Biker Babe in Black (3 page)

He shook his head and continued to twirl the cap.

Dang, he’s immune.

He left her no choice. She’d have to play dirty. She stepped closer to him, and he held the cap up out of her reach. She put on her loose lip pucker, placed both hands on the sides of his stomach, stretched up on her tiptoes, and whispered, “Pretty please with a…” she paused, “cherry on top.” Her lips literally popped, and she was sure she’d performed her best act yet.

Remy’s eyes took on a glossy look, and his arm came down. Margie snagged the cap out of his hand faster than a getaway car after a bank heist.

“Ah-ha, victory goes to Margarine Butter. Thank you. Thank you very much.” She bowed to the corners of the elevator.

The grind of metal on metal preceded a sudden jerk of the elevator box. Margie lost her balance and careened toward Remy.

Oh my God, I’m going to die.

“What happened?” Margie stared up into Remy’s face. Squeezed between him and the wall, she could smell the faint aroma of cinnamon. Her heart pounded faster.

The slant of the floor pushed Remy against her. She licked her lower lip and found herself hypnotized as he lowered his mouth. She arched her neck, ready to meet him half way.

His mouth was gentle and malleable against hers as she explored the fullness of his bottom lip. He urged her to open, and she moaned at the touch of the velvet tongue tasting her. A fresh, cinnamon-tinted flavor pleased her senses.

The elevator gave a jolt and settled into a new position. Margie gasped, her head disorientated from both the kiss and near-death experience. How could she lose herself in one kiss while her life was in jeopardy?

“I think the elevator is stuck.” He didn’t let go of her.

“Oh God, I’m going to suffocate!” She laid her hand on her chest.

The way Remy’s chest rumbled with laughter proved he’d gone insane, and she shoved him off her.

“I don’t find being stuck in a box that dangles by a cable the least bit funny.”

She needed to find a way out of this death trap. The elevator was broken…she must get back to work.
Shit! How did this happen?

One minute she was delivering coffee, and the next minute she was locking lips with a stranger in an elevator—all the while risking losing her job. She needed to concentrate.

She ignored Remy and paced the small piece of floor. The most important thing was to get back to her job. If she lost this one, she knew the only option left would be for her to return to the fold of her family.

She glared over at Remy, who leaned against the wall without a worry or care of his own. He might turn into a bad habit if she stuck around him too long. Good thing he’d be a flash in her storm of a life.

Out of her peripheral vision, she witnessed Remy’s shoulders once again shake with amusement.

“It isn’t funny. I’m stuck in a box that’s hanging fifteen stories high, and I’m going to lose my job if I can’t get back to the coffee shop in time. I need to work…desperately.” She tipped the cart right side up and found her cap on the floor, smashed and unwearable.

Her fingers worked on shaping her hat. She kept herself busy, because if she didn’t, she might fall back into Remy’s arms and explore his mouth a little more. He sure seemed to have had practice with this kissing business.

“The light on the panel is stuck on the first floor button, so technically we aren’t dangling in the air. At the most we are only hanging about eight feet up,” Remy informed her.

Margie stomped to the control panel of the elevator, opened the box, and snarled. The compartment that was supposed to contain an emergency phone stood empty. “Do you have a cell phone on you?”

Remy reached in his front pocket and handed over his phone. Margie flipped it open and grimaced. No signal.

“What am I supposed to do?” She tossed back his phone but refused to turn her head in his direction. The less she set her eyes on him, the better.

“Someone will notice the elevator isn’t working and call the janitor.”

She twirled her finger in her hair and took up the same pattern she’d paced earlier. Maybe the manager would pay her for a half-day’s worth of work.
Probably not.

“Are you okay?” Remy asked.

She stopped and turned toward him, but stared at a spot over his left shoulder. “Not really. I’m thinking about what my next job will be, since I doubt if the coffee house will keep someone who can’t even make deliveries and get back to work on time.”

“Look, I want to apologize. Again. Somehow I inevitably caused you to lose two jobs.” Remy leaned to the left.

Margie continued to stare at the spot on the wall. She didn’t blame Remy. Bad luck followed her regardless if she lived back home with her family, or lived on her own.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

She shook her head and threw the cap on top of the cart. “No. It wasn’t your fault. These kinds of things happen to me all the time, unfortunately.”

“What sort of things?”

“Getting fired…getting lost…finding myself in some dire predicament.” She’d learned either she laughed it off or ended up a heap of self-pity. “One time I was standing behind the one hundred thousandth winning person at an all-night sit down. The person won a vacation to Hawaii.” She paused. “Not ten minutes before the announcement of the winner, I let some person cut in line ahead of me so she could stand by her friend. I thought it would be nice if they didn’t have to talk around me, you see.”

“Ouch.” He groaned.

“Of course, now I can laugh about it, but I sure wanted that vacation.”
Big time.

Remy moved over a foot, and she shifted her gaze to avoid him.

“You’re still mad at me, though.”

“I said I wasn’t mad.” She flaunted a huge smile toward the wall.

“Then why won’t you look at me? You’ve been staring at the wall.” He waved his arms.

She let out a sigh and rolled her head.

“Fine. I’ll tell you.” She adjusted her hair to cover the side of her face. “I just can’t look at you.”

“Why?”

“Is it really that important to know the answer?” She turned and sent up a silent wish for him to drop the subject.

His hands landed on her shoulders, and she hung her head. She allowed Remy to turn her body around to face him. The fight melted right off her at his touch.

“Why, Margarine Butter?”

Why did he have to use her whole name? Not a hint of laughter in his voice. She lost the fight with herself.

“If I look at you, I know I’ll throw myself into your arms and kiss you again.”

“Kissing me would be a bad thing?” He brushed her hair off her forehead.

Margie nodded.

“Are you going to get mad if I go ahead and kiss you again?” He lowered his head. The way his voice grew husky sent waves of pleasure to all the right places in her body.

Margie nodded again.

A magnetic force, powerful enough to draw out the most stubborn streak inside her, pulled her lips closer to the one thing she wanted more than anything, even more than steady employment.

“Why, Margarine Butter?” Remy whispered.

The spell he wound around her sparkled. The control she held on to slipped. She hooked her hand around his neck and tugged him down to capture him in a kiss. All thoughts of different ways to avoid temptation left, and she closed her eyes to experience the full pleasures of his mouth.

“Hey! Anyone in there?” a male voice called.

Margie jumped. Her heart thumped against her rib cage, her swollen, moist lips tingled. She’d done it again.
Shit!

“Yoo-hoo…anyone?” The person on the other side of the door pounded.

“Yes.” Margie cleared her throat. “Yes, we’re in here. Can you get us out?”

“Sure thing, lady. It’ll just be a couple more minutes and I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy or my name isn’t Johnny Grate.”

“Margarine…” Remy reached for her.

Margie shook her head. She didn’t have time for a relationship—or an afternoon fling. She must work toward her goal, and a man in her life would only send her off track. It meant too much to her to let him ruin her future.

The elevator doors parted, and two hands appeared in the crack, pushing them wider so Margie and Remy could exit the elevator. Margie lifted the back wheels of her cart, and the rescuer picked up the front to get it clear of the doors. She must hurry and bargain her way back into the good grace of her manager.

She pushed the cart down the hall and out the front doors, angry with herself for her brief lapse in judgment. She never should have talked to Remy. She realized she’d dug herself into a hole, and only a miracle would save her now.

Remy arrived at Sunshine Coffee House only a few minutes after they opened their doors for business. He covered his mouth and yawned. Sleep evaded him last night, and even when he’d managed to catch some winks, his dreams evolved around Margarine.

The employees moved about their morning routine, firing up coffee makers, and setting out the additives used to produce the drinks. He’d yet to spot Margarine’s beautiful face.

“Excuse me, can you tell me if Margarine Butter is scheduled to work today?” He handed the cash for his cup of coffee over to the man at the register.

“She no longer works here.” The man closed the till.

Damn.

“Do you know where I could contact her?” Remy asked.

The man shook his head and leaned over to help the next person in line. He knew the man only followed company policy, and laws forbade him to divulge private information on past and present employees. He’d have to hire someone to find her.

***

Two hours later, Remy hung up the phone in his office. He slipped his hands in his slacks and gazed out of the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. Everything he wanted, right at his fingertips and within reach, except any public records of the woman who captivated all his thoughts. The private investigator he’d hired to find out where Margarine Butter lived had given him her address.

Remy found himself undecided on whether to track Margarine down or not. The fact he used a detective in the first place blew him away. To pick up a woman came easy, and he’d never searched for a one-night stand in his life. Women had thrown themselves at him since the age of eighteen. The size of his wallet did it every time.

He picked up the printout sent over the fax. Margarine lived downtown in a seedy pay-by-the-week apartment. Remy slapped the paper down onto his desk and pushed the button on the intercom. “Marybeth, will you cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day, please.”

Minutes later, Remy drove the BMW down Fifth Street. He found a parking structure one block away from Margarine’s apartment and pulled in. A woman didn’t belong in a place where half the city’s homeless population congregated in the park in the daytime, and juvenile thugs roamed the street in a search for acceptance at night.

The darkness of the parking structure afforded Remy time to sit in the car and think about what he planned to say to Margarine. She needed to realize the terrible situation he’d helped get her into, but he didn’t want to come on too strong. Her job had been terminated and because of him… He wanted to rectify her problems.

The blast of a car alarm jarred him out of second-guessing his decision. He stepped out of the car, took his coat off, threw it on the passenger seat, and pushed the automatic door lock on his keychain. He’d just ask her out to dinner and let her decide their fate. If she happened to take the money he offered her to find a better place to live, instead of punching him in the face, he’d count himself lucky.

Remy ignored the noise of the city and the crowd of teenagers eyeing his car. His stride stiff and determined, he marched across the street toward the apartment complex. What if she turned down his offer to have dinner with him? Nah, he wouldn’t allow her to say no. Period.

***

Margie crumbled a page out of the paper and tossed it toward the trashcan, where it joined the other employment ads scattered across the floor. She wadded up the last page and shot it through the air. She missed. Again.

Nothing she ever did worked out. With her rent due tomorrow, the only money left in her purse was enough to
maybe
buy her a combo meal at the local fast food joint.

She’d run out of jobs she qualified for in Portland. She still had the fifty dollars her dad gave her for an emergency escape back home taped to the bottom of her motorcycle seat. She hated to use it for a trip to another city, in case someday she really needed it to find her way home. Her parents traveled everywhere, and at the moment, she didn’t know exactly where they called home.

Maybe she should try out Seattle up in Washington State. The rumor of coffee shops at every street corner appealed to her, and people drank caffeine to fight the seasonal depression from all the rain up there, right? Business must be booming.

Her furnished apartment lacked any personal touches. The realization she only possessed one suitcase of clothes forced her to finalize her plans to move to Seattle. Besides, if she stayed here, she might bump into Remy and she didn’t need anything to sway her desire to buy a house.

She’d love a house with enough room for her family to visit, and maybe a dog for the yard. Something Margie had wanted since…forever. She’d ridden through the country on the back of a motorcycle her whole life and flitted from one hotel to another. All she wanted was a place to call home, one that would always remain there for her, even if she decided to hit the open road.

Margie loved to travel, meet new people, and ride beside her parents. But the appeal to buy her own home grew inside her. Hotels got old, and she wanted to walk into a house and experience familiarity. She promised herself every day that nothing would distract her from her goals, and that prior to her thirtieth birthday, she’d have her own place.