Fire Me Up
Page 3

The wind, coming off the nearby Danube, flirted with the opened suitcase, decided it liked the look of my newly purchased satin undies, and scooped up several pairs, sending them skittering down the sidewalk. The elderly couple who had been in front of us helped me gather the remaining clothes that had been knocked out as the gypsies made their snatch and grab, repeating soft assurances that I didn't understand. I left Jim to guard the luggage as I ran down the sidewalk, the amulet still in my hand. I plucked my underwear from a phone booth, a magazine stand, and a newspaper box. One last pair, trembling next to a garbage bin, suddenly spun upward in a gust and flew a few feet down the sidewalk, their flight coming to a swift end as the pink satin and lace material wrapped itself in a soft caress around a man's leg.
A man's leather-clad leg.
"Oh, god," I moaned, closing my eyes for a second, knowing exactly who owned that leg. Why me? Why did this sort of thing have to happen to me? Why couldn't anything in my life ever be simple? When I looked again, Drake was holding my panties in his hand, his head slowly turning as he scanned the crowd until he saw me clutching a handful of underwear.
Any thoughts of escaping undetected died in that moment. The woman who had been about to get into the limo paused and raised a beautifully arched eyebrow at him, her dark eyes sliding over me in cool consideration. She was perfect in every way—flawless complexion, hair glossy and straight, her assets displayed with a confidence I would never be able to match. Beside her, Drake stood in smoldering sensuality (his natural state), all hard lines and rugged planes and extremely droolworthy masculinity.
And then there was me, the third person in the tableau. I knew exactly what Drake and the woman were seeing—a hot, sweaty woman in her early thirties dressed in a loose T-shirt and worn jeans, hair coming loose from the scrunchie used in an attempt to tame wild curls, without so much as a single eyelash having seen the benefit of cosmetics.
It was no good. I couldn't compete. I was outclassed and I knew it, but I still had my dignity—what was left of it after my underwear was spread out along the front of the Keleti station ten minutes after my arrival. Raising my chin, I marched forward to Drake, firmly squelching the cheers of delight that several unmentionable parts of my body were sending up.
"I believe those are mine," I told him holding out my hand for the underwear.
Heat flared deep in his emerald eyes, but I looked down at his hand, refusing to be drawn into that trap. I knew well the power of his desire.
"You have excellent taste in undergarments." he said, his voice a little rough around the edges as he placed the item in my hand. "Victoria's Secret?"
"No," I said, allowing my eyes to meet his for a moment. I swear a tiny little wisp of smoke curled out of one of his nostrils. "Naughty Nellie's House of Knickers. Portland, Oregon. Thank you. Good-bye."
He inclined his head as I spun around, ignoring the disdainful arched brows of the woman and marching back to where Jim sat next to my ravaged suitcase. The taxi rank was empty, the elderly couple evidently having snagged a taxi while I was retrieving my undies.
"Don't say it," I warned Jim as I squatted next to the suitcase, transferring to it my collected lingerie and the amulet. A taxi pulled up beside me as I double-checked the zipper, wondering what the street gypsies had done with the evidently useless lock I'd used to secure the bag. "Just don't say it, OK?"
"Me? I'm not saying anything."
I waited. I'd lived with Jim for a little over a month now. It was virtually impossible for the demon to let something as mortifyingly embarrassing as having my underwear scattered on my former lover go without comment,
"But if I was going to say something, it would be something along the lines of 'Smooth move, Ex-Lax!'"
The limo passed us with a gentle, expensive purr of its engine, the tinted windows thankfully keeping the sight of Drake's no doubt politely amused face from my view. I didn't have to see him to know he was looking at me, though. I could feel it. There was just something about being the object of a dragon's regard that left the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
"No talking in the taxi," I reminded Jim in an undertone as I pulled a Hungarian phrase book out of my bag's side pocket, riffling through the book until I came to the section on transportation. I leaned down next to the open taxi window to tell the driver where I wanted to go. "Let's see ... Where is the post office, please. Where is the bus station, please. Where is an Internet cafe, please. Oh, for heaven's sake, you'd think it would have a simple 'Please take me to the blah-blah hotel,' but no, that would be just way too convenient."
"I do not know of a Hotel Blah-Blah, but perhaps it is new?" the taxi driver asked in accented English. French-accented English.
Both my book and my jaw dropped as I peered into the recesses of the cab. The driver was a dark-haired man of middling age with a friendly smile that delighted me down to my toenails. "Rene! What—you're—but this is—you were in Paris—"
"You da man," Jim drawled, shoving me out of the way so it could put its paws on the door and stick its nose into the taxi, giving Rene a couple of good swipes with its tongue. "Thank god you're here. She's falling to pieces, and we've only been in the country a couple of hours."
"Jim! It is a pleasure to see you again. Thank you for the postcard from the Oregon coast. I didn't know you could write."
Jim shot me a nasty look. "I can't, not after one of my toes went missing. I dictated and Aisling wrote for me."
I shook my head in an attempt to clear it as Rene leaned out through the window to reach back and open the door of the taxi. "This doesn't make sense. You're a Paris taxi driver. This is Budapest. The two aren't even remotely close. Something here does not compute."
Jim leaped into the car. I stood on the sidewalk clutching my luggage, the phrase book fluttering at my feet. Rene grinned, got out of the taxi, and gently pried my fingers off the handle of the suitcase before taking it to the trunk. "My cousin Bela, he is a taxi driver most discreet here in Budapest. But his stone of kidneys erupted, causing him much pain, so he is unable to drive for the next two weeks. I am here to fill in for him. "
"Fill in?" I asked, grabbing my phrase book and allowing him to shoo me into the car. Jim had its head out the far window, great big ropes of drool thankfully dribbling outside rather than down its chest, as they usually did. "Wait a minute. Didn't you say that you and your family take a vacation during the month of August? Why are you spending your vacation time working?"