[4 Seasons 01] Seducing Summer (18 page)

But he appeared impossible to shock and
just nodded. “Easy access,” he said. “I approve.”

Everyone laughed, and Neve gave a wry
smile.

Bridget nudged her as he turned away to
fetch a new bottle of wine. “Leave the poor man alone.”

“Why? I want to see what it takes to make
him blush.”

Callie knew she should stop her, but she
had a sneaky feeling that it was her friend who was going to come out the loser
in this battle. Gene was proving to have a better sense of humor and a higher
degree of unflappability than she’d realized.

The test came when everyone had finished
looking at the lingerie. Neve produced another case and grinned as she placed
it on the table. By now, all of them except Willow had been drinking for a few
hours, and the mood was high and a tad raucous.

“Ready for a little fun?” She popped the
lid.

The women all squealed at the array of
vibrators and other sex toys on display. Callie, who was used to this, glanced
up at Gene. He was looking with interest at the range of objects, but as if
he’d known she would be looking at him, his eyes rose to meet hers, and a small
smile crept onto his lips.

“Right,” Neve said, and rubbed her hands
together. “Time for some demonstrations.”

Spending an evening with a crowd of rowdy
young women would normally have been Gene’s idea of hell, and he’d been on the
verge of turning down Neve’s suggestion of acting as a waiter for the night.
That afternoon, however, after he’d gotten the taxi to drop Callie home, he’d walked
into the Safe & Secure offices to learn that Phoebe had received a new
death threat.

“It’s just as nasty as the previous one,”
Kev had said. “But that’s not the only bad news.” He’d shown a copy of the note
to Gene, who’d read it with growing distaste. As well as threatening Phoebe, it
ended by describing exactly what he was going to do to her and her daughter
when he got hold of them, in great and disgusting detail.

“What do you want to do?” Kev had asked
with concern.

Gene knew he had to sort himself out. No
more wearing casual clothes—it had to be the bulletproof vest at all times, and
from now on he had to make sure he was completely focused on her safety. He
couldn’t afford to get distracted with romantic thoughts when he should be
concentrating on analyzing the threat at all times.

He couldn’t tell Kev that, though. Instead,
he’d said, “I think it’s time to upgrade the threat on Callie from low to
medium.” They’d labeled Phoebe’s case as ‘very high’ from the start, but
because the threat to Callie had been indirect, they’d kept hers rated as ‘low’
until now. “And it’s time to send someone ahead of us to do risk assessments of
the places we’ll be staying, and to do covert protection from a distance to
catch anything I might not be aware of.”

“You really think he’ll come after her?”

“No,” Gene had said, although he’d not been
sure if that had just been wishful thinking. “I think it’s a scare tactic
rather than a real threat. But we can’t risk that, of course.”

After leaving the office, he’d gone to the
gym for a while and had tried to lose himself in the heat and sweat of physical
exercise, but all it had done was made him think of Callie’s hot skin next to
his, her soft moans in the darkness, and to imagine how terrible he’d feel if
something happened to her.

How stupid he’d been to give in to his
desire. Her life was in danger, and all he could think about was taking her to
bed and tasting her again, and losing himself in her sweet warmth.

To punish himself, he’d agreed to go to the
party, certain he’d hate every minute. Oddly, though, he discovered he was
quite enjoying himself. Willow’s friends were fun without being over the top, a
little embarrassed to have him there but half enjoying it, too, and it was
interesting to be on the inside of women’s lives for once and watch how they
interacted with each other once they semi-forgot he was a guy.

It was nice to get to know Callie’s close
friends as well. Bridget was bright and bubbly, Neve outwardly mischievous and
wicked, but inwardly—he suspected—soft as mush with a heart of gold. Rowan was
a bit harder to fathom, as she barely said two words to him, and she seemed the
shyest of the four of them.

He also enjoyed watching Callie with her
friends. She didn’t seem any different, sunny and warm, open and fun.
Presumably, her mother had kept her informed of recent events regarding Darren
Kirk. Was Callie concerned about the increasing threat on her life? She didn’t
look it, appearing very relaxed, and she didn’t seem nervous or distracted.

He’d wondered whether she’d be able to
avoid the temptation of telling her best friends what had happened between them
while they’d been away, but although she met his gaze once or twice during the
evening, and something passed between them like a radio wave from her eyes to
his, she didn’t make any reference to their brief relationship. He was
relieved, and a tiny bit disappointed. Of course he didn’t want it coming out
into the open, he scolded himself. But it didn’t stop him wondering where it
was going. Was this just a bit of fun for her? A holiday fling to amuse herself
while they traveled? Or was it something more? He surprised himself by hoping
it was the latter.

The only time she reacted to his presence
with more than a flick of her eyes was when Neve opened the case containing the
sex toys. Callie obviously knew what the case contained, but as he perused the
contents and then raised his gaze to hers, he caught her watching him, and saw
a deep blush spread from the apples of her cheeks across her face, like two drops
of scarlet paint dropped onto a plate of cream.

His lips curved up. That, at least, boded
well.

“Now, this is my favorite,” the
indefatigable Neve said, holding up the rabbit vibrator. “Shaped for your
pleasure, ladies.” She proceeded to explain to them the various delights of the
toy.

Gene retreated to the drinks table to pour
another round of wine glasses and walked discreetly around the room to hand
them out, trying not to laugh out loud at the squeals and shrieks of the women
as they handled the toys. From what he could see, they consisted mostly of
vibrators of various shapes and sizes with a few anal devices, no nipple clamps
or whips or anything too scary or painful that might have been too much for
anyone who hadn’t been brave enough to purchase any toys before. He felt a
sudden surge of affection for Neve, who was managing to make everything seem
both erotically naughty and yet perfectly normal, too. Even Rowan was having
fun investigating the options, although she completely refused to look him in
the eye.

He tried not to stare too long at the
contents, knowing he’d get himself hot and bothered at the thought of trying
them out on the strawberry blonde currently examining the types of lubricants
available. She didn’t really need any of those, he thought, remembering how wet
and swollen she’d been, then closed his eyes briefly and forced himself to
think about arctic conditions and having his wisdom teeth out and anything else
that would dampen his ardor.

Luckily, nobody seemed to notice his discomfort,
their attention distracted by Willow, who was complaining that she was too fat even
to see below her navel, and that once the baby came she was sure it would be at
least six months before she and Liam would have the energy to try out any of
the toys.

Neve had apparently finished going through
all the items in the case. The women were busy flicking through catalogues,
purchasing items that were available from Neve’s small stock and writing down
their orders for those items she didn’t have, most of the girls apparently
brave enough to treat themselves to at least one item.

Neve turned her wicked smile on him. “Gene?
Can I put you down for anything?”

Everyone giggled. He took her over a plate
of chocolate truffles and bent to offer them to her. “Actually, I’ll take one
of those. Looks like fun.” He tapped the list in her hand.

Neve’s eyebrows shot up, and all the women
went “Oooooh!”

“For anyone we know?” Bridget asked.

“Yes,” Neve said, “anyone we know?” Her
eyes were hard.

“For my special someone,” he said. “A lady
who’s been in my heart for a very long time.”

He saw the disappointment flicker across
Bridget and Rowan’s faces, and surprise on Neve’s at the acceptance that it was
someone he’d known for a while.

“Well, she’s a very lucky woman,” Bridget said
brightly, glancing at Callie. He didn’t follow her gaze, but out of the corner
of his eye he saw Callie turn to talk to Willow, showing her apparent
disinterest in his love life.

The party went on for maybe another thirty
minutes, but by then Willow was noticeably flagging, almost dozing off in her
chair, and everyone began to gather their purchases and their handbags.

“I’ll ring for taxis,” someone called. “How
many do we need?”

“Hitch is taking us home,” Bridget said,
indicating the four of them. “I just need to phone him to come and pick us up.”

“Will we all fit in his car?” Neve asked
doubtfully. “It’s a very old Mini,” she explained at Gene’s quizzical look.

“I’ll take Callie and Rowan home,” he said.
“As I’m still officially on PA duty.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Rowan said. “Hitch
is going to drop me at the supermarket. I want to pick up a few bits and I can
walk from there.”

None of them seemed interested in the fact
that he was taking Callie home. He glanced at her. She was busy saying goodbye
to Willow, but didn’t reject his offer, so he guessed she didn’t mind.

While he waited, he emptied any food
remains into the rubbish bin, rinsed the plates and stacked them with the
glasses in the dishwasher, and tidied up so Willow wouldn’t have much to do when
everyone had gone.

Closing the door to the dishwasher and
pressing the start button, he looked up to see Callie leaning against the
doorjamb, watching him. “Ready?” she asked.

“Yep.” He picked up his car keys, wallet,
and slipped the purchase he’d made into his pocket, and followed her out to
where the others were saying goodbye. “Bye,” he said to Willow, bending to kiss
her on the cheek.

She threw her arms around him. “You cleaned
up! You can come again. Thank you so much.”

He gave her a quick hug back. “You’re very
welcome. I hope things go well for you.”

Callie waved goodbye too, and then they all
went out onto the street.

A tall, dark-haired guy was leaning against
an old racing-green Mini, but he pushed off the car as they approached.

“Gene, this is Bridget’s brother, Hitch,”
Callie said. “Hitch, meet Gene. My… PA.” She left the slightest pause between
the final two words.

“Hey.” The two guys shook hands. Hitch
turned to the girls. “Who’s coming with me? Might be a squash.” He winked at
Rowan. “You can sit on my lap if you like.”

“That would be rather dangerous, don’t you
think?” she pointed out as she walked around to the passenger seat, completely
missing the flirty nature of his comment. Hitch met Gene’s eyes and gave a wry
smile.

The other girls got in, yelling at Callie
to keep in touch about the rest of their trip, and then Hitch drove away,
pretending to bang into a nearby lamppost and making them all squeal before he
righted the car and disappeared around the corner.

Callie blew out a long breath.

“Ready to go home?” Gene asked.

“Yeah.”

As they walked the short distance to his
car, he crossed behind her to walk on the road side of the pavement.

“What are you doing that for?” she asked.

“So I can protect you with my weapon.”

“I’d like to see that.”

He smiled, and her lips curved up a little,
but she seemed subdued.

“Are you okay?” he asked as they reached
his car.

“Fine, thank you.” Polite as strangers
again.

They got into the car, and he started the
engine and pulled away.

“Callie,” he said as he headed out of the
city center toward her house, “you realize that when I mentioned I’d bought
that stuff for my special someone, I was talking about you, right?”

He glanced over at her. She’d turned
startled eyes to him, eyes that glistened like the sun in the evening sky.

“Oh,” she said.

“Seriously?” He returned his gaze to the
road. “After what we’ve been up to the last few days?”

“You said it was for ‘a lady who’s been in
my heart for a very long time.’”

He pulled up at some traffic lights and
looked at her again. “I think maybe you have. Or the idea of you, anyway.”

“Why, Gene, that’s a very romantic thing to
say on the eve of St. Valentine’s Day.” Her expression had softened, and her
eyes had warmed. She’d really thought he’d been referring to someone else.

It would be stupid to make any declaration
of love. Not when he was supposed to be protecting her. And not after only a
week. Common sense told him to keep his distance emotionally, even if he
couldn’t physically.

But as he looked into her eyes and she
smiled, all he could think was that he was crazy about this woman, and it
wasn’t getting any better.

He pulled up outside her house and left the
engine running.

She studied him for a moment. “Do you want
to come in?”

He wanted that more than anything in the
world, but he knew that one of his team was currently sitting outside her
house, waiting to take over when he left, and he didn’t want anyone guessing
that something was developing between them. And Rowan would be home soon too.

So he shook his head. “I can’t tonight.
I’ve got a few things to do before we leave tomorrow.”

Disappointment flickered on her features
briefly before she smothered it. “Oh, of course. I still feel bad about going
away on your birthday. Are you sure you wouldn’t be doing anything? Your family
wouldn’t have planned you a surprise party or anything?”

“I very much doubt that,” he said wryly.
He’d be lucky if they even remembered it was his birthday, let alone how old he
was. “They know I’d hate that. I’d much rather spend it with you, having
dinner.”

She smiled. “Okay.”