lap.
Stevie assumed her words had caused his need for adjustment but suppressed a grin. She wished she could give in to the laughter but for one thing, Emelio had no idea she’d been mailing him the erotic notes. For another, she was too damn upset to laugh right now.
All last night, she’d lain in bed awake, startling at the slightest noise, fighting the restless urge to escape into a glass of wine. As a result, her skin felt too tight, as if all of her nerve endings were exposed. She clutched the envelope in front of her as she stepped onto the gray-and-black area rug.
“Did I disturb you, Emelio?”
He cleared his throat, but a trace of huskiness remained. “No. Come on in.”
Out of habit, she looked over at the original José Castillo paintings on the wall as she passed by. The bold slashes of color swirling across the canvases seemed out of place in the stylishly austere corner office.
“You always do that.”
Stevie shifted her gaze at the sound of his voice. “I know. It’s impossible to look away. The artist’s work is so…passionate.”
Passion. Lately the only passion he experienced was vicarious, through either art or words. Emelio leaned back in his leather executive chair and glanced down at the latest note from his secret seductress. Just as with the last seven letters, these erotic pImages** burned themselves into his brain.
Your fingertips graze the fabric of my black panties, tickling the tender skin along my inner thigh. Reaching under the lace edge, you feel my damp heat. I’m slick with need and gasping with pleasure as your fingers slide inside…
It had been a while, but his body remembered. Anticipation heated his skin and an aching erection throbbed against his zipper. The anonymous notes intrigued him, but he still had no idea who his imaginary lover was.
“Can you make time for a new client?”
Emelio pushed the black-lace letter from his thoughts and sat forward, resting his arms on the edge of the desk.
“Of course. Who is it?”
“Me.”
Stevie settled into the guest chair, crossing her endless legs at the knee, and shoved the sleeves of her thin cotton sweater past her elbows.
He looked at her, really looked, for the first time since she’d walked in. Beneath a layered cap of hair every shade from honey to sand, her normally vivid complexion seemed pale against the turquoise-blue sweater. Otherwise, she was as striking as ever. Her skin was flawless and he imagined it felt as soft as a child’s. Her face was beautiful, despite an old break that marred the straight line of her nose. Her bottom lip was broader than the top, giving her a sensual pout.
Stevie’s mouth always looked ready to be kissed. And that was one temptation he couldn’t allow himself. The fact that she worked for him put her strictly off-limits. He’d once learned a deadly lesson about mixing business with pleasure, a lesson he would never forget.
The delicacy of Stevie’s features belied the enigmatic strength evident in her direct, almost aggressive, gaze. The color of her gray-blue eyes shifted like clouds across a summer sky. “Tiffnee signed for this yesterday before she shut down the phones for the night.”
Her watch, a man’s Timex that was too big for her slender wrist, clinked against the desk as she slid a packet across the surface. The plain manila envelope bore no address or postmark. “Madison” was written with black marker in letters uniform enough to have been stenciled onto the paper.
Disquiet slithered over him as he turned the envelope over and carefully removed the contents. Emelio stared at the glossy four-by-six photos. Surveillance photos of Stevie.
“Do you have any idea who sent these, or why?”
Her lush mouth twisted into a frown. “Believe me, I’ve been racking my brain all night. I thought it might be backlash from some case I’d investigated. Oh, wait, I forgot. I haven’t done any fieldwork yet.”
Emelio ignored the edge in her voice. “You were hired because we needed a security specialist.”
“Okay, well, I’ve spent ten months installing alarm systems and pulling guard duty for movie sets and society parties. Now I’m ready for an undercover assignment.”
He remembered some of the assignments from his days with the FBI. Undercover work wasn’t as glamorous as Hollywood made it seem. It was tense and tiring, lonely and frustrating. He looked at Stevie’s fresh, eager face and shook his head. “You’re not ready.”
He returned his attention to the first photograph. She wore a formfitting tank top and spandex shorts. She should wear spandex more often because the pliant material showed off one of the finest backsides he’d ever seen. Emelio forced himself to study the street, the pedestrians and the environment, searching for clues to the stalker’s identity.
“Tell me if you recognize anyone.”
“I was going into my gym. I know the women walking behind me. They’re regulars in my kickboxing class, but those pictures could have been taken almost any Tuesday night.”
He glanced up at her. “Kickboxing.”
She gave a sassy little shrug. “It’s part of my training program, along with Tai Bo and weight lifting. I want to be ready when you finally let me do real work.”
He rolled his eyes and looked at the next picture.
“Those were taken outside the grocery store. Judging by the outfit I had on, I’m guessing it was last Monday. But this—” she tapped a blunt nail against the next photo and her indignation almost succeeded in masking the catch in her voice “—this shows me leaving the bank and that was goddamn yesterday.”
He examined the last picture. Mierda! Emelio inhaled sharply and a hot rush of surprise and anger clawed at his chest. Barely visible in the corner of the photograph, he immediately recognized a man with salt-and-pepper hair and deceptively cultured features.
Rogelio Braga. The one who had got away.
Before starting January Investigations with Alex Worth, his partner and best friend, Emelio had worked for the Justice Department in the Special Operations Division. Braga liked to play the part of a quiet, respectable businessman, but he was in fact a money launderer and second in command of a notorious drug-trafficking cartel.
Emelio’s first undercover assignment for the SOD was to find proof that the Dominican cartel was moving drugs and cash through a Miami travel agency. The investigation had gone south when his informant betrayed him. His cover got blown, Alex was wounded and the informant had been killed. He shouldered his responsibility for the screwup and for the death, but it really burned him that Braga had skated on all charges.
“Do you recognize anybody in this one?” He forced the words past the cold rage threatening to choke him.
“Maybe.” Stevie cocked her head to the side to get a better look. She pointed to Braga. “I never forget a face, and I know I’ve seen his before, but I can’t place him.”
“There must be something. Think, Stevie.” He held the picture out to her, wanting to jar her memory.
She pushed it away. “Don’t you think I have been? Just because there’s no menacing note with those photos, doesn’t mean I don’t feel violated and threatened. Some creep is following me around, watching me…”
She squared her shoulders and gave him a challenging stare. “The question is, how do I handle it? I want to set up some kind of countersurveillance—”
“I think you should disappear.”
Her straight, golden eyebrows arched toward her hairline. “Excuse me?”
He slid the pictures back inside the envelope, handling them carefully by the edges. While his actions were slow and methodical, his mind raced with possibilities. Braga was sending a message,