Jade Island (19 page)

“Mind telling me what that was all about?” he asked.

“Not yet. Please. I have to think. God, what a mess. Wen will be furious. The Tangs need Seng’s goodwill.”

“So they offered a bribe? Good jade for bad?”

Her hands clenched even more tightly in her lap. She wasn’t happy with her decision not to go through with the jade trade, but she didn’t know what else she could have done. What she
did
know was that she was very grateful she hadn’t gone to meet Seng by herself. Without Kyle, she was certain that she wouldn’t have gotten the Tang jades off Farmer Island.

Not to mention the problem of Seng and his expectation of screwing her among the mediocre visual aids.

“Talk to me, Lianne. I need to know what’s going on.”

“I didn’t want my name attached to such a one-sided trade,” she said flatly. “All of Seng’s jades put together didn’t equal one of the three Tang pieces I appraised for this trade.”

Frowning, Kyle brought the speed down to a safer nighttime pace. “How many of these sealed-box trades have you brokered for the Tangs?”

“With Seng?”

“With anyone.”

Lianne hesitated. “I’m not sure. Six, perhaps seven. The most recent ones have been with Seng, here in Seattle. A while back, there was a Taiwanese trader and a mainland Chinese collector.”

“Do you do this for other clients, or just for the Tang family?”

“Just for Wen, actually. I began doing it about six
months ago, when his eyesight failed and he wasn’t strong enough to travel anymore.”

“Is this the first trade you’ve refused?”

“Yes.”

“Were the others more even?”

Closing her eyes, Lianne tried to relax her clenched hands. “I don’t know,” she said starkly.

But she was afraid she did. She sat with her hands gripped in her lap and her mouth a thin, tight line. Silence pooled in the cabin as thickly as night.

Kyle started to push for more information, then decided against it. Navigating the waters of the San Juan Islands after dark was tricky enough without trying to pry information out of a reluctant suspect at the same time. He would wait until Lianne was back at his cabin.

Then he would get some answers.

“Watch your step,” Kyle said as he finished tying off the stern line of the
Tomorrow.
“The dock can be slippery.”

With an easy motion, he lifted Lianne from the well of the boat to the dew-slick dock beside him. She made a startled noise and hung onto his arms until she felt the dock supporting her feet.

“Progress,” he said. “Good.”

“What?”

“You made a sound. Two sounds. One of them might actually have been a word.”

She flushed. She knew she hadn’t been much company on the ride back from Farmer Island. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for all you’ve done. I am. Without you…” She shivered. It didn’t bear thinking about. “I was just wondering about…jade.”

“Jade, or bad trades?”

Lianne would have turned away, but she couldn’t. Kyle was too close.

“Then how about an even trade?” he asked. “Better yet, a
good
one.”

Suddenly his breath was warm against her lips, his mouth even warmer. Hot. Savory. Hungry.

And there was no taxi waiting.

She told herself that she shouldn’t, even as she reached for him, needing him in too many ways to deny herself the reckless oblivion she sensed waiting for her in this one man.

Kyle meant to go slowly, to seduce Lianne with the kind of finesse that would have her begging for more. A few kisses on the dock with the wind blowing sea-scented and mysterious around them, a few more kisses along the path where fir trees whispered to the night, a glass of wine in front of a fire, a languid unraveling of clothes and mind…

Then he tasted her, deep and long and hard. He made a thick sound and thought of nothing but sinking into her, dragging her against his body, drawing heat from her, the hottest kind of fire. He bit at her lips, dove into her with his tongue, fought through clothing until he found her breasts soft and hot, her nipples hard, begging to be plucked by his fingers and his mouth.

Too late Kyle realized that Lianne was half undressed and his hands were all over her, his mouth pulling at her, devouring her. He tried to lift his head, to stop, but Lianne’s fingers were locked in his hair, holding him tight against her breast while husky, hungry sounds rippled out of her. With the last of his self-control, he managed to turn his head aside.

“The house,” Kyle said hoarsely.

Lianne’s only answer was the arch of her back, her hips seeking him blindly. She wanted more of him and she wanted it now, before she remembered all the reasons she shouldn’t have him at all. But she couldn’t say that, because she couldn’t think of anything except the heat twisting through her, tangling her mind, burning through logic to the elemental need beneath.

“Now,” Lianne said raggedly. “
Now.
”

Kyle’s last logical thought was that it was a good thing
his cabin was isolated and the dock private. Because after the next breath neither one of them would care if they were on the hood of a car in a traffic jam. With one hand he unfastened his pants. His other arm wrapped around her bottom and lifted her until her hips were level with his.

“Put your legs around me,” he said. And then he fastened his mouth on hers.

When Lianne felt Kyle’s hand between her thighs, she shuddered and tried to get even closer to him. The feel of his fingers maddened her. Stroking, testing, probing slickly. It wasn’t enough. Nothing could be enough. She needed everything and she needed it all at once, right now.

She twisted against him, trying to tell him what she must have. Words were impossible. Their mouths were fused together, teeth and tongues and hunger raging to be fed. She whimpered when his fingers slid in. The first wave of pleasure rocked her, yet it still wasn’t enough. It was moonlight when she needed the fires of hell. She wanted him deep, wanted him hard, wanted him forever.

His grip shifted, opening her thighs until he could take her with a savage movement of his hips. After he filled her he pushed deeper, stretching her, demanding that she take all of him. Her slick core clenched around him, drenching him as she made a keening sound of ecstasy. The fierce satin grip and release of her climax demanded that he give himself as completely as she did. With a throttled cry he drove hard and deep, pumping himself into her until the world went darker than night around him.

And then there was nothing but the sound of two people fighting to get breath into their bodies.

After a time Lianne slumped against Kyle, utterly relaxed except for her legs still locked around his hips. Her breath came out in a shuddering sigh.

“Did you get the license number of whatever hit us?” she asked huskily.

He laughed. The motion moved him inside her. He felt the ripple of her body, the shivering, clenching, shivering, and heard her low, shocked cry as she climaxed again.
His arms tightened, pulling her hard against his crotch. His hips pumped once, twice, then again for the sheer hellish pleasure of feeling her heat drench him, her body slack but for the sweet fist holding him deep.

Hunger sank its bittersweet claws into Kyle, but his teeth were a white flash of laughter in the moonlight. He felt like a magician or a god or a very, very lucky man.

Finally Lianne made a husky, incoherent sound, sighed, and bit his chest with lazy sensuality. Heat snaked through Kyle, tightening him inside her. She tightened around him in turn.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, releasing her, letting her slide down his body. “I want you in bed next time.”

“Next time?” she asked. Then she saw the gleaming length of his erection standing out from his clothes. “Oh. Next time.”

And she smiled.

With a distant, shocked part of her mind, Lianne realized that she was standing on a dock in business shoes and thigh-high nylons, her skirt bunched around her waist, her bikini briefs askew, and salt air cool between her legs. If she had had the energy, she would have been embarrassed. But she felt much too good to worry about it.

“And if I don’t cover you up,” Kyle said huskily, “the next time will be right here.”

Before Lianne knew what he was doing, he knelt and very carefully eased the narrow crotch of her thong-cut panties into place. Through the dark nylon lace he kissed flesh that quivered at his touch. Quickly he smoothed down her skirt and stood before he lost his head again. Then he licked his lips, tasted her, and was lost. He sank back down on his knees.

It was a long time before they made it up to the cabin.

B
eneath leaden skies and a fitful wind, the Pace Lane was backed up heading into Canada. Normally Lianne would have been impatient, but today she was simply relieved. The last thing she wanted to do on the morning of her thirtieth birthday was to go to Vancouver and confront Wen over a business deal she had refused to carry out.

No, it was the
next
-to-last thing she wanted to do. The last thing would be to hand over excellent jade, accept lesser goods, and sign her name to the appraisal sheets.

Cars crept forward. The Pace Lane went marginally faster than the rest of the traffic. To pass the time, Lianne studied the signs of returning green along the highway and admired the fresh plantings in the Peace Park. Anything to take her mind off the upcoming confrontation in the Tang family compound.

Family. But not hers. Not really.

Clients,
she reminded herself.
Think of the Tangs as clients and everyone will be happier. Actually, think of them as former clients.
Because in a few hours, they probably would be just that. Former.

Lianne forced her thoughts away from the Tangs and thought of last night instead. And this morning. What a wonderful way to turn thirty. An iridescent thrill shot through her from her breasts to her knees as she remem
bered lying in bed with Kyle’s beautiful eyes, smoky from desire, looking at her. Just looking at her.

She had felt sensitive all over, fully alive, loved. Or at least enjoyed. Thoroughly. She had never known a lover like Kyle—hungry, intense, sensual to the soles of his feet, giving as much as he took. Giving more. One night with him, and every man she had ever known, even the one she had once loved, was now in a category labeled “BK: Before Kyle.”

And after Kyle…?

The thought of “after” didn’t appeal to Lianne. She was thirty years old now, more than old enough to understand that men like Kyle Donovan were rarer than imperial jade. She knew she should prepare herself for the emptiness to come, but this morning she simply didn’t have the energy. She felt too good, especially the sweet ache that came when she thought about holding him hard and hungry, so deep inside her she felt like part of him, same breath, same heartbeat, same sleek, sweaty skin.

And Kyle did care about her outside of bed. He wanted to help her.

Lianne, we’ve got to talk. Are you in some kind of trouble because of these jades?

There’s nothing to be done for it, Kyle. I’ll take the jades back to Wen and tell him that I don’t want to broker any more blind trades for the Tangs.

And then what?

Kyle’s question echoed in Lianne’s memory. She hadn’t wanted to think about the future, much less talk about it, so she stopped his questions by the oldest method of all. She slid her hands down his wonderful, naked body. And then she slid her mouth.

A polite tapping on the driver’s window startled Lianne out of her sultry memories. She saw a middle-aged man in a dark gray suit. He held a badge in his hand and motioned for her to roll down the window. When she did, cool air gusted in, lifting tendrils of her black hair.

“What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Could I see some ID, ma’am?”

“Driver’s license? Passport?”

“Either one would be fine, ma’am.”

She took her purse from the passenger seat and pulled out her wallet. Her Washington driver’s license wasn’t in the first place she looked, or the second. She finally found it stuck in her checkbook, where she had last needed it for identification.

“Here you are,” she said, handing over the license.

The man glanced at it, measured her against the color photo, and said, “Ms. Blakely, would you get out of the car, please?”

“Why? Is something wrong with the license? I just renewed it a few weeks ago.”

The man opened her door and waited. Frowning, Lianne slid out of the car and stood up.

“Ms. Blakely, you’re under arrest for grand theft, smuggling, and sale of stolen goods.”

At first Lianne thought he was joking. Before she could do more than make a startled sound, he had turned her around and cuffed her hands behind her back. A woman in a neat business suit appeared at the man’s elbow. With smooth efficiency, she searched Lianne for weapons, found none, and hustled her into an unmarked sedan that was parked nearby.

When Lianne managed a fast look over her shoulder, she saw the man who had arrested her leaning over her trunk. He popped it open, reached in, and lifted out the first carton. Bright red wax seals gleamed against the white wrapping paper.

Kyle ignored the first four rings of the phone. Beneath a bright light, working with the aid of a big magnifying lens, he was assembling tiny silicon wafers on a circuit board. If all went well, the result would be a modem-activated control for the security system he had built into the Donovan penthouse.

At the fifth ring he swore, set aside his tools, and grabbed the phone.

“What?” he barked.

“…Kyle?”

The voice was so strained and hesitant that he almost didn’t recognize it. “Is that you, Lianne? You sound like you’re in another country.”

“I feel like it.” She took a ragged breath. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my mother is on her way to Tahiti with Johnny and I didn’t know who else to…” Her voice frayed into silence.

The last of Kyle’s impatience vanished when he realized it was emotion rather than a bad connection that had thinned Lianne’s voice into a stranger’s.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked.

“I’ve been arrested and I don’t know what…” She cleared her throat painfully.

Kyle didn’t like the mixture of emotions that shot through him, rage and regret and a prowling hunger he hadn’t even begun to appease, so he ignored emotion and focused on finding out what had happened. “Where are you?”

“Seattle.”

“What are the charges?”

“Theft, smuggling, sale of stolen goods, and some other stuff that I don’t understand,” she said bleakly.

“What kind of goods?” he asked, even though he had a cold certainty that he already knew.

“Jade. They think I stole from Wen Zhi Tang. I didn’t, Kyle! I never would steal from—”

“Do you have a lawyer?” he interrupted curtly.

“A lawyer? Where would I get a lawyer? I don’t even know one!”

“Take it easy. I’ll get you one. Don’t talk to anyone else until you talk to Jill Mercer. Jill Mercer. Got that? No one. Is there an officer nearby?”

“Yes.”

“Put him on.”

“Her.”

“Whatever. And Lianne?”

“Yes?”

Kyle wanted to tell her not to worry, it was all a mistake, he would straighten it out and she would be free; but he suspected it wasn’t a mistake, she wouldn’t be free, and he was worried as hell himself.

“I’ll see you as soon as I can,” he said finally.

“Sure. And thanks, Kyle. I just didn’t…have anyone else to call.”

The last words were spoken in a voice so low that he almost didn’t hear them. And then he wished he hadn’t. The thought of her being that alone cut him in ways he didn’t want to deal with. Especially after last night, when she had given herself to him without reservation, taking him higher each time, going with him; and the shock in her eyes telling him that she had never been there before. Not like that.

He wondered if the same shock had been in his own eyes.

“I’m glad you called me,” Kyle said. “Remember, don’t talk to anyone until you’ve talked to Jill.”

“I…hurry, if you can. Being held like this, handcuffed, locked in…” Her breath fractured as she swallowed the fear that was clawing at her.

Kyle’s eyelids flinched in a pain she couldn’t see and he couldn’t admit. “Put the officer on. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“What did the lawyer say?” Archer asked Kyle.

“Nothing good.” He looked out the window of the penthouse without really seeing the wind-burnished surface of Elliott Bay. Despite a strengthening wind, the mid-afternoon sunlight was losing its battle with time and clouds. Unless the wind won, there would be a long twilight before true dark came. “About all the Feds haven’t charged Lianne with is spitting on the sidewalk.”

“Standard operating procedure. The more charges, the higher the bail.”

“Half a million high. She doesn’t have the money for even a tenth of it.”

Archer whistled. “Half a million? Not bad for someone with no priors and a clean driving record. The judge must have had a case of the ass.”

“Or he had folks whispering dirty stories in his ear.”

“It happens. Especially when the suspect had a part in smuggling the Jade Emperor’s burial shroud out of China.”

“Nobody said anything about that to Lianne.”

“Yet. But we both know that’s why the Feds are in on it. They don’t give a rat’s hairy ass about Wen’s collection of erotica.”

“Which leads to an interesting question,” Kyle said, turning back to Archer. “The Feds were following Lianne because they thought she would lead them to the Jade Emperor, right? Once they had the burial suit, they could move in and defuse the international explosion.”

“That’s the way I see it.”

“But the Feds know where the jade suit is now.”

“So do the Chinese. They’ve demanded that the U.S. return it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Kyle said.

“Farmer says he got it from Taiwan, not mainland China.”

“What does Taiwan say?”

“They’ll get back to us,” Archer said.

“Mother.”

“Smart money says that Taiwan will step up and say they were the seller of the suit or the victim of a thief who stole the suit.”

“Why?”

“It’s a great way to stick a thumb in China’s eye,” Archer said. “China is yelling at Uncle to seize the burial suit because it was stolen from China, either by Chiang Kai-shek during the revolution or, more recently, by a
person or persons unknown. If Uncle doesn’t return the stolen property, it will seriously strain relationships between China and the U.S. Human rights will be the first to go. The Chinese government is already screwing down on students and newspapers in Hong Kong.”

Kyle made a disgusted sound. “The only way China will ever have any human rights worth mentioning is when they have more GNP or less humans. It has nothing to do with a jade burial suit.”

“Grow up,” Archer said impatiently. “Politics isn’t about reality, it’s about what you can make people believe is real. If you didn’t learn that in Kaliningrad, you never will.”

Kyle looked away from his brother’s cold, intelligent eyes. Archer was right. Kyle just didn’t want to hear about it. “What is Taiwan’s version of reality?”

“It’s yelling at the U.S. that Taiwan is a legitimate,
separate
Chinese government and if Uncle gives anything back to China it will seriously undermine democratic Taiwan in its long, underdog battle against the overwhelming might of the Chinese Communists.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’re eighty percent correct,” Archer said, his voice as cold as his eyes. “The other twenty percent is why Uncle is tiptoeing and praying the whole thing will just go the hell away.”

“Which side are you betting on?”

“I’m keeping my money in my jeans. Unless something breaks soon, it’s going to be a hell of an international pissing contest, the kind nobody really wins.”

“They’re big boys. All I want to do is get Lianne out of the yellow rain.”

“Good luck,” Archer said ironically. “Choosing between the legitimacy of Taiwan and China is a nettle that Uncle really doesn’t want to grasp. If the Feds can pass the nettle off to someone else—anyone else—they will.”

“Lianne hasn’t earned it.”

“Maybe. And maybe Uncle tagged the right thief.”

“No,” Kyle said curtly.

Archer closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them again. Life had taught him that bad news didn’t go away just because you didn’t look at it. “Any particular reason you’re so sure of her innocence, or do you just like fucking her?”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Kyle snarled.

“Bloody hell,” Archer said savagely. “Bloody,
bloody
hell.” His fist slammed down on the nearby end table with enough force to make a heavy bronze lamp jerk. “I should have yanked you out of the game the instant I saw you watching the sexy Ms. Blakely like you’d never seen a woman before.”

“I’m not the one at risk. Lianne is. She’s not hard enough for this game, Archer. She was as shocked as anybody when she saw Farmer’s jade suit.”

“Do you really believe that was the first time she had ever seen it?”

Kyle started to say yes. Then he remembered the way she had demanded to see the burial suit up close, and then the fear she hadn’t been able to conceal when he gave Lianne her wish.

“She didn’t know Farmer had the suit,” Kyle said. That, at least, he was sure of.

“But the auction wasn’t the first time Lianne saw that suit,” Archer said neutrally, “was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. I think you just don’t like it.”

“Damn it, she doesn’t have the apparatus to pull off a theft the size of the Jade Emperor’s Tomb!”

For the first time, Archer smiled. It was thin and cold as a slice of ice, but a smile nonetheless. “Glad to see all of your brain cells haven’t sunk to your crotch. That’s why Uncle wants someone close to Lianne. To find out who else is involved.”

“Are you saying that the Feds don’t really want her locked up?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then why did they arrest her, cuff her, and haul her off?”

“They didn’t have much choice. They desperately needed a bone to throw China. Someone gave them Lianne and jade.”

“Who wants her off the street that bad?”

“Wen Zhi Tang.”

“But why?”

Archer bit back a cutting remark. He would rather have Kyle’s cooperation than the head-thumping brawl his youngest brother was asking for. “People tend to get pissed off when more than a million dollars’ worth of jade goes missing.”

“I don’t think Lianne stole anything. I think she was set up.”

“You think? You
think?
With what? Your hyperactive dick?”