be too much to ask,” he said in a low voice. His response did nothing to soothe her. She brought a hand to the pearls at her throat, and her breathing changed, became more rapid. He did not need her passing out on him! Calming himself, he raised both hands, palms out. “I swear, I’m not going to touch you. You’re safe with me. Now sit on the bed.”
She moved warily away from the window, and he stepped into her place, making certain the curtains were tightly closed. He didn’t need anyone peeking in, and warning or no warning, he wouldn’t put anything past Doug and Marty. When he turned around, he saw that Jayne had done as he asked and was perching prettily on the edge of the bed.
“We need to talk,” he said, “but first…”
Her eyes grew wide as he stepped around her to the head of the bed, gripping one corner of the headboard in his hand. He sighed tiredly. How to explain? Best just to do what he had to do.
While Jayne sat warily on the side of the mattress, Boone banged the headboard against the wall. Once. Twice. A third time. He waited a moment, then began again, in a steady rhythm this time. Eyes pinned on the woman, he banged the cheap headboard against the wall over and over.
“You could help,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Help with what?”
“Make a little noise. Pretend to be enjoying yourself.”
“I will not,” she said indignantly.
With his free hand, Boone reached out and grabbed Jayne’s wrist. As he’d suspected she would, she squealed. He smiled. “That’ll do.”
Jayne clamped her mouth shut and pursed her lips. Oh, she was cute when she got mad. Of course, she’d been mad since he’d met her. Mad and scared.
He sped up the rhythm of the headboard banging against the wall. “Do it again,” he ordered in a whisper.
“No, I wo—” At an insistent tug that dragged an unwilling Jayne closer to the head of the bed, she squealed once more.
Oh, this was not good. The way he was holding her made her creamy blouse hug her breasts. She was breathing hard, the way she might if this was not pretend. Her fiery green eyes were latched onto his. And the banging of the headboard reminded him of what he was pretending to do. The rhythm, the shaking of the bed… “One more time, sugar.”
“Don’t call me—”
He hauled her off the bed so that she came to her feet and ran smack-dab into his bare chest. This time she screamed. Boone whacked the headboard against the wall three more times for good measure, and then he quit.
Jayne glanced up at him, suspicious and still frightened. But then, they hadn’t had their little talk yet, so she was less than fully informed.
“Was it good for you?” he whispered.
In answer she slapped him across the cheek, hard and solid.
Jayne realized, as the sound of the slap reverberated in the air, that she should not have hit him. Still, she wasn’t sorry.
He laid a big hand over the red mark she’d made on his face. “Sit,” he said.
She did, and again he paced in front of her. She wasn’t as afraid as she had been. He had only pretended to…well, he’d pretended, and he said they needed to talk. About what? Ah, likely he was interested in her offer of money from her father.
“My daddy will pay you anything…”
“Let’s leave your daddy out of this, shall we?” Becker said testily. “I’m trying to figure things out.”
“Figure what out?”
“What to do with you, sugar.”
Jayne bit her lower lip. There were worse things to be called than sugar, she supposed.
Finally Becker stopped pacing and stood before her, bare-chested, bigger than most men, all muscle and hair and tight jeans and penetrating eyes. There was something intimidating about him. Something intense. Of course he was intimidating!
“Can I trust you?” he asked, the question seeming to be more for himself than for her. “God, what a mess.” He then began to mumble a string of profanity that had Jayne blushing.
“Do you mind?” she finally asked.
“Do I mind what?”
“Don’t curse.”
He actually grinned. “We are in so much trouble I can’t see a way out, and you’re worried about my language?”
“There’s no reason to be crude.”
“Sugar, crude is my middle name.”
Jayne wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Becker sat beside her, and Jayne scooted away. But she didn’t jump up, which had been her first instinct. If he had planned to hurt her, he would have done so by now. Still, she felt too small sitting next to him, and a little distance wouldn’t hurt.
Voice lowered, Becker leaned close. “I’m here undercover.”
A surge of relief washed through her. “Oh, thank God. DEA? FBI? You must have some way to call in backup or something, right? There are probably a bunch of agents out there in the dark, waiting for your signal so they can storm the house. Right?”
He laid dark eyes on her and sighed. “No backup. I’m a private investigator, and I’m here on my own.”
Her relief was short-lived. “No backup?”
He shook his head.
Jayne was determined to make the best of the situation. “But you’re not one of them, not a…a bad guy, and you can get me out of here, right?”
“Eventually.”
“What do you mean, eventually? Those men killed Jim, and they almost killed me—”
“Your friend’s not dead,” Becker interrupted. “He’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. But I need a few more days.”
She shook her head. “But—”
“I’m not going to blow three months of work just to get your pretty little ass out of here.”
“But—”
“Don’t ask me to throw away everything I’ve done to this point because you were foolish or unlucky enough to stumble onto Darryl’s drug deal.”
“Can’t you sneak me out of here and make it look like I escaped?”
Becker shook his head. “I don’t think so. Darryl would come after you for sure. If I keep you close, if we…make them think you don’t mind being close, I think I can keep you alive until I’m done here.”
“You think? How comforting.”
