Her Man Friday (22 page)

"I'll be happy to help," he told her, adjusting his glasses. "What's the problem?"

"I need you in the… in the kitchen pantry," she said.

Something inside Leo went
zing
. Truly.
Zing
. How very odd.

"The, uh… the kitchen
pantry
?" he echoed, just to be sure.

"Yes," she said, still clearly anxious about something. "The pantry."

Trying not to rush
too
much, Leo circled to the front of the desk and approached her. "May I ask, exactly, why you…
need
me… in the pantry?"

She nodded once quickly, then glanced down at the backs of her fingernails in that way she had of doing to hide her nervousness. Oh,
boy
. This was going to be
great
.

"There's um, there's something in the pantry I need your help with," she said. "It's… well, it's rather personal."

The zinging inside Leo accelerated into a loud
vroooom
. "Oh?" he asked, pretending he had no idea what she was talking about as he pondered exactly which garment to start with. The zipper on her skirt seemed the most likely place to begin, but there was a lot to be said for that tauntingly short sweater, and—

"In fact, it's almost embarrassing to have to discuss it with you this way," Miss Rigby continued, oblivious to his intentions. "But I… I…"

"You… you… ?" he prodded.

She finally looked at his face again and inhaled a deep, wistful sigh. Wistful was good, he thought. He could do a lot with wistful. "Well, there's something in the pantry I need you to get for me," she finally confessed.

The vrooming inside Leo screeched to a halt as he realized he had been a bit premature in his plans for her clothing. "Tea?" he asked halfheartedly.

"Um, no," she said. "Not tea."

The zinging geared up again.

"Actually," she told him, "it's… it's a bug."

Pfft
. So much for the zinging. So much for the vrooming. So much for the zipper on her skirt. There was nothing like the introduction of entomology into a seduction attempt to pretty much send it over a cliff. "A bug?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, rather a large one." She lifted her hands to hold them about an inch or so apart, then, when she looked up and noted his disinterest, moved them until they were about five inches apart. "It's about this big," she said. "With long antennae that are quite… unpleasant." She shivered for effect. "It's very… quite… um… really icky."

"A bug," he said again.

"A big, icky bug," she clarified adamantly. "I tried to find Mr. Tooley, to see if he might take care of it, but he seems to have left the grounds."

"All right," he said, resolved to his new role in life as exterminator. "Show me where it is."

He kept an eye on Miss Rigby as he followed her to the kitchen, enjoying without a trace of guilt the dance of her hips as she walked—well, hell, he ought to get some kind of reward for what he was about to do. Then, when they arrived at their destination, he crossed to enter the pantry alone, while she remained steadfastly on the other side of the room. He noted the offending creature immediately. It was hard to miss, seeing as how it sat brashly on the wall beside a box of Cocoa Puffs, taunting any and all comers. Plus, he had to admit, it was pretty big. And more than a little… icky. Involuntarily, Leo fought off a major wiggins.

"You got a baseball bat?" he called out over his shoulder.

"No, I'm afraid not," she replied, her tone of voice indicating that she hadn't realized he was joking.

Then again, he thought, eyeing the bug once more, maybe he wasn't exactly joking. He thought about asking for a Colt .45, but what came out was, "How about a fly swatter?"

"On the door behind you," she told him.

He claimed the weapon and disposed of the insect as quickly and neatly as possible—which, in the long run, turned out to be neither quick nor neat. Then he exited the pantry, still armed with the fly swatter, his dead quarry sheathed in a shroud provided by Brawny paper towels. Somehow, the brand name made him feel that much more heroic, and he straightened to his full, bug-slaying height as he approached Miss Rigby.

She shuddered again as he passed by her and made his way to the trash can, but before he could dispose of the corpse, she reached out a hand to circle her fingers shyly around his wrist. His pulse leapt at the contact, and when his gaze met hers again, he saw that her eyes shone with gratitude and something else he probably shouldn't ponder. And damned if that zinging didn't kick right in again.

"Mr. Freiberger?" she asked, her voice a soft caress.

"Yes, Miss Rigby?"

"Could you…" She batted her eyelashes at him quite prettily. "Could you… would you… take it out to the big can outside?"

"Of course," he said chivalrously. "I'd be delighted."

When he returned from completing his task, the kitchen was empty. The pantry, however, was not. The door stood open, and Miss Rigby was inside, straining to reach something from a shelf that was laughably beyond her reach. She had one leg extended elegantly behind her, and as she pushed herself higher on tiptoe and thrust her arm upward, her sweater crept above the waistband of her skirt to reveal once again that soft, brief span of tender flesh beneath.

For a long moment, Leo only stood there enjoying the view and the way his blood crashed through his body, dizzying him, heating up parts of him that really hadn't required heating for some time now—ever since Miss Rigby had asked him to join her in the pantry, in fact. As if she sensed the inappropriateness of his thoughts—inappropriate for anyone who
wasn't
currently pondering the taste of a woman's torso, at any rate—she turned to find him—oh, he might as well just admit it—
ogling
her.

"Need some help?" he asked.

Still reaching upward, she opened her mouth to respond, and somehow, he knew that she was going to insist that no, as a matter of fact, she didn't need any help, that she was
this close
to reaching all by herself the box that was still a good three inches shy of her grasp. So before she had the chance to say anything—he didn't want to be responsible for her telling a lie, after all—Leo strode forward into the pantry to offer his aid—or something—anyway.

The moment he stepped inside the pantry, the already confined space shrank to virtually the size of an electron. In hindsight, he supposed that for maximum efficiency, he should have asked Miss Rigby to come out before he went in. But then where would have been the fun in that?

Lily's breath caught in her throat as she felt Mr. Freiberger step up behind her, his entire body shadowing hers—and then some. She told herself that there was nothing untoward in his gesture, despite the intimate posture, and that he was only trying to be helpful, despite the raging inferno he'd ignited in her belly. Any inappropriate ideas she might be entertaining at the moment—and my, but they were becoming more and more inappropriate with every moment that passed—were entirely of her own making.

He certainly did smell good, she thought, clean and rugged and masculine. His warmth surrounded her as he reached up over her head, his arm brushing against the one she still extended upward. He'd rolled the cuffs of his white shirt back to his elbows, and she cursed herself for not having had the foresight to push her own sleeves back before summoning him.

Especially when he leaned forward some more, an action that rubbed his arm all along the length of her own, creating what she was sure must be a delicious friction, if only her flesh were bare to enjoy it. She did very much enjoy, however, the feel of his entire upper torso pressing into her back as he plucked from the shelf the box of tea cookies she'd tried to reach herself. Much to her relief, after completing the action, he didn't immediately pull back. Although she couldn't see what he was doing back there—and she was much too polite to ask—she was almost positive he bent his head down toward hers a bit and…

Sniffed her hair.

And that was when Lily's superior intelligence told her that there might have been more to Mr. Freiberger's offer of help than she'd originally thought. Well, her superior intelligence told her that, and also the fact that she felt the hand that wasn't reaching up for the tea cookies settle, very possessively, on her waist.

Yep, guys like Galileo had nothing on Lily when it came to recognizing overtures of a personal nature. And a man's fingers creeping under the hem of a sweater to strum delicately along a woman's bare flesh? Well, she was pretty sure that
that
was definitely an overture of a personal nature.

It was also a damned nice feeling.

"Mr. Freiberger?" she said, scarcely recognizing the deep, leisurely timbre of her voice.

"Hmmm?" he answered from behind her, still unmoving, save the soft, deliberate, back and forth motion of his thumb over her skin.

"Um, may I…" She swallowed hard as her body's temperature began to rise. Fast. "May I ask what you're doing?"

"I'm helping you," he said in as matter-of-fact a voice as she'd ever heard, as if he weren't currently wreaking havoc with her senses and turning her insides into tapioca. Really hot tapioca. "With that thing you wanted me to help you with," he clarified further.

Now, how could he have known about that thing? Lily wondered. She'd never spoken of that thing—that incredibly erotic, sexual fantasy thing—to anyone. Then, it dawned on her that he wasn't talking about the fantasy thing. He was talking about the bug thing. Wasn't he?

His little finger dipped below the waistband of her skirt.

Well, perhaps not.

As he continued to stroke her bare flesh, leisurely, delicately, seductively, the hand that gripped the tea cookies moved lower, depositing them on a shelf at Lily's shoulder level. The hand, too, deposited itself there, something that rather hampered any effort she might make to pass by it and leave the pantry.

Had she wanted to pass by it and leave the pantry.

Which, of course, she didn't.

Not yet, anyway.

Not until she fully understood exactly what Mr. Freiberger had in mind. However, that might be difficult to decipher, she thought, if he remained so stonily silent.

The hand at her waist crept toward the front then, his thumb still skimming just below the hem of her sweater, his little finger still exploring below her skirt, halting when he reached the smooth expanse of skin above her belly button. A little explosion detonated inside her beneath each of his fingertips, their fires spreading through her entire midsection. Lily opened her mouth to repeat her earlier question, but his fingers splayed open wide, an action that brought his thumb to settle over the front closure of her brassiere.

Okay, she was pretty sure she could tell now what Mr. Freiberger had in mind. Voicing his intentions at this point would be a tad redundant, so it really wasn't necessary for her to ask him again what they might be.

But there was something else that prevented her from speaking aloud any of the numerous questions tumbling through her brain. For some reason, she received the definite impression that he didn't want them to speak, and for some reason, she didn't want them to, either. So she only stood still, waiting to see just how far he planned to carry out this… whatever it was. Waiting, too, to see just how far she planned to let him carry it.

Leaning her own body backward, Lily turned her head to press her cheek against the soft cotton of his shirt. Inhaling deeply, she grew intoxicated by the dark, masculine scent of him, grew dizzy with the sensation of his bare hand opening over her bare belly. He dipped his head lower, but stayed far enough back that she couldn't see his face, then brought his other hand to join the first at her waist. Uncertain what to do with her own hands, Lily only continued to grip the shelf she had grabbed in surprise when Mr. Freiberger had initially touched her. And she waited again to see what he would do.

What he did was dip his entire hand under the fabric of her sweater, scooting it gradually higher until he cradled the lower curve of her breast in the L-shape created by his thumb and long forefinger.

The heat in her belly exploded again, spreading warmth throughout her entire system, and her breathing grew shallow at a time when she most needed it, dizzying her further. She opened her mouth to offer some kind of reaction—though she wondered honestly if it would be one of discouragement—but he pressed his other hand lower, to the hem of her skirt, which he slowly, slowly, oh… so slowly, began to urge up along her thighs.

This was utter madness, she thought. Where on earth had all this come from? Certainly she and the bookkeeper had been making eyes—and other body parts—at each other since his arrival. But nothing had prepared her for this kind of encounter. She felt wanton and languid and easy, and was fully tempted to succumb to his overtures right here, right now, right quick. It was a sensation Lily had never experienced before, and she felt drugged by it, as if she had no control whatever over her actions.

Oh, well done, Lily
, she congratulated herself. She'd just blamed her responses to the man on a convenient narcotic reaction, and now she could let it go at that.
Bravo, darling. You've just relieved yourself of all responsibility for your actions. Do carry on
.

Turning to face him, she told herself to do just that. In fact, she got so far as cupping one hand over his rough jaw, roping her other arm around his neck, and pushing herself up on tiptoe to… do something—she wasn't exactly sure what. He, in turn, hooked his fingers together at the small of her back, the barest hint of a smile playing about his lips, as if he were just waiting for her to say,
Go
.

Lily opened her mouth to give him exactly that command. But what actually came out was, "Mr. Freiberger, would you care to join me for tea and cookies?"

The smile on his lips fled completely, to be replaced by an expression of unmistakable and total bemusement. Lily couldn't help but smile herself. He looked utterly dejected, like a six-year-old boy who'd just been told the family wouldn't be going to Disney World after all.