Worlds Apart (26 page)

Taylor almost ran into the curb. “You didn’t tell her that.”

“It might not say that, but I bet they did.” She took another swallow.

He laughed. It was impossible to stay cross with her. And when he looked at her, being cross was the last thing on his mind. His cock was still semi-hard. He wondered if she’d noticed.

“Did you hear from that policeman you know about Patrick Farrant?” she asked.

“Only that he wasn’t in the freezer.”

“Oh.” Roo drank again.

Taylor smiled. “Don’t sound so disappointed.

“Ooh…ooh…ooh…maybe she moved him. She might have buried in him the garden. No, that won’t work. The dog would have dug him up. And she was going away, wasn’t she? I hope the police are suspo…sp…curo…curious about that.” She hiccupped.

She’s drunk already?
“When did you last eat?”

“Lunchtime.”

Taylor pulled off into a gas station. “Stay in the car.”

He went into the shop and then realized he ought to have asked her what she wanted. Chocolate was always right, wasn’t it? He snatched up several bars and a bottle of water, and paid. When he walked back onto the forecourt, Roo was zigzagging toward him. Did she
ever
do as she was told?

She pulled him down to whisper in his ear. “I need to pee.”

“Okay.” Taylor restrained his snigger.

“I need you to come with me.”

Amusement gone, Taylor gulped. “Why?”

“I can’t get these pants back up when I’m on my feet. Not gonna lie on the floor in a gas station bathroom.”

He laughed. “Can you get them off on your own?”

“Ye—p.”

She didn’t seem too sure, but it sounded like he had a good deal either way. “Go on ahead. I’ll put these in the car.”

“Chocolate? I love you.” She landed a kiss on Taylor’s cheek that he was much too slow to respond to before she wobbled off.

Sexy and slightly tipsy. He shouldn’t take advantage. Yes, well, Taylor had stopped listening to his conscience a while ago. He tossed the chocolate and water inside the car, locked it, and followed Roo.

“Bathroom?” he asked the Asian guy behind the counter.

“In the corner.”

Taylor pushed open the first door and banged on the second. “Need a hand with your pants?”

The door flew open. A big guy lumbered out and pinned Taylor against the wall by the throat.

“Like to repeat that, dickhead?”

No, but Taylor couldn’t speak anyway. He’d clenched his fist ready to strike when the door next to the one he’d knocked opened and Roo peered out. “Don’t hurt him. He was looking for me.”

To Taylor’s immense relief the guy released him and walked off. He rubbed his throat and sighed. “Come out then.”

“I can’t get them over my backside.”

Good.
“I won’t look.”
Much.

She waddled out of the bathroom with the leather pants around the top of her thighs. “Don’t laugh,” she warned.

Taylor wasn’t going to laugh, he was too busy drooling.
Tiny red panties.
He caught hold of the waistband and tugged. Roo came up on tiptoe.

“Try to push down as I pull up,” he said and yanked.

The leather slid up a little way.

Roo groaned. “It’s because I’m all hot and sweaty.”

“Turn round. It might be easier tugging from the back.”
Liar. You want to see her backside.

“You just want to look at my bum. You could still pull at the back from where you’re standing.”

“Do you want to walk out of here with no pants on?”

She glared and turned round.

Sweet Jesus.
The thinnest of strips of material crossed her lower back and disappeared into the cleft of her butt. Neat, cute, round, sweet, biteable, fuckable… He’d never run out of words. His cock tented his pants and he groaned.

“Taylor?”

He pulled hard and the leather slid up her hips. Roo gave a grunt of relief.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Nearly. If I hold the front together, can you zip me up?”

He gave her what he hoped she saw as a pained look, but finally the zipper was up.

“Well that was a first,” he said as they walked back to the car. “I’m usually keener on enticing women
out
of their clothes. Bang goes any hope of getting to third base on the way home.”

Roo laughed but Taylor wasn’t joking.

He pulled back onto the road and glanced at her as she took another swig of champagne.

“Don’t you want the chocolate?”

“Yes, but it’ll make the champagne taste sour. I’m going to finish it off first. I didn’t offer you any because you’re driving, but do you want some?”

“Nope, you’re fine.”
And drunk.

And he was bad.

Watching her eat one of the crumbly sticks of flaked chocolate he’d bought sent him farther down the path to damnation. That particular bar figured highly in one of his fantasies. It hadn’t been by accident he’d picked up three of the same type, much as he’d like to convince himself otherwise. Taylor was desperate to kiss her. He had to know whether this thing with Niall had fucked him up.

More lies? That’s not why you want to kiss her
, his cock said.

Once they were on Thorpe Lane and away from any houses, Taylor stopped the car.

“Run out of fuel?” she asked.

“No.”

“Forgotten the way home?”

“No.” He unclipped his seat belt.

“Going to kill me and hide me in the bushes? Can I finish the chocolate first?”

“I notice you didn’t offer to share that.”

Roo chewed her bottom lip. “Damn. Sorry. You want a bite?”

She took the wrapper off another Flake bar and held it to his lips.

“You first,” he said.

I’m already rock-hard
, his cock yelled.
Do you have to play games?

Roo put it in her mouth and bit down. She used her other hand to catch the crumbs and Taylor grabbed hold of her wrist. He licked the bits of chocolate one by one from her palm. He wasn’t sure if the low groan came from her or him, maybe both of them. He wrapped his fingers around her other wrist, brought the stick of chocolate to his mouth, and sank his teeth into it so flakes again dropped into her palm. Another lick of her hand and Roo gulped.

One small length of Flake left in her fingers.

“Going to share?” Taylor asked.

He took it from her, put half of it in his mouth and Roo moved forward to wrap her lips around the exposed end. She tickled him under his chin, Taylor gasped, and she sucked what was left of the bar out of his mouth, into hers, and chewed.

“You little cheat,” he said with a laugh.

“Never get between a girl and her chocolate.”

“You’ve left half of it round your mouth.” Taylor stared at her lips. “Seems only fair I should have those bits.”

The kiss started slow and hot and slipped straight to fast and incendiary. His fingers scrabbled by the side of her seat until he’d unclipped the belt, and then Taylor pulled her closer, held her tighter, kissed her harder. Arousal boiled in his groin, his cock thrust against his zipper, and Taylor sucked her tongue into his mouth. She tasted of chocolate and of sex, and he explored every inch of her mouth with a greedy delight.

When they came up for air, they were gasping.

“Roo.” Taylor panted into her hair. “I want to touch you. I want to feel your skin, not leather. Only I suspect I’ll break my fingers if I try to get you out of those pants.”

“I swear they’re getting tighter, the seams will leave lines down my legs like Niall’s tattoo.”

Her words hit like a thump in his gut and Taylor pulled back to sit square on his seat.

Roo knew the moment she’d said it she’d made a mistake, but could see no way to recover. Taylor didn’t say anything. He fastened his seat belt, started the engine and drove back to the house. Maybe it was just as well she’d messed that up. Did she really want to come between Niall and Taylor? And what if she was just a way for Taylor to experiment with his sexuality?

As the pleasant buzz from the alcohol, chocolate and Taylor’s kiss faded fast, Roo was torn between two truths. She went for the easier one and didn’t break her promise to Niall.

“I saw the pair of you last night,” she said. “In the orangery.”

Taylor whipped round to look at her. The car swerved and he yanked the wheel back a split second before they ploughed through the rhododendrons.

“Spying?” he snapped.

She glared. “Foraging for food.” Then she sighed. “Sorry, though, sorry about the room too. I didn’t realize you didn’t want me to sleep in there. I should have guessed.”

“Why didn’t you sleep in the four-poster?”

“Don’t like them,” Roo muttered, a shiver of unease running down her spine like a skeletal finger.

“It’s a bed. What’s not to like?” Taylor pulled up in front of the house. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I apologize. You can sleep in Stephanie’s room. I’ve emptied it now. I’ll find you some sheets.”

Roo put her hand over his on the wheel and held on when he tried to pull free. “What happened to your sister?”
Please don’t let it be anything bad.

A muscle in his cheek twitched. “She disappeared when she was ten and no one’s seen her since.”

Oh no.
Roo swallowed hard. “Did it happen here?”

“She…she came home from school, went out to play, and I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her. I didn’t notice she wasn’t there until Mum called us in for dinner. We thought she must be in the garden, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere.”

“Had she climbed over the wall?” Roo asked.

“What? Don’t you think we looked outside the garden?” Taylor sighed. “I’d never seen her try to climb the wall. If she had and she’d fallen, we’d have found her.”

He jerked his hand free and got out of the car. Roo exhaled and followed. By the time she walked into the hall, there was no sign of him. She trudged upstairs to the room she’d slept in last night. She could stay in there. It wasn’t a problem. The fact that she’d kissed Niall
and
Taylor was.

Roo took off her shoes, struggled out of the leather pants and jacket and sighed with relief. She folded them in a neat pile to give back to Jonas, took a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from her bag, and saw Stephanie’s book. If Taylor had emptied the room, how was she going to put it back?

The high from the champagne had gone and Roo felt a bit sick. She had no idea of the etiquette of this situation. Was she supposed to stay in the room? What should she do about food? What should she do about the fact that she’d kissed both guys? Gone a little further than that with Niall. What would they do if they found out? Roo suspected they’d not told each other.

Just as she landed a job she actually liked, it seemed probable she’d lose it. In that case, there was little to be gained from skulking in her room. If they threw her out, she still had her tent.

The guilty look on Taylor’s face when Niall went into the office sent his heart plummeting into his stomach.
What had Taylor done?

The answer had to be Roo.

“Three for dinner?” Niall asked. “Or are you going to take Roo to a restaurant?” He tried to keep his voice neutral but wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Eating here sounds good.”

It did to Niall too. “Did everything go well?”

“Maybe a little too well. Come and look at this.”

Niall moved to stand behind Taylor.

“Jonas got a video clip of Simon harassing Roo, which pushed her into the arms of the woman he had under surveillance. It’s all the proof her husband needs.”

Niall gulped when he watched the two women kissing. Instant Viagra. Looking at Taylor’s groin, it seemed he had the same reaction.

“She saw us,” Taylor said, and turned to face him. “She knew about your tattoo. She admitted she’d seen us in the orangery.”

Ah, but not that I’d kissed her?

“I kissed her,” Taylor whispered. “I fancy her. Really fancy her.”

Taylor’s words forced Niall toward a decision that could make or break his dream. His heart raced, but lying wasn’t an option.

“I’ve kissed her too,” he said in a quiet voice.

The silence stretched between them.

“More than kissed her?” Taylor asked.

Taylor sounded curious more than angry. Niall shook his head.
Not much more.

“Want to watch her kiss the woman again?” Taylor blurted.

Niall nodded. Not the response he wanted but he’d take what he could get. At least Taylor hadn’t thumped him.

They watched it twice before Niall retreated. Taylor wasn’t going to say anything and Niall didn’t know what to say. Well, he did but he couldn’t push out the words.
If we’re turned on by two women kissing, why shouldn’t Roo feel the same about two guys?
Though that was the best-case scenario. Worst case, it turned her off.