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Scandalous Mistress: Double Take / Captivate Me / My Double Life
Scandalous Mistress: Double Take / Captivate Me / My Double Life
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Scandalous Mistress: Double Take / Captivate Me / My Double Life


Stepping back, she gestured toward the living room. As he entered, the room seemed to shrink around him, so big was his presence.

“I see you still haven’t found a permanent place for your books,” he said, nodding toward the back corner of the room, where the cartons were piled neatly against the wall.

“I won’t be here that long. I figured I could just dig out the ones I want, as I want them.”

He crossed his arms, leaning against the back of a tall armchair. “What about your other...package. Have you pulled out anything you wanted from that?”

The air seemed to have been sucked out of her lungs. Her mouth went dry, and she couldn’t make it work to form words.

Had he really come here to talk about the sexy things that had fallen out of that box the last time they’d been together in this room? And if so, to what end?

“No, I packed it up and buried it in the bottom of my closet. It was delivered here by mistake,” she admitted. “Though I was just thinking that if Officer Ollie was at my door, I might wish I had my giant rubber club handy.”

He grinned. “I don’t imagine he’d have even recognized it. Bullies are dickless, as a rule.”

Not inside more than ninety seconds and they were already talking about sex organs. Her famous control over every personal situation had slipped away as easily as water through her fingers. That was par for the course lately, considering her professional life had slipped beyond her control, too.

Of the two, she had to admit that, right here and now, the personal one bothered her more. This man did have a knack for keeping her off guard. She wasn’t used to it and didn’t like it— possibly because she feared he could make her like it too much!

“Why are you here?” she finally managed to ask.

“I really am curious about that box of yours.”

His husky voice and gleaming eyes made her heart flutter. Her pulse sped up, and her whole body went on alert. Her legs quivered and she wrapped the robe tighter around herself, suddenly feeling way too vulnerable.

She wasn’t scared of Mike. She was, however, scared of how quickly he made her forget all her resolutions to avoid any entanglements, especially entanglements with a man she feared she would dream about long after the hot sex was over.

“Why?”

“I’m wondering if you’re missing anything out of it.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small book. She eyed it, recognizing the jade-green binding, and, of course, the art on the cover. Her mouth falling open, she looked from it, to him to her laptop case, which was on the coffee table. Hurrying over, she yanked it open and peered inside.

No book.

“It’s possible it fell out when you dropped that case in the parking lot yesterday afternoon.”

He was probably right.

God. Of course she couldn’t have dropped her keys, or a wallet or some sunglasses. No. It had to be a book nobody on this island had probably ever heard of, much less read.

Except Mike. Judging by the confident gleam in his eyes, she suspected he was aware of exactly what the book contained, and had been even before this particular copy had landed in his hands.

He was bluntly sexual, so confident, so self-assured. He would not be pushed around when it came to sex. He would try new things, explore all possibilities and not be shocked by anything as simple as some graphic illustrations.

He wouldn’t be told what to do. And when things grew too emotionally intense for her own comfort level, he wouldn’t back off simply because she demanded it.

He won’t just give you some orgasms and then leave right away because you don’t like sleeping with someone else in the room.

A leftover instinct from childhood. As a kid, she’d never been sure when she closed her eyes if she would wake up and find herself totally alone in their crappy apartment. Her parents had sometimes decided to go out and party, leaving her, even as young as age six, completely on her own.

As she got older, she preferred it when they left her alone and she tucked herself in. Going to bed knowing nobody would be there if she woke up during the night was much better than worrying and wondering about it.

Huh. A psychologist might speculate that was why she’d never slept an entire night in bed with a man in her whole life.

She forced all those ugly memories away. Callie had been telling her for a long time that she couldn’t let her shitty past determine how she conducted herself in the present, or in the future. But putting herself—her body, her pleasure, her safety, her emotions—at the mercy of someone else, was something she’d simply never learned how to do.

Taking a deep breath, she returned to him, twisting her hands on the belt of her robe, tightening it almost painfully around her waist. “That is my book.”

“Thought so.”

“Thank you for giving it back to me.”

“Well, some might consider it tampering with evidence. But it’s really not a problem.”

“I definitely wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble over it.” She’d hate to do anything that would jeopardize his new job and force him back to a life where he was shot at on a regular basis.

“Did it really fall out in the municipal parking lot?”

“Uh-huh.”

He tossed the book to her. She caught it in one hand, glancing at it, recognizing it down to the last detail.

“And you found it after I drove away?”

The slow shake of his head increased her tension. “I’m afraid not. Someone else did the honors.”

“Who?”

“A high school kid.”

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered.

He snickered, obviously not shocked by the schoolteacher’s language. “His mother found it in his room. She passed it down the line like a hot potato until it hit the town council.”

Lindsey felt as though she’d been punched. She stepped backward, almost tripping on the sash of her robe, and ran into the arm of the high-backed chair. She barely managed to stop herself from tumbling into it as she whispered, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I were.” He shook his head, looking sad. “Mrs. Franklin was quite shocked by the, uh, pornography.”

“It’s not pornography,” she retorted, indignant. Seeing the twinkle in his eye, she realized he agreed and that his sadness had been exaggerated.

“But it is a bit much for polite Wild Boar Island society.”

She flipped open the book, eyeing the illustrations as the town council might. Tastefully drawn or not, that was a man sliding his penis into a woman whose sex was indicated with graphic slitlike lines. On the opposite page, a man’s head between a woman’s thighs, his exaggerated tongue stroking her mound. On the next, a woman on her knees, her lips wrapped around the tip of an erection.

The room suddenly got warmer. Lindsey swallowed, licking her lips, conscious of her quick pulse. She’d gone over these pictures plenty of times, had always viewed them with a sort of clinical detachment. They’d never left her breathless and shaky like she was now. Perhaps that was because she was being watched, oh, so closely.

She snapped the book closed and looked at Mike, noting his hooded eyes, his guarded stare.