“I do a lot of reading.” She spoke in the prim tone he’d already named her librarian voice.
“That’ll tell you a lot about the world.”
“You’d be surprised.” She glanced back at him, triumph in her eyes. At least she wasn’t still angry.
“I’ll bet I would.” He closed his eyes as he stumbled over a curb, then quickly steadied himself. He would be damned if he let Ellie see how weak he was.
“We need to stop, Michael.”
Hearing her say his name caused a quiver deep in his gut. Ruthlessly, he pushed it away. “The hotel I’m heading for is just around the corner.”
“Do you want to rest?” she asked.
“Can’t.” Once again the irony of the situation struck him. Less than three hours ago he’d kidnapped her at gunpoint. Now she was helping him hide, and worrying about his wound.
A few moments later, her arm tensed around his waist. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he managed to reply. The Hotel St. Jacques wasn’t nearly as grand as its name. Half the neon letters in the sign were burned out, and the exterior had a sad, neglected air, as if the building had absorbed all the hopelessness and desperation of its surroundings.
“What now?” Ellie asked in a low voice.
He pulled his wallet from his pocket and fished out a couple of bills. “You’re going to have to pay for the room up front. In cash. If you act nonchalant, the clerk will barely notice you. Make it quick and leave immediately. Don’t share your life story with him.”
“All right.” Her hand trembled slightly on his waist and a trace of fear flashed in her eyes. Then she straightened. “I can do that.”
“You can do anything you want to do.” That was no less than the truth, he realized. Eleanor Perkins was one hell of a woman. He tightened his grip on her shoulder for a moment, then let his arm drop away. “I’ll wait here.”
Eleanor crossed the street and disappeared into the hotel. She was back out the door in less than two minutes. “You were right. He barely looked at me,” she reported, flushed with victory. “He was reading a magazine and pushed the key across the counter without even looking.”
They walked across the street and into the hotel, and again the night clerk didn’t look up. Michael saw the nearly naked woman on the cover of the magazine and realized why. He wondered with an odd jolt of protectiveness if Ellie had realized what the clerk was reading.
Before he could ask, she wrapped her arm more firmly around him and steered him toward the stairs. They had taken only a couple of steps before Ellie stopped.
“Give me this,” she said, and she snatched the backpack from his shoulders.
“Wait a minute.” Anxiety flashed through him as he watched her sling the pack over her arm. He didn’t want the evidence out of his hands. “I can keep that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she answered briskly. “You don’t need to have this dead weight bouncing against your wound.”
Michael glanced at the pack, which was swinging against her side. He was too weak to fight her for it. “You are one bossy woman,” he muttered.
“You’re right. And I especially like to pick on injured men who can’t fight back.”
In spite of the searing pain in his back, in spite of his fear for Ellie, he smiled. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
He was still smiling when they stopped in front of a door. Ellie fumbled with the key, then the door swung open with a groan. He reached inside and flicked on the light switch, then pulled her with him as he stumbled into the room and shut the door behind them.
The room was gray. The threadbare rug had faded to a muddy gray, the walls had long ago lost whatever color they’d originally been, and even the knobby bedspread on the double bed had faded from its original white to a dingy, depressing hue.
Eleanor stood rooted to the floor, her gaze traveling around the room. Finally it rested on the piece of furniture that dominated the room, the bed.
The only bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
“THAT’S A SMALL BED. And there’s only one.”
“Of course there is.”
“I thought there would be two.”
“Ellie, most of the people who use these rooms have no use for a second bed.”
She turned to look at him. “You mean…you mean only prostitutes use this hotel?”
“Got it in one,” he replied.
“That means the man at the desk thought I was a prostitute when I paid for the room.”
“Bingo.”
Her eyebrows snapped together and he waited for the storm to gather in her eyes. But instead of the outburst he expected, a calculating expression stole over her face. “So that’s why he didn’t really look at me.” She gave Michael a satisfied smirk. “He’ll never be able to identify us.”
“Exactly.”
She looked around the room again, this time with interest in her eyes. “I always wondered what a brothel would look like.”
He suppressed his laughter, wincing as a sheet of liquid fire scorched his back. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that word used to describe this place. I take it you got that term from one of those books you read.”
“It’s interesting, whatever you want to call it.” She looked at him again. “Are there a lot of places like this in Midland?”
A wave of exhaustion swept over him. “Way too many.” He swayed on his feet and reached for the wall. “Don’t worry about the bed situation, Slim. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She dropped the backpack and moved closer to him, her expression full of regret. “I’m being stupid,” she said. “Blabbering about prostitutes and worrying about the fact that there’s only one bed instead of taking care of that wound of yours. Let me see it.”
“I can take care of it. Just give me the disinfectant.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll clean it up for you. Lie down on the bed.”
In spite of his pain and exhaustion, his body reacted instantly to her words. “You’re in your bossy mode again, aren’t you?” He frowned at her to hide his reaction.
“Yes. And I can be very stern if I have to be.” She stood with her hands on her hips, and he wanted to kiss her.
“Oh, goody,” he said, unable to keep the grin off his face. “I love it when you talk mean to me. If I don’t behave, are you going to give me a spanking?”
Her cheeks burned but a smile fluttered around her mouth. “You’re darn right I am. Now lie down on the bed.” Her soft blue-gray eyes twinkled and laugh lines crinkled around them. The smile transformed her face.
“Yes, ma’am. When a lady tells me to lie down on the bed, I always obey.”
Eleanor watched as Michael eased himself onto the bedspread. She stifled a gasp of horror when she saw the back of his shirt, stiff and soaked through with blood. “You didn’t tell me you were wounded so badly,” she whispered.
“It’s not exactly the kind of thing a kidnapper tells his victim.” He turned his head to look at her and tried to smile, but she saw the pain in his eyes. “What should I have said? Go ahead and take a whack at me because I’m wounded?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she murmured. She couldn’t stop herself from touching his shirt lightly.
“Tell me about it.” He’d turned his face away from her and the comforter muffled his voice.
“I’m afraid your shirt is stuck to the wound.” Her stomach curled at the thought of pulling it away. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It’s not stuck. Trust me. Just lift up the shirt.”
She raised the material cautiously and tugged it away from the ugly wound. It pulled at his skin and her hands tightened. “This looks serious, Michael,” she said, trying to keep the horror out of her voice. There was a deep gash through the skin and muscle of his lower back. The edges were ragged and still oozing blood.
He turned his head to look at her, and she saw the effort it took him to smile. “Just clean it up a
nd slap a bandage on it, Slim.”
“Is the bullet still in there?”
“Nope. It grazed me. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t make you dig a bullet out of my back. I just need to be patched up.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
He gave her a ghost of a grin. “From my limited experience, I’d say that your best will be pretty damn good.”
He closed his eyes, but unexpected warmth stole through her at his words. Why did praise from him mean so much to her?
“I’ll get the things I bought,” she said hastily as she slid off the bed. She really was pathetic. She’d turned to mush just because an attractive man smiled at her. Heaven forbid if Michael realized she was attracted to him. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to bear the humiliation. She’d met men like him before. Women swarmed all over them, attracted to their charm and good looks. She would rather die than have him think she was one of those needy, pitiful women.
She fumbled in the bag from the convenience store and found the things she needed. “I got a bottle of peroxide,” she said. “It’s going to sting a little.”
“Just don’t enjoy this too much, Slim.” He opened his eyes to give her a half smile.
“If I wanted to enjoy it, I would have used alcohol,” she retorted.
He winced. “Ouch. You’re all heart.”
“You’d better believe it.”
As she poured the peroxide onto a gauze pad, she squared her shoulders. She hesitated for only a moment before she gently touched the gauze to the ugly furrow in his back. He didn’t move.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
“No. Go ahead and do your worst.”
Reassured, she cleaned the raw wound, then used more peroxide to wash the blood from his skin. When everything looked clean and dry, she squirted some antibacterial ointment into the wound, covered it with more gauze squares, then taped them in place.
“There,” she said. “All set.”
He eased himself off the bed inch by painful inch. “Thanks, Ellie,” he said, but his face was leached of color.
“You told me I wasn’t hurting you.” She stared at him, appalled.
He gave her a weary look. “Would you have finished the job if I was yelling and squirming?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tough.” He gave her a brief smile that held no humor at all. “And it’ll feel better in the morning.”
“You need some aspirin,” she said, reaching into the bag from the convenience store and handing him four tablets. “Then lie down and get some sleep.” She didn’t look at him as she moved around, collecting the things she’d used for his back. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She glanced over at him. “I’m certainly not going to let you sleep on the floor.”
“Neither one of us should sleep there.” She watched him struggle to give her another half smile. “The germs on that rug would probably kill us by morning.”
She looked down at the worn, dull rug, which was gritty with dirt. In spite of herself, she shuddered at the thought of sleeping there. “You’re probably right.”
“There’s plenty of room for both of us in this bed.” He gave her a weary smile. “Believe me, I’m not going to touch you.”
Her first, instinctive reaction was disappointment. Horrified with herself, she stumbled backward until she came up against the wall. Then reality took over.
It didn’t matter what her subconscious might want. She wasn’t his type and she’d better remember that unless she wanted to make a total fool of herself.
“All right,” she said, taking a deep breath and trying to look anywhere but at him. “We’ll share the bed.”
Michael turned away from her and shrugged out of his jeans. She told herself not to watch him undress, but she couldn’t stop herself. He wore silk boxers with a leopard-skin print, and the sight of them made her mouth curl in an involuntary smile. They were exactly what she would have pictured him wearing.
If she’d allowed herself to think about him in his underwear.
Which, of course, she hadn’t.
He winced when he pulled back the bedspread, and she hurried over to help him.
He eased onto his side and waved his hand over the exposed sheets. “Hop in, Slim.”
Heat swept over her as she stared first at him, then at the light switch on the wall. She couldn’t remember ever being so horribly self-conscious. What should she do now? Should she take off her slacks and blouse, then turn out the light? Or should she turn out the light first, then undress? She had no experience slipping into bed with a virtual stranger. And any tips she might have collected from her reading completely eluded her.
“It’s okay, Ellie,” he said, and for a moment she almost believed he knew what she was thinking. “Take off your clothes, then turn off the light. I promise I won’t peek.”
He closed his eyes, and she pulled off her blouse and slacks as fast as she could. After setting them on the chair, the only other piece of furniture in the room, she dashed across the rug and flicked off the light switch. Standing in the semidarkness in her bra and panties, she felt completely exposed and vulnerable—far more vulnerable than she’d felt when he first kidnapped her.
Trying to ignore the heat that flooded her skin, she hesitated for a moment at the edge of the bed. Finally, she slipped between the cool sheets.
“You can relax, Ellie. We’re safe for now,” Michael murmured in the darkness. “No one will look for us here.”
He hadn’t moved since she got into bed, and she lay beside him, rigid with tension. He turned over so that he was facing away from her. “Good night, Ellie.”
“Good night,” she managed to whisper.
She couldn’t bring herself to move. For what seemed like hours she stared at the ceiling, listening to him breathe. He’d said there was plenty of room for both of them in the bed, but he was far too close. Heat from his body radiated against hers and his scent surrounded her. She smelled the faint tang of the antibiotic ointment. If she moved her hand just a few inches, she would be touching him.
His breathing grew regular and deep. He was asleep. Cautiously she turned onto her side, facing away from him. She could do this, she told herself. Obviously it didn’t bother Michael to be sharing a bed. The least she could do was act equally mature.
Drawing deep breaths, she concentrated on forcing her muscles to relax. Remembering a yoga class she had once taken, she started with her head and worked her way down her body. But she was almost at her feet before she fell asleep.
SUNLIGHT SHIMMERED against her closed eyelids and Eleanor felt uncomfortably hot. She must have forgotten to turn the air-conditioner on when she got home from work, she thought drowsily. It felt as if she was curled up with a furnace.
The furnace moved and her eyes flew open. A pair of bright blue eyes watched her, their gaze hot and intent. There was a man in bed with her, she realized with a shock. And she was wrapped around him like ribbon on a present.
“Good morning, Ellie,” Michael said, his voice gravelly and rough. “I hope you slept well.”
He shifted again, and she realized with another shock that his arms were wrapped around her. When she tried to slide away, though, she found that her own were wrapped just as tightly around him.
Her face flamed and she struggled to free herself, but only succeeded in entwining her legs more thoroughly with his. Before she could pull her arms away, he freed one of his hands and gently brushed a few strands of hair off her face.
“Shh,” he murmured. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”
Safe was the last word she would use to describe what she felt, she thought wildly. Safe was comfortable and unexciting. Familiar. It was nothing like the sensations crashing through her body right now.
He moved against her and she felt the unmistakable bulge of his erection against her abdomen. When she froze, he grinned at
her and pressed his hips more snugly against her.
“No, I don’t have a gun in my pocket,” he said, his voice a husky rasp of velvet over her nerves. “I guess that means I’m glad to see you.”
She shifted her body without thinking, so that the rock-hard length of him was cradled at the juncture of her thighs. The grin faded from his face and his arms tightened around her. “I guess that means you’re glad to see me, too.”
He bent closer, and she waited, trembling, for his lips to touch hers. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he nibbled at her earlobe, sending tremors of pleasure shooting through her body. Then he leisurely trailed his mouth down her neck, leaving a burning path behind.
When he stopped and touched her skin with his tongue, she gasped. And when he nipped at her, his teeth gently scraping her skin, she moaned and moved restlessly against him, trying to get closer.
Every inch of her was alive, quivering with need for his touch. Tension built and throbbed inside her, spreading out until her limbs felt heavy and weak and her heart raced in her chest. All traces of her usual good sense vanished, disappearing like mist in the sunshine.
Never in her life had she experienced anything remotely approaching these sensations. Her few sexual encounters had been awkward, fumbling affairs that left her feeling faintly soiled. Those memories incinerated in the heat between her and Michael. Now she wanted every inch of him pressed intimately against every inch of her. Now she wanted something she couldn’t even understand.
But Michael seemed to understand very well. He nipped at her collarbone, grazing it with his teeth. He moved an inch lower, closer to her breast, nipping at her again. She held her breath, waiting for the touch of his mouth against her breast.
He stopped at the edge of her bra, lingering for a moment in the valley between her breasts. As he licked her, almost lazily, he stroked her back, his hand moving in leisurely circles, lower and lower. When he reached her hips, he spread his hand wide and pressed her more intimately into him. She felt his heat and his hardness through the filmy, flimsy barrier of her underwear and his. The silky fabric only made it easier to glide against him.
Two on the Run (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 6