Touch of a Thief by Mia Marlowe Read Free Book Online

home.
    Perhaps he simply wasn’t the type to put down deep roots.
    “When would you like dinner served, sahib?” Sanjay asked as a sailor passed them with the rolling gait that marks a seaman even on land.
    “Whenever it’s ready.” It bothered Quinn to have the prince pose as his servant, but they’d agreed it was the best way to proceed. Genuine friendship and respect between men of different races was unusual and therefore viewed with suspicion. In order to steal the most valuable treasure ever packed into such a small size, it was best to seem as unremarkable as possible.
    “I assume you will dine with her .” If Sanjay was truly Quinn’s servant, he’d have been in grave danger of reprimand for the obvious distaste for Lady Viola in his tone.
    Quinn nodded. “I don’t like it any better than you do, believe me.”
    But not for the same reasons.
    Sanjay had distrusted Viola on sight. Quinn had no doubt he could keep the lady close enough to not worry if he could trust her. He was more troubled by the fact that his unwilling partner in crime was a woman.
    And he was using her.
    Though Viola was a thief and independent enough he didn’t feel obligated to cosset her, his sense of chivalry was offended by their arrangement. It wouldn’t bother him a bit to bend another man to his will.
    It gnawed at his gut to coerce a woman.
    “I sense you share my misgivings,” the prince said. “Perhaps we should reconsider this plan.”
    Sanjay didn’t sense the half of it. Not only did Quinn suffer guilt over manipulating Viola into committing yet another burglary, if he hadn’t escaped the small cabin when he did, he might have been tempted to seduce her, using the skills Padmaa had taught him.
    Since that first time he’d pulled her onto his bed and felt her soft body beneath his, she’d featured prominently in his most wicked imaginings. Already in his mind, he’d undressed the woman and demonstrated a few of Padmaa’s lovemaking tricks to devastating effect.
    “Pleasure is a formidable chain, Quinn-sahib,” the courtesan had told him. “It binds lovers together in mutual need.”
    Somehow, he never managed to visualize Viola and himself as lovers. The word was too tame, too gentle. When they came together in his mind’s eye, it was intense. Fierce.
    Like tigers mating.
    They’d die of bliss if they didn’t kill each other first. He’d never wanted a woman with as much keen-edged hunger as he wanted the one waiting for him in his cabin.
    It made no sense to his mind, but his body could care less for logic. A physical entanglement might jeopardize the success of his plans. Once they retrieved the red diamond, what then?
    Even though she was wellborn, her larceny meant she wasn’t the fine English Rose men of his station expected to wed. There was a raw sensuality in her kisses. She was not a woman to take lightly and forget.
    A man would be marked forever by her.
    The mere thought of Viola was enough to make him feel achingly male. He’d already visualized her silken limbs, her shuddering sighs. He throbbed to rut her senseless, beating against her like a moth against the glass of a lantern flue.
    “. . . and then we can put the lady off in Le Havre and find another way,” Sanjay was saying.
    Quinn had missed quite a bit of what his friend thought, but his own about Viola nearly had him spilling his seed in his trousers. It’d been months since he’d had a woman, but he had to get a grip on his reaction to her.
    “No,” he said with more force than he intended. “We press ahead. This will work. It has to.”
    He turned away and headed for the cabin, like a man destined for the rack.
    When he reached the door, he raised his hand to knock, but caught himself. He was supposed to be her husband. It was his cabin, too. He turned the knob and slipped in.
    She’d pulled back the bedclothes, stripped a sheet from the narrow bunk and hung it from one of the low beams. A lantern flickered on the far side