A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,108

that?” Con winked at Lizzie as they both shook with silent laughter.

“She’s not calling for me, big brother. She has to talk to you about something. It’s urgent.” The last word was a credible imitation of Maisie’s clipped tones that made Con chuckle. “Could you do me a big-ass personal favor and call her back before she drives me out of my mind?”

“Ask him in,” whispered Lizzie. “He’s practically my brother-in-law.” Her eyes shone. He planted one last kiss on her nose before diving for a towel and opening the door.

Danny came in looking very large and very shy.

“Hi, Danny. Thanks for driving Con here,” said Lizzie cheerily.

“You’re welcome. I’m glad you two made up. I didn’t want my brother to be miserable for the rest of his life.” He grinned. He handed the phone to Con. “I swear, she’s called, like fifteen times in the last two hours.”

“Two hours? We’ve been here that long?” asked Con.

Danny just looked at him, eyes twinkling with amusement.

Con ran a hand through his very tousled hair. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem.” Danny kept a straight face as he handed Con the phone. “I’ll be out in the truck.” He winked at Lizzie, and exited.

Con hit call back. Maisie answered on the first ring with a curt, “Yes?”

“It’s Con.” He stretched out on the bed next to Lizzie, letting his hand wander into her soft hair.

“Conroy, thank God. There’s been a development.”

“Yeah?” He feathered a kiss on the tip of her chin. Her parted lips were swollen and rouged from kissing, inviting him back for more.

The phone kind of drifted away from his ear as Maisie launched into some detailed story about something, and Lizzie’s hand slid under the towel. Her fingers closed around his hardening cock.

“Conroy! Are you there?” The high-pitched sound of Maisie’s voice made him bring the phone reluctantly back to his ear.

“What?” he rasped. Talking was uncomfortable in his current state of arousal.

“Did you hear a word I said?”

“Yeah,” he lied, “Sure.” His breathing became labored as Lizzie’s hand teased him.

“So you’ll come right back now to sign the papers?”

“What papers?” he croaked, arching his back at the intense sensation.

“The papers transferring the house and its contents to your name, of course!” Maisie screeched with impatience. “Are you drunk or something? Put Lizzie on.”

Con obediently handed the phone to Lizzie. Some distant part of his brain wondered what the fuss was about, but since his entire blood supply was pooling below his waist, he didn’t much care. He eased himself under the sheet and went down on Lizzie, licking her crimson softness and losing himself in her wet warmth—until she pushed him out by crossing her thighs.

He looked up, confused. Lizzie was listening to the garbled sound of Maisie’s voice, her mouth hanging open.

“We have to go back,” she said at last. “Right now.”

Chapter 25

“So let me get this straight.” Lizzie was almost delirious with exhaustion and happiness. She, Con, Danny, Maisie, and scattered crew members were gathered in the big living room back at the house at two in the morning. Mercifully Dino and his camera were absent, probably up in Gia’s room. “Thomas Milford was not his grandfather, but Marie Ancelet, his wife, is Con’s real grandmother and she’s the original heir to the property?”

“Yes.” Maisie, flushed with excitement and chocolate martinis, had Danny’s big tattooed arm wrapped around her shoulders. “She was a famous circus performer. Called herself La Zoringa. She traveled all over the U.S. and Europe with a bunch of wild animals she’d trained. Snakes, crocodiles, that kind of thing.”

“It’s in the blood, bro.” Danny grinned.

“She appeared at Radio City Music Hall in the 1950’s and went on The Ed Sullivan Show three times. She made a lot of money and she’s the one who put together the collection of classic cars we saw yesterday. She was famous for driving them from one engagement to another, and she liked to work on them herself.”

“See what I’m saying?” Danny raised an eyebrow at Con and Lizzie.

“She sounds like quite a lady,” said Raoul, sitting on the sofa in his Japanese robe. “I’d like to have met her.”

“From what I gather she was estranged from her family,” Maisie continued. “Eyewitness News dug up some old newspaper articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. They didn’t approve of having a female snake charmer for a daughter in the thirties and forties, but her two brothers died in World War II, so she inherited the house when her mother