People in l.u.s.t did the stupidest things, luckily for her business.

She breezed into the guest house, turning her head as she pa.s.sed the old reception desk and pretending to dig for her key. The young woman at reception was talking on the phone and never spared a glance for the woman currently climbing into the charmingly antiquated elevator with the sliding metal mesh doors.

Stone had already started to pull the cage-like door closed when she said, "Hold the elevator please. "

He sent her a quick glance, and she forced her expression to remain blandly neutral when she wanted to plow her fist into his nose. The a.s.shole was checking her out. She recognized the quick gleam of interest, the fast head-to-toe sweep as he sized up her body. He"d barely hauled his b.u.t.t out of bed from one woman, and he was eyeing another?

"Which floor?" he asked politely.

She watched his finger hover briefly over the four. "Four, please. "

With a slight nod, he pushed four and the elevator whirred and creaked alarmingly as it made its slow ascent.

She was unnervingly aware of the man riding up with her. He must be a successful philanderer, she thought. He d.a.m.n near hummed with s.e.xual attraction. And her body, not as conversant with his alley cat morals as her mind, seemed to hum to his frequency.

Or maybe the sensation running up and down her spine wasn"t attraction but pure, blind fear. This elevator felt like a gilded bird cage being hauled up by a palsied old woman who might drop them at any moment.

Relief hit Gretchen on many levels when the thing finally shrieked to a shuddering halt.

Stone calmly drew back the metal door and held it, politely indicating she should precede him. d.a.m.n. She wanted to follow him.

Slowly she trailed along the red carpet, threadbare in patches. The white plaster walls sported sconces and heavy gilt mirrors. Dainty antique tables held bowls of potpourri that couldn"t mask the smell of must and age.

The rooms were fitted with big old-fashioned doors that had big old-fashioned locks. She grew hot thinking she"d run out of narrow corridor soon, with that maddening presence still behind her.

But, almost as she had the thought, the man behind her paused, and she heard a c.h.i.n.king sound like change being jingled in a pocket. She reached into her bag for her camera.

She heard the door open behind her and turned, stepping quickly and silently to intercept it before it closed. A picture of a woman naked in his bed would be good. Them necking pa.s.sionately would be even better.

She got to the open door and an arm shot out, grabbing her wrist and yanking, hard. She swallowed her cry of surprise and pain as she was jolted and spun into the room.

Strong arms grabbed her, pinning her own arms to her sides and forcing her to drop both camera and bag. The door shut behind her with an ominous click.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you"re doing?" She was furious with herself for being caught so woefully inattentive and with him for making her so.

Her body was pressed so tightly against his that she felt his belt buckle press into her belly, his chest flatten hers, and his breath stir her hair.

Refusing to be intimidated by his size and strength, she glared up at him.

His face was hard, the eyes glacial, but a swift streak of humor danced across the surface before disappearing. "I was going to ask you the same question. "

She flicked a quick glance around, but unless the floozy was hiding under the white chenille-covered bed or inside the mahogany wardrobe, Mr. Stone was alone.

"You"re the one who grabbed me," she reminded him.

"Are you armed?" Not waiting for an answer, he held her with one hand and frisked her with the other.

His paper sack of food was on the floor where he"d dropped it and after he"d satisfied himself that she had no artillery strapped to her ankles, he reached for the bag and set it on the table, foolishly turning his back on her.

She might not be armed, but that didn"t mean she wasn"t dangerous. In spite of years of sporadic effort, she"d never broken the brown belt barrier, but she did have a karate kick she was rather proud of, and she let Mr. Stone have it in full force.

He grunted in surprise and pain and sprawled across the table. She grabbed her bag and ran, but even as her hand closed on the ornate bra.s.s door handle, he grabbed her wrist in a painful hold.

The h.e.l.l with martial arts. She sank her teeth into his arm.

He cursed, and dropped her arm.

She aimed a fist at his chin, but he dodged it and the next thing she knew she was flying bodily through the air to land on her back on the queen-sized four-poster.

Matters became swiftly worse when Stone landed on top of her. Stone? Boulder would be a better name for him, she thought dimly as the breath was knocked out of her.

The man was far more muscular than she"d have guessed. Solid muscle, in fact. Solid. Heavy. Muscle. And all of it pressed on her from b.r.e.a.s.t.s to toes, flattening everything. Only her arms weren"t beneath him. He solved that problem by shackling her wrists in one hand and stretching them above her head.

She was absolutely helpless, robbed of even the breath to curse him with.

There was nothing in the world she hated more than being helpless. Nothing.

She glared up at him. There was a red mark on his chin, about the shape of her fist, that looked like it might bruise, and he was breathing heavily.

She hadn"t gone down without a fight, but that was feeble consolation for the fact that she had gone down.

His eyes were cold and hard, and somehow dangerous. Long gone was the polite stranger who"d held the elevator door for her moments ago.

"Who sent you?" he demanded.

Like, duh! Except she couldn"t say that or anything else at the moment. She couldn"t so much as draw a breath. If she didn"t get some oxygen soon she was going to compound her helplessness by pa.s.sing out.

"Can"t breathe!" she managed to gasp with the last air in her lungs.

Those cold, angry eyes narrowed in suspicion. He didn"t roll off her, but he did lift his upper body a few inches. She would have preferred to curl into a fetal ball and suck air, but he wasn"t giving her that option. She managed to drag in a lungful of oxygen and stave off the dizziness. Beneath her anger, she tasted her own fear. This guy was much stronger than he looked, and obviously some kind of s.e.x maniac.

While she gasped and panted, he said, "You were at the airport. I saw you again, driving by when I paid off the cab. You followed me from the corner store. "

Her irritation skyrocketed. She was good at her job, dammit. Even a trained professional would have had trouble recognizing her. How had he nailed her all those times? "Pure coincidence. I certainly don"t recall seeing you before. We must have arrived at the same time and we"re staying at the same place. So what? Now, if you could get off me, I"ll get back to my evening. "

"You"re staying here in the same hotel?"

All he"d have to do would be to call the front desk to find out she was lying. "I"m staying with a friend. "

He dug into her bag with his free hand and she bucked against him, hating his strength and the power he currently enjoyed. "That"s private. "

He pulled her gun out and waved it in her face. "You were taking a gun to visit your friend?"

She was losing what little patience she had. "Get off me!" She bucked and twisted her body, but that only reminded her that they were pressed together as intimately as lovers. He sucked in a quick breath as she arched and twisted against him and she saw a flare of heat ignite in his eyes. It was quickly extinguished, even as she fought down her own pre-feminist response to a roused male animal.

"Who sent you?" he asked again.

"Where"s the woman?" she countered.

A quick puzzled frown pulled his black brows together. "You"re in no position to play games. You"re not staying here. You"ve been following me. Why? Who sent you?"

She glared right back at him. If he was smart enough to spot a tail, he was smart enough to figure out who"d hired her. He was the game player. "Your wife sent me. "

"I don"t think so." He shifted, and she felt his irritation as well as the imminent cutting off of her air supply again.

A wave of fury swamped her. "No. You men never do think. You indulge in your sordid little affairs and imagine you"ll get away with them while the little wifey works her a.s.s off, keeps the house, raises the kidsa" A picture of her own mom doing just that roared through her mind like a flash fire. "News flash, a.s.shole, the wife"s onto you. "

"Did my wife hire you to kill me?"

What did he think she was? A hit man? "I"m a private investigator. She hired me to gather evidence for a divorce, Einstein. "

His eyes had narrowed again and she felt as though he were trying to see right into the thoughts behind her words. "Did my wife hire you herself?"

"No. Her lawyer did. "

"What"s the lawyer"s name?"

"That"s confidential. So, now you know why I"m here, how about you produce your lady friend, I"ll take a couple of nice photos, and be out of here. "

"There is no woman. "

She rolled her gaze. The guy was busted. When was he going to realize that and get off her?

"And one more fact you may find interesting." He shifted and his eyes burned into hers.

"Don"t tell me. Your wife doesn"t understand you?" She tried to sound confident, but her pulse was jumping.

"I"m not married. "

Chapter Two.

Adam almost smiled. The woman"s goggle-eyed "What?" was so authentic, he almost believed she thought she"d been sent to spy on a philandering husband.

Almost.

Sending a woman with a spill of blond curls, sea green eyes, and a slim, curvy body to murder him was brilliant.

Except, of course, that her very beauty was what had caused him to notice her at the airport. Then, because he was on the run with secrets his superiors would kill for, he"d kept all his senses alert. And so he"d spotted her pulled over on the road in from the airport, and again when she"d followed him back from the corner store.

But how the h.e.l.l had they caught up to him so quickly? He"d swear she hadn"t been on the plane, and he"d never seen her in Houston. He would have remembered.

He"d called from the airport to cancel his afternoon meeting in D. C., then bought his ticket for San Francisco.

He rolled off the woman, finding it altogether too difficult to think clearly with her soft curves crushed beneath him as though he were making love to her. Her scent teased him and those d.a.m.n curls had exploded out of their captivity and were tossed all over his pillow like a scatter of gold coins.

She might give him ideas that were hot and intimate, but her gun was cold and businesslike in his hand. Remembering the way she"d tackled him from behind, he kept her gun trained on her while he sank into the single armchair in the room, upholstered in bordello-red velvet.

He"d chosen this place at random off the Internet. How had they found him so quickly?

Once he was off her, the woman sat and turned so she was sitting on the bed, her feet on the floor. "If your wife didn"t hire me, then who did?"

"I didn"t say you could move." He brandished her gun a bit to remind her he was holding it.

She shook her head. "It"s not loaded. "

"What kind of a.s.sa.s.sin carries an unloaded gun?" Any second now he was going to wake up in his own bed and this whole thing would turn out to be a nightmare. Hopefully the last three months would turn out to have been equally imaginary.

"I"m not an a.s.sa.s.sin. I"m a P. I. And it"s not me you have to convince you"re not cheating on your wife, so there"s little point in this pretense. "

"When did "my wife" contact you?"

"That"s privilegeda""

"Whatever you"re being paid, I"ll double it. "

She gave him a long, cool look. "I"m getting a thousand bucks for the weekend. I"ll take the two in cash." She gave him one of those phony, have-a-nice-day smiles.

"I don"t have that kind of money on me. I can write you a check or you can wait until the bank opens in the morning." In fact, he had five thousand in cash, but it was his getaway money and he needed to make it last.

"Thanks anyway. I think I"ll pa.s.s." She rose. "It"s been a real pleasure meeting you, but I"ll be on my way. "

She bent for her bag once more and, knowing he had to stop her, he reached for his own gun, which he"d unpacked and kept handy, hoping like h.e.l.l he wouldn"t need it.

"This one"s loaded. "

She stared at him, stared at the gun, and for the first time, he felt her fear. He bit down on any feelings of guilt, knowing he couldn"t let her leave his sight. Not before morning.

Still, she remained stubbornly silent.

He did a quick calculation. "You were hired sometime after noon today, your time. "

Instead of answering his question, she snapped, "Do you have a license for that thing?"

This had to be the strangest conversation he"d ever had with anyone. "As a matter of fact, I do. "

"Do you have any idea how many accidents, even deaths, are caused each year by careless firearm use?"

"Not all of them are accidental. Sit down. "

She did, but not before her gaze had swept the area for a possible weapon. d.a.m.n it, he was going to have to tie her to the bed. And not for any of the fun reasons.