Shanna Germain - Leather Bound

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to be vague, and I certainly don’t want to hinder your work. I just –’

‘Have trouble trusting people?’

It came out more biting than I meant it to, and I clamped my teeth on my tongue, hoping it would keep me from talking for a while. If I wasn’t trying to fuck the customer, I was trying to poke him with the sharp stick of too much honesty. Nicely done.

‘I won’t deny that,’ he said. Thankfully, he laughed a little as he spoke, easing some of my embarrassment.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Can we take this slow? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here, and I don’t want to screw it up.’

That sounded more like the beginning of a relationship than a business proposition. Still, I understood where he was coming from. I’m the kind of girl who jumps too quickly into business relationships and painfully slowly into anything that so much as smacks of love. Maybe he was just the opposite.

‘Slow is fine,’ I said, not at all unaware of the odd role reversal that was happening. ‘But I still need to know as much as you can tell me so that I don’t walk into this blind.’

Sighing, he nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

He settled back into the chair and crossed his legs.

‘My friend wrote me a letter, asking me to find a very important book that he, to use his words, “accidentally misplaced,”’ he said. ‘Which is very unlike him, but I wasn’t able to ask too many questions.’

After a pause, he added, ‘And that’s pretty much the whole story.’

I didn’t think that was true. There was more going on there, behind those complicated eyes. But he’d asked to take it slow, and I’d said yes.

‘This is a very unusual job,’ I said. ‘In truth, I’ve never had anyone ask for something like this. My rates for this kind of thing would be ridiculously high.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Money’s not a problem.’

‘You do know that you sound more than a little crazy? That this whole thing sounds suspicious.’

He smiled, sending my heart into another pitter-patter of yum.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘And trust me, if it wasn’t this particular friend asking, there’s no way I’d even be here.’

I had a moment to wonder if this mysterious friend was really Davian. Had he misplaced his own book during some moment of stupidity, too embarrassed to admit it, but wanting it back? He didn’t really seem like that kind of person. And the darkness had come back into his eyes as he spoke, a sadness that I couldn’t place. There was more here than he was letting on, but I didn’t think he was lying about his friend. Or about the book.

‘I’d like a list of his potential friends, then,’ I said. ‘People I can talk to. And all of the information you have about the sex club.’

I impressed myself with my own straight face at that.

‘Here’s the thing.’ He leaned forward, so that we were the kind of close you see in movies, the kind of close that’s reserved for your best friends and the people you really, really wanted to kiss. And lick. And fuck.

I tried to focus on his eyes, but their caramelly heat was making things worse, so I lowered my gaze to his neck, watching the place where his pulse thrummed beneath the skin. Nope, that was no better.

‘I can’t talk about the sex club,’ he said. ‘I’ve already said more than I should have.’

I sighed, and the breath leaving me was almost painful. There was no way I could take this job. Not that the idea of playing super sleuth didn’t appeal to me, but the holes were starting to show in his story. Big, big holes. He clearly thought he was part of a Fight Club -esque novel or something.

The crazy thing was that, even with all of that, I almost believed him. I certainly wanted to believe him. Hot sexy well-read guy with just a little crazy to offset the good stuff? That wasn’t too far on the wild side, was it?

Yes, sadly it was.

We sat in silence. My office got smaller and smaller with every breath, until I swore I could feel the heat shimmering off his skin, until I felt like all I had to do was reach out my hand and it would brush along his thigh.

I knew I couldn’t take this job. No matter how much I wanted to. No matter how hot he was. It was a wild-goose chase. A blind alley that led to a dead end filled with nothing but lust and failure.

Slipping down from the desk, I smoothed one hand down the front of my dress and prepared my professional voice, which was pretty much my bitch voice wrapped in some sweet coating.

‘I’m sorry, Mister Cavanaugh,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’m the right person for this job. But I really appreciate you coming to see us. I wish you the best of luck with finding someone who can help you.’

Even as I stood up, he hadn’t moved back. I was closer to him than I had been before. So close I could feel his body heat, and catch the slightest hint of pine on his skin. It made me feel a little dizzy.

He took my hand. It was a gesture that seemed as natural to him as breathing, and yet he looked utterly surprised that he’d done it.

‘Please reconsider,’ he said. There was so much sincerity, so much yearning, in his voice that for a moment I wondered if I was making a mistake.

Then I thought about the conversation that had just happened. There was no way I was going to find this book, even if it did exist, and I wasn’t about to take on a client who was this sexy and this close to being clearly crazy. As much as I wanted a diversion from my current life, there was no way that saying yes to him was not the worst idea ever.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I just can’t. I can, however, recommend some other places to try.’

I meant to say something then, or ask something, but he stood, moving closer to me in the process, never letting go of my hand. He reached into his pocket with his free hand and dropped a simple cream-coloured card on my desk.

‘I don’t want someone else,’ he said. ‘Please call me if you change your mind.’

He picked up the Leather Bound card. ‘And I’d like to keep this,’ he said. ‘In case I need to find you.’

For some reason I was loath to give the card up again. As if I’d hoped to use it to find some clue about who’d given it to him, how he was connected to my life or to Leather Bound.

I wanted to make some crack about how he knew exactly where to find me. Here, mostly, with my nose tucked into books.

But of course I merely nodded and watched as he slipped the card into his jeans pocket. It would have been unprofessional to do anything else. And I was trying damn hard to stay professional.

Despite the fact that he still holding my hand and that his eyes were a creamy caramel that seemed swirled full of dark thoughts and even darker desires. Despite the fact that my life was falling apart around me and that I had an impossible question I couldn’t answer and a non-existent book I couldn’t find.

After Davian left, walking out of the office while I stood there and refused, refused, refused to look at his beautiful ass in those dark jeans, I dropped my head into my hands. It felt like time for either hysterical laughter or panicked tears, but my body just couldn’t seem to move past the arousal state into something new.

It didn’t take long for Lily to poke her head in, her already arched eyebrows raised another notch.

‘Oh. My. God,’ she breathed. ‘I thought you were going to fuck him right here in your office for the whole world to watch.’

Lil dropped herself into the chair Davian had vacated. Her stockinged legs were just long enough that she could rest her feet on the corner of the desk. ‘And by the whole world I mean me, of course.’