Red-Hot & Reckless

Desperately she pulled at Alex’s tie, shoved his coat down over his arms, then dived for his belt buckle. She heard her dress rip and realized Alex was trying to gain access to her breasts. Obviously he needed this as much as she did.

Wriggling her hips to get the room she needed, she finally freed his erection. Impressive. Very impressive. “A condom,” she said breathlessly. “Give me a condom.”

Alex froze. Just froze. His mouth still rested against her breast, his erection still pulsed against her too-hot flesh. But he wasn’t moving anymore. And she didn’t want to know the reason.

Nicole turned away from him, feeling the incredible, confusing urge to cry as sexual frustration pressed from the inside out. She wanted to scream in disappointment. Until she felt something cold encircle her left wrist.

Handcuffs.

Nicole turned and watched as Alex fastened the other side of the handcuffs to his right wrist. Not to the bedpost on the big four-poster bed dominating the small room. Damn.

She collapsed on the mattress and sighed. “You don’t have a condom, but you have handcuffs,” she said absently. “You really need to reevaluate your priorities, man.”

Dear Reader,

The edge. That’s where we like to take our stories and our characters. But in our contribution to THE BAD GIRLS CLUB miniseries, we were given the opportunity to really cut loose and go farther than we ever had before. Only, not even we could have imagined the sexy game of cat and mouse our characters Nicole Bennett (the thief in Private Investigations) and Alex Cassavetis had in mind….

In Red-Hot & Reckless, sexy expert thief Nicole Bennett has always managed to stay one step ahead of the law, mostly because she targets other thieves, the last people who will call in the authorities. But she hasn’t counted on seductive insurance investigator Alex Cassavetis stealing something from her. Namely her heart…

We hope you enjoy Nic and Alex’s sizzling journey to the edge and beyond. We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com and www.temptationauthors.com.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and hot reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

Red-Hot & Reckless

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for fellow Temptresses

Leslie Kelly and Julie Elizabeth Leto,

as well as our editor, Brenda Chin.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Prologue

NICOLE BENNETT had two weaknesses: Tiffany jewelry and men. And both were about to get her into a whole heap of trouble. The jewelry, because it wasn’t actually hers. And the man, because he’d called the cops on her five minutes ago.

Nicole rushed around the shabby one-bedroom apartment that belonged to Sebastian Pollock, the bit Broadway actor she’d been dating and basically living with over the past week. She alternately wiped prints from the surfaces that weren’t already covered in dust and stared out the window for the police to arrive at the hovel in the south Bronx. After hurrying her black cat named Cat into his carrier, she slung the strap over her left shoulder, and her black leather backpack over her right shoulder. Then she grabbed a 9 x 12 padded mailing envelope and tucked inside the carefully wrapped sterling silver jewelry. All along she cursed herself for ever having accused Sebastian of being a one-minute man that morning.

Using a red handkerchief, she wiped the doorknob clean, then opened it so she could step out into the hall. She gasped when she found Sebastian leaning against the wall right outside, his arms crossed over his impressive chest.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, his right brow arched high on his handsome forehead.

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” Nicole recited the famous Bette Davis quote, one of her favorites and definitely befitting her current circumstances.

Then again, the quote could pretty much apply to her entire life.

She made a face. What was it with her and tall, good-looking men who were about as deep as a mud puddle? Okay, so the type rarely asked questions—which was important given her line of work as a thief. But they also tended to get upset when they were offered a bit of objective criticism. In Sebastian’s case, it was that the idea of sex with him was a far sight better than the real thing. Mostly because the idea lasted a whole lot longer.

Oh, well. Just another mistake in a long list of others.

Nicole thrust the heel of her hand into his solar plexus, watched as he doubled over and gasped for air, then checked his pockets for the missing piece of jewelry. There. In his right front jeans pocket. She took out the bracelet and looked at it. She grimaced at the irony of the words stamped on the smooth tag, then smiled at Sebastian as she added the piece to the contents of the mailer.

“Thanks for the memories,” she said to him, quoting the sentiment on the tag.

She walked down the hall toward the back fire escape, not about to take the chance that by the time she climbed the four flights of stairs the police would be waiting for her outside. She thought about where she should go from there.

Baltimore. Definitely Baltimore.

Cat meowed and she looked down at him. “Looks like it’s another visit with Auntie Danika for you, buddy,” she said and picked up the pace.

1

SOMEONE WAS FOLLOWING HER.

Three days after the Sebastian episode, Nicole Bennett sat in a Baltimore, Maryland, bar called Flanagan’s Pub. Not her original destination, but a spontaneous detour designed to flush out her tail.

She was pretty sure someone was watching her. Maybe had been since she’d arrived in the city the same day she’d left New York. And she was convinced that the sensation was more than residual uneasiness left over from what had happened three days ago. Still, it wasn’t that she had actually spotted the person tailing her. Rather, it was more of a hunch that someone, somewhere was shadowing her moves. She could tell by the way her skin itched. How the tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. How the beer- and smoke-soaked air of the bar seemed to hum with a strange expectancy.

Her tail wasn’t in the establishment. She was sure of that. It had taken her all of two seconds to catalog everything and everyone in the place. Two businessmen occupied a corner booth. When they weren’t hitting on the ballsy barmaid well equipped to handle anything that came her way, they were deep in conversation, too doughy and pale to be members of any branch of law enforcement she had to be afraid of. Well, the IRS aside. But she had nothing to fear from the IRS. They wouldn’t collect a percentage of what they couldn’t prove she had. An elderly woman and her two middle-aged daughters bearing shopping bags occupied another booth—again, no threat, as they laughed over pints of dark Irish beer, then pulled comical faces when they tasted the bitter concoction.

Nicole looked back at the barmaid. Of course, she had initially presented a bit of concern. Her take-charge efficiency and razor-sharp wit made her the perfect candidate for either side of the legal fence. But the bar had been an unplanned stop and in Nicole’s experience no branch of law enforcement was that organized.

She looked at the woman in question. She seemed distracted. More than likely a man, Nicole thought. Only a man could put a grimace like that on a woman’s face. Just seeing it made her want to join in the grimacing.

“Probably moved on to the next willing female before my plane left the ground,” the barmaid muttered as she wiped down the sticky surface of the bar.

Bingo.

But Nicole found very little comfort in the confirmation. Truth was, it stank to look at someone who felt pretty much the way you did.

The door opened and a well-turned-out redhead came in, her clothes and jewelry the real thing. No threat, even if Nicole suspected the woman hadn’t been born to her current wealthy position. She’d been around both old money and the nouveau riche enough to tell. She automatically priced the pieces the woman wore, then dismissed them. Not because of their worth, but rather because the only jewelry Nicole targeted was Tiffany, and the only jewels she lifted were unset and most of the time uncut, easily fenced.

“Cool shirt.”

Nicole glanced to see that the newcomer was talking to the barmaid, not her. Her own slick black leather pants and low-cut leather vest were world’s apart from the playful T-shirt sporting a cartoon of Jessica Rabbit the barmaid had on.

“You don’t look like the T-shirt type,” the bartender told the newcomer.

The woman’s warm laugh drew the attention of the two businessmen, as she’d almost certainly intended, probably more due to nature than design.

“Believe me, sister, I don’t dress this way every day. And I certainly don’t do it for myself.”

The woman continued speaking, still talking about the barmaid’s shirt and Jessica Rabbit. “I’d like to think I have a lot in common with her. Not bad, just drawn that way.”

The barmaid nodded. “My motto.” She poured a shot of the good stuff and slid it over to the latest arrival. “My name’s Venus. Venus Messina.”

The woman extended her hand. “Sydney. Sydney Colburn.”

Nicole’s attention turned from the door to the two women.

The barmaid named Venus was staring curiously at the other woman. “Sydney Colburn…no kidding? The writer?”

After Sydney tasted the whiskey, she nodded. “One and the same.”

Only then did the name ring a bell with Nicole. Oh, yeah, she was familiar with the author. She’d picked up a few of Colburn’s novels at airport kiosks while en route. Initially she’d done so to discourage conversation during flights. But from the first sizzling word she’d read she’d become hooked.

Venus was telling Sydney how much she liked the heroes in Sydney’s novels, saying it was too bad more men couldn’t live up to that standard, then added, “And my favorite part. No wimpy heroines!”

“Men who meet my standard do exist,” the author said softly. “The trouble is finding them.”

Nicole made a face. She was so right there.

“Finding men has never been a problem for me,” Venus offered up. “Keeping them? That’s another story.”

“The good ones or the so-so ones?”

Venus sighed. “Good or even so-so wouldn’t be bad. Unfortunately, the only ones I seem to manage to hang onto are the creeps who cost you jobs or empty your bank accounts. Not the green-eyed dreamboats with chestnut hair and the kind of wicked, sexy grin that oughta be illegal.”

Nicole got the definite impression that the “dream-boat” the barmaid referred to wasn’t a work of fiction, but rather a reality. And she also guessed that he wasn’t a part of the picture anymore.

Sydney made a knowing sound.

“What?”

“You got it bad, sister.”

Nicole smiled. You can say that again.

Venus scowled. “Speak for yourself.”

After Sydney admitted she was speaking for herself, Venus poured her another drink.

“We bad girls have it tough, you know?” Venus said. “Those Goody Two-shoes have saying ‘no’ down to an art form, blaming morals or past hurts. We say yes, because of those same morals or past hurts! We just can’t give up on the idea that the next handsome stud who comes along might erase what the last one did.”

“Handsome studs are a dime a dozen.”

Nicole sat up slightly as the barmaid named Venus approached. “Hey, girl, I almost forgot you were here. Come join us. Bad girls need to stick together.”

Nicole squinted at both women, then pursed her lips. It wasn’t so much Venus’s straightforwardness that surprised her, but that she’d so correctly nailed her. Was it an innate gift, the ability to pick out those similar to you? Of course, in her case it wasn’t all that difficult to tell which side of the good girl/bad girl equation she stood on, what with her tendency toward all black clothing—especially leather, all black clothing. Straight down to her thong.

But clothing or no, Nicole felt sure that despite their physical differences, she shared much in common with the other two women when it came to men and life in general. As for careers…well, no one said she had to tell them she was a professional thief and that she knew the worth of Sydney’s gems right down to the carat weight.

She smiled wryly. “Bad girls. Are we forming a club here?”

Venus snorted. “Last club I belonged to was the Girl Scouts. I got kicked out when I was eleven.” As Sydney raised a questioning brow, Venus explained. “Summer camp. I got caught sneaking into the boys’ cabin to play Seven Minutes in Heaven. The troop leader came in just as I was heading into the closet with Tommy Callahan.” She shook her head and sighed. “He had the cutest dimples. And cool braces.”

Sydney nodded, wearing a similar look of reminiscence.

Nicole’s amused smile widened into a grin. “I never made it past Brownies. I kept altering the uniform in a way that, well, didn’t exactly meet with the troop leader’s approval. But the boys liked it.” She winked. “Besides, brown isn’t my color.” Of course, they didn’t need to know that she’d also made off with the troop’s petty cash box on the first day.

“Hell,” Sydney proclaimed, “my mother never let me forget I got tossed outta preschool for showing the boys my underwear.”

Venus snickered. “Hey, why was she complaining?”

“Yeah,” Nicole said with a knowing look at Venus. They finished the thought in unison. “At least you were wearing ’em.”

The three of them, strangers until ten minutes before, but sisters just the same, shared a moment of soft laughter. It had been a long time since Nicole had felt so connected to other women, and she enjoyed it. If only for a moment.

Venus said, “I guess we’ve been members of the bad girls’ club since birth, huh?”

Sydney silently lifted her glass in salute, and Nicole followed suit. Venus popped the cap off a beer and joined them.

The door opened again, reminding Nicole what she was doing there. Two young women wearing business suits barely spared her and her new friends a glance as they joined the men in the booth.

“Oh, no, a good girl’s in sight, reign in the lust,” Venus whispered.

Nicole picked up her drink and moved next to Sydney, then introduced herself. They chatted for several more minutes, until the ring of Sydney’s cell phone interrupted.

Venus moved away to wait on the two newcomers, then returned just as Sydney was finishing her call. The woman drained her glass and dropped a bill on the counter. Nicole noted the crisp one hundred dollar bill.

Venus picked it up. “I’ll get your change.”

Sydney told her to keep it and get Nicole good and drunk. Then, with a cheery wave, she walked toward the door. But before she could reach for the handle, the door opened and Nicole watched a man come in. She narrowed her eyes, taking in the big brown-haired man who had the solid build of a cop.

Number one weakness at ten o’clock. Her sexual radar homed in on him. Cop or no, he was a man. And a striking one at that.

She watched as he skirted around a departing Sydney, then approached the bar, his gaze on one woman and one woman only: Venus.

Nicole let out a long, mental sigh. It was just as well. After her last encounter with the opposite sex, she’d do well to fly solo for a while. Still, it could have been…interesting if the fine male specimen was the one shadowing her.

She eyed Venus, who looked a breath away from either blindsiding the latest arrival or pulling him across the bar and laying a wet one on him.

“Hi, Venus.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m thirsty,” he said as he slid onto a bar stool and tapped his fingers on the pitted wood surface of the bar. “What do you recommend? A Screaming Orgasm? Sex on the Beach?”

Venus smirked. “Screaming Orgasm Up Against the Wall is always a good choice.”

“How about Screaming Orgasm Up Against the Bathroom Counter? Or in the Pool?” The man’s grin was even dirtier than his words implied.

Nicole let out a low whistle, not having to question whether or not this was the man Venus had referred to earlier. “Yep. Definitely oughta be illegal.” Just being within five feet of the couple reminded her why she could never swear off men, no matter how much trouble they caused. She smiled at Venus, then made her way out of the bar.

The door slowly closed behind her as she tucked her chin into her chest and scanned the street from beneath her lashes. Nothing. Not a single suspicious person in sight. Just an ordinary, perfect early summer day and the foot traffic it encouraged.

She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder as she started one way, then changed her mind and walked in the opposite direction, the sensation of being followed mysteriously gone.

Could she have been wrong? She took a deep breath, then released it, wondering if paranoia was something that went along with age. Of course, it didn’t help that out of the three members of her family, she was the only active thief left. Her brother Jeremy had hung up the title a year ago when he’d met and married Joanna. Her father…

Nicole swallowed hard. Maybe that was why she was so hypersensitive about everything lately. What had happened to her father…well, she was going to make damn sure it didn’t happen to her.

She slid a glance over her shoulder. A shadow retreated into a doorway.

She twisted her lips. Maybe she hadn’t been imagining things, after all….

ALEX CASSAVETES melded into the doorway of the pub the wily and alluring Nicole Bennett had exited moments earlier. He absently rubbed his chin. She’d spotted him. He knew she had. What did that say about him as a one-time detective in the N.Y.P.D. robbery division and current insurance investigator?

Apparently not a whole hell of a lot.

Alex pushed up his jacket sleeve and glanced at his watch. He’d be a moron to try to tail her now. He suspected she’d caught onto him before she’d even entered the pub. It’s the reason he hadn’t followed her in. He still couldn’t believe that the instant he’d stepped out from the coffee shop where he’d been waiting across the street she’d looked back and made eye contact even though a good hundred feet separated them.

Damn.

Stepping from the doorway, he made his way in the opposite direction, not even looking at where Nicole had been moments before. To have come so far and to have blown it so close to meeting his objective was incompetent at best, stupid at worst.

The heels of his shoes thudded against the sidewalk, echoing against the building-crowded Baltimore street. Nicole Bennett, thief of thieves, had flown from New York to Baltimore a little more than three days ago. And he’d been right there with her every step. Following her into lingerie shops. Eating lunch a few tables away from hers. Even securing the room across from hers in the glorified flophouse that advertised hourly rates on the faded brick exterior.

But nothing in his thirty-two-year existence had prepared him for meeting her gaze head-on.

“The eyes of a witch,” Panayiota, his Greek grandmother would have said. Black, fathomless eyes that could either repel you or pull you in. He could only imagine what impact those almond-shaped eyes would have on him at close range. Photographs, no matter how vividly real, didn’t come close to depicting the genuine article. He’d just learned that the hard way.

“You’re losing it, Cassavetes,” he muttered to himself, turning a corner and suppressing the urge to duck to the side and see if she was watching him.

No. His best bet now would be to return to the boardinghouse and hope she would come back so he could pick up her trail again.

Even as he thought it, Alex knew she wouldn’t return. She was the type that, once she sensed danger, would disappear back into the woodwork from which she’d emerged. A search of her room yesterday and this morning had revealed absolutely nothing of the woman who inhabited it. Nothing that would require her to return to the room. His guess was that she either kept her personal items in her generously sized leather tote, or that her occasional visits to various bus and airport lockers explained the lack of anything left behind.

Which is exactly why she’d been so difficult to catch.

And precisely the reason he intended to catch her.

Alex Cassavetes always nabbed his man. Or in this case, his woman. A very clever, seductive and endlessly fascinating woman who slipped through his fingers like quicksilver and for the first time made him question his abilities as an insurance investigator.

He caught himself fingering an item in his pants pocket, then slid it out and stared at it. No, you wouldn’t find Nicole Bennett’s likeness on any Wanted posters. Or even any alerts circulating to local and federal law enforcement agencies. Nicole Bennett—if that was even her name—was smarter than that. For the most part, she targeted other thieves. Marks that would have to be the ultimate in obtuse to report the thefts. She was more of a ghost that sensed when a large score was about to go down and then would swoop in and make off with the booty with nary a soul the wiser.

Except for Alex.

He stepped into the lobby of the rundown hotel where he’d hung his hat for the past two days, eyed where an aging hooker and a john were haggling with the desk manager, then took the steps to the second floor two at a time.

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint the moment when he’d put two-and-two together and come away with Nicole Bennett. He’d been in the middle of the third month of tracking down the diamonds that Christine Bowman and her dangerous band of thieves had made away with. Christine had been arrested and charged, and later convicted, of the theft and the death of two security guards, but the diamonds had never been recovered. The insurance company he worked for had been out a great deal of money. But something had been bothering him about the whole case, something hovering just beyond his reach. So he’d pulled an all-nighter going over everything related to the case when something in his brain finally clicked. He’d methodically thumbed through the security shots taken from a St. Louis bus station and found the image of the woman standing half in shadow in the far corner while Christine Bowman was arrested on the other side of the station. The mystery woman had gone unnoticed, despite her black leather trench coat and striking features. Then he’d rifled through photos taken from similar thefts, incidents where the thieves were caught but the spoils were curiously missing. And he’d come across two more partial photographs of the shadowy woman in black standing on the fringes of the goings-on. An interview with St. Louis P.I. Ripley Logan had yielded him a name: Nicole Bennett.

The same name on the hotel register for the room across from his.

He turned the corner of the second-floor hall. His room was halfway down the vomit-green corridor with its narrow wood doors and tarnished knob and lock plates. Room 107. He slid his key into the lock, then paused, the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He slid a glance over his shoulder at the peephole to Room 108. Nicole?