Strapless

by Leigh Riker

  “I’m, uh, having a little party soon to celebrate my new apartment, and you’re invited. I mean, this would be the perfect time. There’s nothing like a new look to lift a woman’s spirits. Different clothes, a good haircut…”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” Baxter wants me at her party?

  Darcie looked uncomfortable but didn’t answer directly. “Let’s have lunch, today. My treat. We can talk about this, then. Maybe I can give you a few tips—not that I’m an expert—”

  “What’s the punch line?”

  Darcie took a deep breath as if to brace herself. “Greta, you need a better self-image. It takes one to know one.”

  Greta started to smile. This could be interesting. Lunch might give her some ideas, even show her Darcie’s weak spots. If she wanted more money, a better position at Wunderthings, maybe a little shopping trip wouldn’t hurt. And if she wanted Walter…certainly he’d be at the party, too?

  “Are you paying?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Darcie said.

  By Saturday afternoon Darcie wondered whether she had lost her mind.

  “Why does my life never seem to fully resolve itself?”

  Following Greta through the women’s department at Macy’s on Thirty-Fourth Street, Darcie gnashed her teeth. By nightfall she would have a mouthful of stumps.

  How attractive would that be to all those single guys Annie insisted would flock to their planned housewarming party?

  Yes, in a moment of total madness, Darcie had invited Greta, too.

  “What about this?” Greta stopped at a rack of black jersey dresses.

  “Definitely not you.”

  “You said that about the brown knit two-piece.”

  “Greta, think color.”

  In her determination to change their relationship, Darcie had treated her to lunch earlier in the week, then suggested shopping today. Darcie’s reasoning had made sense to her at the time. Greta needed a real life. Asking for her ideas on the Sydney opening might keep her from stealing Darcie’s. And given new responsibility, Greta would be happier in her job. There were all sorts of possibilities.

  With Darcie’s help and this “upgrade,” Greta might also attract a man. Not Walt, of course. She’s a real coyote, he had said. But with luck, Greta would meet someone—maybe at the party. Darcie let the fantasy build. Greta might fall in love, decide to follow her new man somewhere and leave Wunderthings—even leave the state.

  That notion had begun to appeal to Darcie.

  She wasn’t sure this shopping spree was going to work. “You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar,” according to Gran. But then, Greta wasn’t a fly. She didn’t seem to welcome Darcie’s “help.” Certainly she didn’t seem inclined to take her advice.

  “Red makes me look…pink. Like a serious drinker.”

  Darcie edged her away from the black jersey toward a rack of yellow-sprigged blouses with coordinating skirts.

  “Here’s something new. Try it. This is very springy looking.”

  “Sallow,” Greta said. “My skin’s too olive-toned to wear yellow.” She turned, her gaze sharp. “What’s this really about? You pay for lunch, invite me to your party when we’ve never even shared a coffee break before—”

  “All right.” Darcie admitted defeat. “I thought if maybe I helped you dress more up-to-the-minute, your life would become happier. You’d stop plotting revenge against me for the Sydney job.”

  “I deserve revenge for the Sydney project.”

  “In your mind, I suppose so. In mine, not.” They glared at each other, lost for a moment in their everyday animosity.

  “There’s no reason we can’t work together.” Darcie stalked away before she gave in to the urge to smack Greta.

  “But you need to do your own job!”

  She’d never spoken so harshly before, but Darcie didn’t get out the next words, whatever they might have been. Her gaze fell upon a center display of silky lounge pants with sleeveless tops and totally smashing jackets trimmed in brilliant colors.

  “Greta, look. This is it. This is you.” She ran the soft fabric through her fingers. “The black will make you feel…comfortable, and the sparkle will knock out every male eye at the party.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  But Greta reluctantly joined her, and the two of them accidentally brushed hands on a beaded jacket. Green, silver, crystal. Darcie jerked it from the hanger and held it up to Greta’s sturdy frame. The design looked slimming, too. Perfect.

  Darcie loved perfection.

  “It’s…nice.” Greta’s pale eyes lit with what could only be female lust for the ideal outfit.

  “Nice? Green’s a good color. Brings out your eyes, complements your hair. It’s sophisticated yet casual. You won’t spend the whole night yanking at a too-tight skirt band or hitching up your panty hose.”

  Greta’s mouth twitched. “That’s hell, isn’t it?”

  “So true.”

  For a long moment they stood, joined by a feminine hunt now successfully completed. Darcie stared at the vibrancy she saw in Greta’s eyes against that very becoming green. Really, it looked outstanding.

  “Try it on. Go ahead.” She pushed Greta toward the nearest dressing room.

  When she came out, resplendent in the three pieces, Greta actually giggled.

  Taking a step back, Darcie surveyed her masterpiece again.

  Of course she didn’t consider herself to be a fool.

  She wouldn’t trust Greta farther than she could drag her.

  Still…

  “I’m sending you to my hairdresser. A few gold highlights, a brighter shade of brown…marvelous. Come on.” She pushed Greta to the dressing room, then pulled her to the checkout counter. Back in her usual brown clothes, there was absolutely no doubt about it. The evening outfit had transformed Greta. “We’re going downstairs next,” Darcie informed her. “Some new makeup, and your phone will be ringing off the hook.”

  Hope sprang into Greta’s eyes, despite her next words. “My last date was ten years ago, with a janitor from my building. He didn’t kiss me good-night. He never called again. He’s dead now.”

  Dylan Rafferty phoned again that night.

  Which would be his next midday.

  Darcie couldn’t figure out how he managed to sound so sexy during his lunch break—or was it afternoon tea in Australia? Lying across her bed, she smiled into the receiver, and continued to recount her day with Greta.

  “By the time we left the makeup counter—” with three hundred dollars’ worth of cosmetics in a small but gorgeous bag “—Greta was glowing. I mean, radiant, Dylan.”

  “Be careful. From what you tell me, she’s a sticky beak.”

  “A what?”

  “Nosy. She pokes it where it doesn’t belong… Were you glowing?”

  Uh-oh. His voice had dropped lower, as it had the other night, and Darcie figured his patience with her stories about shopping with Greta Hinckley had just fizzled.

  “I’m always glowing.”

  “That’s been my experience.”

  “Flatterer.” Darcie felt a lowdown tug of answering interest, and her nipples tightened. She stared at her T-shirt. Two marbles under the worn cotton. Big marbles when Dylan continued in an even throatier voice.

  “Remember the night we walked back to the Westin…and kept stopping along the way? Remember the kisses we shared right under the Coathanger—” the Sydney Harbour bridge “—and on every street corner, darling, in The Rocks?”

  “I remember the bars we stopped in.”

  He laughed a little. “I was pretty ruined when we reached the hotel.” His tone plunged another ten feet, like someone taking a high dive off the bridge. “You got friendly then and we…”

  Darcie cleared her throat before she got carried away again.

  “Dylan, I remember.”

  “How it felt when we stripped each other naked, then dropped into bed…”

  She started breathin
g fast. “Perfect recall. Abso—yes—lutely.” Her nipples strained against the cloth and Darcie rolled onto her stomach.

  “I remember just how you tasted. The softness of your lips, our mouths together, slick and…”

  Phone sex.

  She couldn’t help but play along. “Where are you now?”

  “In my living room.”

  “With your mother?” Shocked, Darcie looked around to make sure Annie wasn’t hovering in her bedroom doorway.

  “She drove into Coowalla. I’m alone, darling.”

  Hmm. Maybe he wasn’t quite as traditional as she’d thought.

  “You don’t have any lambs to doctor? What about that ram you ordered?”

  “He’s here, having the time of his life.” His voice sounded husky. Even his sheep fostered their telephone foreplay. “We bred him this morning. Where are you? In bed, I hope.”

  “On top.”

  “I love it when you get on top.” At his playful innuendo Darcie felt her cheeks heat, her breasts tingle, her inner thighs liquefy. She squirmed against the comforter. “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  “A T-shirt. Old jeans. Nothing exciting, believe me.”

  “You excite me in anything…or nothing.” She heard him swallow. “I go to bed at night and lie there in the dark, remembering the things we did, the things you wore or didn’t wear. Guess what happens?”

  “I, uh…you must get—” She broke off, hearing a sound across the hall. If Annie was listening in on their call, she’d kill her.

  “Hard. I get hard. I’m hard right now. Darcie—”

  “Ohhh.” Her moan joined his at the erotic admission.

  “Take off your shirt. I’m taking off mine.” Macho man.

  “In the living room?”

  “Do it.”

  Obediently, wearing a wicked smile, she sat up and peeled off the old yellow T-shirt. Sin, it said across the front. Then, below, We don’t do that in Cincinnati.

  “Tell me. Did you do it?”

  “Yes. You?”

  “Oh, yeah. Now get rid of the jeans,” he urged. “I’m peeling off my pants.”

  Darcie lay down and wiggled her hips to strip off her worn denims.

  “Your knickers, too.” Underpants. “What color are they?”

  “White. Cotton.”

  He groaned. “Next, the bra. Is that white, too?”

  “I’m not…I wasn’t wearing a bra.”

  “God help me.” Now he was whispering. “Touch yourself.”

  Startled, Darcie halted. “Dylan, my nosy sister may be listening.”

  “If she is, I don’t care.” She could hear him breathing. Rough, and ragged. “I’m pretending you’re here. I can see you, feel you….”

  She moaned again. Then suddenly, tears blurred her vision. In the background, on the opposite side of the world, she could hear Dylan groan, too. So out of reach. Only his voice could hold her.

  “Remember when I said I’d like to see you pregnant? Your belly swollen, taut…”

  “Yes.” She had to admit, it made an erotic fantasy, especially if she involved Dylan in the event from a safe distance.

  She heard his shaken sigh. “I’d touch you all over…lay my cheek against you…feel the baby….”

  She would come apart if he didn’t— “Stop. Please. Don’t.”

  He must have heard the frantic steel in her tone. The regret.

  He was far away. And as the fantasy proved, he had such very different values.

  Dylan didn’t want to stop. “You’d be beautiful. Even more beautiful.”

  “I’m not ready for a baby. I’m not ready for that.”

  She knew he could be stubborn, and heard him take a breath. “Cold showers never work. I think you’ve found the effective solution, though. Watch me shrivel.”

  “Dylan, I’m sorry. I just can’t…”

  “I gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Right or wrong, she didn’t want to let him go now. She didn’t.

  “Did you forget something, sheepboy?”

  His soft, irritated laugh went through her like another thrill of lust.

  “’Night, Matilda. Don’t sleep too well. I know I won’t.”

  Chapter

  Twelve

  Darcie lay in her darkened bedroom and stared at the ceiling to which she had affixed dozens of sparkling stars, her own constellations in her very own apartment. Like phone sex or picking up Dylan in a bar, this was something she’d never done before, and Annie claimed to be proud of her.

  Annie herself was losing it. She had come home only the day before sporting a brand-new hole in her navel, and that red punch mark in her left nostril looked raw.

  Ick.

  Not to mention the small tattoo of an owl—for night owl/party animal, Annie had explained—that now graced her right flank. “Wait until Janet and Hank see those,” Darcie told herself. “If they ever do.”

  Her ceiling stars wouldn’t compare, but darned if she would mutilate her own body to make a statement of independence. Darcie hated blood. She hated pain even more.

  With a sigh she rolled over in bed—and stifled a scream.

  A shadow had crossed the window that opened onto the fire escape. A large shadow with a deep chest, wide shoulders, a shaggy-haired head. Darcie watched in horror, her pulse racing madly, her throat bone-dry. Terrified that she would cough and alert the male intruder to her presence—no, to her state of full consciousness—she breathed, sharp but shallow, through her open mouth. Please God, make him go away.

  Dylan’s warning about two women living alone filled her brain. Images of her own dead body skittered through her awareness. Could this man hear her heart beating?

  It slammed against the wall of her chest and Darcie pushed a hand to her breast in the hope he wouldn’t see its movement.

  The figure bent down. He still looked tall, solid, muscular. Dangerous to her health.

  The window was forced open.

  Darcie clamped a hand over her mouth not to scream after all.

  If he didn’t know Annie was in the apartment, too, they might have a chance. Annie could call 911. The police would arrive in the nick of time. Darcie could almost hear them on the stairs now…

  “Goddammit.” The dark shape of a man stepped inside, snagging his jacket on something sharp. Maybe a protruding nail or sliver of wood. “Make my day,” he muttered.

  Darcie didn’t dare to breathe.

  If she stayed silent—difficult for her even under normal circumstances—he might just steal her blind then leave without noticing her in the bed.

  Tonight she couldn’t be that lucky.

  First Dylan Rafferty had sent her off to fantasyland with his sexy voice and that hint of irritated amusement after their aborted phone sex. Now a total stranger stood in the center of her bedroom surveying his new surroundings with an apparently practiced eye.

  His gaze landed on the lump of covers that was Darcie.

  When he took one step toward her bed, she did scream.

  He lunged in her direction. His hand covered her mouth before Darcie’s voice reached full power. Help. But there was a hole in her rescue fantasy. Annie Kathryn Baxter slept like a long-dead corpse herself. She wouldn’t hear a sound.

  “Mmmppfff.” Darcie struggled against his restraining hand.

  His hand smelled good. Like an expensive men’s cologne.

  “Take it easy.” He eased back and Darcie froze. “Jesus. I won’t hurt you.”

  Wait a minute. The enticing scent, the decent leather jacket, the smell of clean male skin. What kind of burglar-rapist climbed through a window in the middle of the night wearing good clothes? What burglar even owned good clothes? Besides, would he pick some singles apartment inhabited by two women with minimal assets?

  They weren’t worth robbing. She doubted that between them she and Annie had forty dollars in the apartment.

  Not long ago Darcie hadn’t even owned a bed.

  “I’m going to
take my hand off your mouth,” he whispered, saying enough that she noticed a light drawl. “Don’t yell again. Please.”

  A polite burglar, too?

  As soon as he released her, Darcie shot upright in bed, no longer afraid.

  “Who are you?”

  He held a finger to his own lips this time. “Shh. It’s okay.”

  “The hell it is.” Her vocabulary seemed to be slipping. So did the shoulder of her oversize T-shirt, which Darcie had worn to bed. It slid down to her left bicep. His gaze homed in on the expanse of bare flesh—and stayed there.

  “I never thought it actually happened,” he said. “Skin. Gleaming in the moonlight.” He shook his head. “Weird.”

  “Weird?” Darcie waved toward the open window. A soft but chill breeze blew through the sheer curtains, which had done nothing to guard her privacy or protect her safety. Tomorrow she would buy a metal grille to cover the glass. “In two seconds, if you don’t go back through that window and close it behind you, I’ll call the police.”

  “Oh, Christ. What a day.”

  She felt braver now. “This is my apartment. Unless you leave the premises—right now—you’ll end up tonight with another blot on your record.”

  “My what?” He sank down on the end of her bed like an old chum. “I locked myself out of my apartment. Okay?” He glared at her in the dark. “It’s not enough that I lost my keys down a subway grate on my way home from the crappiest date I’ve ever had? Then I tear the knee out of my best khakis, rip hell out of my new jacket on your windowsill…now I’m some kind of felon on my way to the slammer?” He ran a hand through thick, dark hair. “Just great.”

  “Your apartment?” Darcie seized upon his first statement because she didn’t know how to deal with the rest.

  “Hi, neighbor. I live upstairs.”

  “Two-A. Why didn’t you climb in your own window?”

  He assumed a too patient, lecturing tone. “Because a) there was a patrol car cruising this block when I got home, b) your apartment was conveniently located in the shadows on the lowest level of the fire escape and c) I get my kicks ruining the best clothes I own, clothes in which I planned to start my new job tomorrow—and frightening young women half to death in the middle of the night.”