Read Bedroom Eyes for Free Online

freed herself from his hold before she grew too comfortable. She extended a hand.
    He grinned, but took her hand, causing another wave of pleasure at the contact. Fortunately, he let go before she made a fool of herself, jerking his head toward a cab that had pulled curbside.
    “The least I can do is thank you,” Penelope said.
    He grinned again, quirking his brows, and all thoughts of gratitude emptied from her mind. “Oh, you will,” he said, and opened the door of the cab.
    “Why, you’re—you’re impossible!” She jumped into the cab and grabbed the door handle.
    He slid the door shut, preventing her from the satisfaction of slamming it.
    The cab shot forward.
    Penelope turned around in her seat. He stood there, legs spread wide like a sailor claiming the deck of a sailboat, grinning.
    Not only was he impossible, Penelope thought, turning to answer the driver’s inquiry as to her destination, but she didn’t even know his name.
    They’d gone about two blocks when Penelope saw her shoulder bag shift and heard a rustling noise.
    Mrs. Merlin!
    Penelope had been half-hoping she had fantasized the incident in the store and the conversational voice issuing from her purse at the bus stop.
    “Do you mind?”
    That voice, so strong and insistent despite the tininess of its owner, carried clearly to Penelope’s ears. No figment of her fantasy, that!
    She glanced at the cab driver, but he appeared engrossed in the sports pages he’d propped next to the steering wheel. Normally Penelope would have taken a cabbie to task for that, but today that transgression scarcely registered with her.
    “Shhh,” Penelope whispered, leaning over her purse and peering in. The radio, tuned to a jazz station, blared so loudly she didn’t think the driver could hear her, but she had no desire to attract his attention.
    Mrs. Merlin perched atop Penelope’s Coach wallet, arms on hips, a waspish expression on her face. For the first time, Penelope noticed she wore a tiny pair of reading glasses perched on her nose. Her hair, fiery orange-red streaked with silver, stood in wispy angles out from around her head, revealing ears that winked with red and green stones pinned to their lobes.
    “Suffering in silence has never been my style. Don’t get me wrong, dear. I appreciate being rescued, but I’ll have you know the buses of the Rapid Transit Authority provide a smoother ride than you and that wobbling purse.”
    “Well, it’s not as if I fainted on purpose.”
    “As hot as it is inside here, I can believe that. I do need some fresh air.” Mrs. Merlin looked up, hope in her eyes. “Let me out of here?”
    Penelope glanced toward the driver’s seat. “I can’t do that now.”
    Mrs. Merlin wagged a minuscule forefinger and Penelope felt as chastised as she had the one time she’d been called into the principal’s office in grade school. “Don’t ever say anything can’t be done.”
    “But there are some things—”
    “How did I get so unlucky as to land in a lawyer’s clutches! Always an answering argument.” Mrs. Merlin touched her forefingers to her lips, then to her temples. “I promise the goddess of flame and light that if she helps me out of this mess I’ll be ever so careful in the future.”
    Goddess of flame and light? Penelope laughed, a shade hysterically.
    “Only the ignorant laugh at the unknown,” Mrs. Merlin said softly.
    Penelope pressed her lips closed. She stared into her purse. Slowly she said, “You know, you’re absolutely right about that. I apologize.”
    “Good. Now can I get out of here?”
    Penelope exhaled a big breath. Reaching into her purse, she extended two fingers. Mrs. Merlin climbed quite nimbly on, then settled onto the palm of Penelope’s hand, still clutching the long brown stick.
    Measuring with her eye, Penelope figured the tiny woman stood about as high as a can of soda. She set her on the seat next to her purse, checking to make sure the driver kept his eyes on the sports