Flirting in Traffic (5 page)

But after Kitten, he was in the mood to take it all right. In spades. He wasn’t looking for any serious commitment, granted. Not after everything he’d just been through. Fortunately Kitten seemed like the type who was just out for a good time, which worked just dandy for him.

He was certain she’d enjoyed the sex as much as he had so he’d sure as hell like to know what made her run out of his condo like she was a fugitive. Surely he owed her at least a phone call. What if something catastrophic had occurred?

“I want to know how to get in contact with her but she’s not listed. Could you ask Carla for her number?”

Jess shrugged before he headed out the door. “Why don’t you make things easier on yourself and just call Caleb? It’s not like you don’t know the little minx’s license plates,” Jess said with a lascivious rise of his eyebrows. He stuck his face back in the crack of the trailer door before he shut it.

“And hey…if you manage to find her try not to let her get away this time, okay? This is exactly what you need—a hot fling to help jolt you out of this depression you’ve been in since Dad died…and since Julia left you.”

Finn just gave his brother a bland look. In truth, he was none too pleased that he’d resorted to his little brother’s tactics for soothing grief, not to mention a bruised ego and a boatload of self-doubt. The image of Esa scowling at him from the driver’s seat of that Ferrari flashed across his mind’s eye.

Rebound reaction or not, Finn was going to find her.

Finn glanced at the marquee in the lobby of the modern, sleek high-rise on Michigan Avenue. He sensed the security guard’s forbidding stare on him. Shit. He probably should have changed out of his dusty work clothes before coming. He’d rather catch Kitten off-guard by knocking on her front door instead of scaring her off with a doorman’s phone call. But the security guard was never going to allow him on the elevators to the exclusive residential section of the building without an okay from Kitten.

He studied the marquee while secretly scamming how to get past the guard. A mane of dark red hair caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

He nodded once at the security guard a few moments later as he headed toward the bay of elevators on the left—the ones that led to the businesses instead of the residences. He stayed at a distance and watched while Kitten got onto an elevator by herself.

The floor indicator showed that she got off on the twenty-first floor. He pushed the up button.

What a stroke of luck. Not only to have seen her, but that she’d gone to the business section of the building instead of the residences. His cousin, Illinois State Trooper Caleb Madigan, had been the one to inform him of Kitten’s address. Caleb had whistled into the phone when he’d traced the license plates.

“Pretty fancy digs, Finn. Thought you weren’t interested in the high-flying type after Julia.”

“Just give me the address, Caleb.”

“And this wipes my debts clean from the last poker game?” Caleb had asked anxiously.

“Yeah. You’re free until I take all your money again at Grandma Glory’s Halloween party.”

That had been sufficient assurance for his cousin. “All right, but you didn’t hear any of this from me.”

Within seconds Finn had had one Kitten Susan Ormand’s vital statistics at his fingertips, including her home address and telephone numbers.

Finn was familiar with the building where she lived since his firm had been located just blocks away on Pearson Street. He and Jason occasionally came here for lunch at an Italian restaurant on the third floor.

He stepped off of the elevator. There were only three large offices on the twenty-first floor—an insurance business, a real estate company and the offices of
Metro Sexy
magazine. The latter was the only one that showed any signs of life.

Metro Sexy
—wasn’t that the name of that singles’ magazine that had organized the asinine flirting in traffic scheme that Jess was involved in? Jess…and apparently Kitten as well. Kitten’s bold license plates flashed into his mind’s eye. Could it be that Kitten worked as well as lived in this building?

The door was unlocked. Although the receptionist’s desk was empty, the person who manned it must have just stepped away for a moment, given the evidence of an opened bag of chips and soda can sitting next to the keyboard of a powered-up computer and the radio tuned to a local station.

Otherwise not a sign of life stirred in the luxurious offices.

Finn headed toward the walnut-paneled hallway behind the reception area. He hesitated only briefly when he saw the sign that read
Kitten Ormand, Publisher
next to a partially opened door
.

She sat behind her desk. The sight of her caused a surprisingly strong feeling of grim satisfaction and possessiveness to surge through him. Her expression of stunned disbelief segued to one of rising panic when Finn shut the door behind him with a brisk bang and narrowed the distance between them.

“We have some unfinished business, Kitten,” he informed her.

Esa conveniently transferred her anger at herself for sleeping with a complete stranger onto her sister.
Rachel
was the one who had set the stage for her impulsive, completely out of character behavior with all that insistence that Esa drive her glamorous fast car and plotting with Carla about that stupid flirting in traffic chat loop. She’d been
planning
for Esa to get some action.

As if Esa wasn’t capable of getting a man in bed on her own.

If she wanted to, anyway. Which she hadn’t. Not until Rachel and Carla foisted Finn Madigan on her.

What sane woman would refuse
him
?

Her fury had only escalated when Rachel wouldn’t answer her cell phone. Esa knew perfectly well that Rachel’s phone had practically been grafted onto her ear since she was twenty years old. So her refusal to pick it up the morning after Esa’s ignominious night of sexual promiscuity was undoubtedly intentional. Obviously Carla had gotten to Rachel first and spilled the news about Esa leaving the bar with the drop-dead gorgeous Finn.

She and Rachel were very close but there were times when Esa was sorely tempted to wrap her hands around her sister’s swanlike throat and give a healthy squeeze.

Esa reached a sleepy-sounding Carla as she drove down Lake Shore Drive to visit her parents in Evanston. She didn’t even give her friend a chance to say anything but a groggy “hello” before she launched into her attack.

“Tell Rachel to stop avoiding me.”

“Well, good morning to you too. What are you so grouchy about?”

“I’m not grouchy. Just tell Rachel to stop avoiding me. Is she on your other line right this second?”

Esa could tell by Carla’s prolonged pause that she’d guessed accurately.

“You already told her about Finn, didn’t you?” Esa snarled even more than she’d intended when a silver Porsche cut her off. What was it about driving a sports car that brought out the competitive idiot in everyone? She jerked Rachel’s convertible into the outside lane and sped past the Porsche.

“Why, is there something juicy to tell?” Carla asked brightly.

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“Uh-huh,” Carla replied skeptically. “I hope you’re not p.o.’d at me for not correcting Finn when he called you Kitten last night before he asked you to dance. He got the idea from the license plates. I just thought it was sorta funny considering how you hate Rachel’s nickname.”

Esa’s eyelids narrowed in the bright sunlight bouncing off Lake Michigan. Finn had made
a lot
of mistaken assumptions about her thanks to Rachel’s sophomoric vanity plates. “Why does everyone insist on calling Rachel that stupid name? She’s twenty-seven years old for God’s sake, not a gum-smacking Mouseketeer.”

“It’s sexy—fits her image. She’s had it legally changed, you know,” Carla stated matter-of-factly.

Esa rolled her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood to talk about Rachel’s sexy image. “Carla, listen to me. Listen very carefully. I forbid—do you hear me?—
forbid
you to say a word about me to Jess or Finn Madigan. Pretend like we hardly know each other.”

“Why?” Carla asked, clearly shocked. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to avoid Finn. Esa, he’s the most delectable, yummy—”

“He’s a
man,
Carla, not a midnight snack.”

Esa almost groaned out loud when she registered her own words. Apparently she’d been of a different mind last night when she’d kissed and licked Finn’s beautiful bronzed torso before she’d dropped to her knees and—

Heat flooded her cheeks.

“He’s the best kind of snack,” Carla continued suggestively. “The decadent kind that makes you
burn
calories instead of pack on the pounds. So what are you in a tizzy about? Obviously Finn wasn’t as entertaining as his little brother. I say
little
only in regard to their ages, mind you, because Jess is far from being little in
any
other sense of the word.”

“Thanks for that completely unsolicited piece of information,” Esa grated out. “Now, two things—one, tell Rachel I’m going to catch up with her so she better stop avoiding me. And two, if you say a word to Jess Madigan about who I am or what I do for a living, you can start looking for a new job come Monday.”

“Jeez, don’t hold back, Esa. You’ll get an ulcer if you keep in all that acid instead of spewing it out all over your friends. Do
I
even get to ask you how things went with Finn?”

Esa shot a dirty look at a blonde woman who shot past her in a dark blue Lamborghini. She punched the accelerator and zoomed past her challenger. Driving a fast car did strange things to people’s personality, no doubt about it.

“How did things go with Finn? They went awful.
Terrible.
Now you know, so the answer to your question is
no
. Don’t ask me any more about Finn Madigan. Not if you value our friendship.”

Esa understood why her parents hadn’t answered the phone earlier this morning when she found that their handsome, lovingly restored Victorian home was empty except for Felix and Sylvester, their two fat cats. She eventually discovered her mom and dad on their hands and knees in their beloved garden.

“Morning, sweetie.” Lexie Ormond waved a handful of dried-out cattail stalks in the air. She grinned when Esa dropped a kiss on her proffered cheek and straightened her floppy straw hat in the process. “Having dinner at Marisa Cartland’s tonight. Don’t want to be sunburned. She’s thinking about selling her house—too large now that her kids are in college.”

“Think she’ll let you sell it?” Esa asked, referring to her mother’s profession as a residential real estate agent.

“You know your mother. She’ll have the listing by the time hors d’oeuvres are served,” her father said. Esa smiled when she saw that he’d just smeared some black soil on his nose as he adjusted his glasses. David Ormond was a professor of physics at Loyola University. His perpetual vague, distracted expression and rumpled clothing coincided with his brilliant yet spacey academic persona perfectly.

He grinned sheepishly when Esa wiped the dirt off his nose.

“Gorgeous weather for October. Kitten said it was ten degrees cooler in Indianapolis,” he said.

“Rachel called this morning?” Now she possessed solid proof that her sister was avoiding her!

Esa’s anger had simmered just below the boiling point the entire time she helped her father plant a maple sapling in the backyard. It didn’t diminish when, despite her mother’s protests, Esa manically raked all the fallen leaves in the large backyard into a great pile.

“The neighborhood kids will have them scattered all over the place by evening,” Lexie said thoughtfully as she inspected her daughter’s efforts.

“Give the little monsters hell if they even
look
like they’re going to jump in my leaves.”

“Oh, Esa, lighten up. Where’s your sense of fun?” Lexie murmured with a little laugh before she set off for the house.

Esa ground her back teeth. Was her own mother in on the
clobber Esa with the message that she’s a grouchy bore
plot as well?

She turned down one of her mother’s delicious lunches, saying she had some important errands she needed to run. She didn’t tell her mellow, easygoing parents that her crucial errand involved finding a way to chew out their flighty youngest daughter.

Esa broke a few land speed records driving downtown to Rachel’s office. She planned to coax Rachel’s administrative assistant into giving Esa the name of her sister’s hotel. But she’d forgotten that it was Saturday and had instead found only a skeleton staff at the offices of
Metro Sexy
. The receptionist recognized her as Rachel’s sister, however, and allowed her to go to Rachel’s office in order to leave a note. Esa would probably speak to Rachel before she got it, but in the meantime it gave Esa an outlet for her fury.

Esa had been in the midst of penning her nasty, scathing missive when seemingly out of nowhere Finn Madigan walked into Rachel’s office.

Her first reaction to seeing his unmistakable form just feet away from her was amazement that she was experiencing a hallucination. But surely hallucinations weren’t so clear. No, the hard angles of his face, the eyes that were currently narrowed on her into concentrated pinpoints of vivid blue light, the sheer vibrancy that seemed to roll off his long, lean body in waves…one couldn’t imagine anything that breathtaking.

What could he be doing
here
?

Then he’d called her Kitten and Esa felt like howling in irritation. Of course the frivolous, promiscuous sex kitten that he supposed her to be was worth going to any length for a virile male to locate.

“What…why are
you
here?” Esa croaked through a dry throat as Finn Madigan ate up the space between them.

“I told you. We have some unfinished business.”

Esa swallowed heavily but it couldn’t abate the rapid leaping of the pulse at her throat. “I-I—”

“You walked out on me,” he finished succinctly. He was so big that the top of Rachel’s desk only reached him at mid-thigh. Esa found herself staring up at a tall tower of glowering man.

“I-I can explain about that,” Esa said in a rush.

He crossed his arms. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Esa glanced down in blind desperation at the note she’d been leaving Rachel and frowned. In her anger she’d not only inadvertently called Rachel her childhood name of Kitten, she’d also spelled
interfering
wrong. She hastily turned over the note and stood. She couldn’t think straight with Finn Madigan staring down at her from such a superior height.

“I realized that I had to be somewhere else,” she said. She picked up a marble paperweight on Rachel’s desk and began fiddling with it nervously.

“And you don’t think you could have let me know that before you left without saying a word?”

“It just came to me all of a sudden while I was…” She trailed off.

“While you were sitting on my bed waiting for me so that we could do it right?”

The paperweight landed with a loud thud on Rachel’s desk. Her gaze shot up to meet Finn’s. How could his voice have sounded soft and suggestive when his eyes burned through her like surgical lasers? He’d taken her so off guard that she said the first thing that came to mind.

“You got it
right
the first time.”

“That’s what I thought. So how come you scrammed?”

Esa’s backbone straightened when she registered his grin. Finn was clearly just as cocky as she’d guessed that first time she’d salivated over him while he strutted around the side of the highway like the king rooster in a hen house.

“I told you,” she said with a chilly tone as she rearranged Rachel’s paperweight, hoping the large crack that nearly cleaved it in half had been there before. “I had to be someplace else. I’m not quite sure why I owe you an explanation anyway. How did you find me here?”

“Where?”

“Where?
Here
,” Esa explained with a trace of exasperation as she glanced around Rachel’s office.

“No, I mean where did you have to be in such a hellfire hurry last night?”

She glared at him. He screamed of insouciant incredulity as he stood there with his arms crossed, his hip slightly cocked and a smirk on his handsome face that stated loud and clear that even though he was asking, he wouldn’t believe a word she was about to say. He had a lot of nerve, treating her like she was a second grader who kept insisting that her homework was devoured by the hungry bear that occasionally took up residence beneath her bed.

“I remembered I had a date,” she told him with affected indifference as she picked up her purse from where she’d left it on the floor.

“‘S ‘at a fact?” Esa wasn’t quite sure why, but for a split second she was sure that Finn had growled the question.

“Yes. It just slipped my mind until that moment.”

“I hope you made it on time.”

“Just the teeniest bit late,” she replied sweetly. She came around the desk, trying to hide her trepidation at the idea of no longer having such a reassuringly solid object between her and Finn.

“So you had a good time on your date?” he inquired warmly.

“Hmmm?” Esa asked, losing the thread of their inane conversation when he suddenly turned and matched her pace as she fled the room. Her heart hammered so hard in her ears she almost couldn’t hear her own voice.

From the corner of her eye she saw how crisply white his t-shirt looked against his tanned skin and the gray flannel shirt that he wore casually over it. If the pair of faded jeans that he wore fit his lean hips, long thighs and tight butt any better he’d have jean companies shouting out offers for him to advertise their product while he sauntered down the city street.

Yeah, Carla had pretty much been dead-on in her assessment. Finn Madigan
was
downright delicious.

The fact that he, like his brother Jess, was undoubtedly used to having sexy young things throw themselves at him on a regular basis didn’t surprise Esa a bit. What infuriated her was that he clearly thought
she
was one of those vacuous, disposable creatures. He was only pissed off because she’d punched a leak in his swollen male ego. She’d dared to walk out of the line while most females were taking numbers and patiently waiting to get on the Finn Madigan ride. Most of them probably guessed correctly that he gave one hell of thrill while the ride lasted.