Jill Shalvis - Get a Clue

She shivered again. Or maybe that was still. Her clothes, still wet and extremely cold against her skin, had stuck to her, probably steaming because despite her bone-deep chill, she'd also begun to sweat in sheer terror.

And then she heard it, a sound from behind her in the dark.

Just a slight scrape on the floor, which could have been a rat, a mere creak in the wood, or…

A footstep.

Oh, God.

Ballsy or not, this experience was quickly growing beyond her. She stumbled forward and fell into the front door. Grasping the handle, she wrenched it open.

Icy wind and snow greeted her, blasting her in the face, sliding down her collar. To add insult to injury, the horizon was pure black-no city lights, no stars, nothing but a velvety darkness. Still, propelled by fear, she took a step forward.

And sank up to her thigh.

Once when she'd been little, her grandma had given her one of those snow globes of San Francisco. Shake it up and it snowed down over the city.

In fact, it did snow in the city. Once in a blue moon. During those times the wind would slip in from the shore, chopping and dicing at any exposed skin. But in those rare events she simply stayed indoors. There was lots to do inside: hang out with friends, seduce a boyfriend, drink something warm…

But today was a whole new kind of cold. And this fluffy, powdered-sugar kind of snow, thick and currently up to her crotch… she'd never seen anything like it. Too bad she'd dressed for a chilly day looking at the snow from the inside.

Torn between sinking into the snow, never to be heard from again, or facing the dark, terrifying house, Breanne stood there in rare indecision for exactly one second, during which time another gust of wind hit her, sending her backwards a step, onto her butt in the doorway. More wet cold seeped through her denim.

Quickly scrambling to her feet, she fought the wind and slammed the door shut, then whirled around and flattened herself to it, blinking furiously, trying to adapt to the dark.

But there was no adapting, especially when out of that inky blackness came a low, almost rough masculine voice. "Hello?"

Oh, God. That didn't sound like Gorgeous Naked Guy. Biting her lip to keep quiet, hands out in front of her, she tiptoed toward the reception desk where she'd first seen the note about the honeymoon suite. There'd been a phone there… Her fingers closed over it.

Teeth chattering in earnest now, she lifted the receiver to her ear, ready to call… she had no idea. It didn't matter; she'd take the Abominable Snowman, for God's sake.

No dial tone.

Okay, this wasn't happening. This couldn't really be happening. She'd stepped into some alternate universe-

She heard a click, and then a small flare of light appeared, and a face, floating in the air.

Breanne clapped her hands over her mouth to hold in her startled scream and pressed back against the wall as if she could vanish into it.

Once for Halloween she'd gone into a haunted house with a group of friends, smug and secure in the fact that having grown up with brothers, she couldn't be frightened. And indeed, her friends had all screamed their lungs out while she calmly walked through, her mind rationally dismissing each scare. Oh, that was just a CD of scary sounds. And there… just a skeleton-fake, of course. And that dead body swinging overhead? With all the blood? Just ketchup.

But this was real. Her hollow stomach and slipping grip on her sanity told her that. And while she really wanted to remain cool, calm, and collected, her heart threatened to burst right out of her chest, even as she registered the truth.

The floating face wasn't really a floating face at all, but a man holding a flashlight up beneath his chin.

Not Gorgeous Naked Guy.

No, this man was the same height but stockier, and in his twenties. He wore a hoodie sweatshirt over a baseball cap low on his forehead so she could only see a little of his face, but what she could see was overexaggerated by the beam of the flashlight, giving him a dark, almost Frankenstein-like glow that had her breath backing up in her throat.

"It's okay," Frankenstein said to her. "The phones go out all the time."

Oh, okay then. She'd just forget about the panic barreling through her at the speed of light. Her plan was to at least look calm. Get what info she could. "What about the electricity?" she managed, as if asking the time that tea would be served.

After that, she hadn't a clue.

"Yeah, that's new," he admitted, and shrugged as if to say he had no idea.

"Are you… the manager?" she asked, hoping the answer was "Yes" and not "No, I'm your murderer."

"No. The manager is… temporarily indisposed."

He didn't look so much like Frankenstein at all, she saw when he lowered the flashlight and his hood slipped back, revealing straight black hair to his shoulders, dark skin suggesting a Cuban descent, black eyes, and a long scar down one side of his jaw. "So who are you?" she asked.

But he'd already turned his back on her and was shining his light into the vast cavern that had been the great room before the lights had gone out. "I'll start a fire," he said, moving in that direction. "You should change your wet clothes."

She'd happily strip out of the sweater and jeans that had turned to sheets of ice on her body, but the two sexy nighties in her carry-on didn't have enough material combined to warm a gnat. "Are you going to tell me who you are?"

There was a snap, then a quick flare of light as he held the match to some kindling inside the huge stone fireplace. The resulting glow highlighted him from head to toe. He was built like a linebacker, wearing baggy jeans at least three sizes too big and low enough to reveal equally baggy boxer shorts. His sweatshirt strained across his shoulders as he glanced back at her, those dark, dark eyes of his landing on hers. "I'm Dante. The butler." He shoved up his sleeves, revealing heavy tattooing on both forearms, making him look more like a rapper than a butler, but what did she know about being either?

"Where were you when I first arrived?" she asked, trying to control her shivering but having no luck. Instead she continued to tremble, mixing up her innards like a shake.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Dante said.

"There's someone in my suite."

He gave a palms-up gesture. "A mixup with reservations. Don't worry."

Oh, okay. She wouldn't worry, then. Not. Unsatisfied with the vague answers, she stayed where she was in the doorway, still freezing, wondering what the hell to do.

"You going to get any closer to the heat?" her thug butler asked.

Heat. Her entire body craved it more than her next breath, but there was still the matter of the Naked Guy and his status, and much as she didn't want to be alone in this house of horrors, she really, really didn't like the idea of being here with these guys, either.

"Suit yourself." With a shrug, Dante faced the burgeoning fire, holding his hands out as if he was cold, too.

On the other hand, Breanne thought, if these guys were going to hurt her, it was probably best that she be warm so she could fight back, right? But before she could move, from above came the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Breanne tipped her head back, but in the dark couldn't see. "Um, Dante?"

"Relax," he said from his perch by the fire.

Sure. She'd just relax. After she died of nerves. From the stairs, a pair of bare feet emerged, then denim-covered legs, long and tough with strength.

Her heart jolted unexpectedly into her throat. She knew those legs; she'd seen them with water and soap raining down the length of them. They'd been tanned and well defined, as if he used his body for more than sitting behind a desk balancing other people's checkbooks for a living as she did.

And he didn't wear underwear.

The unbidden thought caused an inane hot flash. All those male… parts, nestled against the denim.

Naked.

She began to sweat some more but didn't bother to say a word to Dante, because if he told her to relax again, she was going to come unglued.

Then a bare chest materialized, still gleaming from the shower, but no less jaw-dropping for it. She already knew the guy had a nice body, muscular without being beefy, lean without being scrawny.

His belly was ridged, carved into a six-pack she envied, since sit-ups were something she occasionally thought about but never actually did. He had a very light smattering of hair between his pecs that narrowed into a line down his belly that vanished into the loose waistband of his jeans, like an arrow toward the hidden prize-

He held up his hand, and in it was…

Oh, God.

The neon-pink vibrator, glowing in the dark now.

It was following her, stalking her, all the way down the yellow brick road to hell.

Naked Guy-not quite naked now-came the rest of the way into view, and unerringly turned his head in her direction, and though it was dark in the shadows where she stood, she knew his eyes landed right on her.

He had an odd awareness to him, as if he could see in the dark. As if he knew exactly what was going on around him at all times, a skill she'd never mastered in the best of times, to which today absolutely did not belong.

He also had the look of a man thinking things-things that, even with fear coursing through her, made her face heat and other parts tingle.

He smiled grimly, a lopsided smile that did nothing to dull the fact that he was amazing to look at-and terrifying, all at the same time.

With a pathetic little whimper, Breanne pressed back closer to the wall, swallowing hard, trying to decide if that had been an anticipatory "all the better to eat you with" smile…

Or simply a trick of the flickering firelight.

Cooper took the last step and came face-to-face with his voyeur for one brief flash before she backed up into the darkness. All around them it closed in, except for the low glow of light from the fireplace-and, of course, from the vibrator.

Then he caught a movement and tensed as a shadow to his left materialized into a man.

"Welcome," the man said in utter contradiction to his urban street clothes. He eyed the vibrator in Cooper's hand but whatever his thoughts were on a guy wielding a vibrator, he kept them to himself. "I'll get some candles."

"Who are you?"

"Dante, your butler," he said, without a hint of laughter, indicating he was serious.

A butler? Cooper watched Dante vanish into the darkness. He'd been dressed more like any of the punks he'd encountered over the years on the job, but if the punk had candles to share-

"Unbelievable."

This from the woman somewhere in the dark, beyond him in the foyer.

Turning, Cooper located her faint outline against the foyer windows. She had sunk to the floor, her back to the glass. There was a low-light digital display in front of her face, and she appeared to be entering something into a handheld digital device.

"No groom," she muttered as she entered. "Flight from hell. More snow than the Arctic Circle. A serious lack, of electricity. Oh, and a gorgeous naked guy."

Cooper blinked. Gorgeous naked guy? Him? As bad as things had been lately, he'd take it.

"Next up," she said, thumbs furiously hitting the keys. "Is getting knocked off on your honeymoon."

Cooper held up the glowing vibrator to see her better, filling in some of the details he'd only caught glimpses of before. She had long, wavy hair, most of it in her face, and huge, wide eyes. Hard to tell if she was pretty, but something about her grabbed him. Her sweater was pink, snug to her full breasts, and she was damn cold if the hardness of her nipples meant anything. As he moved closer, she gasped.

"No one's getting knocked off," he said softly.

"Easy for you to say." She was shivering out of control. "You're not the one facing death."

"Neither are you."

She lowered her digital unit. "I really, really wish I hadn't come."

She was scared, shaking with it, and probably chilled to the bone. Knowing how she felt, he crouched in front of her. Because he'd come running when he'd heard her cry out he was still wearing only his jeans, so he raised his hands to show that while he might be half-naked, he was harmless, forgetting for a moment that he held the glowing vibrator. "You dropped this."