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He wasn’t sure why the real evidence of her fear struck him like a spear low in the gut. She was an inconvenience—an incredibly attractive one—and nothing more.
“Look. Gabby. I need your help for just a little while longer.”
A string of rapid Spanish fell from her lips, and he smiled in spite of himself. He quickly translated the prayer—an appeal for help and the strength to maintain her patience.
“And while I appreciate the request to a deity, you’re sort of stuck with me for the moment.”
Fear morphed to anger in the space of a smile. “You understood me?”
“Every word.”
“Why me?”
Why had he come here? He could give himself any number of excuses—namely, that she’d been handy since her shop was a safe place to regroup and close enough to the park where the events had all gone down.
But that wasn’t the full truth.
He knew he was a bastard of the highest order, but Knox made every possible effort not to lie. Especially not to himself. “I needed help.”
“Try again.” Her gaze flashed once more toward the back door before it shifted to him. He felt her perusal as clear as a brand, from head to toe and back up again.
Damn if it wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d felt in a long time. Too long.
Focus, man.
He had a she-cat on his hands and he’d do well to remember that. This wasn’t a woman who backed down. “It’s the truth. I needed somewhere to lay low, and I remembered how to get to your shop. I’m just lucky you were still here.” Something unsettling flashed across her face like an ephemeral mask, and Knox stilled at the dark cloud that seemed to hover over her.
But it was her words that revealed even more than the look. “I’m always here.”
Was that pride? Resignation? Perhaps an odd mix of both?
He’d made a rather successful career at reading people, yet he couldn’t quite get a grip on this woman. Everything about her screamed confidence and competence, even as vague disillusionment tinged the edges. They’d met a few days before, and he’d gotten a nebulous impression of the same, but it had taken this comment for the impressions to form into a more cohesive thought.
She’s not your problem, mate.
The thought beat a rapid tattoo in his mind, but even a thousand warnings to himself couldn’t still the curiosity that had begun to run rampant about the luscious caterer with the long, curling hair that made a man itch to grab several fistfuls.
Her brother’s a cop.
He tried that internal warning on for size, and even the promise of a gun-wielding, protective sibling couldn’t quite eradicate the image of running his mouth over those generous breasts or burying himself at the apex of those long, long legs.
And then he nearly groaned as he pictured the spiky high heels she normally sported still capping off those long, long legs.
Voice harsh, he pressed his earlier point. “Look, I just need a few hours. You don’t even need to be here. Set the alarm and leave, and I can head out in a bit.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“Well, I’m not leaving, so we’re at an impasse.”
A triumphant note was layered beneath her sexy voice. “Then you can deal with my brother on his next set of rounds through the neighborhood.”
“Or you can do as I asked.”
Before he could check himself for being such a raging bloody idiot, he snagged the handcuffs from his back pocket and had one over her wrist. In a matter of heartbeats, he had the other cuff over his own wrist.
“What did—”
He cut her off, wiggling his fingers in a small wave as he lifted their conjoined arms. “Looks like you’ve got company for the evening.”
* * *
Gabby stared at the large hand that waved so near her own.
He’d handcuffed her? To him?
Shock had quickly given way to anger, and she fought to keep the upper hand. Or, hell, any hand. Preferably a free one. “What is wrong with you?”
“Desperate times, love.” He added a wink, and even though she knew the cheeky move was more an act than sincere, she couldn’t stop the shiver at the endearment. “I need to lay low for a few hours and I’m doing it here. Get over it.”
“Knox.” If she thought using his name would make her plea more personal somehow, she hadn’t given any thought to how it would make her feel. It slipped from her lips, wrapped in the breathless frustration of the moment, and she couldn’t deny she liked the sound of it on her lips and tongue.
The single syllable was hard and unyielding, like the man. Add on the unusual X at the end, and she had a sense of the wild and raw.
Also like the man.
“I can’t be a part of this.”
“You were anxious to be a part of things a few hours ago with your girlfriends.”
“I’ve been worried about them. Giving good friends moral support isn’t aiding and abetting a man with a gunshot wound.”
“I’m one of the good guys.”
“Are you sure?”
She’d seen his government badge and knew Lilah’s fiancé, Reed, had checked Knox St. Germain out through the Dallas PD database. So when had the whispers that the British officer wasn’t all he seemed taken root?
“Quite sure. You’ll be reimbursed for your time, trouble and your thousand-thread-count napkins.” He tapped his bloody shoulder with his free hand. “But for now let’s get out of the doorway.”
He’d cuffed the wrist of the same arm that had the gunshot wound, and no matter how hard she’d like to make him suffer for his asinine tactics, she reluctantly followed him back to the kitchen. The cuffs ensured there was minimal distance between the two of them, and a rush of awareness filled her at their nearness as they moved in lockstep with each other.
She’d dragged his body inside, pressed against hers, not more than fifteen minutes ago, yet even that hadn’t seemed as intimate as the small links of metal that bound them to each other.
“What are you doing here so late?” he asked.
“Cooking and finishing up some paperwork.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“It’s a lot of paperwork.”
The words came out on a snap, and she decided to let them linger. While it wasn’t his fault she spent nearly her entire life focused on her business, she wasn’t done being irritated with him. And she certainly didn’t need the inevitable lecture he’d feel honor-bound to deliver about the evils of working too hard.
“It must be a lot to run your own business.”
Her gaze flew to his at the gentle comment, and the swinging door to the kitchen nearly hit her before he reached out and caught it with his free hand.
“Sometimes.”
“But worth it, too. Hard work is its own reward and all.”
She continued on through the door as he held it open and fought the urge to shake her head. She’d already spent far too many precious hours this month arguing with various family members about the high personal cost of starting a business, the latest just this evening with her mother. It was strangely unsettling to have a conversation in the exact opposite vein.
“I’m building a future for myself.”
Knox ran a finger over the counter. “Looks like you’re off to a stellar start.”
“You know catering?”
He grinned at that. “I know eating. Cooking the food is another matter entirely.”
“You don’t cook?”
“Love, I’ve never even turned on the oven in my flat.”
Again, that persistent shiver at the endearment fluttered over her nerve endings. “Ever?”
“Gas company keeps sending me notices asking if I want to turn off the line.”
Unbidden, a small giggle bubbled in her throat, especially as she recalled grumbling at the size of her gas bill the previous month. “So what do you eat?”
“Takeaway and sandwiches are my speed. Occasionally, if I get really ambitious, I’ll scramble up a few eggs.”
“Good thing you’ve left the gas on.”
“No doubt.”
He settled onto one of the stools she kept lined up against the large countertop that made up the center of her kitchen. Although the pasty sheen of white had receded from his features, pain still tightened the corners of his eyes and mouth, and she took the seat next to him without argument.
Unbidden, a wave of compassion hit at the mix of pain and exhaustion that she sensed even more than she observed. But it was that softening that had her going on the offensive.
“Why are you really here?”
“A gunshot wound isn’t enough?”
“I don’t mean here at my shop. I mean here in Dallas.”
“I’m doing my job.”
The urge to call him out was strong, but a quick glance toward their joined hands made her reconsider. Although she didn’t feel physical danger in his presence, she’d be rather shortsighted to ignore the barely leashed strength she sensed in him. And gunshot wound or not, Knox St. Germain looked like a man who could take care of himself and anything that got in his way.
So she’d wait and watch. And continue to puzzle through the issue on her own. Although she’d kept her own council, she’d questioned his arrival from the start, showing up at her friends’ store, Elegance and Lace, and claiming the auspices of Britain’s MI5.
“Those are awfully serious thoughts flitting through your mind, Miss Sanchez.”
The lilting, cultured tones of his voice seemed to fill up the darkened room, spreading out like a warm flow of lava. He was an attractive man—virile, strong and incredibly self-possessed—but add on the accent and he took on a sort of lethal sexiness.
She met a lot of people in her line of work, and few—if any—of them had ever churned her insides up in a whirl of nerves and need.
But maybe she could use that to her advantage...
Because in that moment, as her insides went to liquid at his voice, she sensed a solution to her two most pressing problems. She wanted to uncover the secrets of the man beside her. And she desperately needed a bit of relief from her family.
The question was, could she pull both off?
“I’m in a serious situation.”
“I won’t hurt you. And I’ll be out of your way soon enough.”
Gabby shot him her most beautiful smile and went to work, laying it on thick. “I know that. But—” She hesitated another moment before offering up a small sigh. “I wonder if you could help me in return.”
“What do you need help with?”
“I need to get my mother off my back.”
The words were out, floating around in her darkened shop like heat-seeking missiles with no place to land. Had she really just opened up on the most embarrassing thing in her life? And was she actually thinking of blackmailing an injured man, no matter how suspicious he seemed?
With a glance at the hard jaw that showed the lightest sheen of stubble and her mother’s earlier litany still echoing in her ear, Gabby knew the answer.
Yes.
A million times yes.
“What, exactly, does getting your mother off your back entail?”
“My cousin’s engagement party. Tomorrow night.”
Chapter 2
“Who has an engagement party on a Wednesday night?”
Gabby supposed it was a fair question, but in an extended family of more than one hundred, you didn’t wait solely for the weekend to get together. The Sanchez family often spent time together. “My aunt is hosting dinner tomorrow night at her home. We’ll celebrate then.”
“I’ve never been engaged, but isn’t that something people do on weekends?”
The knowledge he’d remained perpetually unattached only added to those sizzling hormones that seemed to spring to life in his presence, but Gabby resolutely ignored them.
She had him on the hook.
“I have a big family. If we waited only for weekends, we’d never fit in all we have to celebrate.”
“And you want me to go to a private family event?”
“As my date.”
He stilled at that, his earlier humor settling into the craggy grooves of his face. The color had returned to his cheeks, and he no longer looked on the verge of passing out, for which she was grateful.
“Your date?”
“It’s my lack of a love life that has my mother so upset. Bringing a date for the evening will give me some breathing room for a few months.”
“Why does she care?”
“How many brothers and sisters do you have, Mr. St. Germain?”
“One. A sister. And it’s Knox.”
“Is she older or younger?”
“Older.”
“Does she get up in your business?”
Something flashed across his face. She saw it in the brief tightening of his jaw before it was shut down. Firmly. “She’s my sister. Of course she does.”
“I have five brothers. I also have forty first cousins, more than half of whom are women. And I have my mother. And my grandmother. And too many aunts to count. Trust me when I tell you interference is a way of life in my family.”
“If that’s the case, why do you need to get your mother off your back? Isn’t that the definition of her job?”
“Mine’s gotten worse since this cousin got engaged. Maria’s the third in three months. Add on that three of my five brothers are married and giving her grandchildren...”
He shrugged. “Okay. So they’re living their lives and you’re living yours. So what?”
“I’m her daughter. I should have given her no fewer than three grandchildren by now.” She leaned forward and offered up a conspiratorial whisper. “You know. Because I’m over thirty.”
“And that’s some sort of tragedy?”
“It is to Elena Sanchez.”
He studied her for a moment, and she wanted to squirm under the perusal. His gaze was raw—unyielding—and in that moment she knew why Knox St. Germain was so good at his job. He missed nothing.
“And she’s fine with you bringing just anyone?”
“You’re a man and you’re breathing. You fit the bill.”
Gabby fought to keep her gaze on his face, even as she imagined the hard chest and tapered waist that reinforced her point in every line of his fit male form.
A small light glinted beneath eyelashes to die for, and he leaned closer, his already deep voice dropping into a husky register that she suspected had removed more than one pair of panties in Knox’s past. “Will there be kissing?”
“There can be. It is what dating people do.”
“And touching?”
Oh, my.
She fought the rising wave of pure lust that thundered through her midsection at the idea of Knox running his hands over her body. The heated response did serious battle with the self-righteous anger that still lingered over his handcuffing her.
She’d brushed off unwelcome advances before; she’d do it again. He meant to get a rise out of her and nothing more. “It’s hard to kiss if you don’t touch.”
He moved a fraction closer. “What about hand-holding?”
You are aloof and unaffected. You are a rock. You see through his act. “Isn’t that touching?”
He leaned back abruptly, the sudden movement jarring her from the vision of them kissing on her aunt Corrinda’s back patio.
“I’m not sure you’re up for it.”
The vivid lights rimming the scene faded from her mind as Knox’s words registered. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I can’t swoop in like some conquering hero, kiss you and love on you, and then leave. What will your family think of me? And you by extension.”
“They won’t think anything.”
“I’m hard to forget.”
“You’re a pompous as—”
The words hadn’t even fully left her lips when Knox struck like a cobra, swift and immediate. His lips were on hers, warm and soft, and she had the abstract thought that the man ought to have a warning label tattooed onto his forehead.
Sexy voice, sexy abs and sexy lips are not to be toyed with.
Even as alarm bells hit every note on the scale, she refused to pull away. Her mother wasn’t the only one who lamented Gabby’s lack of a significant other. Gabby was the one who went to bed alone each night. And she was the same one who opened the front doors of this shop between five and six o’clock every morning.
She knew what she was missing.
And she was damned sure she wasn’t going to miss a shot at a few make-out moments with the British god who’d shown up at her front door.
Heat radiated through his T-shirt in delicious waves, and she pressed her free hand to a firm shoulder—the one not currently sporting her catering napkins—while her other hand lay against his, somewhere in the vicinity of their laps. The attachment that had felt intrusive and insulting only moments before suddenly felt like a bond. A tight bond with slightly wicked overtones.
Just like his tongue. Strong and sure, he’d invaded her mouth as neatly as he’d invaded her shop, and Gabby was hard-pressed to push him away. Long, sure strokes against her own tongue had her seeing stars, the intrusion welcome and increasingly urgent, and she responded in kind, unwilling to give him the upper hand.
His fingers tightened over her back as their breaths mingled in the cool air of the kitchen, the slightest reprieve before they both dived back into the moment.
Had she ever been this wanton before?
The thought whispered through her mind as Knox took her under in another soul-searing kiss. Hot, carnal and full of sensual promise, he was a man who knew what to do with his mouth. And whether it was the increasing discomfort building in her body or the realization that it would be so very easy to fall for this man’s conquest tactics, she knew she had to put a stop to things.
The hand she’d laid on his shoulder drifted up to his neck, the tips of her fingers threading through soft wisps of hair. She shivered at the strength she felt in the corded muscle, the physical confirming what she already knew: he was a powerful man.
And she’d have to be content with the knowledge she affected him, especially if the hard beat of his pulse beneath her palm was any indication.
With a final stroke of her tongue over his—one for the road, as it were—she pulled back, her gaze on his in the dim lights of the kitchen.
“You’re still a pompous ass.”
“I work at it.”
The cocky smile was nowhere in evidence, but Gabby didn’t doubt his words.
* * *
Knox held himself very still, unwilling to turn away from the dark gaze of the woman beside him.
What the bloody hell had just happened?
He’d wanted to kiss her from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her—those lips were too lush and gorgeous to ignore—but he’d never anticipated he’d lose his damn mind.
And bloody hell, the woman could kiss. Those gorgeous lips hid secrets he’d never imagined, and it was humbling to admit his head was still reeling. She was every fantasy he’d ever had, yet sweetly innocent all at the same time.
How was that possible?
Was this the real reason he’d come to her place? Because, if it was, he needed to do himself a favor right now and get the hell out. Who cared if Moray was out there waiting for him? He’d be a lot safer with his enemy than he was with Gabriella.
He’d accepted long ago commitment wasn’t in the cards for him.
Ignoring the strange shot of remorse that wormed beneath his skin, Knox focused elsewhere. His eyes drifted over the hard beat at the base of her throat before moving on to the generous swell of her breasts.
A hell of a lot safer with Moray.
“So we have a deal?”
Her words were laced with the slightest tinge of something he recognized immediately. Victory.
“We have a deal.”
“Then uncuff me. I’m not going anywhere, and you can stay as long as you need, but I’ve got work to do.”
“What work?”
“I’ve got to get going on five oversized trays of enchiladas, and I’m burning night-light.”
The swift change in topic when his heart still thundered with wild beats in his chest chafed against his sense of equilibrium, but he refused to show any sense of vulnerability or all-around pissiness. “That’s why you’re here?”
“I’ve been a bit behind with helping Violet, Cassidy and Lilah. And it wasn’t until tonight on the phone that I got roped into the enchiladas for tomorrow night. So while you were running around downtown getting shot at, I’ve been doing paperwork and food prep.”
“Are these the same enchiladas you brought the other day to Elegance and Lace?”
“My grandmother’s world-famous recipe.” She shot him a dark stare before pointing toward a row of disposable pans stacked along the counter on the far wall. “Which I need to get to.”
“Baldwin dived into them like he was a man dying of starvation.”
“Max Baldwin is a man with good taste.”
“They looked good.”
And he’d wanted a plate, surprised at himself for the hard ball of need that had lodged in his gut at the savory meal. He’d learned to go without at a young age, and it had served him well as an adult with an unpredictable schedule. He wasn’t particularly enticed by food as a rule, but something about the pan of hot, cheesy enchiladas had made him wish for a few cracks in his armor of self-control.
It was a ridiculous reaction to a plate of food, but even with a solid line of logic and reasoning, he hadn’t quite convinced himself he hadn’t missed out two days ago.
“They are good. Too bad you didn’t take any.”
“I was working. Trying to get a handle on what the seven of you have been up to.”
He’d admitted to himself it was a hell of a story. The Renaissance Stones had lain buried in the concrete floor of an old Dallas warehouse built in the late 1950s and owned by the daughter of one of London’s greatest jewelers. Joseph Brown had been commissioned to create the fake crown jewels during the war and after the bloodshed was over, when he decided to move his young family to America, he’d been asked to take both the false and real gems with him.
The story was fantastical, Knox knew, even for someone who had significant levels of clearance to some of the world’s most revered secrets. Yet here he was. In the city that was known for sheer grit, beautiful women and the death of JFK, priceless gems had been smuggled out of England and lay buried for decades in the floor of a bridal boutique.
“The seven of us weren’t up to anything. Those gems have brought nothing but heartache and danger.”
“They seemed to do quite a job on everyone’s love lives.”
He didn’t consider himself a fanciful man, but the evidence was hard to argue with. The three women who had discovered the jewels each ended up with the three men who came to their aid. If the Renaissance Stones didn’t have such an ugly history, he’d be tempted to think they carried something special.
Which went beyond fanciful, veering straight into superstitious.
But seeing as how those same rubies lay in one of the pockets of his cargo pants, warm against the same thigh that had recently pressed to Gabriella Sanchez as he kissed the ever-loving hell out of her, Knox figured he couldn’t be too careful.
Gabby stilled, the feisty spark in her eyes morphing with a strange light. “I suppose there is that.”
Unwilling to dwell on any of that nonsense a moment longer, he dug the key to the cuffs out of his pocket and went to work on their metal tether. He unhooked her first, then his own, shoving the cuffs back into his pocket. He’d ignored his shoulder up to then, but it burned like the very devil.
“Can I clean up?”
“I’ve got a full first-aid kit in the back bathroom. Help yourself. I also have a stack of T-shirts in the storage room next to the bathroom from some of the vendors who call on me. Help yourself there, as well.”
He lifted his eyes at the idea of a full kit. “You encounter much danger here, Miss Sanchez?”
“It’s an industrial kitchen, and I regularly have students in my cooking and wine classes. Accidents happen.”
That much was likely true, but he still let out a low whistle a few minutes later when he investigated the full set of medical equipment she had stored in her back bathroom. Everything he needed was in the stockpile, including gauze and the required materials to stitch himself up.