The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors slid open. Phillips checked the hall then exited and waved him out. Rosie preceded him while Kris trailed along the hall. As they approached, Scott opened the door to 1202 and nodded. “Evening, folks. All’s quiet here.”
A glance at Rosie showed she still wasn’t meeting his eye, and he knew she wouldn’t change her mind about staying in his apartment that night. Especially when she slipped past Scott and disappeared.
He pulled out his keys and tossed them to Andy. “Here you go, sport. Do your thing.”
While he waited for Andy to unlock the apartment, Sam cornered Kris.
“You want to tell me what the hell went on downstairs while I was in the meeting? What did Lee-Anne Bennett say to Rosie?”
“Shoot, I don’t know, boss.” Kris turned bright red. “All I know is they spoke for a couple minutes then Rosie headed for the can. You came down right after that.”
“All clear,” Andy called.
Leaving Kris standing in the hall, Sam headed for the privacy of his apartment. Once inside, he tugged loose his tie and tossed it on the couch. It slithered along the leather and fell on the floor. “Andy, I’ve got a job for you.”
Andy grinned. “Does it involve getting you in to see Rosie? If it does I’m in, but I don’t work cheap.”
“I need you to tweak the alarms both here and in 1202. Call Scott and bribe him if you have to.”
He laid out his plans.
“That’s insane!” Andy rubbed the latest tattoo on his arm. “There has to be an easier way. Why not just go down the hall and knock on the door? Scott’ll let you in.”
“Because Kris is there. And he’s designated himself Rosie’s protector. He’d never let me near her. I have to get her where she can’t appeal to him for help.”
After some discussion, Andy agreed to help him-though it cost him.
While Andy reprogrammed the security settings, Sam headed to the bedroom.
Why was he chasing after Rosie? Or was it just ego that she’d walked away first?
Because she’d brought laughter back to the apartment. Light. And now he’d had a taste of her, he couldn’t bear the thought of being alone.
But that look on her face, the hurt in her eyes, because she thought he didn’t respect her had him cringing. How could she not see how great an operative she was? How the other members, not only of her team, but of Hauberk, listened to her when she voiced an opinion?
If he did nothing else, he had to convince her he trusted her judgment, respected her abilities.
He changed from his suit to a pair of cargo pants and a T-shirt. Less than five minutes later, he stuck his bare feet into a pair of Nikes, and rifled through his desk to find his toolkit. Tucking his cell phone into his pocket, he opened the bedroom door to the balcony. He paused, then went back and grabbed a handful of condoms, which he stuck in his pocket and headed back outside. Though there was a good chance they’d not be needed, it didn’t hurt to be prepared. His daddy hadn’t helped him get his Boy Scout’s badges for nothing.
Luck sure needed to be on his side for this harebrained scheme, but damned if that woman hadn’t crawled into his system until he needed her like a scuba diver needed an oxygen tank.
He took a breath and swung himself onto the ten-inch-wide concrete ledge between his apartment and Rosie’s fortress. Despite the buffeting wind’s attempts to shove him into a twelve-storey swan dive, Sam quickly traversed the twenty feet and jumped down onto his neighbor’s balcony.
No alarms shrieked. The motion sensors didn’t klieg-light him. Scott didn’t come running, gun drawn, neither did Kris. Guess Andy had earned that five grand he’d promised him for temporarily disabling the security system.
Of course there was some chance that someone on the ground had seen him and called the police to report a burglary in progress or a possible suicide. And there was still a chance Kris might come in, guns blazing. Or Kris had taken over the bedroom Rosie had first used and he’d find himself in the middle of a knock-down drag out. But he wasn’t about to let little Miss Rosalinda Ramos slip away.
He paused outside the door to the bedroom she’d used before she’d moved in with him. The drapes had been drawn but there was only a glimmer of light leaking from the centre. Either she’d left the door open to the living room and was sitting out in the living room with Scott and Kris or she was already in bed. The image of her lying in bed, her hair tumbling over a pillow, or better yet draping over his chest, her lips slightly parted as she breathed, had his cock hardening.
Praying she wouldn’t scream bloody murder when he entered-well, at least not when he entered the room, he thought with a grin-he slowly turned the latch. Locked. Good thing he’d brought his cell phone along with his lock- picking set. After ensuring Scott had taken down the security system for 1202, he set to work. It took him a few minutes before the lock clicked open.
To his disappointment, the bed was empty. But the bathroom light spilled down the hall and he heard a shower running and a woman muttering in Spanish. Even though she was cursing him, the sultry alto voice sent shivers down his spine and made his balls draw closer to his body. He shucked off his T-shirt and stepped out of his cargo pants. He reached down and grabbed a condom, then tossed his pants on a chair before he opened the bathroom door.
Chapter Twenty
Rosie dug her fingers into her scalp as she spread the shampoo through her hair. The showerheads surrounding her pounded her skin in an erotic caress-reminding her of just what she’d abandoned.
The last weeks had opened her eyes about her own sensuality, her own needs. She’d never be able to settle for the type of lover she’d had before. But would she find another lover who could bring her such satisfaction, such body-wracking orgasms, as Sam Watson?
She’d have to. She leaned her forehead against the cool tile. Even if she discovered that bitch Lee-Anne was lying about the threesome-but why would the woman lie about something like that? What would she gain?-she couldn’t ignore that Sam had kept secrets from her.
A trickle of soap slid down her forehead and stung her eyes. Scrunching her eyes shut, she held her face up to one of the showerheads.
As she did, a hand clamped around her mouth and a large hard body pressed against her back, a warm steel rod sliding over the crack of her ass.
“Ssssh, don’t be frightened, Rosebud. It’s just me.”
Once he dropped his hand from her mouth, she twisted, attempting to ignore his erection jutting into her ass but was unable to break his hold on her.
Arrogante desgraciado! “Let me go.”
“Well, see, if I let you go, I’m willin’ to bet you’d knee me in the crotch, and then I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to you now, would
I?”
He was like a pitbull with his teeth buried deep in her heart, refusing to let go as he tore it to shreds.
How had he managed to get in anyway? She’d locked her bedroom door, and the door to the balcony was similarly locked and the security system activated. Besides they were twelve stories up, it’s not like he’d climbed the ledge between the two suites.
Somebody-Kris or Scott-must have let him in, the traitors. She could just picture him casually strolling past the guys, giving them a “hey how are you” good ol’ boy smile-or worse, the I’m-about-to-get-me-some smile-while he walked into her bedroom as if it was an everyday occurrence.
Sighing, she slapped a hand against the tile and leaned away as far as he’d let her. The movement drew her gaze to their reflection in the mirror. He was buck naked, the soap from her hair sluicing over the rippling muscles of
