CHAPTER 3

      After Davian left, walking out of the office while I stood there and refused, refused, refused to look at his beautiful ass in those dark jeans, I dropped my head into my hands. It felt like time for either hysterical laughter or panicked tears, but my body just couldn’t seem to move past the arousal state into something new.

      It didn’t take long for Lily to poke her head in, her already arched eyebrows raised another notch.

      ‘Oh. My. God,’ she breathed. ‘I thought you were going to fuck him right here in your office for the whole world to watch.’

      Lil dropped herself into the chair Davian had vacated. Her stockinged legs were just long enough that she could rest her feet on the corner of the desk. ‘And by the whole world I mean me, of course.’

      Fuck. Yes, that was just what I’d wanted to do to him. Or rather, have him do to me. His presence had dredged up desires I hadn’t had in a long time. Since long before Kyle, who had made it clear early on that kink wasn’t really his thing. I’d agreed, thinking it wasn’t that important. Our sex was vanilla, maybe, but it was good vanilla.

      Now I couldn’t get images of leather and submission out of my mind. I kept thinking about how Davian’s hands would feel capturing my wrists, holding me down. About him fastening a collar of leather about my neck and holding it while I sucked him.

      ‘No,’ I said, unsure what I was even saying no to.

      ‘No, what? Janine, you were practically puddling into an ooey gooey mess of melting chocolate in here.’

      I gave her the look. She was used to that look. It was a look that said please stop talking before I come over there and sit on you.

      It was a threat that clearly didn’t hold as much weight as it used to, because she just kept going.

      ‘OK, fine,’ she said. ‘But at least tell me the rest. Is he looking for some ancient Egyptian script? Some musty old academic bible? Or something juicier? Please say juicier.’ Her tongue flickered out, playing around with her ball piercing.

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not juicy. In fact, I turned him down.’

      She quit playing with her piercing and her mouth dropped open just a little. ‘What? Why? Huh?’ She was pushing her point to the max, playing up the confusion to show me that I’d made a mistake. ‘He’s hot as hell. He wants a book that doesn’t exist. It’s absolutely perfect for your little sleuthing brain.’

      I started to say something, but she wasn’t finished. ‘If you’re going to set up a no-client-fucking policy, this is the wrong time,’ she said. ‘Fuck him and take the job. You can totally do both.’

      Suddenly, I realised that even as Lily was friend-yelling at me, I couldn’t take my eyes off her legs. The sound her stockings made against each other as she shifted her calves was seriously distracting me. How was it possible that I never realised what fantastic legs she had? It wasn’t that I didn’t find girls sexy. I did. It was just that I usually found guys sexier. Besides, Lily was my best friend and the co-owner of my business. There was no way I was going to get involved with her in that way. Again, I mean.

      But watching the way that Lil’s legs were sliding over each other was focusing all of my brain on the heat between my legs.

      What was wrong with me? It was as though since Davian had walked in the front door, I’d been nothing but a single ball of need, rolling around in lust gardens, snorting sex flowers. My own sex-filled version of the foolish lion in the poppy fields of Oz. Except I wouldn’t fall asleep. I’d be so filled with lust that I would kill myself with want.

      ‘Janine?’ Lil poked me with the toe of her shoe.

      ‘Hm?’

      The silence that ensued from her was full of unasked questions. I dragged my gaze from Lil’s legs to her expectant blue eyes.

      ‘You were talking about fucking the sexy dark-haired man who landed on our doorstep a few hours ago,’ she prodded. ‘Or rather talking about not fucking him. No blow job, no book job, neither of which are decisions I understand.’

      I got a hold of myself, shaking my head and focusing on the least sexual thing I could find, a blank spot of wall behind Lily’s head.

      ‘You were talking about fucking him,’ I countered. ‘I was talking about not taking him on as a client.’

      ‘Because you want to fuck him.’

      ‘Lil, you are not helping what is already a very bizarre situation here.’

      Even though I wasn’t looking at her full on, I could tell when she grinned in that sly way she had, letting me know that her intention was the exact opposite of helping.

      ‘Um, hello, he was hot as hell,’ Lily said. ‘And you, my friend, have quite the rampant little libido. If all your little buzzers weren’t going off, I would have been worried about you. Besides, I know Kyle’s awesome, but you have the look of a woman who’s bored to death. So please please please tell me you’re going to go out with this gorgeous hunk of a man.’

      Kyle. Was it awful of me to realise I’d almost forgotten about Kyle and his proposal while I’d been busy with Davian? Probably. But it was true. That was some kind of sign, wasn’t it? And what did she mean, ‘the look of a woman who’s bored to death’?

      ‘All my little buzzers weren’t going off.’

      ‘Liar.’

      ‘He had one of our promo cards,’ I said casually, knowing her well enough to know she’d follow the swerve in the conversation. I only felt slightly bad about using her curiosity to my advantage. ‘Our early ones.’

      Those eyebrows went up again. ‘Our disaster cards?’

      I nodded.

      ‘Odd,’