Under Wraps

by Joanne Rock

  The elevator door chimed but they remained still a long moment before Jake reached to open the outer gate on their floor. The scent of spicy incense from a nearby censer wafted toward them while her heartbeat sped faster.

  She’d just committed to far more than an investigation this week.

  5

  WOULD SHE REMEMBER what she’d said the night before?

  Jake watched Marnie sleep the next morning from his spot in an armchair a few feet away. Pale northern sunlight filtered through drapes on the French doors to dot her face and shoulders while the sheet wound around her midsection and thigh like a snake.

  She’d slept fitfully most of the night. He knew because he was highly aware of this woman at every moment. Being with her almost nonstop for the past forty hours had given him new insights about her that he hadn’t been able to glean through his surveillance of her.

  For one thing, she was in constant motion. He’d known she had an energetic personality from her penchant for dancing around the office and belting out rap tunes for her own entertainment. But he hadn’t realized that part of that was because she was tightly wound and driven to succeed. She had a tough time sitting still and letting life happen. Even in sleep, she waged battles, taking on Egyptian cotton until she had it in a choke hold.

  His gaze dipped to where the creamy fabric pulled her yellow nightshirt up over a heart-shaped bottom. She wore pink panties covered in tiny hearts and he didn’t stand a chance of pulling his eyes away.

  Which accounted for his need to keep his ass firmly planted in the armchair. Once he lay anywhere on that bed with her—trundle or otherwise—there would be no turning back.

  As it was, he’d been plagued by erotic dreams every time he slept for more than ten minutes at a stretch. Every last one of them had starred Marnie—sometimes with her natural caramel-colored hair, sometimes as a redhead. Dressed in black silk, a trench coat or nothing at all. He didn’t have a clue how he’d move forward with this investigation until he had her. The wanting was going to kill him.

  “You’re still watching me, aren’t you?” Marnie’s sleep-husky voice acted like a caress down his spine.

  She hadn’t moved a muscle for a long moment, which perhaps should have tipped him off to her wakeful state.

  “At least I’ve gone from spying on you to looking out for you.” He reached for a crystal carafe of orange juice a maid had brought in on a breakfast tray half an hour before.

  Pouring her a glass, he tried like hell to rein in his thoughts.

  “Is that what you call it?” Marnie yanked up the down comforter she’d kicked to the bottom of the bed hours ago and covered everything from the neck down. “Looking out for me?”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who chose to sleep without pants.” He leaned forward enough to hand her the glass and something the maid called a crumpet, but which he felt sure was a doughnut. “You damn near blistered my eyeballs.”

  She took both the offerings and settled back against the carved headboard of the four-poster bed to eat.

  “Will you get a load of this place?” She peered around their suite with appreciative eyes and he didn’t know if she’d changed the subject to distract him or because she was genuinely impressed. “I stayed in a smaller room last time and the decor in here is completely different. My last room was a nod to ancient Rome with lots of baskets of grapes and silk cushions on the floor. There were even complimentary togas instead of bathrobes. To me, that’s the mark of a really interesting property, when the rooms are all unique.”

  He hadn’t taken much note of the suite beyond the extravagant gilt mirrors dotting the walls and even on the ceiling. Somehow the heavy carved frames featuring intertwined Celtic designs made all the mirrors feel a little more upscale.

  “Guess I’m not much of a world traveler. As long as there is good water pressure, I’m content.” He would rather study the way her newly red hair slid out of the braid she’d fastened it in last night.

  She’d accomplished the whole dye job in the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant, the operation as quick and efficient as any superspy would have managed. No wonder the woman had recovered from a job loss by opening her own business seemingly days later. She was a detail person—a planner who took charge and got things done.

  “Spoken like a man. I would have thought you’d have at least been curious about the carved positions from the Kama Sutra around all the mirrors.”

  “Kama Sutra?” He couldn’t help but look at those damn mirror frames again. And sure enough, they weren’t decorated with Celtic symbols at all, but intertwined couples. Threesomes. Moresomes. “Is that one even possible?”

  He stood to take a closer look at a pretzel-twister of a position on the mirror closest to him.

  “Doesn’t it make you wonder where they got all this stuff? Pervy Antiques R Us?” She turned a brass alarm clock toward her and seemed surprised at the time. “So what’s on tap for today? Shadowing suspects? Setting up a stakeout?”

  “Hardly.” He passed her another pastry but she nixed it. “I stayed up late last night to contact my office and run some preliminary workups on names from the guest book. It turns out most of the guest names are aliases, just like ours.”

  “How did you get a copy of the guest book?” She frowned and set aside the empty juice glass.

  “I took a picture of it with my phone while Lianna ran the credit card.”

  “Lianna.” Marnie’s lower lip curled in evident disapproval. “Could that woman have wriggled her butt any more for your benefit?”

  Jake grinned. “It didn’t compete with the show you gave me before you pulled the blanket up.”

  Tugging a pillow from behind her back, she hurled it across the bed to hit him, but he deflected it easily so that it landed onto the floor.

  “You can’t blame me for honoring our agreement.” His cell phone vibrated with an incoming text message.

  “What agreement?”

  “We’re not going to let anyone else touch us besides each other this week, remember?” He didn’t move any closer, but he could feel the spark of awareness arc across the bed between them. Oh, yeah, he liked that. “Which I interpret to mean that I won’t be demonstrating interest in anyone else, either.”

  “I—” She nodded. “I remember. This place has a way of rousing emotions.”

  He suppressed another grin. It aroused something, that was for damn sure. And since he’d known that he’d wanted Marnie for months, he was grateful that a little competition for his attention had made her realize maybe she wasn’t as immune to him as she’d like after all.

  “I’ll check my messages while you shower.” He’d already taken a cold one around 3:00 a.m. after a vivid-as-hell dream. Though the cold water hadn’t helped much when he saw the big claw-foot tub built for two, surrounded by showerheads at convenient angles for maximizing the feel-good effect. “Then we can secure some clothes downstairs and check out the lay of the land. The sooner we get to work, the sooner we figure out who could have moved the Premiere Properties money around and tried to frame you in the process.”

  Although it was going to be a challenge since he’d be picturing Marnie in that shower the whole time.

  “Right.” She nodded, causing more hair to slide out of the braid circling her head. Rising from the bed, she tugged the blanket off with her to throw around her shoulders like a robe. “Let the charade begin.”

  WAVING OFF THE dressing-room attendants later that morning, Marnie had found four semiauthentic late nineteenth-century gowns to wear during her stay at the Marquis. Well, they were probably authentic for late nineteenth-century prostitutes. The low necklines warred with the major push-up effect of the foundation garments, making her breasts the objects of continually opposing forces.

  Successfully picking out the clothes was no easy feat, considering all she had on her mind between the unsettling attraction for her P.I. roommate and the uneasy news he’d received from his Miami office this morning.

>   Then again, picking out the dresses themselves was a cakewalk next to picking out all the assorted undergarments she needed. And while she would have liked to have blown off that portion of the shopping spree, the underwear of yesteryear served important functions for making the clothes fall properly. It wasn’t as simple as substituting a cotton bra for an elaborate corset. The gowns needed the straps and hooks, the stays and the wiring provided by the foundation pieces in order to stay up. Of course, they came complete with openings in the most interesting places. Ease of access was apparently a high priority in clothing provided by the hotel’s boutique.

  Now, Marnie checked out her reflection in the full-length dressing-room mirror, ensuring her bustle had been properly pinned and her dress covered the corset around the low bodice and down the back. The boutique didn’t just sell period costume—they specialized in the most scandalous of historical dress so that Marnie’s gown gave way to a surprise lace-up inset that plunged to the top of her bottom. If she’d been sporting a tramp stamp back there, it would be perfectly framed by white muslin.

  “Marie.” Jake’s voice called to her through the thin pink taffeta curtain separating their dressing rooms.

  They’d been given the couples’ fitting room in a far corner of the establishment, providing them privacy from the staff with a locked door while separated from each other only by the diaphanous piece of fabric. Despite the supposed privacy from the outside world, however, she noticed he called her by her assumed name.

  “Yes, Jack?” She responded in kind, hoping she could remember to use the alias today as they began their investigation of the property.

  “Are you ready?” He sounded tense. Irritated.

  She wasn’t sure if it was because of the news he’d received this morning that all five employees Marnie remembered from her last trip here two years ago were no longer working on the property, or if he was simply frustrated about the elaborate menswear he needed to wear if he had any hope of “blending in.”

  Marnie took a deep breath, remembering the glimpses she had stolen through the curtain while he tried on his clothes. She’d told herself not to look, knowing he’d be even more tempting without a shirt. Or pants. It turned out he was a boxers man. She’d gotten a peek at blue plaid shorts before she’d forced herself to turn around.

  “Yes, I—”

  No sooner had she answered then he wrenched the curtain open.

  He stood in the other half of the dressing area looking as if he could have set sail on the Titanic with the upper crust, although she knew the clothes dated from about forty years before then. Still, the long charcoal cutaway coat revealed slim-cut pants that showed off strong, muscular thighs and narrow hips. A starched white shirt with tiny crystal fastenings didn’t begin to take away from the broad masculine appeal of his chest. The half-tied cravat loose around his neck made him look like—what did they call it back in the day?

  A rake.

  Yes, he looked as roguish as Rhett Butler right before he carried Scarlett up to bed to prove sex was best left to men who knew their way around a woman.

  Her pulse rate spiked. Fluttered wildly.

  “I didn’t spend this much time dressing when I wore a flak jacket and enough combat equipment to take out a city block.” He tugged impatiently at the tie. “I’m going to burn this when the week is up.”

  “I think it’s…” Gorgeous. Delectable. Enough to make her weak-kneed. “…nice.” She stepped closer, her jeweled, high-heeled satin slippers surprisingly comfortable.

  Untwining the knot he’d made, she slid the silk free to try again, the feel of delicate material an appealing contrast to the hot, tense body beneath it.

  “You have to admit it’s excessive.” His eyes took on a dangerous gleam as he looked at her. “Although when I look at what you’re wearing, I begin to see the appeal.”

  His gaze tracked downward in a long, thorough sweep of her body. She wasn’t immune to the words or the low, confidential voice in which they were uttered. Her skin heated in response.

  “Thank you.” Lifting her arms to wrap the silk around his neck again, she couldn’t help but notice the way the movement raised her breasts to rub tantalizingly against the stiff confinement of the corset.

  Apparently, he noticed, too, since his gaze dipped to the swell of cleavage at the neckline of her white muslin day dress.

  “Wow.” His second compliment struck her as even more eloquent than the first since his breath sounded more labored.

  She eased back, satisfied with the new knot she’d tied around his neck.

  “You look good, too,” she acknowledged, her fingers itching to slide between the crystal buttons on his shirt to test the warmth of the skin beneath. “I think that’s the lure of so much clothing. It makes you all the more aware of your body, and the restrictiveness adds a layer of difficulty to touching or fulfilling any…urges.”

  Sure a miniskirt could be sexy. But sometimes keeping the body under wraps created an eagerness and delayed gratification that only heightened awareness. It was a theory she’d developed while watching The Tudors.

  “Interesting.” He ran a fingertip over a silk rosette on one shoulder of her dress before following a line of pale blue piping along the top of the neck. “But I like thinking about you half-naked in the sheets this morning, too.”

  His finger hovered over the plump curve of one breast, his touch almost straying onto her bare skin, but not quite. Her breath caught at the gossamer-light contact, a pang of desire bolting straight to her womb.

  “Shouldn’t we—” She knew they had something else they should do but it was difficult just now to recall what. Hypnotized by his green eyes turning darker by the second, she never finished the thought.

  “In a minute.” He dropped his hand to span her waist, steadying her as he bent to kiss that tingling patch of skin a mere inch from her aching nipple.

  Tongue darting along the cup of the corset, Jake tasted a path that made her knees weak. She might have twisted an ankle in her jeweled heels as she fell into him, but he held her upright against the hard length of his body.

  A moan slipped free from her throat, the sound a wordless plea for more when she had no business making such a demand. Still, sensations ran through her at light speed, her thoughts swimming. The hypnotic swirl of his tongue along her flesh sent an answering thrill to her most private places.

  Debating how to ease off her dress, she rolled her hips and shoulders in the hope some fabric would fall away. But the motion only heightened the sweet torment of her situation since it brought her in delicious contact with the hot, hard length of his arousal.

  Knock, knock.

  A rap at the door startled her, halting her hungry hip shimmy. Jake peered up at her from where he’d started to peel down the corset with his teeth.

  “Can I get you anything?” A woman’s voice drifted through the door that separated the couples’ dressing area from the rest of the store.

  “No.” Jake’s tone brooked no argument.

  Yet the female dressing-room attendant pressed on.

  “We have some very sultry pieces for private moments.” Her breathless voice suggested the woman was intimately acquainted with just such encounters. “Or not-so-private moments.”

  Her rich laughter on the other side of the door made Marnie wonder if their dressing room might be one of the places where outsiders could peek in.

  Apparently, Jake had the same idea since he returned her dress firmly to her shoulder and eased back a step. Not until that moment did she notice the complimentary basket of condoms on a table nearby. She’d seen the grooming items lined up under a pewter lamp and had thought the hairspray and scented antiseptic hand sanitizers were thoughtful additions to the dressing area. But apparently, other couples had gotten even more carried away while trying on clothes.

  “Come on.” His breathing was as ragged as hers and she found herself wondering when they’d be able to continue this moment in private. “We’ll p
ay for these things and have them sent upstairs while we check out the place.”

  She nodded her assent, since she hadn’t fully recovered her capacity for speech. While she’d felt a draw toward Jake from the moment he’d switched on his jigsaw to craft her display cabinet with an artisan’s skill and a laborer’s muscle. But he’d become so much more in the past two days. More complicated. More appealing. And far more apt to lead her straight into danger, no matter what he said about keeping her safe.

  With her heart pounding wildly and her senses still reeling from his kisses, she trusted him to protect her from the rest of the world. But who would protect her heart from him?

  6

  LIANNA CLOSSON DUCKED behind a wall of drawers containing silk hosiery and naughty underthings as Jack and Marie Barnes emerged from the couples’ dressing room. She could practically taste the pheromones rolling off the two of them as Jack pulled the beautiful redhead through the store. Their flushed cheeks and tousled hair suggested they’d had some fun in the dressing room—the kind of fun Lianna wouldn’t have minded indulging in herself if her new romantic interest had arrived at the resort this week like he was supposed to.

  Dang it.

  Not attracting so much as a second glance from either of them, she toyed with the crystal knobs on the tall cabinet full of exotic undergarments and wished her lover would show up at the Marquis soon.

  Well, her soon-to-be lover.

  Lianna had met Alex McMahon at the Marquis a year ago, back when they’d each been involved with other people—Lianna with her husband who’d introduced her to a swinging, couple-swapping existence that had seemed fun until he dumped her for his best friend’s wife. Alex had been a guest at the Marquis with a girlfriend that hadn’t worked out for him, either, and he’d contacted Lianna out of the blue a month ago. They’d gotten better acquainted online until he’d asked her to meet him here.