that’s more like it,” he said, patting the spot beside him.
She withdrew her 9mm revolver from under the sheet and weighed it in her hand. She was gratified by the vanishing of all amusement from his face.
“Whoa,” he said, holding his hands up almost comically. “You climbed into my bed, remember?”
Ripley smiled and sat on the edge of the mattress. “Yes. And it’s a good thing you’re used to such events, isn’t it? Or else neither one of us might be here now.”
She didn’t think she’d ever seen a person move quite so fast. One minute he was in a reclining position, looking like temptation incarnate, the next he was standing next to the bed, clutching the sheet to his chest like he’d been violated. Which, she decided, was how he should have looked when she crawled into bed with him. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re not a…gift from one of my colleagues.”
Ripley’s brows moved up on her forehead. She polished the nickel-plated gun with the corner of the sheet. “Do you often get gifts of that nature?”
“Never.”
“No, I’m not a gift from one of your colleagues. And I’m not housekeeping looking to make your bed while you’re still in it. Or room service, wanting to redefine the meaning of the term.” She waved the revolver. “Don’t worry, I pushed the wrong button and the clip fell out in the bathtub anyway.” She put the handgun on the bedside table closest to her, then leaned across the bed, her hand extended. “Hi. I’m Ripley Logan, P.I.”
Oh, how she’d always longed to say that. Some of the patina had worn off during her daylong search for answers, since not one person had seemed impressed by the badge she’d ordered from a magazine. But this guy’s reaction made all those blank, unimpressed stares worth it. Even if his expression was probably due more to the gun he kept staring at. While the people she’d encountered all day had gone out of their way to see that she didn’t get what she was looking for, this one had wanted to give her everything she was looking for. Er, everything she wasn’t looking for.
A surprising shiver shimmied along her arms then down her back as she remembered the texture of his tongue against hers and the hot, hair-peppered skin of his chest whispering against her hardened nipples. God, but the guy could kiss. She’d give him that. It had been a good long while since someone had made her toes curl.
She watched him, waiting for him to snap to. Only when he did, she immediately wanted the other guy back. This one…well, the amused glint in his blue eyes warned her to prepare herself. “P.I., huh?”
Just as she thought. She finished buttoning the borrowed shirt, her damp hair falling over her face. “Do you have a name?”
“Uh-huh.”
She slid a glance at him. “Are you going to share it with me?”
“Depends,” he said, looking to where he still grasped the sheet. He dropped the linen then widened his stance, planting his fists on his hips. For a guy in nothing more than clingy cotton knit boxers he managed to look sexier than all get out.
“On what?”
“On whether or not there’s a camera crew ready to spring through the door and tell me this is a practical joke.”
“Don’t I wish,” Ripley said quietly, then added while stabbing a thumb toward the hall, “be my guest.”
He stood still for half a heartbeat, then strode to the door in the other room.
Oh, boy. Talk about the back looking just as great as the front. He had a pair of buns a girl could dig her fingers into. And thighs that hinted at an endurance level beyond anything she was used to. He peeked through the peephole then turned, catching the direction of her attention. She quickly looked away and reached toward the bedside table where a wallet lay. She flipped it open. “Joseph Albert Pruitt.” She closed the fragrant, faded leather and put it back where she found it. “Nice to meet you, Joseph.”
“Joe.”
She smiled. Joe. She liked that. Where he could have easily pulled off a name like Fabio, Adonis or Romeo, he had a simple, everyday name. But he was far from your everyday average Joe.
She watched as he took a pair of jeans from a chair and easily stepped into them. She swallowed. Of course he was the type to leave the top button open, revealing where the dark V of hair trailing from his navel disappeared into the waistband.
“So,” he said. “The way I see it, we have two options.” His suggestive grin should have sent her packing. Instead it made her stomach dip to somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles. “Either we both climb back into that bed…together.”
Ripley couldn’t believe she found the idea very, very tempting. For crying out loud, she didn’t know the guy from…well, from Joe. “And the second option?”
Joe ran his right hand over his tousled hair and shrugged. “You tell me what’s going on.”
AN HOUR LATER Joe sat across the sitting room table from one very hungry Ripley Logan, P.I., trying not to think that under the shirt she wore, his shirt, was nothing but a precious expanse of flawless skin and shadowy crevices. She had one knee pulled up to her chest, leaving him to wonder what the view looked like under the table as she popped another French fry into her mouth and chewed. Part of the deal she’d made with him included ordering up room service. Only after the meal arrived would she tell him what he wanted to hear.
Well, not exactly what he wanted to hear, he amended. If he had it his way, she’d be making those quiet little throaty sounds she was making as she ate, but she’d be making them in the bed in the other room.
“I can’t believe how hungry I am,” she said, digging into a burger the size of a plate, then licking ketchup from the corner of her mouth. “When I got back to my room earlier I couldn’t even think of food. Amazing what a little action can do, huh?”
Joe sat up straighter. He wished she were referring to the type of action he was interested in. The sight of her pink little tongue sweeping her lips just about undid him. “Yes, I suppose running from armed men will do that to a person.”
She stopped chewing and blinked at him. Then a twinkle entered her cognac-colored eyes. She was enjoying this, he realized. Not the meal. Not his company. Not what had happened between the two of them in that perfectly good, imperfectly empty bed in the other room. No, she had enjoyed being pursued by gunmen—one of whom could still be camped out in her room, if he bought what she was telling him.
“I guess,” she said, waving the burger.
“The funny thing is, I haven’t a clue who they are or what they’re after, even though I know they have to be involved in this missing persons case I’m working on, but considering all the dead ends I hit today, and I mean not one person would—”
Joe took that as his cue that no further participation was required by him for the time being and tuned out. The way she was going, he figured he had a good five minutes before she ran out of steam and expected a response from him. He sat back and crossed his arms, enjoying watching her. He’d never seen a woman eat and talk at the same time. His mother would have been absolutely horrified. His father would have probably made one of those sounds of disapproval deep in his military throat. But all Joe could think about was how damn sexy the action was. If she
