Our movements became more urgent, more frantic, until it felt like I would shatter into a thousand different pieces. Then I did, the intensity of my orgasm making me moan in pleasure as my body shook and shuddered. He came a heartbeat later, his body stiffening underneath me, his release a hot stream so very deep inside.
I slumped forward, the side of my face pressed against his chest as I battled for breath and listened to the frantic pounding of his heart—a rhythm that matched my own.
“Good lord,” he murmured, after several long minutes. “I knew that as fire beings we would be good together, but that—”
“Was totally, fucking amazing,” I finished for him.
His laugh was a rumble that vibrated through the very core of me. His fingers lifted my chin; then he claimed my lips, his kiss tender and yet filled with a fire that was banked but not yet quenched.
“We should go to bed,” he said softly. “And mess up the sheets a little.”
“A little?” I teased. “If we only mess them a little, I shall be sorely disappointed.”
He laughed again, then swung his feet off the sofa and lifted me as he rose. “Then I shall make it my aim to ensure that over the next couple of hours you are not left disappointed.”
Needless to say, I wasn’t.
I smoothed down the sides of my silk dress with nervous fingers, then took a deep breath and leisurely entered the exclusive mahogany room. Normally, I wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the place, but the same contact that had given Jackson all his information had also provided me with a VIP card.
I plucked a glass of bubbly from the tray of a passing waiter and kept walking, trying not to gawk at the plush surroundings and the heavy chandeliers that dominated the roofline. The tables were only half-full, and the bar and lounge area almost empty. Marcus Radcliffe III was easy enough to find—he was one of three men sitting at the second of the blackjack tables and the only one who had two rather stern-looking men standing at his back.
He was bigger than I’d thought he’d be, a thickset, muscular man who oozed confidence and power. There was a whole lot more arrogance in his thin, pockmarked features than had been evident in the photo, but his eyes were no less beady and he still reminded me somewhat of a rat.
I sashayed across to the lounge and selected a chair that was just within his line of sight. I sat, crossing my legs, allowing the side slit of my dress to fall open and reveal a long length of thigh.
It didn’t take long for Radcliffe to notice.
He leaned back and whispered something to beefy guard number one. The guard nodded, walked across to the bar, talked to the bartender, then went back to his post.
Two minutes later, a waiter approached me.
“Compliments of the gentleman at table number two,” he said, offering me another glass of bubbly.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting it. I glanced past the waiter, found Radcliffe watching me, and raised the glass in salute.
He smiled. It was a hunter’s smile.
A shudder went through me. I’d met men like him in the past, and they were always mean in bed. Mean and dominant. Thankfully, it was never going to get that far.
I remained where I was, sometimes watching him, sometimes not. His expression became more enamored, his eyes heavy-lidded with lust.
Eventually, I took a pen and piece of paper out of my bag, wrote my room number on it, then called the waiter over.
“Could you give this to the gentleman at table two, please?”
He looked across. “Mr. Radcliffe?”
Mr. Radcliffe was staring at the two of us, his body practically trembling in expectation.
“Yes.” I placed the note and a tip on the waiter’s tray.
As he left, I rose and sauntered toward the door. My gaze clashed with Radcliffe’s a final time and, as the waiter approached him with the note, I blew Radcliffe a kiss and then left.
Once out of the mahogany room, I moved as fast as was possible in ultrahigh heels, needing to get to the elevator before he did.
I closed my eyes and released a breath as the doors closed and the elevator zoomed me upward. One part down. All we had to do now was hope that Radcliffe took the bait.
I walked down the hall to our room and opened the door.
“Okay,” I said as I walked in. “All systems are go—”
The rest of the sentence froze in the back of my throat. It wasn’t Jackson standing there waiting for me.
It was Sam.
CHAPTER 7
“What the fuck are you doing here?” The words were out before I could stop them.
“A question I was about to ask you,” he snapped back. “I thought you’d agreed not to skip away from your tail and to keep your nose out of this investigation?”
“No. I agreed to be sensible. And I am. Where’s Jackson?”
He wasn’t in the living area—that was for sure—and I couldn’t see any sign of a scuffle. I couldn’t imagine he’d let himself be arrested easily, but then, I didn’t know him well enough to be sure of that.
“Jackson has been immobilized and is in the next room. We appropriated it when we realized what you two were up to.”
I eyed him for a moment. The darkness in him was very present, a dangerous energy that skimmed my skin and made it burn, but his anger—despite his tone—wasn’t as fierce as I’d thought it would be. “And just how did you find us?”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t have an eye on Radcliffe ourselves?”
“We knew it was a possibility, but we did have our fingers crossed that you didn’t know about the tenuous connection between Sherman Jones and Marcus Radcliffe.”
His smile held little humor. “If a private investigator can find out about it, why would you believe we wouldn’t? We have resources Miller could only dream about.”
There was nothing I could say to that, so I simply asked, “How long have you been watching him?”
“Since the murder. He’s not a hard man to find, even if he is an extremely difficult man to pin down otherwise.”
“So, basically, you saw both me and Jackson arrive.”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “We could have pulled you out then, but I was curious enough to see what you had planned.”
And, obviously, he had no lingering sense of regret or jealousy, because he’d allowed me to come to this room and spend several leisurely hours with Jackson.
He’d totally moved on. It was a shame there were still pockets of me that couldn’t and wouldn’t.
“Meaning you couldn’t get close to him, or that Radcliffe really can spot a cop a mile away, however delicious the bait.”
He grimaced. “The latter. Rochelle tried several nights ago. He totally ignored her.”
“So, despite the fact that you’ve warned me away from the investigation, you’re not above using me if it suits a purpose.”
“Totally.” His cool blue eyes bored into mine. “In the end, the only thing that really matters is the investigation. Everything else—everyone else—is collateral damage.”
Charming. I walked over to the bar and poured myself a large glass of red wine. “We were planning to drug Radcliffe via a drink. Is that still an option, or have you something better planned?”
“We have plans. And given Radcliffe will probably have his goons do a sweep of this room before anything happens, Adam and I will be waiting next door.”
“Which doesn’t exactly tell me if you still want me to administer the drug, or whether Adam is going to do his vampire-telepathic thing and render them all senseless.”
He half smiled. Again, it was a fleeting thing, but it nevertheless stirred an ache deep in the heart of me. “He will do his telepathic thing and implant appropriate memories as necessary, both before and after we have the information we need from him.”