Trust Me on This - Jennifer Crusie [20]
“Listen, I could learn to be deep,” he told her, and she said, “Shut up and kiss me again,” and he did, teasing her mouth with his tongue until she opened to him, and they both sagged boneless against the wall. His hand found her breast and made her shiver and then moved up to the draped neck of her dress and inside it, and when she felt the shock of his fingers on her skin, she remembered where she was and all her plans and how he wasn’t part of them no matter how damn good his hand felt inside her dress.
She caught his wrist. “Wait a minute. I forgot. I don’t have time for this. I’m sorry. I just forgot.”
Alec moved his hand to her waist. “Give me another chance. I’ll make you forget again. I’ll make you forget your name.” He bent to kiss her again, and she ducked away.
“No. Thank you, but no. Good-bye. Lovely evening. Can’t wait to meet your aunt.” Dennie turned while she babbled and jammed her key card in the door, and before he could say anything else, she’d slipped inside and closed the door in his face.
Whoa. She let her head fall back against the door. This boy was definitely nobody to mess with. At least not while she was in the middle of career building.
What a shame.
Harry called Alec’s room when he got to the hotel at ten-forty-five.
“What’ve you got?” he asked when Alec picked up the phone.
“Don’t you ever start with ‘Hello’?”
“No,” Harry said. “What’ve you got?”
“I’ve got Dennie Banks doing everything in her power to meet my aunt.” Alec thought about Dennie’s kiss. “And Harry, she’s got a lot of power. If she tries to seduce me into a life of crime, I’m going for it.”
Harry snorted. “You should be so lucky. What else?”
“Aunt Victoria’s in. We’re meeting in her room as soon as I call her.”
Harry scowled. “I hate the Aunt Victoria part.”
“Harry, you haven’t met her yet.”
“I don’t like the idea of sending in a little old lady to meet Bond.”
Alec tried not to laugh. “Aunt Vic is no little old lady. Hell, she’s only a couple years older than you are.”
“I don’t care,” Harry said. “I don’t like it.”
“Too bad. I’ll call her now. Room 1914 in ten minutes,” Alec said. “Don’t be late.”
* * *
Harry knocked on the door to room 1914, steeling himself to be nice to the little old lady. He was so prepared that he was looking down with the closest thing he had to a reassuring smile on his face when she opened the door.
The problem was that Victoria was only two inches shorter than he was so that instead of looking down into a kindly little-old-lady face, he found himself looking down into the V neck of her navy silk dress.
She didn’t look like a little old lady.
Victoria followed his gaze down. “I lift weights. I may not be defeating gravity, but I’m giving it a run for its money.”
“What?” Harry said.
“You must be Harry Chase. Alec told me about you. I’m Victoria Prentice.” Victoria held out a perfectly manicured hand, and Harry took it, his stunned gaze traveling from her cleavage to her face. She had Alec’s eyes—bright brown eyes—and his sharp, mobile mouth, but she was all female where Alec was male. Her hair was styled short and framed her face in soft white curls, and she was wearing small gold earrings. Expensive gold earrings. She should have looked attractive, elegant, and remote, but there was a glint in her eye and a quirk to her lips that gave her away.
This is a dangerous woman, Harry thought, acting on the instincts that had kept him alive and single for fifty-eight years. This is a woman who has been places and done things and who has ideas of her own.
Get me out of here.
He turned to go, but Alec came up behind him and slapped him on the back. “Good to see you, Harry,” he said, and crowded him into Victoria’s room, and then it was too late to run.
Victoria stepped back to let them in. She had thoroughly enjoyed Harry’s reaction, but now she was taken aback to notice how much he resembled Alec. It wasn’t the physical details so much. Alec’s brown hair was always neatly combed while Harry’s iron-gray mop looked like it was permanently