resumed kissing her before she could say anything else. It was a cheap ploy, but he had absolutely no intention of telling her tonight that yes, he did want children, and yes, he did want her to be their mother. She’d be gone without a trace before dawn.

“Chicken.”

“Call me anything you wish, Samantha,” he said, keeping an arm about her waist, “but don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Wiggling on your lap and trying to give you a woody again?”

“At best you’re trying to distract me from asking you more about your very odd behavior at the auction, and at worst you’re trying to pick a fight so you can vanish somewhere tonight without having to provide an excuse.”

She stilled for a bare second, but it was enough. Enough to send a shaft of ice through his chest.
Bloody hell
.

“Okay,” she finally said, sagging back against him. “I thought I saw somebody I recognized.”

“Who?”

“You don’t need to know that. But I thought maybe he could be after the Hogarth, which is why I wanted it to come home with us. So problem solved, nobody had to get shot or blown up for once, and here we are, shagging in the back of a limo. A pretty good end for the evening, if you ask me.”

“You might have told me, you know,” he said quietly, twining his fingers with hers, pleased that she’d finally spoken, and finally able to concede that he did feel some triumph at having figured her out. It didn’t happen often. “I’ve already promised not to go about reporting your old comrades to the police—as long as nothing of mine goes missing.”

He included her in his collection as well, but telling her
that would only get him an elbow in the gut. The high value she placed on her independence was something else he’d been able to decipher about her, though that
had
been at the expense of several bruises.

“Hence my telling you about it now,” she said. “I’m working on being good. It’s not as easy as you might think.”

“I’m still not commenting on anything.”

“Okay, Switzerland.”

Richard grinned. “Let’s go back to the house, then, shall we?”

Samantha reached across him to press the intercom button. “Home please, Ben,” she said.

“We’ll be there in two minutes, Miss Sam.”

Richard mock-scowled. “Does he have us timed that well, or is he circling the block?”

With a snort Samantha kissed him again. “He was probably circling the gas station, hoping he wouldn’t run out of fuel before you did.”

At the responding tug low in his gut, Richard slipped his palm beneath the front of her dress to cup her right tit. “I’m not out of fuel yet, love.”

She laughed a little breathlessly, pressing against his hand. “I’m beginning to think you’re solar-powered.”

“In this case, I think it’s the moonlight.” Actually all it took to excite and arouse him was the sight, the scent, or the touch of Samantha Elizabeth Jellicoe. He would trade a couple of Hogarths for that, anytime.

There had to be something wrong with the two of them. After five months together, and with less than a week apart in all that time, they should have been past the arousal-at-sight stage. Samantha had read several of the relationship articles in the magazines she’d subscribed to for her office, and “Getting Over the Same-Old, Same-Old Slump” and “Passing the
Ninety-Day Hurdle” made it pretty clear that she and Rick should have some intimacy issues to work through.

She shifted a little on the bed, Rick’s breath soft against her cheek. Issues—she and Rick definitely had some, but sex wasn’t one of them. Until now she’d never had a relationship that lasted more than a few weeks, but even so she was certain this couldn’t be typical. Every time she caught sight of Rick she wanted to throw herself on him, wrap her arms and legs around him, crawl inside him where she felt warm and wanted and safe.

Therefore lying to him and sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night couldn’t be a good thing at all. But until she found out what was going on with Martin—if that
had
been Martin and not some doppelgänger who’d by now be very confused about the note in his pocket—she wasn’t telling anyone anything.

Moving slowly and silently, Samantha extricated herself from beneath Rick’s right arm and slid from the bed. Out of habit she always kept a pair of jeans, a shirt, and good running shoes under the nightstand or the edge of the bed, and she carried them into the bathroom and pulled them on in the dark. In the old days a sneak began when she reached the location; now it began in the bedroom at home.
Great improvement there, Sam
.

Once she’d made her way downstairs, she shut off the alarm and set it again, which gave her thirty seconds to get out the front door—a lifetime in thief world. She trotted down the townhouse’s short, narrow front steps and turned to walk north up Fifth Avenue. Even at nearly two o’clock in the morning cabs cruised, looking for passengers too drunk to drive home or too uneasy to take the subway at this hour.

At her first wave one of them dodged across the street and pulled to the curb. “Central Park at East Sixty-seventh
Street,” she said, avoiding a tear in the black seat cushion as she sat back. It was only a couple of blocks; she could have walked it. But that would expose her to casual view longer, and leave her more open than she liked. There were some instincts she didn’t think she’d ever put behind her.