Page 14 of The Playboy Meets His Match
Clinging to him, she trembled, kissing him eagerly in return as his kiss became more demanding and passionate. She was lost in it, drowning in heady sensations. This couldn’t be happening, but it was. It was all too real, all too intense, making her want so much she knew she could never have. Where were her wits?
She stopped kissing him back, pushed against his chest and then was standing facing him once again. The moment she pushed, he moved away.
There had never been a kiss like his. Not once in her lifetime, and she was shaken badly. She wasn’t widely experienced with men, but she suspected if she had been widely experienced, she still would have had the same reaction to Jason. Breathing hard, he looked down at her.
Words failed her, and she simply entered the bedroom and closed the door in his face.
Then she felt idiotic. She should have said something and not acted like a kid with a first kiss. But it was too late to open the door and start a conversation now.
Dazed and flustered, she stared at the closed door. No wonder he left hearts broken everywhere. It wasn’t fair. He was too handsome, had a smile that would melt a glacier and had kisses that could seduce the coldest and wisest heart.
She moved to a rocker and sat down, staring into space. Closing her eyes, she remembered his kiss. He probably hadn’t even enjoyed kissing her. Goodness knows, he had stopped fast enough! Oh, my. What a kiss! She had turned down a dinner date with him. She wanted to jump up, run to his bedroom and tell him yes, she’d go to dinner with him. Except she couldn’t. She didn’t want to be just another one of his conquests, and she suspected if the number of them were known, it would be a Guinness record. Maybe not that many. He seemed sort of a nice guy. Her lips still tingled, and she had other things to think about, but for the next hour, she was just going to sit here and remember the best kiss of her life.
An hour later the house was quiet and dark. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she had rummaged around and found little things she thought she might use: a paper clip she straightened, a nail file. She dressed in her dark sweats again with a cap on and she opened the door of her bedroom and lay down on the floor. Carefully, taking time, she slithered into the hall. The alarm system would either be one of those heat-sensor ones or it wouldn’t. If it was a garden-variety motion detector, it might not pick up movement very low to the floor.
Expecting the siren to scream at any second, she inched her way, moving her arm so carefully and then the other arm. Next she slid her body, trying to stay pressed as close against the floor as possible and to move as slowly as possible. Her ears felt as if they were growing as she strained for the slightest sound.
She was thankful his hall floor wasn’t carpeted. Instead, he had a plank floor that made it easy for her to slide along. With her body weight spread, there were no creaking boards either. Pray the man slept soundly and for hours longer!
If the alarm went off, she was going to make a run for it, but after covering five yards and no alarm, she thought maybe she would make it all the way to the back door and the alarm keypad.
Sleep, sleep, she silently urged Jason. Perspiration poured off her face and she was on fire in the hot sweats and clinging cap. It seemed hours and miles to the back door.
When she reached the back entryway, she wondered how long it had taken her. She was afraid the sun would be coming over the horizon. As a rancher, he probably rose before the sun, so she wanted to be out of the house as soon as possible. She wiped perspiration from her face on the sleeve of her shirt. She was hot, miserable and tense.
She neared the keypad. If the alarm system was typical and this door was keyed in as the entry door, she would have some thirty seconds to turn it off before the alarm would go off. But with her first movement, it would begin emitting tiny beeps that might wake him. She thought about the numbers she had watched him punch. If she got them wrong, all her effort would be for nothing and he would be after her and catch her before she could reach his pickup. The man was a very fast runner.
Taking a deep breath, she stood and swiftly punched the combination of numbers she had watched him use. As her fingers flew over the keypad, there were four tiny beeps from the alarm, and she prayed he slept soundly.
Without looking back, she unlocked and opened the door. As soon as it opened, it set off another three small beeps, but no loud alarm went off when she stepped into the cool night. Taking a deep gulp of air and half expecting him to clamp a hand on her shoulder or tackle her again, she raced to his truck. Thank Brother Hank for teaching her how to hot-wire a car.
Seconds later, the motor roared to life, and she grinned.
“Whoo hoo!” she yelled when she put the pickup in gear. “So long, cowboy. You’ll get your pickup back later today!”
She floored the accelerator, skidded and settled to a speed that stirred up a plume of dust as she laughed triumphantly and raced away from Jason’s house.
While she drove into town, she planned her next move—another little annoying reminder to Dorian Brady that he had not gotten away with his schemes without any reprisals.
Sometime soon, she intended to confront Dorian about Holly’s broken heart, but she knew he would just deny that he knew anything about Holly and say that he had never been engaged.
Her smile of triumph over escape vanished as she thought about Dorian and Sebastian and all Jason had told her about Wescott Oil. Could Dorian be behind a murder and the attempted effort to frame Sebastian Wescott?
Feeling chilled, Merry realized she might be dealing with a very dangerous man. If he was involved in murder, then his dirty dealings went far beyond lying to Holly and stealing Holly’s money and trying to frame Sebastian. Holly was fortunate the man was out of her life. Merry hoped the day would come when Holly would see that.
The more Merry thought about Dorian and Wescott Oil, the more certain she became that Dorian had to be the murderer. No one would believe her, though. She didn’t have one degree of proof; just because he had deceived Holly and taken her money, that didn’t make him a murderer. Merry wished now she had asked Jason more questions about the murder.
When she reached town, the eastern sky had the faintest gray tinge. She parked the pickup in front of the Royal sheriff’s office. That way, if Jason reported it stolen, they would find it quickly. She climbed out, locked the pickup and walked swiftly down Main Street to the Royalton Hotel where she left word at the desk that under no circumstances was she to be disturbed. So much for Mr. Jason Windover.
In the dark of his bedroom Jason slept, dreaming an erotic fantasy about Merry Silver until dreams spun into empty reality. In the dim recesses of waking he was aware of a motor. And then he was fully awake.
For a full two seconds he stared into darkness while he listened to the roar of a motor that was rapidly fading away. Then Jason lunged out of bed because he recognized the sound of his own pickup.
He didn’t think it was one of the hands leaving in the dead of night, and none of them would have taken his pickup without asking. Jason yanked on briefs, glanced at the house alarm and stopped in his tracks as he stared at the steady green light that meant the alarm was turned off.
“What the hell?” he asked no one. He ran, yanking open the door to the bedroom next to his and staring at the neatly made empty bed. He raced down the hall in his briefs, plunging through the back door and outside to stare at where his pickup had been parked. A cloud of dust still hung over the road.
“How the hell did she get out?” he snarled, running his hand through his hair. “Dammit, wildcat.”
