Private Investigations

“Yeah, um, crazy.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. “What do you mean by staying? What—here?”

She frowned. “Why, yes. Where else would I stay so long as one of those mean, nasty men is still in my room?”

Mean? Nasty? Joe scratched his head. Did those words come straight from the P.I. academy?

He didn’t get a chance to ask. Ripley waggled her fingers at him, then disappeared into the bedroom, not even the view she’d offered enough to take his mind from the situation at hand. “Good night, Joe. Oh, and thanks again.”

She closed the door.

Huh.

Joe sat there for long, silent moments staring at the white enamel of the door, trying to convince himself that what had just happened had, in fact, happened. Had she really locked him out of his own bedroom? He slowly shook his head. This was nuts. In fact, not much of what had happened tonight made much sense. First a naked woman smelling of peaches climbs into his bed buck naked and plants a wet one on him, awakening all sorts of reactions he had just been wondering if he’d grown immune to. Then she virtually takes over his hotel room, wearing his clothes and ordering room service on his tab. Now she’d just told him she was taking over his bed…without him in it.

The same woman who claimed to be a P.I. but struck him as anything but.

Making that phone call to the police was looking more and more appealing.

“Oh, no, you don’t.”

He got to his feet, made it to the closed bedroom door in five strides and opened it. “I think you and I need to have a…”

His words drifted off along with his thoughts. Lying flat on her back, her mouth slightly open, one certain sexy, mystifying Ripley Logan was fast asleep in the exact spot he’d been lying in when they’d, um, first met. Slowly he neared the bed. Although why he was being quiet he couldn’t be sure. He wanted to wake her up. Didn’t he? He grimaced. Okay, maybe he didn’t. Well, not to kick her out of bed, anyway.

The top sheet was bunched around her knees. He reached for it to pull it up then caught himself. Since when had he developed protective instincts? If she was cold, let her cover her own damn self up. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood stoically for a whole two seconds then sighed and reached for the sheet again. Only something else caught his attention. Namely the soft cotton of her—his—shirt. She must have moved around a bit trying to find a comfortable spot. Her squirming had caused the sheet to come off and the shirt to ride up. The hem brushed her upper thighs, mere inches from the area that had driven him crazy ever since she’d covered it. He could imagine the springy curls just under the soft material. Joe swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room.

There was something decidedly decadent about standing there like that, watching her without her knowledge. Imagining her slick, swollen flesh just under the soft cotton.

Get a grip, guy.

Joe shook his head and turned toward the door to head for the couch in the other room. Suddenly, he stopped. Ripley lay on the far side of the bed. That still left three quarters of the king-size mattress free. He ran a hand through his hair. They were both adults, weren’t they? Certainly they were capable of sharing a bed without sex being a factor. There was plenty of room. They wouldn’t even have to touch. Unless, of course, they wanted to.

Ripley shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her side and bending her leg at the knee. The movement caused the shirt to pull tight across her shapely little bottom.

Without sex being a factor? Yeah, right.

He left the room and softly closed the door behind him.

3

“THIS IS THE CHART showing our fiscal growth over the past three years during our contract with your competitor.”

Joe sat in the cramped Shoes Plus conference room with the great view of the Mississippi that no one was looking at, trying like hell to concentrate on what the company sales rep was saying. If only the peaks and valleys on the graph didn’t remind him of a certain someone’s peaks and valleys, he’d probably be having an easier time of it. Unfortunately, the distractedness he’d noticed yesterday, even before one certifiably insane Ripley Logan had thought about climbing into his bed, was doubly worse today. He pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at his expensively produced graph showing his projections for the next two years if Shoes Plus decided to contract with his company. But he couldn’t seem to summon up the energy to do as he planned, which was to use his graph to cover the one the rep was droning on about.

No, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Call him an idiot, but he hadn’t called the police. He hadn’t been able to do anything more than lie on that uncomfortable, scratchy couch not even trusting himself to go into the bedroom to get the spare linens from the closet. Instead he’d tossed and turned on the narrow sofa, fallen off the sucker no fewer than two times and spent a perfectly miserable night fantasizing what would have happened had he been able to convince the delectable Miss Logan to finish what she had so skillfully started earlier in the night.

Finally, the sales rep put down his pointer and wrapped up his spiel. Ten sets of eyes turned in Joe’s direction in unison. He blinked at them, having completely forgotten where he was.

He discreetly cleared his throat, then smiled. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute…”

He pushed from his chair and stepped from the room, closing the door against the open mouths that followed his progress. He pulled out his cell phone and moved toward the farthest corner of the waiting area, nodding at a woman waiting there. He punched a number, asked to be put through to someone, then waited. And waited. He waited for a full eight rings before a decidedly sleepy, infinitely sexy voice answered.

“What are you doing answering the phone?” he asked in a fake chastising voice.

He heard a soft gasp, then sheets rustle. “Who is this?” Ripley finally responded.

“Who do you think it is?” Joe turned away from the woman watching him curiously. “The guy you threw out of his own bed this morning.”

“Joe?”

“Unless there’s someone else you evicted from their room.”

“Where are you?”

He glanced toward the closed door to the conference room. He was supposed to be working. “In a meeting.”

A long, protracted yawn. “I didn’t even hear you leave.”

Which was a wonder, because he’d gone out of his way to make as much noise as possible two hours ago, slamming doors, opening and closing drawers, after the sounds he’d made showering and getting ready hadn’t broken the rhythm of her soft snoring. He’d come out of the bathroom with her smack dab in the same position he’d left her in the night before.

“Isn’t sleeping so soundly a job hazard?” he asked. “Especially after what happened last night?”

A pause. “I wasn’t in any danger after I got to your room.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because…because, well, I have a sixth sense about these things, that’s why.”

“Ah, something else you learned from the private investigator’s handbook?”

A soft laugh. Joe found himself smiling.

“Is there something in particular you wanted, Mr. Pruitt, or did you just call to annoy me?”

Joe realized that there really hadn’t been a reason for his call beyond seeing if she was still there. And his relief that she was proved a little off-putting. He thought of the display case on the conference table in the other room and asked if Ripley saw it around the hotel room anywhere. She told him to hang on and he waited while she looked.

He supposed he should tell her that he’d spotted the guy left behind in her room leaving at the same time he did. In fact, he’d shared an elevator with him. But that might mean she’d leave the minute they hung up.

Joe glanced at his watch and called himself a moron. A moment later she was back on the line. “Nope. Nothing of that description around here.”

“Damn. I must have left it in the car,” he said.

“Is that all?”

He grimaced, drawing a blank for other reasons to keep her on the line. Well, aside from the guy. “Yep. That’s it.”

“Okay. Well, bye then.”

“Yes, bye—wait.”