Ignoring that last gibe, she angled her head so she could look up at him. “For round one, I’ll start with an easy question. If you were one of the Seven Dwarfs, which one would you be?”
“Hmm…” He gave it more serious consideration than she would have imagined. “That’s a toughie. I’m not sure I know my dwarfs that well.”
“Oh, come on. You are so Grumpy.”
“Grumpy? Me?” His face was a study in mock outrage. “I don’t think so. Meanwhile, who are you?”
“I have an advantage,” she admitted. “I’m an expert at this game, so I’ve already thought of my answers. I am Sleepy. I can sleep anywhere, anytime, upside down, on the floor, in a tree, whatever. I know, I know. You probably think Dopey and I are two peas in a pod, but it’s just not so. Definitely Sleepy.”
“I wasn’t going to say Dopey.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you were.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Very carefully, he dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “No, I was just thinking that, at the moment, you and I are much more like peas in a pod than you and Dopey.”
Flush up against him, how could she disagree? “You have a point there,” she allowed.
He might be too sexy for his own good, and definitely too sexy for hers, but he could be really sweet, too. Who could ever have guessed he would be good company in this impossible situation? Not irritating, not panicking or blaming, just good company. Her heart seemed to constrict a little. Uh-oh. Way past mere physical attraction, she was starting to feel, well, smitten, just like Kate had contended all along.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Not telling. Okay, round two.” In need of a stronger distraction, she moved to her favorite question. She’d been able to spin stories in the back seat for hours with this one. If this wouldn’t get her off the Tyler fixation, nothing would. “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? The Riviera, Tahiti, the moon—it’s all up for grabs. But you have to say why.”
But Tyler said nothing. Once again, there was a spark of something in his eyes, a warmth and tenderness, even a vulnerability, that she could read like a book.
If I could live anywhere, it would be with you.
She knew that’s what he was thinking, just as surely as if he’d said it aloud. It took her breath away.
“You really mean that?” she asked in a soft, unsteady voice.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I heard you, anyway.”
“Oh, Emily…” With a regretful sigh, he gathered her as close as he could inside their shackled embrace. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Well, that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
There was no chance for him to make any kind of response. They were interrupted by a particularly nasty outbreak of shouts and curses from above them.
Emily cringed, even as she welcomed the intrusion. “You think they found Slab’s treasure trove?”
“Nah. That didn’t sound like they were celebrating.”
“But what if…?” She hesitated. They were safe in their tiny cupboard for the moment, but what would happen when Sluggo and his pals found what they were looking for? Or didn’t find it?
“We’ll be fine, Emily.”
“I know.” Tipping back as far as she could, she found a smile for him. “Maybe you should tell me how this all started, with Slab and all, I mean. I still don’t know.”
“Story time, huh?” He frowned. “Okay, I suppose. If you really want it. Let’s see. How do I start?”
“Once upon a time…”
“Works for me.” There was a sardonic light in his eyes, but he began just the same. “Once upon a time there was a very bad man named Fat Mike.”
“Uh-huh,” she whispered. But she was struck with an ache, a painful cramp, in her back. Stretching, she rolled her shoulders as much as she could to ease her muscles.
As she moved, Tyler’s gaze seemed to get stuck on the curve of flesh down the front of her top again. She caught herself. “Fat Mike,” she prompted, feeling the cramp ease. “A very bad man named Fat Mike.”
“Right. Fat Mike.”
“And why is Fat Mike so bad, anyway?” Emily inquired, trying to pull him back to the story. “What did he do?”
Tyler shrugged inside his bonds. “Extortion, protection rackets…but mostly he loans people money. And then he has guys who break their kneecaps if they don’t pay him back fast enough.” He slid the inside of his arm back and forth against her knee where it brushed him. “And speaking of kneecaps, I would just like to point out that you have some very fine specimens right here.”
“Thank you,” she said with a knowing smile, hugging him closer with those knees. “But back to Fat Mike…”
“Right. Loans money, breaks kneecaps,” he repeated. He shifted restlessly against her. “So Slab has worked for Fat Mike and his organization in a variety of odd jobs over the years. Now, since the Feds are very interested in putting Fat Mike away, they are also very interested in what Slab might be able to tell them.”
“Like testifying, you mean?”
“Uh-huh. Only that would be very bad for Slab’s health, so he isn’t inclined to do it.” Tyler pressed his lips into a thin line. “So the Feds have been watching Slab, waiting for him to screw up. Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, he did.”
As if it were yesterday—with shock, she realized it was yesterday—she remembered the conversation at the Rainbow Rest-O-Rant. “Robbed another bank, did he?”
“So you know that, too.” Tyler’s voice picked up more of an edge when he confirmed, “Yeah, he robbed another bank and got himself arrested. And Fat Mike put up the bail money, which Slab can’t pay back. And which,” he added darkly, “is now probably forfeited since he’s in jail here in California. I can’t imagine they’re going to count it as showing up for trial if he’s in the middle of getting extradited.”
“Oops.” Emily tucked her knees under Tyler’s arms. “So Slab can kiss his kneecaps goodbye, huh?”
“Who knows?” But Tyler’s green eyes were cloudy, gloomy. “Unless he wants to play ball with the Feds, I suppose. Roll on Fat Mike, take witness protection, something like that.”
“See?” This time it was Emily who reached up to dab a small kiss on his lips. But she lingered longer than she should have, and her brain started to swim. Back up. Back off. Yeah, right. Where to? Out loud, she said shakily, “It’s not so bad. But where do you come in?”
“Me?”
“Why did you have to help Slab?” she tried again. “Dragging yourself out here to chase him down and bring him back. What’s it got to do with you?”
Tyler took his time, and when he responded, his expression was even more oblique. “Remember Jozette at the coffee shop?”
“The waitress? Sure.”
“She’s not just a waitress. She owns the place. And let’s just say that she and I go back a long way. I owe her,” he mumbled.
Emily figured what he owed her was rent. Didn’t he live over her restaurant? Didn’t he have money troubles? She could add two and two.
“She happens to be Slab’s sister,” he continued. He glanced away, studying the nearest knot in the pine wall confining them. “I took him on for her sake.”
“Oh, Tyler, you and your underdogs.” She couldn’t help herself—he was just too wonderful and giving and kind…. Tilting up, she brushed her mouth over his, softly at first, but then closing her eyes, pressing harder, making the kiss everything she really wanted to say.
A few little kisses wouldn’t hurt anything, would they?
“Emily,” he tried to say. “Emily?”
“I know, I know.” Frustrated beyond belief, she snapped, “We shouldn’t do this. I know!”
“It’s not that.” He held himself very still. “Do you hear anything?”
“Not really.” But she listened as intently as she could. “Maybe…is that waves lapping against the boat?”
/> Funny, she hadn’t noticed the sound of waves before.
Tyler shook his head grimly. “Hell,” he swore. “That’s waves all right. But no more noise from upstairs. Emily, I don’t want to scare you, but I think the boys took a powder. I think they’re gone. And we’re adrift.”
“A-adrift? As in, floating in San Francisco Bay?”
He muttered, “We have to get out of this closet.”
“Well, duh!” she exclaimed. “But how? If there was a way out of this closet, I figured you would’ve made it happen a long time ago.”
“I don’t know any better way than you do.”
“So we’re stuck? Floating in San Francisco Bay, trapped inside a closet on a leaky old boat with holes all over it?” she cried. Who knew what major crevices and chasms had been smashed in Sweet Shanda by now, with Mack and Sluggo and dim-bulb Jimmy going at it with sledgehammers? Those three wouldn’t know a hull from a handbasket if it hit them in the face. Who knew whether there was seawater seeping into the boat right now? “Tyler! Get me out of here!”
“This is no time to panic.”
Who made him arbiter of all that was calm and reasonable? “I’m not panicking!”
“Hold on.”
“To what? My hands are tied behind your back!”
He swore under his breath, and then he kissed her again. “Hold on to me as best you can. On the count of three, we’re going to throw all our weight against the door. Okay? One, two…” He paused long enough to press his lips to hers one more time. “Three!”
Squeezing her eyes closed, Emily turned her head into the safety of his chest and launched the rest of her at the closet door. She heard a crash, she felt the impact, and her whole body vibrated, but the door didn’t give.
“One more time. Harder,” he commanded.
With adrenaline and fear and pent-up emotion pulsing through her veins, Emily put everything she had into this lunge. Tyler’s arms felt like steel bands around her, and his hands yanked on the back of her shirt, cutting into her ribs, but she blocked it out. She tensed, he yelled, “Three!” and together, they smashed through the barrier.
The next thing she knew they were tumbling helter-skelter out onto the floor of the cabin. As Tyler swung underneath her to bear the brunt of their fall, she heard a huge rip and his hands sprang free, taking her entire top with them.
Cool air lashed her naked skin. She gasped.
But she had no time to react before Tyler rolled her into the bottom half of their sensual somersault. On top of her, he impatiently shook the torn strips of fabric from his wrists, fiercely covering her mouth with his, filling his hands with her hair, slashing her harder with his kiss. He slid his fingers over her shoulders, down to her tingling, aching breasts, stroking her to immediate, irresistible passion.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted every single second they were squashed in that closet?
“Yes,” she breathed. “Oh, yes…”
At some point in their struggle, her skirt had gotten scrunched up into a thin line at her hips. Now she took advantage of that, angling a bare leg around his jeans, arching up into him. Murmuring her name in a rough, throaty whisper, he slipped a hand underneath her, finding the round mound of her bottom. His hasty, hungry fingers closed on the ribbon-thin strip at the side of her panties, ripping the fragile silk with one swift, insistent yank. He tossed them aside as if they were merely an annoyance, resuming his ruthless assault, touching her so intimately she moaned under him.
But as his mouth slid over the slope of her neck and she tugged him nearer, she was hampered by the bonds at her wrists. And she realized suddenly that she was still tied.
“Tyler, aren’t you going to untie me?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
If she’d had a free hand, she would have smacked him. But he continued to nip at her, kiss her, move above her, pinning her to the hardwood floor with the relentless pressure of his long, hard body.
She wiggled against him. “I want you,” she whispered. “All of you. Let me touch you. Please?”
His lips brushed hers with a tantalizingly fast caress. “Let’s do this. All the way.” His hands moved to the top of his pants, and she could feel his fingers unbuckling his belt between them, hear the rasp of his zipper slipping down.
All it took was that tiny chink of metal meeting metal. She held her breath, trembling, shockingly turned on by the sounds and sensations rippling over her. She wanted him so much it was like madness, and she couldn’t think of anything else but this shimmering, crazy, sublime desire.
“I still can’t reach the back,” he muttered. “Damn it, Emily, how are we going to get you untied?”
“I don’t know, but if we don’t do it soon, I’m going to die, right here, right now,” she promised. “Isn’t there something sharp around here?” Out of nowhere, she remembered Mack’s knife. Salvation. “Wait. In my purse. I have a knife.”
He reached over her head, snagging her purse where it still lay on the floor near the bed. His T-shirt rode up over his slick, muscled torso, stretching past her. Frustration swamped her. She could barely lick him as he hovered there, out of reach, but couldn’t touch him. Biting her lip, she burned with the need to get her hands on him. Now.
Quickly, carelessly, he tossed out cosmetics and a hairbrush, pens, a pocket calendar…
“How hard can it be to find a big honker of a knife?” she demanded. She shivered with unspent passion, needing him this instant, not in five minutes. Now.
But his fingers finally closed on the tapering handle of Mack’s knife. “You brought this with you?”
“I thought I might need it,” she returned. “And I was right! Get to it, will you?”
“Careful, careful,” he warned, easing the blade behind his back, slicing through his belt loop, ever so gently shredding the cord around her wrists, finally, blessedly freeing her hands.
“You drive me insane,” she muttered into his lips, bracketing his face with her fingers.
“Ditto,” he retorted.
But he was already discarding his T-shirt and his jeans, meeting skin with skin. Emily wrapped herself around him every way she knew how, her hands roaming wild. It was furious, reckless, a clash of passion and longing. It was the best she’d ever felt in her life.
And right there, on the knotty pine floor, he plunged into her, grasping her to him, calling out her name. Emily splayed her hands on his back, wanting, needing him closer, harder, faster, rocking with the sheer pleasure of it.
Madness. Euphoria. Tyler.
He was inside her, outside her, and she stayed right with him. A shivering, shuddering climax tripped over her, and he spent himself inside her, just as she reached the highest peak.
“Unbelievable,” she managed, gasping for air. As she drifted back to earth, she murmured, “Who’d have thought it could be like that?”
“With you? I did.” Under a sheen of perspiration, he looked exhausted. But he smiled.
It was a beautiful, shy, beaming smile, and her heart turned over.
“Tyler,” she whispered in awe. “You love me.”
“How could I help myself?”
His arms closed around her, as sweet and gentle as they’d been harsh and unyielding seconds before. He leaned back into the floor, settling her against him.
“I can’t believe how amazing this was. How amazing you are.” She propped herself up far enough to look at him, to drink him in. “But there’s one more thing.” She licked her lip. “I didn’t tell you—that I love you, I mean. You know, don’t you, that you are everything I ever wanted? Tyler, I do love you.”
“You said that already,” he teased.
Now it was her time to smile. “I like the sound of it,” she confessed. “We are just so right, you and me.”
“Yeah. The perfect couple.” Uh-oh. The cynicism had crept back into his voice. Mockingly he continued, “What will we be? I can see it now—Emily Chaplin and her l
ow-rent boyfriend. Or if things go really badly, we can be the judge’s daughter and the defendant.”
She skewered him with a quelling stare. “Don’t be so negative. I’m telling you, we can do this.”
“Emily, I—”
“No, no,” she interrupted. “I’m serious. When we get back to Chicago, I will do my best to sort out your legal troubles, however you’re involved in this whole Slab thing. What is it, aiding and abetting or something?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it for a minute. Listen, I know I’ve never practiced criminal law, but this seems like a great time to start.”
“Emily,” he said gently, “thank you for the offer, but I don’t need your legal help.”
“Then why did you call yourself a defendant?” she argued.
“That’s not what I mean.” He sat up, pulling her with him. “Emily, how could you not have noticed? What kind of help did you think I was giving Slab and Jozette and even Kate, way back when?”
It was her turn to be utterly confused. What was he getting at? “I—I don’t know. I guess I thought you were an investigator. Like a P.I.?”
“I’m a lawyer,” he announced flatly. “I realize I am not the world’s best. I mean, granted, my clients are mostly a bunch of lowlifes and I may lose my office because I can’t pay the rent, but—”
“You’re a what?” Emily’s jaw dropped. “But you can’t be!”
“I am.”
She was filled with dread, outrage, incredulity. Her head was spinning. Her whole body was spinning.
“There is no way this is possible. The love of my life absolutely, positively cannot be a…” She gulped for breath. “A lawyer!”
10
“EMILY, I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU,” he tried, “but at first it was none of your business, and then I thought you might be from the ethics committee or something.”
“You could’ve saved both of us a lot of trouble if you’d told me,” she said angrily. “I hate lawyers! I never would’ve come near you.”
“Come on, Emily. Give me a break.”
Bolting to her feet, she jerked her skirt back down to a somewhat respectable place and crossed her arms over her bare chest. It was the best she could do at the moment. Wordless, he tossed her his shirt.
In Bed with the Wild One & In Bed with the Pirate Page 13