He stared at her and growled, “Ayme, enough. We need to get going. But first, we’ve got to check you out. Someone might have put a bug on you somewhere, somehow.”
“Without me noticing?”
“That’s what they do, Ayme. They’re experts at attaching devices to your clothes or your purse or even your body in ways you wouldn’t think of.”
“Who? Who do you think would do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this character who gave you my name.”
She shook her head, thinking that one over. It didn’t make any sense at all. “But he’s the one who gave me your address. He already knows where you live. Why would he…?”
“Ayme, I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “And when you don’t know things, it’s best to cover all the bases. Will you stand still and let me look you over? I promise I won’t…”
“No.” Her voice was a little shaky, but adamant. “It won’t do any good, anyway. I’ve seen those TV shows. They have gotten very inventive about hiding things on people. There’s no way you can check it all. There’s no way I would let you.”
He sighed, shaking his head as he looked at her.
“You think I don’t know that? I can only do so much, and probably only find something if it’s pretty obvious. But I have to try. Look, Ayme, I’m really sorry, but…”
Her face lit up as she thought of a solution. She looked at him speculatively, wondering if he would go for it. With a shrug, she decided she had nothing to lose.
“I’ll do it,” she said firmly, shaking back her hair.
He stared at her. “You’ll do it? You’ll do what?”
Her smile was bemused. “I’ll do it. Myself. Why not? Who knows my body better?” She gave him a grin that was almost mischievous. “You’re going to have to trust me.”
He stared. Trust her? But that wouldn’t work. Would it?
Why not? asked a voice inside his head. Look at that face. If you can’t trust this woman, you can’t trust anyone.
Which was actually what he’d pledged from the beginning—don’t trust anyone. Still, there were times when you just had to make concessions to reality.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Go for it. We’ll see how you do.”
“I’ll see how I do,” she corrected. “You’ll be going over my bags and clothes. With your back to me. Got it?”
“Ayme,” he began in exasperation, but she signaled that he should turn away. It was pretty apparent that following her orders was going to be the only way to move things along, and they really needed to get going. So, reluctantly, he did as she demanded.
He went through her things methodically. He’d had some training in this sort of search in some security classes he’d taken lately, so he didn’t feel as strange handling her panties and bras as he might have under other circumstances. He had to take it on faith that she was doing her part. She chattered away throughout the entire exercise—and he didn’t find a thing.
“I really understand, you know,” she was saying. “And I want to do a good job at this because I figure, if I’m going with you, the danger is as much to me and Cici as it is to you.”
“You got it,” he said. “That’s the whole point.”
“So I just want you to know, I’m really being meticulous.”
“Good.”
“Searching every place I can think of.”
That gave him pictures in his head he didn’t want to dwell on and he shook off a delicious little shiver.
“Are you finished?” he asked at last, waiting for the okay to turn around.
“Just about,” she said. “Listen, I saw this one show on TV where they had these little homing signal things sort of stapled into a man’s skin. What do you think? Is that really a possibility?”
“Sure.”
She hesitated. “Okay then, I’ve been going over every inch of skin, feeling for any strange lumps, and I haven’t found anything suspicious. But just to be safe…”
He turned and looked at her. She was standing just as before with the sheet pulled around her and clutched to her chest, watching him with those huge dark eyes.
“What?”
She sighed and looked sad. “I can’t see my back. I can’t reach it, either.”
He stood very still, looking at her. “Oh.”
She licked her lips, then tried to smile. “You’re going to have to do it.”
“Oh,” he said again, and suddenly his mouth was dry and it felt like he hadn’t taken a breath for too long.
“Okay, then.”
He was willing.
Chapter Four
THIS was nuts.
David swore softly, trying to get a handle on this crazy reaction he was having. She was just a woman. He’d been with more women than he wanted to think about. He didn’t get nervous around females anymore. He’d gotten over that years ago. He’d made successful passes at some international beauties in his day, film stars, rock singers, even a female bull fighter, without a qualm. So why was his heart thumping in his chest as he approached Ayme to check out her back?
She stood there so demurely, holding the sheet tightly to her chest so that it gaped in back, exposing everything down to the tailbone, but not much else. The entire back was there, interrupted only by the slender scrap of lace that was the band of her bra, but that might as well have been invisible. He didn’t even notice it. He reached out to push her hair back off her neck, his fingers trailing across her warm skin, and the flesh beneath his hand seemed to glow.
“Okay, I’ll do this as fast as I can,” he said, then cleared his throat to try to stop the ridiculous quavering he could hear in his voice. “I’m just going to run my hand across your back a few times.”
“Get it all,” she said, head tilted up bravely. “I can take it.” She drew in her breath as his fingers began to move.
“But don’t linger,” she warned softly.
Don’t linger.
For some reason, those words echoed over and over in his head as he worked. Her skin was buttery smooth, summer-day hot, totally tempting, and every inch seemed to resonate to his touch. But he swore to himself that he wasn’t going to notice anything, no matter how crazy it made him. He wasn’t going to notice how good she smelled or how sweetly her curves seemed to fill his hand.
So why was his breath coming so fast? Why was his body tightening like a vise? This was insane. He was responding to her like he hadn’t responded to a woman in ages. And all he was doing was checking for foreign objects on her back.
And being subtly seduced by her gorgeous body. He closed his eyes as he made a last pass down as low as he dared let himself go, and then drew back, saying, “We’d better check your underclothes, too,” and heard his voice break in the middle of it.
He swore angrily, feeling his face turn as red as he’d ever felt it turn, but she didn’t look back. She reached under the sheet and pulled off her bra and panties in two quick moves and checked them herself.
“They seem clear to me,” she said without turning to look at him. “You can check too if you’d like.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said gruffly.
This