Dangerous Journey Read Online Free Page B

in a minute.”
    A short while later he joined her, a thick white bath towel secured around his waist, his chest and legs bare, his face freshly shaved, and his hair glistening. He had a good build, with broad, muscular shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and hips. With the beard and mustache gone, she noticed that his face was more rugged than she had expected, but it didn’t detract from his attractiveness at all. If anything, it added to it. Her artist’s eye had suspected there was a good-looking man under all that dirt, and she had been right. She felt her temperature go up at least five degrees.
    “Sorry about the towel. I travel light,” he said. “Unless you’ve got a robe I could borrow?”
    She gave what she hoped was a saucy little toss of the head. “No bathrobe in your bedroll? Whatever would Miss Manners say? Your clothes should be returned soon. Come on, let’s eat.”
    She took the tops off the bowls of Cantonese war won ton , walnut chicken in black bean sauce, bok choy with beef, pork chow mein and rice. He didn’t load up his plate, but ate Chinese style, putting bits of food onto his rice bowl with his chopsticks. As he ate, C.J. noticed several long scars interrupting the smoothly tanned skin of one forearm and wondered what outrageous undertaking he had been involved in to get those. They reminded her once again how little she knew about him, and that she needed to be careful.
    As she picked at her food, she watched with growing wonder as he polished off one dish after another. She thought she had ordered far too much, since she hadn’t been sure which dishes he would like, but now she was afraid she hadn’t ordered enough.
    Finally he sat back and placed his bands on his stomach, his green eyes shining. “I think I’ve injured myself,” he groaned.
    What? “I’m sorry—”
    “No, it’s wonderful.” His smile was lazy. “I haven’t eaten this much since. . . Rangoon? Right, it was Rangoon. Two, three months ago.”
    She sat looking at him, not knowing what to do or say. He offered no assistance, and the silence grew. “Would you like some coffee? Cigarettes? Anything?” she asked finally.
    “Yes. To all of the above.” He raised one suggestive eye brow.
    Most disarming.
    She cleared her throat and said, “I’ll call room service.”
    He reached for the morning’s Hong Kong Star , which was lying on the bureau, and devoured it like Rip Van Winkle trying to catch up on what he missed in the world.
    In a few minutes the bellboy arrived again. As he looked at the stranger, draped only in a bath towel, his expression grew even more dumbfounded than it had been earlier. C.J. gave him a generous tip.
    The man folded up the paper and laid it aside. Taking a swallow of coffee and a long drag of a Marlboro, he sat back in his chair looking relaxed and content.
    C.J. felt anything but content. Her nerves were frayed, and she stirred her coffee, round and round. She had imagined that the stranger would quickly bathe, nap and eat, then tell her about Alan and go on his way. It wasn’t working out quite that way. She had to find a way to ask her hundred and one questions, and then get him out of there.
    “Well, Sis,” he said. She dropped her spoon, sending it clattering onto the table. She reached to grab it, but he put his hand on top of hers. She felt the strength in it. Stiffening, she looked at him in surprise. “My male ego would like to think it was my magnetism that attracted you and made you plead with me to come here as your kept boy, but I know better. What now?”
    “We need to talk.” She pulled her hand away.
    “True. Shall I call you Sis, or Seejay—sounds like a Pakistani name.”
    “Pakistani? Oh, I see. My goodness, no. Straight mid-west. My name is C period, J period. Just initials.”
    Once again, she realized she had been so caught up with Alan’s problems that she hadn’t asked the man who he was. “What’s your name?”
    “C.J. isn’t a name.”
    Had