Sweet Spot. Kimberly Kaye TerryЧитать онлайн книгу.
question, Demetri thought with a grimace.
Just when he was getting his life back together, Nick Panin, his former commander, called and convinced him to fly out to D.C., dangling a carrot he knew Demetri wouldn’t be able to resist in front of his nose.
Completely disrupting the tranquility he’d worked so tenaciously to achieve over the last two years with an offer the son of a bitch knew he couldn’t refuse.
If Demetri agreed to help him on a case involving two con artists—Gabrielle Marlowe and Adam Quick—who were involved in a Medicaid and pharmaceutical fraud, his former commander would use all of his considerable power to find Demetri’s former partner.
He thought back to Siobhan and his time in the Bureau.
They’d been paired up as new recruits fresh out of the academy, assigned their first mission together. Over the course of five years as partners, they’d successfully helped bring down hundreds of con artists whose game had been so tight they’d escaped the long arm of justice for years.
Their cases usually involved criminals who preyed on the helpless, often scamming them out of their life savings. With each success, they’d gotten more and more accolades. It wasn’t long before they were recruited by a special division within the FBI, headed by Nicolai Panin, dealing with criminals higher up, or down, depending on one’s view, the food chain.
Their first case in the newly formed special ops team had been their last.
They’d taken months to set up a sting to infiltrate an underground BDSM cult to investigate the murder of one of their members, one they’d linked to other similar murders.
They’d first gone into “training” to learn the lifestyle. Unfortunately for Siobhan, Demetri hadn’t seen the psychological effects the training and months spent living that lifestyle had on her. When the time for the bust came, unknown to Demetri, Siobhan was no longer the same woman.
She’d turned on the agency. On Demetri.
She’d informed the cult’s leader, the man they believed to be the one responsible for the murders, and he’d gotten away, taking Von with him. And from all accounts, it appeared she’d gone willingly.
Demetri’s gaze settled on the ring on the bathroom counter.
Siobhan had left it in the “dungeon” area of the secret club they’d infiltrated, in a small five-by-five-foot steel-barred cage.
Along with the black leather, ruby-encrusted studded collar—the one he’d given her—and a note telling him not to look for her.
He fingered the ring.
It was the ring all the cadets received after graduating from the FBI Academy.
That was the last communication he’d had from her.
“Well?” Panin prompted him, jarring him out of his musings.
“I’m working on it. I’ll let you know when I have more to report,” was his gruff reply.
“Demetri…listen—”
“I’ll be in contact.”
Demetri pressed the end button on his cell and flung it, as well as the ring, on the counter. The ring spun and rolled, landing with a ting on the marble bathroom counter.
He’d been told Gabrielle and Adam frequented the Sweet Spot, which was one of the reasons his commander had come to him for help. Demetri thought there were more reasons he’d been brought into the investigation, but if there were, his former commander wasn’t telling. The most he would say was that if Demetri could bring them in, find out who else was involved, who was at the top, he’d put a special team out to find Siobhan.
For Demetri, that been reason enough for him to agree.
Upon his return home, he hadn’t had to wait long before he identified Adam Quick and Gabrielle Marlowe. Quick looked exactly as he did in the many photos Demetri’s former commander had given him. He was tall, with the type of muscular build that came from working out in a gym regularly.
He had what Demetri thought of as a “pretty boy” look. Women fell for that type hard.
Adam wore his dark blond, artificially highlighted hair swept back from a wide forehead, and in the photo he was smiling a lopsided, practiced grin.
With his light blue eyes, classic features, and no scars, nothing to mar his pretty-boy perfection, teamed with what most cons had in abundance, manipulativeness, women fell like a ton of bricks.
He’d dismissed the man in the photo and looked at the woman, his partner, Gabrielle Marlowe, wondering if she had been a victim of Quick’s charms or if she were the deadlier of the two.
In each photo they had of her, she’d been wearing variations on the same conservative boxy suit that did nothing for her body.
She was petite; her bio said she was only a few inches over five feet, no weight given, but from the picture and her clothing she appeared slightly thick, no curves, just straight lines in the bland suits she seemed to favor.
Her somber face stared back at him, unsmiling in the picture. Her large, widely set brown eyes were obscured behind a pair of old-fashioned round glasses that seem to dominate her small face. Although her deep golden brown complexion was flawless, that looked to be about the only thing attractive about her.
Then his eyes had gone to her mouth.
Despite the look of untouched innocence that seemed to cling to her, her mouth was pure decadence, ripe and full.
Even without smiling, her lips had a natural curve in the corners that made her otherwise bland appearance reach out and grab him by the balls.
Despite her average looks, he’d found himself drawn to the photograph over and over.
Then, he’d seen her in person.
Damn.
The photograph hadn’t come anywhere near to capturing her unique beauty. Although her skin in the photo appeared to be smooth, her features even, there was nothing unique about her, save that decadent mouth of hers.
But in person…
In person her skin glowed, shone like rich dark honey. Her eyes, which had been obscured by the old-fashioned glasses in the picture, were large, slightly slanted in the corners, and a deep chocolate brown. Bedroom eyes.
And then his gaze had rested on her lips…God. Her lips were so lush and full his imagination had taken flight, with images of suckling her full lower lip into his mouth playing hell with his libido.
Not to mention the woman was nothing but luscious curves.
The first time he’d seen her, she’d been with Adam Quick. It had been easy to spot the pair.
Nightly, at the same time that Nick told him surveillance had shown them coming to the club, he’d stationed himself in a prime position to observe them without being noticed, patiently waiting to get a visual on them since his return from D.C. and his meeting with Nick.
Like most crooks, they followed habitual routines, choosing the same booth when they came to the club, tucked away in a corner of the room.
With animation, the man did most of the talking, and although his tone was too low to hear, Demetri guessed he was talking mostly about his own interests.
Although she feigned attention, Demetri caught the woman’s eyes drifting away, usually toward the dance floor, with an almost wistful look on her gamine face.
With an irritated look, Quick would rudely snap his fingers in front of her face to get her attention, and the woman would smilingly murmur something and pretend interest in what he was saying.
He’d been able to continue to observe her without her knowledge. Although Quick hadn’t been able to hold her attention, her face, even in repose, was animated, her eyes seeming to sparkle without