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“I think so.” She hitched at the tablecloth around her shoulders, the black leggings of her costume still visible from her knee down. Apparently she had knotted the rest of the fallen outfit around her waist somehow. “Thanks to you.”
Could he help it that her words made him stand taller? “You’re really not a stripper?”
“I think I’m a few alphabets short of the right cup size to be an exotic dancer.”
His natural inclination was to allow his gaze to wander over the breasts that had received more than a passing grade from him, but that didn’t seem in keeping with his attempt to rescue her from a room full of horny bachelors. Greg closed his eyes instead, willing away memories of Jackie’s perfect body.
He was surprised when he sensed her lean closer. Soft strands of her hair slid across his shoulder. A clean, sexy perfume teased his nose.
“That means no,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m not a stripper.”
A very happy circumstance, in Greg’s book. Not that he hadn’t dated a stripper—make that exotic dancer—or two in his day. He just had a difficult time reconciling Jackie to that kind of lifestyle.
Besides, he rather liked knowing she hadn’t shared that perfect body with innumerable bachelor parties.
Greg peered around Flanagan’s until he found an exit door in the back. He nodded toward the potential escape route.
“I vote we blow this joint. Do you mind if I walk you to your car to make sure you get there safely?”
“I’m with you.” She squeezed the tablecloth to her body with determined fingers and squeaked her way across the polished wooden floor in her tennis shoes, head held high.
Greg followed in her wake glaring back at Mike’s disgruntled friends as they grumbled over losing their entertainment.
Jackie’s exit proved to be as memorable as her entrance. The cat woman might not be a stripper, but her sense of showmanship could give a seasoned stage veteran a run for the money as she sailed out the door, linen cape flying.
Greg noticed her ramrod straight posture deflated a bit once they’d made it through the exit and into a cramped stairwell, however. The slump lasted all of five seconds before Jackie turned on him and flashed him a sunny grin.
“I can handle it from here, Greg.” She offered her hand as if to seal a bargain. “Thanks for helping me out of an awkward situation.”
The strength of her citrusy perfume kicked up a notch in the small, dim space. Or maybe Greg was only more aware of her.
“I’d like to walk you to your car, if you don’t mind.” He wasn’t just saying it because he was attracted to her and her mile-long legs. No woman should navigate the streets of Boston in a shredded cat costume and a tablecloth.
“That’s okay. If you could just point me in the direction of the ladies’ room I’ll try to make some repairs to my outfit.” Her whiskers twitched as she spoke.
Greg fought the urge to smooth his fingers over them, to trace them from their tips to their source at the top of her full upper lip.
“I don’t think your costume is in any shape to be repaired.”
“Well, I can’t exactly ride the metro in a tablecloth.” Her crooked grin set the whiskers at a jaunty angle. “Besides, I need to retreat somewhere to check in with the Zing-O-Gram desk. I have the feeling our new office temp sent a stripper out to a six-year-old’s birthday party and I’d like to make sure she doesn’t unveil as much as I did tonight.”
He had trouble focusing on her words. He was in a darkened stairwell with a half-naked woman and her perfume was driving him out of his mind. Greg found himself leaning closer, trying to catch a stronger whiff of her fragrance.
Too bad she was already retreating down the stairs.
“Bye.” She managed a little wave, releasing the tablecloth with one hand for all of a nanosecond. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”
Confusion jolted him out of his mission to track her scent. She was leaving?
“Wait.” He didn’t know what he was going to say next, or how he was going to make her stay.
But Greg De Costa knew one thing for certain.
No matter that Jackie the Cat looked like walking mayhem, he wasn’t ready to let her saunter out of his life just yet.
JACKIE PAUSED AND TURNED back, knowing she’d be hard pressed to deny the Adonis in corporate clothes just about anything. Had a tie ever looked so good slung around a man’s neck? Jackie’s eyes kept returning to the enticing hollow at the base of his throat, the hint of skin unveiled by one neglected top button.
He looked way too out of her league—the kind of man who dated women in understated Calvin Klein couture, not misfits in polyester kitty fur. Guys like Greg appreciated women who worked for Fortune 500 companies, women whose golf game was as low as their IQ was high.
Jackie, on the other hand, prided herself on always choosing the road less traveled or the man least likely to conform.
And Greg wasn’t exactly a rabble-rouser. She barely knew him, but his designer tie and suspenders told a story of their own.
“Yes?” She could at least see what he wanted, however. Sure, he was all wrong for her. But he had saved her from extreme mortification in the bar.
Maybe he wanted to know her whole name.
Or her number.
Or maybe a night in her bed as compensation for his gallant tablecloth rescue—a thought that didn’t deter her as much as it should have.
He loomed over her, taller than her to start with, and now he stood two steps above her in the narrow stairwell. His eyes were so dark she could no longer discern their color, but they glistened back at her in the dim light.
“Let me at least drive you home.”
“I’ll be okay.” The offer tempted her, but how could she accept a ride from a man she barely knew? A man who might have only been nice to her because he thought she’d be grateful. “But thank you.”
“Do you know someone who can come pick you up?” Greg’s brow furrowed as he frowned, the gesture adding all sorts of interesting lines to his face.
Jackie shook her head before realizing she should probably just say anything to extricate herself from this awkward social situation politely. The man was proving difficult to shake, but some part of her responded to his concern for her, too.
Jackie had always been good at drawing attention to herself—whether she’d intended to or not. But she’d never mastered the art of holding an audience’s interest, and Greg’s continued attentiveness had her feeling a little light-headed.
“Then let’s scout out a ladies’ room and I’ll tell you my plan.” Greg nudged her forward before she had the chance to register what he was saying.
His hand hovered around the small of her back, not quite touching, yet Jackie was keenly aware of its proximity.
“You need to find the ladies’ room, too?” she asked as they moved down three flights to the ground floor. Nervousness gave her the tendency to be flip.
“No. I’m sending you into the ladies’ room with my shirt so you can pull yourself together minus the tablecloth.” He was already unbuttoning his way down the crisp cotton of his white dress shirt. The intimate action sent a wave of unexpected longing through her.
Jackie couldn’t have stopped herself from peeking if she’d tried. Too bad it was so dark in the stairwell or she would have inspected every new inch of bronzed flesh on the corporate Adonis.
His tan made her own skin look ghostly pale in comparison. And the hints of muscles in the V of that unbuttoned shirt…
Jackie swallowed.
Surely the shadows were playing tricks on her.
“What will you wear home?” she asked mostly just to distract herself from thoughts she had no business thinking.
Namely her lips tracing a path along ridges of muscle defining his abs.
In the middle of that image, a vision growing more explicit by the second, Jackie remembered a popular musician’s myth that you couldn’t create works of great passion until you lost your virginity.
A silly superstition of course. But the musician’s counterpart to an old wives’ tale was well known to those in the business. She’d had a fading diva for a music teacher once who’d told her she wouldn’t be able to sing until she’d screwed.
Jackie had written off the bawdy advice with a laugh. Funny how that wisdom came roaring back in her ears as she stood drooling over Greg’s very male physique.
What was the matter with her?
“I’m a guy. I don’t need to wear a shirt home,” Greg assured her. “Besides, I live two blocks from here.”
Jackie shook herself to ward off a sudden onslaught of sexual images. She’d never suffered from too much drooling over any man, or really regretted her doggedly persistent virginity either, for that matter.
But the pangs of awareness shooting through her now had her wondering if maybe she’d been saving it up for a little too long.
They’d reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Greg shouldered his way through the heavy door onto the street. Darkness had fallen, but the streetlights still made it seem brighter outdoors. They stepped out into a short alleyway, a few feet from the street that ran along the front of the bar.
“No ladies’ room here,” Greg observed. “There must not be any access to the rest of the building from this side. Did you want to go back in the front doors?”
No. No. And hell no.
How did she get herself into these fixes? She truly did have a formidable IQ. And she had managed to ace college with a summa cum laude stamp of approval on her degree. Why did things like this always happen to her?
“No. I’ll just go with the tablecloth, thanks.” She wondered if she looked as ridiculous as she sounded. Whiskers, a tail and a tablecloth. No doubt she looked twice as ridiculous. “I can drop it by the restaurant Monday after I have it cleaned.”
A crowd of frat boys singing some college fight song stumbled out of the bar, passing the alleyway. They never noticed Jackie and Greg, but Greg stood between her and the street just in case.
She didn’t know much about this guy, but she had to admit he seemed like a gentleman. She knew lots of men who would have been more than happy to let her bumble her way out of the shredded kitty suit incident without benefit of table linens. Greg had been really nice to charge to the forefront for her.
“Look, Jackie…it is Jackie, right?” He lifted one eyebrow in query.
“Jacquelyn Brady. Jackie for short.” She offered her hand again, clinging to normal rules of polite society for a change. She seemed to have broken too many rules in one evening to be anything less than well bred for the rest of the night. “Nice to meet you.”
“Greg De Costa.” He shook her hand and flashed her a wicked grin along with a mouth full of pearly whites. “Likewise.”
Was it her imagination, or did the name sound familiar? Jackie was bad with names, but she never forgot a face. And she was positive she’d never run into Greg before. She wrote off the twinge of recognition she’d felt upon hearing his last name.
“Now that we’ve covered the introductions, I really think I’d better go.” She had auditions in the morning. She had a song to write tonight.
Mostly, she needed to escape Greg De Costa and his way too seductive chest before she did something she regretted. Like inch down her tablecloth and plaster herself to him for a good-night kiss he wouldn’t soon forget.
Greg dug into his pants pocket and emerged with a cell phone as thin as a credit card. “Do me a favor and call Zing-O-Gram first to be sure Gregory doesn’t get the surprise of a lifetime at his birthday party.”
How could she refuse? Jackie hated to think somewhere a six-year-old boy was getting an eyeful ten years too early. Almost as bad was the thought that somewhere in Boston there was a six-year-old boy whose special surprise never arrived.
Jackie would stay with Greg just long enough to straighten out the mix-up before she went home. Then she’d put her tennis shoes in high gear so she could put some serious space between her and a slick charmer like Greg De Costa.
She needed to escape those dangerous abs.
And those sexy suspenders.
And the stupid voice in her head that kept suggesting the time had arrived to follow her old music teacher’s advice and unleash the power of her singing voice.
3
GREG WATCHED JACKIE conduct her half of the phone conversation, admiring the way she could cradle the receiver, gesture wildly to express herself and still hold the tablecloth in a death grip.
How could he not admire a woman who possessed the body of a goddess and the ability to multitask?
He had to admit, Jackie Brady was very appealing, even if she spoke “disaster” with the fluency of a second language.
But he was only going to try and convince her to let him drive her home.
And maybe angle for a good-night kiss.
He just wanted one taste of those cat-woman lips and then he’d be able to walk away. No doubt a woman like Jackie with her penchant for trouble could have a man chasing his own damn tail in no time.
No way was Greg getting sucked into that again. He had recently dated a co-worker who thought Greg could help her advance from weather girl to head meteorologist. She’d ended up broadcasting a hurricane update with a picture of Greg’s face glued in the eye of the storm and had nearly cost him his job. Then there was the lady lawyer. A safe enough choice right? She’d chased ambulances right along with Greg’s camera crews, only too happy to have an “in” on late-breaking news.
So, even though Jackie happened to have the most phenomenal breasts he’d ever seen, the most tantalizing voice he’d ever heard, he didn’t have any intentions of pursuing anything with her. He was swearing off women until he could get his professional life back in order. He could settle for a kiss though, couldn’t he?
The door to the stairwell opened behind them just as Jackie hung up the phone. His brother stepped halfway into the alley, propping the heavy exit door with one shoulder.
“The real stripper is here,” Mike announced, scarcely articulating the words around a pink rose clamped between his teeth. He shot a sheepish grin at Jackie. “No offense to you, of course, miss.”
Jackie smiled right back at him, sparking a pang in Greg he could only guess was jealousy.
“None taken.” She tweaked the stem of Mike’s flower. “I’m glad to see Rosie is back on track at the right assignment.”
“And how.” Mike clutched his heart as if he’d fallen in love all over again. “Rosie’s a beauty, Greg. You coming upstairs?”
“No thanks. I’m taking Jackie home.” Greg knew without a doubt any other woman would pale in comparison to Jackie, no matter how many more alphabets Rosie boasted for a cup size.
Mike offered up a drunken salute while Jackie made a strangled sound and started backing away.
Greg had to jog to catch her. “Wait up, Jackie—”
She turned on him in a flurry of red hair and white linen. “Why? So you can take me home?” Her green eyes sparkled fire like some sort of 3D-animated video game warrior woman. “Don’t men even ask permission first? Or I suppose you just assume that because I flashed you a bit more than I’d intended that I must want company for the night.”
“Hey wait a minute—”
“No, you wait a minute.” She pointed at him with one unadorned finger, one unpainted fingernail. “I am definitely not interested, so you can take your suspenders and your muscles and all the charming chat and you can find someone else to bring home with you tonight.”
Greg had to remind himself he was not a fan of histrionics or furious females. For a moment, he regretted the fact because Jackie Brady definitely had a knack for the dramatic.
Although her diatribe probably fell somewhat short of her desired impact given that she was still wearing the kitty whiskers. The fuzzy ears. The pink nose painted over her own.
