Intend To Seduce(35)

"Yeah, but it seems to me that the chances of coitus interruptus are greatly increased."

He laughed then and held her tight. "I don't think I'm ever going to figure out how your mind works. But I'm going to try. How's this?" He shifted so that she was beneath him.

She read his intent immediately. "Stop."

"Just a little experiment, Doc. This is step number one," he murmured as he slipped into her.

"Ohhh."

The hitch in her breath sent the heat shooting through him. "Ready for step number two?"

"We shouldn't," she managed to say.

"I thought scientists always wanted to find out answers. Why is having sex at forty thousand feet one of the top ten fantasies? Wasn't that your question? Ahhh," he sighed as her sleek softness pulsed around him, pulling him deeper. "There you go, Doc. You're already ahead of me on step number two."

Her fingers pressed into his hips.

"And three," he murmured as he began to move.











Chapter 17

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Tracker met them at a little all-night diner where the Golden Gate Bridge could just be seen glimmering in the distance.

"Dr. Lloyd, I presume," he said, shaking her hand with a perfectly straight face. But his eyes were filled with humor.

Mac decided she liked him on the spot. "And you, I'll bet, are the Shadow."

His eyebrows snapped together. "The what?"

"That's what Sophie calls you, because you're always slipping into them," she explained. "You frustrate her."

"Yeah, well I guess you could say that the feeling is mutual."

"But I think she admires you."

"That's mutual too."

Mac wasn't even aware that Tracker hadn't released her hand until Lucas took her arm and nudged her into a nearby booth.

"Were you followed?" Tracker asked as Lucas slid in beside her.

"No. We checked into the St. Francis, then slipped out by way of the delivery dock. We came the rest of the way on foot."

And her feet were still complaining, Mac thought, wincing. Not to mention her shins. They'd run up a very steep hill before they'd angled their way down again toward the water.

"What? You're not having fun yet?" Tracker winked at her.

Fun. It only took the mention of the word to have her thoughts flying back to the plane trip and what they'd done in the small bedroom at the back of the aircraft. Heat flooded her cheeks. She'd never thought that lovemaking could be fun. But it had been. Lucas had shown her that. When this was over, when they found Sophie and she went back to her work, she would still have that.

She risked giving Lucas a sideways glance and found that he was looking at her. He ran a finger down the side of her cheek before he shifted his gaze back to Tracker.

"You're awfully cheerful," Lucas said dryly.

"I could say the same about you. I guess we both got lucky after I talked to you last."

"You found out where Sophie is?"

"I hung around the Side Street Grill after I talked to the bartender. Couple of valets came on duty around six-thirty. One of them saw a woman pass out in the parking lot last night, just about the time the bartender says that the redhead disappeared. The kid says it was dark, and he didn't get a good look at the woman. He wouldn't have thought much about it. Figured she was drunk. But he had his eye on the car these two guys helped her into, thinking you never know when something could be not quite right. It was a silver RV and he gave me a detailed description of it, including its performance capabilities and a license-plate number. After a little research, guess who I found out it belongs to?"

"Falcone?" Lucas asked.

"Sonny."

"He stayed at the bar after she left."

Tracker nodded. "That gives him an alibi. Might have been a perfect plan if he hadn't used one of his family's cars to drive her off in."

"No one said he was Einstein."

"Can we go after her?" Mac asked.

"We will," Tracker assured her. And this time there wasn't a trace of laughter in his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze back to Lucas. "My question is who Sonny thought he was kidnapping? She was wearing a wig and using Mac's credit card last night. But she wasn't wearing any kind of disguise when she went out with Sonny in D.C. And my man definitely saw him eat lunch with a blonde on Thursday."

"Sophie might not have given him her real name," Mac said, and the two men turned to stare at her. "Last weekend, when we were talking in the tree house, she told me that she wasn't going to tell the next man she dated that she was Sophie Wainright. Her experience with Bradley Davis had really gotten her down. Then she got a call on her cell phone, and I had the feeling it was from someone she was already seeing. Could it have been Sonny?"

Lucas and Tracker exchanged glances.

"Could she have told this man that she was you?" Lucas asked.

Mac thought for a minute. "No, I don't think that Sophie would have done that. I mean, she might have pretended to be someone else. But I don't think…" She let the sentence trail off as she met Lucas's eyes. "But then I figured she was really at that spa. And I can't explain why she was wearing the wig and pretending to be me last night. I wish we'd never bought those foolish wigs. If we hadn't, none of this would have happened."

For a moment Lucas said nothing. He merely looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Look," Tracker said. "None of this makes sense right now. All we know for sure is that someone snatched Sophie out of that parking lot last night."

"Can't we go to the police with that much?" Mac asked.

"Right now it would be tricky," Tracker said. "Sonny stayed at the Side Street Grill until well after midnight. He can always claim that his RV was stolen."

"And while he's shielding himself behind his father's legal team, something could happen to Sophie," Lucas said. "You think she's on the estate?"

Tracker waited until the waitress, a woman named Leona, had slapped down mugs of coffee and taken their orders. The moment she waddled back to the kitchen, he pulled out a hand-drawn map and spread it on the table.

"I took a little tour of the Falcone Vineyards this afternoon, along with thirty or so other tourists. Of course, I kind of got lost. Falcone's security is pretty good, and they weren't happy when they caught up with me. Before they did, I found the silver RV safe and sound in the garage along with six other cars."

Pausing, he pointed to one of the boxes he'd drawn on the map. "This is the garage. The main house right next to it has three stories with decks on each level. There seem to be several guests staying there already and all have access to the cars."

"Do you think Sophie is being kept at the house?" Mac asked.

Tracker shrugged. "I'm not ruling it out, but it'd be tricky with all the people around. What if she cries for help?"

Mac found Lucas's hand and gripped it.

"The outbuildings where the actual wine is made are nestled together over here." Tracker tapped a finger on the map closer to the highway.

"That's even riskier," Lucas said.

"Yeah." Tracker took a quick swallow of coffee. "Too many people in and out on the tours. But there are places they don't let the tourists into. The tents for the party this weekend are being built here." He moved his finger in a straight line to a point halfway between the winery and the main house. "There's going to be a lot of traffic to and from this point tomorrow and Sunday. But the house won't be open to the public, only to a few invited guests."

"And we'll be among them," Lucas said.

Both men stopped talking as the waitress placed heaping platters onto the table. Mac glanced down at the mountain of eggs, bacon and home fries and wondered where to begin. Lucas and Tracker reached simultaneously for the saltshaker. When their hands collided, Lucas settled for the pepper, and then they switched. Their movements were so smooth that Mac was sure they'd done this before. How similar they were, it occurred to as she watched them sample their eggs, then reach for the ketchup.

"You've worked together before, haven't you?" she asked.

Both men shot her a look of surprise.

"How do you know that?" Tracker asked.

Mac shrugged. "You've shared meals before, and you can practically finish each other's sentences."

Lucas looked at Tracker. "The doc has a sharp, analytical mind."

"Welcome aboard, Dr. Lloyd," Tracker said as he poured more salt on his home fries. "We're going to need all the help we can get."

They even looked alike, she thought as she watched them attack the mountain of food. Each had the dark good looks of a Brontë hero. Tracker's edges were rugged, Lucas's more polished. But both had a capacity for stillness, and both of them exuded that hint of danger. In Lucas, that threat of danger might be hidden under a more civilized veneer, but it was there, and it had never been more apparent than now when she saw him with Tracker.

Lucas Wainright certainly didn't fit the profile of the man she'd thought she would fall in love with. She should be afraid of him, but she wasn't. Perhaps because he had that other side too – that streak of boyish mischief that lay hidden beneath the surface. It was something that he didn't share very often. She was sure he shared it with his friend Tracker. And he'd shared it with her. In spite of his harsh words, he must still trust her a little. She hugged the knowledge to her.