Chapter 6
“I won’t bore you with preamble,” Jean Luc said in his perfectly charming French accent—or so women seemed to think, although Dane couldn’t see why. Refused to see why. Shana hovered over his shoulder, leaning on him, making him hot. So he forgave her the smile she wore for Jean Luc.
“I suppose you’re calling to ask me to look after your niece while she’s visiting—you really should have called ahead, Jean Luc.
Then we could have prevented all those jewels from going missing and your little niece wouldn’t have to get thrown in jail.
” This was the other shoe getting ready to drop.
Dane owed him and he didn’t like owing the con.
No matter that Jean Luc stood up in the end and came through when it mattered, Dane didn’t trust him.
He’d be a fool to trust a French con artist. And it especially irked him that Shana liked him.
“Non. You have it all wrong. I am calling to tell you there is someone else. He has followed her to Martha’s Vineyard and he uses her entrée—”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I’m looking.”
“Bullshit.”
“I will tell you what I know of him. He is French, but one would never know it. He speaks many languages and can have either an American or British accent. He is middle aged—like yourself.”
“Watch it.”
“And he is dangerous. But don’t worry, Dane. He is not a womanizer. He is overweight and bald and not attractive. He may wear a toupée, he may have a moustache and glasses or he may not. He is short—”
“What makes you think he’s dangerous? Spill it, Jean Luc. You’re holding back. As usual.”
There was a beat of silence. Dane didn’t feel like playing games with Jean Luc. Must be the heat. Could be his awareness of Shana’s scent and her lush pliant curves as she pressed next to him. But either way he felt some heavy-handedness was called for—no matter how much they owed him.
“Bien. I will explain the details—though this is none of your affair. Angelique did not tell me of her visit to see you. I learned of her journey when I noticed her emails.”
“You spied on her—good. What did you find out about this man that made him seem dangerous?”
“Nothing. I followed my niece to the airport and I saw him. He followed her. I knew nothing about him. I still know nothing except what I tell you and a certainty that he is dangerous—”
“And that he followed Angelique on a trip to Martha’s Vineyard that she forgot to mention to you.”
“Yes. I knew you would understand. Eventually.”
“So you’re telling me to watch out for a short, fat, middle-aged French man who speaks many languages and you have no other information on what he looks like or what his name is. That’s all I have to go on?”
A beat of silence followed. Dane wanted to sound dismissive, but he was not. Either Jean Luc was trying to throw them off his niece’s trail or he was truly concerned. Either way, Dane was paying attention.
“I am sorry I don’t know more. She has felt like she’s being followed but has not been able to identify her tail. I will work on finding out more. Until then, I ask you something I know I have no right to ask you—for your help. I would like you to protect my niece.”
Dane was about to respond when Jean Luc added, “I will pay you.”
He slid his eyes to Shana’s to catch the jolt of pleasure he knew would be in her face and it sent a familiar sizzle through him.
“You’re on. Should she know about it?”
“Non. Do not tell her—she will never forgive me.”
Dane didn’t waste an eye roll, but he wasn’t impressed with the charade.
“Okay, Jean Luc. I’ll watch out for her—and for this dangerous, fat, middle-aged man. I’ll see that he doesn’t go near her. Shana will work with me. But there’s one caveat.”
“Yes? Of course.”
“If she steals anything, all bets are off.”
No response. Dane thought the line went dead after a few ticks, but then Jean Luc spoke up again.
“All bets? You would have her arrested?”
“Yes.”
“So you say. Then that is the deal. I will call you when I find more information.”
Dane was about to ask Jean Luc what he meant by his comment—but the line went dead and he wouldn’t have gotten a straight answer anyway. He put the receiver into its old-fashioned cradle and turned his attention back to Shana.
“We owe him,” she said. Dane said nothing. After a beat, she added, “He played bait for us—with the Tavares brothers. He knew he could get killed—or worse—and he came through.”
Dane didn’t need to be reminded—didn’t want to be reminded.
He’d have hung up the minute the man asked for a favor if he didn’t realize he had to do whatever the favor was.
Jean Luc knew it too. He’d come through for them last summer.
He was one of the most untrustworthy slippery bastards Dane had ever met, and yet he’d put his own ass on the line in a dangerous sting operation when they’d needed him.
“That’s why he’s somewhere in France right now and not in a federal prison with Tavares.” He swiped a hand across his brow to stop the sweat from trickling into his eyes.
“I know there’s more to Jean Luc than meets the eye,” Shana said. “Do you think he was serious about the money?”
Dane laughed. “We’ll hold him to it. You can charge two clients at the same time for the same work.” He pulled her close again, tight against him. “Does that excite you?”
He watched her eyes glitter. She vibrated with excitement and it didn’t matter to Dane that it might be the case and the money that had her in this state—partly. He meant to take advantage.
“What do you suppose—”
“Shut up.”
The urgency in him to pick up where they’d left off, to have her, to please her, drove him to scoop her up like he was some Viking out of the brutal past. Tenderness swirled with lust and created this mindless desperate need that escalated within two blinks of her eyes.
He carried her down the short hall to his bedroom—their bedroom.
He would no longer be able to think of the room as anything but theirs.
He smothered any thought of her unspoken intention to move out.
Smothered any chance she might have of talking reason, of pointing out that they had no time, by covering her mouth with his, sucking her lips, toying with them, feeling the softness under her tongue with his, caressing her lips with his own until they swelled and he reached their bed.
Maybe it was the dizziness that made him gentle his handling as he lowered her to the messed blankets of the unmade bed.
Maybe it was her scent and the scent of the sheets as he lowered himself beside her and over her that made him dizzy.
It could have been the way she responded to his kiss, nibbling and stroking his underlip and teeth and every intimate corner of his mouth with her tongue, as if she owned it and claimed it, staking his mouth as hers.
Or the way her hands caressed his back and shoulders and spread over him like she was blind and needed to feel every inch of him. To treasure every bit of him.
When she pulled at his shirt he felt his cock tighten and spasm and he moved from her to remove his pants.
“I must be crazy. I…”
She reached up and put a finger over his mouth and shushed him.
The heartbreaking stab of tenderness he felt made him quiver and struggle to maintain control while he helped her pull off the wisp of lace she wore for panties.
Her skin felt hot and moist and he caressed her and plunged his finger inside her, thrilling at her gasps of pleasure and the arching of her toward him and the moisture of her desire dripping like honey, inviting him to take more.
He wanted her, not to please her, not to please himself, but to possess her fully, to make her his, an extension of himself.
He felt this and he knew it was wild and irrational and he couldn’t help it.
He strained and closed his eyes to keep his cock from swelling out of control and he kissed her shimmering skin, covered with perspiration and goose bumps at the same time.
He licked the salty satin of her belly and then lower, brushing his lips across the small silky triangle of fine hair between her legs.
She cried out when he licked the marble-like nub at her center.
He quivered with the excitement of her impending orgasm and wanted—no needed—to taste her come in his mouth, the unique taste of her passion.
He cupped his hands under her ass and lifted her so that she was a feast before his eyes, swollen and glistening like the most inviting meal he could dream of devouring and he bent his head to her, licking everywhere and sucking as she vibrated and squirmed, pushing herself into his face, and called his name and then shook uncontrollably as an orgasm took her.
But he didn’t stop. His cock strained and swelled and he was ready and she was ready, but he pulled her into his mouth until she screamed with pleasure and shuddered violently in his hands and melted in his mouth.
Her honey dripped from her and his mouth as he raised his head and captured her mouth in his so she could taste him as she panted and held onto him.
He slid up and she clenched her legs around him and took his cock in her hand.
It jumped and he clenched down on the need for release, tightening every muscle in his body as she pulled him to her and he slid into the hot silky clenching depths of her.
The sensation of slipping into a dizzying dark world of bliss, into another dimension where he was conscious of nothing else but his cock inside her overtook him and there were no more thoughts or world.
Only him sliding and heating his nerve endings until the sparks created a wave of burning fire that caused a blinding release that stopped his heart, his mind, his world.
And he felt only her in his arms and around him.
The suspension of feeling ended in a groaning mass of ecstasy and pulsing release as he felt her clench around his throbbing cock, hard and tight and endless.