Shivering as they walked through what had become a sprinkling of fine snowflakes, Becca handed back Dane’s jacket. If she’d guessed right, her sexy black dress and spike heels would fit right in at this place.
“You’ll freeze your tits off, love.”
“They’re already frozen. And aren’t you the king of suave?”
“They are? Mind if I have a look?”
“Is that part of your investigation?”
“It could be a perk. And speaking of perky…”
Becca chuckled and strode ahead of him.
Another well-dressed couple filed in behind them as they approached a simple, unlocked entry door of dented metal painted lime-green.
Becca stepped in, with Dane in tow. It appeared to be an old apartment building, with a lobby, high ceilings and a dusty iron chandelier. The scent of tobacco smoke filled the air. The foyer and a hallway to the right were lined at the baseboards with strip lighting that flashed green to violet, back and forth.
The pulse of distant music revved Becca’s heartbeat before she could even make out sound. Vibrations shivered in the dusty floorboards, some kind of heavy trance beat.
Following the lights down a series of steps, they arrived at a door that featured a small sign the size of Becca’s palm. The neon-green, lowercase italic read verte.
Hmm…
“Green?” Dane said over her shoulder.
On a wild guess, Becca suspected she knew what the bar served—and it hadn’t been legal for almost a century.
She pushed open the door. Techno music washed over her, setting her senses on ultra-alert and then, as quickly, numbing her to all but the steady bass beat. A DJ suspended high above the dance floor in a green metallic cage shifted to the beat, in shades of green and gold.
The thick-necked bouncer looked her over and nodded. As she had suspected, if you could find the place and didn’t appear to be a threat, you were in.
She blew a kiss to the man and sashayed in with her best sexy stride as the techno music shimmied over her. Bodies clad in skin-baring strips of fabric gyrated. The dance floor begged serious movement so she hung back along the edge.
Someone clasped her upper arm. Ready to protest, she turned.
“Stay close,” Dane said. “We are partners, remember?”
“Now he wants to work together.” But he didn’t hear.
The club stretched four stories high, the vast cathedral ceiling topped with long rectangular skylights. Gothic sculptures of gargoyles and naked bodies twined and twisted up and down the walls. Green damask upholstered chaises littered the floor and violet-cushioned stools queued about the bar. The Plexiglass dance floor eddied from green to violet. Green smoke hissed out from small vents concealed under tables and beneath the stage.
The atmosphere channeled Quasimodo meets Dangerous Liaisons meets The Matrix.
A waitress dressed in slinky green lamé, with fluttering green fairy wings hooked at her back, smiled as she wheeled past a large oxygen tank on a steel dolly.
Becca spied more oxygen tanks—smaller and portable—sitting along the bar and in the center of each table. The tanks were about ten inches high and featured a vaporizer tube for breathing in alcoholic fumes.
“AWOL,” she said.
“Alcohol Without Liquid,” Dane verified, a note of fascination in his voice. “Nasty stuff.”
“Really?” She had heard about the European rage of inhaling oxygen infused with alcohol. It was slowly making a showing in the States, the no-calorie part being its biggest draw for the diet-obsessed nation. “I thought it was safe.”
“Not on your life. Initial reports advertised it as a chic new way to get your alcohol without all the calories or the hangover. But rapid ingestion into the lungs and bloodstream can really rough a person up.”
“Don’t they have the tanks gauged?”
“Supposedly. If properly—and legally—adjusted, they should allow a shot to be inhaled over a twenty-minute period. But idiots have begun shortening the time. Just like binge drinking without the messy liquid. Bloody hell. Do you think that’s absinthe?”
Another fairy, bewinged in fluttery violet silk, walked by with a silver rack full of clanking vials glittering with green liquid.
“I guess that’s the verte, eh?” Becca raked her eyes over the room and up the stairway to the second floor. She still wore the earring with the camera. It could come in handy yet. “Follow me. I see Pink.”
Becca moved through the crowd toward the iron stairway spiraling up to the second floor balcony. The mindless, unending rhythm was impossible to ignore. And why should she? The best cover was in blending with the crowd. Gyrating, Becca grabbed the beat and started working her hips.
Sayonara, stuffy socialite.
This was the part of the lie that felt most real to her. A free spirit who could run with the punches and conform to any scenario. No one here cared what she did.
“That’s her,” Dane whispered in her ear.
Becca kept up a hip dance, but followed Dane’s nod. Pink had topped the stairs. A man whose shaved head bore an intricate pattern of black tribal tattoos greeted Pink with a sloppy openmouthed kiss. Large rough hands snaked up her dress, exposing her thigh-high stockings and garters. She pushed him off and, hand in hand, they walked out of Becca’s line of sight.
“Let’s move.” She mounted the stairs, surveying the room as she did. Now Becca noticed the smell wafting up in the tendrils of fog. Sweet and cloying. Sage.
Crossing through a beam of violet light, she turned and reached for Dane’s hand as they reached the top. “Come on. She’s across the room at the far table,” Becca said. “Impossible to lose that bright pink silk.”
Turning to embrace Dane, she situated them against the wall beneath the lascivious grin of a cat-faced serpent sculpture. “I’m making it look good.”
“You won’t get any arguments from me. Neither should you complain when I do this.” His hand slid down her waist and over her derriere. The touch compelled her forward, into his personal space. An invasion she knew he was equipped to handle.
But was she? This sexual play teased at her sense of right and wrong. A line must always be drawn when on a case. But she’d never before had to draw one because of a partner. So where did the demarcation begin?
Becca moved closer, nuzzling her nose to Dane’s cheek. All for show, she reminded herself. Keep it that way. “See who she’s talking to?”
Dane brushed his cheek against hers as he glanced across the room. “The guy in the purple suit? I can’t get a good look at his face.”
“I believe it’s aubergine.”
“What?”
“The color… Never mind.” Slipping her fingers through Dane’s, Becca stepped back. Tossing her hair, she did a sexy spin, landing with her back against his chest and wrapping his arms across her stomach so they could both watch. “Mind your hands,” she warned sweetly.
“You put them there, Miss I’m-Just-Making-This-Look-Good. Wait—you see that?”
Pink handed the man in the aubergine suit a small black pouch. One guess what was inside.
The suit opened the pouch. The bar was dark, but when the violet lights flashed over their table the diamond sent out a laserlike beam to the ceiling.
“Bloody idiot.”
“It’s dark,” Becca said. “And he’s probably high.”
The suit clasped hands with Pink and yanked her to him to seal the deal with a kiss. A hard one, but Pink responded by wrapping her arms about the man’s shoulders. Both pulled away, smiled and nodded.
The tattooed man dragged Pink off into the darkness. Exchange complete. Pink had not looked disappointed.
Dane spun Becca and pressed a palm to her cheek. “They’re coming this way.”
She studied the hard blue of Dane’s eyes as he followed the suspects. Those eyes could turn serious or sexy in a flash. Beguiling.
“Headed down to the dance floor,” he reported.
Snuggling her head against Dane’s neck, Becca glanced sideways across the room. The suit was studying the diamond. Then he gave it a toss, caught it smartly, and shoved it back into the pouch and into his right pants pocket.
Swiping a palm over his goatee, he grinned. Green light highlighted an angular face, made even harsher by the exact lines of his dark beard, as he took in the crowd on the balcony.
Becca stilled. “He looks familiar.”
It was a startling realization. Did she recognize him? From where?
“Who? Dimitri?”
Becca’s heartbeat thudded to a halt. Wrenching her head up, she speared Dane with her gaze. “You know him?”
He had the audacity to shrug.
“The man in the purple suit. You just called him Dimitri.”
“I believe it’s aubergine.”
“Don’t fuck with me.” She slid her hand up to his neck, squeezing.
“Chill, woman, this dinner jacket is a rental. Where have you seen him?
“Somewhere. I just…” Was completely floored how Dane had pulled a name out of the atmosphere like that. “He’s…” She searched her memory for an exact event, but nothing jumped out at her. “That prince… Dimitri… I think that was his name. He’s been in town for about a month. He’s prince of some Turkish place.”
“Turks don’t have princes.”
“Sure they do. I just don’t recall…”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No. Have you spoken to him?”
“Never met him before.”
“Yet you know his name.” She studied Dane’s eyes, seeking the truth. This was a need-to-know moment and she wasn’t going to back down. “Talk to me, Dane.”
“I read Pink’s lips.”
“You’re kidding me. Lipreading?”
“It’s a skill oft used by our sort. You telling me you’ve never heard of it?”
Becca held her tongue. She’d heard of lipreading. Had tried it herself—unsuccessfully.
But she wasn’t buying Dane’s excuse. “I’m moving in for a closer look,” she stated.
Dane tightened his grip about her waist. His palms molded to her hipbones with surprising heat. He knew how to touch a woman and exert minute control. And those eyes always commanded the attention he required.
Becca adjusted her weight to the other foot, tilting one hip against Dane’s. Defiance held her there as she silently challenged him.
“Let’s think this through,” he said. “We can follow him out of here.”
“Or we can take the diamond from him, call the Paris police to make an arrest, and be done with this chase. Let me go.”
“I can’t lose this guy.”
“You won’t. I’ll have a finger on him the whole time.”
“New York, you haven’t a clue—”
“And are you going to give me one? Care to divulge all you know about the man?” She waited; Dane remained stone-faced. “Just as I thought. Cover me.”
“Don’t cock this up, love.”
Becca laughed. “Isn’t that the point?” She smirked. “Getting a cock up?”
Dane rubbed a hand over his tense jaw, fighting some urge to stall her, no doubt. “Watch yourself.”
“If anyone is going to be doing any watching…” She trailed a finger under Dane’s chin, and with a glance to the suit, who was still scanning the room, she leaned in and kissed Dane. A real, openmouthed, deep and delving kiss. Caught unaware, Dane gasped into her mouth, but didn’t push her away. Instead, he fed into the passion, the hunger.
It actually hurt her chest to end it, as if an electric shock were tweaking her heart. “Don’t take your eyes off me. Got it?”
Becca licked her lower lip. Her glance to the side caught the suspect’s eye. He’d seen their kiss.
“Don’t look away,” she chided as she walked off, working the rhythm for all it was worth.
“Don’t look away,” Dane murmured mockingly to himself as Becca left.
A bombshell strode away from him, hips swinging and Thoroughbred gams prancing. Oh, but the beat belonged right there, in the confident steps of a dangerous woman.
But dangerous to her own detriment?
New York’s plan could backfire and be detrimental to them both.
“Fine. I’m watching.”
Because it was easier than revealing everything he knew. And Dane figured if he tried to tug her out of here it would only create a scene.
“And what a show we have tonight, ladies and gentleman,” he muttered to himself. “Look at that sweet, tight arse. Shake it, love. What’s that?”
Becca’s hand slid up the side of her slinky black dress, to the small bow he’d noticed earlier. She moved the zipper higher, until it stopped at her thigh, just below her bottom.
“Careful, love.” Dane crossed his arms and assumed a defensive stance.
From what he knew of the man in the purple suit, this was one encounter he should have tried to prevent. It was too soon. He hadn’t expected to make contact. And not in such a bloody crowded place. That Dimitri was here defied all logic. Wasn’t he supposed to be in New York?
“Contact with suss,” he reluctantly narrated.
To stand by and watch made Dane itchy to pick a fight. But he’d invested too much time to jump the gun now. He trusted Becca wouldn’t learn anything yet. And so long as she was happy chasing after her diamonds, he could concentrate on his own objective. Sure, MI-6 wanted the stones, but he wanted Dimitri.
“He’s interested. Bloody arsehole’s stretching his eyes from tit to toe and back up again. Work them, New York. He knows what he wants. Oh! The killer hair swing. That got him. That’s right, chat him up. Lick those lips I just kissed—”
Dane licked his own lips. A remnant of something fine and expensive, like a droplet of Krug, clung to his mouth. Bloody brilliant, that kiss. But the untouchable bit of dosh fired all his caution buttons.
If only it hadn’t been this case, and this Russian, he’d consider investing a lot more time in Miss Billion Dollars.
Who was currently feeling up his suss. Dane had tracked Dimitri too long. She’d better not mess things up.
Her last words, Don’t look away, rang sexily in his head.
It was all a game of dress-up to her. Did she think she was one of those superheroines who pranced across the movie screen, always looking gorgeous, yet never getting more than a broken fingernail?
With a shake of his head, Dane focused.
“That’s right, I’m watching. What the hell?”
Dimitri turned and looked right at Dane. He raised the vaporizer to him in a toast, and nodded.
Sodding—had she blown his cover?
No, the man couldn’t ID him. Dane had not made contact with Dimitri. He’d been very careful this past year.
He gave a sheepish wave in acknowledgment and muttered, “What are you up to, New York?”
He was about to find out.
Dimitri and Becca were headed toward him. The bastard draped a hand at Becca’s waist and she couldn’t get any closer to the man unless she was wearing his clothes. He was not Turkish. And far from a prince. Dane didn’t need to read lips to know that.
When they reached Dane’s side, the man, who was very tall, with shoulders as broad as a rugby player’s, said, “Is good,” and nodded for Dane to follow.
Definitely Russian.
“It’s all right, baby.” Becca threaded her fingers through Dane’s. She’d assumed a soft, lilting accent, as if she were an idiot blonde. “I told him you like to watch.”