Lori Wilde - Angels and Outlaws

HER BUTT WAS IN HAS PALM.

Something very akin to excitement stirred his blood, accelerated his breathing, hummed his heartbeat.

They’d fallen eight stories locked in each other’s arms and the only thing Sam could think about was Cass Richards’s butt.

That cute butt saved him from his fear of heights, from his fear of falling, from darn near the fear of everything.

Her skirt was hiked up and his palm was splayed across her bare bottom. Lord love her, she was wearing a thong.

And it was the softest, sweetest bottom he’d ever held. She was a slender woman, not supermodel slim, but not fleshy either.

Except for that glorious fanny. It was full and kneadable and splendid.

And his body responded in a solely masculine way. Talk about unprofessional.

They landed, with a tight controlled bounce, on the giant airbag the fire department had inflated underneath the eighth floor office. They were positioned squarely in the middle—a textbook landing—and still a good ten feet off the ground and Sam’s hand was on Cass’s delectable backside.

It was a sensation he knew he’d remember for the rest of his life.

“Get your hand off my ass,” she snapped, and rolled away from him.

So much for pleasant dreams.

“Sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t the least bit contrite.

He deserved some small compensation for battling his dread fear of heights in order to rescue her. She had no idea how much that little trip had cost him. How hard he’d had to fake his bravery in order to force himself out onto that ledge.

Or how much landing alive in the airbag with her meant to him. He’d faced his fear and in doing so he’d saved her life.

Well, okay, technically the fire department had saved her, but if he hadn’t told the receptionist to call the fire department they both would have been wearing halos and playing harps by now.

Or the way your mind is working, wearing horns and dancing with pitchforks.

Right.

A fireman was already at the edge of the airbag, reaching out, helping her slide off. By the time Sam worked his way to the edge, Cass was standing on the street, surrounded by reporters, looking like a princess holding court.

Sam rolled his eyes.

He should have known. Once upon a time he’d been married to a prima donna princess for nine, very long, miserable months. He knew far too well how the species operated.

No one gave him a second look and he found himself pushed back with the rest of the crowd, inconsequential as froth on a mug of beer. She was the consummate PR professional, making opportunity out of a mishap—milking the media coverage for all she was worth, smiling to the bystanders, flirting with the cameramen, poised as a movie star.

She craved attention. That much was clear. Question was, how far would she go to get it?

It was only after she’d been whisked away in an awaiting limousine—he had no idea where that had come from, but prima donna princesses did have their minions—Sam realized he’d never gotten to tell her why he’d come to see her in the first place.

Someone had been stealing valuable jewelry from Cass Richards’s circle of affluent friends and Sam had to question if Cass really had been on the ledge after a scarf. It was a thin story. Could a guilty conscience actually have been the driving force behind her impromptu perch instead?

3

“CASS, DID YOU HEAR what I just said?”

“Huh?” Cass raised her chin, looking up from the antique Christmas plates she’d been sorting in the basement of her older sister’s quaint and cozy antique shop in Fairfield, Connecticut. She wiped the dust off Ten Lords a Leaping with a damp cloth—wondering quite incidentally what all the leaping was about—and blinked at Morgan.

“Is something the matter? You’ve been distracted all morning.”

“Just thinking about that fall I took off the eighth- floor window ledge.”

And about Sam’s big masculine hand on my fanny.

Damn, the sexual drought she’d been in was wreaking havoc with her imagination. Truth was she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. That low, steady, horse-whisperer kind of voice he possessed made you feel as if you could trust every single word he said.

Morgan shuddered. “I’d think you’d want to forget all about that. Isn’t that why you volunteered to help me out this weekend? To get away from the city and being reminded of what happened.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right. So what was it that you just asked?”

“Are you still seeing Marcos? I’m having a dinner party Friday week and…”

“Dumped him,” Cass said quickly.

“Really? Already? You’d only been going with him what, a month?”

“Believe me, a month was enough.”

“But he seemed so nice and his family is in the social registry and he’s so good looking and so…”

“Clingy.”

“You think any man who wants to be exclusive is clingy.” Morgan took a box cutter, slit the tape on a large cardboard box, pushed back the flaps and began carefully taking out rare antique books.

“He was talking the m word after less than a month of dating and we’d never even slept together. Now that’s moving way too fast for me.”

“He asked you to marry him?” Morgan looked up in surprise.

“No, not that m word. He asked me to move in with him.”

“I see why you had to dump him. Can’t have a guy who’d actually want to be with you.”

“Ha, ha. And this is going to make you feel bad for making fun of me, but after the news coverage of my unfortunate window ledge episode, Bunnie Bernaldo told me Marcos has been spreading rumors up and down Long Island that he dumped me and I was so distraught I would have thrown myself off the Isaac Vincent building over the breakup if Sam hadn’t intervened. Of course anyone who knows me knows what a crock of bull that is. But can you believe that? I would never throw myself off a building over a man. The loss of a great pair of shoes, now maybe.”

“Sam?” Morgan arched an eyebrow.

“The cop that helped me down from the ledge the hard way.”

“You’re on a first-name basis?”

Cass shrugged. “Well, that’s how he introduced himself. As Sam.”

“You like him,” Morgan teased.

“Come on. I saw him once and that was under duress.”

“Still.” Morgan nodded. “You like him.”

“Not that much. He was kind of a smart aleck when he heard about the Hermès.”

“Is he cute?”

“Children don’t scream in horror when he walks past if that’s what you mean.”

“Cass’s got a new boyfriend.”

“Shut up, I do not.”

She wanted out of this conversation. The sooner the better. Cass spied a very old, ornately carved wooden box perched on a highboy in the corner. She got up, dusted off her hands and crossed the room to pick it up.

“What’s this?”

Morgan swiveled her head in Cass’s direction. “Intriguing, isn’t it. I found it hidden in a secret drawer of an antique dresser I bought along with the shop.”

The box was intricately hand-carved with various patterns. Cass traced a finger over the carvings. They may have been symbols, she wasn’t sure, though they looked as if they were some kind of ancient hieroglyphics.

Was it a code? The idea excited her.

From the box emanated the faint scent of some rich, exotic spice. She held the box to her ear and shook it but neither heard nor felt anything inside.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s open it.” Cass loved secrets and surprises and encrypted code games and this was just the thing that she needed to take her mind off sexy Detective Sam.

“We can’t.”