then Ian was going to have to try it again.
“What do you expect to accomplish by this?” she asked, holding up her hand.
His arm dangled from hers and Ian grinned. “To keep you in my bed a little longer,” he said.
“Why?”
“So we can talk,” he replied. “You have some things to tell me and I’m not going to let you go until I have some answers to my questions. When I get those answers, I’ll unlock the cuffs and you can go home.”
“I thought you didn’t want to know,” she said.
He reached out with his free hand and stroked her cheek. “Now I do. I’m not going to pretend I don’t care about you, Marisol, because I do. And whatever you say to me won’t change how I feel. You have to trust me.”
She groaned then curled up beside him and buried her face against his shoulder. “Just let me go home.”
“You said you aren’t doing anything illegal, so why can’t you tell me?”
“Why not ask your brother? He’s the one who dug up all the dirt.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
A long silence grew between them and Ian wondered if she were actually considering his request. He’d told her it wouldn’t make a difference, that it wouldn’t change his feelings for her. But did he really know that? What if she told him something so shocking it changed everything?
“You have to promise you won’t interfere,” she whispered. “Promise me.”
Ian shook his head. “I can’t. I won’t. If there’s any chance you might get hurt, I’m going to interfere.”
She sat up, her hair falling around her face. Tears of frustration pushed at the corners of her eyes but she angrily brushed them away. “I want you to forget you’re a cop, just for the next five minutes. Just be the man I’m sleeping with and nothing more.”
“All right,” Ian said.
“What would you do, if someone you knew, someone you loved, had committed a crime?”
“Did you commit a crime?” Ian asked.
She blinked in surprise and stared at him for a long moment. Only then, did he realize what he’d implied. Was he in love with Marisol? Is that why this was bothering him so? He shook his head. “So, we’re speaking hypothetically?”
She nodded. “And suppose, your brother or your father, knew he’d made a mistake and he just wanted to fix it. No one has been hurt, it’s a-a-”
“A victimless crime?” Ian asked.
Marisol nodded. “Yes, I suppose.”
“Every crime has a victim,” Ian said.
“I’m sure you’d see it that way, but sometimes it’s not that way at all. I’m just trying to help straighten things out. To make things right so everyone will be happy.”
“For the person you love?”
She nodded.
Ian drew a deep breath, knowing what his next question would cost him. “For David Barnett?”
Marisol frowned. “No, for my father.”
“Then you’re not in love with David Barnett?”
“Of course not. He’s the one who got my father into this whole thing. I hate him. He’s-he’s self-absorbed and egotistical and condescending and he thinks he can do anything he wants without any consequences.”
Ian lay back on the pillows, a flood of relief washing over him. He chuckled softly. She wasn’t in love with David Barnett. She didn’t even like him. So just what was she hiding from him? “He got you into this trouble? Maybe I can help you get out.”
“Are you still the guy I’m sleeping with or are you a cop now?”
Ian pulled Marisol into his arms, molding her naked body to his, then kissed her forehead. “I’m the guy who cares about you.”
Over the next hour, as the sun slowly rose, Marisol told him the whole story, about her father and his past, about David Barnett’s scheme to sell forged paintings and about her rather risky plan to exchange the original for the forgery hanging in the Templetons’ library using one of her own paintings as a decoy. And when she finished, Ian was certain of only one thing. He was completely in love with Marisol Arantes and he’d do whatever it took to protect her.
“You can’t take the painting back,” he said. “It’s too risky. If you get caught, you’ll be in as much trouble as your father.”
“There is no other way. Not without involving my father. He’s a convicted art forger. If he gets caught again, he’ll probably spend the rest of his life in prison.”
“All right,” Ian said. “There has to be another way. I need a little time to think about it. Just don’t do anything rash.” He paused. “Where is the painting now?”
She smiled. “I shouldn’t tell you.”
Ian raised an eyebrow. “But you will.”
“It’s under your bed,” she said.
He stared at her in disbelief. “What?”
“I brought it over here the other night and left it in the kitchen. After you were asleep I put it under the bed. It seemed like the safest place and David would never think to look here. By the way, there’s a lot of dust under there. You really should vacuum once in a while.”
“So now I am in the middle of this, right along with you?”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know what else to do. And I wasn’t going to tell you, so if you hadn’t handcuffed us together, you would have never known.”
“And you just planned to keep sleeping with me until it came time to retrieve the painting?”
“I wasn’t using you,” she insisted. “Believe it or not, I like sleeping with you-and all the other stuff, too.”
Ian laughed. “Do not try to sweet-talk me.”
“If you want, I’ll take the painting back to the gallery. You can forget it was ever there.”
“No,” he said. “Barnett tried to get it once. Who’s to say he won’t try again? I want the painting here and I want you here. I don’t trust him, Marisol. He’s got himself in deep shit and a man like him can get desperate. If he goes down, he’s going to take you and your father with him. We have to figure out a way to stop that.”
“We?” she asked.
Ian nodded. “We. You and I.”
A smile curled the corners of her mouth. “I like the way that sounds.”
Ian rolled on top of her, pressing his hips against hers, his shaft hard between them. “And I like the way you feel,” he teased. “All soft and sweet.” He nuzzled her neck. “Promise me you won’t do anything until you give me a chance to help you. Maybe I can work something out.”
“I promise,” she said, giggling. “Do you think you can unlock the handcuffs now?”
“No way. I’m keeping you in this bed as long as I want. In fact, I may just call in and take a day off.”
“Are you sure this isn’t against the law?” Marisol asked.
“Yes,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “But what I’m about to do to you just might be.”
8
IAN STOOD at the conference table in Declan’s office, staring at the painting he’d pulled from beneath his bed. It wasn’t much to look at, at least not compared to Marisol’s paintings. This seemed like a bunch of splotches on canvas.
All this fuss for something a kid might have painted. Though he’d learned to appreciate fine art, he still didn’t understand why it was worth so damn much. After all, this was maybe thirty dollars worth of materials. A nice car had more in it in parts, yet sold for a lot less.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Both Ian and Declan stared in disbelief at Richard Christiansen, an art expert Declan had called in to meet with