NaturesBounty (3 page)

Thin, but serviceable gray carpet muffled his steps while he
slipped over to the stairwell. While yanking thong floss out of his ass, he
stuck his head through the doorway. The stairs were concrete and descended out
of view of the floor above. Bullets whizzing up or down in a firefight would
have a harder time finding their targets. Not that he was planning on getting
in a shootout, especially since he was unarmed. But it was an automatic
observation that had become a bleak reality in his line of work.

A window in the stairwell showed night was approaching. Nate
typically preferred to collar skips late, in the middle of the night. Fugitive
brains were fuzzy with sleep and reaction times were slower then, except for
tweakers who considered three a.m. their personal noontime. Occasionally,
daytime retrievals were best, however, and a stripper service sure as hell
wouldn’t be delivering balloons and ball sacs in the wee hours. Valerie’s
requested delivery time had been eight o’clock, and Nate stepped out of the
elevator at six-thirty to make sure he would avoid bumping into the real deal.
If everything went to plan, Lydia would be on her way back to Colorado by the
time her real birthday present showed up.

He closed the stairwell door and stopped in front of the
door marked 314. As always, he paused and listened for a moment, trying to get
a feel for the place and what he might find inside. He heard nothing, not even
the dull drone of a television. Hopefully, Lydia hadn’t taken off, but it was
possible. Maybe she didn’t want to spend her birthday hiding out alone. If
Valerie hadn’t called her to make sure she would be around for her “special
gift”, Lydia wouldn’t have any reason to stick around besides the sheer common
sense of being a fugitive. Well, he’d find out soon enough whether the balloons
and thong had been for nothing.

He rehearsed his mental script one final time before he
knocked on the door. The sharp rap sounded a little more like his typical
I’ve-come-to-collar-you knock than he would have liked, and he winced at the
sound. Normally he’d be shouting her name through the door. Instead, he stayed
quiet and obeyed the instinctive urge to step aside from the door for a moment
in case a bullet whizzed through in reply. When nothing splintered the wood, he
moved back in place. No doubt stripper services didn’t lurk out of peephole range
like creepy stalkers.

The silence after his knock lasted almost long enough for
him to think she had either gone out or decided not to answer. He was pondering
the next move when he heard a woman’s voice from close behind the door.

“Yes?” she asked cautiously.

Big mistake, lady, he thought to himself. In another
incarnation, that would have been enough to put his foot through the door.

“Lydia Franklin?” he called in what he hoped was a friendly,
nonthreatening tone.

Another pause.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

Maybe he was kidding himself, thinking he could play himself
off as an innocent stripper boy. But then, any bail skip with half an ounce of
brains would act paranoid at an unexpected visitor, no matter who was doing the
knocking.

“I’m Antoine from Hot and Ready Exotic. Valerie sent me to
deliver a very special birthday present to Lydia.”

Nate had no idea how a real stripper would handle a nervous
Nellie at the door, and the long delay made him wonder if he’d blown it. There
was a quick—very quick—shadow across the peephole, and he pasted on his best
I’m-a-hot-guy-you-want-to-let-in smile.

In his head, old tapes played that featured him training a
gun at the doorway while it was kicked or battered in. Shouts and commands and
chaos would all feed the adrenaline surge that would accompany his forcible
entry. The adrenaline surge was definitely on board, but the rest faded into
memory while he waited, silent and smiling while she gave him the once-over
through the peephole.

“Wait,” she commanded sternly, and he heard her move away.

It had to be her. He knew it. Patience began to waver with
his target acquired, but he stood by and waited. He heard her talking soon
after, quietly at first. He stiffened, wondering who else was in the apartment.
Then came a cry of surprise that startled him into even higher alert, followed
by an easy laugh. Suddenly, he heard her flipping door locks, and the door
yanked open. It was Lydia all right, all five-foot-seven-inches of sexy blonde.
She had a cell phone pressed to her ear and a seductive, welcoming grin on her
face that was the exact opposite of the expression bond jumpers normally wore
upon seeing him.

Mother of God, but the mug shot he’d thought was fairly
decent hadn’t done the woman a single bit of justice. The California Beach Girl
version of Lydia Franklin took every male chromosome in his body to DEFCON 1.
Her feathery blonde hair fell in careless layers to spill over her shoulders,
and the silken strands were the only thing obscuring the view of a baby-blue
bikini and long-legged, pinup-worthy body that a
Sports Illustrated
model would have envied. Round, high tits strained against the shimmery fabric,
and his cock promptly began twitching most inconveniently in its stripper
pouch. To make matters worse, her aquamarine eyes were studying him every bit
as greedily as he was eyeing her. In any other place—
any
other place—he
would have been on her in a hot minute. That included the post office, the
supermarket or a coat closet during Sunday School.

“Well, hello there,” she said, licking her lips to punctuate
the seductive greeting. A particularly dirty thought cropped up while he
watched her tongue moisten those plump lips.

He just stood there, holding his bag and balloons.

“Oh my, Val,” she said into the phone, “you have no idea how
completely and utterly you have outdone yourself.”

Her eyes did things to him he could barely describe while
they slid over every inch. His spine tingled under that gaze, and damn if her
nipples didn’t stand up and salute after her visual tour. Something lower on
his body began saluting as well.

She laughed at whatever response she got on the other end.
“Have I told you that you are my absolute best friend in the whole world?”

There was no mistaking the sloppy rush to the words, a slur
that told him she had started celebrating her birthday quite some time before
he had arrived. That could either make his job easier or more complicated,
depending on a number of factors. Drunks were unreliable at best, and quite
often, they kept on going even after they got knocked down.

His quarry clicked off the call after kisses and thanks, and
she opened the door wider. “So, do you have more for my birthday than just a
ripe, round bunch of balloons?”

If she only knew what all he had. Starting with a ridiculously
ill-timed boner and ending with the handcuffs in his pocket. Two things which,
at the moment, didn’t necessarily strike him as mutually exclusive. This was
bad. All kinds of bad.

“Oh yeah,” he said, going for a fuck-me tone while he met
her gaze straight on, although the stab of heat in his stomach made him wish he
hadn’t. “There’s a whole lot more to this gift than meets the eye.”

A delicate eyebrow lifted. “Good, because I definitely
approve of what’s meeting my eye.”

She reached out and ran her hands over his chest, and he
stiffened without thinking. That probably wasn’t what strippers did when
handled by a hot female customer. Fortunately, Lydia didn’t seem to care about
that, but when she gave his shirt an aggressive tug and nothing happened, she
pulled back with a frown.

“What’s this?” she asked. “You’re not wearing standard-issue
stripper wear. Where’s the Velcro, stud?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I believe in offering
authenticity with my costumes.”

“And I believe in easy-on, easy-off.” She winked. “But I
appreciate the dedication to my entertainment.” However, she glanced
suspiciously at his duffel. “What’s in the bag?”

And what was with the twenty questions? Why wouldn’t she let
him inside? Maybe she wasn’t totally buying his act, despite calling her friend
to confirm that she had, in fact, hired a stripper.

Then again, he didn’t have to keep the game going. She’d
opened the door, and that was good enough. He could just drop the charade right
now and force his way in, but something told him to play this one cool. Win the
fly over with honey rather than vinegar.

He offered a slow grin while he unzipped the bag and held it
open. “A change of clothes and a portable stereo. You know, for the music I
need to do my routine.”

With a smile, she reached over and took the balloon strands
from him. “Here. Why don’t you let me pull your strings?”

She turned her back on him then, and his heart lurched as
she sauntered away carrying her pretty pink balloons like a naughty girl. Below
a slender back and perfectly curved waist lay the hottest, roundest bare ass he
had ever beheld, courtesy of the surprise thong on her bikini bottom. He wasn’t
the only one flossing his crack, and what it did for her sent a throb of need
through his already pulsing dick. Fuck yes, she was a very naughty girl. One in
desperate need of a spanking.

He followed her inside, taking a quick inventory of the
place before shutting the door. The digs were small and cozy, furnished in wild
colors and professional decorator touches, although everything seemed almost as
dated as the building itself. Considering the ocean-front location, the place
probably cost a small fortune. Her bank account had been frozen, so he idly
wondered how she was funding this little vacation. But then, his interest in
checking out the place wasn’t to assess decor and property values. He was
scanning carefully for signs that she wasn’t alone.

The front door opened right into a small dining area. He
stood beside a simple wooden table and glimpsed the cracker-box-sized kitchen
to the right. No one was there or in the living room just ahead. A bottle of
expensive-looking booze sat on a dark, kidney-shaped coffee table, and only one
glass sat beside it. That was an encouraging sign, but he would ask anyway.

She wandered toward the living room, stopping to tie her
balloons to the back of a dining room chair. He barely managed to take his gaze
off her ass long enough to notice the fantastic view out the living room
window. Bright-purple drapes had been thrown wide to showcase the ocean, which
spread out before them like a massive ink blot. At this hour, it looked like a
dark and fathomless stain against the azure-blue sky of deepening twilight. It
was majestic, eternal and unspeakably beautiful. But he couldn’t give half a
shit about it. He was busy scoping out the fire escape window, which was
conveniently open.

He tensed, poised for action when she started moving in the
direction of the fire escape. A dark-green couch sat in front of the coffee
table, and she stopped there with her back still to him while she picked up the
glass on the table.

Nate cleared his throat and glanced toward the single
hallway. “The request was made for a private show,” he finally managed while
his eyes snapped right back to the hot ass he was thinking more and more about
bending over his knee. “Is there anyone else here that will be joining the
party?”

“You are the party,” she said over her shoulder, tossing
back the last bit of booze in her glass. “That’s about as private as it gets,
don’t you think? Just you and me.”

Do it now. Identify yourself and grab the cuffs. Better
yet, get out the cuffs while her back is turned and then identify yourself.

He reached quietly for his pocket.

“Tell me something, Antoine,” she said, setting the empty
glass down and fiddling with the narrow strings at the back of her swimsuit.
“Do any of your clients ever strip for you? Outside the bedroom, of course.”
The drunken slur made the last part sound like, “Aside the bear rum, uh cores.”

His hand was halfway in his pocket when she yanked the
strings on her top and whirled on him suddenly. Nate froze while she held the
bikini top out in front of her like a prize before tossing it to the floor.

The way his eyes were bugging out must have looked comical,
but how the fuck could he help it? Oh glory, but were her tits magnificent,
even rounder and fuller now that they were no longer constrained by scraps of
fabric. Her nipples were pink and firm, pointing slightly upward as if urging
his mouth down to taste them. His erection stiffened rapidly, thick and long
enough to feel the tip shove rudely through the edge of his G-string.

Lydia sidled up to him while glancing at the hand still
stuffed in the duffel bag. “I’m sure Valerie paid you well for a hot, sexy
routine, and you had to drag that radio up here and all. But since it’s been
one hell of a lousy birthday and a crappy dating year in general, why don’t we
skip the opening ceremonies and go straight for the gold?”

She took the bag from him and dropped it carefully to the
neutral-toned carpet. Nate’s hand jerked out of his pocket, and he caught the
metallic clink of the cuffs. Lydia seemed too intent on him to notice.

As she closed the distance between them, his stare
redirected from her breasts to her heavy-lidded bedroom eyes. He fell right
into their smoldering depths. Without breaking eye contact, she went straight
for the kill and grabbed him through his slacks. Her touch was firm and
demanding as she groped him, and she let out an appreciative-sounding moan.

“Feels like this party has already started,” she said
thickly, and he felt her fumbling clumsily with his fly.

Sweat beaded on his forehead as Nate felt reason slipping
away.
Stop her, you idiot!
Push her away and identify yourself.
Identify yourself now.

That’s when he heard his zipper open, and her hand snaked
right inside his G-string. Her gasp wasn’t the only one in response to her warm
fingers curling around his throbbing dick.