by Faye Avalon
Just then, Petra heard the front door to the apartment close and knew that Zack had returned from the local shop where he’d been getting fresh milk for their morning coffee. “What time’s your flight?”
“Two. We wanted to get to the airport in plenty of time.”
“You’ll call me when you get there? Let me know if Danny’s okay.”
“Of course I will, but Danny’s so excited about his first flight. God, Petra. I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank Zack for this.”
But she did, Petra thought, as her heart overflowed. If Zack stood in front of her now, she had a feeling her heart would simply fall out of her chest and land at his feet.
She said her good-byes to Lizzie, took a few deep breaths to calm her own excitement for her friends, and went in search of Zack.
She found him in the kitchen, looking drop-dead gorgeous in dark, tailored jeans and a black shirt rolled to the elbows. He’d left the top three buttons of his shirt unfastened, and her mouth went dry at the sight of his thick neck and corded muscles. He was sporting a nice layer of designer stubble, courtesy of her earlier comment when they’d woken for some very early morning sex, and she’d mentioned that she liked the sexy graze of his beard against her pussy.
He looked her up and down, appreciation ripe in his gaze. “It looks good on you, Brooks.” Without taking his eyes off her, he popped the milk in the refrigerator. “But come to think of it, that’s my favorite shirt.” He walked toward her with a swagger. “I want it back.”
Seeing as most of the buttons were yet to be fastened, he had the shirt open before she could respond. His hands cupped her breasts, sending shockwaves of desire straight to her core.
His easy grin hiked her hormones even higher. But first they had to talk.
“I’ve just had a phone call,” Petra said as he slid his arms beneath the shirt to settle on her naked ass. “From Lizzie.”
She watched his response carefully. His nostrils flared a little, and his hands stilled.
“Why didn’t you want me to know?”
He removed his hands from around her and slid them into his trouser pockets. “Because it’s no big deal.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s a big deal. You paid for everything. Flights, Danny’s treatment, hotels…”
He turned toward the counter with a shrug. “So?”
“So, why? Why would you do that?”
“Because he’s the kid of a couple I used to go to school with. It was taking forever to get the money together, so I thought I’d hurry things along.”
“It was incredibly generous of you.”
“It’s fine.” He busied himself pouring water into the percolator. “Like I said, no biggie.”
Since his mood had changed to one of flippant dismissal, Petra knew there was more to it. “Why are you acting like you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Because I don’t. I did a favor for a family that’s struggling. I can afford it. The cost of it won’t even make a dip in my profit margins.”
She doubted that. Private treatment, five-star hotels, first-class flights. They didn’t exactly come cheap. “Then why didn’t you want me to know? You surely realized that I’d be able to work out that the fund money wasn’t yet sufficient to cover the trip.”
One look at his face told her he hadn’t realized that. He spooned coffee into the container and switched on the coffee machine. “I didn’t want you thinking that this…” He waggled his fingers between them. “That what we’ve got going had anything to do with it.”
“Why would I think that?”
He shrugged. “You had me down as a chancer, a man willing to bend whatever rules I needed to bend to make sure I got my own way.”
She came next to him, turning so she could lean back against the counter. “I still don’t get it.”
He took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh. “I didn’t want you thinking I’d arranged it all with the sole purpose of getting you in the sack. That my helping them was in any way conditional on us sleeping together.”
“Since they were virtually packing for the airport before you’d even got my panties off, I’d say that wasn’t a possibility. A bit like closing the gate after the proverbial horse had bolted.”
He ran his hand through his hair, the frustrated gesture of a man backing himself into a corner and not really knowing how he’d gotten there. “Yeah, well. That bid…”
“Okay, that was possibly for the express aim of getting me in the sack,” she said ruefully. “And I was well aware of that. But this…this had to have been arranged well before that. What if I’d refused to sleep with you? What if I’d told you where to shove your one hundred grand? Would you have cancelled the flights, Danny’s treatment?”
“Of course I bloody wouldn’t.”
“Well, there you are then.” She smiled at his dark and ominous glare. “My having sex with you was a very pleasurable addendum to what you’d already arranged.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Addendum?”
“Yeah. A very pleasurable one.” She slid the shirt from one shoulder, making sure he got a flash of breast in the bargain. “By the way, when you were getting the milk, I had a look through your toy drawer.”
His eyes glinted, any traces of the exasperated male no longer in evidence as he turned to her. “Find anything interesting?”
She walked backward out of the kitchen, giving him a come-hither look as she went. “You won’t know that until you come back to the bedroom, will you?”
He switched the percolator off and followed her. “You kill me, Brooks. You fucking kill me.”
She grinned and turned toward the bedroom, letting the shirt slide all the way to the floor.
“But, Cunningham. What a way to go.”
The End
www.fayeavalon.com
Other Books by Faye Avalon:
www.evernightpublishing.com/faye-avalon
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Evernight Publishing
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