“I never oyster alone.” He gave me a sidelong look that begged the question, would he have to?
I clenched my hands in my lap. When I didn’t otherwise respond, he proceeded.
“On to the entrée.” He began removing dish covers. “Chicken kabobs with fennel. Figs. Asparagus spears with pine nuts. Baby carrots with slivered almonds and honey.” He kept his tone perfectly serious, but I got the feeling he was trying not to crack up. I mean, he was being so blatant.
My gaze swept the table. “Looks like we’re heavy on the aphrodisiac food group tonight,” I said conversationally.
“Really?” He gave me his best nonchalant, incredulous, I hadn’t noticed impersonation. “I didn’t know there was an aphrodisiac group.”
“Did you flunk nutrition? It’s one of the four basic groups right along with sugar, fat, and salt. Guess the kitchen was out of bananas?”
“Bananas?” Van was having a hard time maintaining his composure.
“And avocados,” I said. “You know what you get when you mix one banana and two avocados?”
“No idea.”
Actually, I think Van had a pretty clear idea. He was trying very hard not to laugh.
“This is just your basic selection of chicken, fruit, and vegetables.” He pulled a bottle of wine from the ice bucket. “A fine Washington Johannesburg Riesling. May I offer you a glass?”
“Offer me two. I’ve had a rough day.”
“If you’d like something stronger, there’s whiskey in the mini fridge? Or rum? Some vodka?”
“Wine’s fine. Pour.” I tried to keep my defenses up as he filled my glass. No way was I dallying into hard liquor territory. I still had a bone to pick with him and I wasn’t relenting until it was picked clean and he was in a figurative skeletal heap on the floor. “I was expecting something more junk foody, like a burger and fries.”
“I owed you a
real
dinner.”
“I thought that was scheduled for tomorrow.”
“Dinner at a pub with everyone? Agents watching our every move? That’s business.”
He gave me the opening. I couldn’t help but take it and stab to the heart of the matter. “Hasn’t this
all
been business?” My tone wasn’t playful.
He held a glass out to me. When I crossed my arms and didn’t reach for it, he set it on the table in front of me.
“No.”
“None of it?”
“Not the part you’re worried about.” He gave me a steely look. “I don’t seduce women for the hell of it while I’m on assignment.”
“Never?” I stared him down.
“Never.”
We glared at each other. I felt my nostrils flare.
“Once—” he started.
“Ah ha!”
“Hang on.” He knelt in front of me and grabbed me by my crossed arms. With two fingers, he tipped up my face to look at him. “Once, I really fell for someone and lost my professional perspective. Reilly…” He paused. “Are you going to forgive me?”
“Maybe.” Okay, I was mellowing.
“I’ll take maybe. Maybe’s better than no. Maybe has possibility.” He stood and headed for his chair. Evidently, he wasn’t the begging kind. I admired that.
The theme song for the seven o’clock gossip show blared. I grabbed my plate and glass of wine and headed for the bed to watch the show. “I can’t see from here,” I said when he shot me an optimistic look and followed me onto the bed with a plate of his own.
“Don’t look at me like you’re hoping all these aphrodisiacs are going to do the trick. I just need sustenance.” Brave words, but my breasts had been budded so tightly for so long that I was beginning to wonder if they were going for the Guinness World record.
His gaze flicked to them. “Uh-huh,” he said deadpan.
I should have worn a thicker cami, like maybe something in plated armor.
I took a sip of my wine, and then another and another. I drank most of the glass before finally setting it on the nightstand and waiting for the relaxing glow to settle over me.
The hosts came on and gave a brief overview of the stories ahead. “Coming up later, the case of popular Hollywood gym owner Ket Brooks who’s wanted by the FBI for attempted kidnapping, but first…”
I did a silent, sarcastic mimic of the host, popped a fig in my mouth, and took my frustration, sexual and otherwise, out with a little rigorous chewing. Fig. Chicken. Carrots. Fig. Fennel. Sip of wine.
At the first commercial, Van hopped up and refilled my glass. When he settled back on the bed, he was leg-to-leg, foot-to-bare-foot with me, staring straight ahead. When I didn’t immediately move away, his foot began playfully rubbing mine. I had to fight hard to keep my toes from curling.
“How’s the chicken?” he asked, like he wasn’t up to a thing.
“Hotel rubber chicken is hotel rubber chicken.” I turned to stare at him. “The rubberizing process negates any and all aphrodisiac properties.”
Undaunted, he grinned and stepped up the foot rubbing action. I drank another half glass of wine and maybe my toes rubbed his foot back.
More silly, superficial stories of the stars blared on the TV. I grew impatient, and nervous. “We’ve been bumped by fashion faux pas and—”
I was interrupted by footage of Ket’s gym. “There we are,” I said, feeling my heartbeat speed up. “Turn it up.”
The perky female host was getting testimonials from Ket’s most famous clients, all of whom protested that they’d never, ever have dreamed he’d do something like this. And maybe they couldn’t. Ket was pretty good at hiding his evil underbelly.
“He’s accused of assaulting and trying to kidnap his former girlfriend, Reilly Peterson, a former sports model and spokeswoman for the popular 3D Sportswear Company…”
They flashed a few shots from my magazine days, followed by the footage of us leaving FSC. “Ms. Peterson looked very different today as she left the Fantasy Spy Camp facility…”
I took a deep breath and looked away from the screen.
Beside me, Van tensed. “I’m going to get him, Reilly. Both of them. They won’t hurt you again.”
I turned to stare at him. His jaw was set and his eyes darkened with determination. I believed he’d try. I believed he’d give it everything he had. I believed he wasn’t a man I should toss away lightly.
“I know,” I said very softly.
He turned to look at me. “Reilly?”
“I think I forgive you.”
“Think?”
“I’m fairly positive.”
He cupped my face with his hands and leaned in to kiss me. Our lips met. Our kiss deepened. Our tongues tangoed. He kissed me harder. I kissed him harder. But just when everything should have been dancing tongues and wonder, he winced.
“V?”
We were both breathing hard, panting for each other.
“Fat lip,” he said, touching his mouth gingerly, his eyes full of apology and frustration.
“Poor baby.” I gently outlined his mouth with my finger. “Have some more wine. Wine will make you feel fine.” I handed him my glass and he drank.
We tried the kiss again. Gently. He slid his arms around me. I tangled my legs in his, running my bare toes along his foot, and up his leg under his lounge pants. He ran his hands along my ribs and up under my cami until he was cupping my breast. He squeezed my breast. And I…winced.
He broke the kiss and looked at me. “R?”
“Bruises. Big ones.”
“Let me see.”
I pulled up my cami for him. “Here and here.”
“Poor baby,” he cooed back to me, pulling my cami off, and tossing it away. He kissed the bruises, rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “Do you need some more wine,” he whispered into my breast, finding my nipple and sucking on it. “Wine, wine, wine will make you feel fine.”
“I am fine,” I murmured, in no mood for him to let go. “But I have a bruise here, too.” I pulled down my sleep shorts, exposing my bruised hip.
He stroked my hip softly and examined the wound. “That looks bad. I think you need whiskey.”
“Whiskey?”
He grinned and moved his hand lower and to the middle, dead center between my hips right into the o-zone. “Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, makes you feel frisky…”
I knew where he was going with this. “I already feel frisky.” I pulled his pants down and off and did a little stroking of my own.
By the time the seven-thirty gossip shows came on and Ket’s picture flashed across the screen in a teaser, neither one of us felt like taking a break in the action to look for the remote.
We were tangled in each other. Kissing each other. Stroking each other and heavily engaged in a competition to see who could wince less and get the other to the brink first.
When we were both breathing heavily and on the edge of control, Van pulled a condom out of thin air. I put it on him.
He braced over me. “Ice cold duck, ice cold duck, makes me want to…”
I arched up to meet him.
He plunged in. Over and over again, hitting just the right spot. He plunged until waves of pleasure radiated through me and the world melted away, and I didn’t care if Ket was on the TV. I didn’t care if he saw me with Van. Van plunged and I arched until a giant moan escaped my lips and he grunted and we collapsed against each other grinning like idiots.
“In a shocking stunner today, Ket Brooks, popular owner of…” the woman on TV was saying, accompanied by pictures of Ket.
I smiled, cuddled into Van and kissed him on the cheek. “He’ll never be able to hurt me in the same way again,” I whispered.
“Not if I can help it,” Van said, running his fingers through my hair.
Van and I cuddled under the covers through the rest of the program, making snide, irreverent comments about the seemingly soap-operatic problems of the Hollywood elite. Gotta love a man who knew how to poke fun. Ket was such a sycophant.
Van had his arm around me, his hand idly playing with my hair. I rested my head in the crook of his neck and traced circles on his chest as we both basked in afterglow heaven.
“No leaks on TV about Canarino or our dongle.” Van kissed the top of my head, sounding satisfied with more than the lack of a dongle leak. He tipped up my face to look at him. “You’re pretty damned photogenic, even with a goose egg on your head.”
“Yeah? I didn’t do a bad damsel in distress, did I?” I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a squeeze. “You don’t look half bad on celluloid yourself. The black eye gives you badass appeal.”
“Does it?” He kissed the tip of my nose.
“I like you without the black eye, too.”
“Good. I plan on healing.” He pulled me flat on my back on the bed, poised over me, and bent down for a kiss.
Things were just getting interesting when his cell phone rang. Van cursed under his breath. “I have to get that.”
“The office?”
He nodded as he got out of bed, threw on his lounge pants, and picked up the cell phone. “Keller.”
He moved to the windows and turned to face the curtains as he spoke. It was obvious he wanted privacy. But hoping for good news, I listened to his end of the conversation anyway until I grew bored with his cryptic responses and gave up. It didn’t sound like the FBI had caught Ket or Goon yet.
I took the opportunity to put on my cami and shorts and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. Much as I liked lingering around naked with Van, naked, as I said, was a vulnerable state. If I had to beat a quick retreat, I wanted to do it semi-dressed.
Van was off the phone when I came out of the bathroom. He sat at the table, his brows knit in thought over a cup of coffee.
“Hey, big boy, I hope that look of deep concentration means you’ve caught Goon or Ket, or better yet, both, and are planning your case to throw them in the slammer for life.” I joined him, taking a seat opposite him, pretty much certain I was hoping for the moon.
“No.”
“Damn.” I snapped my fingers to emphasize my point and put on my hangdog expression.
“Cheer up. We’ll get them eventually. Coffee? Chocolate?” He pushed an assortment of chocolate truffles toward me.
“Eventually? I won’t be appeased so easily. I want immediately. Or soon. I might settle for ASAP. But that’s as low as I’m willing to go.” I declined the coffee.
He rattled the chocolates at me. “Chocolate will take the edge off your disappointment.”
“You mean my despair, gloom, abject fear for my life. That’s a tall order. Even for chocolate.” I picked one out and took a bite. “Mmmmm.” I rolled my eyes in ecstasy. “Now this is an aphrodisiac. You should have led with this.” I winked at him.
He shook his head and leered at me. “You’re getting entirely too much pleasure out of that.”
I grinned and rubbed his leg with my foot under the table. “Help this chocolate out. Tell me your agents have at least gotten a lead on our least favorite bad guys? Gotten a bead on them?” I pointed at Van with my truffle. “’Cause if they have I say take them out.”
“No. No. And that would be, no. And either put that down or eat it. You’re scaring me.”
Or making him horny again. I grinned and took another bite, playing up my enjoyment of it. “Okay, man of one word answers that consist entirely of no, I’m tired of playing twenty questions. Give me some dirt.”
“Sandy loam.”
“Not what I meant.”
He took another sip of his coffee as he watched me enjoy my truffle. “What do you want to know?”
“What is the ultimate answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything?”
“Forty-two.”
“Okay, that was way too easy.”
“You should have thought of a better question.”
“I’ll try harder. How’s this—what is Goon’s real name?”
“Salvatore Rossini.”
“A goon named Sal.”
“A thug and hit man named Sal.” He blew on his coffee and took a sip.
“Who’s working for…?” When he didn’t reply, I rolled my eyes. “Geez, do I have to pull teeth?”
“Could be for any one of three or four suspects or a coalition of them all. That’s all I can say.” He watched me pop the rest of the second truffle in my mouth. “You want some water with that?” He hadn’t touched the chocolate.
“And dilute my chocolate hit? Are you crazy?” I reached for a third truffle while he shook his head in disbelief. “Enough beating around the bush. Are you going to tell me what that call was about?”
Van set down his cup and stared at me, looking like he was having a mental wrestling match with himself and the side opposing me was winning.
“Come on, you can tell me.” I used my best cooing voice. I gave him my big, trustworthy, Girl Friday smile and leaned across the table, exposing a pile of cleavage while I reached up and stroked his jaw.
He grabbed my hand, kissed it, and squeezing it in his, laid our clenched hands on the table. “Maybe.”
“Please?” I begged, giving his hand a returning squeeze. “I promise not to tell anyone. Mum is the absolute word.”
“I’m not worried about mum.”
“What
are
you worried about?”
“You dissolving on me or going ballistic.”
“Wow, two peg-the-meter responses.” I was watching him. He was serious about the options, which worried me considerably. “I’m tough and thoroughly nonsoluble.”
He pursed his lips and sighed deeply. “Yeah, you’ve shown that.”
“Give me a break. I’m not usually weepy or fragile. Today was a tough day.”
“You just made my point.” He moved his cup closer to him. “On the other hand, you have a right to know.”
I nodded encouragingly, my heart going a million beats a minute.
“My men ran a background on Steve. Steve isn’t his real name.” As he spoke, Van was watching me closely for my reaction. He moved the coffee carafe away from me. He was worried.
“The cheater! Taking a code name before camp is against the rules.” I tsk-tsked and grew serious. “Don’t tell me he’s another creepy PI after the dongle.”
“Worse.” Van leaned away from me. “Ket’s informant.”
My eyes went wide and a bubble of anger rose in my throat, erupting in a primal scream. I pushed my chair back so hard it slammed against the heating/air-conditioning unit behind me.
“Ballistic. I was right.” Van jumped to his feet and headed for the dresser to prevent me from getting my gun.
I had no intention of going near the Beretta. I lunged for the bedside and Old Slugger, visions of a slugger-sized dent in Steve’s thick head.
Van registered my change of direction and dived for me, trying to pry Old Slugger loose from my grip. We struggled over the bat. Finally, he pushed me onto my back on the bed and threw himself on top of me, pinning my arms over my head, still holding the bat.
He straddled my hips. “Let go of the bat.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” I said, panting and getting a nice view of his crotch. “I’m just going to maim him. A little.”
“A little?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m not buying that, homerun babe.”
Van was sitting on my recreation zone. Which did nothing to fan my anger and a whole lot for my libido. I grinned and did my best to arch up against him. Distraction by feminine wiles. “Let me go and I’ll show you a good time.”
Van smiled back through his puffy lips. “Let go of the bat first.”
“No way.”
“Then nothing doing. I like this position. I could sit here all night.” He leaned down and kissed the side of my neck, the hollow of my neck, the top of my breast—
There was a knock on the door. “Everything okay in there?” It was one of the Bobs.
“We’re fine,” Van called back, looking at the door. “Everything’s under control.” His gaze flicked back to me, his eyes flashing with a devilish light. “Give me the bat.” He leaned down and nibbled my ear.
My anger was slipping away, replaced by yummy thoughts of Van and chocolate. And revenge on Steve. Later. I released my grip.
Van grabbed the bat and tossed it away. “We’ll get Steve.”
“You better.”
“Now,” Van said and kissed me, “we have better things to do.”
As his kisses trailed to the tips of my breasts, my phone sprang to life, playing Mom’s familiar ring tone.
My turn for the apologetic look. “I have to get that.”
Van swore under his breath. “Our phones have it in for us.”
I rolled over, picked up my cell and flicked it open, trying not to sound too breathy. “Hey, Mom.”
“Your grandpa’s missing.” Simple words, panicked tone.
“What!”
“Your grandpa’s missing,” Mom repeated.
I mouthed, “Dutch is missing,” to Van. “You’re sure?” I said to Mom. I was grasping for hope.
“No, I’m not sure. I just called to panic you.”
“Mom—”
“I’ve looked everywhere for him. Last time I saw him he was safely tucked in his room in the guesthouse, cleaning his gun. In case of emergency only.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” Mom said. “I told him to stay put and not get any ideas about patrolling the perimeter. That was half an hour ago.”
“You don’t think he’s pulled a General Zaroff and gone off Ket or Goon hunting, do you?” Grandpa wasn’t a violent man, but he had a protective streak that ran bone deep. If he thought he could scare Ket off once and for all…
“The cars are all present and accounted for in the garage,” Mom said. “Along with the bicycles, the scooter, and the riding lawn mower. Unless he took my garden cart for a joyride, he’s on foot.”
“Damn!” My heart jumped right into worried warp speed. There was no way Grandpa would go after Ket on foot.
“Damn it to hell,” Mom said.
We both paused, waiting for the wrath of Dutch at our blatant cursing. If foul language didn’t draw Dutch out, nothing would. And it didn’t.
“Have you called the police?”
“About a grown man who’s been gone maybe half an hour?” Mom sounded frustrated and as panicked as I felt.
“There are extenuating circumstances. I’ll get on it and call you back,” I told Mom and disconnected.
I flashed Van an angry, anxious look. “Dutch is missing. Your men were supposed to be watching him. Protecting him!” My pitch rose with each word as I repeated what Mom had told me.
“I’ll handle it.” As he flipped open his phone to make a call, my cell rang again.
I picked up the call.
“If you want Dutch back in one, big three-hundred-pound piece, you’ll give me the dongle.”
“Cindy Lou Goon, is that you?” The menace and anger in my voice came out naturally.
Hearing Goon’s name, Van cut his call short and motioned for me to put the call on speakerphone. Which I did.
“Nice you recognize my voice. Makes me feel special. Don’t like the name. Goon I can live with. Lose the Cindy Lou. I hate those broads.”
“You over-accessorizing bastard!”
“Would you stop with the over-accessorizing!” Goon cursed under his breath. “I’ve learned my lesson. Better too little than too much.
“Darn right.” I moderated my language in case Grandpa could hear. “And if you hurt my grandpa, I’m going to use your head for batting practice, Goon, so help me God. A smashed head doesn’t go with anything.”
“Sticks and stones,” Goon said.
“Hey, that was a threat, not an idle promise.”
Goon laughed. I pictured him shrugging, and scowled. Van motioned for me to tone down the rhetoric. He didn’t understand the special, adversarial relationship Goon and I had. Throwing and receiving insults made it work.
“You’re still not getting paid extra to maim and kill?” I said as conversationally as possible.
“Nope. Maybe I can get that in my next contract.” He laughed. “Until then, I’m still pretty much a lazy ass. Doing the minimum for the buck.”
There was a thump in the background and some grunting and muffled words that might have been “for cripes sakes.” He definitely had Dutch.
“Put Dutch on the phone so I know you really have him.”
“Where’s the trust?” Goon sighed like he was disappointed in me. “I have him. I definitely have him. No way I’m handing him the phone. He’s likely to take a piece of me if I get too near.”
Which sounded exactly like Dutch.
“Then put me on speakerphone so I can talk to him. No talking to Dutch, no dongle.” Like I had the dongle to exchange in the first place. I’d worry about that later.
“Brave words.”
“I’m serious. I mean it. Let me talk to Grandpa.”
“Girlie, you forget who has the upper hand. I have the old man,” Goon said over the muffled grunts in the background.
“And I have your precious dongle. Which I could easily turn over to the Feds if anything happens to Grandpa,” I said with as much menace and bravado as I could muster, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Now let me say a few words to him.”
Goon mumbled some curses. “Fine. You’ve got thirty seconds. Starting…now.”
“Grandpa, do what Goon says and everything will be fine. No heroics. I’m going to save you.”
I thought I heard Dutch’s voice mumble my name and maybe the word “no.” Grandpa wouldn’t want me putting myself in danger, but what choice did I have? I wasn’t letting Goon kill him. Much as I might banter back and forth with Goon, I knew he was a dangerous son of a bitch. I wasn’t messing with that.
Goon came back on the phone. “Tomorrow evening. Seven. Madam Lou’s Martini Bar. You come with those camp buddies of yours. No cops. We make the exchange. No one gets hurt.”
The phone went dead.