Naked In His Arms. Sandra Marton

store and added a gym bag, a flashlight, a thermos, binoculars, a nightscope and a palm-sized digital camera.

      You never knew when gadgets like those would come in handy.

      He checked into a big, impersonal hotel, put on the black clothes, packed the gear in the gym bag and made a phone call.

      Within the hour, an old friend who asked no questions provided him with a loaded 9mm pistol and an extra clip. He shoved the pistol into the small of his back and the full clip into his sock.

      He was as ready as he’d ever be.

      By midnight, he was parked across from Prescott’s apartment building. It was on a street Manhattan realtors loved, a commercial slum just waiting to turn into a yuppie haven.

      No self-respecting New Yorker was going to pay attention to a black minivan, or to him.

      He watched the building all night. Nobody went in or out. At five in the morning, he set his internal alarm for half an hour’s sleep. A week spent with his mother’s elderly uncle, a guy Anglos erroneously referred to as a medicine man, had taught him how to go deep inside himself to gain needed rest for his mind and his body.

      At five-thirty, he awoke refreshed and finished the coffee in his thermos.

      At eight, Cara Prescott came down the steps.

      She wore a long black raincoat that flapped around her ankles, a newsboy cap that covered her hair and oversized dark glasses despite the grayness of the morning. Jeans and sneakers peeped from under the coat’s hem.

      Along with the phony name on the mailbox in the lobby—C. Smith—and an unlisted phone number it had taken him all of an hour to get, he figured this was her attempt at a disguise.

      Anybody determined to locate her would see through it in a New York minute.

      Either she believed in hiding in plain sight, or she believed in luck.

      Alex watched her walk up the street. He gave her a head start. Then he got out of the van and fell in half a block behind her.

      She made a stop at the Korean deli on the corner, came out with a foam cup of what he figured was coffee in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. When she headed back toward him, he melted into a doorway, waited until she went by, then fell in behind her again.

      She went into her apartment building. He got into the van.

      The hours crawled by. What the hell was she doing up there? If she spent her time locked away like that, wouldn’t she go stir-crazy?

      At four-thirty, he had his answer.

      Cara Prescott came down the steps again, wearing the same long raincoat, the cap, the dark glasses even though, by now, the sky was charcoal. But no jeans peeped out from the coat’s hem and the sneakers had given way to low-heeled black shoes. She walked briskly toward the corner, checked the traffic light, crossed the street and kept going.

      Alex followed.

      Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to a bookshop. A stooped-shouldered old guy with white hair greeted her. She smiled, took off the coat and hat and dark glasses…

      Alex caught his breath.

      She was demurely dressed. Dark sweater, dark skirt with an unexciting hem length, those practical shoes.

      He already knew the lady had the face of a Madonna. Now, he knew she had the body of a courtesan. Not even drab colors could conceal her high, full breasts; her slender waist and gently rounded hips. She had long legs that he could almost feel wrapping around his waist. Her hair, a mass of gold-tipped chestnut curls clipped into submission at the nape of her neck, was sinful temptation all by itself.

      A man could undo that clip, plunge his hands into those curls as he lifted that perfect face to his.

      Alex’s body responded in a heartbeat.

      Tony G might be a stone-cold killer, but the son of a bitch had excellent taste when it came to women.

      The old guy said something to Cara Prescott. She nodded, went to the cash register and opened it. That sight was almost as startling as the sight of all those feminine curves.

      Gennaro’s former mistress worked in a bookstore?

      Either she was desperate for a job, or she had more brains than he’d credited her for. Her former lover would never think to look for his woman in a place like this.

      Alex checked his watch. It was a little after five. The store’s hours were on the door. It was open until nine in the evening. Excellent. It gave him a four-hour window, more than enough to get into her apartment.

      Once he’d done that, he’d have a better handle on Cara Prescott. All he knew now was that she was hot looking, smart enough to try to lose herself in the city but stupid enough, greedy enough, to have gotten into bed with a man who ordered people killed without compunction.

      He had to know more if he was going to come up with an approach that might land him her cooperation or, failing that, her compliance.

      Getting into her apartment was child’s play. A credit card slipped between the jamb and the lock did the job.

      His estimation of the Prescott woman’s street-smarts went down a notch, then zoomed up again when bells went off over his head.

      Literally.

      She’d tacked a strip of them right over the door.

      Alex grabbed the bells, silenced them and waited. Nothing happened. Evidently, whoever else occupied the building had learned the primary New York rule of survival.

      If something went bump in the night and you weren’t the one being bumped, you ignored it.

      He shut the door carefully. The lady might have other booby traps around. He waited again, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he took out his flashlight, turned it on and swept the area with its narrow beam.

      The apartment was one enormous room. No walls, just yawning space filled with shadows. There was a minuscule kitchen and bathroom at one end, a stack of cardboard boxes at the other. Whatever else he’d expected of a woman who slept with a killer—gilt, fringe, cherubs—wasn’t there.

      So much for that stereotype.

      There was no furniture to speak of, either, just a narrow bed, a chest, a couple of small tables and chairs that might have come from the Salvation Army.

      He made his way through the place slowly, opening drawers and carefully poking inside without disturbing the contents. He found only the stuff most women had: sweaters, jeans, lingerie.

      Lace lingerie. Bras that would cup her breasts like an offering. Panties that would ride high on her long legs and dip low enough so they barely covered what he knew would be gold-tipped, feminine curls.

      Alex shifted his weight. He had an instant erection, one that strained at the taut denim of his jeans. He hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Was he that desperate that handling this one’s lingerie, thinking about how it would look on her, was enough to give him a hard-on?

      Any man with enough money could have Cara Prescott. A woman had the right to do what she wanted with her body but if she chose to auction it to the highest bidder, she wasn’t a woman he’d want in his bed.

      He wandered into the bathroom. The sink was chipped and stained; an equally battered shelf above it held small vials and bottles. He opened one at random and brought it to his nose. Lilacs? He wasn’t up on flowers or on perfume: he liked a woman to smell like a woman, especially when she was aroused and eager for his possession, but as perfumes went, this wasn’t bad.

      A narrow closet was crammed between the bathroom and the kitchen. He opened it, poked through a sparse lineup of drab skirts, sweaters and dresses. Half a dozen pairs of shoes were stacked neatly on the floor: this morning’s sneakers, sensible heels. Not a pair of stilettos in sight.

      Too bad.

      The