the trail of clothes that led to the bed. Chances were good that they were still in the bed. But if she got back into that bed, it wouldn’t be just for her expensive underwear.
She spotted the red lace the moment she crawled around the end of the bed to Jonah’s side. In the light from the digital clock radio on the nightstand, she also saw Jonah. More of him than she wanted to. He was sprawled on his stomach, one arm dangling over the side of the mattress. The sheet covered him only to the waist.
And that strongly muscled back was not what she should be looking at. She dragged her gaze away and glanced down his arm to where his fingers nearly brushed the floor. Threaded through them was her quarry. All she had to do was get those panties and leave.
Very quietly, she crawled forward, scarcely daring to breathe. Gripping just the edge of the lace, she tugged.
Jonah’s fingers reflexively clenched the red undies.
Cilla waited, listening hard. His breathing was steady. Only his fingers had moved, so in another moment, they’d relax again. This time she’d just pull harder.
That was one strategy—the smart one. Grab and go.
But her gaze had already betrayed her. It had left the panties behind to run up that arm. Jonah’s face was turned toward her and his eyes, those incredible eyes, were closed.
She could easily wake him. There were a lot of ways to persuade a man to give up a piece of lace. Several scenarios ran through her mind.
She snuck a quick look at the clock: 5:15 a.m. The alarm hadn’t yet sounded. Technically, it was still night. And if a girl only had one night to spend with a man?
She might as well make the most of it.
Rising, she pulled the sheet down and climbed back onto the bed to straddle Jonah. Then she leaned down to nibble at his ear and whisper, “I have a proposition for you.”
2
Yet another sexy silent night, 2:00 a.m., three weeks later…
JONAH STONE STOOD AT the window of his apartment, looking out at his own private view of the Golden Gate Bridge. For almost a month now, he’d stood at the same place, delaying the time before he would inevitably have to climb up the stairs to his loft and go to bed. Once he did, he’d dream of her again.
Cilla Michaels.
The dreams that had been haunting him since the one night they’d spent together at that airport hotel in Denver were growing more vivid. In each of them, she’d be with him, right there in his bed. The sensations were always so intense. He’d smell that elusive scent of hers, feel her heart beat beneath his lips, taste the salty dampness of her skin under her breasts, the sweetness at her throat, her inner thighs, hear the way his name sounded when she gasped it into the silent night.
Steeped in her, he’d rise above her and look into those incredibly green eyes as he entered her. Again and again, he’d thrust into her until he lost all of himself.
Then he’d wake to find himself alone in the bed. And he’d try to convince himself that was the way he wanted it.
One night. That’s what he’d promised himself and her. That’s what she’d agreed to. The memory of that night should have faded by now. That’s what memories did. But everything about that night was still vividly etched in his mind.
Turning, Jonah glanced at the conference table where he’d left his cell phone. Next to it sat a small green box with a red ribbon. Cilla ran G.W. Securities’ new office in San Francisco. So he could use the threatening note that had been tucked inside the box as a professional excuse to call her. Was that why he’d delayed calling his friend Gabe Wilder about it? So that he could call Cilla instead? He’d been tempted to do so more nights now than he could count. More than once he’d punched part of her number into his cell before he’d been able to stop himself.
The little green box with the red bow had been delivered to him that evening just when the cocktail hour at Pleasures had been its busiest. Since his apartment took up the third floor of the building, he frequently filled in for his manager, Virgil, on Monday nights.
He continued to study the box, debating. He’d been in the bar when his steady customer and current business partner, Carl Rockwell, had brought the small gift to him. Before he could thank him, Carl had explained that a man dressed up as Santa had given it to him just outside and asked him to deliver it.
Jonah had felt something the moment he’d taken the box, a tightening in his gut. The hairs on the back of his neck had stirred, too. He’d even turned to look through the windows that lined the wall of the bar to see if whoever had sent the gift might still be watching. There was no sign of a Santa.
Then he’d put the gift behind the bar and out of his mind as a new wave of customers streamed into the club. He hadn’t opened it until a short time ago when he’d returned to his apartment. Moving to the table, he took the lid off the box and picked up the folded note he’d found inside.
’Tis the season for remembering Christmases past. Pleasures and fortune are fleeting. You destroyed an innocent life in pursuit of yours. You’ll pay for that soon. Six nights and counting…
Rereading it had his gut instinct kicking in again. Perhaps it was the wording. And there was something else that kept tugging at the corners of his mind. Some memory that was eluding him. Maybe it was the reference to Christmases past. At twenty-nine he had a lot of them to remember and several that he’d tried hard to forget. Especially that long-ago one when his father had promised to return, but hadn’t.
He’d also made his share of enemies. Some of them probably dated back to his early days in foster care. He hadn’t always “played well with other children.” As a businessman, he was demanding. He hired and fired people. Over the past six years he’d opened three successful supper clubs in the United States and he was in the process of opening another one in San Diego and a possible fifth in Rome.
Pleasures had been his first supper club and the result of a dream that had taken shape during his years in business school. His goal had been to create a place where people could escape into a different world and find temporary respite from the harsher realities of life. And he’d known that he wanted to open the club in San Francisco as a kind of thank-you to the saint the city had been named after, a saint who’d played an important part in his life.
The success of Pleasures had allowed him to open Interludes, a sports-themed bar in San Francisco, and more recently Passions, another supper club in Denver.
He didn’t like it at all that the word pleasures was used in the note. But perhaps he was overreacting. It was December 19, a peak time for his businesses, and he wasn’t getting much sleep, thanks to Cilla Michaels.
So he wasn’t going to alarm Gabe yet. And calling Cilla, who was running Gabe’s newly opened office in San Francisco, would be a mistake on so many levels.
He strode back to the window. Not that he could put all the blame on her. He’d known from the first instant he’d seen her at that party in the Fortune Mansion that she was different. That she’d be different for him. Gut instinct again.
His eyes had been drawn to her the moment she’d entered the room. No surprise there. Any man would have given her a second look. Her face had grabbed his attention first with its delicate features and stubborn chin. But he certainly hadn’t
