Trick Me, Treat Me (10 page)

Sex with a relative stranger should have felt uncomfortable, perhaps even invasive. But she’d never been more sure of one thing: pleasure like this didn’t happen often. Damned if she wasn’t going to grab every bit of it she could. Besides, she might not know the man too well, but Special Agent Miles Stone certainly excited her more than
anyone she’d ever met. And she liked him—had liked him from the moment she’d seen him standing there in her kitchen. That was enough. For tonight, it would be enough.

“Hold on, Gwen,” he whispered, his lips brushing against her temple as he ground against her in a sultry, sexual dance. “We’re going for a long ride.”

When he pulled out only to slide right back into her, she met his stroke, answered his moan with a cry of her own. She caressed his tight butt, her fingers digging into the strong, masculine muscles, not wanting to miss out on any part of this incredible experience. She matched his pace, and took every bit of what he offered her.

It was the most intense, incredible sex she’d ever known. Deep, fast, wet, hard. Mind-blowing.

He made no protest when she pushed him over on to his back, straddling him and doing some riding of her own. The look in his dark, glittering eyes as he watched her touch herself—cupping her own breasts as she raised then lowered herself on to his shaft over and over again—filled her with a wanton sense of feminine power that she didn’t think she’d ever experienced before.

She held. She took. She clung. She thrust. She writhed. And she came so many times she nearly lost count. Finally, so did he, only to want to start all over again within minutes.

Eventually, they both slept.

H
E WOKE UP
when sunlight brightened the room. Not opening his eyes, he just enjoyed the warmth on his skin. And the warmth of a woman’s naked body pressed against his.

Not a dream. Gwen really had come to him. She had been waiting in his bed when he’d come back upstairs during the night.

He waited for a second, to see if his memory would shift back into place with the coming of the dawn. Nothing. Considering he hadn’t gotten what anyone—including the doctor—could call a good night’s sleep, he supposed it wasn’t too surprising.

Not that he regretted it. He didn’t regret a damn thing.

“Mmm,” she moaned. “It’s morning already?”

“Morning comes early when you don’t go to sleep until five.”

They’d spent three hours indulging in the most erotic, hot and sensual sex he’d ever enjoyed. Or, at least, the most erotic, hot and sensual sex he could remember, which wasn’t saying much. Still, he had a feeling last night had been one for the record books.

When a shrill piercing sound started whining from the side of the bed, he jerked. “What the hell is that?”

She stirred beside him. “My alarm clock. It’s seven. I should get downstairs, the part-time cook is probably here.”

He lay there, wanting to coax her into staying in bed, then thought about what she’d said. “Your alarm clock?”

She mumbled something, then reached across him, smacking at the clock. The whining stopped. “We have nine minutes.”

“How would you like to spend it?” he couldn’t help asking, giving her a possessive squeeze. He finally opened his eyes to see her lying sprawled on his chest.

“Unconscious.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh of disappointment. “Wait a second, back to the alarm clock. You brought a clock with you from your room?”

She nodded sleepily. “I grabbed a few things. I knew I had to get up early.”

So much for thinking she’d been so completely overwhelmed by desire that she’d rushed to his room and slipped into his bed in the heat of the moment. She’d brought her damn alarm clock.

“You know it’s probably not a good idea for us to be seen together here.” Her words were punctuated by a yawn.

“Your aunt gonna nail me with quarters this time?”

She chuckled sleepily. “Heaven forbid. I mean, since we don’t know for sure if the person you’re after is here, we probably shouldn’t be seen leaving the same room this morning.”

He hated for her to leave and tightened his arms around her, tangling his fingers in her long, blond hair. “I don’t want you to go back to your room.”

“Since the plumber can’t come until next week, I won’t be.”

“Plumber? What are you talking about?”

“The one I called about the broken pipe in my room.”

She’d broken a pipe in her room and called a plumber during the night? That guy had to keep some pretty late hours! “I didn’t realize you had plumbing problems.”

She finally rubbed a hand over her face and opened her eyes. Giving him a lethargic smile, she sat up, allowing the sheets and quilt to fall to her lap.

God, what a magnificent sight first thing in the morning. He hadn’t been able to see her during the dark hours, when he’d touched, tasted, stroked and worshipped every bit of her body. Now, he drank her in visually.

She was perfectly shaped, which he’d known by touch. But he hadn’t anticipated the way his body would want her all over again just at the sight of the sunlight sparkling on her hair. Not to mention the way her pretty, dark nipples grew tight under his gaze. The red marks on her neck from
his mouth begged to be caressed away, as did the puffy fullness of her well-kissed lips.

“You keep looking at me that way and nobody in this house is going to get their breakfast,” she murmured.

“Like I care.”

She slid away, evading his hand. “I’m serious. You can’t seduce me out of working. So scoot, back to your room, secret agent man, so I can go start my day.”

“Back to my…”

Then he paused. The sheets and quilt tangled around Gwen’s legs, and his own, were pale yellow. The ones he’d gone to bed under last night had been dark green.

He blinked and sat up straight. “What is going on here?” Mouth dropping open, he stared around the room, noting the yellow wallpaper, the white wicker furniture, the painting of ducks in a pond hanging over a fainting couch.

This wasn’t the room Gwen had shown him to the night before.

This wasn’t his room, period.

He froze. “How did I get here?”

She didn’t make a playful joke, seeming to sense his seriousness. “Are you okay?”

He looked at her, still unable to grasp what had happened. “Gwen, I thought this was my room.”

She tilted her head in confusion.

He explained. “Last night, after you left, I went downstairs to get my jacket from the kitchen, because of the gun.”

“Oh, God, I’m so glad you remembered it!”

“And when I came back,” he continued, “I counted the doors to go back to my room. I thought it was the next one down the hall, but the sign on this room…” He jumped out of bed and stalked to the door, pulling it open, not caring
that he was naked. If somebody was walking by, too bad. “Pretty Boy’s Pad,” he exclaimed triumphantly.

She got up, grabbing her white bathrobe off the floor and quickly wrapping it around herself. She hurried over and peeked out into the hallway, then pushed the door closed. “What are you doing? Do you want to give some little old lady who hasn’t seen a naked man in thirty years a heart attack?”

“I somehow suspect your Aunt Hildy hasn’t gone thirty years without sex. She pinched my butt last night before we left the kitchen.”

Gwen let out a heartfelt sigh but didn’t even try to claim he’d been mistaken. Being goosed by an eighty-five-year-old wasn’t easy to mistake for anything else.

“Someone else might have been passing by,” she said.

“No one saw me, okay?” He pulled the door partially open again. “Read the sign.”

She peeked around the edge of the door, leaning closer to read the small placard. “That doesn’t make sense. This is the Bonnie Parker Boudoir. I moved up here from my regular room yesterday because of a busted pipe.”

“Well, apparently when Clyde Barrow wasn’t around, Bonnie hooked up with Pretty Boy Floyd,” he said, thrusting a hand through his hair in complete confusion. “Somebody was messing with my head last night. I saw a person in the hall. He must have changed the signs.” He didn’t bother to volunteer any more details, feeling stupid enough for imagining some of the stuff he had about the guy the night before.

The color left her cheeks. “You mean you didn’t intend to…you thought…”

“Yeah. I thought
you’d
slipped into
my
bed. I wasn’t about to kick you out of it.”

“And I thought exactly the same thing,” she murmured.

Their eyes met, their stares held. Miles saw the confusion and a hint of embarrassment on her face and wondered if his expression mirrored hers.

Somehow, it hadn’t seemed so crazy to accept an incredibly sensual gift from a beautiful woman during the night. What man didn’t fantasize about an erotic, warm and sultry female slipping into his arms, initiating the kind of intense, incredible sex most guys only dreamed about?

But that’s not what had happened.

For her to think he would have skulked into her room and gotten into her bed…what kind of guy did she imagine him to be?

He shook his head. “I should go.”

He quickly grabbed his underwear and put them on, then removed the leather jacket from the chair where he’d dropped it last night. He couldn’t bring himself to meet her eye. What a screwup. He couldn’t even try to reassure her that he wasn’t some scummy creep, the kind of man who’d deliberately sneak into a woman’s bed at night and start making love to her when she wasn’t even fully awake.

For all he knew, he was.

Before he could get out of the room, however, she planted herself in front of the door. “Stop right there. Let’s get one thing straight.”

If he hadn’t been feeling so low, he’d probably get turned on by the un-Gwen-like tough attitude and tone of voice. When she put her hand flat on his chest, her fingertips sparked the same heated response they had so many times during the night.

Probably get turned on?
Hell…

“I know what you’re thinking.”

He doubted that. And if she did, she’d probably be ner
vous, wondering what kind of man would be aroused—
again
—after the long night they’d had, and the truth they’d just discovered.

“You do, huh?”

“Yes. You’re worried that I’m thinking you switched the signs yourself.”

Not even in the ballpark.
But now that she mentioned it…

“Don’t,” she continued. “I know you didn’t. I know you’re not that kind of person.”

She sounded so sure, so confident of him, which was almost funny since he, himself, had no idea whether she was right or wrong. This amnesia stuff had been an annoyance at first. Now it had become a real pain in the ass. He sensed that something special could be happening between him and Gwen. But until he knew who he was, what he was like—and where he lived, for God’s sake—he had no way of knowing if they could have anything more than last night. And he already felt pretty sure he wanted more.

“So, who do you suppose switched the signs on the door?” he asked, truly wondering what was going on in that beautiful head of hers. “Little green men? Your international arms dealer?”

Her face paled.

“Uh, Gwen, is there something you want to tell me?”

She looked away for a moment, her brow furrowed. When she finally met his eye again, she asked a strange question. “Is there any chance it was my Aunt Hildy you saw?” Her cheeks pinkened. “I mean, I wouldn’t entirely put it past her.” She blew out a frustrated sigh. “She thinks I need a man.”

“Yeah, I got that impression last night,” he said with a grin. Then he shook his head. “But, no, it wasn’t Hildy.” Though he felt almost foolish sharing the details, he admit
ted, “Look, I can’t be sure who it was. I obviously had some blurred vision from being hit on the head. It almost looked like there was this strange light around the guy. He disappeared pretty quickly.”

This time, instead of simply growing pale, she actually leaned back against the wall, then slowly sat on the chaise lounge. She finally looked up at him. “I think,” she admitted, “that there are only two possible explanations.”

He waited.

“Either your suspect knows you’re here and was playing games with you…”

Possible. Though, if he recalled, the bad guys in James Bond flicks usually just tried to
kill
the secret agent, not mess with his head. Plus they usually did it in stupid ways, like with the help of giant sharks in tanks or killer bees or maniacs with steel teeth. Not with beautiful blondes and mixed-up bedrooms.

But this wasn’t a movie and he wasn’t James Bond.

“What’s the other option?”

She let out an embarrassed-sounding laugh. “Or, my Aunt Hildy would say you bumped into one of her friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head in bemusement. “It would probably have been Six Fingers Moe. And he’s been dead for over sixty years.”

“S
O, DID YOU
stay up all night fretting, or did you decide this morning that circles under the eyes are in fashion?”

Gwen knew Hildy would be commenting on her tired-looking face sooner or later today. She’d waited until after breakfast had been served and cleared away. But there was no escaping the innuendo in her question. “I’m a little tired.”

Hildy gave her an expectant grin and wiggled her eyebrows. “Stayed up late making sure our unexpected guest was okay?”

Gwen nodded, ignoring the eyebrow action. “Yes, exactly.” Then, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard by the cook or the part-time waitress, both of whom were busy in the kitchen, she added, “He’s fine, but he didn’t get his memory back yet.”

Hildy didn’t appear too concerned. She still had that knowing glint in her bright blue eyes and remained silent. Gwen recognized the look. Hildy had always had an unnerving way of getting people to spill their guts by simply waiting and staring, until they told all. It had worked on her as a kid more times than she could count. Whenever Hildy would come to visit Gwen and her parents, she’d manage to get all of Gwen’s girlish or teenage secrets out of her within fifteen minutes of her arrival…simply by being quiet and watching.

Not this time. No way.

She busied herself putting away dishes. By the time she was finished, Hildy had helped herself to a cup of coffee—a mix of decaf and regular that Hildy called unleaded with a slug—and was sitting at a table in the empty dining room. Still staring. Still smiling. Patient as ever.

Deciding the best defense was a good offense, Gwen asked, “Did you sleep all right?”

Hildy shrugged, not saying a word.

“No more problems with your hip?”

Another shrug.

“The guests seemed to like breakfast.”

Hildy merely smiled a little more, her sweet face masking what Gwen knew to be an incredibly sharp, strong-willed mind.

But Gwen had a secret weapon. There was one surefire way to get the elderly woman to talk. Giving Hildy a nonchalant glance as she idly checked their supply of linen napkins in the sideboard, she asked, “How’d those bran muffins do yesterday?”

Bingo. Eighty-five-year-olds loved talking about their digestive systems. For five minutes, Hildy reiterated the importance of fiber and her certainty that she would have died years ago had it not been for the magic of Metamucil. Then her voice trailed off and she frowned. “You did that on purpose.”

Gwen grinned, kissed the old woman’s temple and brushed a strand of fine white hair off her face. She sat next to her aunt, sipping from her own cup of strong coffee. “Yep.”

“I want the dirt.”

“There is no dirt. Mr. Stone is safe in his room. I brought him up some breakfast a few minutes ago.” He’d been in
the shower, which was just as well. She sensed he could easily distract her. Sensed? Heck, she knew that for a fact.

When they’d first parted this morning, she’d asked him to stay in his room until the doctor could examine him again. In truth, she didn’t want him wandering the house, running into someone he might not know—but who might know him. As it was, it hadn’t mattered much. The mysterious foreign gentleman had not emerged from his third-floor room, missing the morning meal altogether.

He wasn’t the only one. Mick Winchester hadn’t shown up, either. Her first impulse was to believe Mick was sleuthing or doing whatever it was a “contact” to the feds did. Then, when Dr. Wilson hadn’t come down, she’d rethought her conclusion. She’d lay ten to one odds that if she knocked on the door to the Lady in Red Room, Mick would answer. She suspected she and Miles Stone hadn’t been the only strangers getting friendly last night.

Just thinking about Miles, about seeing him again soon, made her pulse speed up. Yes, she’d sensed his withdrawal when he’d realized what had happened with their room signs. Gwen wondered why she didn’t feel the same way—why the morning hadn’t brought a sense of unease or embarrassment. It hadn’t, though. Whatever the reason, however he’d ended up in her bed, she was glad it had happened. Last night was something she’d never forget, or regret.

Even if it
had
ended with him staring at her like she was crazy for suggesting he’d seen a ghost during the night.

He’d thought she was kidding. She hadn’t corrected his assumption. Heck, she didn’t really believe it herself. But stranger things had certainly happened in this house.

Part of her eagerly anticipated slipping away to his room this morning to continue their discussion. Another part was
jittery as a cat about facing a man who’d touched her in places she didn’t know it was legal to be touched…or that it would feel so darn good. She sighed at the memory, unable to help it, even though it added fuel to her Aunt Hildy’s inquisitive fire.

“So, did you and Mr. Stone get to chat a while last night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t suppose he remembered whether or not he’s married? Or if he’s a psycho killer just posing as a spy or anything, hmm?”

She laughed softly. “He’s not married—we cleared that up before you conked him. And I’m certainly not afraid of him.”

“You’re sure he’s not a button man on the lam?”

Gwen couldn’t recall what that meant. But knowing Hildy, she almost certainly wasn’t referring to a minister on a mission of mercy or anything closely resembling one. “Pretty sure.”

Hildy had such a streak of danger-love running through her blood that she looked for it wherever she thought she might find some. That trait hadn’t served her well in her younger years, when she’d run away from her wealthy Boston family at the age of fifteen and become the girlfriend of a petty thief. She might have gotten bored and come home if that petty thief hadn’t been the cousin of one of Johnnie Dillinger’s gang members.

Today, not many people remembered the details of the charming bank robber and his creative partners in crime. But Gwen knew the stories. She’d sat at Hildy’s knee absorbing them as a kid, the gorier and more dangerous the better.

Though things had changed—
Gwen
had changed—
?Hildy still, on occasion, talked about her past. The family had kept their secret well, so the only one she had to talk to was her niece. Most of the stories still intrigued Gwen. But the idea that her aunt had been at the
real
Little Bohemia Inn a mere hour before the infamous Dillinger shootout of April, 1934, always made her shiver.

That was another reason Gwen had tried to dissuade Hildy from this gangster inn idea, considering the elderly woman’s fragile mental state. The doctors believed Hildy was strong enough to embrace that part of her past and that Gwen should let her. So far, Hildy had enjoyed the chance to blend her teen years with her golden ones, never getting the two mixed up in her mind. And she’d finally found a place where she seemed at home. Ghosts and all. Gwen had never seen her aunt as happy as she’d been since they’d moved here last year. Which made it all worthwhile.

“You do look tired,” Hildy said after the two of them shared a moment of silence. Then she added, “Yet there’s a sparkle in your eye that I haven’t seen in a long time.” The old woman didn’t sound inquisitive, or titillated. Instead, she looked at Gwen with an expression of genuine love. That look told Gwen—more than words might have—how worried Hildy had been about her.

“I’ve been rather unpleasant to be around, haven’t I?”

Hildy shook her head. “No, honey-cakes. Not unpleasant. Just so darned unhappy.”

“I’m not unhappy.” She liked her new life, liked Derryville, liked her home and the friends she’d made.

“That was the wrong word,” Hildy admitted with a frown. “You’ve been…spiritless. Unadventurous. Taking life as it comes instead of taking it by the…”

“I get the picture,” Gwen interrupted with a soft laugh. “Which doesn’t endear you to a person, does it?”

Hildy shook her head in disgust. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Aunt Hildy, maybe I don’t want a life of intrigue, danger and adventure.” But even as she said the words, she questioned them. The past twenty-four hours had been among the most exciting of her life. Meeting Miles, getting caught up in the danger and the thrill…and, oh Lord, the passion. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt more alive.

She knew it couldn’t last. A future with the dashing spy was completely impossible. But, for once, she was going to take what she could get for as long as she could have it. Somehow, being certain they had no tomorrow was giving her the strength to run full tilt into a wild, sensual adventure today. It was as if by already preparing for the moment he left, she could enjoy the time she had. Half-trying to convince herself, she added, “Excitement’s fine, but there’s something to be said for a quiet, safe existence.”

Hildy pursed her lips. “A quiet, safe existence. Like the one your parents lived.” Her voice shook as she added, “That was supposed to enable them to grow old together, wasn’t it?”

Gwen knew what Hildy meant. The moisture in her fine old eyes and the audible catch in her voice said more than her words ever could. Hildy had truly loved her only nephew—Gwen’s dad. And she’d loved Gwen’s mother, too. Hildy had been every bit as crushed by their untimely death as Gwen.

Gwen’s parents had been the epitome of safe, conservative Boston traditionalists. Loving, quiet, restrained. They’d been surprised by Gwen’s arrival, their “change of life baby” they’d called her. But they’d never made her feel unwanted in any way.

They should never have died because of something as foolish as a buckled railroad tie and a high-speed derail
ment. Now, she was able to acknowledge that a part of her had died with them that day two years ago. Without a doubt, it had been the part that had been most like Great-aunt Hildy.

“Point taken,” she murmured.

“What I’m saying, sugar lips,” Hildy continued, “is that you don’t have to live dangerously to find excitement in this world. And living carefully and quietly isn’t a guarantee of safety and happiness.” Hildy glanced out the window, obviously lost in thought. “A person can find thrills in a regular day-to-day life. It doesn’t always have to be about physical danger. Taking an emotional risk can sometimes be much more potent.”

Gwen knew what she meant. She was even able to admit that Aunt Hildy was right. Gwen had not allowed herself to take an emotional risk in a long time…not since her engagement. Even then, part of her had always known she hadn’t given her whole heart away to her ex-fiancé.

So, truthfully, the biggest risk she’d taken in years had happened right in this house.
Last night
. Whew, when she got back into the risk-taking game, she got back in with a vengeance.

“Of course, there’s something to be said for physical risks.” The older woman grinned as she shook her head in disbelief, still gazing at something in the backyard. “Sometimes they can be just plain fun.” She glanced at Gwen, then tilted her head toward the window, silently ordering her to look out. “Nothing like rescuing a honey of a man dangling from a third-floor ledge to get the blood pumping.”

Not sure what Hildy was talking about, and almost afraid to find out, Gwen followed her stare. Seeing a flash of something black against the light gray paint on the side
of the house, she leaped to her feet and hurried to the window. The dining room was in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped building, and she had an unobstructed view of both wings of the house. All was normal on the east side. But on the west…

Her jaw dropped. “Good God!”

A black-clad figure dangled off a third-story window ledge. She recognized him easily, particularly since those taut legs had been tangled with hers a few hours before. Her fingers still tingled from holding tight to that gorgeous hard body of his.

A gorgeous hard body that now hung perilously a good twenty-five feet or so above the ground.

Miles Stone.

“O
KAY, GENIUS
, mental note. Not a great idea to try climbing up the side of a building without knowing whether or not you have a problem with heights.”

He kept a tight grip on the decorative, wrought-iron grate covering the third-story window, willing himself not to look down. Looking down meant acknowledging just how frigging high up he was. Staring straight ahead—counting the miniscule cracks in the gray wood siding—kept him focused and able to pretend he was dangling only two feet above the ground. Not two dozen.

“All you have to do is swing left, back into the tree,” he told himself yet again. Easier said than done. The branch he’d climbed over on was now
above
him—he’d had to bend low to grab the grating. It’d mean a leap to try to reach it. Or else he could jump down and try to land on one that was farther away.

Jeez, it had seemed so simple. Someone had slipped a note under his door, saying the man he was seeking was
staying in the room directly above his. It said to be discreet about his investigation, and that his contact would meet him in the gardener’s shed at noon.

He’d planned to stay put, in his room, trying to relax his brain enough to get some sleep and to get his memories back. But the note had filled him with adrenaline. He could no more just stay quiet, waiting for Gwen to return with his breakfast, than he could have stopped himself from making love to her the previous night. Some situations demanded action, not thought.

Right now, however, thought wasn’t sounding so bad.

“Moron. You couldn’t just stick to the stairs, wait the suspect out, then sneak in after he’d left,” he muttered.

He’d tried that option first. But since he had heard the man moving around behind his closed door, he’d crept back downstairs and formulated another plan. The huge oak tree right outside his window extended almost to the roof of the house. It had seemed like such a simple thing—climb out on one limb, go up a few yards, get in close to the window to see what the perp was doing. Wait for him to leave, then jimmy the window lock, climb in and snoop.

The plan had worked well at first. He’d hugged the tree as he’d scaled it. Focused only on the third-floor window, he’d spent a few minutes watching the portly, nearly bald gentleman typing away on a laptop computer. He ached to get at that computer, to check the files, run through the hard drive for any incriminating data.