Baddest Bad Boys (16 page)

Laughter loosened her throat. “Don’t need one.”

“The hell you don’t.” He shoved the mini down over her hips, and gasped when his hands found her bottom bared by a skimpy black lace thong. “A thong, with a miniskirt? What is this place, a strip joint?”

Her laughter redoubled. “So I won’t have panty lines, you puritanical lunk. Are you going to get on with it, or what?”

He tugged the flimsy stretch lace down over her bottom. “God, yes. But I think you need to change jobs. I can’t handle the uniform.”

He pushed her down against the cot, and shoved the tank top up over her breasts. She wore only that and the wildly impractical spike-heeled sandals. Absurd for waitressing, but just right in bed for Jon.

He stared down, hot-eyed, and wrenched off his shirt. He was so beautiful. The need in his eyes almost dazzled her to the angry weal on his shoulder. She reached out and caressed it with her fingertips as he sank to his knees beside the cot. “Does it still hurt?” she asked softly.

“Right now, I don’t notice a thing.” He bent like he meant to make good on his promise to worship at her shrine with his tongue, but she reached down and yanked at his belt. She wanted head to toe contact, every hard, hot inch of him deep inside her. His mouth on hers, his whisker burn rasping her, his weight shaking the bed frame.

“Get those jeans off,” she ordered. “Right now.”

“But I wanted to—”

“No back talk,” she said. “Didn’t you say this was all about me?”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why I want to—”

“I’m telling you what I want. I want those jeans. Off. Now.”

He shoved his pants down. “But I want you to be ready.”

“You can make me wet with your voice alone,” she told him.

His eyes flashed. “Oh yeah? Show me.”

She opened her legs for him, showing him the flushed, glistening folds. He stared down, mesmerized. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

“I love you.” The words rushed out. “I love you, Jon.”

He closed his eyes, and sighed. “God, it feels good to hear that.”

She curled her fingers around him. His heartbeat throbbed against her hand. He covered her hands with his own and guided them, sliding his erection against the length of her slick furrow.

“I’m still going to do the Circo, you know,” she blurted as he settled between her legs. “I want it more than anything.”

“Of course. It’s who you are. It’s what I’m in love with.”

“Oh,” she said shakily, as he nudged his way inside. “Oh.”

“We’ll do the long distance thing if we have to, I guess, but I don’t know how long I’ll survive that. I want to be with you every damn day.”

“Me, too.” She clutched his shoulders as he sank deeper. “Maybe I’ll…maybe I’ll get lucky, and be able to work one of the fixed shows, in New York, or Chicago. Or even here, in San Francisco.”

He kissed her with reverent tenderness. “We’ll work it out,” he said. “I love it that you juggle eggs naked and wear a red nose and make kids laugh. I love it that you’re brave enough to follow your dream. I want to spend the rest of my life enjoying that. Honoring it.”

She dragged him closer, taking in every delicious bit of him. “Aw. Jon. How sweet,” she said breathlessly. “Who says you’re not eloquent?”

“I guess you just inspire me.”

“Well, let me just inspire you for the rest of your life, how about?”

A grin of pure joy split his face. “Done deal,” he said.

AFTER THE LOVIN’

E.C. Sheedy

1

He seized her upper arms and yanked her hard against him, his grip a vise. Too tight. Tighter.

Tommi struggled to escape, pushed at his chest, fear rooting deep behind her rib cage. “Let go of me.” She wished the words sounded more demanding, less frantic.

She wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

Reid slid his hands up to encircle her neck, rested his thumbs on the pulse jumping insanely at the base of her throat. He smiled down at her, his brilliant blue eyes shards of ice behind eyelids narrowed in threat.

Again she tried to step back, pull away from his grasp.

“Don’t move, baby. I like you exactly where you are.” He put pressure on her larynx and lifted her chin with a thumb, forcing her to look up at him. “Let’s make sure you’ve got things straight.” There was no smile this time. “You fuck with me, you pay the price. You clear on that?”

“Clear,” she choked out. Clearer still was the ugly fact she’d dug herself into a bottomless, black hole she didn’t know how to get out of.

“Here’s the drill. We meet at the bank when the doors open. You give me everything from your safety deposit box. From there you go directly to the office, hand in your resignation, and leave the building, and”—he kissed her, a harsh, punishing kiss, wet and open-mouthed—“you keep this luscious mouth of yours shut. You behave yourself, do as you’re told, and we forget this ever happened. You don’t—” He tightened his grip until her breath clotted under his thumb, thick and aching.

When she clawed at his hands, he squeezed harder, his mouth twisted, his face bloated with grim purpose.

Anger beat at Tommi’s panic.

He was enjoying himself. The bastard! The lying, thieving, traitorous bastard!

Abruptly, he shoved her backward into the corner. She stumbled but didn’t fall. When she’d wiped the slime of him from her mouth and drawn enough air into her lungs to allow for speech, she said, “You’re scum, Reid. And dangerously sure of yourself.”

He picked up his jacket, shrugged into it, and walked to where she stood. He grabbed her chin, pinned her against the wall, and ground his body into hers. His handsome face, inches from her own, seethed with malice. “I’m sure of two things. You want to keep this made-for-sex body of yours in one piece, and I don’t intend to let a righteous bitch like you ruin me.” He twisted her chin painfully, dug his nails into her jaw. “And I’m not the only one with something at stake here.” He sneered, let her go. “I’m the gentle one. You might want to think on that.”

He walked to the door, looked back, and slid his gaze from her feet to her breasts. “It’s been fun, Smith. If I have any regret, it’s that I didn’t get between those long legs of yours before you got between me and my money.”

He strode out.

She ran to the door, locked it behind him, and leaned against it. Breathing like a crazed thing, she hurried to the window, waited there and struggled to calm herself.

A few minutes later she watched his platinum Jag power through the rain and turn the corner a half block down the street. Cold to the bone, she released the curtain. When it fell straight to shut out the dark November night, she rubbed her tender upper arms, winced.

He’d hurt her.

Tommi Smith was no innocent. She’d dated a lot of men and made more than her quota of mistakes, but Reid McNeil was the worst yet, and the first one who’d touched her in anger. She didn’t intend to let it happen again.

He’d said there were others. Her nerves spiked and her throat constricted. If there were, she had no idea who they were, or how dangerous. She knew about Reid—and Reid was an embezzler. Tommi had the paper trail to prove it.

She sat on the edge of the sofa, hugged herself, and rocked…back and forth, back and forth…the motion soothing in a useless kind of way. Chilled and trembling, she tried to think, to plan. She’d been a fool and sickeningly naïve to confront Reid about the files—expect him to put the money back.

Stupid, stupid call!

And dating him? Stupider still. Once again she’d let wishful thinking and a man’s soft words erode her common sense. She was a savvy, capable, thirty-five-year-old woman, and one of the most successful commercial designers and project managers in Seattle, but when it came to men, she acted as if she were a twelve-year-old girl looking for love in poster city.

God! She’d even let the ever-elusive love word skip into her brain. It had skittered away, a rat to its eternally dark hole, when he’d embedded his fingers in her arms and tried to shake her teeth loose, then threatened worse to come.

Disgusted by her own idiocy, she got up and paced her living room, forced her fractured thoughts back to the problem at hand.

She straightened. Maybe she’d been a fool, but she wasn’t a coward—and she was not going to let Reid get away with stealing from Del Design Inc.

Much as she itched to turn the thieving creep over to the police, she just couldn’t. She had to wait for Paul to come back. He was the only one she could trust, and she owed him. But he was out of town for at least a week. Maybe more. Which meant she needed time…

Which meant…she needed to run; she needed to run tonight, and she needed a place to run to. A safe place.

Thank God Reid believed her story about the files being in her safety deposit box; it gave her precious time.

She stopped pacing and headed for her bedroom. There, she sat on the bed and looked at her bedside clock.

Damn! It was nearly midnight.

Her hand shook when she reached for the phone, slipped off the buttons twice as she keyed the telephone number. When she got it right, she lifted her eyes to heaven, prayed softly, “Please, please—let Hugh, not Veronica, answer the phone.” A man’s current woman didn’t thrill over calls from old girlfriends.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hugh, it’s Tommi. I need to talk.” Her voice quavered, but she got control of it. “No, I take that back. I need your help. Can you meet me?”

 

The all-night coffee shop had a scatter of customers. Tommi took a seat at a back table and hooked her bag over the chair. Hugh Fleming, tall, and even more good-looking today than he was in high school, set two steaming coffees on the table and took the seat opposite her.

“Where’s Veronica?” she asked, buying time, not knowing where to start this dreaded conversation.

“Away for the weekend.”

“Does she know you’re here? With me?”

“No. Should she?” He drank some coffee, grinned. “You planning to seduce me after all these years?”

“No. I’m planning to do what I’ve done too many times in the past. Take advantage of your friendship.”

“Damn!” His smile held.

“You had your chance.”

“Did not. You were sixteen, I was seventeen. You only hung around me to get to my buddy, Jake.”

She smiled, but it wouldn’t hold. “Funny. I don’t even remember Jake’s last name, but I’ve never forgotten yours.” Tommi had used Hugh to get to Jake, and even knowing she’d come a long way from being that vain, selfish teenager didn’t help. She still regretted the hurt she’d caused him. She raised her eyes. “You’re a better friend than I deserve, Hugh Fleming. Veronica is a lucky woman.” She stopped, rubbed the bowl of her spoon idly across her folded napkin. Unable to find a starting point. Uncertain how much to confide.

“What’s the deal, Tommi? Are you in some kind of trouble?” Hugh studied her, his easy banter gone, his expression serious.

“I need a place to stay.” She decided to keep her mouth shut and not drag him any deeper into her mess than she had to. “And I don’t want you to ask why.”

“Come home with me.”

She knew her eyes widened. “You, me, and Veronica. Are you mad?”

“Let me guess. This has something to do with that guy you’re seeing.” His eyes narrowed. “Did he hurt you?”

Tommi, taken back by his insight, glanced away. She also started to shrug into her coat. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have called you.”

He reached across the table, clasped her wrist. “I can’t help if you won’t level with me.” He released his grip. “I could have told you McNeil was no good from the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Would you have listened?”

She took a breath. “Probably not.”

“So spill. What’s going on?”

“I can’t ‘spill.’ Not yet, anyway.” She stopped. “Not until I sort things out myself.”

“Not just man trouble then?”

“I wish it were. I’m an expert in that arena.” She tapped the rim of her coffee mug. “This is more than that, and because I don’t know who all is involved, telling you or anyone else about it at this stage would be…irresponsible.” Maybe dangerous. “What I need is to get out of Seattle. And I need to go tonight.”

He looked at her for a long time, finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll stop asking questions.” He rubbed his chin, thought for a minute. “You can go to Mac’s place. He’s there now. I’ll call him, tell him you’re coming.”

She hadn’t expected this. “Where exactly is there?”

“His fishing camp on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Three hours to the border, a ferry ride, maybe another three or four hours of driving, and you’re there. Damn wilderness, but Mac loves it. You could fly, but at this time of year the weather might get in the way. Better to drive.”