Too Wicked to Keep Read Online Free PDF

it. You couldn’t see me jailed for what I did to you, so maybe you arranged for me to be railroaded for something else.”
    She shook her head. “There’s a huge flaw in that logic.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œOh, yes. If I was going to frame you for a crime, I’d do it in Illinois, not California. We don’t have the death penalty, so you’d have to suffer longer.”
    He snickered at her joke and she was surprised she’d made it. She was supposed to be angry at him, or at least wary of him. But in the span of twenty minutes, she’d already started meeting his teases with her own.
    â€œDo you think the person who set you up is still out to get you?” she asked, returning the conversation to her most serious concern.
    â€œNah,” he said. “But it’s sweet that you’re worried about me.”
    This time, her laugh was a burst of genuine humor. “I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about someone getting in the way of you retrieving my painting. The collector has already sent out invitations to art lovers all around Chicago, promising to reveal an unknown work by Bastien Pierre-Louis next week. The buzz in local circles is getting louder every day. This operation needs to be quick and simple. No complications.”
    Daniel laughed, retrieved two glasses from the limousine’s bar and then commandeered the champagne she’d taken from the casino and poured. “Then you’re out of luck, sweetheart. If you don’t want complications, you picked the wrong man.”

4
    F ROM A SEAT IN the back of Abigail’s private jet, Danny watched her move up the aisle and marveled at how much she’d changed—and how much she had stayed the same. She was still beautiful and slim, still graceful and minimal in her movements, still sweet and charming as she spoke in hushed tones to her pilot and copilot, who nodded and smiled with deferential respect when she was facing them, but checked out her ass when she left the cockpit.
    Shifting in his seat, Danny made eye contact. Their hungry grins vanished. The captain tipped his hat and then quickly shut the door.
    Danny had no right to feel territorial. He had no business thinking about how smooth Abby’s skin had been underneath his touch for that brief moment, or how her aversion to contact now reminded him of how skittish she’d been five years ago, how hard he’d had to work to get past her considerable defenses. Even after he’d tempted her into his bed, she would have rather bitten through her lip than make too much noise. Her idea of down-and-dirty sex was doing it standing up.
    He had a hard time reconciling that shy, repressedyoung woman with the vixen now sashaying up the aisle as if she meant to torture him with what he could not have.
    And on this, she was succeeding.
    She slid into the leather seat across from his, her skirt riding up an extra inch or two that the dress simply didn’t have to give.
    â€œWant anything before we take off?” she asked.
    Oh, he wanted a lot of things—none of which he was going to get anytime soon.
    Still, he made a show of glancing around the cabin. “No flight attendants?”
    â€œJust the pilot and copilot.” She clicked her seat belt and waited for Danny to do the same. “We have a lot to talk about. I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
    He stretched out his legs so that they were inches from hers. “Sure that’s the only reason you wanted to be alone? To talk?”
    She ignored his question. “Who hired you to steal the painting five years ago?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œAnatomy of a crime,” she explained. “By the time we arrive in Chicago, I want to know everything you do about what happened to my painting.”
    â€œI thought you knew who had it.”
    â€œI do. Or at least, I think I do,” she clarified. “His name is Harris Liebe.”
    Danny