Hoodwinked (9 page)

Her heart turned cartwheels as she jumped up and ran to answer it. There was only one person who might call this late at night. She smoothed down her loosened hair and cursed her lack of glamour. She was wearing jeans and a very old blue tank top, and there wasn't a speck of lipstick on her face. Oh, well. She was too glad to see him to care how she looked.

She threw open the door, her face aglow, her eyes brilliant. It was Jake, in corded tan slacks and a yellow designer knit shirt. His face was worn and tired, and he looked as if he hadn't slept in days.

“Got any coffee?” he asked with a tired smile.

She laughed. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Come in!”

He moved into the kitchen, his dark eyes warm at the excitement on her face, at her obvious joy in his presence. She might be a saboteur, he thought, but she was pure delight to be around. She brought out qualities in him of which he'd been unaware. Protectiveness. Possessiveness. Easy conversation and quiet pleasure in the simplest things. He'd found himself hoping against hope in the past few days that she was as innocent as she seemed. In another week he'd have his answer, one way or another.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, needing to hear her admit it, even though he could see it in her face.

“Yes,” she confessed. Her eyes searched his with helpless hunger. “I thought you'd been…I thought you'd quit your job,” she corrected.

“They sent me to another plant for a few days,” he said. That was almost true. “I didn't expect to be gone for so long.”

“Are you back to stay this time?” She had to know. “They aren't going to transfer you, are they?”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “I don't think there's any threat of that.”

She smiled. “I'm glad.” Her hands fiddled with the edge of her top as she fought for words. “I'll pour you some coffee.”

“Where's Bagwell?” he asked, glancing at the empty cage.

“Watching television,” she said. “Eating popcorn and probably the bowl it's in. He likes murder mysteries. He screams along with the victims,” she said, laughing.

He glanced into the living room. “Amazing that he stays put like that. Most birds like to roam.”

“Amazons are climbers, not fliers. And Bagwell isn't too adventurous. He's afraid of red things.” She grinned. “He won't go near my Christmas plates.”

“That has to be an advantage from time to time,” he said.

“I suppose it is.” She poured coffee into a cup, almost spilling it, and handed it to him. “Do you want to sit in here, or watch the movie with us?”

“What is it?”

She told him.

“I've seen it, but I don't mind seeing it twice.” He followed her into the living room and sat down beside her on the sofa.

Bagwell giggled and jumped off onto the cushions, his head down as he made a pigeon-toed, parroty dash toward the newcomer.

“Look out, he bites,” Maureen exclaimed.

But Jake just extended his brawny forearm and let Bagwell climb aboard. He swung him over to the arm of the sofa and let him off. “Stay there,” he told the bird with the same authority in his voice that Maureen had heard only once or twice.

Bagwell knew the boss when he heard him. He settled down on the sofa arm with a nugget of popcorn in one claw and left well enough alone.

“How do you do that?” Maureen asked, fascinated.

He leaned back with his arm around her shoulders, as casually as if they'd known each other for a
lifetime. “Years of practice yelling at subordinates,” he mused, glancing down at her. “I've been shop foreman a time or two in my life,” he added to keep her from asking more questions.

“Oh.”

“How are things going at the office?” he asked at the next commercial.

“Fine, I suppose,” she said. She looked up at him, her eyes soft and quiet on his very masculine features. He had such a strong face, she thought dreamily.

“Any new gossip?” he persisted.

“Just that they're still looking for the problem with the Faber jet,” she said. “Charlene said that one of the vice presidents thinks Mr. MacFaber is on his way back. I guess he's going to start putting pressure on his private detective.”

Jake looked thoughtful. “There's an idea.”

“And Mr. Blake thinks it might be…someone mechanical,” she said hesitantly, unwilling to come right out and say it.

He glanced down at her curiously. “Just what I thought myself.”

She cleared her throat. “Want some more coffee?”

“If you won't have to make a fresh pot,” he agreed. He looked down at his strong wrist. “I have to go by ten-thirty. I'm expecting a phone call.”

It was almost ten-fifteen now, she thought miserably. She was disappointed at that, but astonished at what she saw on his wrist. She got up, trying not to appear as uneasy as she felt, and poured coffee into the cups. But her mind wasn't on coffee. It was on the watch he was wearing. She knew a Rolex when she saw one, and she knew what they cost. He couldn't have bought that on a mechanic's salary.

It was almost confirmation of the theory that he had to be on somebody's payroll besides MacFaber's. For one sweet moment she wondered if he might be MacFaber's private detective. They made good money, didn't they?

She turned, watching him watch the mystery movie. Wouldn't a detective like such a program?

She took the coffee back in and sat down beside him. Life was taking on a whole new meaning.

“Do you like mysteries?” she asked during a lull in the action.

“Very much,” he confessed. He smiled down at her. “I like solving them, too.”

“So do I. I always wanted to be a secret agent.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Really?”

“But I never actually did it, of course,” she murmured. “Like everything else in my life, it was just a dream.”

He was watching her closely, making lightning adjustments. He had to find out the truth about her. He'd missed her ridiculously while he'd been away. Being with her again was like coming home.

She tried to watch the program, but she was all too aware of how late it was and how little time she was going to have with him. He might even have forgotten that he'd promised to take her bowling on Saturday. He might not want to anymore.

His big hand slid between them, and curled around hers, tightening as the action unfolded on the screen. She wasn't even watching. Her eyes were on his broad face, riveted to its hard strength.

“Why don't you ever answer your damned phone at night?”

She knew she'd gasped. She always unplugged the telephone at nine, so that she could watch television undisturbed and go to bed when she pleased without nuisance calls. Those were the only kind she ever got, now that her parents were dead. It had never occurred to her that Jake might be trying to telephone her.

“I unplug it at nine,” she said in soft disbelief.

“I called every night at eleven,” he replied. “It was impossible to phone you at work, and I was tied up until the wee hours every night.”

“You tried to call me?” she asked, aghast.

“Don't look so surprised,” he murmured dryly. “Aren't you even experienced enough to know when a man's interested in you?”

She lowered her eyes. “It can be unpleasant to build sand castles in the surf,” she said noncommittally.

“It can be unpleasant to build them anywhere.”

His hand, big and warm and gentle, caressed hers. It had a rough feel to it, and that puzzled her. It had been her experience that men's hands were relatively smooth when they were used to building or fixing things. Callused hands usually went with rough sports.

“You have to take chances in this life if you want to accomplish anything,” he continued.

“So they say.” Her eyes sought his, huge and bright through the lenses of her glasses. “But I'm afraid to take chances.”

“Are you really?” he asked, voicing his thoughts out loud. His hand left hers and curled around her nape, tugging her head up so that her mouth could meet the slow, confident descent of his.

She gave in almost immediately. He made sweet surges of pleasure run through her body like fire when he kissed her. It was never the same kiss twice, either. This one was slow and steady and a little rough. It was less expert than his others, almost as if he'd been experimenting before and he was deadly serious now.

“Bagwell…” she began.

“Damn Bagwell. Come here.” He pulled her across his lap in one easy, smooth motion, his mouth covering hers to still any protests she might make.

His big arms swallowed her, enveloped her. He twisted her so that her stomach was pressing against his, and one enormous hand went to the base of her spine to hold her there when she panicked and tried to pull back.

She'd never felt the full arousal of a man's body before, and it embarrassed her. But trying to struggle embarrassed her more, because his body made an emphatic statement about what her movements did to it, and against her lips, he groaned harshly.

With a faint sigh, she gave in. She didn't want to hurt him. Besides all that, she thought bitterly, she might never be held like this again. And she was beginning to care very much about this big, quiet man.

She pressed one slender hand flat against his shirt front, fascinated by the sheer breadth of his chest and the cushy warmth of it under the thin knit fabric.

His heartbeat increased at the unconscious motion of her fingers. “Unbutton it,” he said against her mouth.

She felt an explosion of sensation. Did he mean it? Was he giving her free license to explore him, to
touch him? She'd never wanted to touch a man under his shirt before. But then, Jake was no ordinary man.

She lay against him, feeling his body throb while she debated whether or not it would be sane to do as he asked. But she was awash in new pleasures, enjoying the scent of his cologne, the hard beat of his heart under her hand, the feel of his big body all around her in a feverishly close intimacy. She looked up into stormy black eyes in a face like stone, and she didn't even hesitate.

Her unsteady fingers went to the top three buttons and she unfastened them one by one, disclosing a darkly tanned chest thick with black, curling hair. She hesitated, her eyes mirroring her uncertainty as she looked up at him.

“Don't stop there,” he said quietly. “I can't think of anything I'd enjoy more than feeling your hands on me.”

M
aureen looked up at Jake with her heart in her eyes. He'd been kind to her, and she felt like a woman when he kissed her. But he was rushing her into an intimacy that she wasn't certain she was ready for. She was a slow starter. She needed time.

He felt her hesitation. His big hand touched hers where it paused at the fourth button of his shirt. “I'm not asking you to give yourself to me,” he said quietly. “I want you to touch me. But not unless you want it, too.”

That relaxed her tightly strung nerves. She lay against him, burying her face against his hair-roughened skin where the fabric of his shirt was open, feeling him go taut. “I can't go to bed with you,” she said in a hesitant whisper.

He stroked her hair gently. “You will, eventually,” he said. “But we'll go slow. Come up here and kiss me. I've got to go in five minutes.”

“How unflattering,” she managed with a nervous laugh, glancing up. “You can keep up with the time—”

“I have to. I'm a businessman first and foremost,” he murmured dryly. He bent and put his mouth over hers, holding the faint pressure until the kiss broke through her reserves and forced her to link her arms around his neck, pushing upward to coax his mouth closer.

“Is this what you want?” he asked huskily, and his hand went behind her head. The kiss was long and slow and terribly arousing. He didn't try to undress her, or even touch her intimately. The most intimate thing he did was to smooth her hand against his chest and press it hard over his heart while his mouth worked against hers with increasing ardor. The controlled ferocity of the kiss made her body writhe against his, and that was when he suddenly put her away and got to his feet.

She lay there with Bagwell fluffed up and half-asleep at the foot of the sofa, watching Jake move away to light a cigarette with his back to her.

“I have to go,” he said shortly.

Oh, Lord, she thought, I've done it now. He'll go away and never come back…

He turned then, and she saw his broad face dark with frustrated passion, hard with desire. And she knew without being told that he wasn't going to go away. If she was enthralled, so was he. He might not like it, but he was as helpless as she was. The chemistry between them was too sweet to ignore.

She was suddenly glad that he was a mechanic, and not some rich man with designs on her virtue. At least, even if he turned out to be on Peters's payroll, he was just an ordinary man. She could live with an avaricious streak, she told herself. She could live with anything, rather than lose Jake.

“Deep thoughts, Maureen?” he asked quietly.

“I'm glad you're just a mechanic,” she said softly. “Just an ordinary man. I like what you are.”

His face went harder. “Maybe I'm not what I seem to be,” he said, because her ardor had shaken him.

She wondered then if she'd been right all along, and he really was a saboteur. But it didn't seem to matter. “I don't care what you are,” she replied recklessly. “It doesn't matter.”

“You might find that it could matter a great deal,” he told her, his dark eyes stormier than ever. He checked his watch and cursed under his breath. “I've got to go. I'll see you at work tomorrow.”

“All right.” She got up, her legs wobbly, her hair wild, her lips faintly swollen but still hungry for his.

He caught her hand in his and walked with her to the door, pausing to reach down and press a long, smoky kiss against her open mouth.