Barbie & The Beast (4 page)

He took a step. Barbie felt his exhaled breath in her hair behind her right ear, and her entire body ruffled, as if more of
it wanted in on that sensation. The guy was invading her space, her antennae told her. He’d issued a physical challenge, upping
the stakes, challenging her imminent withdrawal.

And dang, her nipples were puckering. She felt them tighten and strain upward. There was no mistaking what this meant. Puckered
nipples were the secret female warning system for pleasurable encounters with the opposite sex, and a direct link to heaven
alone knew what else. Puckered nipples were a sure sign that she was enjoying this confrontation, no matter how many excuses
she might make.

Standing tall, folding her arms to get the treacherous puckerage under control, Barbie prayed for sanity to intervene. She
wouldn’t consider the luxury of a frivolous night with a stranger; she had to think of Angie. While she, herself, was having
a pleasurable moment, there was a possibility Angie wasn’t. What kind of a person would allow their friend to be in pain?

Besides, she couldn’t actually jump a guy she couldn’t see, could she? There could be no pec exploration. No touchy-feely
stuff of any kind. Noway. Nohow. Time to go. But which way? What direction? How would she find Angie
out here when she couldn’t even see the guy standing next to her?

“Ummm, do you think you might really help me find Angie?” she asked politely.

“I’ll help if you promise me something.”

The guy’s breath skimmed the edge of her cheek. Barbie executed a full body sway. He wasn’t just close, but
damn
close. Too close. Way too close. Wonderfully close.

Barbie thumped her head with the heel of one hand to get the antennae to behave. Goose bumps rolled over every sector of her
anatomy and kept right on rolling, temporarily blocking out thoughts of invisible paths and lost friends tripping down them
in stilettos. Instead her thoughts were of her abductor’s chest. Would it be muscular and contoured? Would there be washboard
abs? Silky hair?

Treacherous thoughts!

“Promise,” he reiterated.

Barbie stammered, “P-promise what, exactly?”

“That you’ll forego further graveyard exploration this evening.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that!” She’d clasped both hands behind her back to ensure that very thing.

When the mystery guy’s fingers ran the length of her sleeve, Barbie wobbled as if he’d touched bare skin. The contact was
erotic, unexpected—as erotic and unexpected as being rescued by a man who professed to have her safety in mind. Being here
with him didn’t feel perverted or icky. It just felt. . .hot.

“Come.” The guy pried one of her hands free and pulled Barbie forward. But instead of taking one single step in Angie’s direction,
she found herself pressed up against her nocturnal companion, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. And, um, other parts. Barbie’s
hands were against his chest at last.
And yes, at least by this quick feel, he had pecs to die for. He wore a silky soft shirt beneath that silky soft jacket.

Lord help her, Barbie didn’t want to remove her hands from the guy’s upper anatomy. He felt so very good. He smelled so good.
He was at least a head taller than she—the pec placement told her this. He was lithe, with just the right amount of muscle.
Just the way she liked her men.

Wayward thoughts, Bradley. You make it sound like he’s a Happy Meal.
“Perverts don’t smell this good,” Barbie whispered to herself. “If they did, it would be completely unfair.”

“Can I take that as a compliment?” her companion asked, chuckling, his arm encircling her waist.

Though this move wasn’t particularly dangerous, Barbie experienced a thump down in her nether regions. This thumping confirmed
that she still had a nether region—a very good thing, since she hadn’t been quite sure.

“You said you’d take me to Angie,” she breathlessly reminded her companion, while her nipples again did their thing and her
hands slipped downward a little to press against his stomach. His hard stomach. For support.

Heat flew through her. She swayed on her heels, leaning toward the guy she couldn’t see. Her antennae were twirling madly.
Her stomach did loop-de-loops.

Wow.

His warm breath, his hard-as-a-rock body, the challenging repartee—all those things struck her as honest-to-God promising.
One little picket in a large front-yard fence. One baby step toward Tiffany’s. Call her nuts, but all of a sudden she wanted
this guy to kiss her. She wanted it badly. Yet how could she condone this erratic, hormones-gone-astray behavior for one single
second longer?

“Now would be a good time,” she said, trying to mean it, “to take me to Angie.”

“Okay,” he said.

He didn’t move. She didn’t move. The temperature in the graveyard rose considerably.

“
Now
would be a good time,” she repeated.

“Fine.”

No movement again, except perhaps that she might accidentally have leaned a little closer. Unintentionally.

“Can I see you again?” he asked, his exhaled question hot as a space heater on her already-flushed cheek.

Red Alert!
It had been so long since she’d had any meaningful contact, her body might have been ready for anything. Granted, she and
this stranger had some kind of connection. The air between them crackled with electricity. The crackling could even have been
the sound of animal magnetism at its extreme. But that would simply mean, she supposed, that this was a case of full-blown
lust at first sight, without the sight part.

“See me again?” she whispered lightly. “It’s dark. You haven’t seen me a first time.”

“Maybe I use the Braille method,” Invisible Guy replied.

This was so ridiculous, Barbie had to laugh. Her hands, those five-fingered things attached to her arms and sometimes removed
from all links to her brain, slipped a bit more in a downward direction, encountering more taut male muscle.

She sucked in a breath, puffed out her cheeks, preparing to comment. Then a sound broke in. Out there, in the dark. In the
distance. Sounding like a whisper. A familiar whisper.

It wasn’t Angie making pitiful mewling noises, as Barbie had at first expected. Instead, it was a horribly ill-timed and realistic
image of her own mother, Mrs. Brenda Bradley, standing in their yellow-wallpapered country kitchen, shaking a finger. Brenda
Bradley, aka Mom, upon hearing of this unexpected convergence with a stranger (God forbid!) was moaning and moving her lips
in a silent-but-readable
I taught you better
.

Ugh!

The mental image was scary enough to cause Barbie to remove her hands from the stranger’s torso and say without further ado,
“Please take me to Angie.” She was, however, sorry the second she said it. There would be no way to get her hands back on
the guy’s hot bod. That moment had gone forever.

“Damn. You said the magic word. Now I have to oblige,” he—whoever he really was—said.

“Shows you
do
have a civilized bone or two,” Barbie remarked, fingers opening and closing in vain.

The guy just chuckled, a low sound, as though he really was having a good time. Then he said, “You haven’t answered my question
about seeing you again.”

“You haven’t taken me to my friend.”

“I’m thinking about taking you there.”

“I’d prefer another verb.”

“Such as?”

“Doing it.”
Feeling an immediate superblush come on with the unintentional double entendre, Barbie added hastily, “I meant going to Angie.
Moving. Taking steps in Angie’s direction. Not. . .” God, this was embarrassing.

More laughter escaped the stranger, then, “Okay.”

“Great. I’d prefer to walk this time, if you don’t mind.”

Her invisible man backed up a step, slowly, as if he didn’t really want to. A reluctance so charming, Barbie almost pulled
him back.

“FYI, you’re nothing at all like a sack of potatoes,” he told her.

“Really? You mean the Braille method works?” she quipped.

It was a stupid conversation to cover an awkward moment. It had been better when they weren’t talking.

“So, about seeing you again. . .”

“I don’t think so,” Barbie interrupted. Why not, why not? her body cried. Her brain answered, Because what kind of relationship
can there be if talking is a drawback?

That was before a warm cheek rested against her own. Before the scent of spice became more intense, producing undulations
from her thighs to her knees. Before her pan ties felt extraordinarily tight beneath her tight skirt. And those sensations
multiplied as a set of soft lips brushed hers. Not a kiss, just a brush—yet Barbie’s body reacted as if she’d accidentally
stuck her thumb into a wall socket. As if Forest Lawn had just burst into flames all around them.

Tightening every muscle in her legs to keep from tipping over, refusing to cower or back down, Barbie closed her eyes, parted
her lips, and waited for more. Seconds fled. Time stretched. A good kisser could have risen above a multitude of flaws—like
the flaw of anonymity.

But he didn’t kiss her. Dammit, his lips did not return to hers at all. Instead, his hands closed around her waist. With a
heave, he lifted her up, swung her over something she barely felt skim the bottom of her feet. The gate he had mentioned earlier?
Maybe a white, wooden one? She was set down gently, almost tenderly.

The guy took her hand again and started off in the dark, now moving with hasty determination. When he spoke, no doubt over
his shoulder, Barbie heard him quite clearly say, along with a sigh of impending importance, “Barbie. I have a confession
to make.”

“You’re married?”

Yeow! Had she said that?

He was moving fast now. Stumbling after him in the dark, Barbie heard a crack and nearly went down. Her damn heel had broken
after all.

“No. Not married.” His words were muffled. “The confession is that I can see you, Braille comment aside. I guess this gives
me an advantage.”

At this pace, his guidance was her only means of stability as Barbie trotted on, attempting to keep her one heel lifted.

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

“You mean, you can see with your bat radar?” she joked.

“Something like that, yes.”

She was skeptical. “So, what do I have on, Bat Boy?”

“A deep, rich shade of red. A short skirt. Matching jacket.”

Barbie flinched in surprise, tugging his hand back in the process. Her foot in its broken shoe slipped forward on the grass,
her legs went out from underneath her. . .and her invisible savior caught her, miraculously, before she hit the ground.
Still, it wasn’t the near belly flop that left her speechless. The guy had exactly described her outfit.

The word
pervert
returned as quickly as an inhaled breath.
Pervert. As in, he might have watched them arrive. As in, he might have scoped out the scene and laid a trap. As in, this
was a premeditated meeting.

As in,
stalker
.

Her excitement plummeting, Barbie felt her face change from pink to pasty. Could her man radar have been so far off?

“Definitely not,” she said. “No seeing me again.”

They started walking once more. Up, down. Up, down. She felt a little protest from her left calf muscle.

“Why can’t I see you again?” he asked.

“I don’t date dates who don’t take no for an answer,” she replied.
I don’t date stalkers.

There was another unscheduled stop.
What now?

What now
was the mystery man’s finger drifting down the side of her face. In reaction, Barbie’s pulse did a pirouette. Her heart boomed.
Would a stalker bring out these urges? she asked herself. Shouldn’t she be able to differentiate between the good and the
bad somehow?

“Angie,” she directed firmly. “Now.”

“Yes,” the guy conceded with audible disappointment. She heard him turn. His hand brushed her arm as he did.

Zing!
Lightning down south! Everyone out of the pool!

Rocking back on her heels, twirling her arms into space to keep her balance, Barbie yanked the guy back and came up hard against
him.

“Uh. . .” she heard him mutter, faintly. “I swore I was civilized.”

What?
part of her raged. They were up close and personal, and he was giving up? He actually was intending to let her go? Barbie
felt the big
P
of Pervert begin to deflate.

“Come on, Barbie,” he said. “Watch your step.”

His firm grasp on her elbow sent teensy electric charges skittering up toward the bridge of her nose. Like brain freeze when
she drank iced tea too fast.

“Oh, I plan to,” Barbie remarked with a heroic attempt at control, knowing that this guy had wanted to kiss her as much as
she wanted him to. This guy had been hard in all the right places.

He didn’t want to take her back. Nevertheless, he was doing as she’d asked, taking her to find Angie.

The things she suddenly wanted to do to him, here in the dark! The things she wanted him to do to her, starting with her lips
and working his way down. There was just one little problem. When all was said and done, Barbie Bradley was, aside from all
the flirty posturing, a
good
girl. She could count the guys she’d almost nearly landed in bed with on no hands. Kissing, yes—she’d seen plenty of action
there. But actually sliding into home base? Never.

Jumping this guy was something Trashy Barbie would do, and to her knowledge, Mattel had never envisioned, let alone created,
such a thing. Which was, at the moment, sort of a bummer.

No, the connection between herself and this guy who had hold of her hand was definitely not anything she could pursue. Somebody
would have to explain this to her nipples, of course, and break the news to her antennae, which were still spinning. Because
if those parts of her didn’t immediately stop rebelling against
almost
s and
never
s, if she didn’t find Angie quickly and was left alone with this graveyard keeper much longer, with his propensity for quick
laughter and his ability to heat up her air space, well. . .

Heck with Mattel. All bets were off.