Jennifer Crusie Bundle (63 page)

Mae rested her head on his shoulder. “That's okay. Sorry I didn't move.”

“My fault,” Mitch said, feeling magnanimous because he was so happy to be holding her. “I told you not to.”

“I know.” Mae's voice was faint but grumpy in the gloom. “That's why I didn't.”

Mitch felt her shift softly against him, and suddenly she was Mae again, and the orphan image vanished. He squelched down the hot thoughts that swamped him and moved his arm away from her. “Are you okay?”

“No. Somebody just shot at me. I'm upset.”

“Right.” Mitch patted her shoulder and craned his neck for another look around. “Stay here. I'll go get the car and bring it back so you don't have to go out in the open again, and then we'll go home.”

“What if you get shot?” Mae's voice was more worried than querulous.

“Then you'll have to get the car on your own.” Mitch stood, losing her warmth and hating it. “Wait here. Do not move.” When Mae gave a mirthless laugh, he amended that to, “Unless somebody shoots at you. In that case, run like hell.”

“You bet,” Mae said.

S
AFE IN THE DARKNESS
of the car on the way home, Mae sorted through her thoughts, trying hard to find a coherent one. She'd been under a lot of stress lately, and then there was the disappointment of the storage shed, and then getting shot at—that was bad—and now here she was, alone in the dark with Mitch, and all she could think of was that if he didn't touch her, she was going to go crazy.

And he wasn't going to touch her.

She closed her eyes so she could imagine his hands moving over her body, feel his lips against her skin, and she breathed a little deeper trying not to moan. He was a librarian addict who couldn't commit to one set of breasts. Okay, that she could deal with. What she couldn't deal with was that he wasn't interested. He'd never even made a pass. He'd never—

“You okay?”

“Yes.” She turned to see him in the faint light from the dashboard. His eyes were hooded and dark and his face was craggy, and only a woman in love would have called him handsome, and she could have looked at him forever.

“We should call the police.”

The police. If they got into it, Mitch would be through. The diary story would be out.

“Maybe.”

Mitch glanced at her. “You don't want to tell them about the diary?”

“I don't know.” Mae felt tears start. This was so dumb. She had people shooting at her and she was missing a fortune, and all she wanted to do was climb into bed with this man and make love until she lost her mind.

“Mae?”

“Can we decide in the morning? I'll be thinking better in the morning.”

“Sure.” His voice was deep and comforting and it set up a humming inside her like a tuning fork, and the humming moved lower and lower until she let her head drop back on the seat and just concentrated on not screaming for him.

“Do you want me to come in?” he asked when he pulled up in front of her house, and she said,
“No,”
and all but fell out of the car in her scramble to get away from him and his heat and the promise of his hands. Then Harold was there to let her in, and she pushed past him and ran up the stairs.

O
N THE DRIVE BACK
to his place, Mitch decided that he was going to have to stay away from Mae.

It was a bleak thought. He'd come to count on seeing her smile. He even liked watching her frown when she was annoyed or glare when she was furious. Then there was the way the sun picked out mahogany highlights in her dark hair, the way her neck curved into her shoulder, the way her calves flexed when she strode across a room, the way her laugh lighted up the whole world.

And she wasn't even a librarian.

She didn't appeal to him the way the librarians had. She wasn't shyly sexy, she was up-front, in-your-face, you-talkin'-to-me? sexy. She just stood there with her hands on her hips and dared him not to find her mind-bendingly desirable. And fascinating. And funny. And dear.

Dear? Sam Spade never found Brigid O'Shaughnessy dear.

His loss.

Mitch parked illegally in front of his apartment and trudged up the stairs, thinking about how impossible it was that he should be attracted to somebody like her, somebody who would never be a good little wife, who would nag and snipe and make caustic comments….

Somebody who would meet him toe-to-toe for the rest of his life, on her own terms.

It was when he was unlocking his door that he decided he'd have to marry her. Somebody had to take care of her. And no other man would be able to stand that mouth.

The thought of marriage led to thoughts of weddings and wedding nights, and although he tried hard not to think about Mae in his bed, Mae naked in his arms, he did, anyway. The notion made him dizzy.
Maybe it's just the sex,
he told himself.
Maybe it's just more pipeline.
Then he thought about her smile and her laugh, and thought,
This isn't good.

He went into the bathroom to take a cold shower so he could get the blood back to his brain so he could figure out how to convince Mae to marry him.

Oh, and that guy who'd been shooting at them. He had to think of something to do about him, too.

He stripped off his clothes, turned the cold water on full blast and stepped under it.

M
AE CRANKED OPEN
the casement window in her bedroom and stuck her head out into the night. Her hair was still wet from her shower and the chill made her shiver. The air lay heavy with the recent storm, and the night wind blew cool against her white satin robe, making it move over her skin as lightning crackled a warning in the distance. Mae closed her eyes and breathed deep. She loved storms.

She loved Mitch.

She turned back into the darkened room, trying not to think about Mitch, and stepped on the polar bear rug that separated her bed from the window, scrunching her toes into the thick polyester pelt.

Armand had hated the rug. He'd wanted to get her a real polar bear pelt, and he hadn't understood when she'd said she couldn't sleep with a corpse in her room. Of course, Armand hadn't understood her room, hadn't understood why over the years she'd had the furniture taken out, the rugs removed, until now all that remained was white walls and hardwood floors, her carved pine vanity with the huge mirror that reflected back the sunlight from the windows, her oversize pine bed piled high with white down pillows and comforters, her pine worktable and bentwood chair and the polyester polar bear rug. It was all she wanted: space and light and texture. She'd thought she was going to have a home like it someday, but now it looked as if Armand had cheated her—and June and Harold—out of that, too.

She turned on the big lamp on her worktable and sat on the edge of the bed, drawing the satin sash tighter on her robe.

They weren't going to find the money. Mitch had looked everywhere, and it wasn't going to turn up. Whatever Armand had done with it, she'd never see it. It didn't matter for her. It really didn't. She'd never wanted the money, anyway. She just didn't know how she was going to take care of Harold and June on fifteen thousand a year from her job at the art institute. She wasn't sure she could feed
Bob
on fifteen thousand a year.

Maybe Mitch could invest it for her.

Mitch.

She let herself fall back into the downy thickness of the comforters and tried to distract herself with thoughts of Harold and June and Bob and the house they'd never have, but all she could think about was Mitch.

It wasn't just physical. It was the way he took care of her by not taking care of her, the way he trusted her to take care of herself. The way he made her laugh. The way she felt good just looking at him. The way she trusted him. Everybody lied, he said. She didn't believe it. In less than a week, he'd become the one person she'd trust with her life.

She thought again of the shooting, and how terrified she'd been, and how he'd been there then, and how much she'd wanted him to hold her, and how he hadn't.

I can't do this anymore.

She was dizzy with wanting him, and it was torture to spend time with him and not touch him. It had to end. The money was gone, and it was over, and she was never going to get what she wanted. She didn't know what she was going to do next, but she knew what she wasn't going to do.

She wasn't going to torment herself by seeing Mitch again.

She sat up and pulled the phone over to the edge of the table and dialed his number.

The phone rang forever, and then, just as she was about to hang up, he answered it with
“What?”

“Mitch, this is Mae.” Her voice quavered, and she swallowed to try to steady it.

“What's wrong?” He didn't sound angry anymore. “Sorry, I was in the shower. What happened? Are you all right?”

Mae took a deep breath. “You're fired.”

“No, I'm not.” He sounded perplexed. “What's wrong with you?”

“We're never going to find the money, and I can't afford to pay you anymore, and your week's up soon—”

“I'll work for free. I'll pick you up tomorrow and we'll talk about it.”

“No!”

“Mabel, tell me what's wrong right now, or I'm coming over there.”

“No!”

“Mabel—”

“All right.” Mae blinked. “All right, then. But listen. Just listen.” She stopped and there was nothing but silence on the other end. “All right.” She swallowed. “I can't see you anymore. I'm…attracted to you.”

Mitch's snort came over the wire like an explosion. “Well, I'm attracted to you, too, but—”

“Just listen!”
Mae swallowed again in the silence. “I'm not just attracted to you. I want you.” Once the first words were out, the others followed, uncontrollably. “I want you everywhere, every way possible. I want to touch you everywhere, I want to taste every inch of you, I want to wrap myself around you forever. I want your hands everywhere on me, and your mouth, and—” The words tumbled out of her, her voice rising, and she said things she'd never dreamed she could say to anyone, things she'd never said to herself, swinging in wilder and wilder arcs of erotic fantasy, and she said them all to him, chanted them as she got dizzier and dizzier thinking of him, until she shrieked, “And most of all, I want you hard inside me, and
I can't stand it anymore.
” Then she stopped, surprised to find herself standing, leaning against the wall by her bed, shaking from the emotion and the release and the need for him that still pounded inside her.

After a few seconds, he said, “Mae?”

She closed her eyes, feeling like a complete fool. “Yes?”

“Are you done?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Are you all right?”

Her breathing slowed as she thought about it. “Yes. Yes. Actually, I feel better.”

“Good.” His voice was preternaturally calm. “Now listen to me.” He stopped for a moment, and she heard him draw a breath. “This is not a problem. Where are you?”

“I'm in my bedroom,” she squeaked.

“First door at the top of the stairs, right?”

She felt her breath go and fought to get the word out. “Right.”

“Good. Stay there. Don't move.”

He hung up, and she heard the dial tone in her ear, and it gradually dawned on her that he was coming over.

She had promised him more than she had ever even thought of with any other man, and he was coming over. She sank slowly onto the bed, terrified and exhilarated and more aroused than she'd ever been in her whole life.

She was going to make love with Mitch.

“Oh, my God,” she said and collapsed back onto the bed.

M
itch hung up the phone, smacked his head once into the wall to get some blood back to it and headed for the door.

No, wait, he needed keys. Where were his car keys? Pants pocket. He reached for his pants on the floor and realized he was naked.

Okay, clothes first. He sat down on the bed, and it sagged under his weight, and he heard Mae's voice again in the back of his brain, reciting all the things she wanted, and he closed his eyes to keep from passing out.
Breathe,
he told himself, and he breathed in deep.
Now get dressed.

He stood and zipped up his pants, jammed his feet into his loafers and then felt in his pocket for his keys on his way to the door. Good, they were there. He grabbed his jacket from the table and threw the door open.

Newton was standing there, one hand raised to knock. “Oh, good, you're home.”

“No, I'm not.” Mitch pulled on his jacket as he tried to move past him, but Newton blocked his way.

“You have to hear this.” Newton's face gleamed with pride. “I've found out some astonishing things.”

“Good. Good for you.” Mitch tried to dodge around him.

Newton blinked at him. “What are you wearing? You look like Eurotrash. Where's your shirt?”

“
Not now,
Newton.” Mitch pushed past him into the hall and ran toward the stairs.

“Wait!” Newton followed him at a more aloof shamble, losing in ground what he was gaining in dignity. “I've found out something—”

Mitch ignored him and pounded down the stairs. Exercise was good. It kept him from exploding from the thought of Mae, naked in his arms.

Then he burst through the street door and saw his car in the lights of the neon signs from the bars.

All four tires were in ribbons.

The seats were slashed down to the springs.

And every piece of glass on the car was smashed to powder. Windshields, head-and taillights, even the glass on the dash.

After an adult lifetime of firmly believing that other people can only annoy you if you let them, Mitch lost it.

His scream was still echoing down the street when Newton pushed through the apartment-house door. “You know, somebody doesn't like you,” he observed, blinking at the car.

Mitch grabbed him by the jacket. “Where's your car?”

“In the garage at the end of—”

“Come on.” Mitch gripped his sleeve and hauled him down the street.

“I'll drive,” Newton said firmly, trying to keep up without breaking a sweat.

“The hell you will,” Mitch said.

A
FEW MINUTES LATER
, Mae realized she was still clutching the phone and stood to hang it up. She turned and caught sight of herself in the mirror.

Her hair was in damp curls, and her face was naked. For that matter, so was she, under her robe.

Oh, great, what now? Makeup? Hair dryer? Sexy nightgown?

What sexy nightgown? She didn't own any sexy nightgowns.

Oh, great.

Mae started to pace. There was nothing to worry about. It wasn't as if this was her first time. It was just Mitch, after all.

Mitch.

She ran to the vanity and pulled a comb through her hair. Now she had damp straight hair. With a scream of frustration, she messed up her hair by scrambling her hands through it and then started to pace again, remembering all the things she'd said to him, and how she'd meant every one of them.

If he'd just get here, she could stop having a nervous breakdown from anticipation and lose her mind making love with him.

The thought made her stop pacing and close her eyes.

Hurry up, Mitch,
she thought, and then she started pacing again to keep from screaming.

I
NTERSTATE
75
WAS
still a mass of orange barrels and single-lane traffic. Of course, it would be. Summer was construction season in Ohio, and all the barrels were in bloom. Mitch was so mad he hit one on purpose.

“Try not to do that,” Newton said from the passenger seat.

“It was in my way.”

“Where is it exactly that we're going?”

At another time with a clearer mind, Mitch might have told him. This time, he thought about where he was going and pressed harder on the pedal. The speedometer moved from eighty to ninety.

“This is one-lane,” Newton observed.

A car loomed up ahead, growing larger instantaneously. Newton moaned, and Mitch hit the brake, screaming down to thirty before they came up behind it, bumper to bumper.

“The hell with this.” Mitch swung out onto the berm to pass him.

Behind them, a siren wailed.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER
, Mae was climbing the walls.

Where was he?
A plethora of ideas crowded her mind: he'd met somebody else, he'd stopped for a sandwich, he'd had a new idea about where to look for the money, he'd changed his mind about making love to her, he'd stopped for condoms—

She stopped pacing. Condoms. What if he didn't have any? She didn't have any. Oh, great. Maybe Harold and June—no. Birth control was no longer a problem for Harold and June. She thought about making an emergency call to Stormy, and then it hit her.

There had been condoms in the box from Armand's town house.

She flew down the hall to his room and rummaged in the box to grab a handful of the red foil packages. Then she ran back to her room and yanked open the worktable drawer and threw them inside.

Then she sat down on the bed again and tried to stop breathing like a draft horse.

Now all she needed was Mitch.

Where
was
he?

M
ITCH PUT THE TICKET
in the breast pocket of his jacket and noticed for the first time that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

He was out of control.

“I'm sorry, Newton.”

“I'm sure you have your reasons.”

“I do.” Mitch took a deep breath. “But I can't act like this.” He thought about Mae again, and his head swam a little. It would not be good for him to go screaming into her bedroom. Think Cary Grant.

“I know where some of the money went,” Newton said.

Mitch came back from Mae's bedroom. “What?”

“The money. I know what happened to one and a half million of it.”

Mitch focused on Newton completely for the first time since Mae's phone call. “What?”

“He gave it to Stormy.”

“What?”

Newton nodded. “He bought her a condo—”

“That I knew.”

“For five hundred thousand.”

Mitch turned the key and eased the car back onto the highway. “So where's the other million?”

“Swiss bank account. His idea.”

Mitch turned to him, startled. “How the
hell
did you find that out?”

“She told me.”

“She…” Words failed him.

“At lunch. Today.” Newton checked his watch. “I'm picking her up for dinner in a half hour. Where are we going? I don't want to be late.”

“Mae's.” Mitch's voice was faint because he was stunned. “You're dating Stormy?”

“Yes. Why are we going to Mae's?”

“She called me.” Mitch felt the heat rise again. No. He was going to be calm. Just like Cary Grant.

He thought of Mae's smile, and Mae's laugh, and then he thought of Mae's body and gripped the wheel tighter.

“Is she in trouble?” Newton asked, alarmed.

“No. She just wanted me to come over.”

“Then why are we rushing like this?”

Mitch met his eyes. “Because she wanted me. To come over. Now.” He looked back at the road.

Newton frowned at him for a moment. “I don't…Oh.” His forehead cleared and he turned to look out the back window. “Step on it. I'll watch for the police.”

M
AE WAS LYING
crosswise on her bed staring at the ceiling when she heard a car pull up in front. It didn't sound like the Catalina. For one thing, it had a working muffler. Great, she was getting company, and it wasn't Mitch.

It was so unfair. Other women got great love scenes. She got the Keystone Kops.

Then she heard someone pounding up the stairs, and there was a quick rap on the door, and then Mitch was in the room with her.

She sat up as if she'd been catapulted and slid to her feet, stunned to see him there in the flesh. She blinked. Really in the flesh. He didn't have a shirt on under his jacket.

He closed the door behind him and stood looking at her. “Hi.”

Mae blinked at him again. “Hi.”

His eyes traveled down her body, and she smoothed her satin robe nervously. “You look really nice,” he said.

She swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

He closed his eyes. “Mae, if you've changed your mind, just tell me now so I can go kill myself.”

Relief washed over her and she laughed, the sound bubbling up from inside her, and she felt her whole body soften with her laughter, and all her need for him came back. “If you don't make love to me, I'll die,” she said, and he came toward her, shaking his head and laughing at himself as he stripped off his jacket and dropped it on the floor.

“You don't know how long I've wanted you,” he said as he slid his arms around her, and she shuddered as his body touched her.

“Kiss me,” she said, and he did, and every fear and doubt she had evaporated as his mouth touched hers, supple and hot and intoxicating. She opened her lips to taste him, and he touched her tongue with his as she slumped against him, her hands gripping the corded muscles in his back while the heat in her rose and made her dizzy. Then he was pulling her toward the bed, and she undid the belt to her robe and let it fall open. He closed his eyes when he saw her, sliding his hands under her robe, up her sides to cup her breasts, and she dug her fingernails into his shoulders to stop herself from moaning. He pulled her onto the bed on top of him, rolling until she was under him, and moved his mouth to her breast, and then she did moan, lacing her fingers in his hair to pull him closer. His lips moved up to the pulse of her throat, and then to her mouth, and she swelled under him like a wave, stroking her hands up his back, tasting every inch of him with her fingertips.

“Oh, God, Mae, I have wanted you,” he murmured to her, and she opened her eyes to see him gazing down on her, his eyes black with desire. And when he bent to kiss her again, she stopped him, her hands cupping his face.

“Let me look at you,” she whispered. “I can't believe it's you. I can't believe it's us.”

“I wanted you from the first moment I saw you. From the first minute you came in my door.” He smiled at her. “In that damn pink suit.” He closed his eyes and put his forehead on hers. “I can't believe it's us, either.”

“Make love to me,” Mae whispered. “Make love to me all night.”

“Whatever you want,” Mitch whispered back. “Whatever you want, Mae. I swear.”

He kissed her then, a long deep kiss that went into her spine and made her body curve around his, fitting against him, and his hands moved, too, molding her to him. “What do you want?” he whispered in her ear, and his breath made her body tighten and arch. “Whatever you want, you can have.”

She ran her fingers through his hair and pushed his head down to her breast, gasping a little when his tongue caressed and teased her nipple and then moaning when he took her breast in his mouth and sucked hard. She felt the pull in her groin and arched up under him, and outside, the thunder rolled in the distance, and the wind blew the curtains back away from the window she'd forgotten to close. He moved to her other breast, dropping kisses into her cleavage, and then she felt his tongue on her again as his hand came up to stroke the dampened breast he'd abandoned. Mae gave up any pretense of sanity and just lost herself in his touch and the heat that was everywhere. She arched up again, and then she wrapped her fingers in his hair and pushed his head lower.

She felt the weight of his head on her stomach, his hands stroking down her sides to her hips, and then he licked inside her. Her hips spasmed, and he trapped her there, his hands imprisoning her against his mouth. Outside, the storm began in earnest, blowing the cold storm breeze through the open window and across her burning body, and her skin tightened under the double onslaught of the wind and his mouth. She grabbed blindly behind her to clutch at the pine headboard as he slowly, rhythmically, inexorably stroked his tongue inside her, probing and sucking and driving her out of her mind. Her moans were drowned in the thunder, and all she knew was the heat of his mouth pressed against her and the chill, rain-thick air tightening her body. Then she lost even that in the pressure that welled up inside her, making her twist against him, and then it all exploded, and her body jerked over and over again as she sobbed in her release.