Bewitched (12 page)

He needed a distraction, but he was hesitant to pursue the topic of her father. Maybe after she considered things, she'd soften just a bit. She was bullheaded, but not cruel. He decided on the next order of business. “Are you at all nervous about seeing Ralph or Floyd again?”

She gave him a double take. “Nervous?”

“Yes. It would make sense, you know. Yesterday was fairly tempestuous, what with being kidnapped and held at gunpoint.”

Strangely enough, her expression softened. “We were shot at, too.”

“Yes.”

Suddenly she scooted closer and hugged herself up to his right arm. “Harry, I think it's wonderful that you're still determined to protect those old people despite being scared.”

“What?”

“It's nothing to be ashamed of. As you said, yesterday wasn't easy. It even rattled me a little.”

“Well, gee. That makes me feel so much better.”

She patted his shoulder. Then rubbed. Then squeezed. “You have very nice muscles, Harry.”

“Stop that!” Her voice had gone all throaty and warm. “Return to your own seat and put on your seat belt.”

“Sheesh. I was only trying to—”

“Comfort me? This may come as a shock to you, Charlie, but I wasn't unduly upset by what happened. I was, in fact, mostly just concerned for you.”

“What? Now why would you be worried about me?”

“Why, indeed?”

Her lip curled and she gave him a look fraught with disgust. “Because I'm
female?
”

Hiding a smile, he added, “And small. It's the truth, honey, you're on the…short side.”

She stretched out her spine, managing to look an inch taller. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

Now she looked more inclined to punch him than kiss him. He felt relief—and other things he didn't even want to ponder. “My wife was a small woman. Not as small as you, but still considered petite. She hated it that I chose to be a P.I. In fact, she flatly refused to have anything to do with it.”

“How could she be married to an investigator and not have anything to do with it?”

“Ah. Good question.”

“Oh, you're divorced.” She winced. “Is that the reason you broke up? Just because of what you do?”

“I had other options. My father had recently passed away and he'd left me a small fortune, as well as the opportunity to get involved in his business ventures. But I had no interest in such things.” He lifted one brow. “She was adamant that I toe the line, that I give in to her will, but as it turns out…I didn't. And she couldn't stand it. She said my job was too dangerous, and if I didn't give it up, she'd leave me.”

“And she did?”

He nodded. “Without much reluctance, but with a lot of dissension. She's remarried now, very happily. And she controls her husband with a velvet glove.”

“I think your job could be exciting, although so far it's been kind of dull.”

“Is that so?”

“And Harry? I don't own any velvet gloves.”

He glanced at her, then grinned. “I wasn't drawing a comparison, brat. Well, perhaps I was, in an obscure, peripheral manner. You may not own velvet gloves, but I'll bet you own leather ones—maybe boxing gloves. Or possibly even brass knuckles?”

She blushed, giving herself away. “One of the men at the bar had a pair of those. I confiscated them when he kept causing trouble.”

Harry raised a brow, wondering exactly how she'd accomplished that. “You're unlike her in many ways, Charlie. But you're even more controlling.” It dawned on him that he could use this argument to turn her away from her seductive course. He truly had no intention of getting involved with any woman who wanted to call the shots.

“Harry, this may come as a shock, but I didn't ask for your hand in marriage. I just want to try out this…um…”

Knowing Charlie and her penchant for boldness, he decided to help her out before she said something too descriptive, too luring, that would push him right over the edge. He cleared his throat and offered, “Chemistry?”

“Yeah!” She beamed at him. “This chemistry we have going. I like it. I've never felt it before.”

He gulped and almost swerved off the road. He shouldn't ask, because the less he knew, the better, but he couldn't seem to keep the words contained. He
had
to know. “Never, as in…?”

“As in never. The men I've known weren't the type to inspire illusions of lust. It's the truth, and I hope you won't hold it against me, but I'm pretty much inexperienced in this kind of thing.”

He closed his eyes briefly, not enough to wreck his car, but enough to suffer a moment of silence. When he opened them again, he realized nothing had changed. He still could barely breathe. How did she keep doing this to him? “Charlie, when you say inexperienced, do you mean—”

“I'm almost a virgin.”

His head throbbed. “How does a woman remain
almost
a virgin?”

She shrugged. “Once when I was nineteen, I felt rebellious and gave in to this total dweeb who lived close to us. What a mistake that was! I ended up punching him in the nose he was so inept. I mean, I
was
a virgin then, and he was twenty-two years old, and supposedly experienced, but even I knew
more than he did. And he was so obnoxious about it, blaming me.” She snorted in renewed righteous indignation over the slight.

“Good God.”

“Then, when I was twenty-three, I got engaged to a guy I thought was nice. And even though I didn't really want him particularly bad, I figured I should know if we were compatible in bed or not before I shackled myself to him.”

“And?”

“It's a good thing I didn't marry him.” She shuddered in revulsion, then twisted in the seat to face Harry, full of confidences. In a stage whisper, she said, “He peeled off his clothes, and Harry, he had hickeys that I hadn't given to him in the strangest damn places!”

Harry bit his lip.

“Ooh, it was disgusting.” Her voice lowered even more. “And his body wasn't all that great, either. Nothing like yours. He didn't have any hair at all on his chest. Slick as a baby's bottom. Can you imagine?”

Harry, who had a nice covering of chest hair, sighed. Well, hell. “You know, you really could benefit from just a pinch of discretion.”

“I shouldn't have told you?”

“I might have suffered less not knowing.” Her admiration had the ability to fully arouse him from one heartbeat to the next. He could already envision her fingers tangled in his chest hair, smoothing, stroking…

“Why should you suffer? I'm the one who's had to contend with fools and abstinence.”

He choked on a laugh. “Charlie—”

In a mournful tone worthy of the divine, she said, “It really has been rough, you know.”

Dalton's daughter, Dalton's daughter, Dalton's…

She peeked up at him, a study of feminine adoration. “If he'd looked anything like you, Harry, I might have been able
to ignore the hickeys, even though they weren't mine, and even though I can't imagine anyone putting their mouth on him
there.
But he wasn't you and he'd been with someone else. And if I wasn't going to marry him, and of course, after knowing that, I wasn't, then I didn't think I should have to sleep with him.”

Harry didn't think she should have to, either. He didn't particularly want to think of her sleeping with anyone, certainly not a man with a hairless chest, not a man who'd been with someone else and gotten love bites in unlikely places.
What places?
No, he didn't care what places. He didn't want her with any man, except maybe himself, and he was out of bounds.

He pulled up to the curb across the street and a few doors down from where their human targets would be making mischief. “Promise me that no matter what, you'll keep your cute little bottom in my car. I don't want you to start—”

“You think my bottom is cute?”

He bit his tongue. “It's a figure of speech used whenever addressing female bottoms.”

“Oh.”

“Promise me.”

She shrugged. “I don't intend to start a brawl in the middle of the street, if that's what you're worried about.”

“You're unpredictable. I worry about a lot of things.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We have some time before our neighborhood psychopaths are due to exit. There's a pattern to their visits, and they have the timing down. It's my hope to do nothing more than follow them today, see where they go, then perhaps I can turn the authorities on them without involving the proprietors.”

“Why don't the proprietors want to be involved?”

“They want to be involved. Badly. If it was left up to them, they'd have set a trap already and, like vigilantes, exacted their own sort of justice, which I have a feeling is as bloodthirsty
as your own. But my…friend, fears retribution against them if they do so. Being the stubborn cusses they are, they refuse to involve the police. They've called on them a few times, for less serious issues—minor vandalism, loud music, loitering, that sort of thing. And the police were unable to do much more than offer to drive by more frequently. It injured their pride.”

“And so they've given up on the police?”

Harry nodded. “I can understand them. They're older, but resistant to the idea of being frail. All their lives they've been independent, able to handle all situations. They're settled and productive and happy. Then a few months ago the extortion began, and they can't tolerate it, but their pride insists they don't need the police now, not when they couldn't help them in the past. My friend is concerned, of course, but he did promise them he wouldn't contact the law. And actually, I'm concerned that if they did, especially without rock solid evidence, things could become worse. Ralph and Floyd are only minions. They answer to Carlyle.”

“So it's Carlyle you want?”

“Yes, I want him. Badly.” Harry rubbed his hands together, imagining what he'd do to Carlyle. “I detest a bully, but a bully who picks on the elderly ranks right up there with the devil himself. With any luck, once I find out where they gather, I'll be able to link them with more than extortion. They're criminals, and I hope to find them with illegal firearms, drugs, anything that will implicate them with the law, without involving the extortion.”

He happened to glance over at Charlie, and caught her staring—worshipful lust in her big blue eyes. He scowled. “Stop that.”

Her smile was almost sappy. “You're incredible, Harry. A real—”

“Don't say it!”

“But don't you see? You are a hero.”

He bent a severe, utterly serious look on her, determined to make her back off before his control snapped. “I'm not a damn white knight, Charlie. I'm not the man you've been waiting for, even though I have a hairy chest and no unseemly love bites. I'm doing a job, that's all.”

“I saw the way you looked, how eager you are to get hold of Carlyle. You're a good man, Harry. And good men are few and far between. Believe me, I know.”

She looked warm and soft and admiring, and he liked it. He responded to it. She was such an enigma, so strong, so outspoken and confident, yet still so very female. She was quirky, rough around the edges, but so brutally honest she took his breath away. And unlike his ex-wife, she seemed to thrive on the excitement of his job. She actually admired him for what he did, rather than disdaining his choices.

Of course, she also thought he was afraid, and as much as that rankled, he supposed allowing her to believe in some flaws would only add to his efforts to push her away.

He clenched his muscles and forced his honor to the fore-front of his brain, nudging the lust aside. “Your father is a good man, by all accounts.” She stiffened immediately, but he pressed on. “Wouldn't you like to meet him? I could arrange it, you know.”

“That's not necessary.”

“You should be pleased, Charlie,” he said gently, knowing this was difficult for her, glimpsing again that damn vulnerability that squeezed his heart. “He can assist you financially, and he can be a friend, if you'll let him.”

He saw it in her eyes before she even moved. The determination, the cunning. He braced himself, both distressed and anxious, and then she was against him, her hands gripping his shoulders, her body as close as she could get it.

“I don't need a friend, Harry. Right now, I need a lover. You.” She kissed him.

Harry tried to resist, he really did. But as he kept telling
people, he was far from a hero. Mortal men couldn't be expected to withstand such provocation. He made a desperate effort to recite all the reasons he shouldn't kiss her back; it didn't work.

He felt her breath on his jaw, the silkiness of her hair on his temple when she slanted her head. Her tongue stroked tentatively over his closed lips and he groaned.

“Harry, please…”

Before he knew it, his hands were on her body, under her blue-jean jacket, cupping her small, perfect breasts through her sweater, and there was nothing mysterious about them. They were soft and firm and her nipples burned against his palms.
“Damn.”

Charlie panted. She bit his jaw, nuzzled his neck and kissed his throat. Somehow she managed to get one slender thigh up and over his and he helped her, smoothing a hand over that luscious, resilient bottom and cuddling her closer, letting his fingers probe and explore and entice. She straddled his lap and he could feel her feminine heat from the juncture of her thighs against his abdomen, and it made him nearly wild with need. He wanted her naked, in this same position, riding him gently, then not so gently. He groaned.

With her breasts pressed to his chest, her heartbeat mimicked the furious rhythm of his own.