The Diamond Affair (8 page)

He didn't push
her away either. Whether that meant he desired her or it meant he couldn't be
bothered moving over, it didn't matter. Her body responded. Heat swirled
through her, curled its way down her limbs, teased every nerve, spread across
every last inch of skin until she felt like she was going to combust.

She snuggled
closer, trying to touch more of him. His body tensed. The computer's cursor
hovered over the next file but he didn't click. Nothing happened. She glanced
at him. He was staring at the screen as if he saw something important, but
there was nothing except the Desktop and a couple dozen icons.

"You going
to open that file?" she asked.

He cleared his
throat. "Yeah. Sure. Sorry, I got...distracted."

The thought made
her dizzy. She'd distracted the man of steel!

He clicked on the
last icon on the desktop but it proved to be a folder full of images of Beauvoir
and his daughter, Penny, taken over a few years. They were smiling in all of
them.

"They look
happy," Ruby said.

Jake simply
grunted. "There's nothing work related on here. All the sensitive files
must be on his office computer."

Damn. All that effort
for nothing. "What's on the other memory stick?"

"It's from
the computer in Penny's room."

"Should we
even bother looking?" she said. "She didn't know about the
Florentine."

He pocketed both
memory sticks. "I don't think I want to know what's going on in a teenage
girl's mind."

"It can be
messy," she said. "And a little frightening."

He shut down the
laptop but neither of them moved. She certainly wasn't ready to break the
contact. "When are you going to pay a visit to Sinestri?" she asked.

"After
midnight."

Ruby checked her
watch. Ten past seven. Midnight was a long time away. A lot could happen in
five hours between two people who want each other.

"I need a
shower." Jake stood suddenly, removing his body and Ruby's prop. She
nearly toppled over onto the couch.

He placed the
laptop on the coffee table and headed for the bathroom.

She frowned,
wondering what she'd done wrong. It was clear she'd been mistaken about him. He
hadn't felt any tiny bolts of electricity zinging between them like she had. He
didn't desire her the way she desired him.

She sighed. Just
her luck to want the one man who didn't want her back.

While he
showered, she helped herself to the bottle of wine he'd bought from the deli
earlier and sliced off some cheese. She was only half way through her glass of
red when Jake came out of the bathroom.

"All yours,"
he said.

She blinked. Twice,
just in case he was a mirage. He wore nothing but a dark expression, a lot of
muscles, and a white towel slung low around his hips. His damp hair clung to
his ears and stuck out on top where he'd rubbed it. Tanned skin stretched over
a broad chest sprinkled with dark hair, still glistening from the shower. Ruby
fought back the urge to lick him dry.

"All mine?"
She couldn't take her eyes off his chest. It rose and fell in a steady rhythm,
the dark nipples hard and begging to be sucked.

Oh boy. The temperature
in the apartment ratcheted up several notches. Her skin felt hot all over. And
moist. Very, very moist.

"The
bathroom," he said.

"Huh?" What
the hell was he talking about bathrooms for?

"The
bathroom's all yours if you want it." The corners of his mouth lifted as
he turned away.

The back view was
just as delicious as the front. All that bare skin looked made for fingernails to
rake down it. And then there was his butt. The damp towel molded to it in the
most
interesting
way.

She didn't want
the bathroom before but she definitely needed it now.

A long, cool shower
later, Ruby stepped back out into the large lounge/kitchen/dining area. The
smell of spices filled the air. Jake stood at the stove dressed in black
T-shirt and jeans, a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of water in the
other.

"You cook?"
she asked, toweling her hair. She felt better. Fresher. Her libido was under
control too. Definitely under control. The sight of him in his tight T-shirt
and jeans wasn't going to send her off again. No way.

"I do,"
he said without looking up from a pot boiling on the stove. "I enjoy it
actually."

Not fair. He
looked amazing in a towel
and
he cooked. The universe was not being kind
sending this man into her life—a man who didn't want her the way she wanted
him.

"I don't
suppose you have a shirt I can borrow?" she asked him. She hadn't packed
too many changes of clothes and needed to save them for wearing during the day.

"What do you
want my sh—?" He looked up and his mouth snapped shut when he saw she was dressed
in nothing but a towel that skimmed her thighs.

Two could play at
this game. At least she now knew he noticed her in a way that had nothing to do
with her being Matt's little sister.

"I'll get
you one." He disappeared into his bedroom and came back with a very large
T-shirt. "It's the biggest I could find."

To cover up as
much of her legs as possible?

She took it and
changed in her room. When she came out, he glanced up from the stove. His
eyelids drooped but she could see him focusing on her bare shoulder. The
problem with big T-shirts is that they tended to be big everywhere, not just in
length. She couldn't get both sleeves to cover her shoulders at the same time. She'd
lift one up and the other would slip down.

Jake handed Ruby
a glass of wine. "Dinner's nearly ready," he said, turning away from
the tantalizing sight. She wasn't Matt's little sister, she was...something
else. Those legs! She might be small but she was perfectly proportioned and her
legs were as shapely as the rest of her. And that shoulder...

Best not to think
about it. He'd seen the way she looked at him when he got out of the shower. Much
the same way he'd just been looking at her—with a fierce hunger that he knew would
never be sated. There was no way in hell he was going to take advantage of
Ruby. Apart from the Matt factor, she was Trouble with a capital T. He could
sense it. A girl like her could put down very deep roots in a man's soil if he
let her get a start.

No way was he
going to let Ruby settle anywhere near his soil.

He served the
pasta and she wolfed it down. "This is fabulous," she said, licking
pasta sauce from the corner of her mouth. "You must give me the recipe."

He needed a
drink. Since all he had was water, he gulped that down instead.

She frowned and
pointed to the empty glass. "You don't drink?"

He shook his head.
"Not alcohol."

"Why?" She
wasn't one for beating around the bush. Ordinarily he liked that in a person,
but not when the questions hit an open wound. His wound.

"Personal
reasons," he said.

She looked like
she wanted to find out more but instead she got up and cleared the plates away.
She insisted on doing the dishes too. He kept out of her way, not wanting to be
too close to those shoulders and legs, and got out his laptop again. With
nothing else to do, he might as well have a look at Penny Beauvoir's files.

By the time Ruby
had finished the dishes, he'd learned that Penny led a typical teenager's life.
Her files consisted of school projects, photos of herself with friends,
downloaded music and computer games. He did find an awful, angsty poem dedicated
to an anonymous boy she'd nicknamed Big Boy, but there were no photos of him or
any emails sent to or from him. He could have been a figment of her
imagination.

"Find
anything interesting?" Ruby leaned over the back of the couch beside him. If
he turned his head to the side, his nose would touch her cheek, she was that
close. Close enough that he couldn't escape the smell of his apple shampoo in
her hair. He'd never be able to use it again without thinking of Ruby—the way
her hair curled around her ears, the way her eyes reflected her thoughts, the
way her mouth was made for kissing.

Out of the corner
of his eye he saw her turn to look at him. As if his head was being pulled by
an invisible string, he turned too. Her dark blue eyes smoldered beneath lowered
lids, watching him with an intensity he'd never seen in them before. Heat and
desire made a direct hit on his groin, grabbing him by the balls.

"Well?"
she whispered hoarsely. Her mouth puckered on the W and the tip of her tongue
appeared between her lips on the double L. Such a small word. Such a big
impact.

He was going to
kiss her.

In the instant he
thought it, she closed the gap and kissed him.

CHAPTER 7

The kiss was
tender and magical and mind-blowing, and Ruby couldn't get enough. She hadn't
planned on taking the initiative, but he'd looked so sexy, smelled so
delicious, that she just had to taste him. She wasn't disappointed. The man
knew how to make a woman's knees wobble and inner thighs throb. Just with a
single kiss.

He touched both
cheeks with the tips of his fingers, tentatively caressing at first. Then he
cupped her face, held her there as his tongue did some tasting of its own.

He broke away but
only to move onto her throat. His lips trailed a line of kisses across her
tingling flesh to her bare shoulder. The beat of her heart echoed throughout
her entire body, pulsing to its own crazy rhythm.

His breath,
coming in heavy, ragged spurts, warmed the skin at her throat and she threw her
head back. There. Oh yes, there.

The move pushed
her breasts into his chest, two layers of fabric annoyingly separating her from
his bare skin. Her nipples hardened at the contact, aching to be touched,
kissed, sucked.

"Jaaaake,"
she moaned, gripping his shoulders and pulling him closer.

Except he didn't get
closer. He moved away. Far away. To the end of the couch. He placed the laptop
on the coffee table and stood. He didn't look at her. Not even a sideways
glance.

He wiped his
lower lip with the pad of his thumb. Wiping away the kiss? Then he dropped his
hands to his sides and strode into the kitchen. "Sorry," he said. "I
shouldn't have done that."

"I seem to
recall doing a fair amount of it myself." Her voice sounded harsh and
throaty. "But I'm not going to apologize for something I enjoyed."

He'd pulled back
but she knew for certain that he had enjoyed it too. No matter how much he
denied it, he'd wanted that kiss just as much as she had. She might have
started it, but he'd deepened it.

So why
had
he pulled back?

"You're Matt's
sister," he said as if reading her mind. "He'd kill me if I so much
as looked at you the wrong way. If he knew we'd...done what we just did...he'd
make sure my death was a slow and painful one."

"Somehow I
don't think a guy like you has to worry too much about Matt. He might be big
and trained to within an inch of his life, but so are you. And I get the
feeling you're a whole lot scarier."

"You think I'm
scary?"

"I wouldn't
want to get on your bad side."

He shrugged and
finally made eye contact. "No, you wouldn't. And this way, as friends,
there's no chance of that happening. I tend to keep my friends."

"But not
your lovers?"

Again, the shrug.
"I don't want that kind of distraction right now anyway. This job isn't
going to be easy and I need to stay focused. So do you. If you can't then I'm
afraid you need to find someone else. There are other guys I know in the
security business. Happily married ones."

"I'm not
starting all over again with someone else," she snapped. "Matt trusts
you so I trust you. I can stay focused if you can."

He poured himself
a drink of water and offered her one. "Good. Now, tell me about the layout
of Harry Sinestri's office."

***

Sinestri's office
had state of the art security. None of which worked when Jake short circuited
the electricity for the entire street. There were only a few padlocks and a
CCTV system powered by a backup battery left to deal with. A black ski mask and
lock picks had both of those covered.

The office
contained only a large desk, a metal filing cabinet pushed up against one wall
and a small safe in a corner. He didn't have time or the right equipment to
open it now and it was too heavy to take with him so he left it. He figured if
Sinestri had the Florentine, he wouldn't keep it in his office safe anyway. Too
obvious. It would probably be in a bank's safety deposit box. If he could find
that bank and account number, he was half way there. He used the lock picks to
open the filing cabinet but found no banking details.

He turned back to
the desk. Apart from the computer, a pen and notepad, it was clean. Sinestri
disliked clutter. A business card was slotted between the keys on the keyboard.
He focused his flashlight on it. Sinestri's business name and contact details
were printed in neat black text on a white background. Jake turned it over.