Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  Aiden had agreed, and so they’d called Mummy and Daddy, who actually sounded thrilled at the prospect of welcoming their errant daughter and her friend into the fold.

  “I guess we should be patient and wait for Chris to get back in touch with us,” Aiden said. “Sonnie isn’t very strong, so I worry about her. I’ll tell you their story when we’re in a quiet space. Did you notice Chris limps, too—not like Sonnie, but he does?”

  “Now you mention it, I did, yes.”

  “Accident on his Harley down in the Keys. Some woman was trying to kill him, and he got dragged by her car.”

  Olivia shuddered at the thought.

  “I ought to make sure you know you’ve got company in the weird family department,” Aiden told her.

  Rain began to fall and the wipers made an even bigger mess of the windshield.

  “My dad didn’t like being married. He liked my mom, I know that, and me, but he didn’t want to be with a wife and a kid. Every minute he wasn’t working, he was hunting or hiking or fishing. I thought he was some sort of adventurer and wanted to be like him till I figured out the only thing he gave his family was money. He provided well for us.

  “Hell, I liked the guy, but he was a lousy husband and father. Dad was what happened to my hands. One time my mother tried to convince him to stick around more. She said she got scared on her own. Know what that man did? Had a seven-foot brick wall put up all around the property, then started with the barbed wire on top. I was fifteen. I went crazy and tore myself up on the wire. I already had enough explaining to do about the father who was never seen unless you were one of his patients—he was a dentist—and why my mom did everything.

  “Anyway, enough of that. It’s all in the past.”

  “But it comes back sometimes. Or it does for me,” Olivia said. “It gives you some extra baggage you’d rather not have.”

  “If you let it.” Aiden’s own words surprised him. When the time was right, he would tell Olivia that she was the reason he was finally turning his back on memories he couldn’t change.

  She nodded, but didn’t comment on what he’d said. “Eton’s nice. Pretty. The famous boy’s school is there. You see them in tails and starched collars. It’s really rather romantic, I suppose.” Aiden was concentrating on signs and on trying to put together the pieces of everything that had happened since he first horned in on Olivia’s e-mail.

  “Windsor ahead,” she said, and he saw an unreal castle on top of a hill, a vast concoction of crenelated towers and turrets with loopholes. Olivia continued, “We go through the edge of Slough. Eton’s not far from the castle. Near the Thames. Mummy and Daddy’s house has a back garden that goes right down to the river.”

  She was jabbering, Aiden thought. He felt her tension. “We’re going to be okay,” he told her. “Believe that.”

  Abruptly, she turned sideways in her seat and drew up her knees. She rested her cheek on ripped gray fabric. “Fats Lemon was the first dead person I’d seen that close. Now there’s this stranger in my darkroom. Both of them were murdered, and we were probably the first on the scene after each crime. We have to be in even more danger, Aiden, and the danger must still be growing. Someone wants to get us arrested, but it hasn’t worked so far. Maybe they’ll decide we know too much and decide to kill us, too.”

  He couldn’t argue with her logic. He wouldn’t. “We are in danger—we have been from the outset—but you’re right, the odds against us have escalated, and it may suit some people to get rid of us. Ryan’s bound to be recovered enough from the beating you gave him to be mixing it up for us again.” He smiled at her, but she bent forward until her forehead rested on his shoulder.

  “It won’t help for us to be scared. That’s what they want. Frightened people are easy targets.”

  “You don’t get frightened.”

  “Sure I do. It just isn’t macho for a guy to run around talking about it. Okay, the next exit is Slough, Eton, Windsor.” Despite the volume of traffic and the sprawling roads, the countryside was a collage of soft greens that managed to look inviting.

  Below the castle, on a road that wound toward Eton, Olivia grew ever more anxious. Aiden had been sweet to share his story about his parents to try to make her feel better, but he wasn’t the one about to face those parents in front of someone he cared for.

  “Now what are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “You see through me. This isn’t easy, but it’s about Mummy and Daddy. Could you please watch what you say?” She wanted to disappear.

  The struggling washers had finally pushed enough rain around to clear some stripes through which Aiden peered. “Would you like to expand on that?”

  “I’d hate to, but I will. Do you think you could sound British? English actually?”

  “No.”

  “I knew it,” she said, facing forward again and flopping back. “You’re going to get shirty. Angry.”

  “I am not getting angry,” he told her. Irritable didn’t qualify.

  “You mustn’t tell Daddy what you do.”

  “You’re going to have to explain what all this is about. Maybe it’s a really bad idea for me to come here.”

  Olivia buried her face in her hands. The odor of petrol that seeped through the bottom of the Mini made her feel sick, and dealing with this type of pressure at the same time was cruel. “It’s perfectly fine for you to come to my parents’ home. They are a little set in their ways and a bit overly English, which probably doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “Opinionated and stodgy?” Aiden suggested.

  “There’s no need to be rude.”

  “Oh, no, no need at all. You want to know if I can sound English, which I can’t, and you want me to pretend I’m not a detective—which I won’t.”

  “It’s not what you think. Take this next right turn. If you go farther, we’ll be on the bridge. It’ll be more a lane than a road, really. Then keep on going until I tell you to make a left turn. It’s because Daddy doesn’t believe in guns or hunting or anything, and he knows American policemen carry guns. Which brings us to another point.”

  “Does it?” He should be too tired to think. It might be better if he were. Then he wouldn’t be starting, despite the doom that threatened to overtake them, to get a hard-on that didn’t intend to be willed away.

  Olivia put a hand on his thigh, about two inches from the irrefutable evidence. “The other point is, and this is absolutely not intended as an insult, but Daddy’s a bigot.”

  Aiden shifted in his seat and felt like an out-of-control teenager. He glanced sideways at Olivia, at her soft, wild hair and so-dark eyes, the way she looked at him. Deep into him, deep and intimate. “I’m going to pull over up ahead. We need to get all our facts straight before we go any farther.”

  She didn’t protest. When they were well off the road, he stopped the car and switched off the engine. “Bigoted how?”

  “Oh.” She pulled up her shoulders. “I don’t really know.” He liked what that did to her breasts. Their fullness was accentuated, and he enjoyed visualizing how they would be pressed together beneath the unflattering sweatshirt.

  “What color bra are you wearing?”

  “Aiden!” That got her entire attention. “Why would you ask a thing like that at a moment like this?”

  “Why not? You shrugged, and I could visualize your breasts. I just wanted to know what color your bra was. To bring things to living color, huh?” His arousal was no longer under construction.

  “My father is bigoted about everything and everyone. He only likes—well, you’d better mumble or something when you talk to him. No, let me hear you sound British—English, actually.”

  “I’d rather have you answer my question. What are you wearing under there?”

  “You’re oversexed.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “No, absolutely not.”

  He rested a fingertip on the swell of her left breast and scratched his nail up and down on the thick swea
tshirt fabric. “You’ve got beautiful breasts.”

  “You’re embarrassing me.”

  “What color.”

  She turned red, and he brought his face closer to hers. “I’m not wearing one,” she said and blushed an even deeper shade. “I didn’t think it would matter with this heavy shirt.”

  “It matters a lot,” Aiden told her. “It’s of the utmost importance.” With the same fingernail, he gave his attention to a nipple. Olivia gasped and arched her back a little. Aiden smiled.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” Olivia said. “This road may look deserted, but someone might come along. And we need to get settled and decide exactly what we’re going to do.” She looked at his crotch; she didn’t know what made her do so, but she had to. Aiden was a big man in every way. What she saw bulging inside his trousers was no exception.

  “Doing this, as you put it, even just a little,” he said, “will make us think more clearly. Trust me on this. I read it in a very good book.”

  “What good book?”

  “I can’t remember. Touch me, Olivia.”

  The beat of her heart was uncomfortable. Her breathing grew shallow. She kept staring into his lap, wanting to do more than touch his penis through his trousers.

  Without even realizing her own intention, Olivia executed a wriggling dive into the back seat. “Come on,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I never did this when I could have been forgiven for acting like a kid. Is it too late to try it now?” Looking over his shoulder at her, Aiden shook his head and actually turned pink.

  “You’re embarrassed,” she said, and laughed. “Come on, Aiden. Come on.”

  He turned up his palms and shook his head again, but his grin was so wide.

  “So I’ve got to lure you? Is that it?” Wicked she was, but every woman had a right to be wicked now and again. She caught the hem of her sweatshirt with both hands and started to raise it.

  Aiden moaned and said, “Don’t do that. Please. Or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  “Promise?” Olivia pulled up her shirt to show him her breasts.

  His smile disappeared, and his pupils dilated.

  She drew in a deep breath and leaned against the back of the seat. Her own sexy play turned her on so fiercely, she burned. “Aiden?” she whispered.

  Without a word, he got out of the car, threw his seat forward, and climbed into the back, slamming the door shut as he did so. “You… This is natural for you, isn’t it? You doing what you’re meant to do. I want you, Olivia.”

  “It was never natural before you.”

  He reached for her, but she pulled her sweatshirt down and said, “You’re the one who asked to be touched first.” He didn’t resist when she leaned over him, held his shoulder with one hand and undid his belt with the other.

  “Oh, sweet lady,” he muttered. “I don’t think you should do that.”

  “Not even to help us think more clearly?”

  “Well.” His eyes closed and he gritted his teeth. “Since you put it that way.”

  Olivia managed to get his trousers unzipped and to reach inside. “There isn’t enough room for you in here,” she told him and felt wanton but wonderful. “I think I need to let this poor thing out to play. I’ll just give it some room and fresh air. It needs tiring out.”

  “Baby.” Aiden let his head settle against the seat back. “Oh, baby, it does need tiring out. I do hope you can figure out a way to get that done here.”

  The rain beat on the windows all around them. On the inside, steam clouded glass.

  Aiden looked down at himself. Olivia had pulled him out from his shorts, and the sight of his straining erection did nothing to calm him.

  He rolled his head toward Olivia, placed a hand over her ribs, just beneath the sweatshirt, and felt her grow rigid. She crossed her hands on the back of the seat and rested her forehead on top.

  With the very tips of his fingers, he stroked the undersides of her full breasts, and she shuddered uncontrollably. Before he guessed what she intended to do, she crossed her arms and pulled off the shirt. She brought her breasts to his face. When her soft skin met his lips, she moaned and skimmed a nipple back and forth until he opened his mouth and drew it in. She jerked and pressed closer, alternating breasts as if she couldn’t bear not to get as much sensation as possible. She mounted his lap and pulled his penis to rest between her legs and against her stomach.

  Olivia stroked him, cradled him, managed to slide far enough down to take him into her mouth.

  Aiden gripped the edge of the seat.

  Her teeth and tongue drove him toward madness.

  She didn’t release him from her mouth, and he reached down to fill his hands with her breasts. Sensation overtook him, almost overtook reason.

  “My God,” he said. Cold sweat broke on his brow. He curled over her, caught her beneath the anus and forced her back onto his lap. Then he turned her sideways and held her tightly. She pushed her face under his chin and he heard her crying softly. Women. He would never understand them.

  “Did I upset you?” he asked.

  “You wouldn’t let me finish.” She sounded small and brokenhearted.

  “Oh, but I wanted to. I still want to. Superhuman willpower isn’t one of my goals. I just didn’t know how we’d manage afterward. This would have been a one-thing-leading-to-another episode, and we’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do I get a rain check?”

  Olivia looked into his face and said, “As long as you redeem it quickly.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Will you stop worrying about how your folks will react to me?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You’re all grown up now. You can make your own decisions.”

  She offered a wan smile. “I’ve decided I want to make love to you.”

  “Ditto,” he said, but he eased her away. “I say we work as hard and fast as we can to get finished with the enemy, then see what we want when we aren’t looking over our shoulders for killers. What do you say?”

  “I say move this car. We’re wasting time.”

  Aiden couldn’t sit still in his overstuffed, chintz-covered armchair. He nodded at Conrad FitzDurham and popped up to go to leaded, diamond-paned bay windows. “Really something,” he murmured. “Really something. You can see the castle from here. Amazing.”

  “We like it,” the man said. “It’ll do.”

  Olivia was in the kitchen with her fluttery mother, making tea, although Aiden could have taken something stronger.

  “Lot of chimneys on whatever’s on the other side of all the trees,” Aiden said. He couldn’t see a house but it had to be huge given the number of fireplaces it must have. “Big place, huh?”

  “I should say so. Riverside Place. Been in the same family for generations. Etranger’s the name. Strangers to me, I can tell you.” FitzDurham’s laugh at his own small joke was a mirthless ha-ha-ha. “Never seen ’em. Like a splash of something, would you?”

  Aiden considered asking exactly what FitzDurham meant, but said, “Great,” instead.

  “You do the honors, then, there’s a good chap.”

  He should have asked. The room was large and comfortably cluttered with antiques. Aiden ran his gaze over chairs and sofas and tables.

  “On the trolley behind the door,” his host told him. “Whiskey for me.”

  Aiden smiled and headed for a glittering silver tray on a mahogany cart. Crystal decanters and glasses sparkled. “Ice?” he asked.

  FitzDurham chuckled. “Not unless you want to go and see if there’s some in the fridge. Can’t abide the stuff myself.”

  The whiskey delivered, Aiden patted the golden retriever who snored on an obviously very old and expensive carpet and returned to his chair. He took a swallow from his own glass and closed his eyes. “Great,” he said.

  “Mmm. So, what’s all this about?”

  Aiden and Olivia had been in the house for half an hour. Aiden guessed he ought to give FitzDu
rham points for holding back the interrogation that long. “We’re in a bind, sir,” he said, and swallowed more whiskey.

  FitzDurham set his glass aside. “You don’t say,” he said, but smiled broadly enough to puzzle Aiden. “You and my daughter, I suppose you mean. How long have you known each other?”

  “Not long.” What seemed a lifetime to Aiden.

  “But long enough, what?” A wink from one of FitzDurham’s dark eyes seemed more like a tick given his long, spoon-bowl-shaped face. “What did you say you do, my boy?”

  “I’m a New York detective,” Aiden blurted out. Olivia would just have to make the best of any parental displeasure. She was a big girl, quite a big girl.

  FitzDurham frowned and picked up his glass again. “Look more like a successful businessman. I suppose she saw you in your uniform. Women always fall for men in uniforms.”

  “I don’t wear a uniform, sir. And I am successful—just not a businessman.”

  “Quite. And your people?”

  “My people?” He wished he could claim impressive roots, like the Sioux, and say he was actually a chief.

  “What does your father do?”

  Aiden looked down. “My parents are dead. My dad was a dentist who preferred to…” He barely stopped himself from saying hunt. “He liked the outdoors.”

  “Dentist, hm? Successful dentist?”

  “Very.”

  “Right.”

  “Cooee,” Millicent FitzDurham caroled, pushing her way backward through the door. “You’re lucky I’d already put a bit in, with you arriving on such short notice. We’ve got a lovely little bakery in Eton. Bath buns, eccles cakes, a nice piece of Madeira, and a Dundee. Olivia made the tea. At least she hasn’t forgotten how to do that properly.”

  “Don’t twitter, Millicent,” FitzDurham said. “The young people have something to tell us.”

  “You’re not to get worried,” Olivia said, walking past her mother to set down a large teapot shrouded with a woolen cover of some kind. “What Aiden and I really need is a safe place to do some planning. You’re giving us that, and we’re so grateful. Right, Aiden?”

  “Right.”

  Millicent slid her loaded tray onto a round gateleg table and barely stopped a vase filled with red silk peonies from falling off. Her plump, pretty face was very pink, and she repeatedly smoothed down the folds of a brown tweed skirt.