by Lucy Monroe
“I don’t plan to give you a choice in the matter.”
Okay. That was it. She was dreaming. Men like Ethan did not have these kinds of discussions. He wasn’t the type to kiss and tell. Which made his comments all the more jarring to her. Nor was he the type to announce his most recent liaison to the office staff. He was too suave…not some primitive Neanderthal who warned other men off what he considered his woman.
Definitely a dream. Because even primitive men didn’t have this sort of discussion over her. Not Beth Whitney, who would have made an ideal small-town librarian in another life.
The dream had started yesterday morning when her dad practically ordered her to take an agent’s role in a case. That just wasn’t normal either. No…maybe it had started when Alan showed up in front of her desk and her dad said he was the new hire. Yes, she liked that scenario better. She nodded to herself. That’s definitely when she’d started dreaming.
So, he wasn’t here. Neither was Ethan. It was all just a really involved, really long dream. And she should wake up any second now to two hungry furballs and an apartment that had never been invaded by Ethan Crane.
“Are you okay, Sunshine?” the dream Ethan asked.
The dream Alan’s brows furrowed. “She looks odd.”
“Elizabeth.” That was not a tone she liked hearing in her dreams and she frowned her disapproval.
She let her gaze slide to her dad. “I’m dreaming and I want you all to disappear right now. There are other ways I prefer to spend my fantasy time.”
The dream office environment did not dissolve to make way for a more pleasant subconscious exercise in imagination.
And all three men now looked at her with varying levels of concern.
Until Ethan’s face creased with a slow, knowing smile, his green eyes lit with wicked lights. “This isn’t a dream, Sunshine. Neither was last night. You’re no longer fantasizing your way through life. You are living it.”
“Last night?” her father asked in an ominous voice, as if he’d just gotten the implication of all that Ethan had been saying.
Ethan shrugged. “We’re working together, Whit. Don’t get in the way.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“And you assigned her to my case. Live with it.”
The outer office door opened and Bennett Vincent walked in, an older woman following him. “I’ve brought down the new hire like you said to, boss.”
The lines on the woman’s face declared she was easily in her sixties, but her fiery orange hair and lively expression said she was far from retirement. She gave the men a once-over, sizing each one up with keen blue eyes before nodding briskly toward Beth. “I’m Maude and I hear I’ve got two days to learn my job before you go gallivanting. My favorite kind of challenge, but we’d better get to it, missy.”
Maude had the voice of a drill sergeant and for some reason, that struck Beth as hilariously funny. She burst into laughter. If the sound was a bit hysterical, she could be forgiven. No way was this a dream because this woman had too much presence not to be real. Which meant everything else was real, too. Darn.
She’d almost convinced herself otherwise.
Maude nodded approvingly, her head moving in a single bob of military precision. “I like to work with a woman who has a sense of humor.”
Beth got her mirth under control and stuck her hand out, relieved her unrestrained humor had not offended her new assistant. “Beth Whitney. It’s a pleasure to meet you. As you said, we’ve got a lot to do…”
She turned to the men standing around her desk. “If you will excuse us, gentlemen.” Then without waiting to see if they took the hint, she dismissed them by turning toward Maude. “We’ll start by familiarizing you with my setup. We’ll train you on my computer system and then set you up with your own when I get back from my upcoming assignment.”
“Sounds efficient.”
And Beth got the distinct impression that to Maude, that was high praise. Beth launched into an explanation of her early morning routine to which the older woman listened to avidly. However, part of Beth was attuned and waiting for the men to leave. She didn’t know when her dad and Alan left, but she could tell when Ethan did. The air around her stopped crackling.
“Well done,” Maude said.
Beth looked up. “Excuse me?”
“You handled the testosterone brigade with just the right amount of authority. An admin has to establish her boundaries and let the suits know where she stands from the get-go.”
“I agree,” Beth said, certain that Maude would have no issues with that aspect of her job.
By the end of the day, she was confident the older woman wouldn’t have any problems, period. She was an absolute dynamo and Beth felt better about leaving than she had since agreeing to the assignment. Maude even finalized her travel arrangements to Portland International Airport. She booked a seat for Ethan on her father’s instructions as well, though Beth didn’t understand why he was accompanying her to the interview.
She asked about it immediately after arriving at his apartment that night. It was actually the entire ground floor of a three-story brick house on the outskirts of the city on a street lined with trees and pristine sidewalks, though the neighborhood was older. He had chosen a similar color scheme to hers, but with a very different overriding theme. The influence of his home state was subtle, but unmistakable. His dark chocolate leather furniture and solid wood tables had a western feel that was both stylish and comfortable.
He had few knickknacks and almost no artwork on the walls, and yet the living area did not feel sanitized, simply uncluttered.
He hung her jacket in his entry closet as he answered her question. “Your dad and I decided I would play the possessive boyfriend.”
He came back into the living room, where she sat at one end of the long sofa. He was wearing the same dark jeans he’d had on earlier, but he’d put on a snug-fitting Henley with them and taken off his boots and socks. His feet were very masculine. And dark. Like he’d been barefoot in the sun a lot. He hadn’t gotten that way in D.C. But she knew his extreme sports took him south frequently.
He poured her a glass of wine from the bottle chilling in a bucket on his big, square coffee table. “I’ll call you several times a day, show up to take you to lunch almost every day, drive you to work, and pick you up. That sort of thing. It will give me a chance to be on-site more than I would otherwise and will establish a precedent for you staying in pretty constant contact with me.”
She took a sip of the wine. It was a Riesling and the tangy sweetness slid over her tongue with familiar pleasure. “Mmm. This is my favorite kind of wine.”
“I know.”
“You do?” She didn’t remember telling him. “I didn’t think we’d discussed culinary preferences last night. Though we probably should have.”
“We’ve known each other for two years, Beth. My knowledge of you is not limited to what we discussed yesterday.”
“Of course.” She just thought he hadn’t noticed. “Do you think Prescott will buy the overly possessive boyfriend bit?”
Ethan shook his head, his expression remonstrative. “I’m good at my job, Beth. I’ll be very convincing as the jealous, possessive boyfriend. Trust me.”
Suddenly the events of the morning started to make more sense. “You and Dad talked about this yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yes, why?”
“You were getting into character,” she mused, both relieved and somewhat deflated at the same time.
“What are you talking about?”
“This morning. When you were going all macho primitive with Alan. That was all about you being in character.” She took another sip of wine and tried to squelch even the tiniest niggle of disappointment at the realization.
Ethan leaned back on the sofa and put his bare feet up on the coffee table. “You don’t see me as the macho, primitive type?”
“Macho yes, primitive no.”
He did that thi
ng with his eyebrow, lifting one in silent inquiry. “Hmmm…”
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He shifted a little and her gaze traveled down his body involuntarily. Muscles bulged against the black denim on his thighs, but those bare feet snagged her attention and held on. It felt intimate, sitting there like that. Was that because of last night, or because there was something personal about seeing a man’s feet? Maybe if they lived in Hawaii, or even Southern California, it wouldn’t feel like this. But D.C. was not a barefoot town. Far from it. Which made this little scenario feel intimate…just like the night before.
Had she really flashed him with her panties?
She’d lost her mind, but that was better than losing her heart. And she wasn’t convinced that organ was in-vulnerable.
“And if I told you that I don’t consider it primitive to tell the man who stood you up at the altar three years ago to mind his own business?”
Chapter 8
She licked her lips and forced herself to meet his eyes again. He was watching her with another indecipherable look.
Still, whatever he said, she knew that wasn’t Ethan’s normal modus operandi. She just shook her head in answer and said, “I’m a little worried about this whole playacting thing.”
“It’s not all an act now is it?”
She didn’t want to talk about that at this particular moment. “I mean this new thing…I don’t think I’m going to be able to respond naturally to the possessive boyfriend type. It’s likely to embarrass and maybe even annoy me and I don’t know if I can hide that.”
“Don’t bother trying. Both reactions will just make you appear more real to the perp.”
“I don’t know…”
“Trust me, Sunshine. I know what I’m talking about. The possessive boyfriend bit is going to explain your job changes, too…all of them.”
“How?”
“We’ve been together for two years—the closer we stick to the truth, the easier the deception will be to carry out—and you quit your job investment counseling to take a position that gave you more time with me. Now I want you to move across country with me, so I can explore my artistic muse on the West Coast. In this scenario, I like the idea of you working part-time because it makes you even more accessible.”
Turning to face Ethan, she slipped off her shoes and then curled her feet under her on the sofa. “Any woman who puts up with that sort of possessiveness needs a lesson in assertiveness.”
“Are you saying you’d never compromise your lifestyle for someone you love?”
“Would you?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “I plan to play the annoying, in your face, needy boyfriend who hides that need behind arrogance. And no, I wouldn’t normally be that way. But I believe that there are a lot of relationships that would do better if one or both people learned to compromise.”
“Did your parents…for each other?”
“All the time. They still do. And they taught us all to compromise for the family. It isn’t always easy, but it works and we may live several states apart, but we’re still close.”
“I like that.” In fact, to her way of thinking, it sounded like Heaven.
“They’d like you, too, Beth. Mama especially. She likes a feisty woman.”
“You think I’m feisty?”
“A total firecracker. You try to hide it with your quiet ways, but you’re damn good at getting your way and you don’t play emotionally manipulative games to do it either.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve known you for two years.”
“You’ve worked with me, that’s not the same as knowing me.”
“I’ve watched you, baby. I know you.”
He was starting with the “baby” thing again. She wasn’t going to survive it. Or at least, her good intentions weren’t. “If you knew me so well, why didn’t you know it was going to seriously peeve me if you made allusions to last night in front of Alan and my dad?”
“You want to hide our relationship while you keep Alan dangling?” he asked instead of answering.
“No. I want my private life to stay that way and we don’t have a relationship.”
“You can say that after last night?” He hadn’t moved a muscle and yet she felt not exactly threatened…but sort of intimidated. How did he do that?
She wasn’t backing down though. “It was phone sex.” Even if she couldn’t believe she’d done that with him and had never, ever, ever, ever considered doing anything like that with another man. “It wasn’t the bonding moment of the twenty-first century.”
He sat up and put his wineglass down on the table in one fluid movement, his green eyes hot with purpose. “It was incredible and tonight is going to be mind blowing.”
He wasn’t leaning forward, but he felt entirely too close.
She leaned back, into the sofa, with no noticeable improvement and took a hasty sip of wine. “I’m not so sure about tonight.”
He removed her wineglass from her hand with deliberate movements. “You said you were. The time for waffling is over, baby.”
“You said you wouldn’t push me,” she said in a breathy voice she barely recognized. She was not a breathy-type person. She was practical. Certain. Responsible. But he made her feel breathless, undecided, and reckless.
Not good.
“I didn’t push you, Beth. You’re the one that suggested we make love last night, not me.” He was leaning forward now, his solid pecs too close to her chest.
If she breathed in too deeply her nipples would brush against him. The temptation to do so was almost too strong to deny. “We didn’t make love. You’ve never even kissed me.”
“We definitely did make love and I can take care of the kissing thing right now.”
She jumped backward and toppled off the couch before he could pull her into his arms. Scrambling to her feet, she demanded, “Answer a question for me first.”
He stood and came around the table, giving no regard whatsoever to her obvious bid to increase her personal space. Gently curling his fingers around her upper arms, he held her in front of him. And the worst part was she didn’t mind. At least her body didn’t. It craved the physical closeness.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Are you trying to establish a sexual relationship with me for the sake of the case?”
“That damn Hyatt. He planted the idea in your head, didn’t he?”
“Actually, no. I may be inexperienced compared to your other women, but I’m not naïve, nor am I stupid. It occurred to me this morning. You’ve known me for two years and never so much as asked me to coffee and then all of the sudden, you want access to my panties.”
“I like your panties,” he said with a feral grin.
“Ethan! Be serious.” Even though said undergarments were safely hidden behind a pair of black slacks, she was acutely aware of their skimpy nature all of a sudden. “I…um…I asked you a question and I’d appreciate an honest answer.”
He drew her in, just like a fish on a line, and she let him until their bodies were just touching. Electric jolts surged through her body until it was all she could do not to rub herself all over him like a feline looking for comfort.
“And if I was doing it just for the sake of the case, could you turn me down?” he asked softly, his lips a breath from hers, but not quite touching.
She wanted that touch. She wanted the kiss he’d offered. And she wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything. Considering the kind of desires she’d known since meeting him, that was saying a lot.
He’d said a lot, too…in the way he’d worded his question. Not would you, but could you. He knew how much she wanted him and was not above capitalizing on the fact because he had taken her words and their encounter on the phone last night very seriously.
In many ways, that was a good thing…it made a strong statement about his own integrity, but she wanted to take back last night and the commitment she’d made to share her body with him. Didn�
��t she?
“I don’t know if I could say no,” she admitted. “I doubt I could have turned you down last night, even if you’d pushed it. But I do know that whatever happens between us, I’d rather go forward without a blindfold.”
“We can have a lot of fun with blindfolds.”
She rolled her eyes, while her body throbbed in reaction to his words. “No doubt.”
He sighed and stepped back, letting go of her arms. “I won’t deny that the timing has something to do with the case, but I’ve always wanted you, Sunshine.”
“Always? I don’t think so.”
“You think I can fake the kind of hard-ons you gave me last night?”
“You’re a professional. I’d say you know how to fake sexual interest, yes.”
He ran his fingers through his sandy hair. “You’re right. I do, but damn it…that kind of thing doesn’t give me erections hard enough to drill through rock. Only you do that.”
She didn’t know if she could believe him. “Would you lie for a case?”
“If it was necessary. Yes. But it isn’t in this instance. I don’t need to lie because the truth serves me better. I want you and I always have. The case will be easier in some ways because of that, but harder in others.”
“Why harder?”
“When I’m with you, my libido tends to take over, but when I’m on a case, I need to have my brain engaged at all times. It worries me, but there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about it.”
“Really?”
“Really. I thought about talking to Whit about getting another agent to take your place, but frankly…with the way I feel about you right now, I don’t think I could successfully manufacture the relationship with another woman.” And he didn’t sound happy about it.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He smiled, the look so sexy, her insides were melting in little puddles. “I’m not.”
“How do you feel about me?”
“I just told you. I want you so much I’m ready to explode just thinking about sinking my cock inside you.”
That wasn’t what she meant, but the fact that he answered that way made it clear his interest in her was purely sexual. His emotions weren’t involved. “You can be incredibly crude.”
