Up All Night

But as his gaze tracked back up her body with considerable effort, Devon realized the ethereal angel with the body for sin wasn’t just breathing heavy for sexy effect.

The woman of his dreams was starting to hyperventilate.

2

THE HARDER Jenny tried to catch her breath, the faster it seemed to whoosh away from her in great gasping gulps. Who the hell was the guy in her room with the slightly rumpled dress shirt and no tie in sight? Had he seen her propped door and simply decided to wander in uninvited?

And where was David?

She wanted to ask the question, but no words would squeak out of a throat overtaxed with breathing. She’d never had androphobia before—fear of men—but there was a first time for everything, and judging by her vital signs, she guessed she was damn well scared right about now. Coming to Atlantic City had been too big of a risk. She should have just stayed home where none of this would have—

“Relax,” the stranger ordered suddenly, his voice surprisingly calm and authoritative for a man who could be anything from a killer on the prowl to a sex fiend lured by the candles and soft music she’d been playing for her rendezvous with David.

Oh God. If she wasn’t frightened before, she sure as hell was scaring the pants off herself now. Not that she had any pants to speak of.

Her breath rushed in and out of her lungs so fast it made her dizzy. She had visions of overoxygenated blood making her light-headed. Or what if she fainted in front of this guy who could take advantage of her while she was unconscious?

Was there even such a thing as a sex fiend? God knows she’d met a few erotomaniacs at the counseling center her mother favored and they probably qualified. If the man in her room wanted something of a sexual nature from her, it sure didn’t help that she was wearing only a few scraps of do-me lingerie. She’d ventured firmly into Frederick’s of Hollywood terrain with this outfit. She resisted the urge to yank shut the curtains displaying the Atlantic City skyline. The last thing she needed was to turn her back on this guy and show him her thong-bared butt.

“Are you okay?” The stranger looked almost concerned for her, his straight brown eyebrows crinkling together as he studied her. “Should you sit down? Has this happened to you before?”

She couldn’t catch a lungful of air to answer one of those questions let alone all three. The room started to spin and she cursed herself and all her stupid issues—real and imagined—for putting her at risk with a strange man in her hotel room.

She’d been stupid to prop the door in the first place, but she’d been afraid she’d lose her nerve to prove to David he’d been wrong about her if she didn’t slip into the made-for-sex outfit. And since she would never have the guts to answer the door in a costume that was a staple in every porno queen’s wardrobe, she had hoped to make a sexy entrance once David was inside instead.

“You need to relax,” the man barked at her more strenuously this time as he moved closer.

The light-headedness kicked into overdrive, throwing off her balance and making her wobble on her feet, her toes curling reflexively inside the faux fur-lined white mules that her De-Luxe catalog sold as bedroom slippers. She thought for sure she would topple over and end up sprawled on the floor of her suite, but the stranger in the wrinkled dress shirt swooped in and grabbed her like some kind of superhero before she hit the ground.

A trespassing sex fiend superhero.

Jenny figured she would have passed out then and there except that she couldn’t bear to be the fainting phobic woman everyone would giggle about behind her back. Not that anyone would ever learn about this event unless the stranger turned out to be a killer and there was a write-up on her murder in tomorrow’s paper, but she would know she’d turned into a wilting flower at the first hint of adversity and she couldn’t live with that vision of herself.

The stranger’s hands tightened around her waist and her bare thigh as he cradled her in his arms. At that slight shifting of his grip, the panic inside her eased by a fraction. Surely if he wanted to kill her or make free with her person, he would have done it before now when she’d been utterly defenseless.

“You’re okay.” He told her as if she wouldn’t have the mental wherewithal to piece it together on her own. He spoke slowly. Articulating the words for exaggerated clarity.

Why bother reassuring her if he was in her room with evil designs? Some of the tension eased in her shoulders and her breathing slowed by aching degrees, her lungs burning.

Only then did she realize they were seated on her flower-covered bed. Or rather, the stranger with the straight brown eyebrows and even browner eyes was seated on the bed. For her part, she was settled across his lap, her butt dipping slightly into the depression between his legs. And holy hysteria, her hip grazed his…maleness.

Not good. Not good. Not good.

Okay, fine for him. Impressive for him. Not good for her at all.

She wriggled on instinct until the soft scrape of his light wool trousers on her thong-exposed butt made her think the better of it. This situation of a stranger on her bed holding her half-naked body close to his…impressiveness…was completely absurd and inappropriate. But duh. What did wriggling do to any man sporting that kind of condition?

The problem increased in response.

As did her shaky, shallow breaths.

“Wait.” He squeezed her closer to his chest without really tightening his grip on her. Nevertheless, her breasts were a breath away from popping free of her scanty lace bra. “Sit still until you’re sure you can get up without hyperventilating. You scared five years off my life and I don’t even know you.”

“About that…” Her voice scraped awkwardly over her vocal cords, the pitch all wrong after her bout with too much breathing.

“I’m serious, lady.” He relaxed his hold again, keeping a wary gaze on her. “It’s Jenny, right?”

She nodded automatically before she could consider the wisdom of confirming her identity for a man who knew more about her than most of the rest of the world between guessing her name correctly and cradling her bare thigh in his palm.

And while the sensation didn’t feel good per se, given the fact that he could still be in her hotel room for nefarious reasons, she had to admit that having his hands on her wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience either. She hadn’t been touched intimately since—ugh—her brief affair with a takeout delivery guy she’d slowly gotten used to seeing without leaving the safety of her home turf. But that had ended a year ago when she’d refused to go out on actual dates with him and, sweet psychosis, had she missed the sex.

“How did you know my name?” Had he been rifling through her purse while she was in her room rolling on her sexy one hundred percent silk stockings—items also available from the De-Luxe catalog?

If she hadn’t been so busy trying to get David to change his mind about a relationship tonight she might have heard this stranger’s entrance into her hotel suite.

“You signed the e-mail you sent me,” he informed her, his hands sliding away from her body completely, silently giving her permission to walk away now if she wanted.

Except that her insides still shook and she couldn’t believe her ears even though her Beethoven CD remained pleasantly soft in the background. The Ninth Symphony provided welcome familiarity in an uncomfortable situation.

“What e-mail?” She racked her brain, wondering if she’d ever met him before. Could he be with the psych conference? There were enough borderline crazy people in the Quintessence Hotel this week to ensure she ran into one every time she turned a new corner.

Sliding off his lap with as much grace as she could muster and possibly a little unwanted thrill, Jenny concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths as she kicked off her mules and tucked her legs up underneath her on the bed. The movement released the scent of roses, another sensory anchor that helped her hold steady in unfamiliar surroundings.

The sheer white robe she’d worn provided little coverage, but she drew it more tightly about her and attempted to regroup long enough to figure out what this guy was talking about. If he was an escapee from some local mental institution trying to fix himself via a weeklong psych seminar, Jenny had more reason than ever to watch her back around him.

“The note you sent inviting me to your room tonight.” He stared at her as if she was the mental patient.

“You got a message inviting you here?” She knew he could be lying to justify letting himself into her hotel room, but she couldn’t help but think about her note to David an hour ago. Could she have hit a wrong key? “What’s your e-mail address?”

“D B at Shore Engineers.” He straightened his shirt cuffs beneath the sleeves of his jacket. “You told me you saw me in the lobby bar earlier so I assumed you were someone attending the engineering seminar at the hotel this week. Are you in the industry? I’m pretty sure I’d remember you if we’d met before.”

The tightness in her chest returned, but she forced herself to breathe slowly through the pinch. It had been almost two years since her last full-blown panic attack and she didn’t plan to put herself through that scary ordeal again any time soon. She’d keep her inhalations steady now. Even.

“You work for Shore Engineers?”

That was David’s firm. His e-mails had glowed with pride about the success of his company. His father’s company that he’d recently taken over, in fact. How could this man have intercepted her note to him?

Unless…could David have given her someone else’s address by mistake?

“I’ve already handed in my notice but I’m still technically with the company for a few more days.” His now straight cuffs provided an interesting contrast to the front buttons of his shirt, one of which had been undone from the first moment she’d spotted him in the room tonight. He looked equal parts slick corporate guy and negligent playboy. “Are you suggesting you didn’t mean to e-mail me?”

“I, um—” Wavering, she didn’t wish to insult him, knowing firsthand how fragile an ego could be. But then he also deserved to understand the reason for her panic attack. “Actually, I meant to e-mail David Brady. One of your colleagues, I suspect? I thought that address belonged to him.”

“This was for Wonderboy Brady?” Pointing toward her outfit, he shook his head. “Please tell me you don’t know him well.”

The expression of pure contempt on his face made her hesitant to tell the truth. Would she be lumped in his condescension category if he knew she’d been e-mailing David through the dating service system for the past two months? Then again, most people who weren’t agoraphobic might consider that kind of contact very limited.

“I guess not.” She mourned the loss of her much-anticipated sex romp now that she knew this man had received her note instead of the intended party. “You’re DB?”