Guilty Pleasures (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 3)

by Eilzabeth Lennox

  Darn it, Willow had thought she was alone! She huffed again, shifting her feet uncomfortably. “If you must know, I just finished cleaning this room and I was…” she paused, shrugging even as her chin lifted in defiance. “I was praising the table and buffet cabinet. They look spectacular now and…” she stopped when his eyes moved to the dining table and the impressively heavy wooden buffet behind her.

  “Did they respond?” he asked, looking a bit wary now.

  She rolled her eyes. “No. They didn’t respond.” Sheesh! She was weird, not crazy! “I just…I’m going through the rooms and cleaning things, trying to explore as I go along.”

  He nodded slightly, watching her curiously. “Are you finding anything interesting in your explorations?”

  Willow’s eyes lit up. “Yes!” She moved over to the buffet, carefully opening the doors. “Look at these teacups!” She gushed, taking out several delicate china teacups. Each was decorated in different colors and patterns. They had matching saucers and were made over a century ago by an incredibly skilled artisan. “The details on this one are amazing!”

  The man squinted at the teacup, then shrugged dismissively. “Looks like a small cup to me.”

  Willow rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she carefully replaced it in the buffet. “It’s not just a teacup…” she stopped and turned to look at him. “Who are you, anyway?” she asked. “If you’re going to mock my conversations and disdain my love for old things, then I’d like to at least know your name.”

  He chuckled and Willow’s stomach melted just a bit.

  “I’m Cooper Adams,” he told her, extending his hand.

  Willow looked at his hand, considering ignoring it just as he’d done a couple of days ago when she’d introduced herself. But she remembered Michelle Obama’s words “When they go low, we go high.” So, instead of being rude in kind, she extended her hand.

  As soon as his warm fingers touched hers, she knew that she’d made a mistake. His skin was dark, his fingers warm and strong. That tingling sensation traveled up her arm, causing her to shiver, her stomach tightening. Jerking her hand away, she stared up into his dark eyes. He looked back down at her, obviously aware of what had just happened.

  Did he move closer? Surely not, she told herself. He thought she was a nutcase. He wanted nothing to do with her.

  So, why was he in her dining room? And why was he looking at her as if he wanted to take a bite out of her? That wolfish expression…the tingles magnified and she lowered her hand, resting her fingers on the polished walnut table for balance.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Adams,” she lied, wishing that he’d just leave and leave her to her inane conversations with inanimate objects.

  “A pleasure,” he replied, his voice deeper. Dangerously deeper!

  She stared up at him, wondering what his voice would be like if she…or if he…!

  What in the world was she thinking?!!

  “What are you thinking in that pretty head of yours?” Cooper asked, his voice going even softer, more rumbly. Her cheeks flared with color and he wanted to touch her cheek, feel it and see if it was as warm as it looked. Then his eyes dropped lower, watching her white teeth bite down on that full, lower lip. Cooper almost groaned as lust surged through him.

  It was no use reminding himself that he preferred tall blondes. Not when his body reacted like this. Never in his life had he been this affected by a woman and he wasn’t sure that he liked it. Especially not when a short woman that talked to furniture was causing this kind of a reaction.

  “I just…” she stammered and he knew that she wasn’t going to tell him. But he was pretty sure whatever had gone through her head had been naughty, if her darting eyes were any indication. Damn, he liked that. Whatever she was thinking was right there for him to see. Oh, he didn’t know the details, but he could fill in the blanks.

  “Why don’t you hire someone to clean the house for you? I know that your grandmother went to the hospital a couple of months ago, which is why everything is so dusty.”

  Her blue eyes widened. He was suddenly struck by how long her lashes were.

  Her lips parted and he wondered what they would taste like when he kissed her. Was she as soft as she looked?

  “She was in the hospital? Why?”

  Pulling back, he shook his head. “I don’t know the details. Your grandmother and mine were friends. I only know that my grandmother mentioned that Camilla had been rushed to the hospital one day.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and she did that lip biting thing again.

  “Do you think,” she hesitated, her hands doing something cute around her waist and he noticed that she wasn’t wearing jeans. He’d been so consumed by her eyes and…okay, to be honest, he was pretty fascinated by her breasts as well. But when his eyes took in her figure, he noticed that she was wearing a pair of leggings that hugged her body like a second skin.

  Damn it! He shouldn’t have looked and had to stifle a groan as the need to pull her into his arms and investigate all of her soft curves almost overwhelmed him.

  “Would you like to talk with my grandmother?” he prompted, filling in at least one of the blanks.

  Her body lifted, as if the idea of hearing stories might cause her to actually fly away. “Would she?” Willow breathed.

  “I’m sure that my grandmother would love to talk about Camilla,” he said, shocking even himself. But it was true. Camilla and his grandmother, Bonnie, had been good friends over the years. Plus, his grandmother was mourning her friend’s passing and talking might help ease that grief.

  Cooper wasn’t close to many people. His mother, Dorothy…she’d been weak and had fallen in love with the wrong man. After being used and then tossed aside, Dorothy had taken her own life, leaving Cooper alone until his grandmother had taken him to her home. It had been a small, two bedroom hovel, but his grandmother had raised him to be strong, pushed him, and helped him get ahead. As soon as he’d started making money, he’d bought her the dream house where she now lives and he ensured that the sweet, kind, elderly woman got whatever she wanted.

  It’s not as if he had to be around when the two ladies talked, he told himself. In fact, this trip here today was a sort of exorcism. He’d come to talk with her, see her again just to prove to himself that Willow Mills wasn’t as lovely and enticing as he’d remembered from their first encounter.

  He was wrong. Cooper hadn’t anticipated leggings. Spandex should be illegal on women with figures like Willow! It wasn’t fair to the male population. Or more specifically, it wasn’t fair to him!

  “So…when do you think I could speak with her? I’m only here for a brief stay,” she explained.

  His eyes sharpened. “I thought you said that you’d inherited this house. Are you not staying here?”

  Willow lifted a hand in the air. “Oh, I don’t think so. My job isn’t here.”

  “What do you do for a living?” he asked. For some reason, he’d assumed that she was independently wealthy.

  “I have a team of people that help me make internet craft videos.” She smiled, obviously proud of her accomplishments. “Not just crafts though. We do all sorts of projects, such as gardening, landscaping, woodworking…just about anything we can think of. I’m sort of a ‘Martha Steward’ for real people.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And you make money doing that?”

  She laughed and his gut tightened. The sound was…magical! All light and musical sounding…he almost groaned aloud, but didn’t want to scare her. No, he didn’t want to scare her. He wanted to make love to her. There, he’d admitted it to himself. With that decision made, his shoulders relaxed slightly. Yes, he’d have the lovely Willow Mills in his bed soon.

  “Yes! I love it. We make the videos and then post them online. We have advertisers and a huge following. People subscribe to our podcasts and we are even starting to get endorsement deals.”

  He stared at her, not sure he understood what she meant. How could a group of cra
fters make that kind of money?

  “And… you have a team?”

  “Yes,” she replied, leaning against the dining room table and crossing her arms under her breasts, pushing them together. Higher. His mouth went dry as he noticed those amazing breasts were barely covered with her current stance.

  “I have an assistant, a cameraman, a carpenter, and a marketing guru. Between the five of us, we’re doing pretty well,” she explained, smiling proudly.

  He didn’t fully understand, but then again, he was into financial markets and didn’t do a lot of crafting. But he knew companies that did, and he could recite their most recent financial disclosure statements, which were pretty damn good. The world of crafting was a relatively hot market at the moment.

  “So why not bring your team here and use this house as your next project?” he suggested, not liking the idea of her leaving before he’d gotten her into his bed. Just one night, he told himself. One night with the lovely redhead and he’d be back to tall, leggy blondes. One night would be enough to get her out of his system.

  Yes, just one night. Maybe two. Three tops, he decided. His gaze moved over her figure again. She was talking about something and he considered sexual positions he’d want to experiment with her instead of focusing on what she was saying.

  “…love Jake and they might not want to come all this way.”

  Love?! What the hell was she saying? Instantly, his body shifted as his mind sifted through the words. Was she in love with some ass named Jake?

  “But you know, it might not be a bad idea. I mean, why not?” She looked around and he took in the delicate profile, admiring her chin and the cute nose. Did this Jake-guy notice these small details? He doubted it. Especially since Cooper hadn’t ever noticed a woman’s profile before. Or the gentle, soft, curve of her cheekbone which seemed…too delicate for words, he thought.

  She turned to smile up at him and that smile was like a gut punch. Coupled with sparkling, blue eyes, Cooper forgot what they were talking about for a long moment.

  “You’re right! I think this would be a wonderful project. I mean, there’s so much to do, but it would be more of a cleaning type of series. And maybe more.” She looked up at the ceiling, her smile brightening. “Probably a lot more. There are so many projects in the yard that we could do as well as sprucing up the interior.”

  What had just happened? Cooper had been too focused on watching her lips. And her profile. What was he doing? What was he thinking? He wasn’t a “beautiful profile” kind of guy. Unless he was looking at financial data, he most likely wasn’t interested. And yet, he suspected that the lively woman had just gone from rejecting the idea of using her newly inherited house as a project to coming around to the idea, and even expanding on it.

  He blinked, a bit stunned. That had happened in less than sixty seconds. She could talk! Hell, he should have known that from the moment she’d said that she was talking to the furniture.

  “Thanks!”

  Huh? “Don’t mention it,” he replied, although he had no clue what she was thanking him for. “I’ll talk to my grandmother and will get back to you,” he told her. A moment later, he left the house, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Chapter 3

  A few days later, Cooper parked his car in his grandmother’s driveway and frowned at the house next door. The team of landscapers he’d hired had obviously visited since the yard looked one hundred percent better. The grass was mowed but because of the lack of lawn care over the past several months, there were several brown spots marring the lawn. But the weeds had been pulled from the gardens, the roses had been trimmed back, and the other bushes shaped so that they didn’t look as if they were trying to swallow a corner of the house or porch.

  The house still needed a coat of paint and he made a mental note to have his assistant call a painting crew to get that done as well.

  “You’re here early,” Bonnie Adams said and Cooper turned with a smile. His grandmother was sitting on the porch in one of her flowered dresses, sipping lemonade with the overhead fans softly blowing the summer air around for a breeze. It wasn’t as hot as last week, but it was still a warm day. Summer was in full swing and he loosened his tie as he walked up the stairs. Bending down, he gave his grandmother’s cheek a kiss. “What are you doing out here instead of inside where it’s cooler?” he asked, accepting the glass of iced lemonade and taking the seat next to her.

  Bonnie smiled at him as he took a long sip, downing half the glass. “Oh, I like it out here better. If I stay inside for too long, I feel a bit claustrophobic.”

  He slipped off his suit jacket and tossed it over the bannister of the porch. He glanced through the trees, trying to spot Willow. He knew she was home because her car was in the driveway and, as was the case last time, her front door was open.

  She needed a screen door for that front entryway, he thought.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” his grandmother asked.

  He pulled his eyes away from the neighbor’s yard, irritated that Willow hadn’t already come out to…do something, anything, so that he could see her. Was she wearing leggings again today? And maybe one of those soft, worn tee-shirts that had been washed so many times, the material clung to her breasts?

  He certainly hoped so. A man could dream. And lord knew that he’d been dreaming about that woman way too often lately.

  “She’s a sweet woman,” his grandmother said, pulling his attention back to her.

  “Who is?” he asked, knowing exactly who his grandmother was talking about.

  “Don’t even try it,” Bonnie scoffed. “Willow said she was going to start on the second level today.”

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Bonnie sipped her lemonade, taking her sweet time, knowing that her grandson wasn’t a very patient man. “She finished cleaning the first level yesterday. She said she was going to venture up to the second level today. I told her to watch out for…”

  A terrified scream rent the air at that moment. Cooper stood up, almost dropping his glass of lemonade as he sprinted down from the porch and raced across the lawn. He reached the house only a fraction of a second after Willow screamed again, then appeared on the porch, peering back in through the still-open front door.

  Cooper didn’t hesitate. He simply scooped Willow up into his arms and carried her down the stairs, away from whatever danger lurked inside the house. Absently, he acknowledged how amazing she felt in his arms. She was even softer than he had imagined. Even better, the issue of her height wasn’t an issue at all. She was deliciously soft and curvy and fit against him perfectly.

  Once he was standing on the patchy lawn, only then did he lower her feet to the ground. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, still holding her close as they both looked back through the dark hole that was the front door of her house. Because it was mid-evening, the sunshine had dipped below the tree line, making long shadows along the earth.

  “Haunted!” she whispered.

  Cooper felt her body trembling and pulled her closer, trying to give her some of his strength. “What’s haunted, honey?” he asked gently.

  “The room!” she stammered. “Upstairs. I’ve…It’s…I’ve never seen anything so terrifying!” she whispered brokenly.

  “What’s upstairs?” he asked, his hands diving into her hair and he mentally noted that her hair felt like silken fire.

  “Dolls!” she breathed. “Everywhere! Dolls! They are…!”

  He looked down at her, confused. “There are dolls upstairs?” he asked, trying to make sense of whatever had terrified her.

  “Yes! Lots and lots of dolls!”

  That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “And these dolls…scared you?”

  She shook her head, pointing towards the house with a shivering finger. “Not scared. That room is haunted!” She quivered and his arms automatically tightened around her shoulders. “I’m sure some of them have knives!”

  Cooper
smothered a laugh, knowing that she was genuinely terrified of dolls or…whatever she’d seen up there. “Okay, want me to go up and take a look?” he asked, thinking that she’d just seen a shadow or something.

  “No!” Willow cried, gripping his arms. “Don’t go…” she stopped, her fingers tightening on his upper arms. “Good grief, you have muscles!” Then he watched as that enticing blush started up her neck, suffusing her cheeks with that enchanting pink. The same color her breasts had been in his dream last night.

  “I’m glad that you appreciate my more many attributes,” he teased. “Now, how about if I go up there and take a look?” he suggested. Maybe it was a mouse that scared her. It was entirely possible. Or spiders? Yeah, he was being sexist, but he simply couldn’t understand why she would be afraid of dolls. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Maybe…” she looked at the house, biting her lip again. “Maybe I should just…call a priest. Or an exorcist.”

  Cooper looked down at her again, at a loss for words. He wanted to laugh but sensed that she was actually serious. A priest? For dolls?!

  “Well, that’s always an option. But how about if I just go up there and…get rid of the dolls myself?” he offered. Seriously? She was afraid of dolls? Weren’t they the things that little girls, and boys these days, played with? How could she be afraid of the dolls?

  Her spine stiffened and the blush disappeared, her skin going pale again. “Fine. Be all big and manly.” She paused for a moment, then blinked before saying, “I’m coming in with you. But we need to stop in the kitchen for a knife or…ice pick. Something silver that might…well, we just need weapons.”

  He was already moving towards the front door when she said that last part and he stopped, catching her when she ran into his back. “A silver knife? Why in the world would you need a silver knife?”

  She shrugged, her blue eyes wide with intensity. “Because I don’t have a silver dagger.”

  He’d looked towards the house again, but did a double take with her explanation. “Why do you need a silver dagger?” he asked, feeling even more confused.