Sex, Lies and Valentines (9 page)

“We’re already rich, and this deal is guaranteed to get us a whole lot richer. Why would we need you?”

“Guaranteed?” Gabriel’s skeptical smile elicited more than one growl around the table.

“We follow the boss’s plan and pool our resources. Instead of all of us controlling bits and pieces of illegal activities, together we can control the entire state. Eventually, the country.”

“Clever.” Gabriel’s nod acknowledged the plan, but doubt was written all over his face. What was he up to? “It sounds to me like someone’s thought it all through very carefully. Brought you all together to contribute your piece of the pie, right?”

“And just what’s your piece?” Mikels asked, his mud-brown gaze sliding over Danita like a slug.

Gabriel shifted, just a couple of inches. The move made him seem bigger. More intimidating. The air in the room changed. Chilled. A couple of the goons shifted nervously.

“Mind your manners,” Gabriel murmured with a pleasant smile that offered the same lethal threat as an AK-47. Without blinking, he waited for the other man to shrink into his chair before telling the table, “What I offer, gentlemen, is a skill for playing the game. I’m best at assessing the situation and calling the shots. Which is why I was invited, right?”

A few of the men shared frowns and muttered glances. Jealousy? Or were they wondering just how, exactly, Gabriel had got himself added to the guest list. Tension knotted in her stomach, Danita carefully watched the men for sudden moves. After all, Gabriel’s invitation had been the work of the FBI and a hacker unknown to her. What if one of these guys knew the real guest list?

“It’s up to the boss,” a man said from his position by the door at the opposite end of the room. The guy who’d passed around drinks. Apparently he was the host of their little party. Danita frowned. He didn’t have the build of a thug, but wasn’t on any of the FBI’s wanted lists either.

“Boss, Ham?” Gabriel asked. Ham? Hamilton Bollinger, Danita realized. The owner of the manor, a local businessman, as Danita recalled, who had a relatively clean record.

Clearly his record was missing some vital information.

Gabriel met the older man’s gaze as he leaned back in the chair, looking completely relaxed. “And just who is this boss, Ham? Why isn’t he here to run this little show himself? Too busy, right? Which is why he needs me.”

Adams laughed, a mean sort of sound that usually preceded a gut kick or knife in the back. “You don’t think we’ll let you waltz in here and claim top spot, do you, pretty boy?”

“Let me?” Gabriel asked. His words were quiet. His expression friendly. But the air in the room sizzled with a potential for violence that had Danita calculating how long it’d take her to grab the pistol strapped to her inner thigh.

“Enough,” the guy Gabriel had called Ham barked. “The boss is calling the shots and will continue calling the shots. This week’s meetings are to solidify the West Coast plans, and to figure out who will be the front man.”

“You still haven’t told us why this guy couldn’t be bothered to be here for the meeting,” Gabriel challenged, making a show of looking around the room. “We’re here. We all bring something to the table. And we’re supposed to, what? Align our skills and resources to someone who doesn’t even bother to show up? Someone we don’t know?”

And just like that, the energy shifted again. Suddenly the glares were aimed at Ham, with the men clearly stepping over to Gabriel’s team.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t work blind. While I can see the benefits of this coalition idea, I don’t need it,” Gabriel said with a shake of his head. “If I’m going to play, I want to see the team. The entire team.”

“You’re not calling the shots,” Ham said, wiping sweat off his forehead with a trembling hand. “You don’t get to make demands.”

“What I am is the man with the key,” Gabriel said with a charming smile. He waved his hand—no trembles in sight—around the table. “Unlike the rest of these fine gentlemen, I’m not looking for a new connection or a chance to sell my wares to a bigger audience. I’m here for one reason.”

“What’s that?” Ham asked, his previously nervous demeanor suddenly shrewd.

“Revenge.”

That caused a few mutters, but mostly garnered him approving looks. These guys were all about the revenge concept.

“Against?” Ham prodded.

“My father, of course. Your boss has already built the frame, setting him up for that drug deal last month, the guns a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a bad job. Not bad at all.” Gabriel flashed a wicked smile. “But I can do better. Your boss has a reason for setting Tobias Black up. I’m the key to making that setup solid, and making it work.”

Her heart pounding, Danita held her breath. None of her worry or anger showed on her face. But she was still freaked out.

They didn’t know for sure that Tobias Black wasn’t the one behind this plan. Sure, Gabriel was hoping he wasn’t. But what if he was wrong? Ham was taking direct orders from someone, and if that someone was Tobias, their cover was blown.

If it weren’t for the room filled with people who’d be happy to kill them, Danita would jump up and smack Gabriel. What the hell was he doing? They were here to get information. Not to play games. They wanted the name at the top. She’d carefully outlined what was and wasn’t acceptable in eliciting that information during their drive up. And he, of course, was ignoring every damned order she’d made.

But nobody said a word. Trying to gauge the reactions, she heaved a sigh, as if bored silly, and inspected her manicure while scanning the men around the table from the corner of her eye. He was making it work. The criminals looked intrigued, a few were impressed that he’d so happily sell out his own father.

And Ham, the guy with the direct line to the person behind all of this and the key to it all? He was practically bouncing in his boots with excitement.

Damn Gabriel Black for being scary good at this game.

“Tell you what, you share that little bit of news with your boss. Then you get back to me.” Gabriel stood, his smile confident and cold. “I’ve got the talent to lead this coalition. And I’ve got the connections to pull off the con. But I won’t use either until I meet, face-to-face, with the person calling the shots. If I’m in, I’m in charge. You gentlemen won’t mind, right?”

Busy scanning the faces and filing away reactions, Danita almost missed the hand Gabriel held out to her.

“C’mon, Blondie. Let’s give these gentlemen time to decide whether to ante up or fold.”

Her fingers trembled just the tiniest bit in Gabriel’s hand as she followed him from the room. His fingers tightened, warming the worry from hers.

As soon as they reached the top of the stairs and the hallway leading to their room, he grabbed her shoulders and swung her against the wall. His body pressing tight against hers, Gabriel’s grin was gleefully wicked.

“Babe, that was fun. Nothing like the rush of playing a major con.”

“You’re crazy,” she breathed. Then, swallowing a relieved giggle, she gave in to that rush by linking her fingers behind his neck and grinning up at him. “And baby, you played that room like a virtuoso.”

“Encore time,” he said as his lips met hers. That same edgy danger that she’d felt in the room was here on his lips as they took hers. Nipping, pushing, demanding. His kiss said he knew what she had and he wanted it all. Her body, just moments ago tight with nerves, melted into a puddle of lust, held up only by the pressure of his and the wall behind her.

But when his hand slid up her hip, under the cloud-soft fabric of her sweater to touch her bare skin, it was like he’d pinched her awake from a very sexy dream.

“No,” she murmured, pulling her mouth from his. “We can’t.”

“Blondie, we definitely can.” His body pressed a little tighter against hers, the hard length of his erection echoing his promise.

“No.” Horrified at how hard it was—saying no, not the erection—she pressed both palms against his chest to put some space between them so she could slide under his arm.

She was on the job. He was a criminal, a man who in any other situation she’d be trying to arrest.

Danita didn’t look back. As fast as she could in her platform pumps, she hurried up the wide sweep of stairs. She needed distance. She needed to think.

Most of all, she needed control.

Never before had she been so turned on. Not by a kiss, not by a man. And definitely not by watching a criminal pull strings and play a room full of dirtbags.

Shoving the door to their room open, she let it slam against the wall as her eyes blurred with tears. Gasping for breath, she hurried to the bathroom where she locked the door—a feeble barrier—and splashed cold water on her cheeks until she regained control.

“You’ve worked your ass off for this career,” she told herself, glaring a warning at her reflection. “You’ve spent the last ten years escaping the prison of that damned trailer park life. You will not, dammit, blow it over one sexy man.”

She took a deep breath, noting the desire-dilated pupils and flush coating her from cleavage to hairline. Her nipples were sharp points through the soft black fabric of her sweater.

“No matter how sexy he is. Despite the fact that you’ve never felt anything like this, ever before, it’s not worth blowing your life over.”

Her lecture warring with the montage of images of Gabriel—his bare skin, his wicked grin and the cleverly cocky way he’d manipulated the situation.

Danita closed her eyes and tried to call up the image of her childhood home, that broken-down trailer, the guttural sounds of yet another of her mother’s drunken hookups coming from the front room while Danita was locked in the back.

That’s what falling for a pretty face and clever line brought the women in her family. That, and a broken heart. The lure of sex had proven, over and over again, to be kryptonite for her mother, her aunt, even her grandmother.

Danita’s job, embracing her career, had got her away from that life. Through it, she’d proven she wasn’t like her family.

So do your job, she thought as she stared at herself in the mirror. Do the job, and watch your ass.

5

GABRIEL STOOD IN the town square, in the exact same spot he had reunited with his brother earlier. As the cool night air washed over him, he glared across the street at the brightly lit New Age store.

He’d once conned a dinner party of twenty crooked business executives, convincing them to invest in a movie he’d claimed was in production. He’d named actors, locations, everything. The chances of that con blowing up in his face had been huge. The risk of conning a bunch of thieves had been major.

And he hadn’t been nearly as nervous then as he was now, preparing to face his family.

“Are you going to be able to pull this off?” Danita asked behind him. Her tone was matter-of-fact. Abrupt, even. But he heard the concern, and just a little bit of sympathy, beneath her words. He wished she wasn’t with him. It was bad enough being forced back into the family fold. But doing it with an FBI escort really chafed.

Since that FBI escort was the sexiest thing he’d ever tasted—a flavor he was worried he could become addicted to—the part that was chafing was pressed against his zipper.

Gabriel glanced over at Danita, noting that she’d toned down her look for the party. Instead of teased and poofed, her hair was sleek and soft around that pretty face. Her makeup was low-key. Not as severe as she’d looked in Hunter’s office as FBI Barbie, not as over-the-top as she looked as a hooker-on-the-prowl. This Danita was somewhere in between. This Danita, he suspected, was much closer to the real her.

The real her had the power to drive him crazy. Sexy with just enough sweet to tug at his emotions. Clever with just enough edge to keep him on his toes.

He could pull this con off. He knew he could, even though the layers of it, the multi-cons within cons, would be the biggest scam he’d ever played.

But the game with Blondie?

That one he could very well lose.

“Look, maybe we should—”

“Maybe we should get inside before we freeze out here,” Danita interrupted. She reached out as if to tug him along, then, before she made contact, she pulled her hands back and stuffed them in the pockets of her heavy wool pea coat.

“Eager to arrest my father?” he asked, surprised at the bitter undertone to his words.

“Aren’t you the one setting up your family?” she said with a knowing look.