by Leslie Kelly
Her fingers had barely left the phone when it rang again. This time, she paused to look at the caller ID, not recognizing the New York number.
Could be Mike. She hadn’t memorized his number.
Could also be her heavy breather.
They could even be one and the same.
“Hello?”
More heavy breathing. And she knew, deep down in her soul, this was not Mike playing some kind of sexy phone game with her. The sound was more ominous than that—deliberate and harsh, not breathy and seductive.
Oh, how she hated this nonsense. Men could be such assholes.
“You’d better say something this time or I swear I’ll deafen you.” She looked around the kitchen for the small canned air horn she’d bought after the last round of prank calls, but didn’t spot it. Figured. “You have one second to convince me you’re not a stalking psycho.”
He talked. He said exactly one word, which wasn’t what she’d call convincing. “Bitch.” Then the phone clicked again.
She called him a few choice names in return, somehow feeling better, even though the line had already gone dead.
Hard to believe that a month and a half ago, she’d been excited to be asked to appear on that nationally televised morning show to promote her latest book. Looking back, it was one of the worst things she’d ever done. Before that morning, she’d gotten the occasional scathing letter or book-signing rant. But since then, and since an article about her had come out in the Times book section, the threats had gotten nasty and personal, the phone calls deliberate and hateful. She’d had her number changed twice. Seemed as though it was time to do so again.
It wouldn’t be in time to stop this next call, however, because the phone rang again before she even had time to hunt around the kitchen for the noisemaker. Again she checked the ID. It was a different number, which could merely mean the perv was using his mother’s phone this time, rather than his own.
“Aha!” she exclaimed when she found the small can she’d picked up at a local sports shop. The things were popular with crowds heading to the Garden. They emitted huge, hornlike squeals—annoying in a stadium. Hopefully deafening through a phone line. She intended to beat the guy to the punch this time.
“Say hello to this, you prick,” she snarled into the receiver. She put the horn right up to the mouthpiece and blasted the heck out of it. She probably damaged her own hearing in the process, but it was worth it. She only wished she could see the guy’s face.
“Call me again and I’ll have my big, tough cop boyfriend answer the phone,” she yelled into the receiver as she prepared to slam it down.
Then she heard a voice yelling. Loudly. And it was a voice she recognized. “Jen, what the hell is going on?”
Scrunching her eyes shut and nibbling her lip, she put the can down and lifted the receiver back up. “Uh…Mike?”
“Yeah. At least, I hope so. I’m not quite sure because I can’t think with the air-raid siren echoing in my head.”
Whoops. So much for being proactive. “Sorry. I don’t suppose you’d called me right before that, huh?”
He immediately got serious. “Who called you?”
Apparently not him.
“Was someone harassing you?”
Rubbing at the corners of her eyes with her fingers, she pulled out a chair and sat at her tiny kitchen table.
“Just someone playing a game of ‘Have you checked the children?’” she said, quoting one of her favorite scary movies.
“Call 9-1-1.”
“It was a couple of heavy-breathing phone calls,” she said, somehow feeling warmed by his caveman reaction, rather than annoyed, as she’d expected.
“Any idea who?”
“No, but I imagine I’ll be able to find him with the numbers on my caller ID.”
“Give them to me,” he said.
She did, without thinking twice. Knowing a police officer might prove very beneficial indeed, even if he had been annoyingly noble about staying away from her for forty-eight hours. She’d been ready for him to come back after hour two.
“I’ll check them out,” he said. He cleared his throat, as if to keep one of those rare laughs from escaping. “Unless you’d rather have your big, tough cop boyfriend do it.”
Lovely. Floor meet face. Jen really felt like falling onto it in abject humiliation. “Wish I knew one.”
A grunt was his only answer.
“I wasn’t thinking too clearly,” she admitted.
He took pity and didn’t humiliate her anymore. “He really got to you, huh?”
She could have lied but didn’t. “Yeah. I guess he did.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. Cowards like this one hide behind phone lines, they almost never crawl out of their holes.” His tone grew serious. “You’ll be fine, Jen.”
Though he was obviously trying to be calm about things, Jen heard the tension in Mike’s voice. He was concerned about her—truly, genuinely worried. How long had it been since anyone had worried about her like that? She honestly couldn’t remember.
Her parents certainly had worried when she’d moved to the Big Apple, but with her father’s health, they’d had other things to fear in recent months. Her friends took the harassment she received in stride as being a consequence of the books she wrote. Meanwhile, they continued to rah-rah her on all the way. So did her publisher. And while her agent might have forced her to arm herself, he also obviously took the threats as just another part of being famous. Well, semi-famous.
Well, semi-infamous.
“Listen, if you’re spooked, why don’t I come pick you up and take you out to dinner somewhere.”
Hmm. Pick her up. As in come to her apartment. Tonight, rather than another twenty-four hours from now. She liked this idea. “That might be good.”
“I’ll meet you at the door to your building in an hour.” His voice lowered. “I don’t think I should come up. I haven’t forgotten our agreement.”
Mind reader.
“We had an agreement? I thought that was more along the lines of an order. You know, your manliness laying down the law.” Jen didn’t know where the snarkiness had come from because he honestly didn’t deserve it. She supposed it was her libido talking. The one Mike had brought out of a long, dormant hibernation, then left howling in the wind like a bear awakened in February.
“My manliness?” He choked out a hoarse laugh. “I’d change our terms in a heartbeat if I thought you were up to it.”
“I’m up to it. Could you be up to it?”
“Stop trying to seduce me.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
“Would begging work?” She’d just about reached that level.
“How bad’s the pain?”
Score! “Pain makes you strong. I think that was Nietzsche.”
“You scare me, you know that?” He sounded both frustrated and amused. “But I’m serious. How bad is it? Are you still black and blue?”
She glanced at her shoulder and arm, then tugged her waistband away to study her hip. “Well, I’m no longer the color of a Van Gogh painting.” He said nothing. Which made her sigh. “Though I suppose I’m lumpy and bent enough that I could be considered a Lipschitz.”
“Sorry, not up on lumpy, bent artists. Never heard of him.”
“Cretin. I thought you were raised around the world.”
“I lived around the world, but I’ve always been a red-blooded American at heart.”
She liked that about him. That he could be so down to earth when his upbringing had been anything but conventional.
Hell, she liked everything about him. And she suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of waiting another whole day before seeing him again, even if tonight meant only decent Thai food around the corner, and not fabulous sex.
“Jennifer, I won’t be the cause of your pain again,” he insisted, that serious, strong man firmly back in control. Then he stunned her by admitting something so sweet, so roman
tic, she nearly melted onto the floor. “I’ve waited for twenty-seven years for you. I can wait one more night.”
To her own shock, tears rose to her eyes and she blinked rapidly to contain them. Tears. Because a strong, sexy man had said something so very lovely and unexpected.
Oh, he was dangerous. Not physically—she knew he’d do just about anything not to hurt her again. But emotionally? Well, she already sensed that he could break her heart. She was falling for him—madly, passionately, crazily—falling. In a way she’d never fallen in her whole life.
She. The accused standard-bearer for man-haters everywhere. How crazy was that?
Good crazy. Wonderful crazy. Delightful crazy. “Okay,” she murmured. “But I am quite sure I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
She’d make damn sure of it. Jen intended to spend the bulk of it primping, plucking, shaving, bathing and covering any remaining bruises with the best concealer Sephora sold.
“So,” she added, “dinner it is. Downstairs. One hour.”
“Great.”
The moment he hung up, Jen moved as quickly as her bruised body would let her getting ready for their date, smiling as she did so. Because she, the former Single in the City girl, had a regular date. None of her readers would believe how excited she was over doing something as normal as going out for dinner with a sexy man. But it was very unusual for her, first since she now knew for sure that he was a younger man—even if only by two years. And second because her last date had been P.I.—Pre-Infamy.
Didn’t matter. Mike knew what she did; he’d read some of her book and he didn’t give a damn.
He’d read some of her book. Including some of the stuff he’d tried to question her about Saturday morning. Which she still did not want to discuss.
But she put that out of her mind. They had plenty of other things to talk about. She could certainly maneuver the conversation away from dangerous territory, and toward more pleasant subjects. Like tomorrow night. Or, more precisely, twenty-three and one half hours from now.
When, even if she fell down the stairs and cracked her head open, they would most definitely be dining in.
MIKE ARRIVED AT JEN’S BUILDING a little less than an hour after he’d called her. But he didn’t go up right away. Instead, he stayed outside.
He looked around the neighborhood, studying everything, for two reasons. First, he wanted to make sure nobody had followed him. And within a few minutes he felt satisfied they had not. So onto the second matter: he began to assess Jen’s home through professional eyes.
While still convinced he and Jen had been targeted by one of Ricky Stahl’s goons, it was at least possible that Jen—not he—had been the real intended target. Someone had been ha rassing her, threatening her. It was rare for a random, letter-writing, heavy-breathing pig to take his threats to the next level. But God knew it wasn’t impossible. It did happen.
If some creep stalker had tracked down her unlisted number, they could probably have learned Jen’s address. And no matter how much Mike had insisted she didn’t have anything to worry about—he, himself, was very worried. Especially because he’d tracked down those numbers from her caller ID in about five minutes and had discovered they were both from pay phones within blocks of here.
He knew Jen wasn’t the type who wanted anyone to take care of her, however. So he’d just keep his worries to himself. For now.
The building was typical of all the others on the block, with no obvious signs of easy entry. The fire escapes on the side didn’t make him feel any better, but he knew Jen had a lot of common sense and she’d keep her windows locked.
The main entrance could be opened remotely by the residents, but he already knew those residents weren’t too careful about that door. When he’d shown up Saturday morning, he’d followed someone else right on in. The guy had even chatted about the previous night’s ball game.
All in all, he summed up the place as risky. Which he didn’t like one bit.
Knowing she was waiting, he pushed the buzzer for Jen’s apartment, and got a muffled, “Be right there.”
The second she arrived and opened the door, he snapped, “How did you know it was me? It could have been some creep.”
The you’re a moron look she gave him preceded her answer. “Maybe because I’ve been watching you scope out my building for the last five minutes from my front window?”
Mike looked up, realizing her apartment did face the street. “It still could have been somebody else. Next time ask.”
“God, you’re bossy. I hate bossy men.”
“I’m not too fond of ballsy women, either.”
“So why are we doing this again?”
“I think you like my dimples.”
“I think you like my ass.”
“That’s a given.”
She grunted. “Besides, I think I imagined those dimples.”
“I know I didn’t imagine that ass.”
She was barely listening. “You barely even smile.”
“Even so, I can think of one or two more reasons.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re totally hot and you arouse me out of my mind,” she admitted, sounding entirely disgruntled. “But you also drive me crazy with your macho bs and your super-sleuthing outside my building.”
“I’m sorry I stayed out here spying on you,” he admitted, meaning it. “I was getting the lay of the land.”
Her hand flew up, palm out, and she put it over his mouth. He wanted to bite her fingers. Followed by the rest of her.
“Hey, hey, no talking of anything getting laid around here tonight. If I’m not, nothing is.”
Mike just shook his head, realizing how much he’d grown to like her sarcastic sense of humor. Even when she was making him horny she amused him. He didn’t think he’d ever been involved with a woman who really knew how to laugh—at herself, at life in general. Despite his protestations to her—and to himself—that she was not his type and he didn’t like prickly women who charged ahead with no fear of consequences, he was dying for her. And she knew it.
“Stop trying to score. You admitted you’re still lumpy.”
She rolled her eyes. “You aren’t like one of those hybrid cars that only needs to get charged up once a month or something, are you? You can run for weeks on one orgasm?”
If the woman only knew how much she charged him up. He’d very much like to tell her. Or show her. But at that moment, a hunched, elderly man walked up the steps behind her. “Shut up, Jen,” Mike muttered.
She glanced around, saw the old guy and her face pinkened. “Hello, Mr. Jones.”
Mike’s hope their conversation hadn’t been overheard was for nothing. The old guy gave Mike a lascivious wag of his eyebrows and a thumbs-up as he went inside. “The textbook dirty old man?”
“He’s my new neighbor. He’s all right, except for his music. The teenagers upstairs don’t play their stereos as loud.” Then she went right back to where they’d been. “By the way, scarier men than you have told me to shut up, Mr. Hybrid.” Her words held absolutely no heat, and a strong sense of mischief. That tone brought the same unaccustomed grin to his face that he’d been wearing around her for days.
“You ever get in trouble with that mouth of yours?” he asked as they walked down the front steps onto the sidewalk. Though it was after eight and almost dark, lots of people were out enjoying the clear weather. The misty rain that had doused the area for days had finally let up and the streets felt freshly steamed with energy. New Yorkers really liked coming out after a rain, particularly at sunset.
“I think Aunt Ida Mae used to threaten to wash it out with soap regularly when I was a kid.”
“Did she ever follow through?”
Jen smirked. “Not a chance. My father might be a teddy bear but he’d never let those two touch a hair on my head.”
The tenderness in her tone told him just about everything he needed to know about her family. Except where they were now. When he asked her, she seemed to delight in talking
about them, though, whether that delight came from the fact that they lived several states away, or in spite of it, he couldn’t say. Either way, Jen obviously loved her parents and it sounded as if she visited them frequently.
Falling into step together, it seemed only natural for them to drift close. For her hip to brush his, their thighs to nearly touch in matched gaits. It seemed just as natural for him to drop an arm across her shoulders—after he’d made sure he wasn’t pressing on the bruised one. She tucked up against him, her hair wisping against his neck and cheek, the scent of it chasing away any lingering smells of the city.
They didn’t speak; they didn’t need to. Somehow, they’d reached that point in a relationship when silence was okay. More than okay, it was actually good. Each step they took brought the sensations of Jen’s body tucked against his a bit higher. He could hear her breathing, feel the pulse in her neck, was tuned in to everything going on between them.
A lot was going on between them. And it had been since the moment he’d seen her trudging up that road toward Trouble. The memory made him chuckle softly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She poked his ribs. “Spill.”
“The first time I saw you, you were standing just beyond a sign that said Trouble Ahead.”
“Do you ever think you should have kept driving?”
“Yep.”
She stopped and scowled up at him. “Liar.”
He lifted his hand to her hair and twined his fingers in it, gently rubbing the back of her head. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m a liar.”
Jen turned her head into his hand, shifting closer. Tilting her body against his, she lifted her gaze, her lips moist, her eyes wide. The last remaining bit of sunlight put a glint in those depths that made him immediately think of the sun sparkling on the Mediterranean. Then it suddenly set, the sun winking away in the length of time it took to draw a single breath, and Jen’s eyes turned the dark blue of a starlit night.
She stopped his heart. And though he’d sooner be shot than considered poetic, he couldn’t help saying, “You have the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen.”