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

by Julie Kistler

  “Oh, you are, are you?” There was an odd light in Tyler’s gorgeous green eyes as he suddenly pulled her over into his lap. “You know, this isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Would it be any fun if it were?”

  “No.” He framed her cheeks with his hands, closing his eyes as he pressed his lips into hers fiercely, with a sense of belonging and joy. “I love you like crazy. Did you know that?”

  “I was counting on that, too.” But her heart seemed to swell just to hear him say it. “Tyler?” she ventured, afraid to break the spell.

  “Uh-huh.” Distracted, he continued to kiss her as the taxi sped along.

  “Where are we going?” she gasped. “Right now, I mean.”

  “Where do you think? Beau’s B and B.”

  “Oh, good!” She gave herself up to his caresses, laughing into his mouth, sliding down into the seat. “I really didn’t want to leave San Francisco until I got to make love with you on that amazing Wild One bed. Leather and chrome…handlebars…” She shivered. “I don’t know. It just does something to me.”

  “You do something to me,” he said huskily. His voice rose as he leaned forward slightly. “Driver, pick up the pace, will you? We haven’t got all day.”

  “I love a man in a hurry,” she whispered in his ear.

  “You’re going to love one who takes his time as well.” His tone was so dark and dangerous she trembled at the very sound of it. “This time, Emily, just you and me and The Wild One room, we’re going to take it slow. After all, we’ve got until Monday…”

  “Driver?” Emily grabbed the back of the front seat. “Could you please hurry? There’s somewhere we really need to be. Now.”

  The Wild One room. Tyler. A whole day with nothing to do but fool around, plot their future, and make each other crazy.

  Her mind filled with pictures of love and desire and the best kind of adventure. Life. She loved every bit of it.

  COLLEEN COLLINS

  In Bed with the Pirate

  He was the swashbuckler of her dreams….

  Kate zeroed in on Toby’s tight black leather pants, roaming up his molded calves and muscled thighs, until her gaze landed on the flowing red silk shirt he wore.

  Beside her, Kate’s mother snorted. “Young man,” she snapped. “You seem to have forgotten something.”

  A knife between his teeth? A sword in his hand? Kate’s mind went into overdrive.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Toby answered. “I don’t have my shoes.”

  Even that simple statement suddenly made Kate wish it were her bed he kept his boots under. What was going on with her? Suddenly Toby wasn’t Toby any longer. Where before she’d caught glimpses of the pirate in him, she now saw the sinewy, plundering, sex-starved marauding swashbuckler in the flesh.

  And in her imagination, she was his woman, the object of his fiery passion. And what would the pirate’s woman say at this magical moment…?

  “Want some coffee?” Kate squeaked.

  Dear Reader,

  Julie Kistler and I love old movies, so we had great fun creating the rollicking, romantic Beau’s Bed & Breakfast (the San Francisco setting for both of these Duets) that has rooms named after such film classics as Kismet, The Pirate, The Wild One and Pollyanna. Inspired by these films, we got even more inspired to create sexy, romantic heroes who feel at home in these rooms (all but Pollyanna, that is!).

  In my story, In Bed with the Pirate, corporate raider Toby Mancini discovers his inner swashbuckler—a plundering, sexy alter ego who ignites Kate Corrigan’s secret dreams and passions as he sweeps her off her feet and into the magical realm of her pirate fantasies.

  A realm in which I, too, love to escape! Just like Kate, I delved into my own pirate fantasies…and fell head over heels for Toby’s sultry swagger and passionate heart. But best of all, he’s a man of integrity. Sex appeal, intelligence, integrity—plus a sense of humor—and you have my ingredients for one hot hero!

  I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’d love to hear what you think. Write to me at: P.O. Box 12159, Denver, CO 80211.

  Best wishes,

  Colleen Collins

  To my dear friend, Cheryl McGonigle, for her patience, sense of humor and willingness to share her incredible writing talents and insights. We started out ten years ago as critique partners and, over the years, developed a friendship that will last a lifetime.

  “Think where man’s (woman’s) glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”

  —William Butler Yeats

  1

  ROLLING HER SHOULDERS in time to the throbbing beat of a Motown tune, Kate Corrigan threw back her head. Then meeting her own blue-eyed gaze in the mirror, she performed a smooth dance step while silently mouthing the words to the song.

  A fat yellow tabby cat, perched on the edge of her maple dresser, stared at her with a glazed here-we-go-again look.

  Kate stopped singing as the Supremes continued in the background. “Beau, would it kill you, for once, to act mildly excited while an extremely talented unknown lip-synchs her heart out?” Running her hands through her short hair, Kate glanced at the antique cherry wood clock on top of her bookcase. “Okay, you have a point. It’s midnight. Time to turn off the music—we don’t want to disturb our guests.”

  Kate danced her best soulful strut over to her CD player, lodged on a bookcase shelf between How to Fix Anything and The Three Musketeers. After swiveling her hips to the last few notes, she tapped the power button off. The brief silence was suddenly broken by raucous barking.

  In two steps, Kate was at her window, peering past the flower garden to her neighbor’s stately Edwardian home. Beau, on instant dog-alert, hopped onto the sill next to her. “Weird,” Kate confided to her cat, “I never knew they had dogs.” But the barking stopped as abruptly as it had started. “Maybe they had their TV volume up too high?” she mused. After one last glance at her neighbor’s house, Kate yawned, then shuffled across the hardwood floor and dropped into her rocking chair.

  Running an inn could be tiring, but add a surprise visit from your mother, the homemaker of the century, and the day suddenly felt heavier than a batch of her mother’s award-winning brownies. Kate sank into the rocking chair and stared out her bedroom window at the inky San Francisco night sky. Even though it was summer, a low fog blanketed the distant hills. What had Mark Twain said? The coldest winter he’d ever spent was August in San Francisco?

  “Not like your namesake city,” Kate confided to Beau as she reached over and scratched him behind one nicked ear. “Beaufort must be sweltering right now.” Kate recalled the many long, hot summers she’d spent growing up in Beaufort, South Carolina, the air so warm and thick, you didn’t just breathe it, you wore it.

  She stared at the full moon. Round and golden, it looked more like the sun’s cousin than its sister. “Granny would have called this a ‘Captain Blood night,”’ she whispered to Beau, who continued to stand guard on the sill. “She always said that on a night like this, the air was charged for adventure and passion—all you had to do was close your eyes and dream.”

  As a little kid, how many times had Kate done just that, closed her eyes and escaped into a rollicking swashbuckler fantasy? A habit she found hard to break, even at thirty-three. Closing her eyes, she resurrected an image of a youthful, swarthy Errol Flynn, sword in hand, sea winds tousling his hair as he rousted his fellow pirates to charge into battle. Sometimes Kate imagined herself standing nearby, the object of the pirate’s fiery love.

  That was the ultimate fantasy. A man who not only captured ships and treasures, but also a woman’s heart.

  Dingdong.

  Her eyes popped open. Two couples were staying at the inn tonight, and Kate had heard both of them retire over an hour ago. She arched an eyebrow at Beau. “It’s either one of your lady friends paying you a visit…or it’s—” she dropped her voice to an ominous level “—Melanie.”

  Kate stood and slipped
her feet into a pair of well-worn purple velvet slippers. “Now I remember, she wanted to check if the tassels on the sitting room curtains hung evenly at night.” Shuffling across the hardwood floor, Kate gave her head a weary shake. “Who besides my mother would ever feel the overwhelming need to check hanging tassels at midnight?”

  Kate opened the door and entered a small alcove, in which sat her pine desk where she checked in guests to Beau’s Bed-and-Breakfast. Pine didn’t fit with the inn’s downstairs Victorian motif, but she’d lovingly refinished this piece by hand, so it stayed.

  “I gave you the code to the outside security box so you could come and go as you please,” Kate muttered, saying what she couldn’t to her mother’s face. After all, she’d only arrived this afternoon from Beaufort, her first visit—unexpected, but nevertheless, a visit—in two years. A daughter shouldn’t be irritated that her Southern-as-pecan-pie mother had accidentally locked herself out…except if that mother arranged each pecan in an intricate, perfectly aligned pattern that made Kate feel guilty for sticking a fork into it.

  She lay her hand on the cold brass doorknob. Did other mothers suffer from midnight tassel fever?

  With a bit too much strength, Kate swung open the door. “How’re they hanging?”

  She gasped.

  A naked man stared back at her.

  Kate meant to take a breath, but instead sucked in so much air, she felt light-headed. In her mildly dizzy state, she tried to get a handle on the situation.

  The man wasn’t totally naked. He wore thick, black horn-rimmed glasses. Her gaze dropped. And a pair of red Calvin Klein underwear. “Red?” she croaked.

  “I’m your neighbor, Toby,” said a deep voice somewhere above the red stretchy material that didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. “Toby Mancini.”

  “Right,” she breathed, forcing her gaze up to meet dark eyes that looked oddly large through the lenses. Like two dark, full moons. “Toby,” she repeated. “Mancini. I didn’t recognize you…” Naked.

  Jeez, was this Toby Mancini, the nerd who lived next door? The guy she’d asked Verna, her friend and chef at the inn, to call twice to complain that if he blasted Beethoven any louder, her windows would shatter. The guy who’d responded that it was far better to be shattered by Beethoven than pulverized by Motown?

  “May I come in?” he asked in a deep tone.

  With that mix of rough velvet voice and nearly naked body, Kate wasn’t sure if her insides were shattering or pulverizing. She meant to say yes, but she only got as far as dropping her jaw. Six years ago, when he’d moved in next door, she’d been glued to her windows, watching his sinewy, compact body carrying furniture and boxes into his house. She’d imagined him to be a pirate, carrying away plundered treasures. And even after he’d moved in, she’d still envisioned him as a pirate…until she accidentally blew up his car.

  Kate snapped shut her mouth.

  At the time, he’d been so furious, all her fantasies about him had blown up, too. And in her mind, she’d purposefully replaced the plundering pirate with a geeky nerd so she’d stop gluing herself to windows like some kind of human decal whenever he appeared outside. But in this speechless moment, she had to admit to herself that Toby Mancini had never been a nerd except in her mind.

  “May I come in?” he repeated, an edge to his voice. “I…accidentally locked myself out of my house.”

  “Dressed like that?” she blurted.

  “Yes,” he answered curtly, “dressed like this.” He breathed in and out deeply, as though suppressing a vat of anger. Kate couldn’t help but notice how his pectorals bulged when he breathed like that. Or how much hair covered those pecs. Those swirling wisps were dark turbulent seas to her fanciful mind.

  “I hate to intrude,” he said gruffly, interrupting her thoughts, “but if I stand out here much longer, someone might call the police.” He gestured emphatically, giving Kate a wide-open view of those red stretchy undies.

  She jerked open the door. Too hard. It accidentally slammed against the wall. “Sorry,” she mumbled, stilling a picture frame that rattled. As he stepped inside, she caught a whiff of cologne, woodsy, fresh. Strange that a business kind of guy would wear an outdoorsy smelling scent. But then who would have thought he wore bright red undies?

  She shut the door, carefully this time. “Would you like to use the ph—” Turning around, she halted mid-sentence. For an instant, she forgot where she was. If asked her name, she’d be hard put to remember that, either.

  Light from the fake Tiffany lamp on the carved elm wood table splattered over him in a kaleidoscope of color—the red, blue and gold hues tinting his body in a glowing patchwork. She wouldn’t have imagined that a guy who wore business suits would have a body made for Speedos. Red light spilled over the hard curve of his shoulder. Blue played along the corded muscles of his arms. A touch of gold highlighted the ridged slope of his stomach and glinted along those thick, curling chest hairs.

  And for a fleeting moment, the dark line of his glasses almost resembled an eye patch.

  He looked like a living, breathing figment of her imagination. A swarthy, mystical male who’d stepped out of her swashbuckler fantasies.

  She cleared her throat. “Th-there’s a sword behind the desk.”

  “Sword?”

  “Phone.” She pointed limply toward her pine desk. “I meant phone.” Sword. Jeez, she was losing it.

  Toby didn’t move.

  “Isn’t Acorn home?” Kate finally asked.

  “Her name’s…Free.”

  “Right. Free. I forgot.” His girlfriend—who changed her name more often than most people changed their minds—had been a variety of names. At one point she’d called herself Acorn. At another, it had been something like Deer or Dove. No, his girlfriend was a vegetarian so it must have been Daisy. Even if her names weren’t logical, they methodically followed the alphabet like a Sue Grafton book title. A is for Acorn. B is for Butterfly. C is for Calla Lilly. And so on up to F—so far.

  “You can phone Free,” Kate said. “I mean Free as in your girlfriend’s name, not that I’d charge you—”

  “No thanks,” he said brusquely. He looked around, shuffling from one foot to another. Poor guy was barefoot. Kate wondered how long he’d stood outside on the cold concrete, debating whether to ask the car-bombing neighbor for shelter. It wasn’t her fault about the kid’s sparkler that Fourth of July.

  “Look,” Toby finally said, squaring off to face her. He’d obviously again forgotten the importance of covering his privates because he gestured as he talked. “This is how it is. I can’t go back because—” he stopped gesturing and raked a hand through his fabulously unkempt hair “—there’s a couple of strange Dobermans in my house. That’s why I need a place to stay tonight, maybe a little longer.” Even in the splatter of multicolored light, she caught a look of pain—or was it rage?—on his face.

  “Dobermans? You’re kidding.”

  “I wish.”

  So that had been the barking she’d heard earlier. “I have one room available.”

  “I don’t have any money on me.”

  She’d have been extremely surprised if he’d been able to slide even one thin dime into those skimpy, skin-hugging Calvins.

  “I’ll pay you when I get…some of my things.”

  Get some of his things? Now that she knew about the Dobermans, he obviously hadn’t accidentally locked himself out. But it didn’t explain why Acorn-Butterfly-Calla Lilly-Daisy-Everglade-Free had let him leave dressed only in his underwear? How coldhearted could a woman be? Pondering if vegetarianism might have something to do with it, Kate said, “No problem. I’ll put you up in Kismet.”

  Leaning over her desk, Kate opened a drawer and retrieved a string of keys. “Follow me,” she said, heading toward the staircase. Tiny lights ran along one side of the stairs, illuminating the richly colored carpet that rippled down the wooden steps. How many times had she imagined a pirate carrying her up this staircase? She ne
ver dreamed she’d have one following her instead.

  “Kismet?” Toby asked, following her.

  “The rooms are named after some of my favorite old movies.” Except for Pollyanna, but that name was a peace offering to Melanie. “Kismet is lush, exotic, sultry.” Try not to think that a naked man is following you. Kate cleared her suddenly dry throat. “So, she’s been Free for about a month now, right?”

  “You can say that again,” Toby muttered, a sarcastic edge to his words.

  Kate made a mental note not to say the name or word free again. It was too easily misunderstood. Or was it? Most of the neighborhood thought Free was too free when Toby was out of town, which seemed to be often. But no one knew him well enough, or felt it was their business, to tell him his girlfriend with the revolving names appeared to enjoy a revolving-door dating life when he wasn’t home.

  “Sorry,” Kate murmured, feeling bad about whatever had happened to have him end up in his skivvies, homeless.

  They reached the landing at the top of the stairs. Above, moonlight gleamed through a circular skylight. Toby stood on the edge of the spill of light, the moon’s glow illuminating the contours of his body. Kate thought back to the last time she’d seen a man in his underwear. Had it been two years ago? Three?

  She really should get out more often. Maybe take in a few museums and check out the naked marble statues. That way, if another undressed male ever landed on her doorstep in the middle of the night, she might act a bit more sophisticated about the whole thing.

  A door creaked. Bright yellow light backlighted a middle-aged woman’s form. “Heavens!” she drawled. “There’s a naked man out here!”

  Toby again folded his hands in front of his privates.

  Kate released a weighty sigh. “Melanie, this is Toby. Toby, my mother, Melanie.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Toby said.

  Melanie stood ramrod straight in a flower-printed housedress, her pinched expression wrinkling a green mint face mask. “Do you always traipse around your home—your business—with naked men, Katherine?”