SeductiveTracks (7 page)

Thankfully for his reputation, after a minute or so of
silence Shadow replied to his request.

“Sure, come on in,” she said, though her tone was less than
enthusiastic and bordering on downright chilly. The buzzer sounded and Matthias
and Julian entered the archives.

* * * * *

Kelly let her finger release the button of the intercom
buzzer and for a moment she looked wildly around her office. Despite the actual
dimensions of the room, the area felt cramped and full. Filing cabinets were
lined up along one wall and two bookshelves were pushed hard back against the
neighboring wall. Both took up a lot of the space, making the room appear far
smaller than it really was.

Kelly sighed and tried to drag her mind back to the task at
hand. That being the two Enforcers.

Liv had warned her that the men had come to see her just
before she had left for their lunch meeting. Her friend had toned down Kelly’s
initial concerns, assuring her that nothing was wrong and they were merely
fishing for information. That it wasn’t anything to upset herself over.

“You should see the blond,” Liv had said, licking her lips
and giving Kelly a saucy wink. “An absolute hunk and utterly fuckable. I’d kill
to have met him under different circumstances. That guy is lean and created purely
for a knowledgeable witch like me to ride until we’re both exhausted. How is it
I always end up meeting guys like him in completely unworkable situations?”

Kelly had laughed at that. The tension of the moment had
been shattered by her best friend’s lasciviousness and they had changed the
subject once again. Now Kelly wished she had pressed Liv for more details and
not just swept her worries under the rug.

“Should have known they wouldn’t give up. Circe, I should
have checked to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Damn it all hell. Maybe I’m
getting old,” she groused quietly to herself as she walked around her office
making sure there was nothing that screamed out, “Hello, I’m a cat burglar in
my spare time. Please arrest me, take me before the Tribunal for judgment and
throw away the key to my cage.”

She double-checked everything, surprised to find her fingers
shaking as they traced over the smooth wood of her desk. She knew nothing
incriminating would be lying around. She might do much of her initial research
here at the archives, but she never kept her files lying around for curious
eyes to view. And all her real research occurred in the privacy of her home.

Still, it calmed her to reassure herself that nothing
unexplainable was waiting to be found and pounced upon. Nerves had her
straightening the corners of the notepad she kept by the phone. All too soon
for her increasing heart rate, she heard the distinctive sound of hard soles
walking down the tiled hallway toward where she stood.

She took a deep breath, plastered an innocent and welcoming
smile on her face and turned around to face the door. It took everything she
had not to stumble backward as her eyes met hot, deep, bedroom-blue eyes.

A tall man with a mop of midnight-dark-brown hair
finger-combed back from his face entered her office first. His eyes were
electric-blue, as deep as the ocean and filled with sinful promises of hot sex.
Kelly could almost imagine waves of unfettered lust rolling from his body, a
potent elixir that called out to her hormones. The wizard seemed the physical
embodiment of every wicked fantasy she could ever have indulged in.

The heat from his gaze made her wet and she knew words were
not enough to describe the instant and electric attraction. She wanted to
pounce on him, press that firm, strongly muscled chest back against the
wall—the door, the filing cabinets or anything solid nearby—and taste his
mouth. Her hands itched to caress his warmth then move lower. She had to keep
her eyes firmly planted on his neck and face so they didn’t dip lower and try
to decipher just how hung he was.

He was a hundred times more tempting than any other wizard
she had encountered in her life, even though he was fully clothed. Kelly
couldn’t help but imagine how that grin and those burning blue eyes would look
in the soft light of her bedroom, among her twisted sheets after a bout or two
of hot, sweaty indulgence. Never before had she so instantly wanted to fuck a
wizard blind. Chemistry burned between them and Kelly hoped her every naughty thought
was not branded across her face.

Again she found herself falling in those eyes… They seemed
to sear through her body and laser a beam into her soul. She felt naked and
exposed, but turned-on at the same time.

All her mundane, superficial pleasantries dried up on her
tongue and she could only gape at the sexy wizard in front of her. With a jolt,
she realized this couldn’t be the man Liv had told her about. She’d described
him as tall and lean, blond with gray eyes and an easy, charming manner. This man
might have pale skin, but his hair was dark, his eyes electric-blue and his
manner so intense that it couldn’t be the same man.

It took almost a full minute of her staring before she
realized a second man had also entered the room. Tearing her eyes away, she
cast a quick look at his partner and realized that here was Julian, the man Liv
had raved on about.

Despite her friend’s exuberance and blunt sexual talk about
Julian, Kelly could tell that something about him had touched the witch. Having
been best friends with Liv all their lives, Kelly knew full well when to tease
and taunt her friend and when to back off and let things take their own course.
This had been one of the latter situations, so she had not pressed Liv about
the charming, relaxed Julian Sherwyn.

That left the dark-haired blue-eyed wizard as Matthias.
Kelly liked his name—it suited him. A puzzle wrapped up in an exciting layer of
lust and electric attraction. For the first time in her life, Kelly wanted to
play with this particular brand of fire.

She’d always loved her secret thieving far too much to want
anything to do with potentially being caught. But the idea of being chased—or
hunted—by this sexy wizard thrilled her to her soul. The games they could play,
the intense, sensual back-and-forth that could grow between them, had her
panties getting damp and her mouth drying out just at the thought of what they
could be to each other. She’d never wanted to pit her wiles against any man or
wizard as much as she felt tempted to right now with Matthias.

The silence between them weighed heavily in the air and
Kelly shook herself. So much for acting innocent and nipping their questions
and concerns in the bud, she realized. Nothing made an already dangerous
situation more awkward than flirting with even the thought of playing with a
pair of Enforcers. Much as the thrill of playing prey to his hunter tempted
her, Kelly liked her freedom far too much to bait the sexy wizard.

Feeling foolish for entertaining the fantasy, she pasted her
welcoming smile back on her face and stepped forward to greet them, holding out
her hand first to Julian, whom she knew was the safer of the two, to her.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Kelly Robbins. It’s a
pleasure to meet you.”

Kelly caught her breath as Julian introduced himself with a
kind smile and they shook hands. She used the precious seconds to prepare
herself before she turned and smiled at Matthias. The dark-haired wizard was
still staring at her as intently as she had initially watched him. His blue
eyes were hot, and didn’t appear to miss a single move she made.

“Matthias Kestrell,” he said as their fingers touched and
they shook hands. “Please call me Matt.”

“Kelly,” she replied as she tried to ignore the electric
thrill that ran from her fingers up her arms and had her heart pounding hard
inside her chest. For a split second, time seemed to drag out. Their hands
pressed together in an intimate gesture and sparks of attraction she would have
to be blind to miss arced between them.

They stood like that for what felt like an aeon, but in
reality could only have been a moment or so. Julian cleared his throat and
Kelly felt her face flush with embarrassment. She jerked her hand back and held
it behind her back, linking her hands together in a vain attempt keep herself
from reaching out and doing something stupid, like pulling him close to her
body.

She’d been wrong earlier. Her attraction was not merely the
temptation of being prey to his sensual hunter. Kelly wanted this wizard in all
manner of ways. She wanted his cock fucking her body in every conceivable
position, she wanted him to fulfill her every heated, secret fantasy and most
of all she wanted him to uncover her every wicked secret. She wanted to open
her deepest, innermost soul-truths to this wizard and build something life-long
with him. And have the same sensual intimacy with him in return.

This wasn’t just some tame cops-and-robbers fantasy she was
indulging in, but a mature, alluring infatuation that could all too quickly
spiral into a deep-seated lust that only a relationship could quench.

Kelly’s eyes flew to Julian, who thankfully seemed to be
grinning at Matt and not reacting too much to her strange behavior. Matt,
appearing not to pay the least attention to his partner’s taunts, turned back
to her with perfect composure. Recalling her manners, Kelly indicated the two
visitors’ chairs over in one corner and walked around her desk to sit down
herself.

Reminding herself that this was her office and—at least
technically—she was in charge here, Kelly tried to pull herself together.

“You said you were from the Enforcers?” she started in what
she hoped was an innocent tone of voice. “Are you looking for research help? I
know much of the older archives aren’t yet online. It has been a very long
process and will likely continue to be so. What with all the budget cuts…”

“No, we’re not looking for Archive help,” Matt replied as
she trailed off. “We’re specifically interested in speaking with you. The
Enforcers have begun working in conjunction with the human police on certain
matters. While I am indeed an Enforcer, Julian is a representative from the
police and currently my partner.”

Kelly blinked, unsure for the first time what was happening.
While it was true that she had targeted both wizards and humans with her hobby
over the years, she had never stolen anything so rare or precious that it could
be responsible for a joint wizarding and human task force. For the first time
since her lunch with Liv, Kelly felt herself relaxing. Perhaps both she and Liv
had overreacted to this whole mess.

“You’re working in conjunction with the human police?” she
repeated, surprised and relieved. “Oh, well, that’s great. How can I help?”

“We’re investigating a series of heists we believe to have
been performed by a master thief called Shadow,” Matt said. Kelly’s stomach
plummeted and her relief melted like sugar in water. “We’ve found over thirty
breaks-ins over the last ten years that fit a pattern, and our inquiries have
led us here to you.”

“Really?” Kelly said. “Over thirty by a single perpetrator?
Wow, that’s a lot.”

She figured that the number was much closer to a hundred,
though the fact that they had obviously discovered and put together so many of
her little jaunts spoke volumes for their intelligence and diligence. For a
second Kelly wondered if this was it, if it was time for her to quit her
thieving.

She had been on her usual high after her heist of a few
nights ago, but she had been feeling a missing
something
in her life.
The thrill of her success had still been there, but she had also been so
restless. She was no stranger to the feeling—restlessness and a feeling of
being useless had been a large part of what had led her to her hobby.

Planning and carrying out her trips had always stemmed the
feelings—albeit temporarily. This time in particular, however, her satisfaction
had been so short-lived as to be practically non-existent.

An unusual consciousness of the empty apartment she went
home to at night had begun to twist in her gut, and the fact she couldn’t share
herself with anyone had begun to weigh on her mind. She had tried to shrug off
the morose thoughts and keep herself busy instead of dwelling on things she
could not change, but regardless of that it had begun to eat at her.

Liv was a magnificent friend and she could always call her
to chat about anything. But it wasn’t the same as having someone to go home to
and share herself and her day with. She was conscious of the fact that she
didn’t have a partner to confide all her hopes and dreams to, nor someone eager
to help her to achieve these things.

She’d even been pondering signing up to an online
matchmaking service, heaven forfend. Liv had suggested the idea a few weeks
ago, and even though Kelly had turned down the suggestion, more and more in the
last few days it hadn’t seemed quite so insane. Or desperate.

“Chances are there are some we’ve missed,” Matt continued
and Kelly forced her brain back into the conversation. “Your friend Olivia has
managed to recover a startling number of the items recovered.”

“Liv?” Kelly frowned. She knew that over the last dozen or
more years Liv had recovered a number of bits and pieces Kelly had stolen. Some
had been sheer flukes—a matter of odds and statistics—but others had been part
of their game.

Despite that, Kelly knew Liv had been more than careful not
to claim the credit for the majority of the Retrievals unless she needed to.
Liv had her own channels for returning the items she felt should be returned,
like upon the very rare occasions when Kelly made a mistake. Kelly had thought
that Liv had “publicly” returned fewer than half a dozen objects.

“Yes, she’s retrieved five of the eight items ever recovered
from cases we believe are the work of this particular thief,” Matt explained.
Kelly swallowed. That did sound like a lot, even though the numbers were so
small.