Jule Reigh and the Jim Stone Affair (2 page)

If she wanted to keep Interpol out of it so
another agent wouldn’t take over and continue the surveillance, she
had to find another way to get out of this mess. She couldn’t screw
up her first solo assignment. No, she had to find a way out even if
it meant sleeping with the enemy. For the good of the country.
She’d close her eyes and think of England—er, America.

Yeah. Right.

“I’m not backing out,” she assured him,
sounding more confident than she felt. “I just think we should be
more careful. Someone might see us.”

He traced the outer shell of her ear with his
warm, wet tongue. “You followed me all afternoon because you’re
horny, and now you’re too scared to fuck me behind some potted
trees because we might be found? Something’s not right—”

She shut him up with a kiss, a lip-searing,
loin-wrenching fusing of mouths and tongues that shredded the last
of any decorum they possessed. If she allowed him to think too
much, he might decide she was more threat than potential bed
partner for the night. He didn’t disappoint her.

His hungry response proved he relished the
kiss—and her. He slid his hand between their bodies and cupped her
breast, his fingers massaging her urgently. Whenever he brushed her
nipple, desire shot through her in a series of high-voltage pulses.
If she could literally see
desire
, she thought it must look
like the shower of sparks given off when lightning struck a
transformer.

His other hand wrestled briefly with her
long, flared skirt, dragging it up high enough for his knee to
nudge her thighs. Her legs parted for him voluntarily. He wedged
his thigh as closely as he could to her sex and dropped her skirt
to mostly hide what he was doing to her.

She opened up further for him until her
throbbing clit pressed against him hard. When her hips undulated
against him, he deepened the kiss until she almost couldn’t tell
where her lips and tongue ended and his began.

Her hand rose as if it had a mind of its own,
searching for his cock beneath his jacket and across his trousered
hip. She found its hard length, impressed by its size and grateful
he wasn’t extra-small or pencil-thin. She fumbled with his zipper,
finally managing to undo it. Slipping her hand inside, her
fingertips ran over smooth silk boxers until she dipped into that
opening as well.

She wrapped her fingers around him, and they
didn’t meet her thumb on the other side. The image of his large
cock filling her up made her ride his thigh faster.

With her increased tempo, he plucked at the
hard peak of her nipple, urging her on. All coherent thought of
where and who they were dissolved in the gathering white heat
clouding her mind and the thrum of electric lust charging along her
nerves. When her transformer blew, she shuddered with the violence
of the release and savored the flashes dancing through her. When
she at last opened her eyes, she wouldn’t have been surprised to
see sparks flying from her fingers and toes and even the ends of
her hair.

But all she found was Stone, looking down at
her through lust-darkened eyes. She still held his hot cock in her
hand, her fingers tight around its incredible thickness. She wanted
him to experience the mind-blowing thrill she’d felt, and so she
rubbed her hand up and down, from silken tip to coarse curls and
back again.

He gasped, a ragged sound, and briefly closed
his eyes. When he opened them, he backed up half a step, pulling
his cock out of her grasp, and zipped up. He adjusted his jacket to
hide his obvious hard-on. “Not here, babe. Too messy. Let’s go to
my place and finish what we started.”

Jule blinked. She’d almost forgotten where
they were. She peered around him, half expecting an audience of
restaurant staff and police, but no one else had breached the line
of palms and invaded their privacy.

Before she could breathe a sigh of relief,
Stone took her hand and led her away.

Chapter Two

The Pink Ecstasy Stratagem

J
ule watched as
Stone unlocked the door to his hotel suite. He pushed the door open
and waited for her to enter first. She hesitated. Once inside, she
was cut off from everything and at his mercy. Interpol wouldn’t be
able to save her. She glanced at Stone, whose benign smile was
still sexy enough to make her cream her panties.

If she balked now, what believable excuse
could she give? She’d already proven she would allow him to touch
her intimately and was willing to put her hands on him in familiar
ways. If she tried to leave, would he even let her? Probably not
because she’d stir his reservations again and put herself in
greater danger.

He seemed to have the uncanny knack of
sensing her indecision. Before she could decide to take the step
into his domain, he put a hand on her elbow and gently steered her
forward. When the door snicked shut behind them, it was too late to
turn back.

Walking across the luxuriously thick carpet
was like walking on a cloud. Suddenly, Stone swung her around and
kissed her, another deep, soul-altering kiss that made her weak and
aching…and willing to let him do whatever he wanted to her.

When they parted, he went to a bucket that
held a bottle of champagne on ice. He popped the cork then excused
himself and went to the bathroom, but he left the door open and
talked to her.

“I’ll be out in a minute. Why don’t you pour
us a drink? I hope you’re looking forward to this evening as much
as I am.”

“You bet,” she responded, but didn’t move
toward the champagne yet.

She could leave now, but how far would she
get? He could be after her within seconds. Again, running would
raise his suspicions. Even if he didn’t come after her, he’d be
wary enough to disappear out of the city, and Interpol would have
to start the investigation over at square one. She’d be transferred
to a desk job until her supervisor could be convinced to give her
another chance.

Besides, deep down, she really wanted this
night with Stone.

She looked around, but the king-sized bed
took prominence in the room with its dark, flowered comforter
neatly covering it. Not heart-shaped as in her fantasies throughout
the day, but it would do. She noted the decorative touch of lengths
of black silk hanging from the end and center posts of the double
headboard to soften the harshness of the squared design of the
piece of furniture.

While tempted to run across the room and jump
into the middle of the bed, she resisted because she didn’t want to
appear too eager to Stone. He seemed much too full of himself
anyway. The tension of doubt would make his apparent conquest all
the sweeter.

Jule poured the pink champagne into two
flutes just as he emerged from the bathroom. She held hers to her
lips without taking a sip. Stone wore nothing but a black silk robe
and looked so desirable she thought she might drool into her
bubbly.

His belt was tied, but it hung loose,
threatening to come undone any second. A mat of dark chest hair
peeked through the deep vee between the lapels.

As he crossed the room toward her, he dropped
a towel on the bed. When he reached her, he picked up his glass and
started to take a drink, but stopped. He shifted his gaze from the
liquid to her. “How do I know you didn’t drug this?”

Jule stared at him. She thought she had him
convinced she was a freewheeling chick looking for a good time. She
decided to play it cool and snapped her fingers. “Darn. I left my
vial of cyanide at home.”

One of his dark brows rose high over his eye.
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a sleeping pill.
Here, you take a sip first.”

She ignored the glass he held toward her.
“Why would you think I’d want to drug you? I’m just looking for a
little fun.”

His gaze pierced her, as if he searched her
soul for the answer. “It’s not unreasonable to think you might want
to knock me out and roll me. Just take a sip, and the evening we
planned can go forward.”

A sudden thought struck her—what if
he
had drugged the wine? Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that he
had a bottle of pink champagne here in his hotel suite, waiting for
her to come with him? Or maybe the champagne waited every night for
any woman he brought back here.

“I could think the same about you, you know,”
she countered. “You could have put something in the bottle or just
on the glasses, like something I saw in an old movie. How do I know
you don’t prefer your women to be—less animated, shall we say?”

They stared at one another for several long
moments then set aside their glasses at the same time. Jule smiled,
and Stone chuckled politely.

“I prefer,” he began and moved in closer to
her, his voice lowering to a husky drawl, “an adventurous woman in
bed, a woman who knows what she wants and who’s not afraid to go
after it.”

“Seems like that’s me tonight,” she murmured
and caught a whiff of freshly applied cologne, a fragrant woodsy,
musky scent and her favorite. She associated pleasant memories with
that particular brand, and it added another layer to her attraction
to Stone.

He laid his hands on her shoulders. “What’s
your name?”

“Everyone calls me Jule.”

His brows knitted in a frown. “Jewel, like a
diamond?”

“No, it’s short for Juliet.” It certainly
wasn’t the first time she’d heard the erroneous assumption of the
spelling of her nickname.

“And your last name?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“I don’t. Just curious.”

“My name is Juliet Reigh.”

“Mmmm.” His hands slid off her shoulders,
peeling off her jacket with them. When the collar was near her
elbows, he jerked her forward while forcing the jacket back and
effectively pinning her arms to her sides. “Jule Reigh. Do you
really expect me to believe that?”

His sudden entrapment made her heart race.
She apparently hadn’t convinced the thief she wasn’t out to capture
him, after all. She looked up into his deep, fathomless eyes,
irises so dark they nearly blended with his pupils, and in that
moment, she almost didn’t care what he did to her as long as he
fucked her first. “It’s my name. Blame my parents.”

“At first, I thought you were an agent of
some kind. Interpol, most likely, but now…”

“Now?” she prompted, wondering if she could
use his other notion to her advantage and make him forget all about
agents and Interpol.

“Now, I think you must be Dia Manté, a
well-known thief who steals only diamonds.”

Jule had heard of the notorious Dia Manté,
another international jewel thief in Interpol’s files. With her
sole interest in diamonds, she’d been a prime suspect along with
Stone. Careful examination of the crime scene and analysis of the
execution of the heist concluded the
modus operandi
was more
in line with Stone than Manté.

“Interpol? Diamonds?” Jule widened her eyes
in surprise. She decided to try to keep the cover of horny chick
intact as long as she could. With luck, she just might pull it off.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

His ambiguous smile slanted to one side and
clearly indicated he didn’t believe her. “No need to keep up the
pretense. You’re one or the other—Interpol agent or jewel thief.
But which one?”

“I—” she began another denial, but he pressed
a finger across her mouth.

“Don’t insult me. I’ve been in this business
long enough to know when I’m being set up.” He let his finger slide
away. “I have to admit, my desire for you is clouding my instinct,
and I don’t know which one you are. So we’re going to play a little
game.”

In one swift movement, he yanked off her
jacket and tossed it away. Startled, Jule made a noise that sounded
suspiciously like a squeak. He had her nerves on edge because she
never
squeaked. “Wh-What kind of game?”

“Twenty questions…except every time you give
an answer I don’t like, I remove a piece of your clothing.”

Jule almost frowned. And the downside of this
was…? Even though she knew she should concentrate on finding a way
to escape, she really didn’t want to leave without bedding Stone
first.

“I’ll take your silence as agreement.” He
walked around her in a tight little circle that made her feel even
more trapped. “What do you know about the Pink Ecstasy?”

She licked her lips. “The what?”

“Wrong answer,” he warned from behind.

She felt him grope the hem of her light
sweater, but instead of pulling it up, he grasped the elastic
waistband of her skirt and pushed down. The maroon fabric fell
around her feet, leaving her in slip and sweater.

It wouldn’t take the entire twenty questions
to have her completely naked. Besides, all she had to do was give
him wrong answers to prove she wasn’t an agent or a rival thief and
didn’t want anything from him except a good lay.

He circled around again, stopping in front of
her, and repeated, “What do you know about the Pink Ecstasy?”

“I still don’t know what you mean. What is
this Pink Ecstasy? Sounds like fun, whatever it is.” She bit her
lip. She was talking too much. The shorter her answers, the sooner
she’d be naked and see the look in Stone’s eyes as he ran his gaze
over her body.

He ignored her question. “Who are you?”

“Jule.” She answered the truth, but knew he
wouldn’t accept the answer.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But I still answered your question.”

He shook his head. “Not good enough.”

Jule shrugged. “It’s all I can tell you.”

Stone reached for her waist again, and she
thought he’d probably take her sweater this time. She started to
raise her arms, but he pushed her slip off her hips. Now, she stood
in shoes, panties, bra, and sweater. Five more questions—counting
her shoes as two—and she’d be naked.