IN ROOM 33 (26 page)

She waited, her big blues fixed on him, holding him like one of those sci-fi tractor beams.

"From merchant banking, I set out on my own. Started a company to specialize in financial consulting and mergers and acquisitions. Emerson Inc. No points for a cute name. The economy was hot. The markets were hot. The company was on fire, and I was trying to do everything myself. I was living on a plane and working hundred-hour weeks. I knew I couldn't keep up the pace, so I hired a Chief Financial Officer—"

"Enter the woman?"

"Deanna Nash." He met Joy's intense gaze. "She came with degrees and experience to burn. I gave her the financial end, while I looked after the growing list of clients." He poured himself another glass of wine. I was still living on planes, but I figured I had the home base covered.

"Deanna was so damned efficient it was scary. The more work I gave her, the more she asked for. We were a good team." He stopped, remembered those heady days. Hot sex, piles of money, and a seriously bloated ego. What an ass he'd been.

"You slept with her."

"I thought I wanted to marry her." He watched Joy's gaze slide away, then back again.

"And?"

"The short version? She took me. Big time. And I was stupid enough to let her. I found out later she'd come to Emerson's owing some not-so-nice people a lot of money. To pay them she siphoned off clients' funds. After she'd paid them off, she started to pay herself."

"How did you find out?"

"I didn't. The IRS did. Then the banks."

Joy shifted on the sofa, and the robe fell away to show one clean, shiny knee. "And then?"

"At first I didn't believe it. I stood by her—which ended up helping the DA's obstruction charge big time. Deanna swore she never made a move without consulting me—that my signature was on every transaction." He pulled an earlobe, hard; he hated revisiting his own idiocy.

"And had you signed everything?"

"Yeah. I trusted her. And I'd stopped reading the fine print." Just about the time they started sleeping together. He stopped, not sure where to go from here. Even he couldn't admit aloud how he'd let his cock negate his common sense. "Reading the fine print was my job. It was right I take the fall."

"What happened next?"

"I paid back all the money, and what might have been an eight-to-ten year sentence translated into under two and a hefty fine."

"And Deanna?"

"She got a slap on the wrist for not standing up to the big, bad boss, and walked into the sunset with a much heftier Swiss bank account than she had before she joined me." He laughed, although even to him it sounded hollow. "She married my defense attorney."

Joy's eyes hadn't left his face—now they did. She set her wineglass on the table and stood. She walked over to where he sat and, standing over him, ran her fingers through his damp hair. "Sounds to me as if you got off easy. You should count your blessings."

"I do." He grasped her hands, kissed her knuckles, and pulled her onto his lap. "Especially the blessings you gave me in the tub." He parted the flimsy cotton robe, exposed her breasts, and took one in his hand. Smooth, firm, and high, it begged to be kissed. He turned her to straddle him, lifted her until her nipples were mouth level, and licked the one most convenient before sucking it in, hard and deep. Her stomach contracted and she tightened her fists in his hair.

"Enough about me." He looked up at her, smiled. "Let's talk about you. Tell me in detail everything that's gone on in your life since you were twelve and I was eighteen." He went back to work, took her nipple into his mouth, suckled, drew on it until she gasped. He ran his hand between her legs, then a finger between the satin folds shielding her clitoris. She was wet. Heaven in his palm. He took his mouth and tongue from one breast and transferred them to the other. "You're not talking," he murmured against a slick, pebbled nipple, nibbling her softly.

"And I might not... ever again." She kissed his head, then sat back to look at him. "You're good at this, Emerson. A girl could get used to this kind of treatment."

"I sure as hell hope so, because I don't plan on stopping anytime soon." He blew softly on her moist nipple, licked it."We have a long night ahead of us." And considering he was hard as an oak slab, he was definitely going to be up for it.

She let out a half breath, pulled it back in with a sharp gasp. "How about"—she put her mouth to his ear—"more bold sex, life story to follow." She paused. "In the A.M."

He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, eyes languid with passion and a touch of humor. Wade's heart bounded, tried to claw its way out of his chest. He kissed her, tasted her, first softly, then with the urgency his body forced on him. Their tongues met mated, and drew apart."You're not the only one who could get used to this." He wasn't smiling, wasn't teasing, and his own words scared the crap out of him. He didn't want to want this woman—this hungrily. And he hadn't the damndest idea how to stop the craving. "I want you again. I want to be inside you. Deep, deep, inside you."

Their gazes met, locked.

Joy reached over, stroked his jaw. "Bed, Wade. Take me to bed." She fisted her hands in his hair, pulled it."Now."

* * *

Wade glanced at the red digits on the clock radio beside his bed. Three-forty A.M. He should be sleeping the sleep of the dead or damned, because his body was, for the moment, sexually sated. Actually, "numb" would be a better word.

Yet he still couldn't keep his eyes closed.

Joy didn't have the same problem. They'd made love twice more, and she'd conked out on him seconds ago. Now, cradled in his arms, she slept as if in a coma, her breathing unlabored and deep, her expression as soft and innocent as a child's. He touched her face and pushed a few long strands of hair to a place behind her ear. He couldn't stop looking at her. And he couldn't stop thinking he was going down fast. He cursed softly, lifted an arm to prop his head, and transferred his gaze from the sleeping beauty in his arms to the ceiling.

That was when he heard it.

He lifted his head a fraction, heard it again. A scratching sound from the wall behind his bed, then a shuffling. He shouldn't be hearing anything from the adjoining room; it was empty. Had been for years.

"You hear that? "Joy asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"Yes." He pulled his arm from under her and got to his feet. "I'm going to check it out."

By the time he shucked into his jeans, she was wrapped in his robe and standing beside him. "What are you doing?" he asked. "Go back to bed. No need for both of use to miss shut-eye."

She shook her head. "I'll come with you."

"Why?"

"It's my hotel. Why wouldn't I?"

He had no answer to that. "Then stay behind me." Wade knew the hotel got its share of street people wandering the halls, looking for a warm place to hang out. Most of them were harmless, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Joy rolled her eyes. "You, Tarzan, me Jane?"

"For the next few minutes. Yes."

The hall was empty. Wade put his ear to the door the sounds had come from and listened. "Nothing. Probably a mouse on a midnight hunt."

She didn't look convinced. "Maybe. But have you got your keys—which, by the way, I'd like a copy of when you get around to it." She rattled the door handle. "I'd like to take a look."

"Why?"

"It's my—"

"—hotel." He finished the overused phrase for her.

She smiled slightly, but her expression stayed one of puzzlement and curiosity when she looked at the door to the suspicious room.

"I'll get the keys."

When they walked into the room a few minutes later, he knew his own expression carried the same puzzlement. The uncovered window allowed enough street light into the room for them to see a can of beer and a bag of potato chips, both of them on the floor next to a chair, about a foot from, and facing, the wall separating the room from Wade's.

"What the hell?" Wade flicked the light switch but nothing happened. Probably no one had been in here to change a light bulb in years. He picked up the beer can, empty. The potato chip bag was two-thirds gone, but the contents were fresh.

Someone had been in this room, and judging from the positioning of the chair, they were getting their rocks off tuning in to the events taking place in Wade's bed. He needed a closer look, but he didn't need Joy looking over his shoulder. "Check the window, would you?"

Joy crossed the room and left Wade to himself. He quickly ran a hand along the cracked plaster in the wall eye-height from the chair.

A goddamned peephole!

Judging from the angle, whoever was in here didn't see everything, but they'd damn well seen enough.

Chapter 13

A nerve jumped and ticked in Wade's jaw; rage coursed along his tightened stomach muscles.

"Find anything?" Joy came back to stand with him.

"Nothing." He lied, not about to tell her they'd been on something close to
Candid Camera
for the past few hours. "You?"

"The window is secure from the inside. Painted shut, by the look of it. Whoever it was didn't come in that way, which means they had a key." She pursed her lips, paused, then said, "But I think I know who was in here."

"I'm listening."

"Big Mike." She put a hand to her stomach, rubbed as if to calm it.

Wade's stomach got even tighter. "What makes you say that?" He waved a hand around. "Hell, it could have been anyone." And he hoped it was, because there was something seriously ugly about knowing the person who'd ogled them through a peephole.

"It smells like Mike."

He stared at her. "Smells like?"

"He has a kind of rancid odor, then he piles on a cheap scent. Aftershave, maybe. It makes him smell like stale cigar smoke and lemon. He's always drenched in it." She shuddered. "In lieu of a shower, I think."

Either Wade's nose was out of kilter or he'd never been close enough to the man to get a good whiff of him, but he was impressed. "I'll talk to him. See what I can find out. But for now, let's get out of here." He decided he'd break the man's nose before he tossed him out the damn door. Sick, perverted bastard!

Before Wade could get Joy out of the room, her gaze hit on the chair near the wall. When she spotted the gap made by the cracked plaster, her eyes went wide. "God, he was watching us, wasn't he?" Again she pressed her hand against her stomach, briefly closed her eyes. "I think I'm going to be sick."

In the dim light, Wade couldn't make out her skin tone, but judging from her voice he put it at green for nausea. He took her hand, pulled her to him, and kissed her forehead. He held her for a long moment, then walked her out and into the dark hall. "Don't think about it." He shut the door and locked it. As soon as he got Joy settled, he intended to go to Mike's room, but what he planned for the asshole wasn't something he wanted Joy to see.

They went back to his room and Joy went immediately to the bathroom. Wade checked his wall. When he found the peephole—hard to see among the busy vines in the scratched and torn wallpaper—he blocked it with his bureau.

When Joy came back in the room, he was already in bed. Waiting. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She stood beside the bed. "As okay as I can be after starring in my first live porn act." She rubbed her freshly washed face with both hands, then set her mouth in a stubborn line. "Tomorrow that pervert is out of here."

" 'Tomorrow' being the operative word. Okay?" But it would be a lot sooner if Wade had his way. He reached out a hand for her, and she took it, her own cold and tense. "Right now you need sleep." And the sooner she was asleep, the sooner he could bust Mike's face in.

Joy looked down at him, her face grim. "I don't want you to get all macho about this. The Hotel Philip is my responsibility and it was my"—she looked aside briefly—"bare butt on display. I'll handle it my way. If you have any other ideas or plan on a little dragon-slaying on my behalf, I'm asking you to forget it. I'm used to handling things on my own."

Wade considered her request, mulled over the idea of lying, checked his adrenaline gauge—high—then made the mistake of looking into her eyes. Proud eyes. Fierce, independent eyes. "How about we handle it together, Cole. Yours wasn't the only butt on display, you know." And no way was he letting her face down that behemoth on her own.