What the Lady Wants Read online

  Then he reached for the light switch, and checked back over his shoulder to make sure she was right behind him before he turned out the lights, and something in the way the line of his jaw eased into the muscle in his neck hit her in the solar plexus.

  No, not him, she thought, but it was a feeble thought. She'd been attracted to him that first day in the office, the way his hands had been so broad and had moved across that writing pad with such confidence, and she'd been falling for him ever since, burying it under a barrage of wiseass comments, getting to know how stubborn and exasperating and endearing and honest he was.

  Getting to want him more and more.

  You met him less than a week ago, she tried to tell herself, but of course, that was plenty of time for wanting somebody. A minute was plenty for wanting somebody. Now, if she'd been thinking about anything but getting him into bed—

  She had a sudden vivid picture of being in bed with Mitch, his body hard against hers, his hands moving—

  "Mabel, you have the damnedest look on your face. Are you all right?"

  Mae swallowed. "Fine. I'm fine."

  "Good." Mitch switched off the light, and in the seconds before he opened the door, Mae thought about grabbing him and pulling him down onto the floor and making him make love to her.

  She was fairly sure he'd do it. And then she'd be just another librarian.

  He opened the door. Lightning flashed, and the wind blew, and she shivered more in reaction to the storm than to any chill in the air.

  "Here." He took off his windbreaker. "Put this on."

  She started to tell him that she wasn't cold, and then she took the jacket. It was warm, and it smelled like him, and if she couldn't have him wrapped around her, she could at least have his jacket. It was pathetic, but there it was.

  She put on the jacket and followed him out into the stormy dusk.

  Somebody shot at them.

  Mae froze, not believing that anything like that could happen outside of the movies, and Mitch grabbed her and yanked her down into the dirt, and she clung to him while another bullet whined overhead and buried itself in the shed.

  She had him in a death grip, and Mitch was torn between holding her tight against him to keep her safe and going to find the jerk with the gun. It wasn't much of a choice, but if they just sat in the dirt beside the car until Albert noticed the shooting, they'd be dead in no time.

  He had to go.

  He didn't ever want to let her go, but he had to go.

  "Stay here and don't move," Mitch whispered, and Mae gripped him harder for a second. Then she released him and crouched in the shadows of the huge car, nodding. "I mean it," Mitch warned her, fear for her making him stern. "Don't do that dumb stuff that women always do in the movies. You stay put."

  Mae nodded again.

  "Right," Mitch said in disbelief under his breath and moved silently around the back of the shed to circle toward the direction of the shots. Why am I doing this? he asked himself as he crept through the dim light. He wasn't even a real private detective. Possibly because Mae Belle is watching, he thought and then rejected the thought. Other men made fools of themselves over women, not Mitchell Peatwick Kincaid. This was stupid.

  Then the shooting started again.

  Mitch hit the ground and rolled into the cover of the shed on his left, only to see Mae totally exposed in her assigned place by the car. The shooter had moved. Run, you dummy, he screamed at her silently, and another bullet flew over her head and pinged on the car. There's a gas tank there. He may start shooting lower. Move, damn it!

  She stayed frozen in place, and Mitch mentally called her every name in the book. Practically speaking, there was nothing he could do. If he ran out there to drag her to safety like some dumb movie hero, he'd get picked off, and then she would be in a mess. She obviously couldn't make it without him. She—

  Then a bullet hit the dirt beside her, and his heart leapt up his throat, and he surged to his feet and ran past the car, yanking her to her feet and dragging her with him behind the shed.

  "Why did you just sit there?" he snapped at her, shoving her behind him so she couldn't see how much he was shaking. "You could have been killed, you dummy!"

  "You told me not to move," Mae snapped back around ragged breaths. "I thought you had a plan."

  "If they're actually shooting directly at you,"

  Mitch whispered viciously, swallowing his heart back into his chest, "assume my plan has changed."

  "Now you tell me." Mae peered around him into the dark lot and shuddered. "I could have been killed."

  "That's your fault." Mitch looked out into the darkness, too, worried at the sudden quiet. "If you had any sense..."

  "And I knew that if I ran and got shot and was lying there, dying, bleeding into the dirt, that you would come and gather me up in your arms, and look deep into my eyes..."

  "Shh," Mitch hissed, trying to see what was going on around him and trying not to think about gathering her up into his arms.

  "And then right before I breathed my last, you'd say, 'Why did you move?"' Mae mimicked furiously. "You make me crazy."

  Mitch swung around to glare at her. "I make you crazy? You almost got me killed. I–"

  "Why isn't he shooting anymore?"

  Mitch listened to the darkness. "He's probably as disgusted with you as I am." He slid his back down the shed wall until he was sitting in the gloom, glad to give his trembling knees a break. "Here's a better question. Why was he shooting at all?"

  Mae slid down beside him and sagged a little against him. It took everything he had not to put his arm around her. Because then he'd kiss her. And then she'd point out that he was a cretin. And then—

  Mae's voice whispered back, "Because we were in Armand's storage shed?"

  "Which was empty." Mitch looked down at her drooping head. "You look beat." He craned his head back to look out into the darkness, but there was no movement anywhere.

  "I am." Mae's voice sounded very far away. "Do you think he's gone?"

  "Yes," Mitch said to comfort her, even though he didn't have a clue. "We'll wait a couple of minutes and go, too." Suddenly, she seemed like a little kid. An orphan. He reached out and put his arm around her, closing his eyes as he pulled her against him. "Sorry I yelled."

  Mae rested her head on his shoulder. "That's okay. Sorry I didn't move."

  "My fault," Mitch said, feeling magnanimous because he was so happy to be holding her. "I told you not to."

  "I know." Mae's voice was faint but grumpy in the gloom. "That's why I didn't."

  Mitch felt her shift softly against him, and suddenly she was Mae again, and the orphan image vanished. He squelched down the hot thoughts that swamped him and moved his arm away from her. "Are you okay?"

  "No. Somebody just shot at me. I'm upset."

  "Right." Mitch patted her shoulder and craned his neck for another look around. "Stay here. I'll go get the car and bring it back so you don't have to go out in the open again, and then we'll go home."

  "What if you get shot?" Mae's voice was more worried than querulous.

  "Then you'll have to get the car on your own." Mitch stood, losing her warmth and hating it. "Wait here. Do not move." When Mae gave a mirthless laugh, he amended that to, "Unless somebody shoots at you. In that case, run like hell." "You bet," Mae said.

  Safe in the darkness of the car on the way home, Mae sorted through her thoughts, trying hard to find a coherent one. She'd been under a lot of stress lately, and then there was the disappointment of the storage shed, and then getting shot at —that was bad— and now here she was, alone in the dark with Mitch, and all she could think of was that if he didn't touch her, she was going to go crazy.

  And he wasn't going to touch her.

  She closed her eyes so she could imagine his hands moving over her body, feel his lips against her skin, and she breathed a little deeper trying not to moan. He was a librarian addict who couldn't commit to one set of breasts. Okay, that she could deal w