In Bed with the Wild One & In Bed with the Pirate

by Julie Kistler

  “So where are they?”

  “Here somewhere. Check the john. No?” There was a pause, and Emily could only imagine three pairs of beady eyes surveying the cabin, looking for any hole big enough for two bodies to crawl into. “I think I got it.”

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

  The foorsteps grew louder, nearer. The closet door was yanked open with one lurching jerk, and a pillow and three blankets fell to the floor.

  “Lookee what we got here,” the man they’d called Mack the Knife said with an oily smirk. He looked exactly the same as Emily remembered him—before she hit him over the head with the shoe, of course. Oh, and this time he was holding a gun. That was a new wrinkle. “So, kids, you want to come out and play?”

  “Not really,” Emily tried. But it was way too late for that.

  Delicately she stood up as she stepped forward, carefully disentangling herself. But Tyler emerged right behind her, draping an arm protectively around her.

  Mack backed up, waving them out of the closet and into the center of the room, near a gaping hole in the floor. Sluggo stood there, over the chasm, leaning on what appeared to be a sledgehammer. The third man, Jimmy, held the crowbar. She thought she recognized him, too, as the person who had been pummeling Slab last night.

  “Now ain’t that cute?” Mack announced in a smug tone. “Don’t they make a cute couple?”

  Cute couple. She hoped she never heard that again as long as she lived.

  “Bet you kids was havin’ fun in there, huh?” Sluggo’s grin made him look even less intelligent, if that was possible. He chuckled, trying to sound sleazy and ripe with innuendo. He succeeded.

  Emily felt as if she needed a shower just getting a hint of what was on Sluggo’s dirty mind. She would have lifted her chin and stood tall, but it was tough when she was wearing so little clothing. She tugged down on the hem of her miniskirt.

  Mack circled around behind her, looking her up and down. Things just kept getting grimmer by the minute. “So, you was letting us do all the dirty work? And then you two was gonna waltz out and take whatever we found, am I right?”

  “Uh, no. We got here first, but we weren’t, uh, packing heat,” Emily responded politely. Tyler elbowed her when she said “packing heat,” but heavens, it was in all the books. What was she supposed to call it? “Anyway, we were unarmed, so we decided discretion was the better part of valor.”

  Sluggo wrinkled his ugly brow. “Huh?”

  She tried again. “We decided we’d wait until you left.”

  “Why didn’t you say that the first time, huh?” Under his breath, the big brute muttered, “Shoulda strangled that broad when I had the chance.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mack interrupted. “But here’s the real question, boys. What do we do with Romeo and Juliet?”

  “Who?”

  “These two!” Mack said impatiently. “Them. What should we do with them?”

  “Maybe throw ’em into the bay, huh?” Sluggo volunteered.

  “Nah. I think I’d like a little chat with ’em first, see whether they got took for a ride like us with this boat crap.” Mack jiggled his gun at Tyler. “So, O’Toole, did Slab send you here? He tell you the money was here? Or was this your idea?”

  “Oh, this was my brilliant idea.” Tyler cast a jaded glance at the hole in the floor. “Guess it didn’t work out too well.”

  “Yeah, well, we still got some places to look,” Sluggo said sullenly.

  “Maybe we should all go find Slab and ask him,” Emily suggested. “He seems to be the only one who really knows. And maybe he’s in more of a mood to share now.”

  Tyler elbowed her again, but she didn’t care. It was worth a shot if it would get the Three Stooges and their gun and sledgehammer and their crowbar off the boat and far, far away.

  “Nobody’s gonna be askin’ Slab nothin’,” Sluggo muttered. “’Cept the cops. Him and Shanda got busted.”

  “Busted?” Tyler echoed.

  Emily murmured, “Oh, right. The girl at the tattoo parlor told me that.”

  “You knew? And you didn’t tell me?” Tyler’s expression was fierce, and Emily was guessing it was not good news to hear that Slab had been arrested. “This changes everything.”

  “But why?”

  “Emily, you’re a lawyer, you’re supposed to know this stuff!”

  “She’s a lawyer?” Mack interrupted. “Hey, you ever do any interstate trafficking in stolen goods? I got some charges pending, and I swear, my attorney ain’t doing nuthin’.”

  “I got a couple of extortion raps,” Jimmy cut in eagerly. “Maybe you could help me out?”

  Everybody waited for Sluggo to join the party.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said after a moment. “I been clean ever since I got out of the joint the last time.”

  Apparently he wasn’t counting yesterday’s breaking and entering or today’s criminal destruction of property. How convenient.

  “So, you think you can help us?” Mack prompted.

  “I’m really very sorry, but I’m a tax lawyer.” Emily threw up her hands. “I’d help if I could, but all I can do is look at any tax problems you might have.”

  “Big help,” Jimmy muttered. “Okay, I vote we toss her into the bay.”

  “Let’s not be hasty!” she said. “You wouldn’t want to add anything really nasty to those legal problems you already have, would you?”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Tyler said under his breath.

  “I didn’t know it was important.”

  “What kind of lawyer are you?”

  “A tax lawyer!” she told him. “What do you want from me?”

  “Will you stop the bickering already? Come on, guys, we got work to do, and I’m tired of foolin’ with these two. They don’t know any more than we do.” Mack edged away far enough to pick up a length of rope. “Let’s tie them up and throw ’em…”

  She held her breath, hoping “in the bay” wasn’t going to come next.

  But he ended his sentence with “…back in the closet.”

  “The closet?” Emily cried. “Please don’t put us back in there!”

  “You’d rather they dump us overboard?” Tyler whispered. “Shut up, will you?”

  Mack ignored both of them. “We’ll finish up here, see if we can find the money without them drivin’ us nuts.”

  “Can I tie ’em up, boss?” Sluggo asked with obvious enthusiasm.

  “Yeah, sure, knock yourself out.” Handing his gun over to Sluggo, Mack motioned to Jimmy to pick up his crowbar and follow him up the stairs. But he turned back to offer some final instructions. “Be sure and take her shoes away. Oh, and make it hurt, will you? That crazy dame practically gave me a concussion last night with one of those.”

  “Can do.” Sluggo gestured with the gun. “The shoes,” he ordered.

  “But I—”

  “Emily, lose the shoes,” Tyler hissed at her.

  Giving in, she bent to undo the straps as Mack resumed his conversation with Jimmy. “I still say the dough’s gotta be here somewhere. Slab loved this stupid boat. Soon as I saw it, I thought, yeah, that’s where he would’ve stashed the loot. That Slab, always a romantic. Let’s see what we can find, you and me.”

  The two of them toddled up to the deck, leaving Emily and Tyler to Sluggo’s tender mercies. Great. Just great. She had no choice—she handed over her darling monkey sandals when she would much rather have bashed Sluggo with them. And Tyler, too, for that matter. What kind of lawyer are you? still sort of rankled. Sluggo tossed her shoes down the hole in the floor, and she felt like weeping. Or crawling after them.

  “You,” Sluggo commanded, giving Tyler a shove, “put your arms around her, with your hands behind her back.”

  “Behind her…?”

  “I always wanted to do this,” the creep said with a leer. He tucked the gun into his waistband and then slammed Tyler up next to Emily, front to front.

  When he’d said he was going to
tie them up, she had envisioned them hog-tied separately, like the hostages in the bank robbery movies. Or maybe like the secret agents, who always seemed to end up plunked down on chairs, facing away, hands together, where they could figure out how to untie themselves.

  But this…

  “Long as you gotta be tied up and in the closet, you might as well enjoy it, huh?”

  “Enjoy it? You’ve got to be kidding.” She felt her face flame as Sluggo the maniac jerked her arms around Tyler’s waist, lashing her wrists securely to the back of his jeans, hooking her to his belt, and his belt loop for good measure.

  Face-to-face, chest to chest, hip to hip. It was close quarters. And incredibly humiliating.

  And now he’d roped and duct-taped Tyler’s hands around the back knot of her halter top! This was insane, even for someone like Sluggo. Should she check for video equipment? Was this Candid Erotic Camera?

  “Couldn’t you just tie us up the regular way? You know, get some chairs, back to back?”

  Sluggo shook his head. “Your girlfriend’s got a big mouth. You want I should gag her before I stick you in the closet?”

  “I’m thinking about it.” Tyler smiled tightly as Emily kicked him in the ankle. She would have made more of an impression if she’d still had her wooden sandals. “No, I guess not,” he said finally.

  “It’s your funeral.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Tyler remarked lightly.

  He was taking this awfully well. Emily tipped back her head far enough to send him a suspicious glance. He was probably enjoying it. She narrowed her gaze. Maybe he’d been dreaming about tying her to The Wild One bed just like she’d been dreaming of him, handcuffed and helpless, fastened to that sexy chrome motorcycle footboard.

  Okay, so she had wicked fantasies in the privacy of her own mind. But unlike Tyler, she had no desire to act out her fantasies in front of the likes of Sluggo.

  Besides, in her fantasy she wasn’t tied up, he was.

  “Come on,” the hoodlum said, knocking them sideways so that they had no choice but to shuffle back to that damned minicloset. “I’ll bet you can get up to all kinds of trouble in there. Like little bunnies, huh?” His piggy eyes all but disappeared as he surveyed his handiwork. “Always wanted to do that. Look, ma, no hands!”

  Very funny.

  Emily had the bizarre impulse to stamp her foot and use all those new swear words she’d just learned. This whole thing was infuriating!

  “Don’t tell me,” Tyler said dryly. “You’re fit to be tied.”

  “Fit to be…? This is no times for jokes!”

  “Sure it is.”

  But Sluggo had them wedged back into the closet, and he swung the door closed. “Have fun!” he called, thumping the door behind him.

  Fun? Tied up like a sausage, lashed to Tyler as if they were playing some strange bondage sex game, and dumped in a closet?

  Emily stopped. She found Tyler’s eyes, afraid of what she would see there. But it was too late. They had both come to the same conclusion.

  God help her, it actually was kind of fun.

  9

  “WELL,” SHE TRIED, “it could be worse.”

  “Yeah.” Shifting a bit, he flexed his hands, testing the bond at the back of her halter. “I suppose they could’ve thrown us overboard.”

  “At least we’re together,” she offered.

  No answer. Tyler continued to fiddle with his bonds, but he couldn’t get them to budge. While he worked at it, Emily tried not to moan or groan. But she couldn’t take much more of this nerve-racking friction, as the fabric in the front tightened and chafed her breasts every time he jiggled the back.

  “Maybe you should leave that alone for a minute,” she requested, breathless and flushed. “It’s a bit, um, uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable?” He glanced down. “Oh. I see.”

  That was an understatement. The rubbing had made her nipples stiffen into hard little peaks, pressing through the thin tie-dyed cotton of her top. Plus her modest breasts were being pushed up by the hard wall of his chest. Was it her fault if this configuration worked better to boost her bust than any Wonderbra? All in all, she was making a real spectacle of herself.

  A tense silence hung between them.

  She felt sure it didn’t really last that long in terms of minutes ticking off on the clock. But it certainly felt drawn out and uncomfortable, especially with Tyler pretty much staring right down her cleavage and her afraid to breathe for fear things would spill out even more.

  “Aw, the hell with it.” His hard, hot mouth swooped down over hers without warning. His lips and his tongue stoked her, filled her, enflamed her, all in that one first rush of heat and desire.

  Now she did moan. She couldn’t hold it back.

  Pressing herself into his kiss, she wanted badly to hold him more fully, to wrap her arms around his broad shoulders. But her hands were stuck down there at the small of his back, roped to his belt. She tugged up on the tangle of cord and leather, feeling no give but willing to try.

  “If you keep doing that,” he managed to rasp into her ear, “I’ll be singing soprano inside this closet in about five minutes.”

  “Oh.” She got it. She relaxed her hold on his pants. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, God.” He broke off, sliding his jaw over her hair. “We can’t do this.”

  “We can’t.” But she lifted up enough to nip at his chin, hungry for his mouth again.

  “There’s no way this can work,” he whispered darkly. But his lips brushed kisses over her neck, her cheeks, her mouth, just the same.

  She tipped her head back, more than willing to take anything he was offering. No way it could work? Her mind refused to process that. Physically, because they were tied up? Or emotionally, because they were in such a mess?

  She had no idea, and she didn’t want to stop to ask. But he was right about one thing. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmured, loving the feel of his mouth on her bare shoulder. “They could hear us.”

  “They can’t hear us. They’re up on deck. Didn’t you catch all the bashing around and swearing?”

  “Yes, but…” She hadn’t paid any attention. All she’d heard was the rapid, uneven beating of her own heart. “But that could just be two of them. What if Sluggo…? What if he’s sitting outside with his ear pressed up against the door, waiting for us to do this?” She shuddered, holding back. “I got the idea this was just what he wanted.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right.” She could see that Tyler was working hard to pull together the shreds of his self-control.

  She had the same problem. All she wanted to do was get out of the few clothes she had remaining, drag him out of his, too, and have her wicked way with him. Luckily for her, there was no way to get anyone out of anything at the moment. Undressing was awfully hard with no hands, especially with her hands rather stubbornly attached to the back of his pants.

  But that didn’t stop her mind from sensory overload. She bit her lip, hard, hoping pain would bring clarity.

  Expelling air in a restless rush, Tyler focused on a point over her shoulder, and she could see his lips forming numbers as he counted to ten, then twenty. Finally he asked, “So, if we can’t do what we really want to do, what else would you like to try? Cards? Bingo?”

  The wry comment caught her by surprise and she laughed. “Cards?”

  A crooked smile lifted the corner of Tyler’s narrow lips. “Don’t have any on me. You?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Well…” Wincing, he edged back far enough to rest his bottom on a life preserver stuck at the back of the closet, putting him in more of a sitting position where he could balance her on his lap. The only way this was going to work was if she bent over precipitously or just gave in and straddled him. She gave in. “There. That’s better,” he murmured.

  After that maneuver, their relative positions were less strained. Not exactly safe, but comfy.

  “We could play a
game,” she told him, hitching up her knees, bracing her feet against the same life preserver he sat on. “This isn’t so different from being stuck in the back seat of your parents’ car when you go on vacation, is it?”

  His expression was deadpan when he said, “I certainly hope so.” But then he shook his head, and his tone lightened. “I can’t believe your parents took vacations in a car. Now my family, sure. Loaded up the rusty station wagon and set off for Wisconsin. But the Chaplin family? Jets and yachts only.”

  She smiled, willing to accept the diversionary tactic. “We drove on lots of trips. It was just a better class of car.”

  “I can see it now. Baby Emily with all those bratty brothers beating up on her in the back seat of the Caddy. Now if we were in a Cadillac, you and me, we’d be a lot more comfortable.” Leaning in, he kissed her quick and fast, pulling back before it had a chance to get out of hand. “There are a lot of things you can do in a back seat that a closet just doesn’t let you.”

  There was that thrum of tension between them again. “And I’ll bet you’ve tried every one of them,” she whispered.

  “Uh-huh.” He paused, staring down into her eyes. She knew what he was thinking. You, me, back seat of a car, any car, as soon as we get out of here.

  She licked her bottom lip, sending back her own telepathic message. I want it just as much as you do.

  “Okay, you got me,” he said finally, very clearly changing the subject. “What’s your game? Keep in mind we’re not likely to see many license plates in here.”

  “Duly noted.” She pondered, running her mind over every childhood time-waster game she could think of. It wasn’t brain surgery, but it was enough to keep her there, on that safe turf, rather than worrying about how they were going to get out of this idiotic predicament or if her bodily impulses ever planned to calm down and behave themselves. “Okay, I’ve got it. The ‘who, which and where’ game.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a good one. It’s not a game that you win or lose, just an imagination game.”

  “No wonder you like it.”