Well, I wanted Van. But I was still peeved at him.
Ignoring Van, I tucked Cayla’s business card, one each, into Bob and Other Bob’s pocket like a tip. “In case you need anything.” I pointed at Cayla’s room and winked. “Once you’re off duty, of course.”
I shot Van a defiant look and, unable to avoid the inevitable, cruised into my room to find…
Nothing amiss.
Bob, or maybe it was Other Bob, I really had to get them straight, pushed past me and checked my room, including under the bed, for the big, bad wolf, and finding none, left.
“We’ll be right outside,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
“Yeah? Well beware handsome gym owners bearing gifts,” I called after him. I think maybe he grinned.
I stood frozen by the door, weighing my alternatives for the evening.
Like any girl who’s been violated in any way, my first instinct was to bathe, bathe, and bathe again. But add actual blood, grit from the alley, germs from lying on the bathroom floor, and perspiration from a strenuous workout to my “dirty, want to wash it all off” feeling and I really, really needed a good scrub. And a good soak. A good soak and a good scrub.
Maybe, if I hadn’t felt like I was staying in the Stanley Hotel in the midst of an emporium of evil, I would have acted on my urge. But the last thing I wanted was to be caught naked by either Ket or Goon.
It’s not like I didn’t trust the Bobs, the cops, and the FBI guys. But Ket and Goon loomed in my fears like a bad odor, able to float under doors.
I moved on to urge number two. Check out the room. See if the FBI guys had taken anything. Inquiring minds wanted to know. I would have asked Van, but…I had my pride.
I began my investigation with my suitcase. It sat on its rack with every fiber of my neatly folded clothes in place. I rummaged a bit, but everything looked pretty much present and accounted for.
I couldn’t stand the silence in the room. I turned on the TV and flipped through the network channels, scanning the local news. The anchors had moved past the hard news and were on to weather and sports. The top of the hour when the national news came on would tell where we ranked in the national news scene. I flipped briefly to one of the all news channels and watched for a few minutes.
We made the news ticker, banner, whatever you call it, that scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I stifled an urge to call out to Van, switched back to network TV and headed for my closet. Next door, I heard Van’s shower turn on.
Somebody didn’t have a problem showering alone and without a guard posted immediately outside his bathroom door. Which only made me madder at him. Confident, arrogant…
I forced my attention back on my closet. The only things I kept in the closet were my sexy, strappy party shoes and the valuables in my safe. I picked up my silver sandals and cuddled them. “You look marvelous,” I cooed to them. “Those mean, old FBI guys didn’t manhandle you, did they?”
If only shoes could talk.
Next door, I swear Van pumped up the volume on his shower just to irritate me. I set my shoes down, scowled in the direction of Van’s room and opened the in-room safe to take inventory. Purse. Good. I opened it—lipstick, wallet, tissues, spare change, sanitary protection…
My gaze slid to the adjoining door. I wondered if Van had locked his side. I wondered if I should just try it and see. Just to make sure he was safe in there. In his nice, steamy shower. Keep an eye on him while he was vulnerable…and naked.
Running, cleansing, beautiful water. Slithery, sudsy, smooth luscious lather. Bubbles trailing down Van’s naked skin…
My hand actually tingled with the urge to try the adjoining door. The rest of me tingled, too. But not for the same reason. I forced myself to return to my inventory of the safe. Keys. Gun. Naked Van…
Thoughts of Van were like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. They just popped in there.
A teaser for one of the seven o’clock hour celebrity gossip shows caught my attention, temporarily diverting my thoughts from marshmallows, naked Vans, and other delectable treats. A photomontage of Ket’s picture with various celebrities he’d trained flashed across the set, followed by an old modeling shot of me, and an old picture of us together, smiling, laughing, happy.
I shuddered. Was that how it was going to be? Were they going to focus on the what was, what’s over, what’s fake? Yeah, we looked good in that picture. But it was taken a week after Ket hit me the first time. In the picture, I was wearing the diamond teardrop earrings he’d given me during his conciliatory, apologetic, make it all up to me, he’ll never do it again mood. Diamonds are forever teardrops. How bizarre. And ironic. I should have been so out of there.
Like the absolute lust for deep, dark sixty-three percent cacao chocolate during a PMS mood, there are some urges that are completely beyond my control. The need to wash off the stench of a goon and a creepy, murderous ex in complete safety, and possibly get a glimpse of Van’s naked body sparkling with lather is evidently one of them.
I slammed the safe shut, raced across the room, threw open my side of the adjoining door, then his side of the door without stopping to knock. I was breathing hard and so worked up that I didn’t register that he hadn’t locked his side. I didn’t even notice that the shower noise had stopped.
As I stood there panting, Van stepped out of his bathroom wearing a loose-fitting pair of lounge pants and nothing else. That I could see. He was sparkling, squeaky, lusciously clean. His hair was damp and tousled. His skin glistened with a freshly scrubbed glow. The swelling around his eye had gone down. He could open it some now. But there were deep, ugly bruises on his ribs and arms and the bottom of his jaw. And his lip looked a little puffy, and it wasn’t from kissing.
“What took you so long?” He was trying the killer grin again, and doing only a slightly better job of it than a few hours before.
But I wasn’t really concentrating on his face anyway. The tingly urge to touch was back in my fingers, along with a crazy desire to straddle him and bite that perfect shoulder of his. The unbruised one.
“Thief!” I pointed an accusing finger at him, trying to ward off the tingles with anger. “You stole my three-in-one Cinnamon Bliss body wash. How am I supposed to get clean without it?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“Don’t even try denying it, mister. I can smell the cinnamon on your skin from here. And I bet you used my bath scrubby, too. You have the glow.”
He shrugged. “You left it here.”
I glared at him. Tried anyway. I think there was some guilt that he’d been beat up on my account, and some lust and desire thrown in subconsciously.
“Hey, you could have stopped by to retrieve it at any time.” He winked with his good eye. “I practically turned into a prune in there.” He left the “waiting for you” part unsaid.
I sputtered, but nothing coherent came out. I wasn’t sure what made me angrier. That I’d missed the opportunity of showering with him by being so damn stubborn. Or that he actually expected me to join him in the first place. After he lied to me, deceived me, let Goon almost kidnap me…and saved my life.
On second thought, maybe he wasn’t
so
bad.
I changed the subject. “You left the door between our rooms unlocked! What were you thinking?”
He tried the grin again.
I ignored it and his obvious meaning. “Anyone could have walked in here and offed you. After they first killed me, of course.”
“And hotel security. And the Bobs. And my guys.”
“Don’t interrupt me. My concussion is making it hard for me to concentrate.” Well, that and his bare chest. “Those other guys are beside the point. I was your last line of defense. I would have tried to protect you. Which is why I wasn’t showering in my own room. Because how could I while you were vulnerable?”
“How do you know I was vulnerable?”
“Were you naked?”
“I don’t shower with my clothes on.”
“Then you were vulnerable. Everyone’s vulnerable when they’re naked.”
“That explains the rarity of nudist colonies,” he said.
I scowled and gave him my reproving look, the one I learned from my mother.
He put his hands up in defense. “I had my gun.”
“In the shower?”
“On the counter. I had a different kind of barrel in the shower.”
I rolled my eyes.
He laughed and stepped toward me.
I stepped back, my eyes tearing up without warning. I hated these pendulum emotions I’d been having since the attack this afternoon. I felt like I was having the worst PMS day. If only a Midol would solve the problem.
“Don’t. I…I feel dirty.” And I meant from more than physical grit and grime.
He froze. The sympathetic, concerned look he gave me practically caused me to break into a floodgate of tears. I sniffed, trying to hold them back. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” He sounded like he understood, yet there was a hard, angry undertone to his voice. Like he wanted to kill Goon and Ket.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“You want to shower now? I left you plenty of Cinnamon Bliss.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “I’ll watch your backside.”
“You’re damned right you will.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll just get my things and be right back.”
“Don’t forget your gun. Two barrels are better than one.”
I stifled a comeback about how he probably meant holsters. Barrels were my thing, and I was a one-barrel-at-a-time woman. “Order us some room service. I’m starving.”
I came back with my gun, clothes, and toiletries, and Linda Small’s card. I put the gun on the dresser. I handed the card to Van. “The only Cindy Lou at conference who’s sold a black necklace like the one Ket gifted me in my room.”
Van raised his one good brow. “To Ket?”
“To Steve.”
Van’s look clouded. “Cayla your source?”
“Yep.”
“You warn her to be careful?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll get my men on it.”
I nodded.
“Drop your clothes outside the door,” Van said as I headed into his bathroom. “I’ll bag them and send them out to be cleaned. You’ll have them back by morning. Promise.”
“Thanks, but don’t bother,” I said. “Just bag them and toss them out. I don’t want to ever see them again.”
He gave me another serious, slightly worried look. “Aren’t you running a little short on camp uniforms?”
I turned to look over my shoulder at him. He looked like he was worried about more than my uniform shortage. “How would you know? Did your guys take inventory?”
“You ruined one yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said and started for the door again. I paused in the doorway. “Your guys didn’t…did they find…anything?” I meant the dongle.
“No.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Damn. All this for nothing. I felt unaccountably let down.
“It’s all right. We’ll get them.”
I nodded and closed the bathroom door. The mirror was still steamed from Van’s shower. I avoided it anyway, turning my back to it as I stripped. Then I opened the door a crack, extended one arm out, and dropped the clothes. I don’t know if I was trying to be provocative. I definitely wasn’t trying not to be. I was so confused.
I felt dirty and abused. Scarred and betrayed. Scared and in lust. Full of longing for Van and in need of comfort. Angry at Van and the world and ready for justice. Nothing reconciled.
So I jumped in the shower and used gobs of Cinnamon Bun Bliss on my bath scrubby and scrubbed until I’d practically loofaed off my top layer of skin.
While I showered I took inventory of my injuries. My breasts were bruised where Goon had felt them up, ostensibly looking for the dongle. I vowed that if I ever got the chance to feel him up, I’d give him more than bruises.
My arms were bruised where Ket had grabbed me. I had bruises on my legs and hips where Ket had thrown me against the door handle. I had a goose egg on my head. And a scrape on my knee. I’d been worse, and I’d been better. I looked a lot like I used to in high school after back-to-back basketball and select fastpitch practices. But I was alive and, if you don’t count my psyche, nothing vital was damaged.
I finished showering and sunk into the tub for a soak to ease my sore muscles and mind. I stayed there until I heard a knock on the door to the room, followed by some murmuring, followed by a gentle rap on the bathroom door.
“Dinner’s here,” Van said.
“Be right there.”
I towel dried my body and hair, dressed in my cami and sleep shorts, and gave my hair a quick hit with the built-in blow dryer. Five minutes and I was out, pink and flushed from the soak and the heat of the blow dryer. I’ve never learned how to take a lukewarm shower or bath. I always come out too hot and need a cooling off period. When I opened the bathroom door and found Van still shirtless, I really needed cooling off.
“How was your shower? Feeling better?” He stole a glance at my braless double Ds. Men have a hard time
not
staring at them. I forgave him his temporary lack of eye contact.
“Great and yes.” My double Ds budded up for him and I didn’t even have the excuse of being cold.
The TV was on. It was almost seven and time for the celebrity gossip show that I had seen a commercial for earlier.
Van led me across the room to the small round table. He’d set it with an assortment of covered dishes, a bottle of white wine, a carafe of what smelled like coffee, and a bud vase with a single red rose.
“Dinner, I presume?” I ignored the obvious romantic touches. I wasn’t letting him off the hook so easily. One rose and a bottle of wine was not going to get me to forgive him.
“Come and get it.” He held my chair out for me before removing the cover to a plate of oysters on the half shell resting on a bed of ice. “Appetizer?”
I raised a brow and he grinned his half killer, half battered face grin.
“I don’t suppose you have any deep-fried mozzarella sticks?” I wasn’t letting him get any ideas. If he’d known me better, he’d have realized how much more hot, gooey, breaded cheese turned me on than slimy oysters.
“Not an oyster girl?”
“Not unless there’s a pearl in it.”
“Noted.”
“Feel free to indulge, though,” I said, using my magnanimous, “it’s not going to be that easy to seduce me” tone, even though I was having a hard time keeping my hands to myself and my eyes above his chest level. And my breasts refused to unbud, which was probably giving him ideas that I’d forgiven him. The budded nipples were a completely involuntary reaction. I was just about as mad at them as I was at Van.