21. Even
21
EVEN
Jake
Her mouth was divine. She was an angel of mercy, and the friction from her tongue and her lips was heavenly. This was dirty paradise, right there, right then. My fingers curled through her hair, golden blonde spilling over my hand as I guided her. Flames sparked in my blood as she sucked, her head bobbing up and down. This . This was some kind of gorgeous sight. This determined goddess with her head in my lap, sucking me off. Her lips tightened around my shaft, and her tongue worked miracles.
“Your lips look so fucking good on me,” I said with a groan that rattled through my whole damn body.
She looked up, and fuck .
That was an even filthier sight. I could see more of her beautiful face. Could see, too, how her cheeks hollowed out, how her lips stretched around my cock.
With one hand, I let go of my grip on her head to sweep her hair to the side. Yes, fucking yes. This was even better. The perfect view. Electricity sparked everywhere as she worked me over. Her hand wrapped tighter, and the tension coiled within me, rising higher and faster.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Almost there,” I said, letting her know I was close. So damn close I could barely take it anymore. The sight of her sucking me like that, her hand fisting the base, and her hair a wild tumble, drove me wild.
“Want to fuck your mouth, Ruby,” I grunted, my control fraying.
With a quick nod, she gave me the go-ahead, so with barely a thread of control left, I thrust up into her, fucking her mouth.
Words failed me, and I was reduced to moans, desperate for release—until my climax crashed into me, and I groaned her name as I came hard.
I shuddered from the aftershocks. Trembled. Couldn’t stop panting. Didn’t want to stop feeling so damn good.
But I needed one more thing.
One more taste of her.
When she dropped me from her mouth, I pulled her up and planted a tender kiss on her lips. “You’re incredible.”
She gave me a soft smile, then whispered, “You too.”
“I guess we’re even,” I said, still in a daze. “You screamed my name. I groaned yours.”
“Oh, you screamed it too, handsome. You definitely screamed it.”
I laughed. No point arguing with her there. “Fair enough,” I said, but then the sound of a car starting somewhere nearby ruined the moment.
Back to reality. Our momentary escape into a quiet parking garage bubble had ended.
“We’d better get back to work,” I said.
She rearranged her features then nodded. “Yes. Work, just work.”
“Just work,” I repeated, because holy hell, did I need the reminder.
* * *
My phone rang before the sun had breached my hotel room window in the morning. I fumbled for it on the nightstand, cracked an eyelid to check who it was, then answered.
“Hey, Andrew.”
I’d called my client last night and given him a report after the International Diamonds visit, but I hadn’t expected to hear from him at the break of dawn.
“I have news.” Andrew sounded excited, and I sat, shaking off sleep.
“I’m listening.”
“My IT team deciphered a few more emails. I told them to look for any references to the Frayer mine, and they turned up something.”
Excellent. I swung my feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed as he filled me in.
At 9:22 a.m. I watched Eli shut the front door of his house behind him and walk the stone path toward his circular driveway, tossing his car keys in his right hand, exactly like he’d done yesterday. He even stopped to smell the roses, so to speak. A creature of habit.
There was one thing different though. The day before yesterday, when I’d last tailed him, he’d tossed his keys from hand to hand, not just up and down. Today, he walked with his left hand in his trouser pocket.
Not weird in itself, but his overall body language suggested he wasn’t just jingling his spare change. A look through my binoculars backed up that impression. Eli was clutching something important or valuable and keeping it out of sight.
There were a lot of things it could be. But my intuition added up small and valuable and equaled jewels. Was Eli carrying diamonds from the Frayer mine in his pocket?
Eli got into his car, and I followed him again, determined and intensely focused. Anything else was a distraction.
Specifically, one sexy, feisty, fantastic woman who felt like magic in my hands.
The memory of Ruby coming undone in the backseat of her car threatened to derail me again, the echo of her cries turning me on, no matter how inappropriate the time. I shouldn’t have dirty thoughts about her while I was tailing her stepfather.
Her stepfather . If that wasn’t crossing a line between work and personal life, I didn’t know what was.
In another repeat, Eli headed to the financial district and parked outside the Royal Bank. I pulled over too, watching Eli hop out of his car and saunter into the bank. This time, I followed him inside at a reasonable distance.
The lobby was all marble floor, oak partitions and teller windows, and cool, climate-controlled air. Eli ignored all of them, striding directly to the back where a man in a pinstriped suit greeted him with a handshake. Then the banker opened a door, and Eli followed him through while a guard stood watch, staring straight ahead.
I walked in that direction as if I knew where I was going, but patted my pockets as if searching for something. “Ah hell,” I muttered.
The guard turned his head to look at me. “Can I help you with something, sir?”
“Not unless you’ve got the spare key to my safe deposit box back there?” I nodded to the door where Eli had disappeared.
The guard smiled faintly. “No, sir.”
“I’ll be back, then. Must have left it on the darn counter.”
“See you when you return.”
I added up circumstantial evidence as I left the bank and picked a spot to wait for Eli to come out. Eli had taken something from his home and gone to his safe deposit box in the bank. He couldn’t have had the entire stash of gems in his pocket. Was he transporting them to his safe deposit box a handful at a time to avoid attracting attention? If so, Ruby had been right, guessing the gems were perhaps in Eli’s home.
And Ruby had access to that very home. Working with an inside woman was a big advantage.
At least, that was what I was supposed to be doing. Working. Not dreaming up new ways to make her cry out in pleasure.
I distracted myself from thoughts of Ruby and the tedium of a stakeout by grabbing a cup of coffee from a street-side vendor. Then I grabbed a spot on a bench, positioned where I could see the bank doors. Fifteen minutes after he’d gone in, Eli emerged from the bank just as a taxi pulled up to the curb and his fiancée, Willow, stepped out. Eli walked over and wrapped her in an embrace that became a kiss. Then he draped an arm possessively around her as they started down the street.
Still sipping my coffee, I followed at a moderate distance, and a few blocks later, the pair darted into a local realtor’s office.
My head spun. There was property involved too?