‘We are?’
‘Yes.’ Her answer leaves no room for refusal.
‘Okay.’ I don’t argue. I could do with a drink. Or twenty.
‘I might even go for tits and legs.’
‘Only one,’ I laugh. ‘You can’t break your own rule.’ I keep my eyes on the pile of files before me, resisting the enticement of the forbidden bookshelf in the corner of the library.
‘I feel like living on the edge. You should try it.’
I laugh out loud. Oh, she has no idea. My amused chuckle drowns out the voice in my head a little, the curious, demanding one telling me to dive into that secret compartment again. So I laugh louder, throwing my head back.
‘All right,’ Lucy says, undoubtedly looking at her phone with a wrinkled brow. ‘It isn’t that funny.’
My laughter dissipates. ‘Sorry,’ I sniff, pulling myself together and straightening my blouse along with my face. She blows an exhausted breath down the line, making a harsh crackling sound in my ear. ‘You still walking fast?’ I ask.
‘No, I broke out into a sprint four sentences ago.’
‘Why?’
‘Loose Knickers is in the office with Mark, and I’m not.’
‘Ohhh,’ I breathe, my eyes pulling to that damn bookshelf again.
‘Hey, you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ My reply is automatic, and I conclude quickly that it’s also the truth. I really am fine. More than fine. There’s no need to expand on that. Actually, there is. I’m hopelessly in love with the man who broke into my apartment, forged a sculpture, and meticulously carved out a plan to trick his arch-enemy into buying it. The one who he suspects is responsible for his parents’ deaths. I inwardly laugh. It sounds obscene in my head, too.
‘Looking forward to our night out,’ I say instead.
‘Me too. I’ll call you.’ She hangs up, and I get to my feet quickly before I can allow my thoughts to run wild again. Problem is, they’re not running wild. They’re simply summing up my reality. My crazy, wild reality.
I stare down at the pile of red files before me, my eyeballs beginning to ache from the effort it’s taking me not to look at that bookshelf. And my brain is beginning to ache with my constant screaming demands not to. My foot starts tapping, my thumbnail finding its way to my mouth so my teeth can gnaw on it. When my phone pings in my hand, all of my nervous actions stop dead in their tracks.
You’ve just breached clause 3.7. Strike 1 x
Clause 3.7. Answer a text within five minutes. Strike 1? What’s he suggesting? Three strikes and I’m out? Peeking over my shoulder, I eye the bookshelf with the suspicion it deserves. Get the file. That’s all. Pretend it’s just like any other bookcase in the room. I’m not giving myself enough credit. I can control my curiosity. On a confident nod of my head, I march over to the bookcase, my eyes scanning for the file I need. I find it. Grab it. Turn away from the shelf.
Then the soles of my shoes seem to weld to the carpet. I can’t physically move. I have no clue why. I’ve seen the map, it’ll be nothing new, but I didn’t know what I was looking at back then. Now I’ll know exactly what I’ll be seeing and the significance of it. Or I could just look at Becker’s back. God knows, it’s stunning enough, with or without the masses of ink decorating it. But I have free access to his back now. It’s too easy. Delving into the secret compartment is wrong. Daring. Daring is exciting. Becker has unearthed that daring side in me.
‘Damn you.’ I slowly turn around and bend, peering over the tops of the books that hide the secret compartment. Then my hand is reaching forward of its own volition, feeling for the catch. ‘Where are you?’ I ask myself, my face squished against the wood.
‘Eleanor?’
I jump, dropping the file and smacking the top of my hand on the shelf. ‘Shit.’
‘What are you doing?’ Becker sounds as wary as he does interested.
I stare blankly at the tower of red files before me, not daring to confront him until I’ve nailed my poker face. That could take a while. I feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights, all wide-eyed and startled.
I clear my throat. ‘Just collecting one of the files you need.’ Dipping, I gather up the leather book and straighten, then faff with it for a few seconds, biding my time.
‘And do you have it?’ he asks coolly, his voice rising as he comes closer.
Wiping all guilt from my face, I fix an unruffled smile to it – or the closest I can muster – and turn, holding up the file. ‘Yes.’
He’s frowning so much he looks like he has a six-pack on his forehead. And for some reason I might never fathom, I start giggling. Why am I giggling? Guilt? Distraction? If so, it isn’t working. That six-pack on his brow is now an eight-pack. It’s the most impressive frown I’ve ever seen. ‘I know about the map,’ I blurt out, letting my arms drop to my side, exasperated. I can’t keep it to myself. It’ll drive me potty. And anyway, no secrets. That’s what he said.
I feel the stress alleviate as a result of my confession. It’s probably a premature feeling, given Becker hasn’t shown any reaction yet. His forehead is still keeping close company with that eight-pack.
Then it vanishes from his face. ‘I know.’ He slips his hands into his pockets, lowering his chin as if waiting for more, but he goes on when I don’t give him anything else. I have nothing else to give. He knows I know? ‘You’ve traced it, licked it.’ He’s being suggestive, and it’s having the desired effect. I cross my legs in my standing position, rolling my eyes. ‘Played guess the country on it,’ he adds.
It’s almost like he’s speaking in code, telling me in his own little way that I shouldn’t push any further. ‘I’ve done none of those things on the original,’ I murmur. There will be no silent mutual agreement here. I know, and I’m not going to pretend that I don’t. What does it matter, anyway? The map’s the map, whether on his back or on paper.
‘I see.’ He definitely looks nervous now, and I start to mull over why that might be while Becker watches me like a hawk.
He told me it was somewhere safe but made it equally clear that he wasn’t going to share where exactly that was. It didn’t matter, I already knew, but it would have saved this awkward moment had he told me. Besides, it’s not somewhere safe if little old me found it by accident. It’s also plastered all over his back. That’s a risk, especially considering how many women Becker has bedded. I wince at my stray thoughts.
‘How’d you find it?’ he asks.
‘I wasn’t looking.’
‘So how did you find it?’
‘When I was sorting the shelves,’ I explain, uneasy under his interrogating presence. ‘My hand caught the latch and before I knew it—’
‘You’d reached in, pulled the lever, opened the door, taken the book out, opened it, and found the map?’
I swallow. It sounds wrong when he says it like that, but that’s pretty much the crux of it. ‘Yeah.’ I can’t shirk him. He has me pinned, and I practically handed him the hammer and nail. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘I know.’
‘Then why are you looking at me like you want to eradicate that risk?’
A smile breaks from nowhere, throwing me for a hoop. ‘I knew you’d found it, Eleanor.’ He takes a step towards me, and I instinctively retreat.
‘How?’
‘I could smell your perfume on the wood.’
‘Are you serious?’ Like a twat, I bring my wrist to my nose and sniff.
‘Plus you didn’t engage the catch just so.’ Becker raises his eyebrows. ‘If you’re going to be my girlfriend, princess, you need to work on your sleuth skills.’
‘Fuck off, Hunt,’ I retort, full of indignation. Goddamn me, I thought I hid my tracks well.
He chuckles. ‘I would have told you, had I not known you’d found it. But you did. So I didn’t.’
‘Re
ally?’ I ask.
‘Yeah. Because loving is trusting, right?’
My mouth goes slack, dropping open as I regard him. ‘You showed me the secret entrance to The Haven weeks ago.’
‘I guess I was trusting you before I realised I was in love with you.’
My thudding heart skips a few beats, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip. ‘God, you’re adorable sometimes.’ I say, moving in and hugging him as he laughs. All of my striving for a happy-medium place where work and personal are defined and understood just isn’t going to work. I reach up on my tiptoes to sink my face into his neck, syphoning off the warmth of his skin.
‘This isn’t very professional,’ Becker mumbles into my shoulder, keeping his hands to himself.
‘Shut up.’
‘Okay.’ He quickly seizes me and lifts me to his chest, squeezing the life out of me.
We feel free and easy right now, but would I be a fool to assume that this is it, that this is how it’ll always be? Becker’s inexperience and his self-admission, the one that sees him immune to heartbreak, have a small space in the back of my mind. I’ll never break his heart. I just fear what preventive measures he’ll take in order to eliminate the risk completely.
‘Gramps doesn’t know about that hiding place,’ he says out of the blue.
‘Oh . . .’ Of course he doesn’t. If Mr H knew where the map was, he’d have given it to the museum himself. ‘And you don’t want him to know because he’ll get rid of it.’
‘Precisely. Then God knows whose hands it could fall into. It’s safer with me.’
‘But you don’t want to find the sculpture?’ I ask, narrowing my eyes and refusing to acknowledge the little voice in my head that’s begging him to say yes. Yes, he does want to find the sculpture.
‘No, I don’t. If it’s even anywhere to be found.’ He releases me and raises his eyebrows, as if he’s reading my mind.
‘Good.’ I say decisively, moving back, smiling sweetly. Besides, it’s a known fact that it could be a myth. There are even tales of Michelangelo destroying it himself. ‘But if it is out there, you don’t want to find it but you don’t want anyone else to find it either?’ Namely, Brent Wilson.
‘Precisely.’ He curls an arm around my waist and hauls me back into him. ‘The map stays with me.’
I’m kind of glad. Why? ‘Okay,’ I agree, and he wrinkles his nose, rubbing it with mine.
‘Okay,’ he counters, and we stare at each other for a while, both of us narrowing an eye on each other. I want you to find the sculpture! ‘I’m glad you’re at peace with your decision.’
He laughs, hugging me, as the library door opens. I look over Becker’s shoulder to see Mrs Potts hovering at the entrance. ‘Am I interrupting?’
I don’t scramble free of Becker’s embrace, and Mrs Potts doesn’t eye us despairingly. In fact, there’s a certain fondness on her old face. ‘No,’ I answer when it becomes obvious that Becker isn’t going to, choosing to keep hold of me with his face hiding in my neck.
‘Oh good.’ She pats down the violet bomb on her head and purses her lips at Becker. ‘I have a call you might want to take.’
I try to break free, but he’s having none of it. ‘Take a message,’ he orders flatly.
‘It’s Brent Wilson.’
That soon gets Becker moving, along with my heart rate, which goes from content and settled to speeding and stressed in the space of a second. And it pisses me off. Just the mention of Brent’s name pisses me off, as well as the natural reaction it spikes in me. Becker looks at Mrs Potts. ‘What does he want?’
‘He wouldn’t say.’
My eyes bat back and forth between them. ‘I’m busy,’ he spits, waving a hand dismissively.
Mrs Potts backs out of the room on an accepting nod, closing the door softly behind her. ‘Do you think he knows?’ I have to ask. The man paid a cool fifty million for a lump of marble that Becker lovingly crafted and unlawfully authenticated. If he finds out, the shit will hit the fan and splatter as far as Rome. Why else would he be calling Becker now?
Becker stops by one of the gold ladders and glances across the room at me. ‘Knows what?’
I don’t manage to retract my look of incredulity. How can he be so obtuse? ‘About the fake Head of a Faun? The one he paid fifty million for?’
I’m even more stunned when he scoffs, laughing at my perfectly reasonable concern. ‘I’m not worried about that.’
Okay, now I’m just plain confused. ‘Then why are you acting like you’re preparing for war?’
Now he really laughs, but it’s forced. It’s a condescending laugh, and his fingertips slip under his glasses and rub at his sockets. ‘Probably because I am,’ he mutters.
‘What do you mean?’ I’m lost. And then suddenly . . . ‘Wait, you really do think it’s him who broke into my apartment, don’t you?’
Becker pulls off his glasses aggressively, giving himself better access to his eyes so he can go at them like he could be digging for gold. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
‘Okay, forget that. Why is he calling you now? He’s got the sculpture. He’s won. What else could he possibly want from you?’
Becker casts a really? look my way.
‘Me?’ I laugh. That’s ridiculous. ‘The man makes my skin crawl.’
‘That man will do whatever he can to get one up on me, and now I have a sweet weak spot.’ He glares at me accusingly. ‘That’s you, in case you were wondering.’
‘I wasn’t wondering,’ I say tiredly. ‘And has it ever crossed your mind that, actually, he might just want me because I’m me, and not because I’m yours?’ The cheeky fucker.
He twitches, like he could be shaking something off his shoulders, and scowls to himself. ‘Of course he wants you because you’re you. The fact you’re mine is a bonus. For fuck’s sake,’ He shoves his glasses back on and stomps towards the door.
He’s leaving? ‘Becker?’ I call, but I’m ignored, prompting me to go after him. He’s not walking away from me. No way. I catch his arm, just as he pulls the door open, and throw my palm into the wood to push it shut, hindering his escape. ‘Don’t walk away from me.’
I’m taken by surprise when the tables turn and it’s no longer me holding Becker, but him holding me. He moves fast, whirling me around and pushing my front to the door. I gasp, my chest splatting against the heavily carved wood, some protruding parts pressing into the soft curves of my tummy.
‘Shhhh.’ His husky tone penetrates my hearing and his hips lock my lower body in place. He’s aroused. Hard. Sharp. A quick hand grabs the hem of my dress and yanks it up to my waist. I cry out, caught in a confusing mix of guardedness and uncontrollable want. My cheek is squished on the wood, my hands either side of my head, and the quiet instruction in my mind that’s telling me to fight him is being ignored. One finger traces the crease of my arse over my knickers, teasing, stroking, driving me crazy.
The soft bristle on his cheek rubs against mine, and my eyes close, feeling his hot breath spread across my face. ‘Hmmmm,’ he hums, turning his mouth onto my skin and licking a long, wet trail up to my temple.
My muscles lock down, tensing, my knotted mind taking pleasure from the anticipation of his touch. I’m flooded between my thighs, wet and begging, and it’s all beyond my control. ‘Is this your way of marking your territory?’ I ask my darkness.
‘Shut the fuck up, Eleanor,’ he warns, taking the top of my knickers and shoving them down to my thighs. A few blissful moments are spent caressing my still tender skin before he slips his hand between my legs and finds my condition. ‘You want me, baby?’
I groan, fighting the urge to scream my desperation.
‘You want me to plunge deep and hard?’
My hands ball into frustrated fists, ready to pound the wood. The small collection of nerves in the tip of my clitoris are twitching,
vibrating, screaming for contact.
‘Or do you want me to lick you here?’ He sinks two fingers into me and puts weight behind his drive, holding himself deep. My legs begin to wobble, and just when I’m about to defy his insistence on keeping quiet so I can bellow my desire, he pulls free of me harshly and slaps me clean across my arse. I jerk forward, making the huge door rattle on its hinges. ‘Mine,’ he growls, beginning to rub some life back into my burning flesh. ‘If everyone remembers that, then no one will get hurt.’ He pushes his lips to my temple and breathes through his kiss, caging me in from behind as he pulls my knickers into place and my dress back down. I’m dazed, still turned on, and absolutely staggered. There’s a huge part of me that’s thrilled he’s staked such a violent claim, but I can’t ignore the tiny piece of me that’s worried. His promise, and I have no doubt that it’s a promise, isn’t referring to him or me getting hurt. He isn’t speaking of emotional damage to either one of us. He’s talking about physical hurt. I need to avoid Brent Wilson at all costs.
I allow him to turn me in his arms until I’m facing him, my eyes rooted on the knot of his tie. I’m worried about what I might see if I look into his angel eyes, but I’m given little option when my chin is tipped up to meet his face. ‘I love you,’ he says clearly, softly, a million miles away from the threat of his voice a minute ago.
I laugh. I can’t help it. And God love him, he frowns at my reaction to his swinging mood.
‘Have I said something funny?’ he asks, stepping back, injured.
The tips of my fingers meet my forehead and press into my skin. ‘No.’ I shake my head, thinking better than to try and explain. He’s a total novice at affection.
‘Then why are you laughing?’
‘You’re behaving like a Neanderthal.’
His cute head cocks when I glance at him. ‘Explain.’
‘Possessive. Are you going to spank me every time you feel under threat?’
‘I’m not under threat.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ He snubs my claim and puts his hands on my hips, hunkering down to get his eyes level with mine. ‘Because you love me.’ He grins, and I mirror it. ‘Don’t you?’
Wicked Truths (Hunt Legacy Duology Book 2) Page 11
