Private Investigations. Tori Carrington

as she thought. She finished buttoning the borrowed shirt, her damp hair falling over her face. “Do you have a name?”

      “Uh-huh.”

      She slid a glance at him. “Are you going to share it with me?”

      “Depends,” he said, looking to where he still grasped the sheet. He dropped the linen then widened his stance, planting his fists on his hips. For a guy in nothing more than clingy cotton knit boxers he managed to look sexier than all get out.

      “On what?”

      “On whether or not there’s a camera crew ready to spring through the door and tell me this is a practical joke.”

      “Don’t I wish,” Ripley said quietly, then added while stabbing a thumb toward the hall, “be my guest.”

      He stood still for half a heartbeat, then strode to the door in the other room.

      Oh, boy. Talk about the back looking just as great as the front. He had a pair of buns a girl could dig her fingers into. And thighs that hinted at an endurance level beyond anything she was used to. He peeked through the peephole then turned, catching the direction of her attention. She quickly looked away and reached toward the bedside table where a wallet lay. She flipped it open. “Joseph Albert Pruitt.” She closed the fragrant, faded leather and put it back where she found it. “Nice to meet you, Joseph.”

      “Joe.”

      She smiled. Joe. She liked that. Where he could have easily pulled off a name like Fabio, Adonis or Romeo, he had a simple, everyday name. But he was far from your everyday average Joe.

      She watched as he took a pair of jeans from a chair and easily stepped into them. She swallowed. Of course he was the type to leave the top button open, revealing where the dark V of hair trailing from his navel disappeared into the waistband.

      “So,” he said. “The way I see it, we have two options.” His suggestive grin should have sent her packing. Instead it made her stomach dip to somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles. “Either we both climb back into that bed…together.”

      Ripley couldn’t believe she found the idea very, very tempting. For crying out loud, she didn’t know the guy from…well, from Joe. “And the second option?”

      Joe ran his right hand over his tousled hair and shrugged. “You tell me what’s going on.”

      AN HOUR LATER Joe sat across the sitting room table from one very hungry Ripley Logan, P.I., trying not to think that under the shirt she wore, his shirt, was nothing but a precious expanse of flawless skin and shadowy crevices. She had one knee pulled up to her chest, leaving him to wonder what the view looked like under the table as she popped another French fry into her mouth and chewed. Part of the deal she’d made with him included ordering up room service. Only after the meal arrived would she tell him what he wanted to hear.

      Well, not exactly what he wanted to hear, he amended. If he had it his way, she’d be making those quiet little throaty sounds she was making as she ate, but she’d be making them in the bed in the other room.

      “I can’t believe how hungry I am,” she said, digging into a burger the size of a plate, then licking ketchup from the corner of her mouth. “When I got back to my room earlier I couldn’t even think of food. Amazing what a little action can do, huh?”

      Joe sat up straighter. He wished she were referring to the type of action he was interested in. The sight of her pink little tongue sweeping her lips just about undid him. “Yes, I suppose running from armed men will do that to a person.”

      She stopped chewing and blinked at him. Then a twinkle entered her cognac-colored eyes. She was enjoying this, he realized. Not the meal. Not his company. Not what had happened between the two of them in that perfectly good, imperfectly empty bed in the other room. No, she had enjoyed being pursued by gunmen—one of whom could still be camped out in her room, if he bought what she was telling him.

      “I guess,” she said, waving the burger.

      “The funny thing is, I haven’t a clue who they are or what they’re after, even though I know they have to be involved in this missing persons case I’m working on, but considering all the dead ends I hit today, and I mean not one person would—”

      Joe took that as his cue that no further participation was required by him for the time being and tuned out. The way she was going, he figured he had a good five minutes before she ran out of steam and expected a response from him. He sat back and crossed his arms, enjoying watching her. He’d never seen a woman eat and talk at the same time. His mother would have been absolutely horrified. His father would have probably made one of those sounds of disapproval deep in his military throat. But all Joe could think about was how damn sexy the action was. If she approached food and conversation with such vigor and passion, he could only imagine what she would really be like in bed. Ravenous. Insatiable.

      Joe rubbed his chin with his index finger. He didn’t quite know what it was about Ripley Logan that captured his attention. Yes, she had Julia Roberts’s girl-next-door good looks, but compared to the women at the strip club earlier in the evening, she didn’t begin to scream bedroom material. But that’s exactly where he wanted to get her—in his bed. Take up right where they’d left off.

      The top few buttons of the oxford she filched had been left undone, and as she leaned forward to take a French fry from his untouched plate, the shirt bowed open, revealing more than a healthy stretch of soft skin. He nearly groaned, remembering all too vividly how it had felt to have the rounded flesh of her breasts pressed against his chest.

      He started coughing and reached for his water glass only to find she’d already drained it.

      “Sorry,” she said. She wiped her hand on her napkin, then held out her cola. “I guess I was thirsty, too.”

      So was he, but he wasn’t about to say for what. He gulped the rest of the cola then held out the glass. She narrowed her eyes and took it back.

      Brushing her hands together, she said, still chewing, “So that’s it. What I know, you now know.”

      Joe sat back. Well, that had ended quicker than he’d thought. He’d entirely missed all the cues women usually gave when they were reaching the end of their monologues. Which caught him off guard. “Well, that’s…interesting.”

      “Exciting,” she said, and that twinkle entered her eyes, making him wonder all over again what put it there. “At least after the bath part.”

      “Hmm. The bath.”

      She laughed, and he had the distinct impression it was at him. “You didn’t hear a single word I said, did you?”

      His brows rose high on his forehead. Women were usually offended when they figured out he wasn’t paying attention. She appeared amused. He scratched his head. Go figure.

      “Sure I did. I heard every word,” he said, feeling required to make at least the token objection.

      She pushed her plate away and rested her elbows on the table, then crossed her arms. “So tell me what I said.”

      Now this he was used to. All he had to do was choose a few words he’d picked up during the past half hour and he’d convince her he had been listening. “There’s the missing person…the bath…the gunmen.”

      Her full lips quirked. “And?”

      “And…” He was surprised at his own laugh. “Okay, you’re right, I wasn’t listening.”

      Now why had he gone and admitted it? He’d never done that before.

      Ripley waved her hand. “That’s okay. I don’t think I made much sense even to myself. I probably won’t until I figure out who those guys are and what they wanted.” She looked to her left, then her right, then leaned forward to peer into the bedroom. “Is it nearly two already?”

      She began to get up, and he caught her wrist. “What did you say?”