Free Midnight Man by Lisa Marie Rice Page A

give her a big discount. Maybe treat her better from now on, thinking she had some muscle behind her.
     
    “Okay.” She dug in her purse and dropped the keys into his outstretched hand. “Tell Murphy I’ll stop by tomorrow to pay. And thanks.” The taxi driver was playing ‘shave and a haircut’ on the horn. “I really, really have to go now.”
     
    John followed her out, flipping up his jacket collar against the cold dampness. He kept a big hand on her elbow down the sidewalk right up to the taxi. He gave the taxi driver a long look as he opened the back seat door for her. But before she could climb in and slam the door shut, he stepped in front of her. She looked longingly at the cab then back up at him.
     
    “I need to get in,” she said. Low sullen clouds spat a few drops. “The meter’s running and it’s starting to rain.”
     
    “In a minute.” He ignored the rain, which started to fall, harder and faster by the second. “I have to go out of town today and I won’t be back until late. But we have to talk. Tomorrow.”
     
    Tomorrow. Great. She could handle tomorrow. She just couldn’t handle today.
     
    He pulled a pad from the inside pocket of his jacket and scribbled something down.
     
    “This is my cell phone number, just in case you need me.” He held it out to her. She took it and their hands touched. His skin was rough. She remembered his hand touching her…Trembling, she jammed the scrap of paper into her planner. “Okay.”
     
    He nodded grimly and stepped aside. “Where are you going?”
     
    “What—now?”
     
    “Yeah. Now.”
     
    “Downtown. Salmon Street. What are you doing?” she hissed as she slid in.
     
    John ignored her, and laid a big arm along the top of the roof and rapped his fist sharply on the metal. The taxi driver buzzed the window down. “Yeah? You want something, bud?” he asked, bored.
     
    John bent down and flipped the sun visor, looking hard at the taxi driver ID, and then transferring that hard look to the driver. “Listen up, Harris. The lady wants to go downtown to Salmon Street. She doesn’t want to take a tour of Portland’s suburbs and she wants to be there in ten minutes. Is that clear?” He had on his warrior face and it wasn’t a face you talked back to.
     
    “Yessir,” the taxi driver answered, wide-mouthed. John stared at him for another long moment then slapped his hand on the roof and stepped back.
     
    “Okay, then.”
     
    The driver took off like a bat out of hell and Suzanne didn’t have the courage to look back. But she could see perfectly well in the driver’s rear view mirror. John stood smack in the middle of the street, big as a mountain and looking just as immovable. He watched, scowling, in the rain as the taxi pulled away.
     
    Men.
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    Women.
     
    Why the hell hadn’t she asked him to drive her, if her car was in the garage? Why call a taxi when she could call him? He’d gladly drive her to freaking Iceland, if she asked.
     
    He knew why she hadn’t asked. For the same reason she kept trying to slither away from him.
     
    Jesus, he’d handled that badly. He’d meant to smooth Suzanne’s ruffled feathers, reassure her that he was an okay guy, not some crazed sex maniac, because that was what she obviously thought. It was true that he’d been obsessed with the idea of taking her to bed since he’d first laid eyes on her, but he wasn’t an animal.
     
    The way she’d watched him, warily, those big blue-gray eyes wide open, ready to jump if he so much as moved, would have made him angry if he didn’t know that he deserved her wariness. He was the one who’d acted like an asshole, ripping her clothes off and taking up her against a wall. Now it was up to him to make up for it.
     
    He needed to make this right. He needed to find a way to make this right. But hell—just seeing the woman sent him into overdrive. Damn, but she’d looked pretty this morning, and even more desirable than last