by Myla Jackson
The naked man reached up and brushed a thumb across her mouth. “You should smile more often.”
Despite the roughness of his skin, the caress was gentle and to Edie’s hard-core virgin sensitivities, sensual.
Her breath caught and she fought to keep from leaning into his touch. If she wasn’t careful, she might actually touch IT.
After an involuntary glance downward, heat rose up her neck, into her cheeks and to the tips of her nose and ears. She shoved the apron into his arms. “Put this on while I go see if there’s something more substantial you can wear.”
Edie raced for the janitor’s closet. To hell with the fact she’d just left a complete stranger alone in the warehouse with millions of dollars of valuable artifacts. She had to get away from his overpowering maleness and her illogical reaction to him.
Edie ducked into the closet and flipped on the light switch. She slammed the door behind her and collapsed against it, sucking in air. After several moments, her cognitive skills returned, and she remembered she was in the janitor’s closet for a reason. To find something to cover all that bronzed and buff body, especially the part she wouldn’t let herself name. She just wanted IT covered so she wouldn’t constantly be aware she shouldn’t be looking THERE. But Lord, she’d never seen anything quite so…impressive.
Hanging on a metal hook was a faded, navy blue coverall with the name Ernie on it. She snatched it down and grabbed a pair of rubber boots leaning against the mop pail.
Items in hand, she had no other excuses to remain in the closet. She had to go out and face the naked man.
Good Lord, she had to find out what his name was. Calling him “the naked man”…well, she just didn’t feel comfortable. Okay, so she had to vacate the tight, safe confines of the janitor’s storage room. “On the count of three. One, two, three.” She couldn’t go back through the door. He was…too much.
“Edie? Are you okay? Are you going to come out of there?”
Blast! She couldn’t hide forever.
Edie fumbled for the door handle and shoved the coverall and boots out first. “I found these…” Holy cow, he filled her vision. Nope, a minute of sensory deprivation hadn’t dulled his impact to her senses. “Aren’t you going to get dressed?” Her voice squeaked and her cheeks heated as if they were ovens on broil. Could she be any more subtle? Perhaps she could drool a little for a more pronounced effect.
His gaze swept over her face. “I will, if you’d let me in that room to change.”
Mortified, she scurried out of the way, allowing him to enter the closet.
As he passed, she couldn’t help sneaking a peek at his tight, bare buttocks. Had they turned up the heat in the warehouse? “I don’t like lying to my boss,” she said through the metal door.
“Technically, you didn’t.”
“You heard what I said? Even from inside that bottle?” Good Lord, the man had been in a bottle! “How did you do that changing, shrinking thing? That…whatever you call it?”
“How’d I get in the bottle?” His voice was muffled by the door, but she could hear him clearly. “I’m not sure, but I think it has to do with that stone.”
“Oh yeah, the stone.” Edie ran back to the stack of boxes to retrieve the stone. The space stood empty. Her heart leapt into her throat. Then she remembered the stone had been safely tucked into the apron she’d shoved mindlessly at the naked man.
Images of skin and tight curly hair filled her head. Damn. A name—the naked man had told her his name, but she couldn’t remember, her brain was in a complete meltdown.
When she turned back to the closet door, the man stood framed in the doorway. He’d pushed his hair back from his face, exposing his angular features, but the coveralls barely fit, straining over his shoulders. The front gaped open because there wasn’t near enough material to cover his chest.
“Now what?” he asked.
Edie closed her drooping mouth with a snap. “You know my name, but I’m sorry, I missed yours in the confusion.”
“Harrington Taylor the third. But my friends call me Harry.” He shrugged. “Or at least they did.”
Even his shrug made her heart skitter past a few beats. What was it about him? “Harry.” His name rolled off her tongue. “Harry, assuming all you said is true, and I’m not saying I’m convinced, you can’t stay here.”
“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” Harry’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “My life is back in 1924.”
“That’s not entirely convenient.” Edie paced in front of him, pulse racing, edging toward panic. What did she do with him now? He was making a considerable dent in her normally ordered existence and she didn’t like that one bit. It made her feel off balance. And why was that? She didn’t exactly fear the man, she just couldn’t control her body’s reactions when he was around.
He raised his hands. “I didn’t make the rules.”
“We need to get you out of here.” But what could she do with him? A few unwarranted ideas sprang to mind involving the hot, passionate sex Edie had only read or dreamed about. “The security guard will come through on his rounds in less than an hour.”
“I could manage to hide in here. There’s enough stuff here to conceal an army.”
“That would be just fine, except Carlos brings a dog with him.”
“I could find a park bench outside for the night?” His face wrinkled in distaste. “Although, it might be a little too cold for a man fresh from the desert.” He used that puppy-in-the-window expression again.
Edie knew she was a fool, but she couldn’t think of anything else. “You can come to my apartment.” There she’d gone and done it. “But only until I can figure out what to do with you.” The statement gave her another slew of ideas a lonely virgin shouldn’t be thinking.
“No, I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “That would be inappropriate. What would your family think?”
Her father would be livid and he’d know within minutes. “I live alone.”
“What would your neighbors think?”
“Harry, this is the new millennium. No one cares what the neighbors think. Half the time, you don’t even know who your neighbors are.” Although her landlady, the busybody and direct link to Edie’s father, would probably have a cow if she found out Edie was shacking up with a man. Maybe she could sneak him in. “Come on, it’s getting dark.” What would the night guard do if he found Harry in here with her? Shoot him? She didn’t want to wait around to find out. They might accuse him of stealing. “Oh, shoot! The stone!” She ducked around him and rushed into the storage room. When she grabbed the apron, she could tell it was empty. “Crap, I could’ve sworn I left it wrapped in the apron.”
“I have it,” Harry said from behind her.
She walked out of the room and held out her hand. “Let me have the stone. We can’t take items that belong to the museum.”
“Look, Edie.” He patted the bulge in his pocket. “It’s not safe to leave it here. I’m not sure what effect it’ll have on anyone else who touches it. Look what happened to me.”
“Then put it back in the sarcophagus.” Her hands twisted together as she glared at Harry. He didn’t look like he was going to let go of the stone. She’d never forgive herself if she gave this man refuge only for him to steal something from her place of employment. “I can’t take items home that belong to the museum.”
“We can’t leave it here.” Harry stepped closer, his bare chest only inches from Edie’s nose. “What if someone finds it? They could turn to smoke too. I know it has something to do with why I’m here. The stone could also be the key to finding my assistant Will. We have to keep it with us.”
Years of being responsible and ethical warred with her common sense. His argument was extremely persuasive. But Edie didn’t like removing artifacts from the museum. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Do you think I feel right smoking in and out of a bottle?” He grabbed her hands. “This stone holds the key to what happened to me and to Will.
If someone else gets hold of it, I’ll never find my friend or figure a way out of this strange state.”
His warmth chased away the chill in Edie’s fingers, spreading fire up her arms and down to her belly. With that one touch, Edie, the repressed museum worker who’d been living in her imagination, fought and won the internal war about breaking the rules. With a deep breath, she stuffed all her upbringing and all her father’s lectures about playing it safe into the back of her mind. But she couldn’t completely shake the icky feeling filling her stomach like a heavy wad of guilt. “Very well. Until we figure out what’s going on. But don’t try anything funny. I’m keeping an eye on you…and the stone.”
“Fair enough. I’m completely at your mercy. Let’s go.” He limped a couple steps and grimaced. “These boots are about two sizes too small.”
Edie grabbed the blue-green bottle from the shelf, and pulled her purse from a nearby locker, stuffing the bottle into its voluminous depths. “Maybe I’d better hold on to this. You seem to have some connection to it.” And, if she was going to walk out of the museum with one pilfered item, she might as well take two. The numbers wouldn’t get her fired, the act of stealing would.
As they neared the exit, she realized something else. “You know a lot has changed in eighty years. You’re in for some major surprises.”
“Honey, I don’t think I could be any more shocked than I was as a Lilliputian at the bottom of that bottle.”
She snorted softly. “You haven’t been on the New York subway.”
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Not this one.” She smiled. “It’s changed since 1924.”
Thirty minutes later, outside Edie’s apartment in Brooklyn, Harry shoved a shaky hand through his already mussed hair. “You don’t do that trip everyday, do you?” With eyes still wide and kind of glassy, he watched a girl in skimpy shorts race by on a pair of roller blades, the music from her MP3 blasting through her headset loud enough for everyone within ten feet to hear.
“Every day.”
“Are you crazy? Is everyone in this city mad? And how in hell did they manage to construct buildings even higher than the Eiffel Tower? And for what purpose?”
“Because they can?” Digging past the bottle, papers, pens and the little can of mace her father insisted she carry in her purse, Edie surfaced her keys, laughing. “Look, Harry. A lot has changed.”
“Especially the people.” Harry frowned as a teenage boy swaggered by, baggy shorts barely hanging from his hips, SpongeBob Squarepants boxers plain to see above the waistband.
“Yeah, but underneath the mohawks, piercings and micro-shorts, they’re still the same.”
A door creaked open and steps sounded on the lower landing. “Edith Ragsdale?” A shrill voice called up the stairs.
“Speaking of the same,” Edie whispered, “that would be my nosy landlady.” Never before had she invited a strange man to her apartment. What would Mrs. Bartelli think? With a stubborn frown, Edie decided she didn’t care.
“Will she have issue with you letting a man into your apartment? I don’t wish to damage your reputation.” He tugged at the gaping lapel of the coverall.
Edie touched the key to her chin. Her landlady didn’t scare her, but— “She does know my father.”
“And will report back everything she sees or hears?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Bartelli would be sure to fill her father in so fast the phone lines would smoke. After all the years of trying to please her father without success, what would it feel like to shock him? Could Edie the Mouse be so bold and do something with the sole purpose of shocking someone, maybe even dear old Dad? A shiver of anticipation crept across her skin, blossoming into butterflies in her stomach. “Just once I would like to surprise the hell out of Mrs. Bartelli.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know, I wish I could have a man make passionate love to me in the hallway. That would show her.” And her father that she wasn’t so ugly she couldn’t attract a man, and that she had a life of her own and didn’t need her landlady or father butting into it. Thunder rumbled as a surge of power swelled up her chest and made her cheeks burn. She’d spilled her guts to a complete stranger. Homely Edith Ragsdale had just wished out loud for a man to make love to her. Ohmigod! The feeling of going from Edie the doormat, to super Edie in sixty-seconds flat, made her head spin. Then reality set in. “I know that’s foolish, and I’d never find a man willing. I mean really, look at me. It’s a dumb idea.” She jammed her key in the lock, missing the first time.
“Edith, your father called wondering where you were.” Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Countless times her father told her she wasn’t as pretty as her mother. The framed magazine covers of her mother posing in designer gowns decorated the walls of her father’s apartment lending credence to his hurtful words. All her life, Edie lived in the shadow of a spectacularly beautiful woman, a woman she couldn’t measure up to. What man would want to bed much less kiss her when they could have a prettier partner? And she couldn’t even bring herself to hate her mother, because she’d been as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.
When Edie’s eyes filled with tears, her mortification was complete. She was a pathetic virgin spinster in a time when sex was more or less an accepted form of recreation. A pastime she’d been too insecure and shy to participate in.
Harry’s hand pressed against her shoulder, turning her around to face him. His finger tipped her chin upward. “I think you’re beautiful.”
Edie’s gaze riveted on his full, sensual lips. Lips hovering lower until they pressed against hers.
“Edith!”
She heard Mrs. Bartelli’s cry as if in a distant tunnel, but she couldn’t respond. Suspended in time, her mind could only focus on Harry.
His lips claimed hers in a slow dance of feathery-soft pressure, increasing until his tongue pushed past her teeth, delving deeper to claim hers. Edie’s eyes widened, her vision blurring around the edges. So, this was what all the fuss was about. Had she known all the fabulous sensations a single kiss could inspire, she might have broken through her shell long ago.
Edie’s hands pressed against Harry’s chest, skin against skin. She’d never felt a man’s muscular body. Electrical pulses skittered across her nerves sending molten blood throughout her body to collect at the juncture of her thighs. Liquid fire pooled in her loins, throbbing so hard she thought she would spontaneously combust. And she didn’t care.
Harry was kissing her like she’d never been kissed before. Well, she hadn’t.
His hands snaked up her sides, tugging her white cotton shirt from the waistband of her khaki skirt. The cool air against her naked skin served as a reminder she was standing in the hallway.
What was she doing? How could she let this complete stranger take such liberties? But with her traitorous body responding, how could she not?
He teased her lips, tugging at them with his teeth. Nipping and kissing along her jaw line, he paused with his nose against her neck and inhaled. “Umm. You smell like a fresh field of wild flowers.” His tongue flicked her earlobe and he sucked it into the hot moistness of his mouth.
A shiver started at that earlobe and quivered all the way down her spine to the tips of her toes.
She should stop him from this craziness, but she couldn’t. He filled her world and touched her body in ways she’d only dreamed.
Warm, rough fingers found their way beneath her shirt, sliding up her bare skin to cup the swell of her breasts. His thumbs circled over her hardened nipples through the lace of her bra.
She leaned into his hand, her head dropping back against the wall, exposing more of her neck to his lips and tongue. Awash in a sea of carnal delight, she forgot where she was. Her sex throbbed, aching for more. She’d seen x-rated movies before, when she’d been brave enough to rent them. The mechanics of sex were elementary. But the raw sensations were something new. Her body physically cried out to be filled by him.
He shoved his knee between her legs.
With her thighs clamped tight around his knee, she rubbed her dampened crotch against his leg. Now, she knew what Mrs. Fetterrmine’s poodle felt when he humped old Mr. Fettermine’s leg. Instead of the animalistic urge shocking her, it only made her wetter, hotter, more needy.
The hard ridge beneath his fly pressed against her belly. Edie reached down and cupped him, amazed at the solid length extending past her fingertips. Again, another move she’d only seen in the erotic movies or in her even more erotic dreams. Now she knew how it felt. Oh God, she wanted him inside her. Now!
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Mrs. Bartelli cried out.
Over Harry’s shoulder, Edie could see the shock on the older woman’s face.
Harry’s hands smoothed down her belly to the slide beneath her skirt, the other woman’s presence not affecting him in the least.
More than anything, Edith wanted to continue what they were doing, explore to completion, but Mrs. Bartelli stood watching, her face a study of horror.
“Stop.” Edith pushed against Harry’s chest. “I wish you’d stop.”
Thunder shook the narrow hallway and immediately, Harry’s hands stilled.
Mrs. Bartelli plunked her hands on her ample hips. “Edith Ragsdale! What would your father say?”
Chapter Three
The urge to fulfill her wish had swept over Harry with such compelling force, he couldn’t resist. He had to comply, had to make her dream come true.
Harry couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman. Hell, if you counted all the years between the dig and now, it was over eighty. No wonder he hadn’t been able to drag himself away. The fire behind her dowdy clothing flared at his touch. He’d reached up behind her and tugged the tie out of her hair, loosening the silky, burnished copper strands.
Where her fingers touched his chest his skin had seared, scorching a fiery trail of need across his nerve endings, joining with the blood in his veins. His loins tightened, filling his cock to a capacity that strained against the thin fabric of his over-tight coveralls.