She’d teased him about using the cuffs before. Why not take her up on her suggestion? He walked to the bed and gently took her wrist, snapping the cuff over it. But when he tried to attach the other bracelet to the bedpost, it wouldn’t reach. In the end, he clipped it to his wrist, knowing she wouldn’t be able to leave without his cooperation.
Lying beside her he closed his eyes and for the first time in days, he was able to relax, to retreat into a dreamless sleep, certain when he awoke, she would still be there.
Ian had barely slept, perhaps just a minute or two, when he was jolted awake by a sharp slap to his chest. He groaned softly and opened his eyes. The clock read four thirty, so it had been much longer than he’d thought. He felt a tug on his arm and rolled over, dragging Marisol along with him. It was only then that he remembered the handcuffs.
“Wake up,” she muttered. “And get me out of these things.”
“No,” Ian said. “Go back to sleep.”
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t handcuff us together.”
“I can and I did,” Ian said.
“It-it’s against the law. It’s…kidnapping or-or unlawful something or other. I could call the police.”
“I am the police, and if anyone asks, I’ll just tell them it was kinky sex gone a bit awry. Now, go back to sleep.”
She yanked on his arm again, forcing him to roll over and face her. She sat cross-legged on the bed, her hair tousled around her face, her color high. She’d never looked quite so beautiful and if this is what bondage did for her, then Ian was going to have to try it again.
“What do you expect to accomplish by this?” she asked, holding up her hand.
His arm dangled from hers and Ian grinned. “To keep you in my bed a little longer,” he said.
“Why?”
“So we can talk,” he replied. “You have some things to tell me and I’m not going to let you go until I have some answers to my questions. When I get those answers, I’ll unlock the cuffs and you can go home.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know,” she said.
He reached out with his free hand and stroked her cheek. “Now I do. I’m not going to pretend I don’t care about you, Marisol, because I do. And whatever you say to me won’t change how I feel. You have to trust me.”
She groaned then curled up beside him and buried her face against his shoulder. “Just let me go home.”
“You said you aren’t doing anything illegal, so why can’t you tell me?”
“Why not ask your brother? He’s the one who dug up all the dirt.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
A long silence grew between them and Ian wondered if she were actually considering his request. He’d told her it wouldn’t make a difference, that it wouldn’t change his feelings for her. But did he really know that? What if she told him something so shocking it changed everything?
“You have to promise you won’t interfere,” she whispered. “Promise me.”
Ian shook his head. “I can’t. I won’t. If there’s any chance you might get hurt, I’m going to interfere.”
She sat up, her hair falling around her face. Tears of frustration pushed at the corners of her eyes but she angrily brushed them away. “I want you to forget you’re a cop, just for the next five minutes. Just be the man I’m sleeping with and nothing more.”
“All right,” Ian said.
“What would you do, if someone you knew, someone you loved, had committed a crime?”
“Did you commit a crime?” Ian asked.
She blinked in surprise and stared at him for a long moment. Only then, did he realize what he’d implied. Was he in love with Marisol? Is that why this was bothering him so? He shook his head. “So, we’re speaking hypothetically?”
She nodded. “And suppose, your brother or your father, knew he’d made a mistake and he just wanted to fix it. No one has been hurt, it’s a-a-”
“A victimless crime?” Ian asked.
Marisol nodded. “Yes, I suppose.”
“Every crime has a victim,” Ian said.
“I’m sure you’d see it that way, but sometimes it’s not that way at all. I’m just trying to help straighten things out. To make things right so everyone will be happy.”
“For the person you love?”
She nodded.
Ian drew a deep breath, knowing what his next question would cost him. “For David Barnett?”
Marisol frowned. “No, for my father.”
“Then you’re not in love with David Barnett?”
“Of course not. He’s the one who got my father into this whole thing. I hate him. He’s-he’s self-absorbed and egotistical and condescending and he thinks he can do anything he wants without any consequences.”
Ian lay back on the pillows, a flood of relief washing over him. He chuckled softly. She wasn’t in love with David Barnett. She didn’t even like him. So just what was she hiding from him? “He got you into this trouble? Maybe I can help you get out.”
“Are you still the guy I’m sleeping with or are you a cop now?”
Ian pulled Marisol into his arms, molding her naked body to his, then kissed her forehead. “I’m the guy who cares about you.”
Over the next hour, as the sun slowly rose, Marisol told him the whole story, about her father and his past, about David Barnett’s scheme to sell forged paintings and about her rather risky plan to exchange the original for the forgery hanging in the Templetons’ library using one of her own paintings as a decoy. And when she finished, Ian was certain of only one thing. He was completely in love with Marisol Arantes and he’d do whatever it took to protect her.
“You can’t take the painting back,” he said. “It’s too risky. If you get caught, you’ll be in as much trouble as your father.”
“There is no other way. Not without involving my father. He’s a convicted art forger. If he gets caught again, he’ll probably spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“All right,” Ian said. “There has to be another way. I need a little time to think about it. Just don’t do anything rash.” He paused. “Where is the painting now?”
She smiled. “I shouldn’t tell you.”
Ian raised an eyebrow. “But you will.”
“It’s under your bed,” she said.
He stared at her in disbelief. “What?”
“I brought it over here the other night and left it in the kitchen. After you were asleep I put it under the bed. It seemed like the safest place and David would never think to look here. By the way, there’s a lot of dust under there. You really should vacuum once in a while.”
“So now I am in the middle of this, right along with you?”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know what else to do. And I wasn’t going to tell you, so if you hadn’t handcuffed us together, you would have never known.”
“And you just planned to keep sleeping with me until it came time to retrieve the painting?”
“I wasn’t using you,” she insisted. “Believe it or not, I like sleeping with you-and all the other stuff, too.”
Ian laughed. “Do not try to sweet-talk me.”
“If you want, I’ll take the painting back to the gallery. You can forget it was ever there.”
“No,” he said. “Barnett tried to get it once. Who’s to say he won’t try again? I want the painting here and I want you here. I don’t trust him, Marisol. He’s got himself in deep shit and a man like him can get desperate. If he goes down, he’s going to take you and your father with him. We have to figure out a way to stop that.”
“We?” she asked.
Ian nodded. “We. You and I.”
A smile curled the corners of her mouth. “I like the way that sounds.”