With Extreme Pleasure

by Alison Kent

  He stilled in the act of scrubbing the day’s sweat from his face and waited to see if Cady had something to say, or if she’d only come for the facilities because she couldn’t wait. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if she had.

  But she didn’t say or do anything. Best he could tell, she was standing unmoving just inside the door. And since his clothes were in a pile somewhere near her feet and his towel on the edge of the sink, he needed her to do whatever it was she’d come to do and get out.

  So he nudged her. “First my truck, and now my shower. Is nothing sacred?”

  “Sorry,” he heard her mutter. “The TV wasn’t working.”

  What the hell? “You came to get me to fix the TV? Did you try calling the front desk first?”

  “No. I mean, the TV works fine. It just wasn’t…working. As a distraction.” She groaned beneath her breath, the sound giving off an emotion he hadn’t heard before. “I needed a distraction.”

  She had dozens of channels broadcasting more distracting crap than a person could need in a lifetime. She wasn’t making any sense. And he wasn’t exactly comfortable here with the situation.

  “You’re looking for a distraction? In here? Where I’m bare-as-the-day-I-was-born naked? Cady, Cady, Cady.” He clicked his tongue. “You devil.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like, boo, because you coming in here saying you need a distraction kinda leads me down that road.” He stared at the shower curtain where he could see her shadow on the other side. It was the strangest way to be having a conversation, not one he was exactly good with.

  The water was beating down on his shoulders as he stood with his hands at his hips, keeping his secrets out of sight the same way Cady was on the other side of the cheap white vinyl keeping hers.

  His were of a physically personal nature; he didn’t hang it out for everyone to see. But her own package of mysteries was obviously pretty damn heavy. After all, it had sent her seeking refuge in a steamy wet bathroom when she had a perfectly comfortable bed to hide out in.

  King leaned into the spray, rinsed the shampoo from his hair, the soapy water from his face, neck, and chest. He was clean and ready to get out, but he was also butt naked, and she was standing between him and his towel.

  Except standing wasn’t exactly the right word. Even through the curtain he could see her nervous movements, pacing, rocking, leaning over the sink and talking into her hands instead of to him.

  He’d had enough. “Cady, either talk to me or get out so I can get out.”

  “I can’t go back out there.”

  Then talk it was. “Because?”

  “I just can’t. In the city, I felt safe. The incident with Alice aside,” she added. “In the city, I was just another nameless person in the crowd. It was easy to stay out of sight, lost, bland, blending in.”

  She was not bland. She was anything but. “And somehow that all changed with me taking you home?”

  “That place is not my home.”

  No, but it used to be. She had a lot of history there. Was standing out now what was bothering her? “You think the gossip mill is all churned up with tales of your face meeting your mother’s fist?”

  “It’s not the tales and the gossip that scare me.”

  Scared? That’s what she was feeling? He would’ve thought something like rejected, dejected. Embarrassed. Any one seemed more in order. “Then what scares you?”

  “That after all these years, they’re finally going to catch me. And kill me when they do.”

  Okay, now this was getting spooky weird, but the thing about feeling safer sharing a room? If she thought someone was after her, it made sense. Made him glad, too, he’d kept his gun close. At least until he knew more.

  Like whether she had a real reason to be frightened. Or whether she was some kind of schizo whack job. “They? Who is they?”

  It took her several seconds to respond. He sensed her move again, lean back against the wall beside the door. “I don’t know their names, or even who they are except for being friends of the guys who went away for Kevin’s murder.”

  Real enough. So far. “And you think they’re after you?”

  “They’ve been after me since the trial.”

  There were a dozen things he wanted to ask, all related to wondering why she was still living here in this part of the country when she had no ties? Why, if there was a legitimate threat, had she not found out who they were and filed a restraining order? Why wasn’t she in witness protection?

  But her fear was immediate, her need for a diversion urgent enough to bring her in here while he showered. He ended up asking, “And you think they’re here? Now?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just…When I looked out the window, I saw a truck idling behind yours, then rolling forward slowly and stopping as if searching for our room. Or searching for me.”

  He didn’t want to discount what she was feeling, or ignore what she thought she’d seen. But he’d been the one driving, and nothing about the traffic around them had struck him as strange or hostile.

  No, he hadn’t been on the lookout for a tail or had any reason to be, but those early years behind bars had left him with a good pair of eyes in the back of his head.

  As far as he knew, they were still working, and they hadn’t seen a thing. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  She bit off some not so nice words. “You’re sure I’m hallucinating? Is that it?”

  Women. Twist and turn everything a man said. “No, I’m sure you saw what you saw.”

  “But until you see it for yourself, then it doesn’t count.”

  “I didn’t say that either.”

  “You didn’t have to. You don’t believe me.”

  What he believed was that they weren’t going to get anywhere with this barrier between them.

  He shut off the water, grabbed his wet rag and held it with one hand in the most strategic of locations, then whipped the curtain out of the way and met her gaze.

  The hooks clattered the length of the rod, and Cady jumped, her eyes going wide as she took him in in all of his Garden of Eden glory.

  Then a smile teased one corner of her mouth upward, and a knowing brow followed suit. “Nice fig leaf.”

  He glared, moved his other hand to his hip to secure the terry cloth from both sides. “I can’t talk to you when I’m naked and you’re not.”

  “Are you saying you want me to take off my clothes?”

  That hadn’t been the response he was after, but now that she’d brought it up…“If you’re not up for doing that, then I’m going to put mine on. You can stay and watch, or stay and help, or you can turn your back until I’m dried off and dressed. And we can pick up this conversation then.”

  She’d lost a bit of her smirk during his speech, and though she hadn’t run screaming out of the bathroom, he wouldn’t be surprised if she turned and did.

  He wasn’t much to look at as it was, but dripping wet and naked save for his terry cloth fig leaf—the rag itself growing wetter with all the dripping going on—he could scare the chocolate out of an M&M candy shell.

  So it left him feeling strangely naked and vulnerable when she was slow to reach for the handle, and even slower to open the door, leaving him behind with an expression he swore was tinged with regret.

  Ten

  Cady prided herself on not being an innocent. Living in the city meant she’d seen a lot of things she wouldn’t have living in the rural Midwest, or even living in the town she’d grown up in. She wasn’t judging, just stating facts.

  And the fact was, it took a lot to get her to bat an eye or turn her head and stare. And that included the male body in various states of undress.

  Leaning back on her stacked hands on the safe side of the bathroom and listening to King’s movements as he dressed, Cady felt as if she’d been cloistered away all of her life in that monastery she’d been threatening to run to.

  She closed her eyes because it was eas
ier to see him again with nothing pulling her gaze elsewhere. She didn’t want to look elsewhere. She only wanted to look at him—a man who wasn’t some young hard body of ambiguous sexual orientation who sold everything from boxer briefs to gym memberships.

  He’d been fully clothed, in fact, in the photographs taken for the Ferrer Fragrance ads—a fact Cady now considered a damn shame, if not a waste of a once in a lifetime marketing opportunity.

  Standing there the way he’d been in the bathroom, his hands low on his hips, fingers spread to hold what there was of his fig leaf in place…thinking about it now, she could hardly breathe.

  He had body hair, and he had muscles, and he had scars, and on his right collarbone, a tattoo of a crown sitting on top of scattered doubloons and draped with strands of beads, all of it in Mardi Gras colors.

  King. Kingdom. The name fit him, as did the idea of his being master of all he surveyed. She’d imposed herself upon him, and he’d taken charge the way he saw fit rather than doing what she, a mere peasant, his subject, his serf, wanted or suggested or told him to do.

  Just her luck she’d stowed away with royalty—royalty whose fig leaf she wanted to blow out of the way. God, but he was beautiful, and so out of her league.

  She pushed off the door before he could open it and catch her simultaneously drooling and kvetching, and returned to perch on the foot of her mattress to wait.

  If he were a typical man, he’d be using this time holed up alone to prove her suspicions of being followed unfounded.

  But he struck her as anything but typical, leaving her no clue what to expect when his highness emerged from his chambers and took to his throne—an image that had her smiling, a smile that was a welcome surprise.

  And then he was there, fully dressed down to his boots. She tried not to gulp at the beads of water pooled in the hollow of his throat above his T-shirt’s ribbed neckline. Or jump up and cup his freshly shaved face in her hands to see how soft his skin actually was.

  But mostly she tried, and failed, not to remember what he looked like naked.

  Since that was impossible, she tried for casual when she asked, “Going somewhere?” After her bathroom confessional, she didn’t believe he’d walk out and leave her alone. But really, casual was the last thing she was feeling, and her question came out on a squeak.

  He nodded, snagged his wallet from the desk. “Thought I might walk through the parking lot. Make sure no one is lurking in the bushes under our window.”

  “Are you making fun of me again?”

  “Again? When have I made fun of you ever?”

  “You didn’t believe me about the suspicious truck outside.”

  “Sure I believed you.” He swung his key ring on one finger and palmed the clattering keys. “That’s why I’m going out there now. Make sure all is well.”

  He believed her about the truck. Just not that whoever had been driving was necessarily looking for them. Or coming after her. “You sure you’re not trying to get out of finishing our conversation?”

  Actually, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to revisit her past to the extent answering his questions would require. Curling up her battered body beneath the bed’s blankets, and sinking into the cushy down pillows was a much more appealing option.

  She chose it instead of choosing to talk.

  “Never mind,” she said, reaching for her backpack and the T-shirt and sweatpants she’d packed for sleeping, and then realizing he hadn’t moved.

  She looked up at him then, for the first time concentrating on his expression instead of his looks. “What?”

  His eyes were those of a raptor, keen and piercing. “I’m not avoiding the conversation or running out on you.”

  She dipped her chin, pulled her laptop out of her bag, knew what a field mouse must feel like before a hawk swooped down. “I know—”

  “No you don’t,” he said sharply. “But it’s okay. It takes a lot to hurt my feelings.”

  She hated to admit that she hadn’t considered his feelings at all. It was just that she was used to being on her own, used to having conversations avoided, used to seeing the backs of others running away from the cloud of bad karma that hung over her head like a shroud.

  She shrugged what she hoped passed for an apology. “I’m going to see if the wireless is working. I need to log into my bank and figure out how I’m going to finance my escape from New York.”

  “You’re a funny girl,” he said, still staring at her, though with less of a hooded look.

  “Thanks. Entertaining you is the least I can do.” And then she realized what she’d said, and decided not to say anything else the rest of the night. Not so King.

  “I’ll be back in a few,” he said. “Just sit tight,” he told her. “Nothing bad’s going to happen while I’m gone,” he promised. “It’ll be morning before you know it, and that’s when everything looks brighter, right?”

  All she could do was smile weakly while avoiding his gaze, and nod, because even if nothing bad happened, it was going to be a long time before there was anything resembling brightness lighting up her life.

  Eleven

  King shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, wishing for his jacket and dry hair. It wasn’t that he’d been in too much of a hurry to grab his coat before leaving the room, but a case of not thinking straight.

  If he had been, he wouldn’t be here now, freezing his balls off, instead of huddled in toasty sheepskin.

  It had taken him forever to finish up in the bathroom because he couldn’t get the hungry look in Cady’s eyes out of his head. Since she’d climbed into his passenger seat in the garage this morning, he hadn’t once thought of her that way. At least not seriously. She’d been someone in trouble, someone needing help.

  Even when she’d rubbed against him during that ridiculous Ferrer photo shoot, he hadn’t considered messing with her any more seriously than he would’ve a Hooters’ waitress leaning over him to serve up his order of hot wings and beer. Enjoying an eyeful of tits didn’t mean a thing.

  Except best he could tell, Cady’s tits really weren’t enough for an eyeful, and she’d never worn anything that exposed her cleavage to prove him wrong. Head to toe, she’d always been completely covered up when around him. Until standing there in the bathroom looking at him with bare, naked eyes.

  What he’d seen of her then had scrambled everything he’d been thinking, as well as the plans he’d been making behind her back to ditch her and get on the road. Best he could do now was talk her out of wanting to come along, let her think it was in her best interest to get rid of him.

  If anyone had been messing with his brand-new wheels and delayed him any longer, he was going to have their hide. But a quick look around the exterior of the SUV, made while he ran his hands up and down his goose-fleshed arms, didn’t reveal slashed tires or smashed windows or siphoned fuel.

  The electronics in his key fob had disengaged the locks, so he popped the hood, started her up, and listened to his horses whir. He knew engines—V6, V8, V10, V12, didn’t matter—and this one was singing sweet. But he was cold and Cady was waiting, so he headed back to the room.

  He didn’t purposefully sneak in, but once inside was glad he hadn’t made a lot of noise because Cady was fast asleep. And she was fast asleep in the bed that was supposed to be his for the night.

  He sat on the foot of the one where she should’ve been sleeping—the one that was now covered with everything they’d brought inside, including his dirty clothes, and was missing the bedspread to boot.

  It was as if she’d made sure he had no choice but to bunk on the floor—if not with her—or else wake her and ask, “What the hell?”

  He didn’t want to wake her. Not after the day she’d had. Her body needed recovery time and nothing beat sleep for healing.

  But even though he’d said otherwise, there was no way on God’s green earth he was going to spend the night on the floor knowing he’d be sitting behind the wheel most of tomorrow,
and most likely the day that followed.

  Spending the night propped up in one of the room’s two wing chairs wasn’t any more of an acceptable option…though hitting the front desk for another room was. He’d just leave Cady a note first—

  She interrupted him by clearing her throat. “You’re trying to get out of sleeping with me, aren’t you?”

  He tossed the pen he’d found back to the desk. He hadn’t even made it as far as finding something to write on. “Actually, I was trying to remember the last time I bailed on a woman who invited me to bed.”

  “It must be hard to be King.”

  He liked this girl. He liked her a lot. “In a manner of speaking.”

  She raised up on one elbow, tossed back the bedspread she was wearing like a cocoon. “I’m fully dressed. I’m under my own covers. There’s no chance here for accidental physical contact. So come to bed. We both need sleep.”

  It had to be the shadows from the room’s dim light making her face look so ghostly. Yeah, her hair was dark, as were the bruises marring her skin, plumping one side of her mouth into a fleshy pillow and sinking her eyes into her skull. But still. She looked like the waking dead.

  He returned to the foot of the bed to tug off his boots, wondering if he’d ever slept with a zombie before. “You get your banking done?”

  She burrowed deeper into the covers. “I couldn’t get onto the hotel’s network. I’ll try again in the morning, if there’s time before we leave.”

  “How much you think it’s going to take to finance this escape of yours?” he asked, weighing the pros and cons of sleeping in all of his clothes or just some of them.

  She didn’t answer, and he left it alone, suddenly more tired than he had reason to be. Along with his boots, he pulled off his belt, then left the first bed for the second and slid beneath his sheet and blanket.

  Cady’s bulk was nothing at his side. There was no dip in the mattress from her weight causing him to roll toward her. He could’ve been sleeping next to a pile of clean laundry for all he noticed her being there.