Take Me for a Ride

by Karen Kendall

Under McDougal’s gaze, Natalie swayed on the stool and put her hand on the bar to steady herself. He should have been gratified—wasn’t this exactly what he’d wanted? But instead, he scanned the male faces in Reif’s and found too many that looked predatory. Even if he himself did the right thing and walked away from her, the sharks would circle.

  Damn it. He’d have to keep her talking until she sobered up. “Surely you can talk some sense into your grandmother? Or failing that, wait until she’s asleep and then just take back the necklace.”

  “I tried that. She hid it! And now she says I have to take her to Russia, and until I show up with the plane tickets she won’t open the door to me.”

  “Russia?”

  “The necklace is the key to claiming something. I don’t know. I’m really wondering if she’s gone bonkers.”

  “Does your boss know that the necklace is missing?” McDougal already knew the answer to that, since the man had reported the loss to his insurance company, which had promptly hired his company, ARTemis, to hunt down the necklace. Since it had once belonged to a stout, bloodthirsty, German-born empress who’d helped to off her own husband, it was worth a cool two million. That meant a $200,000 commission for him, earmarked for the down payment on a Bertram 540 luxury sport-fishing yacht.

  Natalie nodded. “He knows.”

  “Is he a reasonable guy? Is there any way that you can go to him and tell him the story? Maybe he can reason with your grandmother?”

  “You don’t understand.” Natalie repeated her habit of moving her now-empty glass in circles on the bar, which prompted the bartender to ask whether she wanted another.

  McDougal opened his mouth to say no.

  Natalie said, “Yes, please.”

  The bartender brought her another Jameson’s on the rocks.

  Hoo boy. “What’s there to understand?” Eric asked. “Tell Grandma that if she doesn’t fork over the necklace, your boss will go to the cops, you’ll be charged with grand larceny, and she’ll be charged with receiving stolen property.”

  Natalie leaned forward to pick up the glass and unwittingly flashed him some very inviting cleavage.

  He was only human. He looked and enjoyed.

  “What you don’t get,” she said slowly, “is that I don’t think my boss can go to the cops. He’s scared out of his mind. The people who brought him the necklace—well, I have a feeling that they’re not such nice people.And I think they might not have come by the necklace honestly.”

  She took a large gulp of whiskey. “I can’t take the risk of them hurting Nonnie.”

  Oh, Christ. What had this girl gotten herself into? McDougal found himself feeling sorry for her, of all things. He rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Listen, Natalie. If these people are that dangerous, then the only way to protect her—and yourself—is to get that necklace back so you can wash your hands of it. And then you may want to look for another job anyway. Because if your boss is doing business with smugglers or thieves, I can pretty much guarantee you that things are going to end badly for him . . . and you don’t want to be around for the particulars.”

  She met his gaze seriously, even as she swayed again on the stool. He put his hand on her arm to steady her.

  “I know,” she said a little woozily. She upended her glass.

  Then she said, “I’m scared.”

  Every art recovery agent who worked for ARTemis, Inc., had excellent instincts and situational antennae, so to speak. Now that he had more information, McDougal’s were on high alert, but he didn’t want to add to her anxiety.

  She tossed back the rest of the whiskey in her glass and tried to catch the bartender’s eye.

  “Natalie,” McDougal said. “No offense, sweetheart, but I think you’ve had enough.”

  She opened her mouth to deny it but was evidently too honest. She frowned.

  “Why don’t I get you a cab?” He stood up, removed his wallet from his back pocket, and slid some bills across the surface of the bar. Then he put his arm around her and helped her off the stool.

  She was petite, with a lithe, firm little body underneath all the black. Once again, his gaze went to her cleavage as she reached for her bag and removed her coat from a hook under the bar. This time he glimpsed the curve of one breast pushing against a lacy black bra. Mmmmmmm.

  No.

  Why not? He’d done this hundreds of times. Nothing wrong with helping a tipsy woman out of her clothes and showing her a good time . . .

  But there was an innocence about Natalie that gave him pause, that tugged at his conscience. She wasn’t the hardened thief he’d expected, or even an opportunist like him who’d seen a way to make a quick buck. She’d just wanted to show the necklace to her grandmother.

  She was truly what she’d claimed to be: an accidental thief. McDougal had never met one before. As he es corted her to the door, knowing glances followed them, glances that said, “Score!” Normally this would have amused him. Tonight it annoyed him.

  The frigid air smacked him in the face like an angry mother hours after curfew. Natalie shivered. He unzipped his jacket and folded her inside it, holding her against him while he searched the length of the street for an on-duty cab.

  “You’re so . . . sweet,” Natalie said, craning her neck to look up at him.

  Sweet? McDougal let out a bark of laughter. “No, that I’m not.”

  “Actions s-s-schpeak louder than words.” Natalie had now gone from swaying to slurring.

  “They schpeak, do they?” he teased her.

  “You haven’t even asked if you can come home with me,” she pointed out, ignoring him.

  “No, I haven’t,” he said, again faintly surprised.

  She frowned. She turned around inside his jacket so that she faced him and tilted her head back. “Do you want to?”

  “Er,” said McDougal, looking helplessly down at her and trying to ignore the softness of her body snugged up against him. In an effort not to respond, he tried to think of the homeliest woman he’d ever seen . . . his mother’s friend Miss Eunice, who looked exactly like a grouper. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that it wasn’t Miss Eunice who was pressed against his—

  “Are you gay?” Natalie blurted, just as that part of him sprang to attention.

  Hell, no, I’m not gay. I’m just planning to rob your sweet little granny. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

  “Wow.” She grinned impishly. “I think I’m glad you’re not gay.”

  To his bemusement, her hand began a journey up his thigh and then took a sharp turn toward the center. “Do not touch that,” Eric said through gritted teeth. “Or you won’t make it home safely.”

  Her hand stilled but remained just to the left of his hip bone. “Um. Well. That was kind of the point.”

  A loopy little giggle followed. Natalie Rosen was the cheapest drunk he’d ever encountered; that was for sure.

  The top of her head came barely to his shoulder. He stared down at her, and she up at him. In the bright light of a streetlamp, he saw that her eyes weren’t dark brown at all, but closer to navy. The color of deep, deep water.

  “I haven’t even kissed you yet,” he said, feeling mildly outraged. Why? Because he was supposed to be the wolf, not the sheep?

  “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who waits for permission.”

  “I’m not.”

  They stood there like that, with her wanting to touch him and his cock straining to be touched. It was ironic. It was damn close to painful. And yet he wanted to draw out the moment, savor it for some reason. Clearly he was insane.

  She lifted her eyebrows in an unspoken question.

  “Oh, hell,” McDougal said. “Look, you’re drunk. I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He could hear, in his mind, every guy he’d gone to college with—or hung out with since—roar with laughter. Laugh until they either fell over or pissed themselves. He was not known for having a conscience.

  “I know perfectly well that I’m dru
nk,” Natalie said. “Do you think I’d do this sober?”

  “Um. Well. That’s kind of the point.” He smiled down at her and tapped her small freckled nose once, then twice, with his index finger.

  Natalie blinked. “Wow,” she said unsteadily. “Ch chivalry is not dead. ’S been run over a few times; it’s diseased and dirty; ’s hooked on Boone’s Farm and m-meth . . . but holy cow, iss still st-stumbling along in rags, raising ’s ugly head just when you least expect it—or want it.”

  She looked so disenchanted that McDougal threw back his head and laughed so hard that he almost coughed up a lung.

  Natalie just stepped out of his jacket and wrapped her arms around herself in the cold. Her air of disgust made him laugh all over again. And then he spied a cab with its light on a couple of blocks away. He put his hand in the air to hail it.

  “Can I have your number?” he asked as the yellow car pulled over next to them.

  She pursed her lips and tapped her foot a couple of times as he opened the door. Finally she said, “No. ’S now or never.” And then she put her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him.

  Four

  Natalie’s mouth was sweet and still whiskey wet and thoroughly unexpected when it touched McDougal’s. At the contact he felt a shock of electric pleasure that went straight to his now doubly enthused groin.

  McDougal had done his share of kissing. Event planners, lady stockbrokers, lawyers, business owners, teachers, actresses, models, professional dancers . . . even a French would-be murderess with a bad chain-smoking habit.

  In his not very humble opinion, kissing was usually overrated, something to get out of the way before he got to the good stuff.

  Kissing Natalie profoundly changed his mind.

  “Christ,” he said as she bit his lower lip and turned him to cold steel. He pushed her into the cab and crawled in after her, damn near falling into her lap.

  “Address?” queried the bored-looking cabbie.

  Natalie started to speak, but Eric placed a finger across her lips. “Not smart to tell a stranger you met in a bar where you live.”

  “But—”

  “The Waldorf-Astoria, please,” he said to the cabbie. “On Park, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth.”

  “—you’re obviously a decent man.”

  He marveled at her naïveté. “You absolutely do not know that. I may be a very indecent man.”

  She giggled.

  “You shouldn’t trust me as far as you can throw me,” he said in stern tones.

  “I kn-know, but I do.”

  “You definitely shouldn’t go to a hotel room with me.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She lay her head against his shoulder, and something akin to fear rippled through him. He didn’t deserve her trust; he was in fact the last man on earth she should trust. She was his mark, for chrissakes.

  He should be ecstatic, even though she was no longer of much use to him. He had all the information he needed—she’d spilled it with abandon. All he had to do now was maybe get Granny’s last name . . . A simple call to Miguel and the ARTemis Nerd Corps back in Miami would take care of the rest.

  “I don’ even know what you do, Eric,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.

  No, you damned sure don’t—and we’re going to keep it that way. He tilted her chin up. “You’re illustrating my point, sweetheart. This is a question you should have asked about two hours ago, and definitely before leaving with me.”

  “Got it. Thanks. So wha’ do you do?”

  “I’m a . . . security consultant.” Close enough, since he clearly demonstrated the holes in people’s security when he repossessed stolen art objects.

  “Ohhh. No wonder you’re so full of lectures.”

  “Yeah. No wonder.”

  “You’re not married, are you?”

  He smacked his forehead. “Again, why did you not ask me this two hours ago?”

  “Dunno. You weren’t wearing a wedding ring, so I figured—”

  “Oldest trick in the book, Natalie. Surely you know that. You can’t be that na—”

  She dug her index finger into his ribs. “Are you dodging the question?”

  “No, I am not dodging the question. I’m not married.” What woman in her right mind would have me? I’m genetically incapable of faithfulness, travel constantly, am often in danger, and sleep with a large, smelly dog named Shaq.

  “Good.” They traveled in silence for a couple of blocks. Then Natalie eyed him covertly and said, “Why not?”

  McDougal expelled a long breath. “Well, the main reason is that I haven’t asked anyone to share in the joys of my paper plates, dirty socks, and rude quirks.”

  “Do you have a lot of those?”

  “Plates, socks, or rude quirks? Actually the answer is yes to all three.”

  “What’s your very rudest quirk?”

  “That, I won’t share. Not on a first date anyway.”

  She laughed. “You don’t want to scare me off?”

  Actually, I do. “I take my laptop into the bathroom and read the news,” McDougal said.

  She scoffed and waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, that. My dad takes the paper in there.”

  “Fine. I often drink milk out of the carton.”

  “Really? Me, too.”

  “I sleep with a huge dog, and he has chronic gas.”

  “Okay, that’s off-putting.”

  Another three blocks of silence went by.

  “Who takes care of your dog when you’re away?”

  McDougal’s eyes narrowed. “At the moment? People who owe me big-time. My friends Gwen and Quinn, and they’d better be taking Shaq to the park and the dog beach regularly.”

  “Why do they owe you?”

  “Long story,” he said. Gee, it was so nice when your coworkers thought you were capable of murder and mayhem. They’d be puckering up to his backside for a good while before he got over that one . . .

  The cabbie pulled up to the Waldorf, ending the game of twenty questions. McDougal handed the guy the requisite amount of cash and then slid out, towing Natalie with him.

  The moody, gray clouds had cleared off, and countless stars twinkled up there in the deep navy sky.

  She pulled her coat around her more tightly and stared up at them. “It’s cold . . . but it’s a magical night, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. Here he was with a beautiful girl that he wanted—and yet didn’t want—in almost equal measures.

  Magical? Yeah, okay. Magical as in cursed.

  His room at the Waldorf-Astoria was luxurious but not in an over-the-top, Trump sort of way. McDougal liked the hotel because it was historic and top-notch, with unfailingly polite staff. He noted that its grandeur had little effect on his tipsy guest, who didn’t seem overly impressed by the scale and elegance of the lobby or anything else.

  He poured her off the elevator and through the door of his room. Natalie looked around and then shrugged off her coat and unwound her woolen scarf, exposing the smooth, milky skin of her throat. Why did it make him feel as if his canine teeth were lengthening?

  Her neck was vulnerable, just like the rest of her. McDougal stood there wondering whether he should order a bottle of champagne—his usual choice in matters of seduction—or a pot of coffee to sober her up.

  He wasn’t used to indecision and he didn’t like it. Indecision didn’t suit him. Cursing under his breath, he dialed for room service and ordered a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.

  Then he walked over to her and brushed the pad of his thumb down that long, white throat of hers.

  She shivered and stepped closer.

  He bent his head and touched her lips again with his, feeling the same jolt of electricity he had before. Eric deepened the kiss, sliding erotically into her mouth with his tongue and exploring what she had to offer. Dark, warm, inviting . . . sexy as hell.

  Natalie kissed him back, tentatively at first, and then more boldly, with passion. She made a throaty little noise as his tong
ue danced with hers, and he instantly hardened. He slid his hands through that glossy dark hair of hers, down each erotic vertebra of her spine, and over her firm little ass. He pulled her against him, lifting her off her feet, and she made that faint, primal noise again.

  He wanted inside her, now. Wanted to slide that long black skirt up to her waist and push apart her thighs and plunge into hot, wet oblivion.

  But he set her back on her feet and held her away from him, searching her face. “Natalie. You sure about this?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She seemed breathless, her face flushed and her hair in disarray. She swayed on her feet.

  “Natalie?”

  She nodded. “I’m sure. I just want to forget . . . everything. For a little while.”

  He wasn’t at all sure that she was sure. But he also wasn’t going to argue with a drunk girl. Long experience with inebriated women had taught him that was useless. “Okay,” he said. “I’m just going to go take a quick shower. Make yourself comfortable.”

  She sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. She shimmied out of her black tights, then her skirt, and he had a hard time looking away from her slim, muscular legs, at the apex of which were black lace panties.

  With a muffled groan, McDougal disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door firmly on the sight. He turned on the shower but didn’t have the discipline or the desire to make it cold. Instead, he shed his own clothes quickly and climbed in.

  He soaped up, rinsed, toweled off, and stepped out of the steamy bathroom with the towel knotted at his waist, just in time to answer the door for room service. Eric signed for the champagne. “You can put it over there,” he said, turning around.

  That was when he realized that Natalie had crawled under the covers and passed out cold.

  “Uh. Tell you what. Let’s not open that bottle just yet.” With a tight smile, he tipped the guy and saw him out. Then he stood, hands on hips, watching Natalie sleep. She’d curled a hand under her cheek, and her dark hair streamed over the pillow. Just the tops of her naked shoulders emerged from the covers. And she was on the side of the bed he always slept on.

  Half of him was provoked, half relieved. Finally he just laughed, slid in beside her, and turned off the light. She didn’t stir at all, and he listened to her deep, even breathing, trying to banish his lust.