Twin Temptation

Edie glanced at Maddie, then back to Jase. She waved her hands in a shooing motion. “You’re working another case. Go ahead.”

At the swinging doors to the kitchen, Jase paused and looked over his shoulder. “If anyone comes in and asks, the lady and I are—”

“Using the facilities,” Edie finished. “I know—the usual cloak-and-dagger stuff. I’ll save you that piece of pie.”

A few of the people working in the kitchen smiled or waved at Jase as they headed toward the back door.

“Get followed a lot, do you?” Maddie asked as they exited.

“Now and then.”

She noted that the moment they left the coffee shop, Jase was back in security mode. After cutting through another alley, he crossed to the edge of the sidewalk and hailed a cab. Once inside, he leaned forward and said, “The Donatello.”

Five minutes later, Maddie found herself walking into one of the most luxurious hotels she’d ever seen—except in the movies. Couches and chairs offered spacious seating to guests in the lobby, and the soft sounds of a Mozart string quartet could be heard beneath the muted conversations.

They passed an array of shop windows displaying high-end clothes and jewelry. Everywhere she looked, mahogany shone and brass gleamed. Three crystal chandeliers hung from a carved ceiling, and a vase of fresh flowers as tall as a Christmas tree graced a marble-topped table.

When they arrived at the registration desk, a young woman wearing a black suit with a nametag that read Jessie beamed them a smile.

“I’d like to speak to Mr. Benson,” Jase said.

“Certainly, sir.” She disappeared through a door and a few minutes later a man of medium height with dark hair and a perfectly trimmed mustache stepped out of the same door. He wore the black suit that seemed to be the uniform of the hotel staff and the same nametag. His read Louie. The moment he saw Jase, Maddie noted that the serious expression on his face lightened just a bit.

He bowed slightly when he reached the counter. “Mr. Campbell, welcome to the Donatello.”

Jase leaned forward. “Louie, I need a favor.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“I need a room for a few days. The lady here is in a bit of a jam, and I need a place to keep her on the q.t.”

His expression still perfectly serious, Louie Benson raised one eyebrow. “You’re using the Donatello as a safe house?”

Maddie detected a slight note of horror in his tone.

“So to speak,” Jake said. “And I can’t use a credit card. It’s too easy to trace them. You’ll have to bill my office.”

“Very well.” Louie typed rapidly into a computer and within seconds tucked a plastic key into a folder and passed it to Jase. “Your suite is on the top floor. You access it by taking the private elevator down the corridor to your left. Press the button for the penthouse.”

Jase nodded toward the row of shops. “Can you make some credit arrangement with the shops? I’ll have to get her some clothes.”

“No problem,” Louie said. “I’ll tell them to put any purchases on your bill.”

Jase smiled at him. “Thanks, Louie.”

“No.” Louie’s smile was thin, but it reached his eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

“How did you do that?” Maddie whispered as they moved down the short hallway to the private elevator.

“What?”

“Get us a room in this hotel with no reservation. We don’t even have any luggage.”

“I know,” he said on a sigh. “There goes my reputation.”

Maddie couldn’t prevent a laugh. “I’m serious.”

Jase punched the elevator button. “I did a favor for Louie about six months ago. Someone was stealing from the guests by breaking into the in-room safes. The police had been called in twice and everyone was being discreet. But if the thefts had continued, it was bound to get into the papers, and the reputation of the Donatello would have been irreparably damaged. Louie called my office and asked me to solve the problem. I did. The thief turned out to be one of the hotel detectives.”

The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped through them. The three walls were lined with mirrors. As the car began its ascent, it was suddenly very quiet, and the air seemed closer. No Mozart, no chatter of guests. For the first time since they’d left Jase’s office, Maddie let herself think about the fact that she and Jase would be alone once they reached the suite.

She could see Jase reflected endlessly in the mirrors. Perhaps that was why he seemed to fill the space. He was leaning against the brass rail on the wall across from her. He’d been easy and relaxed when he’d been talking to Louie, but he wasn’t now. There was tension in his jaw, in his shoulders, and the knuckles of one hand showed white where he gripped the railing. The fact that his face looked a bit battered from their encounter with the hit woman made him look tougher and sexy as hell.

In the back wall of the elevator, she could see the profile of that lean face and the length of that rangy, male body. A body that she had touched. A body that she could touch again. All she had to do was take a few steps to close the distance between them and she could slip her arms around him, run her hands over those taut muscles and feel his heart pound against hers.

Her bones were already in meltdown when she met his eyes. What she saw stopped her breathing. She was trembling, aroused by the fantasy she’d spun—and by the man.

It was shocking how much she wanted to make love with him. Terrifying. In her mind she’d always been practical, cautious. She should be worried that her life was in danger—that her sister’s life might be in danger too. But right now all she could think of was making love with Jase again. It was as if she was a totally different woman with Jase Campbell.

Worse yet, she had no desire to return to what she’d been before she met him. What she wanted was for him to touch her again, really touch her. To feel his hands skimming over her naked flesh, making it burn, taking her to a place where there were only the two of them. Only the now.

“Maddie?”

His voice was hoarse, raw.

Her throat went dry. “Yes?”

“I promised myself that when we got to the room, I would let you sleep. I’m not going to do that. The moment we get to the room, I’m going to make love to you.”

Maddie wondered if her heart had actually stopped. Somehow she found her voice. “Why do we have to wait until we get to the room?”

He moved then, very quickly, first to punch the button that stopped the elevator between floors. As the car jerked to a halt, Maddie felt her heart skip a beat. Then he trapped her against the wall. And at last, his body was pressed against hers.

A scorching wave moved through her. Everything about him was so hard—his hands, his chest, the angle of his hip, even the long length of his thigh as it moved between hers. She arched helplessly against him.

His mouth hovered a breath away from hers. “I was going to bring you here for lunch. You looked so tired. Instead, I took you to the park. I told myself it was so I could keep my hands off you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded her fingers into his hair. “That didn’t work out.”

“No. I can’t stop wanting you.”

“Same here.”

“I have to figure this out.”

“Me too.”

“Later.” They spoke the word in unison.

He brushed his mouth over hers, drawing back just enough to nip her bottom lip before sliding his tongue between her lips.

She arched helplessly against him. Even his mouth had grown harder, more demanding, as if he believed that there was some flavor that he had yet to discover.

And all the while his hands, his clever, ruthless hands were moving over her, pressing, molding, claiming. When those lean fingers slipped beneath the hem of her skirt and pushed it up, flames seared her nerve endings.

Still gripping her waist, he sank to his knees, slipped her panties down her legs and tossed them aside. In her peripheral vision, Maddie saw the white lace arc before settling on the floor of the elevator. The sight had a hot thrill shooting through her.

To steady herself, Maddie wrapped both of her hands around the brass rail as he eased her thighs farther apart. With his thumbs, he separated her folds, then he began to use his mouth on her.

She was sinking, drowning in a storm of sensations, each one more erotic that the last—the soft texture of his tongue, the scrape of his teeth. First she burned, then she shivered.

And still she wanted more. Widening her stance, she arched her hips to give him more access. His fingers dug into her buttocks at the same instant that his tongue pierced deeply into her.

He knew exactly when her orgasm began, and when she peaked he heard her cry his name. The sound urged him to send her flying again. And again.

When she went limp and lost her grip on the handrail, he caught her and guided her to the floor. Need battered him as quick and hot as lightning flashes. His fingers fumbled as he tore his belt free and lowered his jeans. Then he moved over her and drove into her.

The sharp stab of pleasure nearly stopped his heart. For a moment he held himself still, wanting the moment to last. But when she wrapped arms and legs around him, when she opened her eyes and met his, she filled his vision, his mind, his world. Together they began to move, quickly, desperately.