Twin Temptation

STEEPED in sensation, Maddie felt herself begin to float. This wasn’t what she’d expected, wasn’t what she’d thought she wanted. Even when his mouth finally returned to hers, there were so many new things to absorb. The flavor of his lips was different, and it went to her head like wine. Totally seduced, she began to run her hands over him, learning his secrets just as he was learning hers. Wherever she touched, he trembled. Wherever she tasted, he shuddered.

“Maddie,” he murmured as he made a place for himself between her legs and entered her. His face, his eyes filled her vision, her world.Even then, they moved slowly, watching each other as they climbed higher and higher. When they drew close to the edge, he lowered his mouth to hers and with one final shudder, they tumbled over together.

AFTERWARD, Jase held Maddie tightly, her head resting on his chest, her legs still tangled with his. One of his hands was pressed against the small of her back, holding her in place; the other was in her hair. The steadiness of her breathing told him that she was sleeping. But his own mind wouldn’t shut down.

Instead of trying to fight his wakefulness, he let his mind run through some of the things they’d learned. His gut instinct told him that Maddie had been right all along, and Eva’s appointment calendar had given them a vital clue.His instincts also told him that time was running out. Eva’s hit-and-run had been carefully and methodically planned. Hiring a professional hit had also taken planning. But the person who’d tried to run Maddie down had taken a huge risk by using the same car.

A killer driven to desperate measures was more dangerous than a careful and methodical one.

Maddie sighed, then settled.

And they hadn’t narrowed their list of suspects down one bit.

The digital clock on the night stand read 2:53 a.m. If he wasn’t going to sleep, there was work he could be doing. Instead of waiting until morning to give Dino the job, he could be finding out what he could about the Golden Spider club and why Eva had been so worried about it during the last few weeks of her life.

But he simply didn’t want to move.

As long as they were here in bed together, he could keep her safe.

And she was his. She’d been his from the moment she’d climbed mistakenly into his bed. Only it hadn’t been a mistake. It had been right. She’d been right for him from the beginning. The certainty of that moved through him like a slow-running river. There were things he wanted to tell her. Needed to tell her. But it wasn’t the time. Not just because a killer still had her in his sights, but because her life had turned into chaos.

Instinctively, he held her even closer. Patience was a virtue he’d cultivated over the years. He’d needed it when he’d been working special ops. He also needed it in his business.

But he wondered just how long he could wait before he settled things with Maddie.

MADDIE STIFLED a yawn as Jase hurried her along 50th Street. He’d woken her at six-thirty and told her to get ready. The attentive lover from the night before had morphed into security-agent man again. He’d already showered and shaved, and while she gulped room-service coffee and struggled to catch up, he’d been on his phone—to Dino and Stanton she supposed.

It wasn’t until the cab had dropped them off on Fifth Avenue around the block from Eva Ware Designs that the caffeine finally began to clear the fog out of Maddie’s brain. She’d asked why the taxi hadn’t dropped them off directly in front of the store, and Jase explained that the store was probably being watched.The blunt reminder that she was still a target had her nerves knotting and her mind going on full alert. Somehow working to decipher her mother’s appointment calendar and then making love with Jase had pushed fear about the imminent danger to her life onto the back burner. Quite suddenly, as if everything had shifted into sharp focus, Maddie was very much aware of her surroundings. Brownstones lined up like so many soldiers on either side of the street. In spite of the early hour, a few people were out and about. They passed a man in work clothes fiddling with an awning. A young woman in shorts and flip-flops was walking her dog. A taxi pulled up about three buildings down, and a woman in a business suit hurried down the steps. Jase’s hand tightened on her arm, and she was very much aware that his other hand had slipped beneath his jacket to his gun.

Even as her throat went dry, the cab pulled away. Jase picked up the pace and drew her into a narrow alleyway. “We’re going in the back way to the store.”

“Why are we here so early?”

“I want to make sure no one is lying in wait for you. This is the one place that they can depend on you showing up to today.”

Maddie glanced sideways at him. His mouth was set in a grim line, and she could see that his attention was focused on their surroundings. She forced herself to look where he was looking, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The alley appeared to be deserted.

“I also want to tour the place without being interrupted. I can’t rid myself of the idea that I saw something similar to that Golden Spider logo yesterday.”

When they reached the back entrance to the store, Jase positioned her between himself and the wall of the building while he dealt with the security code and opened the door.

“Can you get in any place this easily?” Maddie asked.

“It helps that I installed the system and the codes.” His voice was pitched low. “I’ll go in first. No noise. No conversation. You stay behind me until I make sure that each area is clear.”

“You really think someone is in there waiting for us?” she whispered.

The eyes that met hers were cool. “I’m playing it safe. I didn’t play it safe enough yesterday when I took you to the park. I changed the security codes for Eva the day after the robbery, but Arnold Bartlett has the new code, and I imagine Jordan has it. There’s no way to be sure that Eva didn’t give it out to someone else.”

Maddie swallowed hard and they slipped into a room that appeared to function both as storage and a break room. Jase led the way into the main salon. The faint scents of coffee and lilies lingered in the air. Lit only by the early-morning sun, the room lacked the glitter and fantasy that she’d experienced the day before, but for Maddie, it still had a quiet elegance.

She followed Jase past the elevator to the stairwell and together they climbed to the second floor and exited into the office area. It was empty. Maddie kept half a step behind Jase as he moved silently from office to office, scanning each one. Satisfied that they were deserted, he moved down the short hall to the door of the workroom. Then he stopped and listened. Maddie counted ten beats before she heard it—a faint tapping. Even muffled, she recognized it as the sound of a hammer striking against metal and it was coming from inside the workroom.

Jase motioned her to stay where she was, then took out his gun and stepped forward to open the door.

“Cho?” he said.

Startled, the man whirled in his chair. The small hammer clattered to the floor when his eyes fastened on Jase’s gun.

IT WAS shock and fear that Jase recognized on Cho’s face. Gut instinct told him that Maddie had been right about him. Whatever was going on, Cho wasn’t behind it. The moment he lowered his gun, Maddie rushed past him.

“Cho, what are you doing here?” she asked.Cho rose from his chair. “I often come in early to catch up on work. I got behind yesterday because of the cameraman.”

Maddie motioned him into his chair and then sat in her mother’s. Perfectly willing to let her play good cop again, Jase left the door behind him open and moved to a far corner between two windows. From his position, he could keep his eye on both Madison Avenue and 51st Street and still be ready for anyone who tried to enter the workroom.

He’d learned a long time ago to trust his instincts and they were still telling him that something was going to go down today.

“You haven’t spoken to the police then?” Maddie asked.

“Police?” Cho’s gaze shifted to Jase, then back to Maddie. “Why would I speak with the police?”

Maddie quickly filled him in on what had happened at her mother’s apartment and later at the police station. While she did, Jase scanned the room, searching for what had been tugging at the corners of his mind ever since he’d come across that ad for the Golden Spider and seen Eva’s doodle in the margin of her calendar. Maddie had been right, it wasn’t among her mother’s sketches.

After glancing down on both streets, he moved to Adam’s desk. He’d done the same thing yesterday, then turned and leaned his hip against the corner so that he could talk to Adam and still keep his eyes on Maddie and Cho. He repeated the movement and was midpoint in turning when he caught it out of the corner of his eye. On the shelf above Adam’s desk was a framed photo of the Golden Spider logo.

A tingle of excitement moved through him as he moved back to the corner between the windows and refocused his attention on Maddie and Cho. Instead of growing agitated about his granddaughter’s troubles, Cho appeared to have become more relaxed as Maddie finished.

“The police know she’s your granddaughter, and it’s the timing that looks so bad,” she explained. “The money went into her account three days after the robbery, and she won’t tell the police where it came from or what she needed it for.”