you selling tickets out there or what?” she snapped. “I’d like some privacy, please.”
“Swan? Is everything all right?” Gerard was suddenly peering over the shoulder of Joe Harris. “Who are these men, Ducks?”
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “You don’t know them, either?”
Gaines had never taken his gaze from her person, and if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, he didn’t blink. Not once. The man had no reflexes—and his burning gaze had her heart thumping in that strange and unfamiliar way again. His jeans and work shirt were gone, replaced by a navy single-breasted suit that looked way too good on him. He could have been an old-fashioned G-man with his dark, sardonic eyebrows and his seen-it-all-and-then-some scowl.
He shot her a warning look that basically said, Don’t do anything to make me pull my gun and shoot you, and then he turned to his partner. “I can handle this, Joe.”
Joe didn’t seem to agree. “You may need a witness in case she claims you molested her or something.”
“I can handle it,” Gaines insisted. “Shut the door and take her friend with you.”
Harris backed Gerard out and once the two of them were gone, Gaines kicked the door shut with his foot. “Take care of business,” he ordered Swan, apparently referring to her nature call, “and make it snappy.”
“I’ll take care of business,” she said, yanking some tissue from the dispenser, “as soon as you look the other way.”
He turned sideways, clearly intending to watch her without staring right at her. It was all she was going to get, Swan realized, secretly furious at him for betraying her this way. How could he have let her think that he was some poor, defenseless, oversexed telephone repairman when all the time he was setting her up? A moment later she was bending down, wondering if she could get her panties and panty hose up all at once. She’d never been able to do it before, but she’d never been under surveillance in her own bathroom, either.
She arranged the slippery silk panties and the gossamer hose in her fingers and began easing both up her calves. Once she had them high enough, she would quickly stand and tug everything over her hips. At the same time her skirt would fall down, covering all the vital places. It could work, but it was a delicate operation.
Her calves were covered and she was inching the panty hose over her knees when he let out a sharp sigh of impatience. She began to hurry and the panties slipped from her fingers and balled up in the nylons. She kept going out of fear, but every tug made it worse. The nylons had curled into an airtight roll, sucking the panties in with them. They looked like link sausages. Damn! Now she would have to start all over.
“Time’s up,” he announced.
“Wait a minute!” Springing to her feet, Swan brushed her skirt down and gingerly coaxed the lingerie up at the same time. For a second she thought it was going to unfurl, but that glimmer of hope was her downfall. It made her hurry even more. She couldn’t see what she was doing because of the skirt’s ruffly hem, so she yanked the silly thing back up and stuffed a wad of it in her mouth, clenching her teeth to hold it while she worked. She felt like a Flamenco dancer with an entire bouquet of roses in her teeth.
Now the black silk material was rolling up, too! It had slipped in between her tummy and her underwear. She would soon be nothing but one big airtight wad, encased in nylon.
“Cuuduuupleeeeleeee!” she mumbled, asking him nicely to leave.
Her skirt was disappearing and her halter top would be next. Everything she owned had decided to tie itself into knots, including her tongue.
“Neeeeesummpriiisee.” She needed privacy. Couldn’t he see that?
Her struggles just twisted things tighter. And now her fingers were caught. Desperate, she released the skirt from her teeth and began to fumble inside her panty hose in earnest. She had to find her bikinis and separate the warring pieces of lingerie. Her hand was still buried inside her undies when he glanced her way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been taken hostage by her underwear.
“What are you doing?” Gaines asked.
“Concealing a weapon,” she said sarcastically.
Big mistake. Big.
Evidently, federal law enforcement officers didn’t appreciate a little harmless gun humor. Without warning, Gaines spun around to face her. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw her Houdini-like predicament. If someone had tossed her off a bridge, she would have drowned before she could get her hands free.
Swan tried to extricate herself, but she couldn’t. It was like being restrained with Saran Wrap. Somehow she had created a slipknot, perhaps out of an elastic leg hole, and it wasn’t about to let go of her fingers.
Gaines closed the distance between them in two easy strides. “What have you got in there?”
“Nothing! It’s just my underwear!”
“The hell you say. You’re trying to shove something into your panties.”
Swan gave him a look of utter exasperation. “I am not trying to shove anything into my panties. I’m trying to get something out of them. And it’s not working.”
Before she could explain, she felt herself being spun around like a toy top. The way he gripped her wrist and pulled, he didn’t seem to care whether or not he left her fingers behind. Fortunately it only took one firm tug to free her and then he yanked both of her hands behind her back.
“Hey, is that necessary?” she said as handcuffs locked down on her wrists.
“We’re going to clear this up and we’re going to clear it up now.”
Gaines turned her around and scrutinized her from head to toe. It was obvious from his perplexed expression that he had no idea how a woman could have been strait-jacketed by her own clothing in mere moments. And with no help from anyone else.
“You did this to yourself?” he asked.
Swan glanced down and let out a little moan of despair. A skirt that would normally have covered her legs to mid-calf now exposed her from her belly button downward. The link-sausage undies were an awful sight, but at least she wasn’t dealing with full-frontal nudity. She was too mortified to even consider what her backside must look like. From the way it felt, she was going to have to keep her rear to the wall at all times.
Swan wasn’t sure it was possible to be more humiliated.
Rob Gaines proved her wrong.
“I have to search you,” he said.
Swan shook her head so hard she nearly lost her balance. “I want a female officer to search me!”
His shrug said, Sure, whatever you want, lady. “Let’s go then.”
He pointed to the door, but she didn’t move. “Go where? I can’t even walk.”
“Headquarters. If you want a female, that’s where we’re going.”
If angry glares could burn, he would have been charcoal
