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I was so engrossed in pleasuring myself, I almost missed the sound of the door opening and closing. I managed to keep myself from jumping out of my skin, but my eyes flew open.
Jake stood leaning against the closed door, arms crossed over his chest. He watched me with one raised eyebrow. And a tent in his pants.
Instead of stopping and acting like I did something wrong, I locked my eyes with his and kept working my clit and my nipple. I watched him watching me as I came, moaning and bucking against the humming vibrator.
I leaned my head against the arm of the couch while I came down, then slid the toy out. I drew my gusset back into place and put the vibrator down on the coffee table next to the couch.
"Shouldn't you be on cleanup?" I stood as though he hadn't seen me pleasuring myself and I wasn't dressed in a bra and panties.
“Clean up.” He shrugged one shoulder and walked over to the coffee table. He picked up the vibrator and licked his tongue down the wand, which was probably still warm and slick from being inside me.
While I shook my head at him, he went on licking all the way around it, smiling the whole time. Finally, he put it back down on the table.
"There. All clean. Delicious too." He glanced at me up and down, obviously not just referring to the taste of me.
"I knew someday you would be useful for something." I made a face at him but at the same time I tried to keep a smile back. No one else I ever met would do something like that. No one else would get away with it either, and he knew it. Not even Ben. Sometimes we dancedwaytoo close to that line.
He gave me an ironic bow. "I live to serve."
I snorted. "Sure you do. What was so important you had to come in here without knocking?"
"I did knock," he said. "When I didn't hear an answer, I thought you might need help. Turns out I was right."
I rolled my eyes and waved at him to get on with whatever he actually came here for. While he spoke, I headed into my wardrobe and grabbed a blouse.
"I thought you would want to know I found the nephew." He at least had the sense to stay out of the wardrobe.
"Okay." I pulled on the blouse and did the buttons up. I took a second to contemplate Jake's timing. He couldn't have known what I was doing, and I believed him when he said he knocked. I was distracted. Too distracted. He could have been an assassin.
He also could have turned and crept back out the door. If he waited five minutes, or ten, I would have been done. If he was anyone else, I would be sure his body was floating in Sydney Harbour before night fell. Instead, I realised Ilikedseeing him watch me.
And that terrified me. I could not, would not walk across that line, no matter how much I wanted to. In the long time we've known each other, there were other men, apart from Ben. Quite a few of them. None of them ever meant anything, and Jake never seemed to mind. When the dust settled, I always circled back to him. It was like a dance, but only he and I knew the steps or the song that went with it.
"Where is he?" I asked. I took a skirt off the hanger and stepped into it. As I slid up the zipper, a tiny part of me acknowledged that I wished Jake was sliding itdown.
I pressed my feet into a pair of black heels and walked back out of the wardrobe. In heels I was almost as tall as Jake, which is why I wore them.
"I'm not sure where he is right now," Jake admitted. "But I know where he's going to be tonight."
"It's not like you to be so cryptic." I stepped over to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine.
"Isn't it? I'll have to work harder at that." He went to the cupboard and pulled out two coffee mugs.
"How about you don't," I said. "I don't like to be kept guessing all the time. But you already know that about me." Whatdidn'the know about me? We had both seen each other naked more times than I could count. Hazards of being a shifter. He knew most of my secrets. Those he didn't know probably weren't worth knowing. Or at least weren't worth remembering.
"I do know that," he agreed. "I also know you can be patient when you need to be."
"Yeah." I waited and worked in the shadows for years before I was able to strike back at Barnaby Dagen and the whole Onyx Ridge pack. "It's been a while since I've needed to be patient. These days I can pay people to be patient for me."
He chuckled and made us both coffee. "Who says money can't buy happiness?" He looked at me over the rim of his mug. His thoughts were as transparent as the window behind him. What was the point of money if he couldn't have the one thing he really desired?
I looked away.
"El—" He was one of the very few people who knew my real name, much less got away with using even a part of it.
I shook my head. "What about this nephew?"
"Elodie… " In the corner of my eye, I saw him reach out a hand towards me, then lower it again. He sighed. "He'll be here tonight. At Crimson."
