by Ann Charles
“I’m better than you,” she said. “And I’ll prove it.”
Were we still talking about sex or did she mean better at real estate? I met her challenging stare head-on. “Good luck trying.”
The back door opened. The tap of hard-soled shoes on the wooden floor broke up our silent standoff.
“Violet.” Cornelius joined us. “I thought I could smell you.”
Tiffany giggled, batting her lashes at Cornelius. “What does she smell like? Desperation?”
He stroked his pointy goatee. “Is that one of those fancy new perfumes?”
Tiffany wrinkled her upper lip at me. “No, it’s a tired old one for Violet.”
I picked up my stapler and threw it at her huge, inflated red head … in my fantasy. In reality, I pasted a smile on my face, holding her in my sights in case I decided to really take aim. “You two have a fun breakfast.” I hope you choke on your curds and whey, Little Miss Strumpet.
“Would you like to join us?” Cornelius asked, something in his cornflower blue eyes urging me to agree. “We could share a can of sardines with toast.”
I recoiled at the image of a small can full of oily little fish. “As appealing as that sounds, I’ll have to pass. I have some paperwork to prepare for a couple of new clients.” Speaking of fish, my smile widened to match the Cheshire cat’s. “It’s amazing how one little billboard can hook so many big fish, isn’t it, Tiffany?”
Her sneer made her look quite ugly under all of that perfectly applied makeup. “I’ll see you around, Violet. Probably with another one of your clients on my arm.”
To demonstrate her point, she held her arm out for Cornelius to take.
He grimaced down at it as if it were crawling with bedbugs. Warily, he reached out and straightened her sweater sleeve so the seam was a long straight line. “There, that’s better.” He tipped his stovepipe hat at me and strolled out the back door, leaving a dumbfounded Tiffany to stumble after him.
I flipped off her back with both middle fingers. I would have flipped her off with my middle toes, too, but I had yet to be able to control those shorter digits. Practice, practice, practice.
Cornelius didn’t return for the rest of the morning. I tried not to let Tiffany’s client-napping attempt eat at me, but I did try to make Ray’s fat gloating head blow up with my laser glare when he showed up to work right before I excused myself for my lunch date with Doc. With Jerry sitting in the same room, hating the horse’s ass to death was all I could do before walking out the door with my chin lifted high.
The sight of the Picklemobile parked two stalls down from my Honda smoothed some of my bent tail feathers. As soon as I closed Doc’s back door behind me, I bowed under the weight of my vexations, my silly anxieties about death, destruction, and dickhead Realtors making my chest tight. I panted and huffed as I stared down at my boots like I’d sprinted around the block twice before stepping inside.
Jeez-Louise! It was hard enough fighting off the monsters in my nightmares. Why couldn’t I have my daytime hours free of back-stabbing bastards and sharp-toothed bitches?
“Did you come to huff and puff and blow my house down?” Doc’s voice made me look up. He leaned one shoulder against the wall at the other end of the hall, his dark gaze raking over me.
I took a moment to soak him up. His black dress pants were topped by a dark red shirt rolled up at the sleeves, as if he’d had his hands buried in papers all morning. His tie hung loose, his top two buttons undone. His hair looked wavier than usual, like he’d run his fingers through it instead of a comb.
“Blow your house down?” I stood up straight, smoothing my suede skirt down over my hips. Fuck Tiffany and Ray and the rest of the world in general. I had Doc. Life was good. “Nah. I came to blow you …” I pursed my lips and made a kiss sound, adding in a throaty voice, “… a kiss.”
He waved me to come closer. “Bring me those lips.”
I pushed away from the door. “Which do you prefer for lunch today, Mr. Nyce?” I licked my lips as I bridged the distance between us. “Do you want to melt in my mouth or in my hand?”
“You’re such a tease, vixen.” He unbuttoned my coat and slid it off my shoulders, tossing it behind him onto his desk chair. Then he grabbed me by the scarf hanging down each side of my neck, his knuckles brushing down the front of my satin shirt as he pulled me against him. “Let’s start with your sweet mouth.”
I went up on my toes and met him halfway, sliding my arms around his neck. He tasted like hot chocolate, giving me wicked ideas about whipped cream.
What started as a playful kiss grew heated within a couple of breaths. His hands grew bolder, along with his tongue, both teasing me with skilled touches.
“I miss your bed,” he whispered between kisses. “Mine doesn’t smell like you in the middle of the night when I wake up looking for something to warm me up.”
“Spend the night after the poker game.” I scraped my nails down his shirt, imagining his bare skin under my fingertips.
He groaned, his hands spanning my hips, fitting me tighter against him. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
His lips trailed down the side of my neck, his tongue tickling me deep down inside. “There’s no room at the inn.”
I tipped my head to the side to give him more access to my skin. “There’s the couch.” After everyone went to bed, we could scratch this itch he was firing up inside of me while we were under Aunt Zoe’s big quilt.
He chuckled under his breath. “That couch is a modern-day version of the rack, with springs instead of spikes.”
“What if I promise to massage your sore spots all night?” I slid my hand over the front of his pants, giving him a demonstration of my rubdown abilities.
He reached down and stilled my hand. “Boots.”
“What, Doc?”
Tugging on my hand, he pulled me into the front room. He pointed at my purple boots that were sitting on his desk next to a steaming to-go cup—that must be the hot chocolate.
“Boots, Tish. Put them on.”
I grinned. “I thought you were joking about that.”
“I don’t joke about you and these boots.” He crossed his arms. “I’m waiting.”
I looked back and forth between him and my boots. “You want me to put them on right now?”
He nodded, glancing at his watch. “How long do you have for lunch?”
“An hour-ish.”
“That should do. Get naked.”
I took off my scarf and started unbuttoning my shirt. “Aren’t you going to help me?”
“I want to rip that shirt off, not unbutton it. It’s probably best I stick to watching.”
“What else would you like to watch?” I asked, taking my time with the buttons to warm him up even more.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re playing dirty. I like it.”
I paused with a couple of buttons to go, giving him a peek of my black satin bra through the shirt opening. “Maybe I should play hard to get to punish you for calling me a cheater this morning.”
He knocked my hands aside and took care of the last two buttons in one swift sweep. “Don’t even try it, woman.” His gaze darkened as he pulled my shirt open, taking his time inspecting my chest. “Is this new?” He skimmed his fingers over the black satin cups, barely missing the mark.
“Yes.” I sucked in a breath when his fingers skimmed over my bra again, this time right on target. “I thought you might like it.”
His eyes lifted, searing mine. “Matching panties?”
Yes, but I hadn’t bothered with the paper bag this time. I’d been too distracted by first Cooper and then Doc’s bitchy ex. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
He hooked his finger in the center of my bra, pulling me toward him. “I bet I can make you.”
I started unbuttoning his shirt. “Make me what?”
“Make you kiss …” he sank his hands into my hair, tipping my mouth up. I closed my eyes, waiting for him to dominate
me, make me submit. His lips brushed mine, touching me lightly, pulling back every time I tried to deepen the kiss. “And tell,” he whispered in between seducing my mouth.
I clung to his shirtsleeves. “Doc.”
His palms slid along my ribs, his thumbs grazing the underside of my breasts. “Tell me.”
I slid my hands around his neck, pulling his mouth down to mine. I kissed him the way I wanted to be kissed, hard and almost bruising, showing no mercy as I slid my tongue along his. When I pulled back, he was breathing fast, too.
“There,” I said. “I kissed you.”
One dark brow lifted. “Matching panties or not? Tell me.”
I took his hand and slid it down the inside of my waistline. “See if you can figure it out without peeking.”
His eyes held mine as his hand slid further south, his intent smoldering in their dark depths.
I moaned in anticipation, my knees getting loosey-goosey. My grip on his shoulders tightened. His skin burned under the layer of cotton.
His fingers …
Someone knocked on his front door.
We both looked at the door, neither making a sound.
The knocking came again, faster and louder, longer in duration. “I know you’re in there, Violet,” Cornelius called. “I need to inform you of a change in status.”
His voice was like ice in my matching underwear. Doc must have felt the arctic blast, because he pulled his hand free of my skirt and started buttoning his shirt.
I made a face at the door. “I’m busy,” I yelled back, not willing to concede and button my own shirt yet. I walked over to the door, opening it a crack and peering out at my daytime roommate. “If this is about buying a piece of property from Tiffany, we can talk about it later.”
His black brows drew together over his round sunglasses. “Tiffany?” He drawled out her name as if it were a new word in his vocabulary.
“Sugarbell,” I said. When that didn’t appear to hit home with him, I added, “The red-haired Realtor you went to breakfast with this morning.” The one with whom he’d also possibly had a nooner if Tiffany had followed through on her threat to even the score.
“I know who she is, Violet.”
“Then why are you looking at me like I’m speaking another language?”
“Because I cannot fathom why you’d think I would be buying anything from her, let alone property.”
“She said she was showing you—”
“Violet.” Doc’s voice behind me cut me off. Before I could turn to see what he wanted, he pulled me aside, pointing at my open shirt.
I scowled, but buttoned up. Talking about Doc’s ex was not how I’d planned to spend my lunch hour, dammit.
“Violet will be available in a minute,” Doc said through a slightly wider crack.
“I’m glad you’re here, Tall Medium,” I heard Cornelius reply.
“Why’s that?”
“I believe there’s a hellhole next door.”
“A hellhole?” Doc let out a small guffaw. “What are you—”
“It’s in Calamity Jane’s basement,” I explained, fastening the last button on my shirt.
Doc’s eyes were wide when he turned my way. “And when were you planning to share this dandy piece of news with me?”
“Probably after …” I glanced down at his pants. “You know.”
“You were saving that for an encore?” He opened the door wider for our visitor to join us inside, frowning at me. “You and I really need to spend some time working on our communication skills in this relationship.”
“You’re one to talk.” I jammed my hands on my hips. “Weren’t you supposed to be showing me something just now?”
A grin crept onto his face. “I was about to, Boots, but then your visitor arrived.”
“I wasn’t talking about that, wise guy. I meant something from a certain history book. And FYI—Cornelius is our visitor, not just mine.”
Cornelius closed the door behind him. “We need your help with the hellhole,” he told Doc, interrupting any further discussion on Ms. Wolff, my family history scrapbook, and Doc and my relationship.
“Why do you need my help?” Doc asked him.
“Your ability to open doors into another realm might aid Violet in locating the source of the moans and periodic screams I detected last night with my EVP recorder.”
Chapter Sixteen
I had an idea, but nobody liked it.
Not Aunt Zoe, not Natalie, and especially not Doc.
I hadn’t told Cooper, so he had no clue what I was cooking up and I hoped to keep it that way for now. The damned detective had his nose in way too much of my business as it was.
Harvey, however, thought the idea had potential. He was more than happy to join me, although his enthusiasm wavered after I made him promise he wouldn’t shoot anyone in the ass with Bessie, not even with rock salt.
“We need help,” I told Aunt Zoe that evening, still trying to sell my idea to her.
“I agree, but not his help,” she shot back. “And I don’t care if Harvey agrees with you.”
Natalie and I had joined Aunt Zoe out in her glass workshop after the supper dishes were cleared. Doc, Reid, Harvey, and Cooper were settling in for their weekly card game when we’d grabbed our coats and headed out back. Before I’d escaped through the back door, though, Doc had made me swear to join him for a private discussion in the Picklemobile later to finish what we’d started at lunch. Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about checking out my matching underwear, but rather discussing Ms. Wolff and my family history book or that damned hellhole, maybe both.
Earlier in Doc’s office, Jerry had called me, interrupting our lunchtime chat about mysterious moaners and screamers. That darn billboard had worked its magic again, hooking another fish. Apparently, the night before, Jerry had arranged a post-lunch meeting with the potential client and forgotten to tell me about it. We needed to leave ASAP, which I did, giving Doc a quick kiss and making Cornelius a promise to listen to his recording when I returned.
Unfortunately (or maybe it was a good thing), Abe Jr. had been absent when we’d returned from the meeting. Listening to the racket going on inside of Calamity Jane’s walls in the middle of the night would have to wait for another day. And since the Picklemobile had been missing from the parking lot upon my return to work, sex would have to wait, too. However, eating Aunt Zoe’s sweet lemon meringue pie had not needed to wait, so I’d gobbled up an extra helping after supper to cheer up my dejected libido.
Now that I was sugar-sedated and my hormones had settled down for the night, I could focus on selling the idea I’d come up with on the way home from work.
“Come on, Aunt Zoe. What harm can come from just talking to him?”
“Plenty,” she said.
“How about if I arrange it so the meeting takes place in public, somewhere like Bighorn Billy’s?”
“Violet, don’t you get it?” She pointed the pencil at me that she’d been using to sketch a potential design for another holiday piece. “Dominick Masterson is not your friend. He is a foe. His kind and yours are like chalk and cheese.”
“But what if …” I started only to stop and frown. Chalk and cheese? “You mean we’re both soft and porous?”
Natalie chuckled, leaning her hip against Aunt Zoe’s worktable. “I think she means you’re soft in the brain and growing more stinky by the day, while Dominick is mildly abrasive with a longer shelf life.”
I grabbed Aunt Zoe’s graphite glass reamer tool and aimed it at Natalie. “Call me stinky again, you bellybutton lint licker, and I’ll shove this far enough up your ying-yang to tickle your tonsils.”
“Please, Miss Cootie Queen. You really should have paid more attention in Anatomy 101.” She snatched the reamer out of my hand. “Besides, you’d have to catch me first, and we both know that sloths run faster than you, especially after you’ve doubled up on dessert.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“My poin
t is,” Aunt Zoe interjected. “You need to be careful around Masterson. He may act like he’s on your side, but never forget that when the dust settles you are a threat to his existence.”
She echoed what Doc had said earlier when I greeted him at the front door with my bright idea, only he’d also complained about Masterson using his slick charm to disarm me.
“I got it. Dominick is dangerous and I shouldn’t turn my back on him, but what if he can give us answers that will save my ass?”
“Vi, honey,” Natalie said. “I don’t think there’s a person alive that could give you that answer.” She reached out and patted my butt. “This cute little derriere is one huge trouble-magnet.”
“Keep it up, bucket mouth, and I’ll sit on you with my huge magnet.” I looked back at Aunt Zoe. “Aren’t you even curious what Dominick can offer?”
“Not at the cost you’re proposing,” Aunt Zoe said, her face creased with frown lines. “It’s too risky.”
“I could ask Prudence for advice. She might have battled a lidérc before.”
Natalie scoffed. “Prudence will kick you in the teeth just for asking, and then take a few choppers for her grotesque collection.”
“Or …” I crossed my arms, standing my ground. “She’ll help me.”
“No, Violet.” Aunt Zoe’s voice grew stern. “A lidérc is nothing to toy with and you know it. Even the more experienced executioners in our family line have avoided tangling with them.”
“Doc was right.” Natalie hopped up on Aunt Zoe’s worktable. “You’d be making a potentially deadly deal with a devil. A very handsome devil, mind you, with a sexy-as-hell ass, long mouthwatering legs, broad shoulders …” she trailed off with a starry-eyed look on her face.
I snorted. “You really need to get laid, horn-dog.” Cooper’s lousy flirting attempts seemed to have revved up her sex drive, leaving me to have to deal with a wacky nympho.
She shook off whatever fantasy had interfered with her train of thought. “But a trickster, nonetheless. Dominick is bad news. Hot and tempting bad news.” She leaned back, resting on her palms. “Hey, maybe I should talk to him for you.”