Between The Sheets

She was in so much trouble here.

To add insult to injury, Rex Holt had to be a gentleman, too. He hadn’t said a word when she’d arrived at the airport late this morning, even though he’d been specific about the time to meet. He hadn’t asked for an explanation either, which was good because April hadn’t wanted to explain how she’d accidentally packed her purse in the frenzy to get out the door, which had meant searching through all her suitcases while the taxi waited….

As they moved through the line toward the ticketing counter in the airport, he kept eyeing her rolling luggage.

“Can I help you with all those bags?” he asked.

“I’ve got them, thanks,” she said again. Granted, he’d packed light by comparison. But he was a man. A garment bag, suitcase and laptop case might outfit him for their Atlanta stint but she wasn’t so lucky. Glancing up, she met his gaze. Mistake. One glimpse into those eyes made her breath catch.

“You’ll check them?”

“Except the ones I need on the flight,” she said around that trapped breath. “I want to use the downtime to review the product line.”

Learn the product line was a more like it, but April couldn’t tell Rex Holt that. She’d spent the entire weekend immersed in Market Analysis 101 to learn what acronyms like ESOMAR, ANOVA and CAPI meant so she could play a convincing marketing research assistant.

There’d been so much to learn that she hadn’t had a chance to even glance at the Sensuous Collection, an oversight that was bound to blow her cover if she didn’t get a grip on the product line PDQ.

The product line wasn’t the only thing she had to get a grip on. She chanced another glance at Rex, who was still frowning down at her luggage, an expression that didn’t minimize his good looks one tiny bit.

And he looked so good with his deep russet hair and olive skin. Too good. Even though she wasn’t conducting an investigation, this man was technically a suspect until cleared of complicity by in-house security. She cautioned herself that suspects were suspects no matter what they looked like, but Rex’s mouth kept doing her in. He grinned wickedly. He frowned intensely. He made a woman who’d sworn off relationships that involved disastrous sex think about what she might be missing.

That mouth could make her imagine the soul-deep sort of ache that would build and build toward a mind-blowing climax, an explosion of the senses that could eradicate reason and make a woman swoon—or so April had heard. She’d never actually experienced the phenomenon firsthand, had never been able to relax long enough to reach the finishing line.

Oh, she wasn’t incapable or anything like that. She had absolutely no problem satisfying herself when she was alone. Being alone with a man was the problem. She got so nerved out that the experience always ended up in disaster long before she or her partner ever reached fulfillment.

Exactly what had happened with poor Jeff.

Then there’d been Vic. He’d wound up with a dislocated shoulder and a sprained ankle when a foray into light bondage had ended with a broken bed frame, a mattress on the floor and a trip to the emergency room still locked in the handcuffs that had done him in.

He’d been convinced she could relax if she was in control.

Wrong.

Kenny had wound up in surgery to repair torn ligaments after an unexpected make-out session in the front seat of his classic Firebird. He’d totally wiped out his knee wrenching it between the gearshift and the steering wheel.

He’d been convinced spontaneous had been the way to go.

Wrong again.

The memories only reaffirmed that she’d made a logical decision to give up sex, which also reestablished that she was in way over her head on this case. That fact had been obvious the instant Rex Holt had stepped foot in the conference room at Luxurious Bedding Company’s corporate headquarters yesterday.

It wasn’t bad enough that the man was too good-looking to be allowed. No, he had to be charming, too. And so tall that she felt like a china doll standing beside him, those broad, broad shoulders taking up more than his fair share of space.

Inhaling deeply, April reined in her thoughts, only to find Rex still eyeing her bags, as if it was killing him to let her carry them unassisted. Which was just so gentlemanly, darn it.

Finally, the line shuffled ahead and they reached the ticketing agent, where all her plans to work on the flight were almost waylaid before they got off the ground. She had to fight to keep her carry-on bags and only won the battle after the ticketing agent made a big show of measuring the large one to ensure it would fit in the overhead compartment.

By the time she fell into step beside Rex for the walk to the gate, April wished she’d just checked the bags in the interest of time.

When airport security personnel swarmed the monitoring station while their carry-ons were undergoing inspection, April knew she should have checked the bags.

Whatever the problem was, it had to do with her luggage.

“What do you have in there?” Rex asked her.

“Just some work.” She didn’t volunteer any more information. She didn’t need to because two security workers were currently opening the bags to begin a search. Rex was about to find out exactly what she’d packed, along with everyone else within ten feet of the monitoring station.

A man standing in the line behind them complained loudly enough for them to overhear. “Now what’s wrong?”

Rex shot the man a frown, then glanced at her, brow raised in question. “The Fetish Collection?”

She only nodded, unable to do anything more than stare as the security people pulled out items from her bags, painstakingly examining each one before laying it on the immobile conveyor belt in full view of the crowd.

The black sheet set with pockets built into the sides to hold sexy goodies like…

The dual-temperature vibrator with a clear plastic casing that could be filled with ice water for a sensual experience guaranteed to earn a shiver…

The pair of Pleasure Pearls Ben-Wa balls that clicked together noisily in their clear plastic box….

“An impromptu consumer study. I wouldn’t have thought of it,” Rex said conversationally. “Got a notebook? You can start documenting peoples’ reactions.”

April didn’t bother answering what she assumed had been a rhetorical question. She didn’t bother looking at Rex either. She didn’t need to see his face to recognize his amusement.

But she couldn’t figure out what he found funny about the looks the security personnel kept shooting their way. Or their suggestive sniggers. Or the nearby passengers’ barely muffled comments about where they were planning to use those sheets.

“We’ll have to confiscate the handcuffs, sir,” a security worker said.

“Think we’ll be able to manage without them?” Rex asked.

Another rhetorical question she didn’t bother answering, not when his question was drowned out by the amused voices all around them and the sound of blood pounding hard in her ears. She just glared up at Rex, scowling her displeasure that he had all these people thinking the Fetish Collection belonged to them for personal use.

“We’re marketing consultants working on the launch of a new product line,” April explained.

Maybe it was her squeaky-voiced delivery. Or maybe it was the blush. But her explanation only drew more attention. The crowd inched closer to the monitoring station, every pair of eyes within ten feet darting down to assess the neatly packaged leather restraints, stainless steel nipple clamps and the—what on earth was that? Oh, that must be a cock ring.

The expressions ranged from shock to amusement and strongly suggested no one was buying her explanation. Rex only snorted when the impatient man behind them didn’t bother lowering his voice to make a crack about perverts sleeping with women young enough to be their daughters. A gross exaggeration as Rex was only thirty-two.

To Rex’s credit he didn’t seem bothered by the stares and lewd comments, although he would have been well within his rights to blame her for this whole embarrassing delay. He remained good-natured in the face of adversity, which showed a great deal of restraint under the circumstances.

She, on the other hand, demonstrated no such restraint. The security personnel took their sweet time cramming all the items back inside her bag and the attached case. By the time they’d made room for the Naughty Nipple Cream and the Kegel Balls and snapped the latch on the case shut, April was barely containing the urge to run back in the direction of the terminal.

What on earth had John been thinking? What had Wilhemina been thinking? They both knew better than anyone that she simply wasn’t cut out for fieldwork. Not even inside surveillance. And especially not to surveil a man who was so darned handsome that her tongue tangled in a knot every time he looked her way.

She was screwing up already and she wasn’t even out of Dallas. Not good. But she didn’t get a chance to dwell on how she’d just cost them another ten minutes before Rex touched her. One brush of his warm fingers on her hand, and she felt a jolt that zapped every thought out of her head.

“It’s okay, April,” he said. “There’s no law against sex toys in Texas. We won’t wind up in prison.”

And now he was on to her. She couldn’t decide if she was annoyed that he’d noticed her anxiety or touched that he’d made an effort to reassure her. Not that she could be reassured with everyone in a ten-foot radius thinking they liked kinky sex.