A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

up and down, assessing how I might look in one. I imagine it looked a bit tight in the crotch. She looked away quickly and changed the subject.

“You’ve cost me a lot of money today,” she said.

“My hundred and the few dollars the Colonel’s man had?”

“Casey had money.”

“If he had money, he’d have been in the whorehouse and not in the hotel bar.”

“Not all men are like you.”

“You should be thankful for that,” I said. “And for your information, when I thought you were a hooker, I wasn’t interested.”

“You thought I was a hooker?”

“Oh, come on, you practically threw yourself at me.”

“I seem to remember you throwing yourself at my feet.”

“When you tripped me!”

“I did not look like a hooker.” She pouted. I really wanted to kiss that soft pink lower lip. She saw me looking and showed me just the tip of her tongue.

“Honey,” I said as gently as I could, “if the front of your skirt had been any higher, I’d know if your belly button was pierced.”

“It isn’t,” she whispered.

I reached forward toward her hood and she didn’t retreat. She shook her hair free when I slipped the hood back.

“Prove it.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“It’s only fair that you show me yours. You’ve seen mine.”

She tried not to smile at this, but couldn’t help herself. I held the key out to her one last time. When she didn’t take it, I tossed it onto the nightstand next to my keyring.

“What did you put in the lock?” she asked.

“Piece of a toothpick.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Playing fair isn’t my style,” I said. “Or yours.”

Harmony smiled at me again and something twitched under the hand towel. I think she noticed because she smiled some more, revealing perfect teeth.

“Aren’t you hot in that catsuit?” I asked.

“Yes I am,” she said, smoothing her hands over her hips and throwing her shoulders back.

The hand towel twitched again. I was beginning to think I had her exactly where she wanted me. I blamed the pheromones in the perfume.

She slowly slid down the zipper of her catsuit and there was only milky white skin underneath. She stopped unzipping just above her belly button. What a tease.

“You still think I look like a hooker?” she asked.

“I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She half-turned away from me and looked back over her shoulder. “Is my bottom nicer than Casey’s?”

“I can’t say for sure until I’ve examined it properly.”

“You want another look at his ass?”

“No, I want to get my hands on yours,” I said.

“You say the most romantic things.”

She pulled the zipper down as far as it would go and then slid the stretchy black fabric off her shoulders. I started by kissing the back of her neck and worked my way down her spine as she lowered the suit.

“Just so there’s no misunderstanding between us,” she said, “the back door’s closed tonight.”

I turned her around and placed a kiss on her belly button and began working upwards.

“Your beard tickles,” she said, shivering deliciously.

“You’re not cold are you, my love?” I asked, brushing a thumb lightly across her flesh, barely touching it. She shivered some more.

“You’re giving me goosebumps,” she said.

“You are much sexier without the make-up,” I said, kissing the tip of her nose.

“How do you know I’m not wearing any?”

“I can see your freckles. And I want to kiss-every-single-one.” I showed her how.

“They’re not the only freckles I have,” she whispered, her lips close to my ear.

“I noticed that. We could be here all night.”

“I’m up for it if you are,” she said. She pulled off my towel and threw it aside. “And it seems that you are.”

After that, there was more kissing and neither of us did much talking.

Chapter Nine

I woke and knew instantly that something was wrong. The bed beside me was empty but the sheets were still warm. If I moved quickly, I could catch Harmony before she got away. I pulled on my clothes. A quick glance told me that the brass room key and my keys for the Trekker were still on the nightstand. That confused me. Why hadn’t she taken them? Harmony had searched my room and not found my cash – surely she must have thought it would be worthwhile to search my vehicle. Or steal it.

Singing. A woman’s voice in the bathroom. I didn’t think it was the maid. It was the same dirty little ditty I had been singing last night and Harmony knew some verses I’d never heard before. They were almost enough to make me blush. Almost. I pushed open the door. She was climbing out of the tub. She’d used the last of my bubbles and they looked good on her.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Hello, beautiful.”

“You’re wearing clothes,” she said.

“I thought you might like to help me out of them,” I said.

She did. And somehow we both ended up back in the bathtub. It was hot. Even if the water wasn’t.

Later Harmony went back to her room to change. Black catsuits aren’t really morning wear. She reappeared in blue jeans and a checked shirt, filling both of them perfectly. We went down to the dining room and had a late breakfast, neither of us feeling any need to hurry. Often I can’t tell one day from another, but this felt like a proper lazy Sunday morning.

“You can’t possibly eat like that and look the way you do,” I said, looking at the huge breakfast plate in front of her. If there was a breakfast food missing from it, I couldn’t spot what it was.

“I worked up quite an appetite last night,” she said, sticking her fork into a juicy sausage.

“It must have been all that sneaking around in a burglar’s outfit,” I said. “I’m sorry you didn’t get what you wanted in my room.”

“I got much more than I expected,” she said.

“Flatterer.”

I watched her eat. She worked methodically across the plate from left to right, washing the food down with a glass of orange juice and three cups of coffee.

“How long