The Wild Side Page 7

  “Let me at least do the dishes.” She’d offer; he’d refuse.

  He shook his head. “Tomorrow you can help if you want. Go get dressed and we can get started.”

  She nodded politely, went back to her room and pulled on the clothes, spraying herself with her own perfume so his mom’s scent wouldn’t bother him. The jeans and flannel shirt were a little big, but they felt wonderful—soft, warm and comfortable. The sneakers fit perfectly. Rose bit her lip. In this getup she’d lose the sundress look that had attracted Slate at the station. She’d have to work harder at keeping her attitude the same: woman in need of rescue. Make sure he felt useful, needed, as if she relied on his strength to keep her going.

  She rolled up the pants and the sleeves, then tied the shirttails in a knot at her waist so her skin would be exposed when she bent over. That would have to do. She sighed and walked back to the kitchen. Paying back someone who’d saved your life could be seriously draining. But a small price to pay for safety.

  “How’s this?” She smiled at Slate a little anxiously, letting him know she cared what he thought of her appearance, wondering if she’d be able to snatch hours here and there to escape and be herself. “Better?”

  He put the last dish in the rack and took two steps toward her, hands on his hips, expression grim, indecisive. Rose felt her smile freeze. He wasn’t going to want her to totter around the woods in heeled sandals, was he? She’d never make it. Maybe she could manage to twist her ankle, or—

  Before she saw him move, his hand shot out to the top of her head, plucked off her wig and tossed it onto the counter. “There.”

  Rose clapped her hands to her head and stared at him, breath coming fast from the surprise attack. He reached out and smoothed back her bangs, probably a greasy mess after spending yesterday under the wig and all night on a pillow.

  “Better now.” He gave a short nod, watching her intently, the expression in his blue eyes still unreadable. “Much better.”

  She nodded in turn, stifling the urge to grab her wig and pull it back on. She felt disoriented and vulnerable with sloppy clothes and her own hair showing, in front of a man. Maybe she’d been wrong about what attracted him. Maybe he preferred the girl-next-door appeal. But then why would he seek out a platinum blonde in heels at the station?

  She summoned a smile, more rattled than she wanted him to see. “Okay, I’m ready. Lead the way.”

  He took a step closer, close enough so that she could smell him, sense his warmth, touch the smooth fabric of his T-shirt under his open shirt with the merest stretch of her hand, if she wanted to. And God help her, she wanted to, with a sudden force that startled her.

  “Rose.” His voice came out low and husky, as if what he was saying was emotional, and difficult for him. “I think it’s only fair to warn you that while you’re here, I’m going to try and do something I’m betting no man has ever done to you.”

  Her jaw dropped; her breath rushed in with a gasp. She tried to think of a response appropriate to what he might want to hear, but her brain wouldn’t work, wouldn’t transmit anything but awareness of the heat rushing through her body. “What…what is that?”

  He bent forward, quirked an eyebrow and grinned. “Find out who the hell you are.”

  5

  MELISSA SWUNG her office chair back and forth, dreamily trailing a finger across her keyboard and making a gentle, almost musical rattling sound. She sighed, laid her head back, ran her fingers through her new short hair, stretched her arms wide and idly contemplated the ugliness of office ceilings.

  Nearly lunchtime and she’d gotten nothing done. Nothing. Not a thing. Unless you counted working out in meticulous detail several highly sensual episodes starring her and Riley, which she doubted her boss would count. Everything about her job had become invasive and irritating compared to her secret fantasy-come-true.

  How she’d lucked into a situation like this with a guy that perfect, she’d never know. It was tempting to use the standard “somebody up there likes me,” but since she’d been raised Catholic, it was unlikely her parents’ version of God was going out of his way to make her premarital sex life better.

  Right now her major challenge was lasting until tomorrow to see him again. She’d bought a magazine with an article entitled “Ten Naughty Ways He Can Drive You Wild,” though she’d spent a long time with the cashier, chatting about her excitement over the window-decorating tips in the same issue. Okay, so her inner wild woman was still pretty tightly closeted.

  Nine of the ways he could drive her wild she could have thought of herself. The article was obviously written for someone terrified of her own body, catchy title notwithstanding. But the tenth one—well, she’d passed a toy store and gone in impulsively, then found herself purchasing a police kit with handcuffs, wondering what the sweet grandmotherly saleslady would do if she knew what Melissa wanted them for. Chances were she’d never work up the nerve to use them, but just owning them excited her. In fact, just being alive excited her. This was the best—

  “Hey! Guess what?”

  Melissa started and nearly tipped her chair back. “God, Penny, don’t ever do that again. You almost gave me a—”

  “Remember those fabulous miniature portraits every museum in the country went nuts over a few years ago?” Penny’s head peeked around her door. “My brother Frank, the cop, just told me a new one has surfaced here in Boston. And get this—they think it might be a portrait that Queen Elizabeth allowed Hilliard to paint in her old age. The one they couldn’t find that’s listed…in his…” Penny gave Melissa a curious look, then slowly raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Melissa?”

  “What?” The blush started at Melissa’s neck and rose up her face, defying her efforts to suppress it. She had an awful feeling her friend had seen more than she wanted her to.

  “Wow.” Penny scooted into her office and closed the door behind her. “Whatever you were thinking, let me in on it. If it was half as good as it looked I could use a dose.”

  “Oh, no, it wasn’t anything like that.” Melissa made a lame attempt at careless laughter. “I was typing notes for the chairman’s speech tonight.”

  Penny glanced at Melissa’s computer screensaver, contentedly swirling colored patterns across the monitor.

  Melissa wrinkled her nose. “Okay, so I hit a little dry patch.”

  “Ha!” Penny folded her arms across her chest. “Looked to me like a big wet patch. What’s his name?”

  “Whose name?” Melissa blinked innocently, absolutely dying to confess everything. Who wouldn’t want to brag about an affair with someone as amazing as Riley? Penny would live off the gossip for weeks.

  Penny sighed. “Melissa, I have known you for eight years. During that time you have had maybe one emotion you actually managed to hide from me—when you were afraid I’d hate the male strip-’o-gram you got me for my twenty-fifth birthday. Someone is on your mind, and it ain’t a she. Now, give.”

  Melissa rolled her chair back from its unproductive position in front of the computer and fixed Penny with a blissful smile. “His name is Riley and he’s about the most incredible guy I’ve ever met.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Penny dragged a chair closer, plopped into it and pushed up her glasses. “Riley who?”

  Melissa’s blissful smile faltered. Had he told her? Had Rose told her? “Riley…”

  Penny’s mouth dropped. “You don’t know?”

  “We’ve only met once. A mutual friend fixed us up.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “It all happened so fast.” Melissa gestured helplessly, knowing she couldn’t describe what had happened without it sounding unfairly sordid. “She called him and then the next night—”

  “Who called him?”

  “Rose.”

  “Rose who?”

  Melissa stared blankly at Penny’s face, mind churning. Rose…Rose…

  “She lives across from me.”

  “Rose? That Rose? The one wh
o dates the Fixodent set? The one you said you thought was in trouble? Who is this guy, some billionaire octogenarian mafioso?”

  “No. He’s young. Maybe thirty-five. And he’s gorgeous. And he’s…he’s…” She searched for words to describe him, but the only ones that came to mind were smoldering and dangerously erotic, and she didn’t think either of those would sell Penny on the concept. “He’s nice.”

  “He’s nice.” Penny fixed her with a skeptical glare. “What are you doing, Melissa? Is this that sex-with-a-stranger thing you were talking about?”

  “Uh…well, sort of. Only he’s not a total stranger.”

  “No.” The skeptical glare grew decidedly more skeptical.

  “Well, it’s not like I met him in a bar. He’s a friend of a friend of Rose’s.”

  “Even Rose doesn’t know him?” Penny’s voice rose to an outraged squeak.

  Melissa twisted uncomfortably. There was no way she could explain this situation so that it appealed to Penny. “Not that well, no.”

  “Who does know this guy?”

  “Rose’s friend. Amanda.”

  Penny leaned forward, right into Melissa’s face. “Amanda…who?”

  Melissa threw up her hands, feeling like a fourteen-year-old being interrogated by her mother. “Penny, I don’t know. I just know Rose told me Amanda had a sexy friend named Tom, who—”

  “You said his name was Riley.”

  “It is.” She took a deep breath and willed herself to be patient. Penny would understand eventually. Maybe by her eightieth birthday. “But his middle name is Riley. He—”

  “Okay, never mind, I’ve got it.” Penny stood, hands out like a cop stopping traffic. “You go to Rose, whose last name you don’t know, who routinely dates icky old men and who you think might be in some kind of trouble, and ask her who you can sleep with. She calls someone you don’t know from Eve, someone with no last name, while you’re standing there—”

  “I was out of the room when she called Amanda. Rose asked me to—” Melissa clamped her mouth shut. If she told Penny that Rose had suggested she go to her own apartment while Rose made the call, Penny would only add it to her absurd soap-opera version of what happened.

  “Oh, good! She orders you out of the room, which you do without question, and while you’re not there, so we don’t know who she really called, she gets you a date with her friend’s friend Tom aka Riley—guess what, no last name—who shows up at your apartment and—”

  “Rose’s apartment.” Melissa rolled her eyes. This would cook her. “Rose was out.”

  “Ah, even better. He shows up at her apartment, and says, oh, by the way, my name isn’t Tom, it’s Riley, but I still don’t have a last name, and you say, ‘Great! Let’s have sex!’”

  “Pretty much.” Melissa shrugged as if Penny had described what she did every day of the week. “Except I didn’t exactly have sex with him.”

  Penny sighed. “Not exactly?”

  “No. I mean, we did…other things.” She shifted in her seat, remembering.

  “Other things.” Penny’s face wrinkled in concern. “Oh, Melissa. This whole thing sounds really creepy to me. I mean, how do you know Rose didn’t set you up somehow? Isn’t it a little strange that she just happened to find someone for the next night? How many people do you know who would go on a blind sex date?”

  “Penny, we’re talking guys here.”

  “Okay, never mind that question.” Penny dismissed it with a floppy-wristed wave. “But why the hell would she want you having sex in her apartment? Eww.”

  “I don’t know.” Melissa made an earnest attempt not to sound as exasperated as she felt. “I thought it was probably smart for him not to know where I live at first.”

  “Aha!” Penny held up a triumphant finger. “Very true. There is a shred of common sense in you, after all. This is good. We can work with this. We can nurture this. So at the very least this friend of Amanda—if that’s her real name—who’s a friend of Rose—no doubt not her real name—Tom-slash-Riley—if that is even close to his real name—does not know where you live.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes. Penny was on a rampage. “Penny…”

  “Yes, Melissa? I’m assuming Melissa is your real name?”

  Something vaguely unpleasant gave a little jolt to Melissa’s system. Melissa is your real name?

  “What’s the matter?” Penny blinked at her, not missing one iota. As usual.

  “Nothing, really.” The vaguely unpleasant feeling began to crystallize into a focused, genuinely unpleasant feeling. “It’s just funny—that was what Riley said, ‘Melissa is your real name?’ Right after he called me… Rose.”

  “He called you Rose?” Penny threw up her hands. “Why does no one in this untimely adventure have a name they stick to?”

  “Well, by mistake. I mean, obviously he knows I’m not her.”

  Penny put her hands on her hips. “Are you sure Tom Riley has met Rose?”

  “Uh…” Melissa tried to remember everything Rose had said about Tom. The unpleasantness churned into nausea. “Well, I guess she didn’t actually say she knew him. No.”

  “So what the hell happened, Melissa? He showed up thinking you were Rose?”

  Melissa grimaced, unwilling to acknowledge the possibility bonking her repeatedly on the head. It couldn’t be. Ridiculous. Even though it would explain the way Riley had treated her, as if he thought she was faking her inexperience. And explain why he wanted to know how many men she’d actually slept with. And explain why he was surprised she wanted him there as her teacher, and why he got angry when she kissed him like a little girl, and why he needed to know about all the “other dates” she went on…and on and on.

  “It does…explain some things. Like why he couldn’t get over how innocent I seemed, for one.” Melissa clutched her stomach. She was either going to be sick or just feel like this for the rest of the day, which was almost as bad.

  Penny helped matters not at all by bursting into laughter. “God, I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall during that date. You being all sweet and nervous and him trying to figure out what happened to the sex goddess he expected.”

  “Shut up, Penny. This isn’t funny. I’m supposed to see him again tomorrow.”

  “Well, call him up and…” Penny’s laughter died when she saw Melissa’s face. “Don’t tell me. You don’t have his number.”

  Melissa shook her head. This was quite probably the most humiliating day of her life. Worse than when Patrick Corey threw up all over the prom dress she’d spent three months making. Worse than when she’d walked in on her favorite college professor having sex—with Melissa’s boyfriend. Worse than when Bill had told her she’d never excite him as much as Michelle Pfeiffer. Worse than—

  “Wait a second, though.” Penny frowned. “Wouldn’t Rose have said, ‘Gee, Tom-Riley, I have this friend named Melissa I want you to have sex with?’ I mean, I can’t really imagine a scenario where she would have left that part out.”

  “Me, neither.” Melissa slouched down in her seat. So maybe it wasn’t the case. Unless…oh, no. “I bet it was because Rose knew he’d come for sure if it was to meet her. No man would turn Rose down. The woman could arouse a homosexual eunuch.”

  “Oh, geez, Melissa. Ostriches have more sexual self-esteem than you do. That makes about zero sense. In fact only one thing in this entire mess is clear.” Penny shook her finger sharply in Melissa’s face. “You’d be a total idiot to see that guy again.”

  “I know….”

  Wild denial rose in her, sharp and strong. The strange, crazy darkness swelled and grew, like the gloriously fierce, panicky prelude to an impossible-odds battle. She wasn’t going to give him up. Even if it meant seeing someone who might have zero connections to people she knew and trusted. She’d spent her entire life on the right side of the tracks. This was her time to branch out.

  After the way she’d fallen apart in his arms, she was convinced Riley held the key to unleash
ing and naming whatever primal creature lurked inside her. Her time with him could be the beast’s only chance to prowl and explore its savage existence before the inevitable white picket fence of Melissa’s future closed around her and forced the creature’s retreat.

  She’d see Riley again. Tell him she wasn’t Rose, and see if he’d agree to continue their arrangement anyway. He’d obviously been aroused by their last encounter—it wasn’t like the idea would repulse him. In fact, considering how confused he’d been when he was thinking she was Rose, he’d probably be relieved she was just plain old Melissa. Sweet, wholesome and innocent. As simple and straightforward as a nice girl could be who happened to be burning with wild demon mating lust.

  She nodded seriously to Penny, the heat still storming inside her. “You’re right. I’d be an idiot to see him again.”

  And idiocy was going to feel damn good.

  RILEY FINISHED HIS morning coffee, picked up the phone to call his sister, and heard the stuttering dial tone indicating he had voice mail. He left a brief message on Karen’s machine, telling her he’d pick up Leo in the morning for their visit to the aquarium, then dialed the voice mail retrieval number. A female voice told him the message had come in at two that morning—shortly before he’d gotten home from tracking a missing person and fallen straight into bed.

  Slate’s voice came on the line, crackling indistinctly. “Sorry to call so late. Rose is with me in Maine. No portrait found on her yet. Happy hunting.”

  The line beeped. A mechanical voice urged him to delete or save the message.

  Riley closed his eyes, trying to gain control of the crazy, irrational jealousy churning his insides. He’d spent the entire day yesterday not thinking about Rose. Not thinking about their adventure tonight and what it might entail. How she would look; how she would feel. He even hadn’t thought of a few possibilities for their encounter. And while he was doing all that non-thinking, Slate had her. In the middle of nowhere. All to himself.