Hero For Hire

“Where is she?”

Nina could see nothing, which added to her terror. Kicking out into the dark room, she found herself pinned to the mattress, a hard, powerful body stretched out over hers, her arms immobile above her head.

“Come on, Nina.” He said the name slowly, purposely, in his very American way, and she knew instantly who held her so intimately. “Tell me.”

Fear clouded her brain for a moment, before her rare temper took over and she remembered to use her knee forcefully.

A satisfying grunt sounded in her ear, but he recovered quickly, simply using his superior strength and weight to hold her still. “Hey! Careful!”

That he sounded more incredulous than angry didn’t stop her from struggling, and though he was on to her now, she still gave him a good fight.

“Don’t, damn it,” he grated in her ear, doing his best to both hold her and fight her off, but her fear and temper had dulled her mind, and she fought him mindlessly, getting in one more carefully aimed knee before he pressed her hard into the mattress.

Lifting his head, chest heaving from the exertion, he spoke an inch from her mouth. “Lord, you’re a squirmy little thing.”

His skin was warm, his body hard with muscle. His weight wasn’t uncomfortable, which disturbed her.

So did the way her body seemed to welcome his thigh thrust high between hers, forcing her legs open. Despite the confusing, mixed signals her brain sent, she continued to struggle. “Get off me!”

“Soon as you promise not to scratch my eyes out. Or other, more critical parts.”

“I promise.” She’d promise him the moon if he’d get off her.

He slanted her a doubtful gaze, then sighed the sigh of a martyr, as though he was the one being inconvenienced. “Look, your virtue is safe with me, all right? You’re not even my type, so just relax and answer my questions.”

Not only had he invaded her home and scared her half to death, but she was quite certain she’d just been insulted. “Get off me!”

“First tell me why you have two goons following you. Oh, and the question of the day, of course. Where is your sister?”

CHAPTER THREE

“THERE IS NO ONE following me but you!” Nina cried.

“Not anymore,” Rick agreed. “Because once they saw you pull in here, they took off.”

She stopped struggling for a second. “You... must be mistaken.”

“And your sister?”

“I told you, she is dead.”

Rick stared down into Nina’s face, seeing the fear and fury, highlighted by the faint moonlight coming in the window.

Her fear bothered him. He knew he should reassure her he didn’t rape and pillage for a living, but all he could think was...did she not realize he could see right through her? Everything about her, the wide eyes, the uneven breathing, the not quite direct eye contact—everything told him she was lying through her teeth.

He’d seen and done it all, and as a result knew most people were capable of deception. Maybe he’d turned cynical, yes, but he had good reason to be exactly who and what he was, down to his very toes.

All he knew was that this woman, sweet and lovely as she may be, had lied, because a woman who’d died a year and a half ago couldn’t have given birth a couple of months later.

“Try again,” he said, wanting this over with. Her lie wasn’t the only thing getting to him. Every time he’d seen her in the two days he’d been staking out All That Glitters, she’d been fully dressed in colorful but modest business attire. Even her hair had been restrained.

But now...my God. Now she was the antithesis of that cool, elegant woman. Her chestnut hair sprawled across the pillow in silken waves, and also across his arm, which still held her hands over her head. It was long and thick and scented with some shampoo that made him want to lean in close and sniff some more.

And her body... Well, she most definitely had one. She wore a thin cotton T-shirt. No bra. And since she was pressed to him like shrink-wrap, he could feel her warm, full breasts, her nipples drilling holes into his chest. One arm of the shirt had slid off her shoulder in their tussle, revealing a smooth, tanned shoulder that he had the most ridiculous urge to bend down and bite.

And that was before he realized he lay between her spread thighs, having put himself in that erotic position during their struggle. Even worse, the hem of her T-shirt had tangled around her waist, revealing a pair of plain white cotton panties that suddenly seemed sexier than the most revealing lingerie.

She was amazing.

And her eyes spit bullets. He understood then that the restrained, almost prim woman he’d seen at work was a cover-up. A sham. There was nothing restrained or prim about her.

At the thought, his body reacted, and shoved up against the V of her opened legs as he was, he knew she could feel him. He forced himself to look into her face and found her staring up at him with a mixture of expressions all her own.

Horror.

And reluctant, befuddled arousal.

That made two of them, he thought grimly, pulling back enough that she could close her legs together, which she did so quickly that she slid against the front of his jeans, causing more torture.

At the helpless groan ripped from him, she closed her eyes.

He cleared his husky throat. “About your sister.”

As she had before, she drove her knee up, and since he’d started to relax his hold, her aim was far more accurate this time, hitting him high on the inside of his left thigh. High enough to send stars dancing across his vision. The breath whooshed out of him and he swore the air blue.

Cringing back as far as she could go, Nina closed her eyes tighter.

And damn it, that little protective gesture made him feel like a jerk. “I told you I’m not going to hurt you. I just want the truth.”

It should bother him, he supposed, that he was holding back plenty of truths himself. One, he feared Terry was in deep danger. Two, Mitch clearly imagined himself in love with her. And three, she’d left a baby on a doorstep in Texas.

But Nina probably knew all of that. And yet if that was true, why hadn’t Terry left her baby with Nina?

There had to be a damn good reason for that, and until he knew it, baby Hope remained a secret.

“I do not have the truth you seek,” Nina said in her formal but flawless English. “I have nothing for you.”

He was used to that—there weren’t many who had much for Rick. But he no longer cared. “I’m not going anywhere.” Deliberately, he lay more fully over her. “We can hang out all night, for all I care.”

“My sister is dead,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thick, which would have made him feel like an even bigger jerk if he hadn’t known that to be a lie.

Terry wasn’t dead. She’d just somehow managed to convince everyone else that it was true.

Question was, did Nina know that truth?

Right this very moment Mitch was probably holding the baby he and Terry had made together. Mitch believed Terry needed their help.

Rick didn’t yet know what he believed, but he would learn the truth.

“Terry isn’t dead,” he said slowly. “I know it and you know it. So stop repeating yourself and tell me something that I can use.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” She lifted her chin defiantly, though she still trembled beneath him. “I do not know who you are or what you want.”

He had no idea if it was her forced bravado or the way she spoke English without using contractions, but he softened toward her, just a little. “Okay, I’ll play. My name is Rick Singleton. I’m a bounty hunter. There. Now you know who I am and what I want.”

“A bounty hunter.” Her lips formed a perfect little O of distress. “You have been hired by the police to bring her back! But she is—”

“Dead. Yes, so you’ve said.” He stared down at her, wondering why the police would be looking for Terry. He was definitely missing most of this puzzle. “Maybe no one is fooled, Nina. What do the police want her back for?”

“To go to jail, of course, on that phony embezzlement charge. But she was set up, framed!”

“So you helped her escape.”

She closed her mouth.

“Maybe even helped her fake her death?”

“That would be against the law.”

Ah, things were starting to click into place. Terry had gotten herself in trouble with the Brazilian law.

And had she indeed been framed, as her sister clearly believed, or had the wild older sister bitten off more than she could chew?

He’d have to check that out.

In the meantime, there was really no harm in letting Nina in on a few details, especially if it would ease her mind and loosen her tongue a little. “I’m not with the police. I was hired by Finders Keepers, a private investigation service, to find your sister.” He wouldn’t say more now, not until he figured out what the hell was going on.

It seemed unlikely that this wide and wild-eyed innocent beauty could be tangled up in anything that would hurt Terry Monteverde, but Rick knew better than to blindly believe in anyone.

Proving that, Nina took advantage of his lax hold on her and rolled free of not only him, but the bed. When she tumbled to the floor, he dived after her, but she evaded him with a surprising agility and came to stand on the far side of the room, chest heaving, hair in her face.

They faced off like that for one split second, before she whirled and vanished out the door and down the hallway.

Damn it. With a sigh at her ignorance in thinking she could outrun him, he went after her, slamming his shin against a chest in her bedroom, then walking straight into the door, which she’d cleverly shut behind her.

Swearing, hopping on one foot, he started down the hallway after her, stopping only to pull a flashlight out of his pocket in order to avoid more injuries.

He had no idea how a little slip of a woman had gotten the best of him, but she definitely had, and it annoyed him. He’d gone easy on her—it had been those dark, mesmerizing eyes—but it wouldn’t happen again.

Her white T-shirt glimmered up ahead and he went after that. The hallway opened up into a huge, open living room. One entire wall was glass, overlooking the mountain vista. Light from the moon and stars filtered in, aiding him in the chase.

Nina’s shirt whipped up about her thighs, her bare feet flashing as they pumped, but he let her stay just ahead, hoping she’d exhaust herself. He couldn’t see tumbling her down to the hardwood floor, and since there was no way she was getting away from him again, he began to enjoy both the chase and the view she unwittingly gave him.

Oh, yeah, he was definitely going to be a fan of plain white underwear in the future.

Then she vanished behind a door.

He burst through it and found himself blinking in the bright glare of the kitchen, staring down a wild-looking Nina wielding...a can of juice?

“Stay back!” she commanded.

He couldn’t help it, he laughed. “Yeah, that’ll protect you.”

She looked so fierce holding her can. That T-shirt she wore was plain, white and stark. With her free hand she tugged on the hem, modestly pulling it tight across her chest in order to cover herself to midthigh.

He wondered what she’d say if he told her she’d made the shirt nice and sheer.

Oh, and that she was cold.

Somehow that damn shirt was the sexiest thing he’d seen, and yet innocence shimmered off her in waves.

He wanted to believe it was an act. After all, at work she’d been all suited up and reserved. But here, in bed and right now, she was rumpled and warm and absolutely, heart-joltingly beautiful.

“Why on earth,” he said, talking before thinking, a dangerous condition at the best of times, “do you go to all the trouble it must take to hide yourself in those uptight clothes during the day?”

It obviously wasn’t what she expected him to say. She went still as a rabbit for one heartbeat, before dropping the can and whirling toward the back door.

* * *

NINA DIDN’T get it opened; she didn’t have a chance before he was there, his chest to her back, his arms reaching past hers to hold the door firmly closed.

“I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about your dressing habits,” he said in her ear.

Sagging, she put her forehead against the wood, but all that did was sandwich her between the hard door and the even harder body of her pursuer.

“How about we talk about your sister, then?” he asked calmly.

Enraged, terrified, she fought.

He let her. She knew he thought it funny, both her pathetic struggles and the can of juice she’d nearly lobbed at his head, and she couldn’t stop picturing his wide, mocking grin.

All her life she’d been humored, and she resented it with every bit of her being. As a result, she continued to fight him like a wild cat.

He had no trouble keeping her pinned. When she tried to kick back, he simply pressed in closer, so close she could feel the power in his thighs, his belly, his chest. When she reached back instead, attempting to push him away, he ran his hands down her arms, manacling her wrists, holding them on either side of her head.

It infuriated her, both his superior strength and the way he used it against her. Refusing to give up, she kept fighting until finally she didn’t have a breath left in her body.

“Ready to talk?”

“Let go, you are hurting me.”

“If I let go, you’ll hurt me.”

As if she could! Making her feel even more insignificant, he didn’t loosen his hold, but somehow gentled it so that his hands no longer hurt her, and her body, quivering with indignation and exhaustion, was supported by his.

She felt weak and vulnerable, and she resented that more than anything. “I hate you.”

“Nothing personal, senhorita, but I’m not real fond of you myself.”

“Then go away!”

“I can’t. I’ve been hired to find your sister.”

“You have already said. And as I have already said, she is dead. Are you short on memory?”

He let out one bark of laughter. “You’re not much in a position to annoy me, Nina.”

But she thought maybe she was. If he’d been planning to hurt her, he’d have done so by now. She was banking on it. All she had to do was wait until he lowered his guard and she’d... She’d figure that out when the time came.

Hopefully.

In the meantime she tried to block out the feeling of his entire body against hers like a layer of paint. It should have disgusted her, should have continued to stoke her temper, but something odd was happening, as it had in her bedroom. She felt warm, from the inside out, sort of itchy and tingly, and she didn’t like it.

“Are you going to run again?” he asked.

“No.”

“Are you just saying that so I’ll back off?”

“Yes.”

He let out another short laugh. “Okay, one point for honesty. But I’m tired, Nina. So don’t push your luck.” Slowly, he pulled back, but only a few inches. Just enough that she could whirl around and face him.

And realize he was still way too close, because all she could think of was...him.

“Back to Terry,” he said, abruptly distracting her from the fact she knew that every inch of him was warm, hard and smelled like... Well, she hadn’t had many opportunities to be plastered against a man like this, but she imagined his scent was pure male. In any case, it was startlingly, annoyingly good.

“Is she hiding at another Monteverde estate?”

She looked up into his moss-green eyes. “Someone must be paying you a lot of money.” This was spoken bitterly, but she couldn’t help it. “I assume you want the money or gems Terry has been accused of embezzling, but as she never stole a thing in her life, I hope you rot in hell trying to find it.”

He didn’t so much as blink. “How about we start with the fact that I know she’s not dead. The two of you faked her death, right? So all you have to do is tell me where I can find her.”

Now it was her turn to laugh, but unfortunately, it sounded more like a choked-off cry of dismay.

He frowned, eyes narrowed. “I want an answer.”

“I do not have one for you.”

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