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“Um, no. That’s not necessary. I’m going to get a few things from my office before I head home.”
“Okay, then.” He leaned in close, until his mouth hovered mere inches above hers. Concerns about witnesses faded from her mind and she parted her lips in anticipation of another mind-altering kiss.
But it didn’t come. Instead he smiled his slow, sexy smile and danced his fingertips over her cheek. “See you Thursday. I’ll keep the accessories.”
She stood there, breathing heavy, while he ambled down the sidewalk toward his truck.
Accessories. Belatedly, she realized he’d taken the shopping bag with him. There went her plan to practice securing and unlocking the handcuffs before “date” night. Sighing, she turned and climbed the steps to her office.
The second she walked in the door she knew something was amiss. Light shone through the opaque privacy glass shuttering the front office from the waiting area. What the—? She distinctly remembered turning all the lights off before she left. They didn’t keep much cash in the office, but they had some expensive equipment.
Don’t jump to conclusions, she warned herself. A Bluelick crime spree typically involved baseball bats and mailboxes, not breaking and entering. Maybe the cleaning service had left a light on?
Almost as soon as that comforting thought crossed her mind, a muffled but distinctly female cry sounded from the back of the suite, followed by a low, authoritative voice issuing an indistinct command.
Good God, not only did she have an intruder, he was victimizing some helpless woman! She tunneled her trembling hands into her purse, found her phone, and dialed 9-1-1. The call immediately went to hold and she almost burst into tears. The woman cried out again, louder this time and even more desperate. Ellie knew she couldn’t just stand in the waiting room while the poor woman suffered. She had to do something.
The waiting room door stood ajar. She forced her leaden limbs into motion and pushed it open. The hinges squeaked. She held her breath, listening for any sign that the intruder had heard the noise, but she really couldn’t hear much above the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears. Finally, drawing a deep breath, she hugged the wall and inched toward the back of the suite.
Light shone from around the door of the small exam room at the end of the hall. She stopped in the front office area, placed her purse on the counter, and slid the envelope opener from its caddy. Phone in one hand and the makeshift weapon in the other, she crept toward the exam room.
The door wasn’t quite closed, and the woman’s frenzied “Oh, God please. Don’t! Stop!” carried all too well. Ellie rushed forward, but just as she prepared to burst through the door and surprise the assailant, the slap of a palm connecting with vulnerable flesh reverberated like a shotgun blast. The woman’s gasp followed, and then the maniac’s chillingly deep, controlled voice.
He sounded big. Powerful. Her best hope was to sneak in silently and pray to go unnoticed until she had the point of her letter opener pressed to the guy’s jugular.
Sweat dampened her palms. She tightened her grip on the letter opener, took another deep breath, and slowly…carefully…pushed the door open. Using it at as shield, she looked inside the room—and froze.
Melody, of all people, knelt on the exam table, completely naked. A rubber tourniquet banded her wrists. Her knees balanced on the very edge of the padded table and—oh my—Fire Chief Bradley sat on the stool
behind her, wearing nothing but his wristwatch and an impressive erection, his face buried between her thighs.
Melody hadn’t been pleading “Don’t!” and “Stop!” She’d been screaming, “Don’t stop!”
Paralyzed, Ellie nonetheless noted the inventive twist on chapter 3, combined with certain elements from chapter 6. While she watched, Melody squirmed and begged, and Chief Bradley delivered another playful slap to her round, pink backside. Then he stood, wrapped an arm around Melody’s waist, and guided them eagerly into chapter 10. The sound of their mutual, highly enthusiastic endorsement shocked Ellie out of her trance. She did a quick about-face and scurried back the way she’d come.
She’d stupidly assumed running into Roger at the Slap & Tickle would be the most embarrassing thing to happen to her tonight, but after she’d taken two steps toward a silent, undetected exit, a tinny, disembodied voice rang out clear as day. “This is 9-1-1. What is your emergency?”
Utter silence pulsed for a full ten seconds, followed by Melody’s “Oh, shit!” and some frenzied rustling.
Ellie kicked her retreat into high gear. “Sorry, false alarm,” she whispered into her phone and disconnected. She retrieved her purse and covered the distance to her car in record time—for a short-strided nonathlete wearing heels and a tight skirt. Still, not quite fast enough, unfortunately, because as she revved the engine and prepared to drive away, she saw lights come on in the waiting room and the slats of the lowered blinds part to give someone a view of the street. Busted. Melody would recognize her silver Mini.
Then again, maybe Melody and Chief Bradley were the busted ones? She peeled away from the curb, fighting a highly inappropriate urge to giggle. She lost. Her giggles turned to outright laughter, which only escalated as adrenaline retreated, leaving her limp and giddy with relief. Laughing helplessly at the absurdity of walking in on her office manager having wild, acrobatic sex with the new fire chief, she tried to guess which of them was the most mortified—Melody, Chief Bradley, or her. Hard to say.
Her giggles died in her throat when she considered the possibility Melody might quit, out of embarrassment or outrage. God knows she hadn’t meant to do it, but she’d basically spied on them having sex. Why, why, why couldn’t she have managed a silent, anonymous exit from the office? She’d spent the better part of twenty-eight years garnering minimal notice from her own father. Being invisible should be second nature to her.
It wasn’t until the pretty white pickets of her front porch filled her windshield that an even more disquieting thought occurred to her. Melody had seemed comfortable—make that blissfully happy—performing variations on chapters 3, 6, and 10. She certainly hadn’t appeared the least bit uptight or inhibited. Yet she and Roger had split because she’d declined to match his sexual adventurousness.
So what the hell chapter was Roger on?
…
“I guess we know each other’s deepest secrets now,” a low voice whispered over Ellie’s shoulder, snapping her out of her sleep-deprived fugue and into reality, which at the moment consisted of standing in Jiffy Java, awaiting her iced double espresso. Roger. A slight smile curved his sculpted lips, but the shadows under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept any better than she had.
“Um…you mean our preference for shopping in Lexington?” After everything she’d witnessed yesterday evening, she vowed to assume nothing.
He nodded and leaned closer, until she could smell the mint of his toothpaste. “Yeah. Running into you in Lexington was completely unexpected. I’m sure you figured out I wasn’t there buying stuff for a party. We should probably get together and talk. In private. If you’re free tonight I could make dinner for us at my place?”
Holy smokes, Roger wanted to have dinner with her! Things were suddenly progressing. Too fast, a voice in her head protested. She wasn’t ready. Especially not after what she’d seen last night of Melody’s talents.
