Jim pulled its head from the bag to look at me, its eyes opening wide suddenly as it made an odd combination of a bark and warning. “Behind you!”
I dropped its leash and spun around in a crouch, half-expecting an attack of some form, but finding instead that my suitcase had attracted the attention of three street gypsies, all of whom obviously had the intention of lightening the load of my possessions. “The amulet!” I screeched, throwing myself on top of the half-opened bag.
The biggest of the thieves, a young man who looked to be about nineteen, jerked the bag out from underneath me, his accomplices pulling on the outer flap so that it peeled back like a ripe banana. I lunged toward the small brown leather amulet bag that was stuffed into my underwear. “Hey! Let go! Police!” My fingers closed around the bag just as the youngest thief, a girl of about fifteen or so, grabbed it, but I had not survived my Uncle Damian’s wrath concerning the loss of a valuable antiquity for nothing. I had to save this one at all costs. I jerked the amulet free just as someone behind me shouted. The street gypsies snatched up handfuls of my things—pants, shoes, and my cosmetic case, before racing off in three different directions.
The wind, coming off the nearby Danube, flirted with the opened suitcase, decided it liked the look of my newly purchased satin undies, and scooped up several pairs, sending them skittering down the sidewalk. The elderly couple who had been in front of us helped me gather the remaining clothes that had been knocked out as the gypsies made their snatch and grab, repeating soft assurances that I didn’t understand. I left Jim to guard the luggage as I ran down the sidewalk, the amulet still in my hand as I plucked my underwear from a phone booth, a magazine stand, and a newspaper box. One last pair, trembling next to a garbage bin, suddenly spun upwards in a gust and flew a few feet down the sidewalk, its flight coming to a swift end as the pink satin and lace material wrapped itself in a soft caress around a man’s leg
A man’s leather-clad leg.
“Oh, god,” I moaned, closing my eyes for a second, knowing exactly who owned that leg. Why me? Why did this sort of thing have to happen to me? Why couldn’t anything in my life ever be simple? When I looked again, Drake was holding my panties in his hand, his head slowly turning as he scanned the crowd until he saw me clutching a handful of underwear.
Any thoughts of escaping undetected died in that moment. The woman who had been about to get into the limo paused, raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him, her dark eyes sliding over me in cool consideration. She was perfect in every way—flawless complexion, hair glossy and straight, her assets displayed with a confidence I would never be able to match. Beside her, Drake stood in smoldering sensuality (his natural state), all hard lines and rugged planes and extremely droolworthy masculinity.
And then there was me, the third person in the tableau. I knew exactly what Drake and the woman were seeing—a hot, sweaty woman in her early thirties dressed in a loose t-shirt and pair of worn jeans, hair coming loose from the scrunchy used in an attempt to tame wild curls, without so much as a single eyelash having seen the benefit of cosmetics.
It was no good. I couldn’t compete. I was outclassed, and I knew it, but I still had my dignity . . . what was left of it after my underwear was spread out along the front of the Keleti station ten minutes after my arrival. Raising my chin, I marched forward to Drake, firmly pushing down the cheers of delight that several unmentionable parts of my body were sending up.
“I believe those are mine,” I told him, holding out my hand for the underwear.
Heat flared deep in his emerald eyes, but I looked down at his hand, refusing to be drawn into that trap. I knew well the power of his desire.
“You have excellent taste in undergarments,” he said, his voice a little rough around the edges as he placed the underwear in my hand. “Victoria’s Secret?”
“No,” I said, allowing my eyes to meet his for a moment. I swear a tiny little wisp of smoke curled out of one of his nostrils. “Naughty Nellie’s House of Knickers. Portland, Oregon. Thank you. Good-bye.”
Katie MacAlister, Hard Day's Knight
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