Free Forbidden by Suzanne Brockmann

pleasure.
    There was nothing on the wall or the door frame, nothing along the baseboard. Of course, she wouldn’t know what she was looking for if it came up and bit her in the butt.
    “Oh, Cal, Cal,
Cal
!” She lifted the spread of the bed, looking underneath. The floor was smooth Mexican tile, and the bottom of the box spring was covered with a piece of fabric. If a microphone were hidden in there, they’d never find it without taking a knife to it.
    But…if the microphone were hidden in there, then whoever was listening was about to get an earful.
    Kayla jumped on top of the bed, bouncing it up and down, up and down. “Oh, yes!” she cried. “Yes! Don’t stop!”
    She couldn’t keep from grinning at Cal as he swiftly moved across the room to search the bedside table. To her surprise, he actually returned her smile, even giving her a glimpse of very white teeth as he went past.
    She kept jumping on the bed as she turned to watch him examine the small cabinet. The top and sides were smoothly finished wood. An old-fashioned rotary-style telephone sat on top. Cal quietly and carefully lifted the phone to look underneath. Nothing.
    “More!” Kayla cried. “Oooooh, Cal!”
    He silently slid open the single drawer and looked inside. Nothing. At least not on the inside of the drawer.
    Cal pulled the drawer the rest of the way out and peered up into the frame. He shifted position, lying on his back on the floor to get a better look. Then he sat back up, looking sharply up at Kayla, nodding and pointing to the darkness inside the bedside table. They found it. Someone was definitely listening.
    Cal pulled himself to his feet in one smooth motion. She watched as he picked up the notepad and pen and wrote her another message. He handed the pad up to her.
    “If we got a radio, and placed it near the mike, the music would mask our voices so that we could talk without being overheard,” he had written.
    She gestured for him to hand her the pen. “Why not just smash it?” she wrote.
    Her handwriting was barely legible, but somehow he understood and wrote a reply.
    “Then they’ll know we know—and they’ll just replace it with another, hidden somewhere else. We’d have to search the room again.”
    She held out her hand for the pen again. “How did you even know to look?”
    “I read a lot,” he wrote back. “I’ve read everything published on San Salustiano since Liam died. The government likes using electronic surveillance. Knowing that, along with the hotel bumping us up into these fancy rooms…”
    He winced slightly, shaking a cramp out of his hand as he handed her the notepad. This was obviously an inefficient way of communicating. They needed to get a radio so they could talk.
    “Cal,” she moaned. “Oh, Cal, Cal,
wait
!” She stopped her jumping, flopping down on the bed, gesturing wildly at him to respond.
    “Darlin’,” he said, not quite following her train of thought, but doing his best to keep up anyway. “Darlin’, darlin’—what’s wrong?”
    “Music,” Kayla said. “I can’t…I simply can’t make love without music.”
    The look on Cal’s face was so incredible, Kayla lost it. She had to turn and bury her face into a pillow to keep her giddy laughter from being overheard.
    “You want me to turn on the TV?” Cal’s voice sounded very, very strange as he, too, fought to keep from laughing. He now knew exactly where she was heading.
    She peeked out at him. “The TV’s not very romantic,” she somehow managed to say. “Besides, I don’t think it would be loud enough. I like my music
loud
.”
    “How about we get us a radio?”
    Kayla made her voice syrupy sweet. “Oh, Cal, honey, would you do that for me? Now? I mean,
right
now?”
    “Right
now
…?!” He made his voice crack with sheer disbelief. It was perfect, and funny as hell. She hadn’t realized he’d had much of a sense of humor before this.
    He grinned at her, trying desperately to contain his own laughter.