Keri Arthur - Fireborn

He was bigger than I’d thought he’d be, a thickset, muscular man who oozed confidence and power. There was a whole lot more arrogance in his thin, pockmarked features than had been evident in the photo, but his eyes were no less beady and he still reminded me somewhat of a rat.

I sashayed across to the lounge and selected a chair that was just within his line of sight. I sat, crossing my legs, allowing the side slit of my dress to fall open and reveal a long length of thigh.

It didn’t take long for Radcliffe to notice.

He leaned back and whispered something to beefy guard number one. The guard nodded, walked across to the bar, talked to the bartender, then went back to his post.

Two minutes later, a waiter approached me.

“Compliments of the gentleman at table number two,” he said, offering me another glass of bubbly.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting it. I glanced past the waiter, found Radcliffe watching me, and raised the glass in salute.

He smiled. It was a hunter’s smile.

A shudder went through me. I’d met men like him in the past, and they were always mean in bed. Mean and dominant. Thankfully, it was never going to get that far.

I remained where I was, sometimes watching him, sometimes not. His expression became more enamored, his eyes heavy-lidded with lust.

Eventually, I took a pen and piece of paper out of my bag, wrote my room number on it, then called the waiter over.

“Could you give this to the gentleman at table two, please?”

He looked across. “Mr. Radcliffe?”

Mr. Radcliffe was staring at the two of us, his body practically trembling in expectation.

“Yes.” I placed the note and a tip on the waiter’s tray.

As he left, I rose and sauntered toward the door. My gaze clashed with Radcliffe’s a final time and, as the waiter approached him with the note, I blew Radcliffe a kiss and then left.

Once out of the mahogany room, I moved as fast as was possible in ultrahigh heels, needing to get to the elevator before he did.

I closed my eyes and released a breath as the doors closed and the elevator zoomed me upward. One part down. All we had to do now was hope that Radcliffe took the bait.

I walked down the hall to our room and opened the door.

“Okay,” I said as I walked in. “All systems are go—”

The rest of the sentence froze in the back of my throat. It wasn’t Jackson standing there waiting for me.

It was Sam.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The words were out before I could stop them.

“A question I was about to ask you,” he snapped back. “I thought you’d agreed not to skip away from your tail and to keep your nose out of this investigation?”

“No. I agreed to be sensible. And I am. Where’s Jackson?”

He wasn’t in the living area—that was for sure—and I couldn’t see any sign of a scuffle. I couldn’t imagine he’d let himself be arrested easily, but then, I didn’t know him well enough to be sure of that.

“Jackson has been immobilized and is in the next room. We appropriated it when we realized what you two were up to.”

I eyed him for a moment. The darkness in him was very present, a dangerous energy that skimmed my skin and made it burn, but his anger—despite his tone—wasn’t as fierce as I’d thought it would be. “And just how did you find us?”

“Did you really think we wouldn’t have an eye on Radcliffe ourselves?”

“We knew it was a possibility, but we did have our fingers crossed that you didn’t know about the tenuous connection between Sherman Jones and Marcus Radcliffe.”

His smile held little humor. “If a private investigator can find out about it, why would you believe we wouldn’t? We have resources Miller could only dream about.”

There was nothing I could say to that, so I simply asked, “How long have you been watching him?”

“Since the murder. He’s not a hard man to find, even if he is an extremely difficult man to pin down otherwise.”

“So, basically, you saw both me and Jackson arrive.”

“Yes.” He shrugged. “We could have pulled you out then, but I was curious enough to see what you had planned.”

And, obviously, he had no lingering sense of regret or jealousy, because he’d allowed me to come to this room and spend several leisurely hours with Jackson.

He’d totally moved on. It was a shame there were still pockets of me that couldn’t and wouldn’t.

“Meaning you couldn’t get close to him, or that Radcliffe really can spot a cop a mile away, however delicious the bait.”

He grimaced. “The latter. Rochelle tried several nights ago. He totally ignored her.”

“So, despite the fact that you’ve warned me away from the investigation, you’re not above using me if it suits a purpose.”

“Totally.” His cool blue eyes bored into mine. “In the end, the only thing that really matters is the investigation. Everything else—everyone else—is collateral damage.”

Charming. I walked over to the bar and poured myself a large glass of red wine. “We were planning to drug Radcliffe via a drink. Is that still an option, or have you something better planned?”

“We have plans. And given Radcliffe will probably have his goons do a sweep of this room before anything happens, Adam and I will be waiting next door.”

“Which doesn’t exactly tell me if you still want me to administer the drug, or whether Adam is going to do his vampire-telepathic thing and render them all senseless.”

He half smiled. Again, it was a fleeting thing, but it nevertheless stirred an ache deep in the heart of me. “He will do his telepathic thing and implant appropriate memories as necessary, both before and after we have the information we need from him.”

I nodded. “You realize that he’s going to have to include memories of Radcliffe messing around with me.”

“Yes.” He studied me for a moment, his expression closing over. “How were you going to get around that problem? I didn’t think you were telepathic.”

“I’m not. Jackson and I were going to make a little noise once Jones was completely out of it.” I shrugged, my gaze on Sam’s, watching for a reaction, any reaction. There was nothing. Why the hell I was expecting one, I have no idea. I really, really , needed to get past this. “He would have come to in the morning with a sore head and no memory of the night’s events, but his guards would have had plenty of action to report.”

“There’s one flaw in your plan—Miller would never have gotten past the guards’ pre-seduction search of the room.”

I flicked a hand toward the sofa positioned near the minibar. “If you’d care to tilt that up, you’ll see it’s actually been stripped of all its stuffing and springs, providing enough room for a man to hide.” And given Radcliffe’s guards were both human, they shouldn’t have been able to sense or scent Jackson. Whether Radcliffe would have was another matter entirely.

Sam grunted, then touched his ear lightly. For the first time, I noticed he was wearing an earpiece. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Radcliffe is on his way up. Adam and I will be next door.”

“Just make sure you don’t leave it to the last moment to capture their minds and render them harmless,” I said. “I do not want Radcliffe’s grubby paws anywhere near me.”

He snorted softly. “Should have thought of that before you started all this.”

My gaze narrowed. “Fine. Just remember, I literally can play with fire, so if you’d like a crispy suspect, just take your time.”

“A crispy suspect is not going to help either of us,” he retorted. “So don’t make empty threats.”