Faking It (d-2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

hadn’t been so stiff as she pressed against him.
    You want to seduce me, you have to melt a little
, he thought, but she smelled like the best mornings of his life, so he didn’t push her away.
    “I’m not good at this kind of thing,” she whispered, putting her palms on his chest, her hands trembling a little.
    No kidding
, Davy thought. He’d held two-by-fours that were more yielding.
    “While you clearly are-” she clutched his shirt “-good at this.”
    “Okay, you really are no good at this,” he told her, keeping his voice low. “So cut to the chase. What do you want?” He heard her sigh in the darkness, and there was a tremor in it, and he realized she was afraid and put his arm around her. “It’s okay,” he told her, without thinking.
    “There’s a painting,” she said. “Eighteen inches square. A city scene with a checkerboard sky with lots of stars. It’s somewhere in this house.”
    “A painting,” Davy said, knowing what was coming next.
    “Steal it for me,” she whispered, and his hands tightened on her automatically, feeling all that warm softness under her slippery jacket.
    Okay, the chances of her delivering what she was promising were nil, and she was a thief which couldn’t be good, and she was asking him to steal which was worse than anything she’d done to him up until then including the bite and the shin kick. A smart man would say no and escape, dragging her with him so she couldn’t rat him out.
    But life had been so boring lately.
    And she was afraid.
    “Please?” she said, pressing closer, her lips parted.
    “Sure,” he said, and kissed her lightly, wanting her to taste like cinnamon, surprised to find her mouth cool like mint, even more surprised a second later to find her kissing him back, rising to meet him, the tip of her tongue touching his, and he tightened his arms around her and kissed her as if he meant it.
    “Vilma Kaplan,” he said when he broke the kiss, and she jerked back, and then he heard it, too, the step outside the door, and almost knocked her off her feet trying to get the closet door closed before someone came in.
    Okay, that’s an omen
, he thought.
Stay away from this woman and her tongue
. Then a moment later she sighed beside him and he put his arm around her again.
    Thank God, she’s a brunette
, he thought as he listened to Clea rustle out in the bedroom.
It’s the blondes that screw up my life
.
     
    FIFTEEN MINUTES earlier, Clea Lewis had been watching Gwen Goodnight slurp cheesecake and thinking of ways to permanently separate her from Mason, with an ax if necessary, when the caterer interrupted her.
    “Excuse me, Mrs. Lewis?” he said from the doorway, and Clea turned to look at him, keeping her face pleasant because Mason liked it when people went out of their way to be nice to the help. Also, they might need a caterer again. You never knew.
    “There’s a telephone call for you,” the caterer said.
    “Thank you, Thomas.” Clea turned back to Mason and the threat from the gallery. “I’m so sorry,” she said, radiating graciousness.
    “Perfectly all right,” Mason said, happy because he was talking about art again. Mason wasn’t hugely attractive, but he was hugely rich, so the smile Clea gave him was genuine.
    Gwen Goodnight widened her pale blue eyes that couldn’t compare to Clea’s, which Clea knew because she’d compared them. “No problem,” Gwen said to Clea. “Tell whoever it is we said hi.”
    Clea nodded and slid her chair back, keeping her eye on Gwen. Gwen had crow’s-feet and her jawline was going, but she knew art, and more than that, Mason thought she was charming. “Gwen Goodnight,” he’d said when he’d taken her phone message. “Charming little woman. I’d almost forgotten her. I invited her to dinner.” And now here she was.
    Fortunately, Gwen looked her age, which was just careless of her.
    “Hello?” Clea said when she’d picked up the phone.
    “Clea? Clea, darling?” a man