By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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scooped up a sweater and her purse from a nearby table. “Lock the door after me and key in the alarm when I leave.”
Piper found herself doing just that. Then she narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t like her aunt to just hurry off like that—without offering her coffee or homemade scones or something. But Vi MacPherson was no dummy. Could be she’d picked up on the attraction that was sizzling in the air between Duncan and her. So she was giving them some privacy.
“Time to put it to good use,” she murmured to the dog as she led the way down the hall. When they reached the library door, the dog pattered on past her into the kitchen and Piper watched her stretch out in a patch of sunlight.
Okay, the verdict was unanimous. She and Duncan needed privacy. Hadn’t she already decided how to put it to good use? Straightening her shoulders, she opened the door and stepped into the library. Books were everywhere, spilling off the shelves into random piles on the floor. Dust motes fought for space in the shafts of light that poured in through the tall windows and sliders. And she could see Duncan’s silhouette at the far end of the room. He was seated at a desk, his back to her. And still she felt the incredible pull on her senses.
She looked at him and she wanted. It was that simple. That primitive. Her throat went dry as dust. And she wasn’t even aware that she’d started walking toward him until she passed the fireplace.
“I’ve lined up the cases my unit has been able to attribute to the RPK,” he said without turning.
Piper stopped and glanced at the boxes that were lined up neatly along the wall between the fireplace and where he was sitting.
“I thought I’d start with the most recent. You can start at the beginning and we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.”
“Good plan,” she said. And he’d started without her. The lid on the box closest to his desk was open and he had file folders stacked beside him.
“Vi said you didn’t have breakfast so I fixed a plate for you,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
She was, but not for food. Still, when she glanced over and saw the tray her heart did a funny little bounce. It held a carafe of coffee, two cups, a plate of her aunt’s scones with honey and a couple of bananas.
She’d taken care of herself for years, ever since she’d left the castle to go to college. But Duncan wanted to feed her. Pizza and wine last night, bananas and scones this morning. She moved to the table, picked a banana up.
“While you eat, I want to talk to you about us.”
The words, the way he’d said them, had her forgetting all about the banana. A replay of the scenes of the morning flashed through her mind. Duncan standing in the driveway telling her to join him when she was dressed. Duncan informing Russell Arbogast that she was here on a working vacation. And now, Duncan providing breakfast and lining up her work for her. Clearly, the plan was to keep their relationship strictly professional.
To hell with that.
And he still wasn’t looking at her. She glanced down at the banana and stifled the urge to throw it at him.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s talk.” They were going to do a lot more than that.
He turned to look at her. She stopped short when she saw he was wearing glasses, and everything inside of her went into a meltdown. They made him look even sexier, which just wasn’t fair. She could hear her brain cells clicking off.
“Take those glasses off. They’re killing me.”
“Killing you?” He took them off and set them carefully on the desk.
Piper felt her knees again. “I have a few things to say to you.” At least she had when she’d been talking to Alba. “White knight,” she managed.
“White knight?” Duncan swiveled his chair toward her and stretched out his legs. “You’re going to have to explain.”
Okay, the glasses were gone, but that incredible body was still there. And right now, just looking at him with those long legs and the hands steepled together had her tapping into all of her mental reserves.
She fastened her gaze on his face. “You and your brothers have all inherited the white knight gene. You like to ride to the rescue and save damsels in distress.” She paused to point the banana at him. “You don’t have to take care of me or feed me. I can take care of myself and I make my own decisions. I agreed to come up here and work with you on the Lightman files and look for those sapphires, but we also agreed on something else. I get to decide if we’re going to explore what’s … what’s happening between us.”
He opened his mouth, but she jabbed the banana in his direction again. “I know what you’re going to say. I’m in danger, and if we decide to pursue what we started when we kissed in the alley yesterday, we might get distracted. It might be safer and more productive if we just put that all on hold until we can figure out who’s sending me flowers and find another part of Eleanor’s dowry. Plus we have to find something that will put Lightman back in jail.” She waved her free hand at the boxes. “Have I hit the highlights?”
A little uncomfortable and totally fascinated that she’d read him so clearly, Duncan could see why Abe Monticello had hired her. She had a knack for summation that would be a boon to any trial lawyer. Then she stepped fully into one of the shafts of light from the glass behind him, and he became almost as fascinated by the way the sun played up the different colors in her hair.
“Well?” she prompted.
“What?”
“Are you following me?”
He put some effort into gathering his thoughts. “Except for the white knight part, everything you’ve said has crossed my mind.” In fact, the ideas had been spinning on a nonstop carousel ride through his head since she’d crossed the driveway to him that morning. “I’m worried about you.” He told her about the phone calls he’d received from Detective Nelson and his boss. “The person who staged that little scene in your apartment is not giving up. I don’t want to put any added pressure on you.”
“How’s this for pressure? I can’t stop thinking about getting my hands on you.”
“Ditto.” And the only way he was preventing himself from doing just that was by clamping them around the arms of his chair.
“Then why are we talking?” She glanced down at the banana she’d been pointing at him and suddenly tossed it over her shoulder. “I’m betting it’s a lot more distracting to think about having hot monkey sex than it is to actually have it.”
Monkey sex. Duncan’s mind took one long spin.
“You said it was going to be my decision. So, I’m proposing that for the time we are here at the castle, we simply offer each other sex on demand.”
“Sex on demand?”
“Yes. My college roommates used to rave about their buddy-sex arrangements. Today, I think they call it friends with benefits. We just make sex available to each other whenever we want it. It’s perfect for us and our current situation. No strings. No expectations. Anyplace, anytime, any-way-you-want-it sex.”
Duncan felt his mind take another spin. He was skilled at getting into people’s minds, but Piper’s had to be the most fascinating one he’d ever encountered.
“If we can do it anytime we want, maybe we’ll get it out of our systems. At the very least, I can think about RPK or the jerk who sent me those flowers instead of how I’m going to keep myself from jumping you.”
When he said nothing, she frowned at him. “Well, what do you think?”
He registered the annoyance that laced her tone, but thinking had pretty much gone by the wayside. Not that it had done him much good so far. Thinking was what had kept him hesitating. Thinking had kept him away from her for seven long years. “Is there a difference between monkey sex and buddy sex?”