Erica Lucke Dean - To Katie with Love (18 page)

I could hear his voice through the phone and from down the hall. I turned away from the mirror, unbuttoning my shirt.

“Hi.” He still held his phone as he crossed the bathroom to where I stood. He looked positively thrilled to see me, as if we’d been away from each other for days, even weeks.

“Hi.” I forced a shaky smile, my phone still pressed to my ear. I hoped my heart would return to normal before he noticed, or at least hoped he would mistake the racing heart as desire rather than panic.

I was playing a dangerous game, and as much as I knew I should stop and come clean, that wouldn’t happen. I had to know his secrets. And if he was unwilling to tell me, I had no choice but to find out on my own.

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re flushed. Did you run here?”

I quickly retraced my steps in my head, hopeful I’d left everything the way it had been before my search. Holding my shaky smile in place, I said, “You know I don’t run unless I’m being chased… especially in these.” I pointed at my dangerous boots. “Of course, I don’t need to run to trip over air.”

Cooper gave an understanding nod. “I like your dangerous boots with this skirt.” His fingers skimmed my hip, and he grinned crookedly before nodding toward my blouse. “What did you spill? It looks sticky.”

“Hmm… very sticky,” I said, my fingers fumbling with the rest of the buttons. “I need to change so I can get back.”

“Here, let me help you.” He replaced my fingers on the buttons, undoing them slowly. “Whatever this is, it’s seeping through to your skin. You should probably take a shower.”

“Probably.” I took an unsteady breath as he leaned in to kiss the corner of my mouth.

“I should probably help you.” He smiled against my lips when I nodded. “You’re going to be late getting back.” He kissed down my neck as he peeled my blouse off my shoulders, dropped it to the floor, then pulled his own shirt over his head.

Cooper paused in his seduction long enough to twist the water on in the shower. He unzipped my skirt and slid it down my legs. “Very late,” he growled.

“I’ll get fired,” I said, tangling my fingers in his hair.

“In that case, we should stop now. I definitely don’t want you to get fired,” he teased between kisses.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“No, that’s you. I’m actually a very good liar when I want to be.”

I flinched.

Cooper captured my face in his hands and locked eyes with mine. “I’ve never lied to you, Katie.”

I nodded, letting him pull me into the shower with him, but I had to force myself to relax. His words kept playing over and over again in my head.
I’m actually a very good liar when I want to be.

SOMETIMES THE SHOW DOESN’T HAVE TO GO ON

C
ooper drove me back to the bank after lunch with the excuse he had to work on investing the two hundred grand wired in last week. That worked for me. I could spend more time with Cooper, and Phil couldn’t fire me for slacking off with my boyfriend at work. I didn’t have anyone else on my calendar, and I had absolutely no plans to work when I got back to the office anyway.

I had barely walked through the door when Dean swept me into a tight embrace. “There she is—my best girl, Katie.”

I used to look forward to Dean’s unannounced visits, especially the dramatic entrances. It was entertaining when he burst into my office, singing his lines as if we were players in a fabulous Broadway production. Or rather, it used to be.

Phil bounded out of my office and startled Dean just enough that he released me. Cooper’s face was contorted into a deep frown as he slid his arm around my waist and tugged me sharply away from Dean. Dean grabbed both of my hands and wrenched me
almost
out of Cooper’s grasp, but like a spring, I jerked back against Cooper’s hard frame.

Dean’s eyebrows rose sharply. Then he smiled and took a step back as if admiring me from afar. “Katie, you really look wonderful.” Dean’s gaze slithered down my body. “Truly scrumptious.”

Cooper tightened his hold on me until it almost hurt. I could actually feel the ripples of fury rolling off him.

Phil stepped in between the two men. “Dean, you’ve met Katie’s new boyfriend, haven’t you? Dean Maynard. Cooper Maxwell.” He introduced them, then walked away.
The coward.

Any normal man would have taken that cue and behaved accordingly. Not Dean. Dean was a showman, and as any great showman knows, the show must go on. He extended a hand to Cooper, who accepted it for a tense handshake.

“Cooper, nice to meet you. You’re a lucky guy. I’ve been trying for months to get into Katie’s—”

“Gah!” I let out a gasp, certain I knew what Dean was about to say. “Dean, why don’t you go have a seat in my office, and I’ll be right there.”

Dean gave Cooper a triumphant smirk, then winked at me before he walked off to my office and sat in the chair across from mine. I measured the fury in Cooper’s eyes and patted my cheeks with both hands. They were hot.

“I know this looks bad.” I shot a quick, panicked glance at Dean, who was propping his feet up on my desk. “He’s just trying to be funny. Dean is harmless… really. Remember, he’s an actor.” I heard the hysteria in my voice as I tried to sound reassuring.

“An actor? Is that supposed to make me feel comfortable with the situation? He was just undressing you with his eyes,” Cooper said, grinding his teeth.

“I don’t think he got that far, really.”

“Katie…”

“This is my job.”

He thought about that for a minute, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Is it your job to cater to an ass like that?” Cooper waited for a second, but when I didn’t answer, he added, “Go then. I’ll be sitting out here, not twenty feet away, if you need me.”

My insides were coiled up like an unpredictable spring, ready to snap at any moment. I walked slowly into my office, stealing glances at Cooper sitting in the lobby, watching me. Standing in my doorway, I contemplated whether to close the door or leave it open. If I left it open, I was quite certain Dean’s voice would carry far beyond the lobby where Cooper sat poised to listen. I was also sure Cooper wouldn’t be pleased with anything he heard. But on the other hand, if I closed the door, Cooper would be more anxious
trying
to hear what was transpiring in my office, and with Dean’s theater-ready voice, it could still be possible to hear every single word he said.

Leaving it up to fate, I bumped the door with my foot as I walked through. I figured, if it stayed open, so be it. The door fell shut, and I shuddered.

“You look a little green around the gills, Katie. Boyfriend troubles?” Dean leaned back in the chair with his feet still up on my desk and gave me the most arrogant smile I had ever seen perched on his lips.

“Don’t you start with me, mister.” He was having way too much fun, and I had to admit, if it wasn’t at my expense, I probably would have laughed, too. But it
was
, so I glowered at him. Then with an exasperated sigh, dropped into my chair… and screamed.

Someone had adjusted the back of the seat so it would tilt back dangerously far. The chair kept tipping until it was almost completely reclined, and overcompensating for the pitch, I spilled out of the chair and landed on the floor with a thud.

Before I even registered the humiliation, my door whipped open.

Cooper scooped me off the carpet. “Are you okay?”

“You mean other than mortified with embarrassment? I’m fine.” I lied. It hurt. Mostly my butt, but of course my pride. I wasn’t about to tell Cooper, though, even if it was only superficial. He would freak out.

Dean was another story. Dean was cackling. He hadn’t budged from his reclined position across the desk and seemed very much amused. Cooper glared at him.

“Really, it’s okay. I’m fine.” I sat in my chair, careful not to lean back, and pulled up the lever that locked the back into place. “
Someone
adjusted my seat back,” I said. “I tipped back too far and fell out.”

Cooper tucked my hair back behind my ears. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

I laughed. “I’m sure. Just a little humiliated, but I’m used to that.”

“Okay, I’ll be in the lobby.” He turned and walked out, but I could tell he wasn’t pleased about it. He left the door open, and I suspected it wasn’t by accident.

I tried to pretend nothing had happened. “So what brings you to the bank today, Dean?”

A wide smile broke across Dean’s face. “Serendipity, Katie. Serendipity.”

“Very funny.”

“You know, your guy seems to have a bit of a temper. I was speaking with the pretty redhead earlier, and she seems to think he might be—” Dean peeked over his shoulder before leaning across my desk until he was almost in my face. “—a killer.”

“Vicky has a vivid imagination. Besides—” I glanced at Cooper pacing like a caged lion in the lobby. Our eyes met briefly before I turned back to Dean. “I think I’d know if I was looking into the eyes of a killer.”

I laced my fingers into Cooper’s. “You can deny it all you want, babe, but you were pitifully jealous today.”

He led me out the bank door. “I was not—did you just call me
babe
?” He stared down at me with a surprised smile.

“I did.”

“I think I might like that.” The smile slipped into a serious expression. “But I wasn’t jealous. I was being protective.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is that what they call it now?” 

“I wanted to kill him,” he said casually, as if committing murder was as easy as taking out the trash.

I was speechless.

He squeezed my hand and laughed. “I wouldn’t actually kill him, Katie. I’m just being hyperbolic.”

“I knew that!” I forced myself to laugh with him.

Cooper pulled the door shut, and I turned the key in the lock to secure it. I had just spent the last hour with his accounts in front of me, attempting to restructure his finances to accommodate the recent influx of cash, and all I could do was wonder where it had come from.

I was ready to go home. I just wasn’t sure where that was anymore. I was a little afraid to admit to myself, let alone him, that I was reluctant to go back to my boring little townhouse alone, when I could very easily let myself be drawn back to his lovely chateau in the trees.

“Are you ready to go home?” he murmured against my hair as if reading my mind.

The familiar fluttering in my stomach answered the question for me. “Yes,” I whispered.

He responded by kissing me until I was dizzy. Secrets aside, I was still far too easily hypnotized by the taste of him on my lips.

Cooper pulled into the garage, and I waited until he came around the front to open my door.

He took my hand as I climbed out of the car. “You look tired.”

“Yes, a little.” I was exhausted. And hungry. But I was too tired to worry about being hungry. I’d had a long day after a longer night. Being a detective was grueling work.

“Do you want to go straight to bed?”

I raised my eyebrows.

“To sleep. Really.”

I knew what would happen if I crawled into bed with him, and it wouldn’t have anything to do with sleeping. “Can we order Chinese takeout?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

He grinned. “I could make you something.”

I laughed.

“I wasn’t kidding.”

“But you don’t have food.”

He bent down and kissed the tip of my nose. “Correction. I
didn’t
have food.”

“And now?”

“And now I do.”

“Catered?”

“I bought groceries!” His mock insult was over-the-top, but my shock was real.

“You shopped?”

He chuckled. “I paid.”

I smiled. I couldn’t see him pushing a shopping cart. “That sounds more like it. Who shopped?”

“That’s hardly important. Come see what we have.”

I didn’t miss the
we
in that sentence. The man could definitely make me swoon when he wanted to, and even when he wasn’t trying.

Positively glowing with delight, he entwined his fingers with mine and towed me through the spotless mudroom to the kitchen.
Cute
wasn’t a strong enough word to describe him, but that was what came to my mind first.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen and came to a screeching halt in front of the massive island where an overflowing basket of fruit waited.

Cooper didn’t pay that any attention. He opened the refrigerator door. “Okay, we have fresh fruit, as you can see, but we also have gruyere, brie, and other assorted imported cheeses.” He pulled out random items to show me. “There’s a beautiful filet in here I could grill.”

“You have a grill?”

“You wound me, Katie. I have everything.”

My eyes swept down his body, and I had to agree.

He turned back to the fridge and crouched down, pulling out another package. “You like fish, right? We have marinated salmon, swordfish, and sea bass. And check out these shrimp.” He held up a bag of slimy gray squiggles.

“Cooper, who is going to cook all of this?”

“I am, of course,” he said as if I was ridiculous for asking.

“Are you sure? This looks…” I gestured toward the cornucopia of food practically oozing out of the massive refrigerator. “It looks very complicated. Have you ever cooked before?”

“Now that’s a silly question.” He stood up and took my face in his hands. “Just because I choose not to cook doesn’t mean I don’t know how. I’m actually an excellent cook.” He pressed his warm lips to mine in a tender kiss.

Major stomach flip.
I had no clue his expertise extended to the kitchen. Of course, that was still in theory. I hadn’t sampled anything yet. But I was weak in the knees just imagining him cooking for me.

He put his hands on my waist and lifted me up to sit on the edge of the island. “Katie.” He watched my face for a reaction. When I bit my lower lip, he smiled and tilted his head down for another gentle kiss. “You like when I say your name. Why is that?”

I blushed. I didn’t know how to explain the shivers that went through me when I heard my name on his lips. I just shrugged.

He kissed me again. “Tell me.”

“It’s silly.”

“I appear to like silly things.” He didn’t fight fair. He pressed his lips against the hollow behind my ear and proceeded to make his way down my neck, igniting fires everywhere he touched.

“We’re not going to eat, are we?” I murmured.

He froze, lips at my chin, then stood straight. “I was cooking, wasn’t I?”

I giggled. “I think that was the plan.”

Cooper stepped away from the island and leaned against the refrigerator. “Well, if I’m going to thrill your taste buds, you’re going to have to leave the kitchen.”

“Leave?”

“Yes. Out.” He pointed toward the stairs.

“What will I do?”

“Why don’t you go take a hot bath? You can put on something more comfortable. And then come back down and I’ll feed you like the
babe
you are.”

“Oh, that was horrible. I am officially forbidding you to utter the word
babe
again.” I laughed, but he kept a straight face.

“Yeah, well. I may be running out of romantic things to say.”

“Impossible!”

He erupted into laughter. “You’d better go before I forget I’m supposed to be cooking and decide to ravish you instead.”

I rolled my eyes and jumped down from the counter. As I landed, something bright clattered to the floor at my feet.

Cooper reached down and picked up a brass key. I bit back a gasp. It was the key to his file cabinet.

He snorted. “Where did
this
come from?”

“What?” It took amazing effort for me to sound mildly interested, rather than terrified. I had put the key in my pocket before I searched the house and never returned it.

“This key.” He studied it for a moment then walked to the pantry where all the other keys were hung and opened it. “It should be hanging right here.” And he placed it back on its hook.

“What does it go to?” I feigned ignorance.