Jinxed!

4

IAN MCCALL HELD Chloe Cooper against that wall and sighed to himself in the dark office. Hell. How had he managed to get himself in this predicament?

Simple. He’d gotten sloppy.

Well, not sloppy, never sloppy. Overcome. As in overcome with memories, thanks to the blast from the past that felt like a one-two punch to the solar plexus.

He’d let Chloe Cooper get into his head.

And against his body.

He’d been shocked to see her tonight outside in that courtyard, looking sweet and sexy and like hopes and dreams revisited. But if he’d been shocked to see one of his greatest memories, he’d been even more shocked to find her snooping inside the auction house he’d been casing.

“Ian.” She was fighting him, fighting the handcuffs. “What’s going on?”

He’d like to know the answer to that question himself. With all his heart he’d like to know. Not wanting to give himself away, he said nothing, but she was struggling. Unfortunately for him, the way he had her pressed between the plaster and his body, the only thing she was really doing was making his eyes cross with lust.

And it wasn’t just his eyes. It actually wasn’t his eyes at all, since he couldn’t see a damn thing and had lost his penlight in the scuffle.

But he didn’t need to see. Not with her ass pressed into his crotch, and the arm he’d wrapped around her now trapped between her breasts and the wall. He could feel her nipples pressing into his forearm, two hardened peaks that were making him sweat.

And she was still wriggling. Wriggling and squirming, rocking and rolling all those glorious curves against him. He tried not to notice, he really did, but he’d have to be dead not to be affected.

Then there were the memories assaulting him, pummeling him, reminding him how much she’d once meant to him, which was to say everything. Once upon a time, in her arms, he’d felt as if he could do anything. He’d been stupid enough to leave her behind when he’d gone off to find himself, but he’d never been too stupid to know what a great thing he’d lost.

It was driving him crazy now.

She was driving him crazy, and if she didn’t stop wriggling-“Hold still,” he ground out.

Of course she didn’t, she continued to fight him with everything she had, and then some.

“I know it’s you!” she cried. “Why are we handcuffed?”

Another most excellent question, which begged yet another, which was…just who didn’t he trust, her…or him?

“Just tell me why you won’t admit it’s you!”

Yes. Why didn’t he just admit it was him? Simple. Acknowledging their connection would jeopardize his case, not to mention his equilibrium.

Chloe. After all these years. Soft, beautiful, giving, passionate, wonderful Chloe. His first lover, keeper of his heart and, truthfully…

His biggest mistake.

God, he’d been so lost at eighteen, so sure he’d needed to leave town to make something of himself. And not just leave town, but go all the way across the country.

That’s what came of growing up in an unhappy household.

But he’d learned a lot since then-such as, happiness came from within, not from a job or a location.

He’d been happy enough in New York, and after college had been recruited by the FBI as a stolen-antiquity specialist. But he’d been happier when he’d come back to Los Angeles.

He could smell her, some intoxicating scent, and he wanted to bury his face in her hair like a homecoming, because God, this was Chloe. He’d been with women since her, and he’d even had a connection with some of those women, but nothing like he’d had with her.

Hell, even tonight, when he’d seen her across the grass and courtyard, he’d felt the pull of her, had been helpless against it. Now, here, being this close felt more essential than breathing.

And that was a problem, a big one.

“Say something!” she demanded, still wriggling like crazy. “Goddamnit, say something, anything!”

He’d been trying to restrain her before she made him a eunuch but something in her voice stopped him cold. He was scaring her. Torn between losing his cover and the need to make sure he didn’t give her a heart attack, he leaned over her and pressed his forehead to the wall, squeezing his eyes shut, his mind whirling. “I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you have to be still and quiet. Okay?”

She was breathing like a misused race horse, her soft warm exhales brushing his jaw.

“Okay?” he repeated, his hands gentle on her.

Still panting, he felt her nod. A strand of her hair caught on the day-old growth on his jaw and stubbornly clung. Another stray piece of silk stabbed him in the eyes.

Torture.

He waited a moment to make sure she was really going to behave because she’d nearly kicked his balls into next week, and, as he was particularly fond of all his parts, he didn’t want a repeat.

She didn’t move.

He’d thought that’s what he wanted but it turned out, no. Because now everything that had been moving before was still, giving him a much better grip on her.

And with the grip he had, combined with the blackness all around them, every little thing was magnified.

Intensified.

She was everything he remembered, everything that got into his dreams sometimes late at night: smart, gorgeous and tenacious as hell. God, he’d be so happy to see her, his first lover, the girl who’d once completely stolen his heart. Happy, except for two reasons.

One, he was deep into this stolen antiquities case. And two, as the accountant for his suspect, Chloe had some serious explaining to do. “I’m going to try to find my flashlight,” he said.

“It’s in your pants.”

No, what was in his pants was a hard-on to rival all hard-ons. “Actually…”

She’d been holding herself rigid, but now she gave new meaning to the phrase still as stone, and he grimaced. “It’s on the floor. Bend with me to reach for it.” Without waiting for her to protest or decide to try to unman him again, he hunkered and forced her down with him. He had his free hand on her belly, which he could feel quivering. His other hand-attached to hers by the wrist-reached out to feel around the floor. Bent as they were, with her practically in his lap, the position became unintentionally erotic.

Or maybe not so unintentionally.

He couldn’t seem to help himself. Feeling like a pervert, he gritted his teeth and felt around for the light, finally grabbing it. When he straightened, she did as well, and this time, she turned, facing him within the tight circle of his body and the wall now at her back.

He held up the light, and she drew a steadying breath. “It’s you. I know it.”

Damn it. He lowered the light to their sides. He had to be careful here, very careful. When he’d taken this case, he’d had no idea that she was involved in any way. When he’d first seen her name, he’d hoped it’d been another Chloe Cooper.

“I know it’s you,” she said softly in the dark. “Say it’s you or I’m going to-”

He felt the shift of her weight and knew she was going to try to kick him again. To avoid that he sandwiched her between the wall and his body, chest to chest this time, thighs to thighs…and unfortunately, everything in between.

At that, all professionalism packed up and left him. He needed to back away, needed to put some space between them, but that was damn hard when all he wanted to do was grab her close, kiss her blind and push up into her body.

Yeah, that was professional at its finest. He struggled to get it together and, lacking that ability, simply tried to locate some working brain cells.

“Ian-” Accompanying her soft plea, her free hand came up, sinking into his hair, tugging his head down, and then…oh, God, and then…she kissed him.

And it was like coming home.

Yeah, way to back away there, champ. But she was kissing him, letting out a soft little sexy-as-hell murmur from deep in her throat, her body moving against his, her hands clutching at him, all lush and warm and needy female.

Ah, God, it was good. So good he was already trembling, his breath trapped in his throat the way all his blood was now trapped behind his button fly.

Get it together.

He didn’t. Well, except to better line up their lips. Not his smartest decision, but his brain was truly no longer in control. The feel of her lips sent waves of heat and hunger and a barely repressed longing he hadn’t realized he still felt, all of it colliding within him, surprising him with its force so that he shook with it. “Wait,” he gasped.

She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. Instead she nibbled first one corner of his mouth and then the other, while inside him the heat burst into flame. Stop, he ordered himself, but that was far more difficult then he’d imagined, and he kept kissing her for another minute, lightly, softly now, trying like hell to let them both down easy. “We have to stop,” he whispered.

Her answer to that was to run the tip of her tongue along his lower lip.

Unable to control himself, he sucked it right into his mouth. Oh, yeah. God. This was crazy.

Crazy.

She was driving him right out of his mind with that heart-stopping mouth of hers, and he let out a dark, shockingly needy sound that would have destroyed him if he hadn’t sensed she felt the same way. He told himself to back away, but he didn’t.

He wasn’t sure what kind of fool that made him, but then she cupped his face and took that sweet tongue of hers on a tour of his and that was it, he was one, two, three, down for the count. Helplessly drowning in her and not caring, he went to band his arms around her, but came up against the barrier of his own handcuffs.

Shit.

How he’d nearly forgotten was beyond him. He slipped his free hand around her, low on her spine, so that he could haul her up against him. His other hand, the one linked to hers, he drew up over her head, against the wall, holding it there as he let the kiss take him.

And take him it did. At her back, his fingers closed over the material of her thin top, fisting in it so that he felt bare skin.

Heated, smooth, bare skin.

Once upon a time he’d known how every inch of her tasted, and she’d tasted like heaven. He had no doubt that hadn’t changed, and his mouth watered just thinking about putting his mouth on her.

Everywhere.

“You kiss the same,” she murmured against his mouth. “It is you…” Her lips slid along his jaw. “The whole palm-reading thing threw me off balance, but deep down, I knew…”

Palm reading? He had no idea what she was talking about, but he turned his head to capture her mouth again, deepening the kiss, and when he’d drowned in her, when they’d drowned in each other, she pulled back.

“Say it,” she whispered intensely, breathlessly, completely and one hundred percent undoing him. “Say it.”

Sunk, he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Ian,” she urged.

Hell. His heart was thumping against hers and he was sucking in air like a beached fish. “Yes. It’s me.” Goddammit.

“I knew it!” She let out a low laugh. “God. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. He really was one big sorry son-of-a-bitch.

“And why are we handcuffed together? Are you a cop?”

“FBI agent.”

“So you thought what, that I was breaking and entering?”

The story. He needed to remember his story. Not easy when he had her in his arms, his engines still revving. “I was here-”

“Because of the party?”

That worked. “Yes. The party.” He could feel her looking at him, clearly absorbing his hesitation.

“You were on a date,” she said.

Right. Only what kind of slime would be on a date and yet kiss another woman? “Uh…yeah. A date.”

“She left you?”

Yes, if “she” was his very male partner. And if by left, she meant Danny taking Ian’s car home because of a nasty case of the Shouldn’t-Have-Had-That-Whole-Pizza.

Up until that point he and Danny had been narrowing in on their antiquities/fencing case, the one that had taken up the past six months of their lives. The case involved an entire ring of thieves involved in selling stolen antiques, apparently led by two: Steve and Al Adams, partners in the antiquities auction house that they stood in at this very moment.

Up until last night, everything had been quiet, mostly just research and endless tailing on his and Danny’s part, but then last night they’d discovered the two dead bodies in Al’s garage-the informants who’d led Ian and Danny to the antiquities business in the first place. Yeah, things were ratcheting up. “I’m here alone now.”

“Oh, Ian.”

God, she bought it. She bought that he’d been on a date and then dumped, and he felt like crap.

Her fingers were gentle on his jaw. “I can give you a ride home.”

Lower than crap.

“So why are you up here?” she asked. “In the antiquities office, when it’s closed? Handcuffing me?”

Good question. And a valid one. “I came up here to see you again.”

Or investigate you.

Pick one.

“Oh.” Confusion clouded her voice as she tugged lightly on the handcuffs. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

Ah, hell. Hurt had replaced her fear, and while he was glad she was no longer afraid, hurting her was pretty much the last thing he wanted to do.

Too bad he didn’t always get to do what he wanted.

He had to tell her some of the truth. “I didn’t tell you because I can’t be seen here tonight.”

“What do you mean? People saw you downstairs.”

“Doubtful. I blended in. No one can know,” he repeated, lifting her face to his in the dark. “No one. Do you understand?”

His question hit a brick wall of silence.

In fact, she was silent for so long he nearly checked for a pulse, except that he could still feel her heart thundering against his.

“You’re looking at me funny,” she said very quietly. “Am I in trouble, Ian?”

He touched her hair and fought with himself against pressing his face into the sweet spot of her neck. Yeah, she was in trouble.

And so was he.