Skinny Dipping (17 page)

While grappling with Joe in each others’ arms in the hallway outside her apartment, their mouths locked in another passionate kiss, Mimi lost her balance and stumbled. Arms tight around her, Joe toppled backward, his shoulders hitting the wall with a bone-shaking jar. He didn’t stop kissing her, however, and Mimi, impressed by his single-minded focus, laughed breathlessly against his lips.

Abruptly, he broke off their kiss and pushed her gently away, holding her at arm’s length. He was breathing heavily. Unbelievably, he looked even better with his dark hair rumpled and his brilliant white shirt collar unbuttoned and the black silk tie loose around his throat. She liked his dazed expression even better. She had an inkling Joe Tierney was seldom dazed.

She felt a little wobbly herself. She melted toward him, linking her hands behind his neck to draw him down. He held her off, gripping her upper arms, crouching slightly so they were at eye level. He swallowed visibly. If it had been someone less sophisticated than Joe, she would have called it a gulp.

It was surprising, the effect she had on him. It was also a potent turn-on. Oh yeah, she’d been told often enough that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac—hell, it was practically the Werner family motto—but until this moment she’d never fully understood it. She tilted her face, inviting him to kiss her.

He blew out a gusty breath. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“That,” he said and bent forward to kiss her, a favor she immediately returned.

Once more, he pulled back first. “This is not good business,” he said, sounding a little shaky. “You’re Tom Werner’s stepdaughter and I’m in town to determine if one of his companies would be a good investment for my employers.”

“Determine away. I won’t stop you.”

“I don’t want to confuse the issue.”

“I’m not confused,” she whispered, ducking a shoulder and slipping within the circle of his arms. She flattened her hands against his chest. His heart hammered under her palms. He groaned. “I won’t try to pry any state secrets out of you. Promise.”

“It’s not that.”

“You
don’t
think I’ve been sent to keep you occupied while Tom’s CPA flunkies break into BioMedTech and cook the books? Dang.”

Her hands followed a leisurely path over his tuxedo jacket, paying particular attention to the area covering his pectoral muscles. The material was warm with his body heat, supple and well cut and rich. Like him.

“Well?” she prompted, deftly trailing the tip of her tongue along his jaw. His skin carried the slightest fragrance of citrus and sandalwood. Her lips, sensitized by all the preceding kisses, not to mention all the hormones flooding their nerve endings, read the hint of his nascent beard like a blind woman reads Braille.

“I never allow business to overlap with my personal life. I always keep…ah…” He tilted his head back so she could keep going down his neck to the hollow above his clavicle. She obliged. He looped one arm around her, swinging her around and pushing her against the wall, his arms cushioning the impact.

He pinned her, his forearms bracketing her face, his hands tangled in her hair, angling her head gently so he could kiss her more fully, more devastatingly, when she was already plenty devastated. She felt light-headed and primed with sexual anticipation.

“This is nuts,” he said, breaking away. He stared down into her upturned face and looked like he might groan again. He bent forward until his forehead pressed against hers. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, like a guy who’d just finished a marathon and might collapse. “Look at us.”

Unwillingly, she glanced around. They were in a public hallway, and yes, it was a little smarmy, but they were alone. Mostly. She had a sudden image of the neighbors opposite her apartment with their eyes pressed to the peepholes. Critiquing.

“You’re right.” She came to a quick decision: she was in no state to pretend she had any outcome in mind other than that she and Joe end up horizontal and quickly.
Then
they could slow things down a bit. Or not.

Yes, yes, it was impulsive. Yes, yes, she had an object lesson in where such impulses could lead to. But right now hormones were doing the talking, and her body was willing to listen.

She disengaged herself with businesslike brusqueness, smoothing her dress and briefly touching her hair before digging into her purse and coming up with the key to her apartment. She jammed the key into the lock and flung the door open, reaching back and snagging Joe’s sleeve—there had to be cashmere somewhere in there—and pulling him in after her. But he didn’t pull. Startled, she looked around.

Joe stood in the open doorway, straight-arming himself against the jamb. He was
not
following her in. Was
not
scooping her up and storming around the apartment like a testosterone-maddened maniac looking for the bedroom.
Why
not?

She flashed on a sudden image of glum, plump, thirty-five-year-old Jennifer Beesing across the hall, one eye pressed to the peephole as she dolefully stirred the batter for some delicious caloric nightmare, unsurprised that Mimi Olson couldn’t lure a man into her apartment. Jennifer might even call her tomorrow, brownies in tow, to commiserate. Mimi had seen her bring such presents to other single women on the floor. Mimi wasn’t one of them. Sure it had been a while since a man had been here, but that had been her choice.

“Come in!” Mimi whispered urgently.

“I’m sorry, Mimi.” He sounded a little frantic. “The rules work only if you abide by them.”

She couldn’t believe this. She didn’t give a rat’s right ass cheek about his wacked-out rules. Jennifer Beesing had been joined in her imagination by the Gertzes next door, trading spots at the peephole as they hurled invectives at each other (the happy couple were always sniping), yet thinking, “At least we have each other.” Even the decrepit and evil Widow Dinwiddie had made it to the peephole by now and was clucking to herself, “Poor old Mimi Olson. Can’t even get one to cross the threshold anymore. Not surprised. She’s no spring chicken, after all.”

“Get in here,” she commanded in a low voice. Joe’s rueful smile gelled. He took an awkward step back. She could read his thoughts:
Fatal Attraction
time.

She leaned back against the jamb in a retro-fifties siren slouch. She whispered through what she hoped was a sultry smile, “I promise you’ll leave with your virtue intact in twenty minutes.”

“Huh?”

“
My neighbors
. They’ve probably been watching me trying to drag you bodily inside my apartment and they’ve just as probably seen you resist. Strenuously. I have my dignity, you know. Or should I say, ‘had’?”

Understanding dawned. “Oh, shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.” By now, all earlier thoughts of seduction had vanished. She was fighting for her pride here.

“It would really help me out if you would just enter my lair without being physically forced—”

He scooped her up in his arms, catching her so off guard she let out a whoop and flung her arms around his neck. He bent his head, bringing his mouth close to her ear. “Is this better?”

Her heart hammered in her chest. Her ebbing physical excitement rushed back in a tidal-wave surge.
Where’s your pride, Mimi?
she chided herself. She wasn’t going to be resisted twice in one night.

“Only if you don’t drop me,” she managed to grumble. “I would never live it down if your knees buckled under my weight.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “I’ve managed it before.”

“Let’s face it, Joe. You’re not exactly the Adventure Travel type, so there’s a distinct possibility both of us will end up in a pile on the floor here if you don’t get a move on.”

“I work out.” He bounced her up higher in his arms. He didn’t seem to be straining and his heart against her side wasn’t pounding too heavily and he wasn’t all red in the face. So, he probably wasn’t about to stroke out. That was good. Still—

“Come inside until the news is over; then you can go.”

“The news?” he said. “Hey. I have my dignity, too. If I come in, I’m staying more than twenty minutes.”

He had a point. Not a good one, however. He wouldn’t ever have to face her neighbors. “We’ll see,” she allowed.

He dipped forward and planted a deep kiss on her mouth, twirled halfway around, and backed into her apartment, kicking the door closed behind them. Once inside, he stopped and looked around. She followed his gaze, trying to see the apartment through his eyes.

It would look cheap. Not cheap as in slatternly, but cheap as in warehouse-clearance-sale affordable. Unsurprising, since that’s where she’d gotten the cranberry-colored, microfiber five-piece living room suite (sofa, chair, ottoman, coffee table, and lamp). A crocheted rug was heaped at one end of the bean bag chair a former tenant had left behind. It had some crumbs on it. Across the back of the armchair were strewn a half dozen of the couture dresses Ozzie had insisted she take and try on before making her final decision about what to wear tonight. The price tags still dangled from the sleeves of a few.

He’d also insisted she take the accessories that went with each dress, and these, shoes, jewelry, scarves, and even a faux fur shrug, were piled on the love seat. She hadn’t worn any of them. After all, she’d been given orders to wear Grandmother Charbonneau’s redesigned pearl and diamond necklace, which was just about as much glitz and glam as a woman could pull off in one sitting.

In the corner, Grandmother Olson’s oak pedestal dining table acted as her desk, adorned with a laptop computer and a Bubble Jet printer. Writing tablets, magazines, and books overflowed the area next to it. Ceiling-tall twin bookcases she’d found at a garage sale flanked the single picture window. As well as books, they held useful things including a hair dryer, an unopened bag of tube socks, and a mini-microwave still redolent of last night’s popcorn. Opposite the window was the crowning glory of the room, a forty-inch flat-screen plasma television.

Mimi loved television. It was her one vice, watching the drama surrounding a fictional cast of characters unroll on a weekly basis, their problems all tied up, their mysteries solved in an hour or, at most, a season. It was an extremely satisfying way of conducting life.

Of course, up at Chez Ducky she didn’t need—wrong word—didn’t care to watch television. Aside from the fact that they wouldn’t get any decent reception even if she did haul one up there, there were other things to do and a cast of real people who interested her every bit as much as those on
Heroes
or
House.

“Nice,” Joe said. He didn’t sound like he meant it.

She looked again. It wasn’t cluttered, it was comfy, she told herself. Sure, it needed vacuuming and dusting, but what home didn’t? “You can put me down now.”

“Thank God.” He dipped and set her on her feet, straightening, with one hand going to the small of his back. “I gotta do more stretching in the morning.”

“You didn’t have to stand there holding me. You could have put me down as soon as the door was closed.”

“After that smart-ass comment about my knees buckling? Are you kidding? I had to uphold the honor of men over forty everywhere. I couldn’t suggest it. You had to.”

“Men really are at the mercy of their testosterone, aren’t they?” she asked wonderingly.

He nodded.

“Do you ever grow out of it?”

He shook his head. “Doubtful. I was thinking of trying to impress you by pounding my chest but realized I’d probably start hacking.”

Nothing was guaranteed to make Mimi’s pulse jump faster more than a handsome, masculine, self-effacing guy. “Poor old geezer. How about I get you—”

From inside her purse, her cell phone began playing a muffled version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” She had the cell programmed to play the song when she was receiving calls from Uff-Dead clients. “Dang.”

She generally didn’t work at home—Ozzie had tax reasons for keeping his employees on-site—but on occasion, when they were short staffed, she’d have calls forwarded to her cell. Assuming she’d be back early from tonight’s party, she’d done so tonight in exchange for the loan of Ozzie’s gown. Befuddled by spiking sexual hormone levels, she’d forgotten.

“Work. I usually don’t do this from my home.” She shrugged apologetically. She held a finger to her lips, signaling for him to stay mum, and opened the cell.

“Hello. This is Miss Em. Have you pre-entered your credit card information using your telephone’s number pad?”

“Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t be talking to you if I hadn’t already been approved, would I?” a young woman replied.

“Hello, Jess.” This was Saturday. Jess called only on Mondays. Something must be up. “What can I do for you this evening?”

“You can tell me what Mom thinks I should do about Neil. He’s my boyfriend.”

Boyfriend? This was new. “Tell me about it.”

“He might be moving in here with me. We’ve been going out for a while now.”

“For how long?” she asked.

“Three weeks.”

“That’s not very long,” Mimi cautioned.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Jessica exploded. In the weeks since Mimi had answered Jessica’s first call, true to her prediction, Jessica had become her client-cum-problem. She’d play nice until Mimi, or rather Jessica’s mom, said something she didn’t like—which included pretty much everything—and hang up, only to call the next week.

“Nothing. Not a thing.” She caught Joe’s eye. He was regarding her a little oddly, but then it was an odd profession.

“Let me ask you something. Are you seeing the woman I told you about? Have you talked to her about this, too?”

Mimi—and Jess’s mom—had been urging the girl to look for a good counselor. One who, they hoped, did not see any contraindication in letting Jessica have the occasional air-clearing talk with her mom’s spirit.

“Yeah,” came the sullen reply. “She’s damn expensive! She says I got issues.”

“Really?” Mimi tried to sound surprised. “Well, I’m glad you’re willing to pay. Believe me, it’s money well spent,” Mimi said, anticipating a blissfully Jessica-less existence.