Page 64 of A Real Good Bad Thing

We didn’t fall asleep right away. Talking seemed easier in the afterglow of great sex. We talked idly about work—she told me about a favorite dive trip in the Bahamas and I shared my Stradivarius story with her as well as more details about the knife fight in London. When I finished, she ran her fingers once more against the scar on my forearm and whispered sweetly, “I like this. It’s sexy. It says you’re rugged.”

“You like your men rugged, Ruby?” I asked, brushing a hand through her soft hair.

She shrugged, snuggling closer in my arms. I pressed my nose to her hair, inhaling her, relishing this moment.

“I do like rugged men,” she said. “It says you can do things. My ex did nothing. But you—you work hard, and I like that.”

I smiled. “I try. I like what I do, and I like that it lets me take care of my family.”

Her contented sigh worked under my skin, wove through me, seducing me. If I wasn’t careful, I’d start having feelings for her.

Havingmorefeelings for her.

Because who was I fooling? The way my heart tripped just being near her said that ship had sailed.

“This is wild,” she said, gesturing from me to her. “And it’s everything we said we shouldn’t do.”

I kissed her forehead. “I know,” I said softly, letting a sliver of vulnerability slip through. I couldn’t find my resistance tonight, and I was done searching for it. “Seems pointless to fight this right now,” I said softly, running a thumb over her chin. “You have your hooks in me.”

She mimed latching onto me, and I laughed then wrapped an arm around her. She felt so damn good in my arms. So right. She wasn’t a bit like Rosalinda. She wasn’t a mercenary. She wasn’t conniving. Ruby had so much at stake, and she only wanted justice. She only wanted to do the right thing. None of this was remotely similar to the Medici job, and realizing that made what I wanted to say next easier. I took a deep, fueling breath, then laid it out. “What do you say we give in and enjoy this for the rest of the time we’re here?”

She beamed, like I’d said the perfect thing. Maybe she’d been hoping for that too.

“Are either of us still resisting?” she asked, tap-dancing her fingers across my chest. “It feels like we’d be acknowledging what we’re already doing.”

“That’s just semantics.” I held my breath for just an instant. “Is that okay?”

“I like working with you, and I like the way you work on orgasms for me.”

I chuckled deeply, more relieved than I could admit. “Excellent. Count on more. Because I am enjoying this. I’m enjoyingyouso much. More than I ever expected to,” I said, then kissed her once more.

Soon, darkness cloaked us, and the peaceful, easy feeling of her lying in my arms almost made me forget why I was there.

The job. The jewels. The bounty I was hunting.

I fell asleep thinking of diamonds and Ruby, Ruby and diamonds, and soon the two blurred together.

30

HONEY

Ruby

Early the next morning, Jake and I parked ourselves on the end of the bed and made a plan to investigate the art gallery. Even without Kalila’s candid mentions of Eli and his diamonds, the gallery was the logical place to look after Jake’s recon of the house and club had turned up nothing but some criminally delicious chocolate.

I pulled up street-view maps on my laptop, and Jake sketched a rough floor plan and described the place with detail that shouldn’t have surprised me.

“All the art on display in the public gallery is frameless. No hiding a safe behind those,” he said.

“So the safe has to be in a storage room or office.”

He tapped his pen on the notepad. “What was it Kalila said? Eli spent a lot of time looking at or talking about frames?”

“Something like that,” I confirmed, watching the theories churn behind his eyes.

“What if the diamonds aren’t behind the frames, butinsidethe frames?” He flipped to a clean page and started drawing again. “In the club, the frames were clunky and out of proportion to the artwork.”

My heart sped up, racing my brain to put together the clues. “Clunky like they could be hollow inside?”

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