Jule Reigh and the Jim Stone Affair Read Free Page A

snapped her fingers. “Darn. I left my
vial of cyanide at home.”
    One of his dark brows rose high over his eye.
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a sleeping pill.
Here, you take a sip first.”
    She ignored the glass he held toward her.
“Why would you think I’d want to drug you? I’m just looking for a
little fun.”
    His gaze pierced her, as if he searched her
soul for the answer. “It’s not unreasonable to think you might want
to knock me out and roll me. Just take a sip, and the evening we
planned can go forward.”
    A sudden thought struck her—what if he had drugged the wine? Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that he
had a bottle of pink champagne here in his hotel suite, waiting for
her to come with him? Or maybe the champagne waited every night for
any woman he brought back here.
    “I could think the same about you, you know,”
she countered. “You could have put something in the bottle or just
on the glasses, like something I saw in an old movie. How do I know
you don’t prefer your women to be—less animated, shall we say?”
    They stared at one another for several long
moments then set aside their glasses at the same time. Jule smiled,
and Stone chuckled politely.
    “I prefer,” he began and moved in closer to
her, his voice lowering to a husky drawl, “an adventurous woman in
bed, a woman who knows what she wants and who’s not afraid to go
after it.”
    “Seems like that’s me tonight,” she murmured
and caught a whiff of freshly applied cologne, a fragrant woodsy,
musky scent and her favorite. She associated pleasant memories with
that particular brand, and it added another layer to her attraction
to Stone.
    He laid his hands on her shoulders. “What’s
your name?”
    “Everyone calls me Jule.”
    His brows knitted in a frown. “Jewel, like a
diamond?”
    “No, it’s short for Juliet.” It certainly
wasn’t the first time she’d heard the erroneous assumption of the
spelling of her nickname.
    “And your last name?”
    “Why do you need to know?”
    “I don’t. Just curious.”
    “My name is Juliet Reigh.”
    “Mmmm.” His hands slid off her shoulders,
peeling off her jacket with them. When the collar was near her
elbows, he jerked her forward while forcing the jacket back and
effectively pinning her arms to her sides. “Jule Reigh. Do you
really expect me to believe that?”
    His sudden entrapment made her heart race.
She apparently hadn’t convinced the thief she wasn’t out to capture
him, after all. She looked up into his deep, fathomless eyes,
irises so dark they nearly blended with his pupils, and in that
moment, she almost didn’t care what he did to her as long as he
fucked her first. “It’s my name. Blame my parents.”
    “At first, I thought you were an agent of
some kind. Interpol, most likely, but now…”
    “Now?” she prompted, wondering if she could
use his other notion to her advantage and make him forget all about
agents and Interpol.
    “Now, I think you must be Dia Manté, a
well-known thief who steals only diamonds.”
    Jule had heard of the notorious Dia Manté,
another international jewel thief in Interpol’s files. With her
sole interest in diamonds, she’d been a prime suspect along with
Stone. Careful examination of the crime scene and analysis of the
execution of the heist concluded the modus operandi was more
in line with Stone than Manté.
    “Interpol? Diamonds?” Jule widened her eyes
in surprise. She decided to try to keep the cover of horny chick
intact as long as she could. With luck, she just might pull it off.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
    His ambiguous smile slanted to one side and
clearly indicated he didn’t believe her. “No need to keep up the
pretense. You’re one or the other—Interpol agent or jewel thief.
But which one?”
    “I—” she began another denial, but he pressed
a finger across her mouth.
    “Don’t insult me. I’ve been in this business
long enough to know when