Charmed and Dangerous (17 page)

“I think I can guess.”

“Vixen.”

“Stud.”

“I want nothing more than to nail you against this wall with your legs wrapped around my waist.”

“Do it then.” She met his gaze, challenging him to make good on his threat.

His eyes glistened with passion. He was hot for her and his desire stoked her higher, egging her on.

She’d never behaved so imprudently. Had never done anything so daring. But she was tired of Cassie having all the fun. It was her turn to do something crazy and downright stupid for once.

David’s fingers were at her jeans, working the snaps. For the first time in her life she wished she was wearing a short, flirty accessible skirt instead of comfortable jeans.

Egad! What was happening to her? She was turning into her twin.

But it was too late for regrets or second thoughts. David had her zipper down and his hand inside her panties.

Maddie groaned and his fingers went exploring. He found her sweet spot. She clutched the muscles of his upper arms to hold herself steady but the rock hard feel of him only served to further unbalance her precarious equilibrium.

Her heart churned and her head spun. His thumb moved over her feminine button of arousal with the sure, gentle strokes of a man who’d done this many times before. Her eyes rolled back in her head. It felt that exquisite and she exhaled his name on a sigh.

David.

His name seemed to echo in the small confines but maybe the sound was only reverberating in her head.

David, David, David.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop,” she begged as his hand rhythmically worked magic.

“Never, babe, never.” His head was bent to her ear and he ran his hot, wet tongue over the outer edge.

Such bliss!

She was so very close to coming.

Then the train jerked to a stop sending them tumbling atop the closed toilet lid together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Well hell.

David scrambled off her. “Are you okay?” he asked tenderly.

No! Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d just been robbed of an orgasm.

What was wrong with her? She should be thanking her lucky stars he hadn’t tripped her trigger. The fact no man had ever given her an orgasm would place him in a class all by himself.

And that would make him special.

And if he was special that meant she was starting to care about him.

And if she was starting to care about him that would mean . . . well, what
did
it mean?

“Maddie?”

“I’m fine.” She reached down and hastily did up her pants.

She stared at the lavatory floor unable to look him in the eyes. Her gaze landed on his black leather shoes. Oh Jeez, she was in trouble here.

Don’t overanalyze. Just breathe.

But she couldn’t seem to draw in air through her constricted lungs.

Calm down. You didn’t completely lose your head and almost practically rape an FBI agent. You really didn’t.

No?

No.

Yeah? Then who was that ripping the shirt off his back and sticking her tongue down his throat? You trying to tell me that wasn’t you?

But he had started it.

And she had taken things to a whole new level. Maddie wrung her hands. She was going to be sick.

Breathe. Just breathe.

How did Cassie manage being so impulsive? It felt terrible and out of control and . . . very exciting.

She clamped her lips together to keep from moaning out loud. Her mouth still sizzled from the imprint of his.

He reached out to her.

Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.

He touched her.

And she melted as his fingers lightly skimmed over her forearm.

“It’s okay. Don’t be embarrassed. I’m honored. Flattered.”

Ah damn. He was still trying to comfort her. How sweet. How obnoxious.

“I’m not embarrassed.”

He must think she was Looney Toons. One minute crying on his shoulder, the next minute begging him for sex. She closed her eyes and swallowed back the lump of shame lodged in her throat.

Maybe she could blame it on hormones. Was it hormones? God, she was Looney Toons. She needed to get away from him. She needed to pace.

Before she ended up throwing herself at him again.

She wasn’t accustomed to these wild, crazy emotions, didn’t understand how to exorcise them. She’d never made out with a near stranger in a lavatory before. She had no idea why she’d done so now.

Looney Toons. It was the only explanation.

Someone knocked on the door. A masculine voice asked in Spanish if they were through with the lavatory.

“I think we’re in Madrid,” David murmured.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna . . .” He made a circular gesture at her eyes. “Wash your face?”

The man outside knocked again.

“Un momento,” Maddie called.

“I’ll just wait outside,” David said.

“Good idea.”

But he didn’t leave. He just kept standing there. Looking at her.

“And you uh . . .” She waved a hand. “You better button up your shirt and wash your hands. I’m sure you smell of me.”

“I do.” He grinned wickedly. “And your scent is intoxicating.”

Oh God. This was more awkward than the morning after drunken-one-night-stand-sex. Not that she knew what that felt like from personal experience, but she could imagine it would go something like this.

Great, she had all the guilt of a one-night stand and none of the fun. Wasn’t that just her luck?

David’s cell phone picked that moment to do the
Dragnet
thing. He listened for a moment, the expression on his face impassive, but the muscle at his jaw twitched and she knew immediately something bad had happened.

“What is it?” she asked after he rang off.

His eyes looked both solemn and sorrowful. The way you looked at someone when the news was very bad indeed.

She raised a hand to her throat. “Tell me.”

“That was Henri.”

She swallowed and braced herself against the sink. “Yes?”

“Early this morning, about the same time we were boarding the train in Paris, a blonde woman matching Cassie’s description and a masked man robbed the Prado at gunpoint.”

Chapter

TWELVE

T
HE STEPS
of the Prado were thick with uniformed officers. Curious tourists ringed the area cordoned off by the policia. A flash of his badge got David and Maddie escorted to the front office. David introduced himself to the officer in charge.

“
Buenos dias,
Señor Marshall. I am Antonio Banderas,” the man said in heavily accented English.

“Antonio Banderas?” David repeated.

“
Si,
like the actor. We are distant cousins.” Antonio presented them with his profile. “You can see the family resemblance.”

David pressed his lips together to keep from chuckling.
This
Antonio Banderas looked nothing like the actor. He was short and bald with a paunch, thin lips and a nose shaped like a button mushroom.

He caught Maddie’s gaze. Her eyes twinkled and she had slapped a hand over her mouth. Her sides shook with suppressed mirth. The harder she tried to stop, the more noises she made. If she didn’t knock it off, he was going to start laughing too.

Antonio stared intently at Maddie, his brows pulled down in a frown.

At first David thought Antonio was mad at her for mocking his name. But when the stocky policeman wouldn’t quit ogling her even after David spoke to him, he got offended.

“Señor Banderas,” he said sharply.

Europeans might have a different outlook on the whole sexual thing but it was just damned rude to undress another man’s woman with your eyes when he was standing right beside you.

There you go. Letting your feelings for Maddie get in the way of business. You gotta stop wanting to punch his lights out.

“You!” Antonio pointed an accusing finger at Maddie. “You are the one who stole the El Greco.”

Oops. His mistake. Antonio hadn’t been staring at Maddie because he was mad or because he thought she was sexy, but because he’d mistaken her for Cassie.

“No.” Maddie shook her head and raised her hand.

“Arrest her!” Antonio commanded his armed men.

“Wait, wait, wait.” David stepped between Maddie and the approaching officers. “This is Maddie Cooper, the suspect’s identical twin sister.”

Antonio looked suspicious. “Twins?”

“Yes, Señor Banderas.” A tall, lithe Castilian woman spoke from the doorway in flawless English. She was dressed impeccably in a cream colored pantsuit and her thick black hair hung in a single braid down her back. “That’s her twin. You must be quite concerned, Maddie.”

“Hello, Izzy,” Maddie greeted the woman.

“Izzy?” David asked.

The woman clasped his palm in a firm handshake. “Isabella Vasquez. The curator.”

“Special agent David Marshall, FBI, art theft division.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Marshall. Your reputation precedes you.”

“I’m so sorry about the mixup,” Maddie apologized. “I don’t know why they think Cassie was involved in the robbery.”

“Mixup?” Isabella laughed humorlessly. “I’m afraid there is no mixup. Your sister used our friendship to lure me to the delivery entrance before the museum opened. That’s when she and her lover, dressed like delivery personnel, attacked me at gunpoint and held me hostage while they stole El Greco’s
Knight with His Hand on Chest
.”

“But how did they just waltz out of here? Why didn’t someone try to stop them?” David asked.

“They used a dolly to smuggle the painting out of the museum in a shipping crate. Because I had let them in and they had arrived in a delivery truck, the security officer thought they were just picking up a special package for me.”

“That was always Cassie’s favorite El Greco,” Maddie murmured.

“I know,” Isabella said. “I’m very angry with her. I feel betrayed.”

“There must be some mistake. Cassie, wielding a gun and holding you hostage?” Maddie shook her head, denying reality.

“There is no mistake.” Isabella narrowed her dark eyes.

David hated the desperate tone in Maddie’s voice. He felt her pain low in his gut. It was the same, helpless sensation he’d felt when Aunt Caroline had told him that Shriver had swindled her out of the Rembrandt.

“We have proof,” Antonio Banderas interjected. “Would you like to see the security tape?”

“Absolutely,” David said.

“This way.”

Antonio led them into a room filled with television monitors and spy cameras. Isabella Vasquez followed at their heels. In Spanish, Antonio instructed the technician to play the tape of the robbery, while Isabella remained standing in the doorway, arms crossed.

“I can’t bear to watch,” Isabella shuddered. “I’ll wait in my office.”

The screen filled with Isabella’s image. They watched while she walked down an empty corridor toward a heavy metal door. Isabella punched a series of numbers into the electronic keypad on the wall and the door opened.

Cassie appeared first. She wore the uniform of an international delivery service. She was smiling and although there was no audio, you could tell she had greeted Isabella with a friendly,
“Buenos dias,
Izzy.”

David slid a side glance over at Maddie, saw her hands were fisted in her lap and her breathing had grown both rapid and shallow. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Breathe deeply. Don’t hyperventilate.”

She glared at him. He knew she hated being told what to do, but she did obey, forcing in a deep but jerky breath.

On the screen Cassie stepped over the threshold and into the museum. Immediately a man wearing a uniform that matched Cassie’s but with a ski mask pulled down over his face and a deadly .45 magnum clutched in his left hand, barged in behind her.

The man clamped his fingers around Cassie’s upper arm and pointed the gun at Isabella’s heart.

“Freeze it there a moment,” David said.

Antonio repeated David’s instruction to the technician who stopped the tape. David narrowed his eyes and studied the frame.

Cassie looked almost as panicked as Isabella. Her eyes were wide, her face pale and she was gnawing her bottom lip. He leaned in closer to the monitor. The gunman’s fingers dug so deeply into Cassie’s arm that her sleeve bunched around his sausage-sized digits.

David shifted his attention to the man’s left hand. The hand that clutched the .45.

What he saw sent a river of chills coursing down his spine.

A skull and crossbones tattoo.

Deep in his heart he instantly knew two things. One, Cassie Cooper had not willingly robbed the Prado; she was as much a victim as Isabella Vasquez.

And two, the gunman was not Peyton Shriver.

The thug in the ski mask was none other than Jocko Blanco.

Maddie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She rubbed her eyes, blinked twice and looked again.

No denying it. The woman caught on camera was her sister.

David had been right all along. Her twin had gone renegade. How could she tell her mother that Cassie was headed for prison?

Nausea ambushed her, slick and hot.

“I’m going to be sick,” she moaned, and clamped a hand over her mouth.

David grabbed a nearby trashcan and shoved it under her face. It smelled of pencil shavings, coffee grounds and orange peel.

Maddie gagged.

A lock of her hair broke free from her ponytail clip and David gently swept back the errant strand while at the same time, pressed a cool palm to her heated forehead.

He rubbed her back and murmured sweet nothings the way her mother had when she was ill. Her father had never been there when she got sick. She remembered one time, before the divorce and after a trip to Six Flags where she’d wolfed down too much junk food, and she told her dad she was going to throw up, he’d thrust her toward her mother, said “You deal with her.” Then he’d taken off to the local bar.

“It’s okay,” David murmured. “It’s perfectly all right. Throw up if you need to.”

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and managed to hold onto what little breakfast she’d eaten on the train. “I think I’m okay now.”