Mission: Irresistible (9 page)
Hadn’t anyone ever told the woman you weren’t supposed to hodgepodge scents? The smell was too sweet, too intense, too overwhelming.
Much like Cassie herself.
What he lacked in visual acuity, God had made up for by supplying him with a highly attuned sense of smell. To Harrison’s nose, her bedroom smelled the way a thirty-piece orchestra would sound if all the instruments were playing a different tune at once.
Olfactory bedlam.
Squinting, he noticed a collection of mini-collages tacked onto the wall behind each candle. Morbid curiosity, the quality his mother had sworn would be his ultimate downfall, propelled Harrison toward the candle wall for closer examination.
The collages were displayed in three-dimensional, eight-by-ten picture frames. In the center of each assortment was a photograph of Cassie with a different guy. Various memorabilia surrounded the photographs. Movie tickets, sports team pennants, lapel pins, charms, scrapbook lettering, stickers, swatches of fabric, and even a Top Forty playlist for the time period.
He counted the candles and framed memorabilia. Eighteen. Six on each shelf.
What in the heck was this?
Suddenly, Harrison realized what he was looking at. The wall was a shrine. To the men Cassie had known. Startled, he leaped back and ended up stumbling over a silk pillow thrown haphazardly on the floor. He lost his balance and crashed into the dressing table, knocking over a lamp in the process.
“Harry, is that you? I thought you’d run out on me and left me stranded. Are you all right?”
“Fine, I’m fine,” Harrison muttered. “But where are you?” He righted the lamp, ran a hand through his hair, and struggled not to think about the significance of her candle wall.
“I’m in the bathroom.”
Not good. Not good at all.
“The bathroom?” he repeated, because he did not know what else to say. Goose bumps spread up his arms like a bad case of the measles.
The
dow-shicka-dow-now
music twanged inside his head again.
“Yep.”
“Why are you hiding in the bathroom?” he asked, even though he did not want to know.
“Because I’m embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?” he echoed.
“Before you come inside, I gotta know something. Do you shock easily? I get the feeling you shock easily, and this is a job for a man who doesn’t shock easily.”
“I don’t shock
that
easily.” Good God, what was happening in there?
“You sure?”
“For heaven’s sake, just tell me what’s going on. Nothing could be as shocking as my imagination.”
Her voice turned teasing again. “Harry, just what
are
you imagining?”
Enough coyness.
Mentally girding his loins, he prepared his eyes for whatever unexpected sight might greet them. He placed a hand on the bathroom doorknob and slowly twisted it open.
Cassie was standing beside the vanity, her back to him, her shoulders slumped. A pair of hip-hugger jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt had replaced the Cleopatra costume. The tight pants molded snugly against her well-rounded bottom, and the pockets were boldly embroidered with the Cadillac emblems.
Instantly, he understood the message. Here was a plush ride.
As Adam would say,
bootylicious.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop ogling that fabulous fanny. The Flemish artist Rubens would have salivated for the opportunity of capturing such a lovely backside on canvas. Harrison found his own mouth growing moist.
“Cassie?”
She did not move. “Before I turn around, you have to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“You won’t laugh.”
“I promise I won’t laugh. Please, just let me see what’s causing you so much distress.”
Slowly, she turned toward him.
He was so busy watching her facial expression, which was a touching combination of embarrassment, chagrin, and discomfort, that at first he did not notice that her blue jeans were only halfway zipped up.
First his gaze hung on the tiny heart tattooed at the level of her hip bone. It was no bigger than his thumbnail, discreet, tasteful, and yet it was still a tattoo. Wild women got tattoos. Or at least that’s what he supposed.
Sexual awareness so strong it jarred his fillings zapped from his brain straight to his groin. He’d never found tattoos sexy before. Why now?
Was this what she’d called him in here for? To show him her tattoo?
Dow-shicka-dow-now.
It was only when she shrugged helplessly and splayed her hands in front of her fly that he realized the silky material of her skimpy black thong panties was wedged firmly in the teeth of her zipper.
I
was trying to hurry up for you, and look what happened,” Cassie said.
Harrison dropped to his knees in front of her, the manicure scissors she’d retrieved from her makeup vanity clutched firmly in his hand.
“I hate that you have to cut them,” Cassie muttered. “These panties are from Victoria’s Secret, and I’m not about to tell you how much they cost.”
“The material is jammed in tight; there’s no other way around it unless you can shimmy out of those jeans.”
“Don’t you think I already tried that? The zipper isn’t down low enough for me to edge the pants over my hips.”
His breath was warm against her skin as he leaned forward and grasped the zipper. Cassie looked down at the top of his dark head planted startlingly close to her most private area. His hair grazed her bare belly and she just about came undone.
How did she keep getting herself into these sticky predicaments?
She closed her eyes against the hot, moist sensation gathering low inside her. She was forced to brace her palms against the counter at her back to keep from toppling over on legs suddenly gone to Silly Putty.
What in the hell was the matter with her? Why was Harrison Standish, of all people, making her weak in the knees?
“Hold still,” he muttered.
“I wasn’t moving,” she denied, not wanting him to know how much he affected her.
“You were swaying like a palm tree.”
“Was not.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. Just hold steady unless you want to get poked with these scissors.”
She wanted to get poked, all right, but not with scissors.
Cassie!
She’d shocked even herself. How come she was so turned on? She had never been sexually attracted to a dude that she didn’t even like.
It felt weird. It felt kinky.
It felt like sex outside in a lightning storm.
Unbidden, she had a sudden visual of the two of them doing the wild thing in a rowboat on a lake in the summer with a light spring shower pelting their heated skins.
Stop it.
The boat was bobbing. Birds twittered in the trees along the shore. The cotton-candy pink dress she wore was pushed up around her waist, the gauzy material clinging to her hard nipples as Professor Standish studiously explored every nook and cranny of her willing body.
In real life, his fingertips skimmed lightly over her skin and Cassie inhaled sharply. Yeah, baby. More of that. Oh, she was an unrepentant slut puppy!
“I’m sorry,” Harry said rather gruffly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Hurts sooo good, her audacious side wanted to say, but luckily she was prudent enough to keep her mouth shut. Nevertheless, a shudder ran through her.
“You okay?” he asked, tilting his head to peer up at her.
“Just a little chilled with myself so exposed.”
He made a noise that sounded like someone being strangled.
Turnabout was fair play. “You okay?”
“Just clearing my throat.”
“You need a glass of water or something?”
“I’m fine,” he mumbled. “I just want to hurry and get this over with.”
Aw, don’t hurry
, whined her impish voice.
I like things nice and slow.
Knock it off, she scolded herself. Think of something besides the fact his touch is so tickle soft it’s giving you goose bumps.
Let’s see. What could she think about? She wasn’t much of a protracted thinker.
Hmm. She’d never noticed before how broad his shoulders were. He’d be a dazzler in a tux if he had a decent haircut and contact lenses.
There you go again, imagining him as a sexy stud. He’s not a hidden hunk in geek’s clothing. He’s a nerd with a capital
N.
Okay, okay. How’s this? Think about the difference between Harry and Adam. While she had never met Adam in person, she knew ten times more about him than she did about Harry.
Adam was an outrageous flirt who loved to take chances. And just like her, he enjoyed driving flashy cars really fast. His favorite food was lobster. His favorite color was aquamarine. His favorite video game was
Grand Theft Auto
. In high school, he’d won the starring role in
Damn Yankees
. And in college, his GPA had been the exact same as hers, 2.75. Adam read
GQ
religiously, owned the latest and greatest electronic gadgets, and he’d never once told her he had a brother.
What she knew about Dr. Harrison Standish could fit in a tube of lipstick. He was a bad dresser, and he mumbled under his breath a lot when things didn’t go his way. He drove a white Volvo, and apparently he filled up whenever the gas gauge reached the halfway mark.
Ack! What a blah, safe car. Come to think of it, the Volvo was much too clean. No fast-food wrappers stuffed in the side door pockets, nothing cute dangling from the rearview mirror, no smushed bug guts on the windshield.
She would go crazy if she had to drive around in his spick-and-span-mobile.
“All done.”
“Huh?” Cassie blinked.
Harrison had risen to his feet and was staring at her kind of funny. As if she had spinach in her teeth or something equally gauche.
“You’re free. Panties clipped out of the zipper.” Awkwardly, he handed her the manicure scissors.
She completely understood his awkwardness. She too was feeling decidedly ill at ease. Her idiotic hormones wanted to tango with Harry something fierce, while mentally she was much more in sync with his brother, Adam.
Her eyes locked onto his butt, which somehow managed to look sensational in spite of the baggy Dockers, as he walked out of the bathroom. She had to stop getting herself into these sticky predicaments.
At least for the next three days.
Across town in an abandoned warehouse, the man in the mummy costume slowly regained consciousness. The throbbing in his back was almost unbearable. Each tiny movement sent jolts of pain shooting down his spine. His lips were cracked, and his mouth was so dry that he could hardly swallow.
He frowned, and even that tiny movement caused intense pain. He realized he was lying facedown in metal shavings on a cement floor that smelled of rat excrement, and his wrists were duct-taped behind his back.
Not a good sign.
Nausea roiled his stomach. God, he couldn’t puke. He must not puke. He moved his head to get his nostrils out of the metal shavings, before he accidentally inhaled them, and stared glumly across the floor.
The room was badly lit by a dim fluorescent bulb. He saw large sheets of corrugated tin stacked in piles all around him. Beyond the stacks he could make out heavy, double-rollered doors. The sharp bite of pain that blasted into his head wouldn’t allow him to look any higher. He felt shapeless.
Boneless.
As desiccated as a mummy.
Pulp. Living mush. Mashed. Squashed. Pulverized. Hot. Red. Burning.
His back was a furnace. He could not think. Could scarcely breathe.
No.
He could not allow himself to be consumed. There was something he must do. Something vitally important. Except he couldn’t remember what it was.
Think.
But his mind was a blank. He closed his eyes. Think, think, think.
Where was he? Why was he here? Why did his back hurt like the belly of Hades?
He lay there for what seemed an eternity, his mind a sticky cobweb of jumbled thoughts. None of it connecting. None of it making sense. In his mind’s eye he could see a red purse lying beside a stone bench, but he had no idea of its significance.
Awareness came and went in waves. First he was acutely aware of every physical ache, and then he would nod off, sleeping in brief snatches. Then he’d awaken, confused all over again.
Finally, there came a sharp intrusion to his mental meanderings.
He heard noises.
Footsteps.
Voices.
Low and argumentative. Originating from somewhere beyond his blurry field of vision. Speaking in a language he recognized, but not his native tongue.
Concentrate.
He strained to listen.
Greek. He recognized the language now. The men were speaking Greek. But they were too far away for him to hear what they were arguing about.
It’s Greek to me
, the mummy thought giddily and almost laughed.
Were they friend or foe? Considering he was tied up in a rat-infested warehouse stocked with sheet metal, it would be a good guess that they weren’t his best drinking buddies.
Sweat trickled down his neck as they drew closer. Then the footsteps stopped just outside the door.
“Hold on to your temper this time, Demitri,” a man who sounded like a bullfrog with a bad cold said in English. “You almost killed him when you stabbed him.”
“I can’t believe we are treating him with kid gloves,” the man presumably called Demitri retorted. “He’s trying to destroy everything.”
Their voices sounded vaguely familiar. Especially the Louis Armstrong soundalike. But their identities wavered just out of reach. Maybe he didn’t know them. He could be mistaken.
“Patience,” said Croupy Bullfrog Man. “If you ever want to advance beyond apprentice then you must develop patience.”
Who were these guys? Did he know them? Should he know them?
The mummy strained against the duct tape, but it would not yield. There wouldn’t have been time to run even if the tape had given way. Plus, he wasn’t in any condition to fight off a Girl Scout, much less two grown men.
He heard the mechanical whirring noise of the door being hoisted on its rollers. Squinting in the dimness, he saw two sets of feet round the corner of the metal stacks. One wore dirty Nike sneakers; the other guy had on patent-leather wing tips.