In Bed With The Wild One

She clicked on an image of a plain white T-shirt, and then a pair of khaki pants. “And let’s see. Maybe a pair of sneakers and some socks.”

All it took was quickly verifying the inn’s address, keying in her credit card info, and then sitting back and waiting for her new clothes to arrive.

“I love technology,” she said brightly. She felt so smart, so hip, so now, coping with the various challenges of her impromptu adventure.

But what now? She had to do something while she waited. Of course, she was keeping an ear peeled for any activity next door in The Wild One, but so far, nothing. She’d already read her book, and she had no intention of working on that stupid Bentley file. Not here. Not now.

But the Bentley file did remind her that she’d sneaked away from work in the middle of the morning, and left not so much as a note to explain her hasty departure. A quick check of her watch told her that in Chicago time, her parents would have expected her home for dinner about an hour ago. They probably would assume she had a date and refrain from calling out the National Guard for at least a few more hours, but she had to do something.

“E-mail.” It was the only solution. So she sat there at her laptop, composing a good cover story for her nosy, overprotective family. “Hmm…how about Sukie Sommersby?”

A few cheerful E-mails detailing a frantic call from Sukie were a cinch to come up with. “Sukie had another emergency,” she typed, “so I’m off to Miami for the weekend. Don’t worry—everything is fine. You know Sukie! See you on Monday.”

She was just sending the last note when Beau bolted from his perch on the bed and went racing to the armoire. He began to howl—not just meow but howl—and to purposefully scratch his nasty little claws against the beautiful wood.

Emily hustled over to try to pry his paws off the cabinet. “What is it you want, Beau? You can’t want to go inside the armoire, can you?”

He spun around suddenly, bounding to the bed and leaping on top of her clothes, and then just as suddenly dashing back to the armoire, where he started the caterwauling and scratching act again. He repeated this mad dash two or three times.

Emily was struck with a very odd thought. “Beau,” she said out loud, “this can’t really be your way of telling me to hang up my clothes, can it?”

It was the best theory she could come up with. So she dutifully shook out her jacket and hung it, not quite shutting the armoire doors as she toted her skirt into the adjacent bathroom to rinse off as much cognac as she could. She was still carrying the dripping skirt when she noticed Beau seemed to have disappeared.

“Where did he get off to?” she mused. But there was no Beau to be seen. Shrugging, she hung the skirt in the bathroom, and then searched under the bed and behind the rocker. Nope. “Okay, so he must be stuck in the armoire.”

But when she opened the doors this time, she noticed a wide crack all the way around the back wall. And she could see daylight through there.

What was this? A magic armoire with a secret passage at the back? Emily’s heart beat faster.

“Beau?” she called. “Did you go through the crack?”

Peering closer, she couldn’t help but give the partition a little push, and then a little look.

And before she knew it, she’d shoved it open wide, climbed through the back of her armoire, and scrambled out the front of the one next door. There she was, standing in the middle of The Wild One in her underwear!

“This room is so cool,” she whispered, her eyes wide. Cool wasn’t the half of it. The bed frame was shiny chrome, while the spread was black leather, stretched taut against the frame. The footboard looked like the front grill of a motorcycle, and it actually had handlebars that twisted back around the corners. “Yowza.”

It made her want to take a ride on that bed and see where she ended up.

“Yowza,” she said again, although that was not a word she could ever remember uttering before in her entire life. She whirled around in the room, drinking it in. Decorated completely in black-and-white, it had a big poster of Marlon Brando in his motorcycle gang attire from the movie, a black-leather director’s chair near the front window, a dresser that looked more like the counter at a fifties diner, and a big silver trophy sitting on its own special shelf. Beau was curled into a half circle in the director’s chair, and he lifted his head long enough to fix her with those infuriating, all-knowing green eyes.

Emily swallowed, fingering the handlebars. This was like all her fantasies come true. It was adventure and excitement boiled down and turned into a bedroom. And she absolutely loved it.

“Okay, get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You wanted to know more about Tyler, didn’t you? This is your chance to snoop around, handed to you on a silver platter—by a yellow cat.”

She shook her head. Whether Beau had led her here or not, the reality was, she was inside Tyler’s room, and she might as well make the most of it. She chewed her lip, glancing around.

“The duffel bag,” she declared. It was tucked neatly under the leather chair. “Look in the duffel bag.”

But she barely had her hand on the zipper when she heard the sound of the side window scraping open behind her. She spun around in time to see a huge, bulky man vaulting in over the windowsill. Sensing danger, Beau leaped over her head and skidded under the bed.

Suddenly her little adventure had gotten scary. Very scary.

Oh, God, what now? The intruder was even bigger and uglier than that Slab person she’d seen at the coffee shop. He had muscles and bulges everywhere, including his neck, and he looked mean enough to pop a blood vessel just for fun. He also had a dull, vacant squint to his eyes—in her experience, the mark of the terminally stupid.

Not good. Not good at all. Emily could feel sweat drizzling down the neck of her blouse as she frantically wondered if she could scream and if anyone would hear her and how she would explain what she was doing here. She edged along the wall, hoping to make a break for it. But the thug advanced, blocking her path to either the open armoire or the door, and there was nowhere to go.

“Hey, you,” he bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at her. “Don’t move.”

“I’m not moving,” Emily returned quickly. “Not even a toe.”

“Yeah, well, you move a toe and I break it.” His thick lips twisted into a menacing grin. “That’s what I do, you know, like, what I get paid for. Breaking stuff. So don’t tempt me, huh?”

“Not tempting. Not doing anything.” She held herself so still she could hear a rushing sound in her ears. She licked dry lips. “You know, I think you have the wrong room. Could I help you find the right one, maybe?”

He narrowed his piggy little eyes, giving her the once-over. “I ain’t got the wrong room. I know O’Toole is here. I wanna know what he’s doing in Frisco. Is he helping Slab? Or looking for him, huh?”

“O-O’Toole? I actually don’t know what he’s doing in town.”

“You look like a smart girl to me,” the big bruiser growled.

Yeah, well, you don’t look very smart to me. But she kept it to herself.

“So don’t be a dumb bunny, huh?” He marched his massive bulk nearer, where that fat finger could poke her right in the collarbone. “I’m an old friend of Slab. Associate, you might say.” He pronounced the word ass-o-cee-ate.” “So now I need to know where Slab is. You know, for ol’ times. And where the stash is. And you’re going to tell me, huh, cutie? Now.”

“S-Slab? S-stash?” she stuttered. “I wish I could help, really I do. But unfortunately for both of us, I have no idea. I’m really very sorry, so incredibly sorry.”

She had only the vaguest notion of what she was chattering on about as she eyed his trousers, trying to figure out if she could get her knee anywhere near the big gorilla’s, um, tender parts. Not likely. Plus he would probably break her kneecap for even thinking about it.

“Will you please shut your trap?” he roared. “I am loosing my patience with you.”

“I think you mean ‘losing,”’ she said helpfully. “Not ‘loosing’—losing.”

His face contorted with rage as she realized it was probably not the best strategy at this juncture to point out his grammatical problems.

When, thank God, the door crashed open, Emily practically shouted with relief. She might be in her underwear, and she might be in his room, but she was awfully glad to see him.

Tyler.

HE BARELY HAD A CHANCE to register that some oversize lunk was manhandling a half-dressed woman. Was it that goofy little brunette from the cab? Before Tyler knew what hit him, she broke away, catapulted herself into him, and knocked him backward onto the leather bed.

He tried to catch her. Fat chance. “Oof” was all he could get out as he toppled back onto the bed, taking her with him. He was underneath, she was on top, and they each made a bad move and then another in a vain attempt to get off the damn slippery leather bedspread.

After about a second of wrestling around, it became impossible to tell whose limbs were whose. Her legs and arms seemed to be all tangled up with his body in ways that were really not a great idea for strangers.

“Your elbow is in my ribs,” he tried. “And will you get your hand off my—?”

Her hand flew off his crotch and settled on his hip as she cried, “My hand? Do you realize where your hands are?”

Yes, he did. He was about to break into a cold sweat over it. Why wasn’t she wearing any clothes? It wasn’t his fault if one of his hands had landed on the back of her thigh, just under the silky curve of her skimpy panties, and the other one was lodged somewhere under her shirt, slipping over her slick, naked flesh, unable to get a decent hold.

“If you would just…oh, forget it!” She attempted to sit up, winding a bare leg around his abdomen, somehow managing to brush him in any number of intimate places. Without thinking, he rolled the other way, but the tail of her blouse got caught under his arm. When he rolled, the fragile fabric pulled, popping buttons every which way.

Tyler stopped dead. He gulped, looking straight down into a whole lot of pale, creamy skin. The fact that she was wearing a wispy scrap of a bra only made her exposed curves look that much more tantalizing.

Across the room, the window frame screeched and splintered as the burglar barreled out in a hurry, not bothering to be neat about it. Funny, but Tyler had almost forgotten about him.

Meanwhile, he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off all that skin. But he had to get himself out of this before it got any worse—if that was possible.

Savagely dragging his lower body out from under her, Tyler found his head pointing toward the open doors of the armoire. He could see all the way into the Pollyanna room through the gaping hole in the back.

“What?” He stared down at her. “You broke into my room through the armoire, dressed like that? Are you stalking me or something?”

“Ha!” she retorted. She scrambled to a sitting position, vainly attempting to hold the sides of her blouse together. “Of all the nerve! You may be gorgeous, in a menacing and disreputable sort of way—which is not at all my type, for your information—but my motives toward you are completely honorable and virtuous and have to do with helping out a fellow human being who is clearly in trouble with a capital T. This has nothing to do with some insane stalker thing.”

He had no clue what she was babbling about. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

But she ignored his questions. “I’m the one who deserves some answers. I have just been threatened by a criminal, and I think you owe me an explanation. Who was he? And what does he want with you? He said something about you and Slab and a stash and how he breaks toes for a living!”

“Toes?” he echoed, mystified. “Legs, maybe. But who breaks toes for a living?”

“Don’t change the subject.” As she leaned in closer, her voice dropped to a softer, more intimate tone. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you? But I can help. You can trust me. I’m a lawyer.”

He laughed out loud at that one.

“Why are you laughing? Okay, so I don’t look much like a lawyer at the moment.” She spared a rueful glance for her tattered blouse and bare legs. “But I am. I swear it!”

Tyler laughed even harder.

Apparently trying to make him stop guffawing at her, she bent nearer, grabbing his shoulders in her small hands. “Listen to me,” she said, but her voice dropped into a huskier, less self-assured range as a tangible, shocking kind of electricity flowed between them. One of her hands slid to his jaw. “I was trying to…”

Her hazel eyes glowed with something that had very little to do with honor or virtue, and her gaze seemed to have caught and stuck on his mouth. He knew why. He suddenly had the crazy notion that all he had to do was lift his head about an inch, and he would find her sweet, soft lips melting into his kiss.

Why not? She was half-naked and she was in his bed.

His mouth grazed hers, and he could already feel her hunger, her eagerness.

He reached for her.

Chapter 4

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” a loud, frightened voice from the doorway demanded. “It sounded like there was a train wreck up here!””

It was Kate. She stood there like the wrath of God, wielding a shaky hammer as if she planned to use it on someone’s head. And she was not alone.

Verna, the inn’s normally low-key cook, was backing her up with a cast-iron fry pan, while a third person—a stunned-looking kid hauling a stack of packages—lurked behind the two women, angling for a better view.

The cavalry had arrived.

Tyler sighed, shoving his bed buddy behind him for protection. No half-naked hot kisses just yet.

“Emily?” Kate peered into the room. “Is that you?”

She didn’t answer, but her expression gave a clear message. Caught.

Well, at least now he knew her name. Emily, huh? Yeah, that fit. Pretty, sweet, a touch old-fashioned. All the things that drove him nuts.

“Well.” Dangling her hammer, Kate seemed lost for words. “Emily, you’re a faster worker than I thought,” she said finally.

Emily attempted to wiggle out from behind Tyler. “It’s not what you think,” she tried. “I was just—”

But Tyler clapped a hand over her mouth, not ready to let her spill all the details about the thug and the break-in just yet. No need to scare Kate. And no need to get them both kicked out of the B and B.

“Come on, Kate, give us a break,” he said, trying to put on his most charming voice. “We were just having a little fun. It’s your fault—you’re the one who made this place so romantic. Kismet, pirates, wild ones—we lost our heads.”

Glowering at him, Verna slapped her skillet against her hand. He’d never thought Verna was a particularly intimidating woman. Okay, so she always wore black and looked like a beatnik, but she was harmless. Now, however, she seemed a lot fiercer.

“What about the window?” Verna asked grimly.

“The window?”

“How did it get that way?”

Under his hand, Emily struggled to answer, but Tyler kept a firm grip. “We steamed things up a little. You know.” And then, God help him, he winked at Verna like some goofball Romeo on the prowl. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away when I opened the window to let in some air.”

“I’ll say,” Verna bit off under her breath.

Kate’s brows drew together in consternation. “Tyler, this is so unlike you.”

“Yeah,” he allowed. “Sorry.”

“Are you going to fix the window?” Verna prompted.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I can fix the window later,” Kate cut in. “It’s just the latch. Tyler, let me know when you go out for dinner, and I’ll take care of it then. Right now, we’ll just leave you to your, uh, romp. Won’t we, Verna?”

She backed off, shooing Verna in front of her, but the boy with the boxes got caught in the shuffle.

“Excuse me,” he tried to say, bobbing away from Verna’s frying pan. “I’m looking for Emily Ch—”

“That’s me!” Ducking out from under Tyler’s grasp, Emily asked, “Are you from the Gap? Are those my clothes?”

Tyler was beginning to think his baffled and confused state of mind was going to be permanent. Emily had delivery boys from the Gap running over with packages of clothing? Huh?

“I have to get my purse,” she told the wide-eyed kid. “Go next door. The room with the doll on the door. I’ll meet you.”

And before Tyler could stop her, she’d scrambled off the bed and through the armoire to find a tip for the delivery boy.

With a particularly nasty oath, Tyler let himself fall backward onto the black leather bedspread. He stared at the ceiling. What in the hell had just happened here? His room had been broken into by a crazy stalker with wide hazel eyes and the cutest, softest mouth he’d ever seen, and then again by a moronic hood who was probably going to come back in five minutes and try again. And he’d let both of them escape unscathed.

Rousing himself, Tyler slid the window back down and flipped the lock. It was wobbly, but it should do until Kate could do a real repair job. Then he crossed to the armoire.

Emily was safely on her side, in that girly paradise called the Pollyanna room. As he watched, she handed the delivery boy a few bills and backed up with her boxes. But how long would she be content to stay put?

With a grim smile, he pulled the panel closed from her side, snapped his own side shut, too, and slid the bolt to keep it that way. For good measure, he grabbed the heavy silver trophy off the shelf and propped it against the secret door.

“Tyler!” she shouted, banging against the back of the armoire from her side. “I still need to talk to you. I can help! Please let me help.”

“Go away, Emily,” he returned calmly.

“Let me in. Please?”

“No.”

Whistling loudly to block out her pleas, he strode out of The Wild One and locked the door securely behind him. He had business to attend to, and he had no time for pretty little distractions, no matter how sweetly her bottom curved or what delights she had spilling out of her unbuttoned blouse.

“A lawyer,” he said derisively. “Yeah, that’s just what I need.”

As far as he was concerned, there would be no more visits from Miss Emily tonight.

THERE WAS NO WAY she was standing still for this. Who did he think he was, anyway?

First he’d laughed at her, then he’d almost kissed her, and now he’d locked the door on her! He simply refused to listen even though what she had to say was of vital importance to his own well-being. What a jerk!

“Oh, God. He almost kissed me,” she whispered, slumping onto the edge of the bed, remembering every second of that intimate encounter. She lifted a weak hand to her lips. “And I almost kissed him back.”

She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened next. But it was too late. Her imagination was running away with her. She would have wrapped her arms around him, he would have pulled her underneath him, and they would have played all kinds of naughty Wild One games.

It was true. She would’ve done anything he wanted at that moment, on that bed, with him. She could protest to everyone who would listen that she wasn’t interested in him that way, that she didn’t want to seduce him or sleep with him, but one roll around a leather bed, and she could think of nothing else.

“I want his hands on me,” she whimpered. “I want my hands on him. I want to peel off every article of his clothing and lick him from head to toe.”

This was pathetic. Emily Chaplin, daughter of the senior partner and the esteemed judge, did not think about licking handsome strangers, let alone say it out loud.

She gulped. Until now.

Okay, well, that was neither here nor there. Didn’t happen. Not going to happen. She repeated both those sentences a few more times. Didn’t happen. Not going to happen.

He was The Wild One and she was Pollyanna and never the twain would meet.

She felt better now that she had identified this weakness in herself—identified and dealt with it. So she had a small problem. Did that mean she had to abandon her whole quest, her once-in-a-lifetime, footloose-and-fancy-free escapade?

“Absolutely not!” she told herself. “I’m here and I’m in this thing, and I’m going to stay until I solve the puzzle and save Tyler’s adorable butt.”

It probably would have been better to leave the “adorable” out of that equation, but she felt sure it was just a tiny oversight. The important thing was that she was back on the case. She’d heard his door slam and his footsteps bang down the hall a few minutes ago, so she could logically assume that he had once more taken off into parts unknown in North Beach. And she needed to get a move on if she wanted to catch up.

Quickly pulling on her new T-shirt, khaki pants and sneakers, Emily yanked her arms into her suit jacket on the way down the stairs. She certainly hoped she could get out of there before she ran into Kate or the cook again. How embarrassing to be caught in bed with Tyler five minutes after she’d assured Kate she wasn’t interested in him.

But luck seemed to be with her this time. She didn’t see another soul. After snatching a map of the area out of a rack near the front desk, she was ready to go.

North Beach, straight ahead.

Thank God. Outside, with a silky San Francisco breeze wafting through her hair and cooling her fevered brow, her head felt much clearer, much better able to cope with the overpowering Tyler O’Toole.

Surely all that sex and sin malarkey was just a momentary reaction to The Wild One room and its leather and chrome delights. Now that she was out in the world, she wasn’t susceptible to him at all. Right?

It was dusk as she followed her map down Columbus Avenue, and that gave a romantic glow to the parade of cafés and bistros, delis and pastry shops. She didn’t want to look like a tourist, but she couldn’t help staring at the hustle and bustle of customers of all colors and shapes and sizes. Her senses were on overload as her ears filled with the sounds of opera on one corner and jazz on the next, and her nose inhaled the wonderful odors of fresh-ground coffee, garlic, cheeses, fresh tomato, and a whole lot of other things she couldn’t identify.

Her stomach growled loudly enough for her to hear it over the recorded aria drifting from a nearby Italian restaurant. Suddenly she remembered she hadn’t eaten since that banana split at the coffee shop so many hours ago. It felt like months.

As she gaped through the window at the mouthwatering wares inside a deli, a man carrying a huge salami almost knocked her down. When she backed up to avoid the salami, a woman lumbering along the sidewalk with a fully dressed mannequin—dressed like a pirate?—got her from behind. Stumbling away from the mannequin, Emily tripped over two men at a sidewalk table who were smoking cigars, drinking cappuccino and arguing at the top of their lungs.

Bohemian, eccentric and colorful, North Beach was great, even if there was no hint of a beach. After the quiet B and B, this extravaganza of sounds and smells was a bit overwhelming, but it was also the perfect setting for an offbeat adventure.

Starving, her stomach rumbling, she managed to navigate a crowded coffee bar and nab a cup of latte and some chocolate biscotti. The latte was better than anything she’d ever tasted in her life. Look what a little hunger could do for you!

As she kept an eye out for any sign of Tyler, sipping her latte, she stumbled over a lingerie store where she picked up a few pretty items, and wandered past everything from bookstores to massage parlors. She stared openmouthed at some of the boutique windows, where they had the kinkiest clothes imaginable on display. A bikini made out of plastic Easter grass? Or was that Astro Turf?

“Hey, you! You interested in some bargains?” A woman at a makeshift stand parked in the alley motioned to her, drawing Emily away from the Easter grass. “I’m closing up for the night. I got some great stuff here, and I’m slashing prices so I don’t have to drag it home.”