Marrying Mari (8 page)

Memory came flooding back. Ethan’s bed. Ethan and Gabriel’s apartment.
Damn!

Work started in a scant ninety minutes, meaning she had to get out of that hot, male-filled bed, find her clothes, and get home in time to shower and change. No time to dawdle. She carefully shoved the hand resting on her hip toward Gabriel. He grunted and shifted slightly. Then she pushed Ethan’s arm toward him, back off her midsection. He pushed the arm back at her. Drawing in a deep breath, she slid toward the end of the bed, letting his touch slip off her skin.

Her clothes were scattered around the floor—skirt, tights, boots, panties. She couldn’t find her bra. Gathering everything else up she fled to the foyer, where she found her sweater lying on the floor and her coat lying across a chair with her purse. Pulling both on, she clutched her purse and let herself out of the apartment.

In the lobby, she saw the doorman, a different one, on duty. Nodding at him haughtily, she headed for the street.

Thank God for New York cabs, driving the streets at all hours.

She flagged one and gave the driver her address.

Thank goodness she’d stuffed a twenty into her bag, since the only other money she had was the disputed bonus, all in hundreds. She could only give the cabbie a tiny tip. Embarrassed to be coming home in last night’s clothes, she ran into her apartment and up the three flights.

She had nearly an hour.

Seventy minutes later, showered, dressed, and maintaining, Mari was on her first run for the day. All the way from Cheetah’s 32nd St. office to Wall Street, then back uptown to a publishing office in the Flatiron Building, then she’d pick up a couple more.

Not thinking about last night.

Not at all.

Just because it was the best sex she’d ever had. That maybe anyone had ever had and she knew Ethan and Gabriel had only just started.

Don’t think about it.

Just do your job.

To say Ethan was upset that Mariella had disappeared from their apartment was an understatement. Gabriel had never seen his friend so short-tempered, so, well, ready for a fight. Usually, Gabe didn’t bother to wake up before noon, because he had an excellent manager for Insatiable and another for Crave. He got to both during the afternoon and usually spent the evenings at one or the other.

This morning, however, Ethan had poked him around six thirty when he woke and found their mate gone. Then Ethan had slammed off to his workout in the apartment’s well-equipped gym.

Gabe hoped he had gone a couple of rounds with the heavy bag.

It was now nearly eight a.m., and although Ethan was dressed in one of his endless series of superbly tailored charcoal or black suits, he seemed tenser than he had been an hour ago. Gabe eyeballed Ethan, sitting stiffly in his crisp white linen shirt, pretending to read the paper, tapping his finger constantly against his coffee cup. Hell, it was funny.

Gabriel sat at the breakfast table, yawning into his coffee cup and wishing he were still asleep. He had showered too, and put on pajama pants and a T-shirt in deference to Mrs. Watson, their housekeeper. She came in every day shortly after seven, specifically because she was determined to send Ethan to the office with a hot breakfast.

She fussed over him like a mother hen, Gabriel thought, and then grinned. She did the same for Gabriel with lunch before he left for the day. A hot lunch, every single day. Of course, with his upbringing he didn’t take it for granted the way Ethan did. But then his mother, unlike Ethan’s, had never cooked anything more difficult than a hot toddy for herself. Thinking about it, Gabe reconsidered. Angelica’s philosophy was that anything requiring an appliance was the domain of domestics. In fact he doubted if his mother had ever been in their kitchen, except to fire the servant who foolishly forced her to set foot in the place.

Amused, he stared at the plate in front of him. An omelet, bacon, mixed tropical fruit and hash browns. All freshly made. Freshly squeezed orange juice for him, grapefruit juice for Ethan. And apple muffins, still hot from the oven.

The white-haired woman bustled through the kitchen door with a fresh carafe of coffee.

“Thanks, Mrs. Watson.” Gabe smiled up at her.

She filled it and stared at him. “Hmpf. Why are you awake so early?”

“Ethan woke me up. Made me get up too.”

She stared at Ethan. “Why did you do that? Now he’ll just be underfoot.”

Ethan frowned at her. “I didn’t make him get up.” Then he frowned at Gabriel. “Don’t blame me. Go back to sleep until noon like usual.”

“No, I’m awake now.”

Ethan cut his omelet ruthlessly with knife and fork. “Then stop complaining.” He shoved a forkful into his mouth. “Read the paper.” He looked at his watch.

“The driver will be downstairs in ten minutes,” Mrs. Watson said as she headed back into the kitchen. “Don’t keep him waiting or traffic will be terrible.” The door swung closed behind her.

Gabriel snorted into his cup, as Ethan glared at him.

“I’m glad you’re so happy this morning. What are we going to do about Mariella?”

“What is wrong with you?”

Ethan kept eating, silently. Radiating tension, his mouth tight.

Gabriel crashed his cup into the saucer. “Look, I’ll call her. I’ll make a date for her to meet us after work, here or at Insatiable. Or at Crave.”

“We scared her.
I
scared her. She ran off in the middle of the night!” Ethan dropped his knife and fork on his plate. “She’s the one, Gabe, and I don’t know if we’ll see her again.”

Gabriel stared at his friend. “She is the one, which means we’re the ones for her too. Can you doubt that after last night? She responded to us, both of us, perfectly. She matched us. A girl we met yesterday, a virgin, and she had us both harder than any other woman we’ve known. Hell, a little experience and she’ll probably put us in the hospital.” He sat back. “Let’s wait until we hear what she has to say, all right? I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Like what?” Ethan growled.

“Tied up in knots over a woman. Over anything, man. I’m the one with the short temper, and you’re always Mr. Cool. Nice to see the roles reversed for once.” He grinned at his best friend.

Ethan stood, throwing his napkin on the table. “Yeah, yeah. Nice for you, you mean.” He pulled on his suit jacket and picked up his briefcase.

“I like this grumpy, irritated Stone. Makes me feel all mellow. Not such a fucking head case, for once.” Gabriel shoved a forkful of hash browns into his mouth.

Ethan studied him, frowning. “You’re not a head case, Gabe. Never were.” He headed toward the hallway, throwing over his shoulder, “Let me know what she says. I’ll leave word your call should come through, no matter what. You’d better eat that entire omelet, by the way. Mrs. W doesn’t appreciate breakfast leftovers.”

Gabe sighed and mentally committed himself to extra reps in the gym before he dug into the rest of the food on his plate.

Mari dug into her pedals, pushing her muscles to make it through the intersection with the light, burning yellow into red as she flew into the junction, competing with the cars and busses for space in the lane. She was seven packages into her day, on the third uptown leg.

Her mind kept wandering back to last night’s events. Dangerous, even when she wasn’t knee-to-knee with metal vehicles six times her size. Manny’s voice in her ear was an irritant, buzzing in and out like a fly.

Plus, she was dog-tired. Muscles she didn’t even know she’d had were biting back at her, bitching and reminding her of soft sheets, hard bodies, firm lips, and—
God!
—the sensation of being one with another body. The welcome invasion of hot male parts into her softer, wetter female parts. It was a feeling she’d never had, and the very real possibility was that she had had that accord with not one but
two
gorgeous, intensely sexy men who seemed to think she was their intended mate, of all things.

After a lifetime of being buddies, pals, teammates and wing man for her male friends, this was an interesting turn of events.

She noted the two cabs ahead of her, jockeying to pass each other. Held back by the limo in the far lane and what looked like a tourist lookie-loo ahead of them. Oh, help, some out-of-towner from the Midwest who thought driving in the city would be just like cruising Main Street back home and now was either hopelessly lost or scared to death or simply looking at every building like it was a miracle.

Probably looking for free parking in midtown.

Only three more blocks and she could unload package number seven, then kick over two blocks and up one and get package number eight, easy as pie if Joe Tourist would put his foot down in the Ford Focus.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a quick movement as a teenage couple stepped off the curb directly in her path, in the middle of the fucking block—
holy crap!
She swerved to avoid the suddenly frozen duo and found herself right in the path of one of the cabs. Too close to avoid the front right corner of the bumper…and she went tumbling over, pushing the bike away as she skidded across asphalt toward the back wheel of the other cab, braking hard for the light. She twisted desperately at the last minute and knocked into the curb instead, glancing her helmet against the edge.

Blackness fell, suddenly and completely, just before the pain hit.

Ethan was halfway through his weekly audit of the heads of the bank’s various divisions, when his door opened and his personal assistant poked her head in and pointed at the blinking light on his phone.

“Mr. Stone, that call. It’s about a Miss Amorini. She’s been in an accident—”

Before Amanda could even get the sentence out, Ethan had the phone to his ear. “Ethan Stone. What happened?” He listened, standing up and grabbing his jacket as he did. He looked at Amanda. “Get my car,” he barked. “Got it,” he said into the phone. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Give her whatever she needs, yes. I’ll take care of the forms when I get there.” He dropped the phone and turned to the men and women around his conference table. “This meeting is finished. I’ll be back with you individually within twenty-four hours.” Without pausing for the rising buzz of questions, he headed for the elevator. As he passed Amanda’s desk, he threw over one shoulder, “Cancel everything for the rest of the day. You can reach me on my mobile.” The doors opened and he stepped in, pressing the button for Gabriel as he did.

Gabe answered, “Yo. Haven’t gotten Mari yet.”

“She’s in the ER at Bellevue. Some kind of accident. Just got the call, I’m on my way to the car. Meet you there.”

“How serious?” Gabe’s voice was stark.

“I don’t know. There were no details. They were going through her stuff and found my card, called me. Damn. I told them to take care of whatever, we’ll square it when we get there.”

“I’m on the way.”

Ethan exited the elevator. “Gabe! Be careful. I don’t want two accidents, okay? I know you’re going to get on that bloody cycle.”

“I’ll be careful, man. No worries.”

Ethan stopped, his hand on the car door. “Promise me, Gabriel. Promise me you’ll be careful getting down there. I can’t—I
won’t
do this twice.” He waited.

Gabe sighed. “I promise, Ethan. I will be a responsible motorcycle driver, wear a helmet and stay at the speed limit, in my lane, okay? You get to the ER and I’ll meet you there.” He hung up abruptly.

Ethan sighed, too, then ducked into the car. “Bellevue ER. Now.” Eli nodded once and pulled into traffic.

The ER was crazy, of course, with everything from babies who had swallowed something to people cradling bloody limbs and looking woozy. Ethan ignored them all, pushing his way to the window.

The woman spoke without looking up. “Help you?”

Ethan leaned on the frame. “Ethan Stone. You called me about Mariella Amorini.”

“Take a seat. We’ll call you.”

He leaned closer. “I don’t think so.”

She looked up,
looked
and said, “Uh, yes. Amorini. Second curtain through the double doors.”

Ethan smiled. “Thanks. Gabriel Pryor will be showing up momentarily. Tell him too.”

“What does he look like?”

“You’ll know.” Ethan moved to the doors. “Trust me,” he said under his breath. “You’ll know.” He pushed through the doors, took in the space and then moved to the second curtained bed, whipping back the curtains. “Jesus,” he breathed.

Mari lay there, unconscious or asleep, he guessed. Pale. They’d cut off her jacket and shirt—they were lying on the floor in pieces, bloody. Her helmet sat on top of them, a dent in the crown. There was a large gauze dressing taped around her lower right arm, and another on her right calf where she’d slid, he thought.

Her right cheek was marred by a bruise. Her shoulder was bruised too.

He stared at her.

Gabriel pushed by him, froze. “Damn.” He stepped up and took one of her limp hands in his. He kissed her fingers. “Did you see the doctor yet?”

“I got here just ahead of you.” Ethan watched his friend. Gabriel was gentle, focused on Mariella. He touched her unmarked cheek, kissed her fingers again.