Midnight Encounters (3 page)

“Hey, baby, what’s the rush?” one of the baggy-clothed kids asked with a laugh.

What’s the rush? Um, maybe because she’d just stroked, caressed and made out with a complete stranger. If that didn’t make a girl want to flee for the hills, what did?

She ignored the kids and pushed forward, her high heels clicking against the sidewalk. People kept getting in her way, slowing her down, when all she wanted was to get to her building and pretend she hadn’t just committed the most reckless act of her twenty-five years.

Why hadn’t Tony been there?

The question sliced through her so quickly that she stopped in her tracks. For the past five minutes she’d been beating herself over the head for winding up in a stranger’s room, but there’s no way she’d gotten the room number wrong. She’d written it on her hand, for God’s sake!

Furrowing her brows, she flipped over her hand and stared at the three digits she’d scribbled on her palm. Yep. 312. The ink was starting to smear, but there was no mistaking the numbers. She’d gotten it right, which meant that Tony—that jerk—was to blame for this entire mess.

Why hadn’t he shown up? He would’ve called her cell if the plan had changed, wouldn’t he?

Maggie reached into her purse and rummaged around for her phone. She pulled it out, and then groaned. The battery was dead. She tried turning it on, but the thing simply wouldn’t comply, so when she spotted an unoccupied payphone, she made a mad dash for it.

One quarter and five seconds later, she accessed her cell’s message service and heard Tony’s voice.

“Hey, Mags, it’s me. Listen, I’ve got some bad news. We had to make an emergency landing in Tallahassee. Some freak hurricane just swept in and the airline is delaying all the flights. I won’t be able to get a flight out until tomorrow morning, but we’re shit out of luck, babe. I have a meeting with a publisher in the afternoon and I’m heading out to Bora Bora at five. Looks like we’ll see each other next time I’m in town. Probably the end of August. Say hi to the folks at the Olive for me.” Maggie hung up the phone and gritted her teeth. Say hi to the folks at the Olive for me?

Anger swirled in her stomach like a cluster of enraged butterflies, but deep down she knew she couldn’t blame Tony for what had happened. He didn’t control the weather or the airlines, and it wasn’t his fault that a delay she hadn’t known about had sent her into bed with another man.

Hell, she blamed herself for the embarrassment she felt. Why on earth hadn’t she turned on the light when she walked in, instead of hopping into the bed and giving a stranger a hand job?

She was the moron, not Tony.

As her anger slowly dissolved, she took a few calming breaths.
It’s not a big deal. Just a case of
mistaken identity.

It’s not like she’d ever see her blue-eyed bad boy again, unless he decided to show up for that free drink she’d offered, but how likely was that? The man probably thought she was a nutcase.

A very astute assumption on his part.

Unable to stop it, a giggle tore out of her throat. It was a hysterical giggle, but she got some comfort from being able to laugh at the situation. The memory of her stranger’s bewildered blue eyes as he lay on the bed with an impressive erection flashed across her brain, turning the giggle into a full-out laugh. She’d never thought of herself as a wild woman, but after what she’d done tonight, she could never be accused of being
dull.

Exiting the phone booth, Maggie resumed the walk home, her humiliation fading at each click of her heels. Okay, so she’d molested a man whose name she didn’t even know. Big deal. He’d liked it. She’d liked it too. And they’d probably never cross paths again, so really, what harm had been done?

She held back another laugh and crossed the street, and by the time she reached the high-rise she called home, her nerves had started to calm.

She used her key to open the door to the lobby, and then stepped inside and greeted the security guard sitting behind the desk. Considering the building was only blocks away from Central Park, the rent should have been astronomical, but Maggie had lucked out. When she’d moved here from Queens, she’d thought she’d never be able to find a decent place that wouldn’t drain her savings account, but on her very first day in the city she’d hit the jackpot.

Summer Windsor, a former waitress at the Olive, was subletting an apartment owned by her grandmother, and when Summer learned Maggie was currently living in a hotel, she’d offered her spare room. The rent was peanuts, which allowed Maggie to save for college, and she didn’t even mind sleeping on the couch when Summer’s grandmother came for a visit. In fact, she kind of looked forward to those visits. For a girl who’d grown up with zero family, sometimes it was nice having someone dote on her.

As she rode the elevator up to the tenth floor, she glanced at her watch. It was almost one a.m., which meant Summer was either sleeping, staying at her boyfriend’s, or practicing her steel drum.

Please don’t let it be option number three.

Her prayers went unanswered as she opened the door to the apartment and was instantly met by a wave of jingly notes, her roommate’s rendition of “Under the Sea”.

“You’re still at it, huh?” Maggie called as she tossed her purse on the coffee table and collapsed on the couch.

“The wedding is in three days,” Summer said from the other side of the room. “I have to practice.” Summer had set the drum up right in front of the small dining room window. More than once the people who lived in the building across from theirs screamed for her to keep her day job. It was almost comical, actually. Summer, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed accountant, banging away on a steel drum so that she could play it at a Jamaican wedding.

Summer had met Tygue Ortega, the man of her dreams, during a vacation to Montego Bay. The two had fallen head over heels for each other, and a month later Tygue moved to New York. The blonde and her dread-locked soulmate had been inseparable for more than a year now, and they were flying back to Jamaica in a few days to attend Tygue’s brother’s wedding.

Where Summer had gotten the idea to play the steel drum for the joyous event, however, totally eluded Maggie. She couldn’t see Tygue asking his girlfriend to do it, which meant Summer had come up with that brainchild of an idea all on her own.

“I wasn’t expecting you back tonight. Why aren’t you with Tony?” Summer called, biting her lip in concentration as she banged away on the large instrument.

“You don’t want to know,” Maggie replied with a groan. She kicked off her heels and rested her legs on the glass coffee table.

Her ears got a much-needed reprieve as Summer stopped drumming. Her pale blue eyes flickering with curiosity, she rose from the stool and asked, “What happened?” Summer walked over to the armchair next to the couch, and before her butt met the cushion, the entire story spilled out of Maggie’s mouth. The words came out like an out-of-control freight train, starting from the moment she’d entered the hotel room to the way she’d scurried off like a dog with its tail between its legs.

By the time she finished, Summer was laughing uncontrollably, her expression a mixture of amazement, amusement and appreciation.

“Yes, laugh at me,” Maggie said with a frown. “It makes me feel so much better.”

“Oh God, I can’t believe you did that,” Summer blurted between giggles.

“Well, believe it. Honestly, I’ve never been more humiliated in my life. This even beat the time in fifth grade when that snotty Billy Turner made fun of me for being in foster care.”

“Jeez, that
is
bad.” Summer paused. “Was he hot, at least?”

“Hot is an understatement. He was…” She searched her vocabulary for the right adjective and came up empty-handed. “Indescribably good-looking.”

Summer looked intrigued. “Nice bod?”

“Oh yeah.” Maggie sighed. “And he had that whole rebel thing going on. Messy hair, tattoo on his left biceps, the I’m-too-cool-to-shave thing happening.”

“Oooh, like Colin Farrell!”

“Who?”

“Your ignorance about sexy actors amazes me, Mags.”

“This guy wasn’t an actor. He was just a normal man trying to get some sleep—until I showed up and nearly raped him.”

“Did he like it?”

Maggie thought about the erection she’d stroked and fought back a shiver. “Oh yeah.”

“Then no harm done.” Summer shrugged. “He’ll probably wake up tomorrow and think it was all a dream. He doesn’t even know your name, unless you left your driver’s license on the nightstand or something.”

Maggie tucked a stray hair behind her ears and felt a warm flush spread over her face. “As a matter of fact, I did leave something behind.”

Summer furrowed her eyebrows. “What?”

A wail slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it. “My underwear.” After a moment of silence, Summer burst out with a high-pitched giggle that had Maggie flinching.

“Priceless!” Summer cried, wiping tears of laughter from her pale eyelashes. “That is absolutely priceless!”

Her roommate’s uncontrollable giggles brought back the wave of humiliation she’d tried to suppress. All she’d wanted to do tonight was, well, Tony. Instead, she’d made an idiot of herself in front of a complete stranger, and now had to live with the knowledge that she’d stripped naked, hopped into bed with a guy she didn’t know and stuck her tongue down his throat.

She’d be sure to tell her children about it someday.

Not.

Ben strode down East 45thStreet with a cup of coffee in his hand, breathing in the early morning air then grimacing when he inhaled a gust of car exhaust. As he paused in front of a jewelry store to take a sip of his coffee, he couldn’t help but glance at his reflection in the large window.

What he saw was an unshaved jaw, circles under his eyes and a bloodshot expression, all of which confirmed what he already knew—he looked like shit.

It had been another sleepless night for him, only this time it had nothing to do with photographers lurking outside his house and everything to do with the redheaded tornado who had swirled into his room last night.

The more he replayed her stuttering explanation in his head, the less he believed his midnight visitor was one of the vultures. He believed it even less when he’d grabbed the morning paper at the kiosk across the street from the Lester and didn’t see his picture on any of the tabloids on the rack.

If Red—as he now liked to call her—was a reporter, the story of her seduction would’ve at least made the
Tattler
, a rag known for keeping page space open for last-minute scoops.

Since it hadn’t, he suspected she’d been telling the truth, that she’d ended up in the wrong room, in bed with the wrong guy.

And just like Cinderella, Red had left her prince a sweet little parting gift—a pair of pink lace panties.

And an offer for a free drink.

Under normal circumstances, Ben would have tossed the panties and passed on the booze, but last night had been anything but normal.

Sure, the make out session had been hot, but what turned him on most about her was that she genuinely hadn’t known who he was.

Everything he did was highly publicized, from his appearances at the Oscars and the Golden Globes to his trysts with his fair share of models and starlets. Whether he wanted them to or not, women knew who he was. They gawked at him when he passed them on the street. They sent him thousands of fan letters, half of which had a nude photo or two tucked between scented stationary. He’d been called a heartthrob and a hunk, a devil and an angel, and the last time he’d appeared on
TheTonight Show
he’d almost gotten mobbed outside the studio.

So how in fiery hell didn’t she know about him?

Ben had spent enough years tangled up in the film industry to know when somebody was bullshitting him, and he honestly didn’t think he’d been lied to last night. Red had been oblivious to his celebrity status, and considering she hadn’t salivated at the mere sight of him, he suspected she’d be unimpressed about it anyway.

Damn but that was a huge turn-on.

He quickened his pace, his gaze darting around in search of the lot where he’d left his car. He remembered it had been near that theater where he’d seen
Hamlet
last year, and there might have been a Starbucks around too, and a—

Strip club.

Ben stopped so abruptly he nearly fell over backwards. Oh man, oh man. All he’d wanted was to get the paparazzi off his back, but in retrospect, he really should’ve studied his surroundings before ditching his car. He’d parked in front of a damn strip joint.

So much for avoiding scandals.

Resisting the urge to hit himself over his own stupidity, Ben was startled when he noticed a crowd beginning to gather at the curb. He moved closer, growing more and more uneasy as he spotted an army of police officers and yards of yellow crime-scene tape.

Surrounding his shiny silver Lexus.

What the fuck?

Taking a step back, Ben tried to blend into the crowd. The Lexus, he noticed when he peeked over a woman’s head, was stripped completely. The doors were gone, the engine too, from the looks of it, and it looked like a pack of hyenas had pounced on it sometime during the night and picked it clean. That didn’t surprise him. What
did
was the presence of New York City’s finest.

Why did the cops care about his car?

Ben found out soon enough as the woman in front of him leaned over and whispered something to her friend.

“It’s Ben Barrett’s car,” she hissed.

Her friend, a chubby blonde, let out a gasp. “The movie star?”

“Yep. I heard one of the officers mention it.” The woman lowered her voice to a breathy whisper. “They think he’s been abducted.”

What?

It took every ounce of willpower to keep his jaw off the dirty sidewalk.

Head spinning, Ben edged away from the murmuring crowd and walked as casually as his legs would allow. He reached into his back pocket for his cell phone but found nothing. Damn, his cell had been in the car. He glanced around, noticed the coffee shop at the corner, and made a beeline for it.