As he stared, the formless clothes seemed to become transparent, enabling him to see the beautiful frame beneath, as he’d seen it before, once in reality and every moment since in his unwilling consciousness. The memory dominated what little sleep he’d had these last few days.
“And you think you’re spectacular enough for this assignment?” he asked ironically.
“Don’t you?” she asked simply.
He took a deep breath. “I guess you already know the answer to that.”
“I can be as spectacular as I have to be. Just leave the details to me.”
He seemed to speak with an effort. “Well, now that we’ve got that settled, I can give you your orders.”
Debbie stiffened at the word “orders.” “How about we tackle this as a team of equals?” she said, trying to sound pleasant.
“No. How about we do it the efficient way, with me leading and you following?” he said curtly. “This is a police matter and the police must direct it.”
It was a reasonable argument and if he’d spoken courteously Debbie would have accepted it, but his brusque tone set her back up. “So you’re going to tell me how to win Lucky Driver’s heart?” she challenged. “Perhaps you’d like to refer me to the appropriate chapter in the police manual.”
He regarded her cynically. “I didn’t think hearts were what you dealt in.”
“I deal in whatever the job requires,” she snapped.
“Yes, I remember. Now, can we talk practicalities? Driver is interviewing women for his floor show. You can meet him that way. The rest is up to you. But as soon as possible you get me a job close to him.”
“Consider it done. Now I need some tea.”
She went into the kitchen. When the tea was made she carried a cup out to him. But he made no response and she realized that he’d fallen asleep.
He lay with his head back against the cushions, his big body sprawled the length of the sofa. His clothes were shabby but they couldn’t hide the magnificent lines of his frame. A frisson of remembered pleasure went through Debbie as she thought of how well she already knew that body, how she’d pressed it, almost naked, against her own, excited by the awareness of his strength. Now his limbs lay where they’d fallen, as though a puppet master had dropped the strings, yet the feeling of latent power was still there. Fate had made them antagonists, but the excitement wouldn’t go away.
His hands lay still, as if they’d never been filled with tension, touching her urgently. They were shapely hands with long, blunt-ended fingers that spoke of skill and subtlety. She had to fight the temptation to touch them.
He looked exhausted. Beneath the dark stubble he was pale and drawn and there were shadows under his eyes. She considered his looks feature by feature. He was handsome but there was a lack of symmetry about his face that made it interesting. He had thick eyebrows that almost met over the top of his long nose. The angles of his jaw were sharply defined, and he had a stubborn chin.
She disliked him but she had to respect him. He’d dealt with Elroy Speke with a speed and thoroughness that was impressive. But it was his total absence of scruple that left her awed and secretly thrilled. She, too, had often ignored the book, but this man tore the book up and made a bonfire of the pieces, and there was a renegade streak in Debbie that responded to it with delight. In his uncompromising, quirky face, she saw the mark of the outsider that called to her. Crazy as it sounded, she and this man were fellow spirits.
He stirred, changing the angle of his head and giving her a better view. Sleep had smoothed away the harshness, which, she thought, improved him greatly. Now that his mouth was no longer issuing words of anger or sarcasm, she could see that the lower lip was curved and the shape of the whole had a surprising sensitivity. Somewhere inside that sensual body with its swiftly inflamed passions there was another man, with deep feelings. But he kept those feelings private, behind a door that was fiercely locked against the world. She leaned a little closer, enjoying her freedom to drink in everything about him.
And then he opened his eyes.
For a moment time stood still while they held each other’s gaze. He didn’t move, but lay there watching her with an intentness far back behind his eyes. His chest was rising and falling a little too fast for normal and Debbie could feel her own breath coming in quick gasps, matching him. She tried to move, but a hypnotic spell seemed to hold them both, while the moment stretched on and on. “Yes,” he said at last. “It’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?”
Conventional words of disclaimer rose to her lips, only to die unspoken. To deny what they both knew to be the truth would be cowardly, and she was never that. “Only if we allow it to be,” she said firmly.
“Allow?
“We’re both mature adults, in control of ourselves.”
“Are we?” His manner was grave but the wicked expression in his eyes was unsettling.
“Anybody can control themselves if they’re sufficiently determined,” she insisted.
Jake put a hand behind his head and surveyed her. “Is it going to be very hard to control yourself?” he asked with an air of innocence.
In the short pause that followed, Debbie contemplated murder. “No,” she said curtly at last. “Actually it’s going to be harder to force myself to work with you.”
“That’s how I feel, too,” he said solemnly.
She took a deep breath. “I’d like to see you out of here.”
His lips twitched. “I’d like to see you in bed.”
“I beg your pardon!”
He unfurled himself from the sofa in one lanky movement, and went to the door. “Go to bed,” he told her. “Get some sleep. You’ve an audition tomorrow, and you wouldn’t like to blow this whole job by not getting hired, would you?”
“Do I tell you how to do your job?” she snapped, goaded beyond endurance.
He grinned. “Go to bed,” he repeated, and vanished before she could react. His departure gave Debbie the chance to practice self-control. It took a lot of effort to suppress the desire to hurl a vase at the door, but she managed it.
Then she relaxed and an unwilling smile touched her mouth. There’d been something in his eyes that she hadn’t expected from Stoneface, a hint of devilish humor behind the gravity. It had danced like a flame, and ignited another flame within her, disturbingly similar to the flames of their first meeting. On that day he’d brought her to life by his touch. Tonight there’d been no physical contact but she’d felt her flesh glowing again through the power of something that had exploded into life between them. Just what that something might be, she had yet to explore. It was made up partly of hostility, but a hostility rooted in the very opposite. Unwilling desire, attraction, fellow feeling. Out of these things had grown suspicion and rivalry. They were two people caught in an erotic spell that infuriated them, but which they couldn’t deny.
“I think I’ll do as he said and go to bed,” she mused. “I’m going to need my sleep. Life has suddenly become very interesting.”
Three
From the outside, Lucky’s Place practically didn’t exist. There was a plain door in a wall in an elegantly luxurious part of London. Beside the door was a small brass plaque. That was all. The rich and famous, the notorious, the publicity seekers, the high-rolling gamblers, needed no