Strip Search (27 page)

Mark looked over at Nicki, who realized what he must be seeing and gasped, a fresh flush darkening her face.

"Leave it alone, Mark."

"I don't think so, baby." He smiled and grabbed the surprising object. This was going to be fun.

Ripping open the foil packet, he quickly gloved up and lay on his back. "Come here."

Nicki crawled across the bed to him, aroused and wary. As soon as she got close enough, he grabbed and lifted her, settling her astride him. Holy hell, she looked like a goddess above him, slick, flushed, dark hair a riotous tangle, framing dilated blue eyes. Her nipples beckoned. The curve of her hips fit perfectly under his hands as he lifted her over his cock and guided her down slowly.

Gasping, Nicki tightened around him, tossing her head back at the exquisite sensation of her flesh parting to accommodate him, welcoming him deep inside her. Like silk so hot it nearly scalded, she surrounded him, gripping him snugly. Seated to the hilt, Mark gritted his teeth at the tingles screaming through his erection and fought for control.

He had at least one weapon in his favor.

Smiling, he held up the item he'd found in her drawer, a pink slimline vibrator, which was about five inches tall and barely an inch thick. He flipped the button at the base and a faint hum punctuated her audible breathing.

"Mark ..."

"Does this little thing do a man's job?"

He set the buzzing wand on her shoulder, then let it drift down her collarbone. Waiting for her answer, watching her body tense, he glided it over her distended nipple. She tensed and grabbed his shoulders. Nicki tried to lift her hips. Mark held her down with one hand.

"No," .she gasped in answer to his question finally.

"Does it make you come?"

Nicki wriggled on top of him, rubbing the sensitive head of his cock right against the mouth of her cervix. He hissed at the sudden sting of pleasure.

"Sometimes," she panted.

"It can't possibly fill you up."

"It doesn't." She gyrated on him again restlessly, clearly searching for relief.

Mark smoothed the vibe down her abdomen, traced her navel. Her belly clenched.

"Do I?"

"Yes. God, yes!"

She tried lifting her hips again. Again, he held her still. He had a point to prove.

"A vibe like you've got is only good for this," he growled, then set it over her slick clit.

In seconds, she began to jerk, buck. Her vagina fluttered around his dick. Pulses gripped him every few seconds, making him sweat, as she gasped above him.

When she slowed, he turned the vibe off and tossed it across the bed.

"Did that ease your ache?"

Nicki writhed above him and lifted her hands to squeeze her nipples. The sight just about set him off. But when she tried to lift her hips and stroke down on his cock yet again, he held her hips immobile with both hands.

"Did it?"

"No. Please. Stop teasing me. I need you now!"

Seeing her naked? Great, but he'd managed to hold on. Feeling the orgasm generated by the vibrator? A real treat, but he hadn't lost control. Hearing that she needed him now? Those four words sent him into overdrive.

Grabbing her shoulders, Mark brought Nicki down until they were chest to chest. He buried his face in her neck, grabbed her hips and pumped up into the suctioning heat of her body, lengthening his stroke and focusing on her G-spot. Once, twice, again and again, he pounded into her tight channel, pouring the desire that clawed at him into every thrust.

Wrapping his arms around her, he crushed her against him. What was it about her? He loved her expressive face when she was laughing or angry, or like now, aroused. He loved the sound of her hitched breathing, the little keening cries in his ear as her orgasm approached. He loved her stubborn grit, starchy sass, and commando-bitch ways. He loved the scent of her skin, spiced and clean and female--and the way her desire enhanced that scent. He loved her quick mind and the fact she wasn't afraid to use it. He loved the feel of her against him, holding on with trembling thighs as she clamped around his cock. Oh, and those hard, demanding pulsations as she came that drove him beyond rational thought. He loved that about her. He loved ...

Her.

Mark had to bite his lip to keep from shouting it out, as rapture exploded in his belly, melted his brain, and squeezed his chest full of something he'd hoped never to feel again ... and yet something he'd never felt before. Not like this.

Above him, Nicki clung. His ears rang with her cries, "Oh, yes. Ohmigod. Mark!"

And still he kept pumping into her, giving her everything he could, everything she could take, until she finally collapsed over him, sweaty, spent.

Knowing it was stupid and still compelled anyway, Mark kept her close and dragged a palm up her back, aligning their hearts together, now both beating in crazy rhythms, yet oddly in synch.

He loved her. How the hell had it happened? Why?

Man, he was so fucked.

Struggling to catch his breath, Mark realized that his choices were limited. Either he continued to deceive her and hide the truth, knowing he'd have to walk away from her in the end. Or he confronted her without giving his secrets away and hoped she was in a confessing mood--and that he could help her somehow if she was as guilty as she looked.

"Nicki, why don't you want Bocelli to know about this? About us?"

Tiredly, she raised her head enough to look into his eyes.

"Why do you ask?"

"Humor me."

She groaned and rolled to her side. Before she could get away, Mark pulled her back against his body, face-to-face. He stared right into her eyes, his chest tight as he willed her to answer, wished like hell that she wasn't guilty of anything.

"He's my uncle's watchdog. Everything I do, Blade reports back to him. If I sneeze, Pietro knows. If I sleep with the hired help ... he'll know that, too."

"So you're saying that Blade is here on your uncle's behalf to ... what? Protect your virtue?"

Nicki sighed. "You're not from a traditional Italian family, so you can't understand. We should all be good virgins who attend Mass regularly, enjoy saying 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' and love cooking so that when we get married, we know our place."

Maybe that was the truth. Mark couldn't say definitely yes or no. It was possible, if incredibly old-fashioned. To her credit, she had said previously that her uncle was overprotective and that he lorded his investment in the club over her whenever he didn't like her behavior. But that could also be part of the scam ...

"So Bocelli was doing your books because your uncle insisted?"

"Absolutely. I really meant to hire a new accountant after Marcy's death, but when I didn't do it fast enough to suit my uncle ... well, he let his little lapdog have at it."

The bitterness in her voice sounded so genuine. Mark steeled himself against hope.

"What made you suddenly change your mind and defy your uncle?"

At that, Nicki looked away. "I just thought about what you'd said. You're more qualified. You don't like the dancing. It made sense."

"I don't think that's the whole story."

Her gaze zoomed back to his, moist lips parted.

Mark tamped down the crazy urge to seize her mouth and kiss the truth out of her. Wouldn't do any damn good. Instead, he rolled on top of her and grabbed her face, locking her stare with his. He was uncomfortably aware of jealousy clawing at him, of how damn bad it would hurt if she answered in the affirmative to his next question.

"Are you sure it doesn't have anything to do with the fact you've been fucking Bocelli? And then what happened? Did he piss you off? Is this your way of getting back at him? Or dumping him?"

"What?" Nicki bucked underneath him, trying desperately to shove him off.

Mark held firm.

When she realized she couldn't displace him, Nicki glared at him, mouth tight. "Damn you! The first time we have sex, you treat me like a meaningless one-night stand afterward. The next time, you tell me it's just sex and to get over it. Now you think I'm some kind of manipulative whore. Get out!"

"Not until I get some answers."

"You're not entitled to any when you insult me like that. Every time I think I like you, you do something thoroughly shitty. Your afterplay sucks."

She gave him a mighty shove, her knees moving missiles beneath him. Forced to protect his assets, he moved aside. Nicki climbed from the bed and made for the door to the bathroom.

Mark grabbed her by the wrist. "Did you fuck Bocelli?"

"Never, you dumb prick. I've grown up loathing Italian machismo. Why would I voluntarily sign up for more of it?" She tried to yank her wrist free.

Her eyes shone like blue jets of fury and truth. Mark found he was inclined to believe her.

But just like the money-laundering scam ... he didn't know for sure.

"I'm sorry," he soothed, rubbing her wrist with his thumb. "Blade led me to believe that you were. I couldn't think of a reason why he'd lie."

"Because he's a deranged bastard! I don't want him around here. I never did. And the fact you accused me of sleeping with him..."

Her chin trembled. A sob tore at her chest. Seconds later, tears fell. Mark felt her pain and anger tearing through his gut. If this was an act, she ought to be getting twenty million a picture.

He gathered her close and wiped her tears away. "I' m sorry, baby. I didn't like the thought of you with him."

"I know this isn't forever, but I thought we were sharing something special. It meant something to me." She drew in a shaky breath. "I don't sleep around. Before you, I hadn't had sex in over two years."

With those words, she may as well have kicked him in the gut with cement shoes. But some things made sense now. Why she'd had to open a new box of condoms that first time. Why she'd been so damn tight he'd had to fight his way inside. He'd never seen Bocelli come or go from her apartment, or her from his.

It seemed a little more likely Bocelli had been lying about him and Nicki. Except ... why would he?

"Nicki, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just trying to understand why you suddenly wanted me doing your books and touching your sweet body." He brushed her dark hair away from her face and looked straight into her eyes, willing her to tell him more. Tell him everything.

"Because I trusted you." Her whisper was broken. "Because I needed you. I couldn't stand the thought of sharing you. When I saw you dancing last Sunday, saw how many women wanted you and slipped you both their phone numbers and their tongues ... I-it bothered me. Apparently I'm really stupid."

The man inside him roared with triumph. She was tangled up in him, as much as he was in her. But it made the investigator in him pause. Just because it appeared as if she wasn't inserting Bocelli's Tab A into her Slot B didn't mean she wasn't a criminal. There was still the matter of the books and her initiation of sex during the exact time the illegal transactions took place. Coincidence? God, he wanted to believe so. But she could still be playing him for a fool.

"No," he assured her, soft-voiced. "I'm the stupid one."

That was the truth. Hell, what could he do now?

M
onday morning came, and finally Mark started on his new gig as Nicki's accountant. And he purposely started early, at 6 A.M. Vegas time--while his "boss" was still fast asleep after a night of managing the unusually rowdy club that had likely ended about three hours ago.

Alone and focused, Mark locked Nicki's office door behind him. Now he'd get to the truth--one way or the other.

Mark turned on the former accountant's computer and spent hours reconciling her records against the receipts and bank statements in front of him. By three that afternoon, he could only be assured of two things: Nicki made good money at this business, and Blade was one shitty accountant. Unfortunately, the books in recent months were convoluted with items often categorized so incorrectly they should have been the punch line to a joke. Marcy had been better at the job but not perfect. Still, the books balanced to the penny.

But they completely lacked any reference to the frequent incoming and outgoing money that came in from all over the world and inevitably wound up in Eastern Europe.

Shit.

The real accounting records, the ones with the truth about every deposit and transfer, dates, times, amounts--the works--had to be here somewhere.

After scouring Marcy's computer and finding nothing of the sort, he had only one option that he could think of. It was the simple, obvious, not-going-to-happen one. But what the hell?

Mark rolled his chair across the narrow little office and booted up the computer that belonged to Nicki. She said she didn't know how to use it, and maybe that was true. He'd never seen her type even a single letter or number into the sleek black machine.

But he'd heard this song and dance before, courtesy of Tiffany.

He encountered a password screen before he even reached the Windows desktop. Clearly, he wasn't going far without help.

Swearing, he quickly took out his cell phone and punched the speed dial key to ring Rafe.

"What's up, buddy?" he asked.

"There's another computer here. It's Nicki's. I need help getting in."

"No problem."

Mark gave some info so Rafe could start his preliminary search. "So how's Kerry?"

"Complaining that her back hurts. Still having those damned contractions."

Concern niggled at Mark. "But she's going to be okay, right?"

"She has a doctor's appointment tomorrow. We'll find out then what's up."

"Keep me posted," Mark insisted,

"Will do. Okay, your password for that machine is JimmyChoo, all one word."

"Who the hell is that?" Mark demanded.