Barbie & The Beast Read online

  A light touch on her arm made Barbie jump. The guy had beaten her to it. She hadn’t been prepared.

  “Please tell me you aren’t a pervert,” she said with a shiver. When her mystery guy laughed again, quite heartily, she asked, “Was that a yes, you are a pervert?” trying to reacquire her Barbie-does-formidable stance.

  He sighed. “No pervert, Barbie. Trust me, that party was not for you.”

  She ground her teeth. Although he was probably right, although she and Angie had already decided that very thing, what right did he have to hurry their decision along?

  “The folks there aren’t very nice,” he added, as if he’d read her thoughts and would explain. “I wouldn’t have wanted any friend of mine to attend this particular fete.”

  This guy she didn’t know and couldn’t even see would protect her and Angie from a. . .fete? Was that unbelievable bull, or was it. . .gallant? She found herself waffling.

  Amid the waffling, her scalp began to tingle, as though little alien antennae were sprouting outward from her brain, trying to get a handle on this guy. Her body was reacting to him on some basic level, suggesting he might be someone she’d want to know. Nice guys were rare in Miami. Especially nice single guys.

  No. This new reasoning was stupid. Pure female silliness. Long-awaited hopefulness hijacking her checklist. Her antennae had gone over to the Dark Side. The man was little more than a blur, a sexy voice in the night. If Angie—

  Oh God! The sudden remembrance of her friend caused an instantaneous melting of Barbie’s sense of sport. Was Angie out here somewhere having a similar conversation? Had Angie tackled her own caveman by now? Her friend wasn’t possessed of the Barbie Bradley adventure genes, except when it came to her wish list for—men. Barbie sure hoped Angie had been abducted, too, because if Angie had been left alone, hating the dark and disliking deserted places, she’d very likely be scared stiff. What had she been thinking, playing along with this oddball abduction when her best friend was out here somewhere? A good kick to this guy’s shin, something right out of Tae Bo, might do wonders if he planned to keep her here any longer, or against her will.

  “Where is my friend?” she asked curtly. “Is someone carting her around, too?”

  “It’s possible,” the guy beside her replied.

  “You don’t know?”

  “An acquaintance of mine seemed interested.”

  Barbie opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. How large was this graveyard, anyway? She couldn’t hear anything beyond her own heavy breathing. Certainly she should have been able to hear Angie calling if Angie needed help.

  “I’d better find my friend,” she said stiffly. “Thanks for saving us.”

  “You’re entirely welcome,” the guy replied in a tone like warm chocolate fondue. “It’s such a shame though,” he added, “that we couldn’t have met under better circumstances.”

  “Yes, well, my friend might not be my friend much longer if I don’t get back to her. Do you know how hard it is to find a best friend? If you do know, you’ll take me to her.”

  “By all means, if that’s what you want,” he said.

  “It is what I want.” Sort of.

  Well, she should have wanted that. She definitely should not have been thinking about the invisible guy’s pecs, which were ripped and gleaming, she was sure, somewhere under that jacket. But she was. She shouldn’t have been picturing him shirtless, taut skin aglow with a light layer of sweat as he hoisted hammer and nails for a start on that white wooden fence. But she was.

  Stupid thoughts! Asinine. For all she knew, the guy had little red horns poking out of the top of his head. Sideburns. That jacket could be plaid.

  Yet, her antennae were standing straight up, producing a very strange feeling in and around her eyeballs. Every cell in her body seemed to be at full attention, yammering for a sudden move in her abductor’s direction. Even after covering her ears to stifle all that yammering, Graveyard Guy’s heat continued to blast away at her mental acuity. There was just something about him.

  He took a step. Barbie felt his exhaled breath in her hair behind her right ear, and her entire body ruffled, as if more of it wanted in on that sensation. The guy was invading her space, her antennae told her. He’d issued a physical challenge, upping the stakes, challenging her imminent withdrawal.

  And dang, her nipples were puckering. She felt them tighten and strain upward. There was no mistaking what this meant. Puckered nipples were the secret female warning system for pleasurable encounters with the opposite sex, and a direct link to heaven alone knew what else. Puckered nipples were a sure sign that she was enjoying this confrontation, no matter how many excuses she might make.

  Standing tall, folding her arms to get the treacherous puckerage under control, Barbie prayed for sanity to intervene. She wouldn’t consider the luxury of a frivolous night with a stranger; she had to think of Angie. While she, herself, was having a pleasurable moment, there was a possibility Angie wasn’t. What kind of a person would allow their friend to be in pain?

  Besides, she couldn’t actually jump a guy she couldn’t see, could she? There could be no pec exploration. No touchy-feely stuff of any kind. Noway. Nohow. Time to go. But which way? What direction? How would she find Angie out here when she couldn’t even see the guy standing next to her?

  “Ummm, do you think you might really help me find Angie?” she asked politely.

  “I’ll help if you promise me something.”

  The guy’s breath skimmed the edge of her cheek. Barbie executed a full body sway. He wasn’t just close, but damn close. Too close. Way too close. Wonderfully close.

  Barbie thumped her head with the heel of one hand to get the antennae to behave. Goose bumps rolled over every sector of her anatomy and kept right on rolling, temporarily blocking out thoughts of invisible paths and lost friends tripping down them in stilettos. Instead her thoughts were of her abductor’s chest. Would it be muscular and contoured? Would there be washboard abs? Silky hair?

  Treacherous thoughts!

  “Promise,” he reiterated.

  Barbie stammered, “P-promise what, exactly?”

  “That you’ll forego further graveyard exploration this evening.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that!” She’d clasped both hands behind her back to ensure that very thing.

  When the mystery guy’s fingers ran the length of her sleeve, Barbie wobbled as if he’d touched bare skin. The contact was erotic, unexpected—as erotic and unexpected as being rescued by a man who professed to have her safety in mind. Being here with him didn’t feel perverted or icky. It just felt. . .hot.

  “Come.” The guy pried one of her hands free and pulled Barbie forward. But instead of taking one single step in Angie’s direction, she found herself pressed up against her nocturnal companion, chest to chest, thigh to thigh. And, um, other parts. Barbie’s hands were against his chest at last. And yes, at least by this quick feel, he had pecs to die for. He wore a silky soft shirt beneath that silky soft jacket.

  Lord help her, Barbie didn’t want to remove her hands from the guy’s upper anatomy. He felt so very good. He smelled so good. He was at least a head taller than she—the pec placement told her this. He was lithe, with just the right amount of muscle. Just the way she liked her men.

  Wayward thoughts, Bradley. You make it sound like he’s a Happy Meal. “Perverts don’t smell this good,” Barbie whispered to herself. “If they did, it would be completely unfair.”

  “Can I take that as a compliment?” her companion asked, chuckling, his arm encircling her waist.

  Though this move wasn’t particularly dangerous, Barbie experienced a thump down in her nether regions. This thumping confirmed that she still had a nether region—a very good thing, since she hadn’t been quite sure.

  “You said you’d take me to Angie,” she breathlessly reminded her companion, while her nipples again did their thing and her hands slipped downward a little to press against his
stomach. His hard stomach. For support.

  Heat flew through her. She swayed on her heels, leaning toward the guy she couldn’t see. Her antennae were twirling madly. Her stomach did loop-de-loops.

  Wow.

  His warm breath, his hard-as-a-rock body, the challenging repartee—all those things struck her as honest-to-God promising. One little picket in a large front-yard fence. One baby step toward Tiffany’s. Call her nuts, but all of a sudden she wanted this guy to kiss her. She wanted it badly. Yet how could she condone this erratic, hormones-gone-astray behavior for one single second longer?

  “Now would be a good time,” she said, trying to mean it, “to take me to Angie.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  He didn’t move. She didn’t move. The temperature in the graveyard rose considerably.

  “Now would be a good time,” she repeated.

  “Fine.”

  No movement again, except perhaps that she might accidentally have leaned a little closer. Unintentionally.

  “Can I see you again?” he asked, his exhaled question hot as a space heater on her already-flushed cheek.

  Red Alert! It had been so long since she’d had any meaningful contact, her body might have been ready for anything. Granted, she and this stranger had some kind of connection. The air between them crackled with electricity. The crackling could even have been the sound of animal magnetism at its extreme. But that would simply mean, she supposed, that this was a case of full-blown lust at first sight, without the sight part.

  “See me again?” she whispered lightly. “It’s dark. You haven’t seen me a first time.”

  “Maybe I use the Braille method,” Invisible Guy replied.

  This was so ridiculous, Barbie had to laugh. Her hands, those five-fingered things attached to her arms and sometimes removed from all links to her brain, slipped a bit more in a downward direction, encountering more taut male muscle.

  She sucked in a breath, puffed out her cheeks, preparing to comment. Then a sound broke in. Out there, in the dark. In the distance. Sounding like a whisper. A familiar whisper.

  It wasn’t Angie making pitiful mewling noises, as Barbie had at first expected. Instead, it was a horribly ill-timed and realistic image of her own mother, Mrs. Brenda Bradley, standing in their yellow-wallpapered country kitchen, shaking a finger. Brenda Bradley, aka Mom, upon hearing of this unexpected convergence with a stranger (God forbid!) was moaning and moving her lips in a silent-but-readable I taught you better.

  Ugh!

  The mental image was scary enough to cause Barbie to remove her hands from the stranger’s torso and say without further ado, “Please take me to Angie.” She was, however, sorry the second she said it. There would be no way to get her hands back on the guy’s hot bod. That moment had gone forever.

  “Damn. You said the magic word. Now I have to oblige,” he—whoever he really was—said.

  “Shows you do have a civilized bone or two,” Barbie remarked, fingers opening and closing in vain.

  The guy just chuckled, a low sound, as though he really was having a good time. Then he said, “You haven’t answered my question about seeing you again.”

  “You haven’t taken me to my friend.”

  “I’m thinking about taking you there.”

  “I’d prefer another verb.”

  “Such as?”

  “Doing it.” Feeling an immediate superblush come on with the unintentional double entendre, Barbie added hastily, “I meant going to Angie. Moving. Taking steps in Angie’s direction. Not. . .” God, this was embarrassing.

  More laughter escaped the stranger, then, “Okay.”

  “Great. I’d prefer to walk this time, if you don’t mind.”

  Her invisible man backed up a step, slowly, as if he didn’t really want to. A reluctance so charming, Barbie almost pulled him back.

  “FYI, you’re nothing at all like a sack of potatoes,” he told her.

  “Really? You mean the Braille method works?” she quipped.

  It was a stupid conversation to cover an awkward moment. It had been better when they weren’t talking.

  “So, about seeing you again. . .”

  “I don’t think so,” Barbie interrupted. Why not, why not? her body cried. Her brain answered, Because what kind of relationship can there be if talking is a drawback?

  That was before a warm cheek rested against her own. Before the scent of spice became more intense, producing undulations from her thighs to her knees. Before her pan ties felt extraordinarily tight beneath her tight skirt. And those sensations multiplied as a set of soft lips brushed hers. Not a kiss, just a brush—yet Barbie’s body reacted as if she’d accidentally stuck her thumb into a wall socket. As if Forest Lawn had just burst into flames all around them.

  Tightening every muscle in her legs to keep from tipping over, refusing to cower or back down, Barbie closed her eyes, parted her lips, and waited for more. Seconds fled. Time stretched. A good kisser could have risen above a multitude of flaws—like the flaw of anonymity.

  But he didn’t kiss her. Dammit, his lips did not return to hers at all. Instead, his hands closed around her waist. With a heave, he lifted her up, swung her over something she barely felt skim the bottom of her feet. The gate he had mentioned earlier? Maybe a white, wooden one? She was set down gently, almost tenderly.

  The guy took her hand again and started off in the dark, now moving with hasty determination. When he spoke, no doubt over his shoulder, Barbie heard him quite clearly say, along with a sigh of impending importance, “Barbie. I have a confession to make.”

  Chapter Five

  “You’re married?”

  Yeow! Had she said that?

  He was moving fast now. Stumbling after him in the dark, Barbie heard a crack and nearly went down. Her damn heel had broken after all.

  “No. Not married.” His words were muffled. “The confession is that I can see you, Braille comment aside. I guess this gives me an advantage.”

  At this pace, his guidance was her only means of stability as Barbie trotted on, attempting to keep her one heel lifted.

  Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

  “You mean, you can see with your bat radar?” she joked.

  “Something like that, yes.”

  She was skeptical. “So, what do I have on, Bat Boy?”

  “A deep, rich shade of red. A short skirt. Matching jacket.”

  Barbie flinched in surprise, tugging his hand back in the process. Her foot in its broken shoe slipped forward on the grass, her legs went out from underneath her. . .and her invisible savior caught her, miraculously, before she hit the ground. Still, it wasn’t the near belly flop that left her speechless. The guy had exactly described her outfit.

  The word pervert returned as quickly as an inhaled breath. Pervert. As in, he might have watched them arrive. As in, he might have scoped out the scene and laid a trap. As in, this was a premeditated meeting.

  As in, stalker.

  Her excitement plummeting, Barbie felt her face change from pink to pasty. Could her man radar have been so far off?

  “Definitely not,” she said. “No seeing me again.”

  They started walking once more. Up, down. Up, down. She felt a little protest from her left calf muscle.

  “Why can’t I see you again?” he asked.

  “I don’t date dates who don’t take no for an answer,” she replied. I don’t date stalkers.

  There was another unscheduled stop. What now?

  What now was the mystery man’s finger drifting down the side of her face. In reaction, Barbie’s pulse did a pirouette. Her heart boomed. Would a stalker bring out these urges? she asked herself. Shouldn’t she be able to differentiate between the good and the bad somehow?

  “Angie,” she directed firmly. “Now.”

  “Yes,” the guy conceded with audible disappointment. She heard him turn. His hand brushed her arm as he did.

  Zing! Lightning down south! Everyone out of the pool!


  Rocking back on her heels, twirling her arms into space to keep her balance, Barbie yanked the guy back and came up hard against him.

  “Uh. . .” she heard him mutter, faintly. “I swore I was civilized.”

  What? part of her raged. They were up close and personal, and he was giving up? He actually was intending to let her go? Barbie felt the big P of Pervert begin to deflate.

  “Come on, Barbie,” he said. “Watch your step.”

  His firm grasp on her elbow sent teensy electric charges skittering up toward the bridge of her nose. Like brain freeze when she drank iced tea too fast.

  “Oh, I plan to,” Barbie remarked with a heroic attempt at control, knowing that this guy had wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted him to. This guy had been hard in all the right places.

  He didn’t want to take her back. Nevertheless, he was doing as she’d asked, taking her to find Angie.

  The things she suddenly wanted to do to him, here in the dark! The things she wanted him to do to her, starting with her lips and working his way down. There was just one little problem. When all was said and done, Barbie Bradley was, aside from all the flirty posturing, a good girl. She could count the guys she’d almost nearly landed in bed with on no hands. Kissing, yes—she’d seen plenty of action there. But actually sliding into home base? Never.

  Jumping this guy was something Trashy Barbie would do, and to her knowledge, Mattel had never envisioned, let alone created, such a thing. Which was, at the moment, sort of a bummer.

  No, the connection between herself and this guy who had hold of her hand was definitely not anything she could pursue. Somebody would have to explain this to her nipples, of course, and break the news to her antennae, which were still spinning. Because if those parts of her didn’t immediately stop rebelling against almosts and nevers, if she didn’t find Angie quickly and was left alone with this graveyard keeper much longer, with his propensity for quick laughter and his ability to heat up her air space, well. . .

  Heck with Mattel. All bets were off.