Charlie's Angel (7 page)

“Thanks, that’s good advice.”

Knowing he was probably much too late, he darted into the street, up a block, and into the dead-end alley behind the diner. He didn’t see Roxie. His heart was pounding madly, and the heat was still overwhelming.

Why had Roxie made such an impression on him in her candy pink uniform? Charlie opted to return to his condo. Would Roxie show up or would she change her mind at the last moment? Had she been serious about picking him up at his place or had he mistaken the reciprocating hunger in her eyes?

Seated behind the steering wheel of his Mercedes, he had the distinct conviction that Roxie was skilled at eluding anyone she chose. Should he take a photo of her on his cell phone and send it to his law enforcement friend to check her out? Maybe she was a criminal on the run.

He started the car and pulled smoothly from his parking spot. Roxie, a criminal? He didn’t think so. Her innocence had struck him from the outset. If she wasn’t on the run, what was she doing and why had she given him the slip? Why had she hesitated momentarily before answering her boss about where she’d been during her break? Was she running from something? If so, from what?

He’d been in law fifteen years and had learned that people ran from all manner of things, whether they were real or imagined. Did he really want to get involved with someone who was so clearly hiding something? But then, one night of sex wasn’t getting involved. It was merely scratching the itch he had for this woman who intrigued him. She was so very sexy, feminine and playful. He’d loved how she’d pulled his glasses down his nose to look into his eyes. She wasn’t afraid of the truth.

Charlie jumped on the freeway and thanked his lucky stars the traffic was moving smoothly. He could only hope that Otis Rowter didn’t know where Roxie lived and wasn’t following her.

As the sun dropped lower in the early evening sky, the shadows across the I-10 Freeway lengthened. He gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers. How could he have let Roxie get away so easily? Who would have thought she would dart out the back? If she was in danger from Rowter, how could Charlie help her if he wasn’t with her? Did Roxie know the former convict threatened her safety? Charlie had seen men like him before and prosecuted them. They went postal at the slightest provocation. He hoped Roxie could handle herself, yet he wondered. She was beautiful, spunky and intelligent, but if faced alone with a mad ass like Rowter, would she really be able to take care of herself?

* * * *

It had been easy to leave Charles Vernon behind in the diner. Roxie hefted her duffel bag in hand and hurried down the street. She’d changed from her uniform, but even so, she smelled the grease from the burgers and fries on her skin and in her hair. Continually glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed, she unlocked the door to her apartment building and yearned for one thing. One long shower to rid herself of the odor from work.

An odd feeling stopped her and forced her to glance over her right shoulder then her left. She saw nothing out of place. Hurriedly, she locked the door from the inside, but like a bad taste in her mouth, the feeling of being watched persisted.

Chapter Three

After he arrived at his rented condo, Charlie showered. It had never felt so good before to rid himself of the salty sweat. He dressed in a dark gray two-piece suit with a navy blue tie and a gold tiepin given to him several years before by his law professor. She’d told him he’d go far, and it was her way to honor his achievement of being her best student in the thirty years she’d been teaching. He stroked the gold lightly but affectionately. She’d known and appreciated his drive and determination to make something of himself.

Charlie glanced out the second story window at the quiet neighborhood and the parking lot that was filling up quickly as people arrived home from the jobs to which they commuted—often long distances. The sun was casting its last purplish-orange shade as it set like a stately queen into its bedchamber. Far away, he heard the roar of a motorcycle but ignored the sound, which quite possibly came from the nearby freeway.

His eye caught the distant sparkle of water. The Pacific Ocean. He paused to admire the beauty. Although he lived in the Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood back home, he didn’t have such a good view of the ocean. Behind the condo, several miles away, the forest reared up into the mountains. He heaved in a deep breath of air, inhaling the barely discernible scent of roses on someone’s patio. Birds trilled their night song, and crickets chirped in the arroyo below the condos.

The sound of the motorcycle was getting louder. He gritted his teeth, unwilling for the silence to be broken by such a harsh noise. How he hated the disturbance, which reminded him of his youth and his inability to fight against the violent gangs that terrorized his neighborhood. Charlie had sought justice for their crimes since becoming a lawyer. He owed his mother that much.

Now he saw the rider and shiny black metal hurtling down the two-lane street where the condos were situated. Throwing on his jacket, he hurried down the stairs to the first floor with bated breath. The bike stopped outside, its engine idling. The almost angry blare of a horn assaulted his ears.

“What the hell?” he muttered, his heart jumping into his throat. Maybe the previous condo lessee had hung out with a biker, and the person didn’t yet know he’d moved on.

Fully intending to give the motorcyclist a piece of his mind, Charlie threw open the door and strode out onto the sidewalk. The sun was low in his eyes and prevented him from seeing who was planted on the seat. Unafraid of confrontations, he kept marching down the walkway. The cement felt hard and unaccommodating under his wingtips. In no uncertain terms, he’d urge the guy to quickly move on or he’d call the cops.

Still shading his eyes against the sun’s glare, he came level with the earsplitting racket. His mouth fell open in utter astonishment. The rider was the woman who’d stolen his parking space earlier that morning. Crap, but somehow she’d found out where he lived.

He almost barked out, “What do you want?” but she lifted her visor up and he saw her face with her dancing blue eyes, pert nose and glossy, parted lips. He forgot everything but that kissable mouth and imagined thrusting his tongue between the silky skin, tracing his knuckles down her cheek in a lazy line, unzipping her jacket, and watching as her breasts spilled out while her nipples hardened right in front of his eyes. He’d take her, his cock sliding into her warm wetness as she wrapped her questing arms around his neck and begged for more.

The fantasy abruptly ended when she cleared her throat. How could he have lost his senses so quickly in her presence?

A rose blush tinted her cheeks. She unbuckled the helmet’s strap, lifted the whole thing from her head and shook out her hair which flew gently in silky tendrils before they landed on her leather-clad shoulders. The black was accentuated by her blonde hair, and Charlie thought about dark satin sheets and her limbs spread out awaiting his touch.

Once more, he shook himself. What was it about Roxie that turned on his hormones big time?

He barely caught the helmet she threw in his direction. Still, it landed against his chest with a thud.

“You sure you don’t want to change into something more comfortable?” she asked in the musical voice with which he had become so familiar. She gave him a playful, full-toothed smile.

He didn’t immediately answer. He should have known. Biker chicks weren’t his type. His record for striking out grew by one.

“I
am
comfortable,” he managed, pulling himself together. He hadn’t expected Roxie to show up in a biker’s outfit. She seemed more genteel than that. His mind kept searching for the missing piece of the puzzle. What was wrong with his picture of beautiful Roxie on a fiendish motorcycle? Somehow, the two didn’t add up.

She leaned forward on the bike. “You look uptight, Charlie.” She unzipped her jacket the tiniest fraction of an inch. “Do you think this is a bad idea?”

Charlie panted and held the helmet with a death grip. The woman was torturing him out of his mind. His trousers were far too tight in the crotch area, and getting less accommodating by the second. Couldn’t he get his mind off sex and onto her? Which was the same thing, he told himself with a hint of sarcasm. He exhaled deeply.

He’d never been on a bike before. Could he manage to get on without showing trepidation?

Helplessly, he watched as Roxie kicked down the bike’s stand, settled her helmet on the seat and turned to him.

She’s an angel with the setting sun glowing all around her like a halo of living fire. An angel in black. An angel determined to take me to the ends of the earth with her.

Striding up to him, she grasped his helmet then gently clamped it on his head without fastening the strap. The heady fragrance of gardenias surrounded him. He realized she could do anything she wanted to him, and he was helpless against her, although he was certain she meant no harm. She just didn’t have it in her.

“Now this.” She unknotted his tie with deft fingers.

How many other men had she touched like this, he wondered, and jealousy stabbed him in the heart with its pitchfork. They’d been lucky, and he was about to join their ranks, if he didn’t baulk.

Roxie stuffed the tie in his breast pocket. She leaned further forward and whispered loudly, “You look really tense. Relax. I haven’t killed anyone.” With a chirpy smile, she added, “Yet.”

“That’s what worries me,” Charlie croaked.
Get a grip on yourself. She’ll think you’re a dunce, and even before we get it on, she’ll ditch you.

“I want to do you, Charlie,” she continued, lifting her lips to his.

He’d practiced keeping his hands off her all day, but now, he couldn’t resist. If she was offering her mouth up to him, what man could resist the lure of sexy temptation?

Every nerve in her body trembled as Roxie faced Charlie. The sun had set and dusk encircled them in its grayness. She could easily see his pupils narrow, and the column of his throat moved up and down with a hard swallow. Leaning closer, she reached tentative fingers to the crotch of his trousers. Her fingertips met exquisite silk. He had quite an erection. She wanted more of him before she came to herself. They were in a semi-public place. His neighbors could be watching.

He stepped forward, lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers with a feather-light touch. His muted groan sank into her mind with such impact, she probably would have heard him a mile away. The caress of his mouth was a promise of things to come.

“Charlie?” she whispered loud enough that he could hear her above the idling bike. “Come with me. I promise you won’t regret it.”

He shivered under her fingertips that melted into his shoulder through the heated jacket. “I’ve never sat behind a woman driver on a bike before.”

She laughed softly at his endearing remark. “I’m a perfectly safe driver,” she said, willing herself to step away from him, to break the sexual frissons simmering between them, but only until they got up into the mountains. Then the wildcat in her would come out and play and satisfy him.

“I know.”

His gaze fastened on her, and she felt he was having the same trouble she was, trying to break the physical connection. Her panties were drenched, and if she wound her arms around his neck, she wouldn’t let go until he’d satisfied her craving for every muscled plane of his body.

“Roxie, I can’t wait much longer. I’ve thought about nothing but you since this morning.” His voice was seductively low.

Should she ask whether he’d hungered after her the first or the second time, since he clearly had to suspect it had been she pre-empting his parking spot? Why bother with questions that might kill the sexual atmosphere they’d created and the electrical tension that insistently hummed between them?

She nodded in agreement. They’d end up in his condo. The luxury and apparent wealth within its walls was one feeling she could have done without.