by Dawn Atkins
“Sounds great.” And explained her choice in lingerie. She’d dressed like a box of Valentine’s Day chocolates.
“It was.” She opened her eyes. “We ended up with melted chocolate all over everything.”
Click. He’d caught a great look—sweet and wicked.
She blinked. “Oh.”
“That was nice. Keep talking. Try to forget I’m here. Tell me more about how Bo treated you on your honeymoon.” But, please no sex.
He glanced up to see Samantha in the doorway. She shot him a thumbs-up and his heart swelled with unexpected pride.
“He was so sweet,” Mary Jane said. “He couldn’t take his eyes off me the whole weekend.” She gave a dreamy smile.
Click. He caught it. Not bad.
Wordlessly, Samantha moved to the tripod and began taking pictures with the Hasselblad, nodding at him after each one.
By the time they finished, Rick was worn out and dripping with sweat, but they’d snagged some nice frames. Samantha gestured for him to keep running things, so he loaded the digital images for Mary Jane to preview. He invoked the slide show and the first shot flared.
Mary Jane gasped. “That’s me?” She plain beamed at him.
“That’s you,” he said, pleased, too. They watched the show, while Mary Jane sighed and gasped and said wow and oh at each picture. He couldn’t help grinning.
When the last shot faded to black, she turned to him with tears in her eyes and hugged him hard. “You’re amazing.”
“Just doing my job,” he muttered, as mortified as hell, but happy, too. Samantha winked at him from behind Mary Jane.
They walked her out and, after the door closed, Samantha turned to him, leaning against the still-wobbly counter. He had to fix that thing.
“You did a great job, Rick. I hope you’re proud of yourself. It’s no small thing to turn a relationship around.”
“I just took a few pictures.”
“And they’ll remind Bo how he felt when he made a heart out of pricey chocolates just to please his bride.”
“You’re a romantic,” he said, liking that about her, even though he knew love wasn’t that simple.
“What about you? You want one woman for the rest of your life. What’s more romantic than that?”
“It just makes sense.” He shrugged. “You get to a certain age and you want to settle into a life with someone.”
“I guess. Any luck, if I may ask?”
“Not so far. I’ve dated a couple of women, but…”
“It didn’t work out?” Her curiosity made him uncomfortable, but he somehow found himself wanting to explain.
“We didn’t click. Couple of dates, but we ran out of things to say. I’m not much of a talker.”
“You talk to me.”
“Probably too much.” The more she knew about him, the harder it was to keep the lies straight in his head, to keep the case clear and his goals front and center.
“I don’t think so. And, frankly, if you want to get serious with someone, you’ll have to do a lot better than that.”
“The less I say, the fewer mistakes I can make.” That was full-out true in the moment. It was a relief not to be lying into her earnest face.
“You think a woman who loves you expects you to be perfect? If she loves you, she’ll forgive your flaws and mistakes.”
She was a romantic, all right. “I think you earn love and guard it with everything in you.” Sure, some people were high-minded and long-suffering, but he’d seen enough, especially on the job, to know that was mostly not the case.
“You don’t give people much credit. Love is sturdier than you think, Rick.” She fiddled with her locket. Her showing him the secret picture seemed almost more intimate than his making love to her. She wore it to remind herself never to settle. She’d had an asshole for a boyfriend and still believed in romance.
She deserved to be appreciated for all her depth and sweetness by a man who cared for her alone.
Rick didn’t want to think of her hunting around, sleeping with a bunch of guys. She thought she just wanted sex, but Samantha put her heart into everything she did. She could get hurt so easily.
He started to warn her to be careful, but he couldn’t, not when she looked so earnest and so sure. So all he said was, “Maybe you’re just braver than I am.”
Then he heard the buzz of saws out back. Darien was due to check in with the workers and he’d been standing here like a lovesick fool. “I need to head out back. Talk to the workers about fixing this.” He jiggled the counter.
“Sure,” she said. “Good idea.” But she was pondering his words, worrying about him. Sweet, really. As if she hoped he’d find some forgiving woman with a sturdy love. She just reached into his chest and squeezed his beating heart like Bianca had suggested that first day.
On the other hand, he knew for a fact she could never forgive him for what he was hiding from her.
The crew boss told him that he’d just missed Darien, but he managed to get the gist of the conversation. Darien wanted the workers to quit work on the second floor so they could finish the cupboards in the beauty shop before a shipment came in that night. A shipment. The hairs on the back of Rick’s neck rose.
Furthermore, he’d instructed them to buy locks for the cupboards.
Locks. No hair product was worth a padlock. Had to be guns, drugs or money. Adrenaline pumped through him. Something big was afoot. He’d need to be on site for that delivery, which meant a few overnights at the center.
He headed off to call Mark with the news, then scout out the best place for a stakeout. Somewhere in there he realized he’d forgotten to ask about fixing Samantha’s counter.
RICK BOLTED UP from the futon in Mona’s shop and grabbed his gun. He never wore it at work, not wanting to alarm Samantha, but a stakeout could be dangerous.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep—he’d chosen Mona’s studio for its proximity to the service door and salon and because there was little chance he’d fall asleep on the incredibly uncomfortable couch.
This was his second night, though, and exhaustion had overcome the thin cushion and cramped length of it. He rubbed his eyes, then glanced at his watch. Twelve-fifteen.
The rumble of a long-haul truck’s engine out back came to him. The delivery. Thank God the noise had woken him up.
He moved soundlessly to the back of the shop and cracked the door. Street sounds told him the service door was open. He listened hard, his own breathing harsh in his ears, and picked up small talk from the parking lot. He twisted his neck slowly to ease the kink. He’d need another Mona massage soon.
He’d saved himself a trip home this morning by stowing travel-size toiletries in the cargo pockets of his pants and cleaning up in the center’s bathroom, zipping out before Samantha had arrived, then returning in the T-shirt he’d worn under the previous day’s denim shirt.
The workers said little, then he heard the hum of an electronic truck gate lowering, followed by clunks, then grunts as the men lifted and shifted cargo.
Before long, cart wheels squeaked and feet thudded down the hall. He waited until they passed, then looked out to see a handcart stacked high with factory-issued boxes. He glimpsed a flat-screen TV on top of a column of DVD players. Electronic gear for Mad Darien’s store? Stolen maybe? Why else arrange a late-night delivery?
He waited for quiet so he could investigate further, except he heard new voices and footsteps, but coming from the lobby of the center. Stuff was arriving from up front of the center, too?
The Healing Touch door rattled. Shit. Someone was headed for his hideout. He lunged into the room where Mona had given him a rubdown, leaving the door cracked so he could listen, his gun at the ready.
“I think this is a bad idea.” Mona, he realized, sounding tense. Surely she wasn’t helping with the delivery.
“But it’s a pain that won’t quit,” a man whined.
“What are you trying to do, Chuck? Do you really have a muscle spas
m? Let me see….”
Chuck? The guy who showed up every day for a massage? Chuck Yardley, right? The bean counter.
“Maybe not a spasm, but I need your magic fingers,” he said, turning the words into a lame pickup line.
“You make me sound like a vibrating bed.” That was the usual teasing Mona, but she sounded uncertain.
“That’s not how I think of you at all. I’m blowing this.” Yardley sounded embarrassed and a little drunk.
“Okay, then,” Mona sighed. “You know the drill. Take off your clothes and lie facedown on the table.”
“I’d like something different tonight, Mona.”
Hell, was he going to ask for something illegal? Don’t do it, Mona. Tell him where he can stick it.
“Different how?” she asked, her voice surprisingly soft.
Rick frowned. Come on. You’re better than that.
“You know,” Chuck said. “I’ve been trying to ask you for weeks, and it’s taken me all night—and two martinis—to get up the nerve to get you to meet me here.”
“Chuck…don’t. You know I don’t work that way.”
Good for you, Mona.
“What are you afraid of? It’s what we both want.”
How the hell could johns believe hookers enjoyed the act? If this creep tried to force Mona…
“I have rules, Chuck.”
That’s telling him.
“Rules are meant to be broken,” the guy coaxed.
There was the sound of movement, the rustle of fabric.
“Rules exist for good reason,” she said faintly.
“And there’s an exception to every rule.” He was cajoling her, his voice low, moving in.
No means no, pal. Rick had to stop this. Screw his cover. He had to save Mona from making a mistake she’d regret forever.
“Chuck…I don’t…You’re my best customer.” Her voice cracked.
“I want more than massage from you, Mona. Much more.”
A hand job? Blow job? Half and half? Rick’s stomach clenched. He eased out the door, ready to bust into the other massage room and save poor Mona. She’d probably been drinking, too, so her judgment was impaired.
“Oh, God, that feels good,” Mona said, sounding, well, the way Rick had when she’d rubbed his back. “You have a good touch.”
Rick stopped cold, waiting for more.
“I know a knotted muscle when I see it,” Chuck said, his voice tender, “after all those hours on your table.”
“You should consider becoming a therapist.”
The guy chuckled. “I’m too busy falling in love with one.”
“What am I going to do with you?” Mona sighed.
“Send me to another masseuse…then fall in love back.”
“Keep convincing me.”
“As long as it takes,” he murmured.
Rick backed away, glad he hadn’t burst in, blowing his cover in a rescue no one seemed to need. But now he was trapped by the lovers, who sighed and kissed and rustled around in the room until he wanted to put his hands over his ears.
To his relief, in a few minutes they departed, since Mona refused to use her massage room for anything but therapy. Thank God, since Rick had no interest in being a voyeur.
As soon as he heard the front door lock, he slid out to check the status of the delivery. From the hall, he heard only silence and through the small window in the security door he saw the truck and the crew were gone.
He headed for the salon, where he unhinged the doors on the cupboards and took digital snaps of the box labels so the task force could determine if the stuff was stolen. If it was, he’d at least proved something was going on.
Tomorrow, he’d find out if Blythe knew anything about what had been loaded into her storage room. He hoped to hell not. He’d been relieved Mona wasn’t doing late-night hand jobs. He liked how she looked out for Samantha, worried that she was trying too hard to change herself. Mona was right. There was nothing wrong with Samantha except her naiveté about the company she kept.
He wanted Blythe to be clean, too.
Along with Samantha, always Samantha, with her romantic views and her earnest attitude. The bookkeeper was due in the morning. He had to do everything in his power to verify whether or not the guy was legit.
The studio is prime. Darien had declared it so, so there had to be something going on at Bedroom Eyes. What the hell was it?
10
“SEEMS TO ME A MAN SHOULD find out what his lady likes and give it to her. Batteries not required,” Rick drawls, standing between Donna Dominatrix and Nancy Open Nipples, tugging on the satin strings of the robe Samantha is wearing. They are alone in the window in the golden glow of the security lights and beneath the robe she is naked and aching for Rick’s touch.
“What I want is you,” she breathes and deliberately pulls down his zipper. His pants disappear and his arousal juts, proud and promising, and he steps close enough to trace each nipple with first his fingers, then his tongue. She writhes against the velvet length of him.
“Taste me,” she commands, taking on the style of the stern mannequin in black leather behind Rick. He drops to his knees, holding her gaze the entire time, then finds her with his skillful tongue, gripping her hips, keeping her in place while she squirms and squirms and cries out and…
Samantha opened her eyes from another incredibly realistic dream starring Rick. It was so real that she patted the bed just to be sure he wasn’t there beside her.
Nope. Just her, all alone, sweaty and unsatisfied, in her big empty bed. For two nights since the tiger-chaise incident, Rick had been the star of her sex dreams.
He appeared in her waking fantasies, too, especially her favorite, the velvet-tie seduction, where he teased her past endurance, while she twisted against the soft restraint, begging for mercy, begging for more.
Waking and sleeping, Rick haunted her. It was pure torture and she had to stop it somehow. But how?
Gritty-eyed and exhausted, she got up and set about getting ready for work. Pulling into the Mirror, Mirror lot early, she was surprised to see Rick’s Jeep already there.
“Hey,” she said, when she found him inside. “You’re early.”
“I had a bad night.”
“Me, too.” Maybe for the same reason.
He looked more exhausted than she did, his eyes bloodshot, a streak of shaving soap under one ear. Now that she thought about it, he’d been rumpled yesterday, too, and she noticed that he wore the same cargo pants as the day before.
“Neighbors had a noisy party,” he said.
“Oh.” So it wasn’t horny dreams about her. “You’ve got a little…” She leaned closer and wiped off the streak of cream.
“Thanks.” She could tell he didn’t want her to move away. His gaze took her in like sustenance, like air or food or water.
She rubbed her fingers together and smelled the shaving soap. “Mmm. Lime and spice.”
“Yeah?”
“Reminds me of you.”
“Oh.” Then they just stood there. This happened all the time. It was as if they kept getting snagged in each other’s gravity. Every brush of arm or leg, every glance or word drew them together, hovering and circling like friendly planets.
It was killing her. Night and day, he was in her mind. Why did they have to suffer? Couldn’t Rick afford a little side trip on the way to a wife?
“So, Lester Tabor is due at nine?” he asked. “Does he come into your office or work at the front desk?”
“In the office, but he won’t bother us. I need to put the finishing touches on my proposal for Wendy. We’re meeting her at eleven.”
“Then I’ll keep on eye on him for you.”
“On Lester? He can handle my books in his sleep.”
“You have to watch people who deal with your money, Samantha.”
“You are too suspicious, Rick.” He didn’t crack a smile. “And don’t be so deadly serious all the time. Relax. You’re doing a good job for me
.”
That didn’t seem to make him any happier. In fact, he looked positively grim.
“Maybe you need a nap,” she said. “You look grouchy.”
“Sorry.” He forced a smile and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll try to cheer up.”
“I’m heading over to get Mona’s coupon for the wedding package. If I’m not back before Lester gets here, introduce yourself. Just don’t grill the poor man.”
He smiled, but only a little.
Samantha found Mona on the phone, so she plopped onto the futon in the waiting area and was instantly drenched in Rick’s scent—the strawberry-kiwi shampoo she’d recognized in the grocery store and his lime-spice shaving cream. Odd.
Was her obsession playing tricks on her senses? She sniffed the decorative pillow under her elbow and the smell was even stronger. Rick had been here for his massage and checked on Mona once or twice since, but he certainly hadn’t hung around long enough to soak into the upholstery.
She glanced down and noticed a tiny can poking out from under the futon. Travel-size shaving cream. A picture of lime on the front. What the hell? Then she noticed a pale footprint in the futon arm that could easily match Rick’s boots. Omigod.
Mona hung up and said, “What’s the matter? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“I might have. I think Rick slept on your couch.”
“You’re kidding.” Mona came closer.
“I can smell him. Here.” She handed up the aromatic pillow.
“Yeah, I guess, but…”
Then she extended the can. “And this was on the floor.”
“Okay, that’s weird.”
“And look at this.” She pointed at the footprint.
“Why would Rick sleep on my couch?”
“I have no idea. If he needed a place to sleep, Bedroom Eyes at least has a real bed.” What was going on?
“He didn’t sleep here last night,” Mona said, her face pinking up like a summer sunrise. “I know that.”
“How?”
“Because I was here. Late. With Chuck.”
“No! You’re kidding! With Chuck?”
“That’s what I said.” She deepened to sunset’s glow. “He had a back spasm, so I met him here for an emergency massage.”