by Lydia Burke
"Let's go," Ben said. "Stay close to me."
"Wait." Jessie found his leather-covered arm and restrained him. "What about my purse and clothes? My car?"
The muscles in Ben's forearm bunched under her hand. "God Almighty. Your purse. To hell with that and your clothes and your car, too. You'll be lucky to get out of here with your damned skin. Hell, I might murder you myself before this is over. Now, are you coming, or not?"
"Okay, okay." Jessie realized she had pushed him far enough. She'd worry about her belongings later.
"Come on." Ben took her elbow and guided her across the room to the open window, where she could feel the penetrating chill of the cold winter wind through the denim of her jeans. Her sister's house was on a street without lights, but Jessie could just make out the lines of the roof next door against the sky. It would soon be dawn. Ben had been right to worry.
He climbed out the window and reached up to help her. It was probably not deliberate that the hands he slipped under her arms pressed the sides of her breasts as he pulled her out of the house; most likely he hadn't even noticed through her thick parka. But Jessie felt it. And her nipples, oblivious to the danger of the moment, tightened in response. She shivered, not entirely because of the cold. Apparently her mind's rejection of Ben's imperious treatment mattered not a whit to her traitorous body.
When she was standing on the frozen ground, Ben took her hand and, keeping low, headed for the blackness of a row of bushes at the edge of the yard. Visibility was better out here, not only because of the advancing daylight, but because several homes on the street had outdoor lights. Which made their flight all the more precarious. At least there was no snow on the ground to further illuminate their escape. Thank God for this year's mild winter.
Ben led her through the yard behind Allie's to the sidewalk lining the street beyond. There he straightened and broke into a run, pulling Jessie after him. They ran for a couple of blocks, thai cut back across unfenced lawns until they came out on what had to be her sister's street again.
Breathless from the run, Jessie was about to ask Bra to slow down, when she saw they were headed toward a car parked by the curb. There, finally, he stopped and dropped her hand. While she leaned against a fender to press a palm to her heart, he pulled keys out of his pocket and unlocked the passenger
door, scanning the area as his hands worked. His breath pierced the frosty air in long, dragonlike puffs. His grim features, Jessie realized, were nearly discernible in the cold, gray light of the approaching dawn.
Ben opened the door for her and hurried around the hood of the car. Jessie scooted inside, closed the door and leaned across the seat to pull up the lock on the driver's side before he could insert the key, thinking she'd save him some time. But she found the inside locking mechanism in this car was located somewhere other than on the window panel. Then his door opened, and Ben was carping at her again.
"What are you doing, taking a nap? Move ova:, dammit."
"Well, excuse me for trying to help!" she fired back, sitting up straight and reaching for the shoulder harness.
It was remarkable how much scorn the man could dish out without raising his voice. If she were the type to be intimidated, by now she would have been beaten flat under his pulverizing onslaught.
But Jessie Webster was no man's whipping post. Not anymore.
Ben made no answering salvo as he settled behind the wheel and started the engine. Jessie sat back, and with the danger less immediate now, looked around. The road curved a block or so ahead, and Allie's house could not be seen. Neither was there any sign of the Chevy or its villainous occupants. Except for herself and Ben, this portion of the street was reassuringly deserted. Even so, Ben backed into a driveway and pointed the car in the opposite direction before turning on the headlights.
"Where are we going?"
He looked at her briefly and ran a hand through his hair. It was a tired, vulnerable gesture, curiously at odds with the confident, take-charge behavior he'd demonstrated so far.
"Now we find a safe place with a phone." For the first time he spoke without whispering. His voice was deep and mellow, perfectly suited to his laige frame. "Then," he went on, "since I haven't had any sleqp in thirty-six hours, a cup of coffee. After that, you tell me."
She frowned. "Tell you what?"
"Have you got someplace you can stay till this blows over? I don't think I can offer you police protection. The Port Man-gusP.D. isn't that big."
Jessie was confused by the enigmatic words. Stay? Until what blows over? Police—? Police protection!
She gasped as a horrifying thought struck her. "My God! What about Allie?"
Either the woman was a hell of an actress, Ben thought as he headed the car out of town, or the unlikely story that she was Angela's—Allie's—twin was the truth. He was nearly convinced that the worry in those dark blue eyes was real. Then again, maybe she had just remembered that the role she was playing called for some sisterly concern for her fictitious clone.
Either way, he could no longer doubt that the woman he knew as Angela was a reporter. Which was all he needed. It wasn't bad enough that he'd run into one roadblock after another on this tedious assignment. Now there was the risk that a reporter who might have sniffed out Mai's connection to prostitution, drugs and organized crime could blow the whole operation by going to print too soon. If the operation was even salvageable anymore, that is. And if said reporter didn't get both herself and Ben killed first.
He was wary of the woman's story. He knew newshounds who placed more importance on the public's right to know than the critical confidentiality of a police investigation. This woman could be hiding her real identity, either to protect her story until it got into print or to trick Ben into giving her more information. Hell, she'd already succeeded in fooling him for more than three weeks. Ben wasn't about to be reeled in any further.
It was embarrassing to think how thoroughly he'd been duped. He hadn't suspected "Angela's" real occupation, because she fit the role of heart-of-gold cocktail waitress to a tee. She'd come off as friendly, flirtatious and a little bit dumb. Put that together with wild auburn hair, bedroom eyes and an overly endowed chest quivering like firm Jell-O over the top of her scanty uniform, and the last thing you'd imagine was that the woman was an investigative reporter.
Ben thought back to the last time he'd seen her as Angela, Several nights ago she had claimed car trouble and he'd given
her a lift home. Though he'd declined her offer to come in for a drink, he hadn't objected when she'd kissed him good-night at her door. At the time he'd thought she was a sexy armful but not really his type, so he'd tried to let her down easy. Now he realized she'd probably been hoping to grill him about the club. It was no small feat to so completely deceive a master deceiver like Ben.
"What if she comes home and those men are waiting for her?" Angela/Allie/Jessie was saying. "We've got to warn her!"
Ben glanced over and found his skepticism faltering at the anxious look on her face. Maybe she was who she alleged, and her fears that something might happen to her sister were honest.
Still, the sting of having bought Angela's previous deception wouldn't let him give up his doubts.
"There's nothing we can do about it right now," he told her gruffly. "Anyway, I have the feeling that Allie, if she exists at all, will manage to find a way out of any trouble she may get into."
"She exists, I'm telling you. God, you're infuriating!" She slumped back in the seat and started chewing on her lower lip, apparently unwilling to talk further. That was okay with Ben. He wasn't in the mood for more arguments, either.
He took the southern lake route out of town, avoiding the well-traveled expressway he normally used to reach Sheboygan, which was less than ten miles from Port Mangus. On his left, Lake Michigan stretched to the horizon, calm and majestically beautiful with the sun rising over the water. But Ben gave the splendorous scenery only passing notice.
Instead he appraised his pas
senger as he drove, making comparisons. The hair was shorter, of course, but people got haircuts all the time, so that didn't prove a thing. Ben liked the new style better. It was still mussed from her pillow. Rather than detracting from her features, the unruly reddish brown strands highlighted the delicacy of her face.
That face. Though he'd caught her in the middle of the night with no makeup, it was clear she had the same high cheekbones, straight, finely etched nose and luscious mouth as "Angela." But somehow, without the feminine war paint, the
effect was sensually elegant rather than blatantly seductive. He couldn't help noticing that even without mascara, her lashes were long and slightly curved, forming a thick, feathery fringe around her eyes. They'd probably feel soft against a man's lips, were he to brush kisses across her closed eyelids. Unbidden, the fantasy crept into Ben's brain, in seconds embellished to include naked bodies and the memory of his hand reaching out to encounter a soft, warm breast.
He kept his face impassive and pinned his eyes on the road so the woman riding next to him couldn't guess his wayward thoughts.
Hell, the lady could be telling the truth. God knows he'd never reacted this way to the scheming "Angela." Even in the middle of a hot kiss designed to burn him all the way to his toenails, his mind had been less on the woman in his arms than on forming an excuse to stay out of her bed.
No, the chemistry he felt pulling at him now hadn't kicked in until this morning. Being so close to her back there in the bathroom, with her sweet female smell filling his head and her opulent curves pressing against him—well, she had been damned distracting. At least, until she'd opened her mouth. Then she'd been just plain aggravating.
Come to think of it, the aggravation, too, was new. "Angela" hadn't annoyed him before; beyond amusement at her air-headedness, she hadn't made enough of an impact on him to arouse any significant emotions.
On the outskirts of Sheboygan, Ben pulled into an unpaved parking lot. He glanced at his passenger when he stopped and saw that she was still gnawing on that lip, bundled to her chin in her bulky blue jacket, apparently deep in thought. Familiar, he reflected, yet different.
She sat up straight when he turned off the engine and unfastened his seat belt. "The Piney Woods Motel? What are we doing here?"
He ignored her question, determined to clear up the issue of her identity once and for all. "So how come, princess, if you never saw me before today," he asked, casually propping his hand against her headrest, "you're not scared right now?"
"What?" Her dark blue eyes widened.
"I mean, I'm a stranger to you, right?"
"Oh, no." She shrank into the corner of her seat. "You mean you're not a cop?"
Ben saw the flash of fear in her face and cursed. "Stop looking at me as though I have Hit Man tattooed on my forehead."
He took back the hand he'd placed by her head and rubbed it wearily over his face. God, he was tired. "If I were a crook, don't you think I would have done something to you already? I'm a cop, believe me. And right now you're fouling up my assignment big time. I wish to hell I knew for sure who you are.''
She was apparently reassured by his frustration. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I have no way of proving to you that I'm not my sister, at least not now. We left my purse with my ID back at Allie's house, remember? But I've been thinking about things. I don't know what Allie's been up to, or what she's involved in, but she's obviously in trouble. I'd like to help if I can. Do you suppose you could just assume that I'm her sister Jessie, and proceed from there?"
Whoever she was, Ben had never seen that particular expression on those features before. Her eyes were wide and earnest. With those tousled curls brushing her smooth cheeks and forehead, she looked young and hopeful and altogether too tempting. He eyed her assessingly.
"Assume? Cops don't assume, princess, not if they want to last on the streets. There is something you can do, though, if you're really willing to help."
"I am," Jessie said.
Ben leaned back against his door. "Do you trust me enough to believe I wouldn't hurt you? A minute ago you panicked, and I'd rather not see that look in your eyes again."
"Oh, that," she said. "I did feel threatened for a second. Do you blame me?" A glint of humor sparkled in her eyes. "But then I decided you were too cranky about having to rescue me to be anything but what you say you are. So in a backhanded way, I guess I do trust you."
"Good," Ben said. "In that case, you won't get all bent out of shape when you hear what I want you to do."
She raised her eyebrows questioningly, and he dropped his gaze to her mouth.
"I want you to give me the hottest, juiciest, tongue-in-my-mouth kiss you can come up with. Your very best.'■
Chapter3
J essie's mouth fell open and she stared at Ben speechlessly. She couldn't have heard him right.
"You don't need to worry that 1*11 grab you, or anything like that/' he went on as though he hadn't requested anything more outrageous than passing the salt. "I won't even touch you while you're doing it, you have my word. Except with my mouth, of course."
Jessie's gaze zeroed in on his moist, slightly parted lips. Her own lips felt suddenly dry. For good reason, she realized with a start—her mouth was still hanging open. Hastily she snapped it shut and turned to stare blankly out the windshield.
"No?" Ben sighed and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "Oh, well. It was just an idea. A dim-witted one, maybe, but for a minute there, it seemed like a quick and dirty way to tell for sure whether you and your sister are the same woman."
Jessie's head whipped back around. "Quick and dirty! You're unbelievable!''
He shot her a quelling glance. "Okay, not the best choice of words, I admit. But give me some slack here, will you? I'm a guy who doesn't get home from work until three in the morn-
ing, and today I'd barely gotten out of the shower when my partner called with the bad news that I couldn't go to bed yet. Some screwball reporter, he says, has been poking her nose where she doesn't have any business. Even worse, she's been found out by the wrong people. So, tired though I am, I have to go chasing after her to warn her that she could be in danger, and sure enough, when I get there, it turns out I'm right."
Ben's words took on a snarl. "Only, after I've gone to considerable trouble to save her hide, I find out maybe I've got the right woman and maybe I don't. If I don't have her, I've got to figure out a way to find her and keep her from getting killed, instead of working on the case I'm really assigned to. But first I have to decide whether the woman I have got is jerking me around to suit her own plans. So pardon me all to hell, princess, if I'm lacking in finesse at the moment."
Jessie let both the "princess" and the patently insincere apology slide. Right now all that concerned her was Ben's reference to Allie getting killed. It sobered her, brought her attention back where it belonged.
"All right," she said.
"What?"
"I said, all right. If my kissing you will show you I'm telling the truth, I'll do it, so we can get on with helping Allie. Sit up."
Ben's eyes flickered, but he didn't say a word. He moved his big body away from the door where he'd been casually slumped. Without expression, he twisted his torso to face her, resting his left arm on the steering wheel. Then he waited.
Jessie watched her hands unbuckle her seat belt, while she feigned a nonchalance she was far from feeling. This is for Allie, she told herself.
Slowly she leaned toward Ben, her heart hammering, her eyes fixed on his mouth. When their faces were inches apart, she stopped and raised her palms to gingerly cradle his morning-stubbly cheeks. Though she was hardly touching him, his skm seemed hot under the tiny prickles.
"Remember, no hands," she reminded him. Then she brought her lips to his.
The kiss was a gentle moving of lips on lips that, once started, was difficult to stop. Jessie ended it with a series of delicate little lingering sips.
"That was nice, princess," Ben said hoar
sely when she chew back, "but hardly a basis for comparison.''
She dropped her hands into her lap and straightened her spine. She hadn't expected criticism, not for a kiss that had sent her own blood thundering through her veins. She could still fed the pulse pounding at her throat.
But she should have known he'd be Antonio all over again. She'd heard it before. She was too slow to arousal, too inhibited. A prude inside a sexy body.
She pulled herself up short. This was stupid. She was trying to prove to Ben that she wasn't her sister, not auditioning as his bed partner.
"Jessie," she said crossly. "My name is Jessie. What was wrong with it, anyway? If that kiss was different from Allie's, I've proved my point, haven't I?"
Ben shook his head, his goldish green eyes gleaming down at her. "Uh-uh. For me to be sure, you'll have to do it again. Open your mouth this time and come after me a little."
Jessie felt a blush heat up her whole face at the low, coaxing tone in which those words were uttered. What a voice the man had when he wasn't bristling with ill humor! She could almost forget what was going on here, if she wasn't careful.
Had he spoken to Allie in just that tone? So far Jessie hadn't let herself dwell on the obvious implications of Ben's dubious method for distinguishing one twin from the other.
"Have you and Allie... been intimate?"
Ben's eyes narrowed distrustfully. Then he snorted, effectively breaking the mood. "How delicate. You almost have me convinced you don't know the answer to that question. Almost Come on, Jessie, you aren't home free yet. Get on with it. Plant one on me like you mean it."
Jessie flushed again, this time in anger. She'd like to plant one on him, all right! He was making fun of her, daring her, as though he thought she wouldn't—couldn't—pick up the gauntlet he'd thrown down.
Something she didn't recognize rose inside her. As a child she had left the risk taking to her twin, who had been more than willing to accept all challenges on behalf of the two Webster sisters. It was understood that Allie, the older by seventeen minutes, would be the one to preserve their standing in the Oak
