“It’s a tough budget year for the Bureau,” he answered smoothly, turning down the vomit-coloured bedspread to reveal clean white sheets. “This motel is out of the way. I can do my job and protect you here.” This last line was delivered with a reassuring smile and a manly chin jut the likes of which had hitherto only been found in cigarette ads. “You should get some sleep.” He patted the bed and purred, “Come on, the sheets look pretty clean to me. Isn’t this inviting?”
By ‘this’ I assume he meant him. Yes, he was inviting, even with a wet crotch. I flushed and lowered my eyes. If I indulged in more casual sex I wouldn’t react this way to a live, attractive male person trapped in a bedroom with me. Yes, I would. “You’re not sleeping with me in this bed.”
“Of course not.”
And what the hell was wrong with sleeping with me? I liked Sam better—Sam was hot to trot. Nate huffed a lot and was armed.
He moved the plush orange easy chair in front of the door and relaxed into it. One hundred and seventy pounds of hunk blocked the only exit. I surreptitiously grabbed my pepper spray from my purse and wiggled into the covers as my insides knotted. I lay in a motel room, an infested one, with a gun-toting stranger. Horror movies started that way. I must make sure to neither answer the phone nor look at static on the television.
I took a deep breath—regrettably, because of the smell—and closed my eyes. Sam/Nate would not hurt me, I told myself. He regarded me with a benign mixture of desire, exasperation and humour.
Although less desire the last few hours.
And less humour.
His footfall startled me. Suddenly he loomed above me—I pressed backward into the unyielding mattress. He leaned over, his chest right against mine. The sweet scent of his breath washed over me. My lips parted. He stood and cocked an eyebrow, the other bed pillow in his hand. Tease.
I needed sleep. When I awoke there would be Pizza Rolls and normal life again. Absolutely.
* * * *
I shook. Something touched my arm. I punched at it.
“Damn!” Nate quickly let me go.
“Why are you yelling?” I asked, confused and ready with another swing.
“You hit me!” He held his eye, which still managed to glare at me.
“You shouldn’t startle me.” I rubbed my own peepers and squinted at the motel clock—eleven thirty-three a.m.
It must have been Nate who’d shaken me awake—Sam didn’t grimace that way. Whoever it was, he huffed into the bathroom and slammed the door.
I sat up and tried to shake off the cobwebs of grogginess filling the space between my ears. I’d always been a vivid dreamer, but last night had been a doozy. I’d dreamed I’d been in bed with Nate. That part of the dream had been wonderful—and skilful—and leather-ful—until he’d reached into the covers and pulled forth a live herring. At least I’d thought it was a herring—I didn’t actually know a herring from a catfish. However, in my dream I had understood it to be one. Too much Monty Python, no doubt.
The herring had flopped across the bed, straining, dying, making everything reek of fish. Not his fault, of course. He couldn’t help it. I’d carried the poor guy to find a sink or bathtub to submerge it in. But when I had opened the door of the bedroom, it had turned out we were on a plane, and I’d ejected the cabin door. The air had sucked me and the herring into bright, cloudy nothingness. We had fallen and fallen and fallen until we had landed on a passing blimp. The pilot had agreed to let the fish come inside, but not me.
That was when I’d awoken and hit Jerkface.
I’d better not get on a plane with Nate. Or go to Long John Silver’s. I stretched, trying to shake off the weird dream hangover. It had left me with a doomed, sinking feeling.
Mister Morning Person thwacked open the bathroom door. Through pursed lips, he grunted, “Do you want something to eat? I’m going out.”
“Yes. Not potato balls.” I laughed.
“Believe me,” he said, not laughing, “no potato balls.” Boy, punching someone made them grumpy. He tripped on the bedspread, thrown to the floor in the night. Grumbling something about “she” and “messy” and “punch”, he stomped through the door with nary another word.
The door opened again. Nate peeked around it. “Don’t leave.”
“Okay.” I hoped my wide smile convinced him I would probably follow his directions. Although there was no coffee in sight…
“Really.”
“O-kay.”
“Really. I’ll find you.”
Well, that sounded ominous. I groped for my fallen pepper spray and stuck it in the waistband of my pants. “Go away!”
He left again. I leaned over the side of the bed and grabbed the cellphone from my purse.
The click of the doorknob turning made me jump. The phone clattered to the floor. “Stop doing that!” I yelled at Nate, who came all the way in this time.
“Who are you calling?”
Damn, he’d got up on the wrong side of the dusty orange chair. “My mother, like I told you I would.”
Nate stalked to the bed. “Samantha, you are a trying girl.”
“Yesterday you liked me.”
“That was yesterday. Today you are trying.” He glared, inches away from my face. As he appraised my stretched T-shirt with a generous side of perky nipple, his shoulders fell from their knotted perch. He didn’t even try to hide the ogle, the typical male. Probably thought I would like it. Well, I did not appreciate it. Very much. “Will you stay hidden in here, please? I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He didn’t want anything to happen to my boobs, more like.
His close proximity made me as jumpy as coffee would, so I agreed, “Yes.”
Nate sat beside me on the bed and ran his hand behind his neck. I was hyperaware of being mostly horizontal. “I’ll get you some stuff from your place if you like. What do you need?” He pushed a wisp of hair behind my ear. I was beginning to like it when he did that.
I swallowed hard and licked my own lip instead of his, which I thought decorous. “I could use clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, contacts—you know, general cleanliness products, and…and…” Oh, just say it! You’re an adult female! “My birth control pills.” Not that I had required them in a long while. They were a product born of hope, like vitamins or anti-ageing face cream. Plus, they helped keep cramps under control, which prevented me from turning into a righteous, raging She-Hulk.
He didn’t even blink. “Okay,” he said, and left. Good thing, because my hormones were ready to run the show. The act they wanted to perform with Nate/Sam could only be viewed on HBO after two a.m.
I twisted the sheets on the bed for another five minutes while staring at the door. No more surprise Nate, thank goodness. My privates gave up longing for him and decided they needed to pee instead. I double-checked the front door lock, took my phone into the bathroom and hit the first speed dial.
“Did you go home with The Accountant?” Ellen asked with a dirty lilt in her voice. “There’s a pool going.” My best friend was very tuned into important office developments as a temp in the Steak on a Stick HR department.
“Well, sort of,” I murmured. How in the hell would I explain last night?
“‘Sort of’ doesn’t sound sexy. ‘Sort of’ sounds like an inability to get it up.”
“It’s complicated.” I closed my eyes and recounted the sordid tale, FBI and Elvis and all.
“Are you peeing? I hate it when you do that!”
I stopped what I was doing, which was not peeing, because that was poor behaviour. “That’s what you have to ask me? After the story I just told you?”
“It’s the first thing I have to ask you. The second is…what the what, Samantha? Why…where…why? Why are you not at the police station?”
“Um,” I answered. Why hadn’t I run to the coppers? Because his eyes made me wet. There were worse reasons.
“Um? Sam, your new man has ‘lowlife’ written all over his adorable face.” Oh, Ellen. Always w
ith the common sense.
“I don’t know, okay? It happened so fast.”
“Well, dummy, now that Mister I’ll-Bet-My-Ass-He’s-Not-An-FBI-Agent is gone—go to the police station.”
“Okay. Very sensible. I’ll do it.”
“You have to. I have decreed it. And since I’m your lesbian best friend, according to the rules of every movie ever made, I am the wisest bitch on the planet. The only way I could be smarter is if I were African-American.”
“Yes, O great Dalai Ellen.”
“Have you slept with him?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“The correct answer is no, Sam. Honestly!” Ellen expelled frustrated breath through the cell connection. “Are you scared of him? Do you feel endangered?” Finally, she sounded concerned instead of just interrogatey. My heart swelled—it was nice to have someone on your side once in a while.
“No, I really don’t.”
“That’s because you’re naïve. You trust anything with a perky ass.”
“People shot me, Ellen. He saved me. They could be right outside the door now, waiting.”
“One person fired at you. You are not, in fact, bullet-ridden.”
“Don’t be pedantic at a time like this.”
“He could shoot you.”
I put my elbows on my knees and sighed. “So you don’t worry about the actual people shooting at me, but you’re concerned about the one who hasn’t asked me to eat lead. That makes sense.” I switched phone ears—I needed the common sense to flow into both sides of my head. “Is it because he has a penis? I know you don’t like those, generally.”
“He’s a liar!”
“I don’t believe he likes guns, okay? His hands shook when he fired it.”
Silence. I could hear her breathing and thinking. It all sounded critical.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a little shithole in Studio City—the Starlite Motel. Wait, I have to, um, do something.”
Ellen’s disgust was audible. “Put down the phone while you do it. Were you born in a barn?”
The door to the motel room opened, clattering on its hinges. “Shit!” I leapt off the john and slammed the bathroom door.
“Shit? I thought you were only peeing. You are the worst.”
“No, I don’t mean actual… He’s back!” I flushed the toilet.
“Shit!”
“Gotta go. I’ll run from him very soon, I promise.”
Ellen hollered so loud I heard it even though I held the phone as far away as I could. “If he hurts you I will end him!”
I hung up and finished my business.
A furious pounding shook the door. Boom. Boom. Boom. I jumped three feet and watched my cellphone fly from my hand…
Straight into the toilet. “Shit!”
“You don’t have to tell me what you’re doing in there.” Stupid, stupid, stupid Nate laughed a most obnoxious laugh. “Let’s leave some mystery between us.”
I could have screamed. I could have fallen to the floor and thrown an all-out tantrum. But I didn’t. I calmly watched my cell expel a few death-throe bubbles and sink until it was barely visible.
“Are you okay?”
I was intact. My phone had been most foully murdered. “Yes.”
“I brought back food for you.” His voice tilted towards friendly. “I thought you’d be hungry, so I got something before I went to your place.”
My stomach gurgled its approval. “Thanks. Just a moment.” Making a squicky face, I pushed up my sleeve and retrieved my cellphone. Better to not contemplate the germs in ancient hotel toilets. I said a prayer to the electronics gods and wrapped the phone in a hand towel before washing up for a long, long time.
I exited the bathroom with my small metal corpse and stopped dead. My nostrils flared—cloying spiced beef with a wee hint of three-day-old fry grease. “Do I smell…a Steak on a Stick?”
“Yeah. It was close.”
I threw my soggy bundle into my purse. Nate had returned. Because sexy Sam could never, ever have fed me the food that had attempted to shoot me. I ground my teeth and stalked to the edge of the bed. While I searched for the television remote, I pointedly ignored the Steak on a Stick bag. Oh, for the love of—there was no remote.
Nate turned the tube on for me with a smirk. “The food…displeases you?”
“The food…displeases me. I am displeased as a general reaction to the last day. Jury duty is preferable to my recent twenty-four hours. Dentist drills, trips to the DMV, walking in on my parents having sex, getting food poisoning—all better.”
My eyes pricked with unwelcome tears. I possessed the capacity to cry inappropriately faster than you can say ‘that unstable girl really needs waterproof makeup’. In my defence, it had been the worst day of my life. My cheeky adventure sounded stupid and dangerous when filtered through Ellen’s brain. I grimaced, embarrassed by the disastrous decision-making skills on display. Dumb! Idiotic!
Time to ovary up. I would pretend everything was copacetic and eat the stick steak. Nate would then leave.
And so would I.
“I’m sorry.” I switched to actress mode and cocked my head to the side. “Yes, I’ll have lunch. Thank you.” At least the meat smell disguised the whatever-the-hell-that-was odour. Taking the stick with a winning smile, I bit into the warmed-over fast food, only flinching a little.
My about-face visibly confused him. Would he accept what I said or argue? I repeated my Oscar-worthy smile. Seriously, I couldn’t believe it had never won an Oscar. Or even a Razzie.
The dimple twitched in his cheek. “Sorry it’s a steak stick. How rude am I?” His eyes softened, his lips parting in a self-deprecating smile. I could tell it was on purpose, but it worked anyway. Who was I to undermine the performance of an actor almost as talented as I was?
The big question—why the theatrics? I was here, wasn’t I? Why was he working so hard to make sure I stayed? To protect me, he’d say.
Time to say my lines. “You. Are. Rude.” My eyelashes flitted ever so femininely.
“I’ll get your stuff after we eat.”
“Thanks.” I took another slow bite. The fog in my head began to dissipate. For a starving woman, even a Steak on a Stick satisfied. I betrayed myself.
“How long have you been an FBI agent?” I would root out his lies with the power of my mad cross-examination skills. I chomped on a tater tot and revelled in In-Control Samantha. In-Control Samantha didn’t drop phones in the toilet.
“Four years.”
Four years. He appeared to be thirty-three, maybe? How long did one attend FBI school? Was it called FBI school? That was stupid, it couldn’t be called FBI School. FBI Academy, maybe? The Hogwarts School of FBI-ing and Dimplery?
“Hello?” His face pinched in annoyance.
“Sorry—Harry Potter. Uh, woolgathering. Do you enjoy it? Being a G-Man, I mean. Do you usually investigate art thieves?”
“Yes, I enjoy it. I have a degree in art history, but museum work really isn’t for me.” He tossed the last of his tots into his mouth.
“No shooting people in a museum, huh?” I closed my mouth. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up guns. “So, what’s your last name, Agent Nate?”
“Burrows. Do you want to see my badge again?” Nate raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in a knowing smile.
I upped the ante, displaying dazzling pearly whites. “No, I believe you.” I placed my bet. “It is sexy, though. The badge.”
“Think so, huh?” Nate shoved his hands in his pockets and ambled over to me. He sat facing me, his knee resting on my leg—the weight of it more delicious than the steak, which wasn’t saying much. “My team’ll move in on El Escorpión tonight. You need to sit tight until then. This will end soon.” He swept a golden tendril from my eyes.
Nate’s velvet finger sent a short-circuit through my brain. “Great. I’m sure.” I nodded, a willing conspirator.
“Do I have a chance with you when this i
s over with?”
The question seemed real. The look that came with it turned my bones to jelly. “Maybe?” No was what I should have said, and what I totally meant. But I’d better not say no, right? I hid confused eyes and stared at my half-eaten meal.
Nate took the stick from my hands and put it on the chipped, Kennedy-era bedside table. He leaned over me until I reclined all the way. In an attempt to form a word—possibly ‘no’, probably ‘yes’—I pursed my lips just as Nate kissed them. My heart might have stopped, I was too woozy to tell. The skin on the back of his neck warmed under my kneading hands. Pulling him closer, I skimmed my tongue inside his upper lip.
Nate pulled away fast, eyes dark. He swallowed and opened his mouth to speak. No sound emerged. Trying again, he murmured, “Damn, Sam.” His voice dropped and purred over me, soft—a bedroom tone. “May I call you Sam? Now that I’m not Sam?”
He could call me Fred if he wanted. I wished he would go away before I did something really stupid, like act out the obscene movie currently flickering through my head. “Sure. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
He smiled, and the dimple sealed my fate. “You make me laugh. LA takes itself so seriously.” A trembling hand trailed along my collarbone and played at the dip in my shirt. I held my breath. He swallowed again. Olive eyes melted mine. “I’ll be right back. Will you stay put?”
“Yes,” I lied. Or didn’t. Decisions were hard when there was no blood in the brain.
Nate examined me, peering, reading. I licked my lips and ran the pad of my finger around the button at the top of his shirt, concentrating my focus on it. I was a terrible liar in real life. Deceit came easier in the bright lights of the stage. Gently taking my hand, he said, “I don’t think you will.” The handcuffs slapped across my wrists before I knew it—the bed frame in between them.
I screamed and reared. He stopped me with a hand slammed hard over my mouth. “I don’t want to gag you, but I’m going to have to, aren’t I? So much for dinner and a movie.” He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and stuffed it between my teeth. A second one he wrapped around my head. “I really do like you, Sam.”
The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton) Page 4
