10

      STRETCHED OUT FULL LENGTH ON one of the leather sofas in the library, Piper slept with the same focused intensity that she worked. Duncan leaned back in his chair and watched her, fascinated. A short time earlier, he’d opened the sliding doors to the terrace to alleviate some of the stuffiness of the room, and the only sounds that interrupted the silence were the breeze stirring the pines and the occasional call of a bird. Alba slept in the one remaining patch of sunlight she could find near the open doors.

      He and Piper had worked for nearly two hours on the RPK files before she’d taken one to the sofa and stretched out with it. For about five minutes she’d lain on her stomach, propping herself up with her elbows. Then her head had simply fallen onto the report she’d been reading and she’d dropped into sleep as abruptly and thoroughly as an infant.

      She hadn’t moved an inch since. It was little wonder that she was exhausted. They’d had quite a couple of days. And though they hadn’t discovered anything yet in the files, they’d each made their way through two more boxes.

      Better than that, he’d gotten a feeling that they were going to find something in them. He’d been through the files before, of course. He’d started on them the day that the verdict had been handed down on Lightman’s appeal. But he hadn’t had even a trace of a feeling then.

      What was different now was that he was working with Piper. And to his surprise, he was enjoying it. Bouncing ideas off her and talking about them was nearly as exciting as making love to her.

      He’d always preferred to work alone. Even his brothers had been aware of that. During those times when he’d gone into the field, he’d had partners; that was standard protocol. But in his office at Quantico, he usually kept the door closed because he didn’t like interruptions or idle chatter.

      From the time they’d reentered the library, Piper had offered neither. Instead, she’d seemed as totally absorbed in the work as he. Whatever his motivations, Patrick Lightman had made a mistake by taking a personal interest in Piper. For a moment, Duncan’s mind flashed to those seconds in the diner when Lightman had been playing the video clip, and he freed the anger that he worked hard to keep on a very tight leash.

      He’d been right about the fact that Lightman had been stalking Piper. But she may have been right about the reason. Maybe in a twisted way, he did want to protect her. Maybe.

      More than likely, Lightman was jealous that someone else was stalking her and had decided to get even. Either way, the man was going down. He shifted his eyes to the boxes of files. The answer was in them somewhere, and she was going to lead him to it the same way she’d led him to the sapphire earring.

      But where else was she going to lead them both? She’d made clear what she wanted. Simple, uncomplicated, no-strings sex—anytime, anyplace. The idea certainly held appeal. And it had held a lot of appeal for him in the past. Relationships demanded time. They also demanded risks, ones he’d studiously avoided. His mother had taken that risk. He believed that she’d truly loved his father, and when she’d had to face and accept the fact that he’d never loved her or his sons, he’d seen the price she’d had to pay. Then he’d watched her spend a great deal of her life trying to avoid taking that risk again.

      So that summer, when he and his brothers were ten, she’d agreed to have a summer romance with A.D. Whatever one called it—a summer romance, a fling, an affair or no-strings sex on demand, the concept hadn’t changed. Keep it simple.

      The smart thing to do was to play it Piper’s way and do just that. He could go to her right now and join her on that couch. In minutes, seconds even, he could wake her and arouse her. He could taste her and experience the thrill, the incredible generosity of her response, and he could sink into her and lose himself in her again. Just the thought of it was enough to have everything in him hardening. Yearning. They could be moving together in that lightning-fast rhythm that he could only create with her. The thought of it had him aching.

      He wanted to touch her. He couldn’t seem to get enough of simply running his hands over her skin. Softly and slowly. He imagined tracing that delicate cheekbone with his fingers, then the strong line of her jaw. In his mind, he already smelled the faint scent of summer flowers in her hair. Next he’d explore the slender line of her neck, then her collarbone and that surprisingly muscled arm. Those amber eyes would be open by then. He pictured them golden and clouded with sleep, watched them focus and darken as he turned her, straddled her on the couch, and continued to touch her.

      As the images grew more and more clear in his mind, his blood began to pound and the ache inside of him intensified. She would reach for him, eager to make her own demands. That much he knew. So he’d capture those slender wrists, hold them over her head, and continue to savor the slow heating of her skin and the husky sound of her voice as she said his name.

      He clamped his fingers on the arms of the chair as his mind flashed to another scenario. He imagined freeing her hands and lowering his mouth to hers. He was half out of his chair when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He slipped quietly through the sliding glass doors to the terrace. A quick glance at the caller ID told him it was his brother Cam.

      “Problem or favor?” Duncan asked.

      “Question. When were you going to get around to telling me that you found the second sapphire earring?”

      Shit, Duncan thought. Connecting the dots in his head, he remembered that he’d told Daryl, and Piper had relayed the news to Vi. Obviously, one of them had passed the news along.

      “Vi told Adair you and Piper found the earring in one of the caves where I killed you and Reid when