Free Rush by Beth Yarnall Page B

her breasts. Such charm should be bottled and sold with a warning label. “Pleased to meet you, too, Malcolm. Please, call me Mi.”
    Lucas shifted behind her a fraction, swelling up to his full height. He leaned in, crowding Malcolm out. She felt the heat from his wide palm low on her back like a brand.
    Malcolm straightened and donned his glasses, his wide, white-toothed smile never wavering. “Oh, I always aim to please, Miss Mi. Always .”
    Mi resisted the urge to fan herself. She was surely buying whatever it was Malcolm was selling, as Lucy would say. “I’m sure you do.”
    “If you’re finished,” Lucas said to Malcolm, disapproval sharpening each word. “I’ll introduce you to the detective in charge so you can get to the job you came here to do.”
    Mi followed them back into the house, going no further inside than the foyer. In a moment Lucas came back down the hall, gripped her elbow and led her back outside to his truck. She had to jog a little to keep up with him. He opened the car door, wrapped his hands around her waist and hoisted her up on the seat before she knew what was happening. She began to say something about Lucas’s strong reaction, but the door shut abruptly, leaving her open mouthed and sputtering.
    Lucas climbed into the truck and turned the key with more force than necessary. She’d just barely clicked on her seatbelt when the truck shot away from the curb, knocking her back against the seat. She angled herself to glare up at him, preparing to unleash her temper, but one look at his at his face stopped her before the words could form.
    “You’re grinning.” Her bubble of annoyance evaporated into disbelief. She gaped at him, sure she was stuck in the cab of the truck with a lunatic.
    “You should have seen yourself.”
    “What?”
    “Malcolm.” He shook his head, his smile spreading, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know how he does it.”
    “What?”
    They’d stopped at a light and he turned to her, his dark eyes glinting in the morning light, like the gleam of sunlight off deep water. “I wish I could do that. Just once. That man could charm the panties off a superfluity of nuns.”
    “A what of what?”
    He smacked the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “And when he pulled his shades down… the look on your face.” He chuckled, letting her in on the joke.
    A smile tipped up one corner of her lips. “He is good.”
    “It’s a damn shame his door doesn’t swing that way.” Lucas shook his head sadly. “Such a waste.”
    “How do you know him?”
    “Navy. We were on the same team until he got out two years ago.”
    “What about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’?”
    He hitched a shoulder. “No one asked, no one told, but everyone knew. Didn’t matter with Malcolm. Everyone wanted to be his wing-man.”
    “I bet. What does he do for a living?”
    “Private Investigator.”
    They turned into the industrial complex, then made a right turn headed toward the Pleasure at Home studio. They could see the crowd already gathered at the gates, banners and picket signs in use. The smiles slid from their faces, their moment of levity crushed under the weight of reality. Lucas sat up straighter in his seat, signaling his shift into the role of bodyguard. Mi wrapped her arms around herself and slunk down in her seat, resenting her role of hapless victim.
    Lucas glanced over at Mi’s pale face, hating the hunted look in her eyes. He clicked her seatbelt open. “Get down into the foot well. Stay down until I tell you to get up.”
    As they neared the gate, the crowd’s attention switched from Cookie Dixon and the man standing next to her on the makeshift dais to the truck coming toward them. The chanting increased at the sight of the new target. They closed in, surrounding the truck, making it difficult to move more than a few inches at a time toward the gate.
    Lucas laid on the horn, taking satisfaction in making a few of the protesters start at the