Sealed With A Kiss

Two, if you hire me, you have to let me do the job. There is no ‘we.’ I work alone.”

“Well, maybe you’re going to have to change the way you work. I can be a good partner.” The corner of her mouth curved and for a fraction of a second he found himself putting a whole different translation on that phrase. “Besides, Simon said you’d help me.”

“Simon’s wrong.” And he was way out of line sitting here getting hot for a possible client.

“He says you have a contract with him.”

Simon had been saying entirely too much, Bax thought with annoyance, shaking himself loose. “But it doesn’t guarantee referrals. All it says is that I’ll talk to you.” He pushed his chair back a little, preparatory to getting up. “It’s an interesting case but I just finished a big job and I’ve got some time off coming. And even if I did decide to take you on as a favor to Simon, I don’t let clients work as assistants. It’s not a game.” The hurt kid look was back on her face, he noticed with discomfort.

His comments didn’t dent her determination, though. “You want time off, come to Stockholm. Once we get the stamp back, you can jet off to anywhere you like. Who knows, we might have fun.”

Then she smiled and the punch of sexuality blasted through him. Her smile was generous, radiant and filled with naughty promises. He found himself almost ready to say yes without thinking, just for the chance to see what came next. Still… “This isn’t audience participation. If there’s a crime, there’s danger. I can’t babysit and investigate at the same time. I can’t have you involved.”

“You have to,” she blurted, then took a breath. “Look, you need me for your cover.”

“What cover?”

“I’ve got it all figured out. We go over there together, as lovers. I’m Jerry’s girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend, actually, only I’ve still got the Blue Mauritius that he’s stolen and I’m trying to fence it.” She rose and began to pace around the office intently, creating a picture with her hands as she walked. “I dangle it in front of the collector and tell him that for a small fee, he can have his property.” Like her face when she smiled, her body in motion was a fascination that made it impossible for him to look away.

“His property?”

“You know that’s how those people think.”

He nodded as he folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, of course. And what happens after that?”

Her hands dropped. “I haven’t figured that part out yet. But I’m working on it,” she added hastily as he shook his head.

“No way.”

“It’ll work,” Joss insisted. She leaned a hip on the corner of his desk, entirely too close for his comfort. “It’ll at least let us confirm that he has the one-penny Mauritius and get a dialog going. You know how these criminal types work, Simon said you used to do undercover work. We can play like we’re a couple, get a room together, all that.” She gave him that smile of temptation again, like Eve holding out the apple. “Jerry’s a hustler, through and through. I figure the type of girlfriend he’d pick would glom onto whatever guy could help her. Jerry’s in the slammer? She’ll find someone else useful.”

He didn’t want to want her. It had no place here. He groped for reason as her scent spread around him in an invisible net. “So why do I feel like I’m getting glommed onto as someone useful?”

“Of course you are. I’m trying to hire you, although you’re making it difficult. What’s it going to take with you?” Impatience filled her words. “I have to get that stamp back and I need your help to do it. Why not go over there and play pretend?” She leaned forward until she was just inches from his face. “Or do I have to make it for real? Would you do it then?”

It would take so little to close the distance between them. “Maybe.” He regretted the response the minute it was out of his mouth. What the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t thinking, that was the problem.

A smile slid slowly across Joss’s face. “Really?” she said, stretching the word out like it was hot taffy. “If I said I’d be your lover, no strings, the entire time we were in Stockholm, you’d do it?”

The situation was rapidly slipping out of his control. “Look,” he backpedaled, “It’s not that simple.”

Something predatory entered her eyes. “Sure it is.”

Before he could react, she’d risen to step in front of him, pushing his shoulders back against the chair.

“What are you doing?”

“A feasibility study,” she told him and placed one knee on either side of his thighs, straddling him. Her eyes were deep and dark enough to dive into. Her scent wound around his thoughts. He watched without moving as she leaned in.

And when her mouth touched his, all he could feel was a hot, slicing arousal.

He had no business doing this, Bax told himself even as he closed his eyes. She was a client, or a potential client, they were in his office, at his desk and oh hell, he thought and gave himself up to it.

He’d kissed women before, even thought he’d loved one once, but he’d never felt anything like this. She was all he could touch. She was all he could feel even though she tempted him only with her lips on his, with the warmth of her thighs bracketing his own.

Her mouth was warm and mobile, her lips parted and ready to go deeper. With one impetuous move, she dragged him into want, into need. He wasn’t used to needing anyone, but even as he struggled against it, she beckoned to him with her mouth, her hands and her body.

And he followed willingly.

SHE’D NEVER been able to resist a dare, Joss thought hazily as she let the taste of him flow over her. She’d planned to kiss him until his head spun, until the little head began to overrule the big head and he gave in and agreed. Maybe she’d been a little curious, too. After all, if she could give them what they both wanted physically and get him to Stockholm at the same time, what was the harm in that? She’d expected kissing him to be good and sexy.

She’d never in a million years expected the taste of him to rock her back. She’d never expected the feel of his hard shoulders under her fingers to set up a drumming demand in her head for the rest of him, naked. She’d never expected desire to take control. All too quickly, the kiss stopped being about persuasion. It existed for itself, for the tempting brush of his tongue, the soft slide of his mouth, the touch of his hands sliding up her back.

More. She wanted more. She wanted to toss aside caution and dive into this heady sensation, dive into him. And somewhere in there, she might lose control. Trembling, she pulled back.

“Well.” She resisted the urge to press her fingers to her lips.

Bax stared at her as she walked back to the client chair. “What kind of a game are you playing?” he asked hoarsely.

“Just making sure we had chemistry.” She sat because her knees wouldn’t hold her. “So, do we have a deal?”

BAD IDEA, he told himself as his system refused to level. She was trying to play him and he was walking right into it. And yet, looked at a certain way, it made sense. Why not? Why not take the case? Solve her problem, make a little money and get a free trip to Stockholm and a warm and willing woman in his bed in the bargain. “Maybe,” he found himself saying. “I’ll think about it.”

She ran her tongue over her lower lip. “You’ll think about it?”

What could it hurt, he thought. “All right.”

“Great. And you’ll let me be part of the investigation?”

Not on his life. “Only if you can demonstrate to me that you know what you’re doing,” he hedged.

Joss rose and leaned over the desk to brush her lips against his. “Oh, I know what I’m doing, all right, Bax. Just wait and see.”

3

“YOU’RE KIDDING.” Gwen stared at Joss across the table at Rose Pistola that night, while the waiters bustled back and forth behind them. “You’ve promised to go to Stockholm and sleep with some guy you don’t know from Adam?”

Gwen didn’t sound nearly as horrified as she once would have, Joss reflected. Vegas had certainly changed her. “It’s no worse than a one-night stand, which you’ve had recently yourself. Besides, I sort of know him from Adam. He comes with references anyway.”

“How about blood tests? This is pretty out there even for you, Joss.”

Joss forked up a bite of salad. “Why? The guy is sexy as hell. Why shouldn’t I have a fling with him? You and Del just did out in Vegas.”

“That was different.”

“How? You might be serious about each other now, but it wasn’t that way at the beginning. Look, we’ll get the job done and have a good time while we’re at it. Besides, you know the saying—if you’ve got ’em by the ’nads, their hearts and minds will follow.”