Mr. Right Next Door (15 page)

“Nick, make it stop,” she cried out finally.

“It will—”

“I can’t stand it anymore. It’s too much. Too crazy. Too scary. Make it stop.”

“I will. I promise. I just—”

And then it started, even more powerful than the first time, her body clamping down on his, as her whole body went tight again and again and again.

“There,” he said. “That’s it. That’s what I wanted.”

She cried out.

He did, too, that maddening control of his shattering finally as he moved powerfully, deeply, undeniably.

She lay there, exhausted, trembling, holding on to him as he’d held on to her when he lost all control, driving into her again and again.

When it was over, he collapsed heavily on top of her, his breathing coming in ragged gasps, the pulse thrumming through his whole body and seemingly into hers.

He slowly nuzzled her neck with his mouth, as he had when this whole thing had begun, and she could sense more than see the smile on his handsome face.

“You didn’t say stop,” he said, as if that still surprised him.

“I know.”

“Do you wish you had?”

“I might in the morning, but I don’t right now. Do you wish I’d stopped you?”

He laughed. “Do I look like I could possibly be that much of a fool?”

And then she laughed, too.

He eased his body off of hers, pulled her over and tucked her against his side.

“I’m too damned old to do this on the floor,” he said after a long, lazy moment.

Which made her laugh again.

“How do you feel about having me in your bed?” he asked.

“Having you there? Or…having you there?”

“Either one. You know what my vote is.”

“Well, you’re too old to sleep on the floor all night. If we did that, you probably wouldn’t be able to walk in the morning and then you couldn’t catch the bad guy, now could you?”

“That was mean,” he said, rolling off of his back and onto his side, rolling her back onto the floor as he went. He leaned over her, looking as powerful and capable a lover as could be. “And I will make you pay for it. Don’t doubt it for a minute.”

“Fine,” she said. “Go ahead and make me pay.”

To her great satisfaction, he did.

N
ick woke up in her bed, naked, with her naked, too, draped over him as bonelessly as a blanket, the robe that he didn’t want to take off of her the first time and simply didn’t take the time to take off of her the second time, draped over them both.

He’d fallen asleep, exhausted and as satisfied as he’d ever been in his life, not worrying about watching out for bad guys or protecting her or anything at all.

He didn’t even know where his gun was.

Anything at all could have happened and here he’d have been, caught literally with his pants down.

Damn,
he muttered to himself, reaching for his phone.

He didn’t know where that was, either. Somewhere on the floor, he supposed, in the living room, where he’d pulled off his clothes and then fallen on top of her. On the living room floor. Always the gentleman, Nick.

She probably had bruises from that little encounter.

Not that she seemed to mind, judging from the way she was sleeping, melted against him like warm butter.

Naked, warm, sexy butter.

He was waking up in all sorts of places, just thinking about it.

Her draped over him this way, soft, sweet-smelling curves, all that bare skin, her head on his chest, palm flat against his heart.

He fought back the voice of reason and responsibility inside of him that tried to say,
How the hell did this happen?
And,
What the hell were you thinking?
And,
What the hell are you going to do now, Nickie?

And went for the more practical issues.

Where was Eric? What was Harry doing? What did he know? What should Nick be doing right now to protect Kim from the crook who was out to get her?

He eased over on the bed, drawing a mumble of protest from her, ignoring as best he could the slide of naked skin over naked skin, and went just far enough to reach the phone by her bed so he could call Harry.

“It’s me,” he said when Harry answered.

“Really? Rough night, Nickie?”

“Yeah. Really tough.”

Harry laughed. “You know, Mother worries about you when you don’t check in on time and we can’t get you on the phone.”

“You’re not my mother, Harry.”

“But I worry. You know that.”

“Yeah. Go ahead. Say it.” Get it over with, Nick thought.

“Hey, it’s no skin off my nose. I mean, if she’d have me, I’d be in her bed in a heartbeat. I’d like to think I would show a little more class and consideration than to have my way with her on the floor, but then, that’s just me.”

“You watched us?”

“No! I mean, I have my moments, but I wouldn’t do that to you—”

“So, you came in here?”

“Just me, just inside the door to her apartment, just barely, when we couldn’t get you on the phone. I told you. We worry. But all I saw was your clothes in a mess on the floor, and…well, I could hear that…that everything was okay. I mean…really okay. And then I left. Right away.”

Nick closed his eyes and swore.

Harry had been in here? He’d heard them?

And Nick had been so caught up in her, he hadn’t even noticed.

“Sounded like you were doing great, Nickie. I’m impressed. Truly—”

“Shut up, Harry.”

“I mean, I didn’t think guys our age had a chance with someone like her and even if we did, I figured it would take some kind of pharmaceutical assistance to satisfy her. I mean, it would for me. But you…Nickie…I’m so proud.”

“I’m going to knock you on your ass the minute I see you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to make sure the pirate hadn’t slipped past us and gotten into her apartment, didn’t I?”

Nick admitted grudgingly that he did.

“Speaking of our bad guy, I do need to see you. We’ve got to talk about what we’re going to do. Weyzinski’s holed up in a motel on the edge of town, has been since around midnight. We’ve got two agents sitting on the place and we need to decide what we’re going to do. Wait him out and let him lead us to the diamonds, or what. So if you can drag yourself out of her bed…I mean, I wouldn’t. Not for this, but I’ve always said you were a better man than me, Nick—”

“Name the place. I’ll be there,” he growled.

“I took a room at the B&B. First floor, opposite the side entrance to your girlfriend’s place. I figured with Weyzinski this close, we needed to be closer.”

“All right.”

“I could come to you, if you like,” Harry offered.

“No way,” Nick said. He didn’t want Harry in this room, with Kim. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll come to you.”

“So…I get details right? I mean, your love life is as close as I get to a love life these days. It’s bad, Nick. Bad.”

Nick hung up on him.

Kim was vaguely aware that someone was talking to someone in her bedroom.

Had she left the TV on?

Was someone leaving a message on her answering machine?

She went to burrow deeper into that nice, warm spot in her bed, only to realize, it wasn’t just a nice, warm spot.

It was a man.

A naked man.

Nick.

A huge, happy, happy grin spread across her face. She inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of warm, strong, sexy, naked man.

In her bed.

Her grin just got bigger.

She’d gotten him into her bed and he was still here and she was so happy about that.

To heck with feeling stupid and foolish and making bad decisions. She really didn’t care at this moment.

She had Nick in her bed.

Nick, the most amazing, sexy lover she could ever imagine.

Yum.

Just yum.

She gave a long, slow sigh and kissed him on the shoulder, the first part of him she saw when she opened her eyes. A blush crept up her body like a heat wave and settled into her cheeks like they were on fire, but she didn’t care.

Nick was in her bed.

“I have to go,” he said softly, already slipping away.

“What?” She went to scramble after him, nearly losing the sheet that was covering her and only then remembered she was naked—stark naked—and saw that it was morning, bright morning light shining into her bedroom.

He sat on the edge of her bed, his back to her, turning so that she could see his face in profile. “Just for a few minutes and just next door. I have to talk to Harry—a guy I work with. We’ve got Eric holed up in a motel on the edge of town and we have to talk about whether we’re going to go in and get him or wait him out and hope he leads us to the diamonds.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry. There are agents watching your building and I won’t be long.”

“Okay,” Kim said.

So…she could just wait right here for him?

Because that would be good. If they were going to stay here in her apartment, waiting Eric out, they could just stay in her bed. That would work for her.

Would it work for him?

Nick turned sideways, bent over and kissed her forehead, pulled back and said, “Should I apologize for last night?”

“I don’t know. Are you sorry about last night?” she asked.

He looked as if he wondered if it were a trick question of some sort.

Which was not a good sign.

“You can think about it and tell me later,” she said, before he said something she really didn’t want to hear and wasn’t going to accept anyway.

She wasn’t sorry and he wasn’t going to be, either.

Looking grim, he stood up, had a lean, hard body worthy of being immortalized in sculpture, minus the cat scratches of course, she decided, looking at the play of muscles in his hips and thighs, all those smooth, hard lines and curves.

Yum.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “I’ll lock the door behind me. We know where Eric is. You’re safe here.”

“I know,” she said.

She wasn’t worried at all anymore.

She eased back onto the mattress and her pillow, the sheet slipping precariously down.

Nick was looking, so she didn’t even try to cover herself, just put her arms above her head and stretched languidly, like she didn’t have a care in the world. He could watch all he wanted and she’d just stay right here, waiting for him to come back.

He groaned, made a Nick-face, the one he wore to try to convince everyone he was a grump, when she believed he was mostly worried and looking at her like a man who really liked looking at her, but he thought he shouldn’t be looking.

She loved that look.

It said she was getting to him.

Nick made himself look as respectable as he possibly could in five minutes for the walk from Kim’s apartment to the B&B, not wanting every agent here to know what he’d been doing all night, on the off chance that Harry hadn’t already made a general announcement to the troops.

He walked inside, finding no one there except the cat, still bandaged, lounging on a pillow, her nose stuck in the air like she was seven different kinds of royalty and he was a peasant who should be worshipping at her feet.

At least she wasn’t hissing at him or baring her claws.

He knocked on Harry’s door, then stuck his head inside. “Let’s do this in my room. I need a shower and some clean clothes.”

Harry, grinning from ear to ear, said, “I ever tell you you’re my hero, Nick? I mean, you are my hero.”

“Yeah. Don’t say another word about her and I might not have to hit you, Harry.”

They went upstairs into Nick’s room. The bloody bed linens and clothes were still in a pile on the floor. Harry laughed when he saw them.

“Cats? Who knew they had that much blood in their bodies?” Harry said.

“Yeah. If you’re going to stay here, take it from me. Steer clear of that cat,” Nick said, shrugging out of his shirt and digging through his suitcase for anything that didn’t have blood on it that he could wear.

“Geez, Nickie. Is Miss Gorgeous some kind of wildcat in bed?” Harry said, pointing to Nick’s side.

Nick looked in the direction Harry was pointing, toward Nick’s abdomen, scratched all to hell.

“I told you. The cat.”

“Oh.” Harry laughed then. “Damn. I know you’re the man, but I couldn’t figure out what you’d done to her to get her to do that to you—”

“Harry?” Nick pulled out his gun and said, “How about a little pistol-whipping? You up for that?”

“No. I just—”

“Then shut up about her.”

“All right. All right. Jeez. I mean, she’s just a woman.”

Okay, he could kill Harry later, Nick told himself. They had a job to do, catch Eric. And they had to do that so Kim would be safe and for that he needed Harry. But the job would be over soon and then he could do anything he wanted to him.

“I’m getting in the shower. Don’t say a word while I’m in there,” Nick ordered.

Five minutes, he was in and out, and when he walked back into his room, Harry was gone.

“Harry?” Nick called out. “Come on. Let’s just do this.”

He heard the cat give a big, loud roar. The thing had the biggest, loudest mouth of any cat he’d ever encountered. Then he pictured the cat sinking its teeth or its claws into Harry and he liked that idea. If it was happening, Nick wanted to see it.

“I told you to stay away from the cat,” he called out as he headed down the steps, shrugging into a light jacket, gun tucked into the small of his back.

And walked right in on…

Harry standing in the corner saying, “Sorry, she called me down here and I came, just like that.”

Nick turned to the right, saw Mrs. Baker tied up in a chair, looking terrified.

Panning a little farther to the right, there was…Eric Weyzinski, holding a gun on the three of them.

Great.

Was he going to botch this job completely? And what the hell was the guy doing here? At Mrs. Baker’s? He slipped away from their agents and then what? Got the wrong address or something? Make a mistake in reading the house numbers?

Assuming he hadn’t already been next door at Kim’s.

Kim.

“What’s going on here?” Nick asked, calmly as he could manage.

“I’m just looking for something. That’s all,” Eric said. “I just want what’s mine and then I’ll leave. Nobody’s going to have any trouble. Understand?”

Nick nodded. “Sure. What are you looking for?”

“Get over there by the old lady. Now. Both of you.”

Nick went. Harry did, too.

“I told him. I don’t have anything of his. I don’t even know who he is,” Mrs. Baker said.

Nick put a hand on her shoulder and told her to let him handle this, that everything would be okay.

“Gun on the floor and kick it to me,” Eric said. “Slowly.”

Nick did it, thinking about his spare gun and his second spare gun, which he’d left in his room, dammit.

Eric turned back to Mrs. Baker, looking like he was ready to strangle her. “Something from your neighbor,” he told Mrs. Baker. “The pretty girl next door, who just got back from a cruise.”

“She didn’t bring me anything. I thought she might, because she’s sweet like that, always bringing me little things. But she didn’t this time. I remember the morning she came to say hello to me, when she got back. She didn’t have anything with her.”

“No. She did get you something. I was with her when she bought it—”

“Well, even if she did, it would be mine. Not yours,” Mrs. Baker reasoned.

Eric looked disgusted, impatient. “There’s something of mine in the package. That’s what I want.”

Mrs. Baker looked puzzled, like she just wasn’t all there. “Well, I don’t know anything about that.”

“Kim mailed it. It was kind of bulky and breakable, so she had the man at the shop where she bought it package it for her and mail it directly here. So you would have gotten a package in the mail.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Baker said. “Well, we’ve gotten all sorts of packages. We just opened for business and we weren’t quite ready. Things just kept arriving. Some of them, I didn’t even have a chance to open yet, I’ve been so busy. You know how that is….”

Eric’s look said that he didn’t. He was getting more disgusted by the minute.

Nick didn’t think it would be that much of a problem to take him down. Harry would cover Mrs. Baker. Harry would know to do that. And Nick would make a flying leap for Eric when Eric let the gun point just a little bit more toward the ground, so that in case he fired, he wouldn’t hit anybody.