Robin Kaye - Breakfast in Bed

BREAKFAST IN BED

Robin Kaye

Contents:

Chapter 1

REBECCA LARSEN SHOULDERED OPEN THE DOOR OF HER new Park Slope apartment and surveyed the wreckage. A pizza box lay open on the coffee table, containing the remnants of a sausage and mushroom pizza of indeterminate age. By this point, Becca was on her last nerve. Her cat had shrieked for the entire trip from Philadelphia to Brooklyn , and as Becca gazed about the room, she began to feel a sensation akin to entering the Twilight Zone.

Annabelle, Becca's best friend, sister-in-law, and resident of the apartment until two weeks ago, wasn't a neatnik by any stretch of the imagination, but Becca had never seen her leave this much of a mess. Empty beer bottles littered the remaining space on the coffee table, and a pair of very large shoes lay underneath. Men's shoes. Becca's sense of unease escalated. It definitely looked as if there was a man living there. Yep, the XXL fleece hoodie thrown on the couch was her first clue; the second was the singing that came from the direction of the bathroom seconds after the hiss of the shower started.

Becca grabbed the baseball bat she found leaning against the wall by the closet and skulked to the bedroom. The bed was unmade, which wasn't startling, but the collection of men's jeans hanging off every surface as well as a mess of jockey shorts and socks on the floor certainly was. Not as much, though, as the voice coming from the shower. It was a rich bass baritone, and if she wasn't mistaken, he was singing an old '40s tune. God, who sings songs from the '40s? Whoever it was had a smooth, smoky, sexy-as-hell voice that was hot enough to make a woman melt like chocolate in a two thousand-degree kiln. The guy in the shower had one hell of a voice. Too bad he was also going to have one hell of a bruise.

She spent some time thinking about whether she should hit him while he was in the shower or wait until he got out. He'd gotten through the first stanza of his song and the whole chorus before she decided to wait until he emerged. The shower curtain might severely curtail the speed at which the bat would hit, and then there was the problem of proper aim.

Pushing the door open with the end of the bat, she watched the steam roll toward her and bring with it the scent of yummy-man. A man who smelled like that at any other time would have her following him just to get a whiff. His scent was clean, with citrus and spice overtones that made her mouth water. The body that stepped out of the shower bare-ass-naked stole the breath from her lungs, the attack plan from her memory, and made her thankful she was a woman who could appreciate the human form because she'd never seen one finer. Her eyes wandered back to his face just in time to see the corner of his full lips lift to form a grin. If looked at separately, each part of his facethe Roman nose, sapphire blue eyes, curled spiky black eye lasheswas almost pretty, but something about the way they fit together and the addition of his five-o'clock-shadow-before-noon, stole the prettiness from his face and made it arrestingly gorgeous. He was the Sicilian version of a Greek god. He had to be the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in person, and as a sculptor, she'd seen more than her fair share of beautiful people. Too bad she disliked him.

Rich Ronaldi looked over his shoulder to find his sister's best friend staring wide-eyed at his bare ass. Well, maybe it wasn't only his ass she stared at because when he turned, she got a load of the full monty .

Becca rested the end of the bat she carried on the floor. "Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing here?"

Rich had never been the shy type, but the women who got a load of him in the buff were usually invited to do so. Becca, Miss prim-and-proper-ice-princess, wasn't. He wished he knew where the damn towels were. He'd just moved in, well, in a figurative sense of the word. He'd stayed there for a few days, and he had a towel somewhere, but knowing himself , it was on the floor along with his dirty socks and underwear.

If he'd known she'd be coming by, he'd have kicked them into the closet or at least under the bed. But then, Becca was the last woman he'd expected to darken his doorstep. He had no clue why, but since their first meeting, he got the distinct impression she wasn't overly fond of him. "How did you get in here?"

Becca didn't seem to grasp the fact that standing naked in front of a woman who wouldn't normally give him the time of day is not the most comfortable thing to do. She didn't turn away or hand him a towel, not that there was one at hand. He brushed past her into the bedroom, saw a towel hanging off the footboard of his bed, and quickly tied it around his waist. The only reaction he saw from Becca was a blink.

"I used my key. What are you doing in my bedroom, taking a shower in my bathroom, which is conveniently located in my apartment?"

Rich let out a laugh. "Hold on. I'm the one asking the questions here. This is my apartment. I'm leasing it from Rosalie and Nick."

She crossed her arms, the action pulling her baggy sweatshirt taut across her chest. A chest he forgot she even had. When he realized he was staring, he returned his gaze to her face and found her rolling her eyes.

"You're impossible. So is your story since I'm sublet ting the apartment from Annabelle. It was her apartment, and now it's mine. You need to leave."

She looked like one of those sexy Anime cartoon characters. She was tall, just a few inches shorter than his own 6'3", and thin with long, long legs and short, choppy, platinum blonde, perpetually tussled hair that gave her a sexy as hell, just-been-fucked look. Rich mimicked her stance, careful not to spread his legs wide enough to dislodge the towel, though it would serve her right if he did. "You're wrong. Rosalie and Nick own the apartment. They rented it to Annabelle, who has since moved out. I moved in. If anyone is leaving, it's you."

"Well then, we have a problem. Because as of right now, I'm living here."

"Not with me, you're not."

"Exactly."

He waved his arm to encompass the whole apartment, and the whole mess he had scattered across it. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law."

"The only possession I see here is your mess. Everything I own that's not in storage is now in the living room, so, in that respect, as in others too numerous to count, you come up" She looked him up and down with a critical eye. "decidedly short."

Rich had half a mind to whip off his towel just to show her how very short he wasn't. He was a man comfortable with his body and his um size. Shit, he'd never had any complaints in that department, and from the look in Becca's eyes when she ogled himand it was an ogleshe didn't have any complaints either. He was sure she was just trying to get a rise out of him, which she wouldn't. She wasn't his type.

No, Rich's type was a woman like his girlfriend, Gina: a little bombshell. She was all black-haired, copper-eyed, and built like a woman. She was a barely five-foot package of pure TNT. Gina dressed like a woman. You'd never find her wearing an old sweat shirt five sizes too big and a pair of low-slung baggy jeans. "Shit." He looked at the clock. He was going to be late. He was meeting his dean at the Harvard Club and then heading uptown for a date with Gina. "I don't have time to talk about this. I have somewhere to be. Why don't you go out to the living room and let me get dressed. I'll call Nick and Rosalie on my way and find out what to do about this mess. You can spend the night tonight because I have other plans, but I have to tell you, babe, you're gonna be looking for another place to rent."

Becca pulled her cell off her jeans and flipped it open. "I'm not leaving until after I've spoken to Mike and Annabelle. We'll see who'll be combing Craigslist for a place to hang his mess. And let me tell you,