LITMIR.BIZ

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overcome by jealousy when you spent over an hour giving his Calli a tour of the house and gardens.”

      Carlo glanced at her sharply. Something in her tone told him that she didn’t approve, but it wasn’t like her to criticize him. “Are you jealous, too?”

      She met his eyes, but said nothing.

      “You don’t think the tour was wise.”

      “No. You haven’t yet decided who the plant is, and yet you showed her the gallery where the safe is.”

      Carlo smiled then and lifted a hand to trace it along her cheek. “Where one of my safes is.”

      “You’re playing with fire.”

      “It’s just a bit of misdirection, my dear Lisa. And I know what I’m doing. If they think the Ferrante diamond is in the gallery safe, it will make the game more interesting. And you can stop being jealous. My other guests will receive the same tour.”

      “I still don’t like it,” Lisa said.

      He leaned down and brushed his mouth over hers. When her lips warmed and softened beneath his, he drew back and raised her hand to his lips. “Come. I think we can leave the lovebirds to themselves. And perhaps I can make it up to you for spending so much time with Calli.”

      FOR JUST A SECOND after Natalie opened the door, Chance couldn’t move. Feelings swamped him. She was here. She was safe.

      And he didn’t have any idea which woman he was looking at. That realization fueled both his frustration and his desire. Stepping forward, he urged her back into the room, closed the door and locked it. Then he grabbed her arms, drew her up on her toes and closed his mouth over hers. Heat. He could feel it shoot from her to him and back again. He wanted, no, he needed…

      Drawing back for a moment, he stared at her in the moonlight streaming into the room. Who are you? he wanted to ask. He wanted to shout it. But he couldn’t.

      What he said was, “I want you.” Then before she could answer, he pushed her back against the wall and kissed her again. By damn, he was going to find out which part she was playing. He had to.

      The flavor would give her away. Rachel was slightly tart. He tasted that. Calli was sweet—like wild honey—and he found that, too. He nipped her bottom lip and discovered the dark exotic flavor that had haunted him for three months. Natalie. Even as all three tastes flooded through him, he was desperate for more. Changing the angle of his head, he took the kiss deeper.

      When he dragged himself back this time, they were both panting. In another moment, he would have pulled her to the floor and taken her right there. Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her into the bathroom and kicked the door shut behind him.

      He didn’t set her down until he’d twisted the knobs of the shower. There was a small mike on the ledge of the hot tub. He wanted to make sure that the spray would block any sound. He said nothing as he began to strip out of his clothes.

      Natalie waited, watching as he removed his shirt and allowed his trousers to pool at his feet. In the moonlight pouring through the balcony doors, he looked like a god. She moved closer. Then, placing her hands on his shoulders, she drew his head down and spoke into his ear. “There are cameras throughout the garden, probably microphones, too. And I’ve been everywhere on the first floor. I know where Carlo’s office is.”

      He gripped her hips and set her far enough away that he could see her eyes. They were a bit puzzled, but focused on his. Did she believe that he’d brought her in here to hear a report? She was thinking of the job and all he was thinking of, all he could think of, was her.

      “Do you care if that dress gets wet?”

      He couldn’t hear his own words over the noise of the shower, but she must have read his lips because she turned and pointed to the zipper.

      It extended all of three inches down from the small of her back, and as the silk parted, his fingers brushed against soft, damp skin. She shrugged her shoulders, wiggled her hips, and the dress slid to her feet.

      She was wearing nothing beneath it. Chance’s mouth went dry as a bone. He’d wondered, of course. So had every other man at dinner. But he hadn’t known and hadn’t truly believed that the woman he’d known originally as Natalie Gibbs would have gone to a dinner party, wearing nothing at all under her dress. Even Rachel Cade had worn underwear, hadn’t she? To think she’d spent one hour alone with Carlo Brancotti wearing nothing but that thin swatch of silk.

      Turning, Natalie looped her arms around his neck and pulled his ear to her mouth. What was she going to tell him now? That she knew where Brancotti’s safe was?

      He gripped her shoulders hard. “You can give me the damned report later. First, I want to know who the hell you are.”

      She didn’t answer him immediately, but he could see the way her eyes darkened, the way the pulse at her throat fluttered. Then she smiled and suddenly her mouth was at his ear again. “I can be anyone you want.”

      Not quite gently, he clamped one arm around her waist and kept the other gripping her arm as he pulled her into the shower with him.

      “I can be Rachel.” She nipped his earlobe. Somehow she’d managed to get hold of the soap, and her hands slid over his skin leaving trails of ice and fire in their wake.

      “I love touching your body.” Her voice had become a breathy whisper. “Do you like it when I touch you here?” Her hand slithered from his shoulders down his chest.

      “How about here?” Her fingers drew a line to his waist and then lower. “Or here? Do you like this?”

      He closed his eyes as her slick, hot fist enclosed him.

      “Or I can be Calli.” She dropped a quick line of kisses along his jaw and began to pump him gently.

      “Or I can be both.” Her laugh was a breath in his ear before her tongue darted inside. And then she was whispering, “I could be two women at once. Is that your fantasy, Steven?”

      He felt his head literally spin, his strength drain away.

      “I could give you your fantasy,” she breathed. “Right now, I’m Rachel.”

      Chance felt the subtle change in her posture. Her hand grew firmer on him and began to move more quickly.

      “All during dinner, I thought of doing this. And this.” She ran a slick hand over his shoulder and down his back to spread her fingers over his buttocks. “If you’d been sitting next to me, I would have found a way to touch you—even with Lady Latham watching us from across the table. Can you imagine it?”

      Her whispered words had the image filling his mind.

      “We might have been caught while I was slipping down your zipper, inch by inch. And then I would have done this.” Her hand stilled, then milked him in one long pull.

      With a moan, Chance slammed one hand against the shower wall to steady himself.

      “You like that. Would you like me to make you come this way?”

      This was madness. As he lifted his head and tried to clear it, she was all he could see—those wide eyes, the color now as dark and mysterious as the sea at night. That soft, soft mouth. In the misty steam that swirled around them, she made him think of a mermaid, and for the first time in his life, he understood how mythical sirens had lured sailors to their deaths. Those men simply hadn’t cared about anything else.

      Then she smiled, and releasing him, she stepped closer until the length of his hardness was pressed against her softness. Her mouth was at his ear again.

      “Now, I’ll be Calli. I’m not nearly as experienced as Rachel, but I read. When I was on the patio watching you play poker, I thought about this wickedly sexy book I read. It was all about what went on in this Victorian brothel. On Friday night, the men would gather in the parlor for a game of cards, and the lady of their choice would crawl under the table, and slip between

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