Real Men Will Read online

  Boy, had she been wrong.

  It was so simple that she felt stupid for needing Eric to show her. It was her own damn body, after all. And the answer was easy: all the toys in the world wouldn’t do a damn thing for her if she wasn’t aroused. Stimulated. Shaking with need.

  Sex started in the brain, not the G-spot or anywhere else.

  God, even while masturbating she’d been thinking too much. She was going to have to find a way to get past that, because she couldn’t keep Eric around as a sexual aid forever. Even if he was such a devastatingly good one.

  After all, she’d already learned so much. This time last year, she’d been worried that she was sexually… Beth shook her head, trying to think of the word. Not repressed, but, “Hollow,” she murmured.

  Yes, sexually hollow. That was exactly how it had felt. Every structure in place, every appearance correct, but nothing substantial to fill those spaces.

  Then she’d met Eric and realized that she was full to the brim, and only one ingredient had been missing: chemistry. That had been lesson one. Lesson two had been less profound but just as important—anything was possible when you were truly turned on.

  Beth smothered a laugh and glanced around the store, wondering just what else would feel good when one proceeded in just the right way. A new world of possibilities had opened up to her. She glanced down at the whip in her hand, the one she’d just wrestled out of the grasp of the mannequin. One look at that, and she couldn’t stop her laughter, imagining Eric standing over her with a whip.

  He didn’t need a whip. All he needed was that dark scowl and a growled order.

  Her laughter died away, and she felt suddenly, completely serious. Eric didn’t need props. He was the prop.

  But that was all he could be. As much as he turned her on, as much as he brought her to life, she didn’t trust him. How could she? And with her history of love, brief as it had been, sex was as far as it could go with Eric. He’d already lied to her, and that was the end of that. Her heart wasn’t available to him.

  The door opened, admitting a gust of cold, wet air. Autumn in Boulder was usually crisp and cool, but it had been awfully warm and humid up until this point. Maybe the Indian summer was over. She smiled widely. “Hello,” she said to the man walking in. She waved one mannequin arm.

  He raised his eyebrows at the limb.

  “Can I get you a towel?” Beth asked when a drop of water trickled down his jaw.

  “I think I’ll live,” he said, swiping a hand through his wet hair.

  “All right. Let me know if you change your mind. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask me or Kelly. She’s in the back room.”

  “Are you Beth?”

  Beth stood, her smile fading as she studied him more closely. He was tall and lean and dark. She was pretty sure she didn’t recognize him. “Yes. I’m Beth Cantrell.”

  The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet. But when he turned it around, she saw the flash of a badge. “I’m Detective Luke Asher. Eric Donovan may have mentioned me?”

  Beth smoothed her suddenly damp palms down her skirt. “Oh, of course. Hello.” She didn’t know what caused the rush of sick anxiety in her stomach—the fact that she had to talk to a police detective, or the idea that Eric had already talked to him about her.

  His eyes traveled over her, and for a moment, she thought he was checking her out, but then she saw that he looked around the shop with the same assessing gaze. He was only detecting.

  “Is there someplace we can talk?”

  She nodded. There was only one customer, and she was in the toy room with Kelly. “My office,” she said.

  “My partner will be here in just a moment.”

  “Oh.” His partner? Beth’s hands started to sweat. This sounded serious. “Should we…?” She gestured vaguely toward the back room, wondering if she was about to be interrogated.

  “Sure.”

  Oh, God, she sincerely hoped that Luke Asher was the bad cop on this team, because even though he was intimidating he seemed like a fairly polite guy. Sure, she could feel his eyes boring into her skull like lasers, but…

  Beth used the excuse of stopping at the door to the toy room to glance behind her. She was surprised to find that the man wasn’t even watching her. His eyes were still sweeping the room.

  She stuck her head through the curtains to the toy room. “Kelly, can you listen for customers? I have to step into my office for a few minutes.”

  Kelly nodded and gave a thumbs-up. She was chewing gum again. Beth sighed. She’d warned the girl twice. Now she was going to have to write her up.

  But she forgot all about Kelly when she heard the front door open and turned to see a beautiful woman step in and give the shop the same sort of assessing look that Detective Asher had.

  “This is Detective Simone Parker,” he said.

  “Oh,” Beth said, feeling immediately calm when the female detective smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

  But her calm disappeared once they were all seated in Beth’s tiny office. She pressed her palms flat to her desk, then realized she looked like she was about to bolt and clasped them tight together instead.

  “So, is this serious?”

  Asher smiled. “It’s likely nothing, but I do need to get the story directly from you.”

  “Is Monica going to get in trouble for this?” As objective as she could be about Monica, Beth had known her for over fifteen years.

  He leaned forward. “It’s not your story that’s causing her problems, Ms. Cantrell. This isn’t the first time she’s done this. And you know what? She’s not even the point of this investigation. I want her brother, and I need to persuade her to stop protecting him.”

  That surprised her. “Is she protecting him?”

  He smiled. “I see you know her fairly well. You’re right. Her father is asking her to protect him.”

  She nodded, even though she really wanted to shake her head. Roland Kendall was arrogant and cruel in business, but he’d always been kind to Beth.

  “But his son is already in trouble. He doesn’t want his daughter to go down, too.”

  “I don’t want to hurt them,” she said quickly. “I just wanted to be fair to Eric. I mean, to the Donovans.”

  He nodded, his gaze sliding past her shoulder. When his eyes froze, she glanced behind her to the crowded shelves where inventory was stacked. She didn’t try to figure out what had distracted him. It could’ve been any one of the brightly boxed toys. Or maybe the spectacle of all of them together.

  The female detective cleared her throat. “We’ll do our best to keep you out of this as much as we can,” she said.

  “Thank you.” Beth took a deep breath and told them exactly what had happened. Whatever these people had done, they’d done to themselves, and she couldn’t let herself feel guilty about that. Monica was the one who had pulled Beth into this mess in the first place.

  By the time they stood to leave, Beth had managed to suppress most of her guilt.

  Detective Asher shook her hand. “Thanks for getting in touch with Eric about this.”

  “Oh, sure,” she stammered. “We local businesses have to support each other.”

  His eyes darted behind her one more time before he smiled and tipped his head. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Beth walked them out, but her relief was premature. Before the door closed behind them, she heard Simone Parker call, “I’ll meet you at the station,” and turn back around. Beth almost groaned.

  “Here,” the woman said, holding out a business card. “I forgot to leave you this.” But the woman stayed where she was after Beth took the card. Her eyes shifted over the store and her gorgeous brown skin turned suspiciously pink along her cheekbones.

  “Detective?”

  She cleared her throat. “I saw the sign on the door that you do bra fittings. I just had a baby a few months ago, and…”

  “Yes!” Beth said, relieved to be back on solid
ground. “Absolutely. Most women wear the wrong size for their whole life, and certainly after having a child, everything changes.”

  Simone nodded.

  “I should warn you that we don’t have a selection of sports bras or everyday underwear.”

  “Right.” She bit her lip, her pretty face turning even pinker. “The truth is that someone asked me on a date. It’s nothing serious, but it’s the first one since…” She waved a hand over her body. “And I’d really like something that isn’t cotton or absorbent or just…sturdy. But I’m so big now!”

  Beth grinned. “I understand. Believe me. And I make a point of buying lines that have pretty bras in larger sizes, because sometimes they seem impossible to find. Do you want to do this now?”

  “No!” She looked toward the parking lot in horror.

  “I think he’s gone.”

  “I’ll come back when I’m off duty,” Simone said. “Thank you.”

  After the door closed, Beth found herself standing there smiling. Then she remembered why Simone had been there in the first place.

  “Damn,” Beth whispered.

  If Roland Kendall found out that Beth had told the police about that phone call, he’d never forgive her. The man took good care of his friends and brought ruthless power down on his enemies. But what could he do to her?

  “Besides organize a boycott of the store,” she murmured. God, what had she gotten herself into? What if her scruples put the White Orchid at risk?

  Then again, they’d been boycotted when Annabelle had expanded the building and modernized the store-front. The protests had only increased sales. And Beth couldn’t just ignore something illegal because it might cause a blip in sales.

  The stress burned in her chest. She tried to close her eyes and let it go, tried to focus on the steady white noise of rain hitting the roof. She was doing the right thing. She knew she was. She just needed someone to tell her that.

  She retreated to her office and pulled up Eric’s number on her phone. By the time it rang for the fifth time, she was regretting the impulse to call him. She’d forgotten that this was the morning-after call. It could be awkward.

  A loud hum suddenly burst through the line. “Hi,” Eric said.

  “Oh, hi! Are you…?” The hum grew to a drone so loud she winced and eased the phone farther from her ear. “You’re busy, so I’ll just—”

  “No, just a second.” The drone faded. A loud metallic bang rang through her ear, and then there was silence. “Sorry,” Eric said. His voice echoed.

  “Where are you?”

  “I was in the tank room, but I’m in the bottling room now. It’s quiet when the line isn’t running.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “It’s no problem. Really.”

  Beth rubbed a nervous hand against her skirt again. “Detective Asher came by. He wanted to talk about Monica. I told him everything she said, so hopefully it will help.”

  “I’m sorry,” Eric said.

  “Oh, it’s no big deal. It’s the right thing to do. Isn’t it?”

  “Sure, but you sound a little upset and—”

  “It’s just that I’ve known them a long time. That’s all. And having a police detective walk in here made it into a bigger deal in my head.”

  “You get used to him,” Eric said.

  “Is he the one who’s dating your sister?”

  “Living with her,” Eric corrected.

  “Oh. Well, I just thought you should know. That he came by. That he’s pursuing it.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  He sighed, the sound echoing around the hard-walled space he was in. “I apologize. He told me earlier. I meant to call you, and then I got busy and… I’m sorry. I should’ve warned you.”

  He should have. “I was pretty startled by a cop coming in here to interview me, and then his partner came and it kind of freaked me out.”

  “I know. I really meant to call, but…”

  “I think you owe me again.”

  “Oh?” he murmured.

  She’d said it as a joke, but the silence on Eric’s end suddenly felt very serious. Beth sat up straight and breathed out so sharply that it rasped into the phone line.

  “Are you asking me to come over again?” His voice didn’t echo now. It was too low.

  “No, I—”

  “Well, if I owe you, I should pay up.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she finally managed to get out.

  “Are you sure?”

  Was she? Because her body had come to startling life at the idea. “We agreed this couldn’t be a regular thing.”

  “We did. But two nights? That’s hardly regular.” His voice was still soft, but there was no mistaking the calm sternness of his personality. He made everything sound so reasonable. “Is it?”

  Beth’s gaze fell on the box of faux-fur panties that sat next to her desk.

  She needed to stretch her wings. This wasn’t about Eric, this was about her. But working on herself was a long-term goal. In the short term, her choices seemed to be Eric, or fantasies about Eric to help her get herself off. What the hell kind of choice was that? He seemed more than willing to help her out, even if he hadn’t actually applied for the job of sex assistant.

  And she wanted him. Wasn’t that enough? “You’re right,” she found herself whispering. “Can you come over tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we can’t keep doing this.”

  “I know.”

  “You have your life,” she insisted. “I have mine.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. But tonight…”

  “Yeah,” she breathed. “Tonight.”

  A loud boom echoed through the phone, and Beth heard a distant voice speaking.

  “Okay,” Eric said. “I’ll be right there.” When he spoke to her again, his voice was a quiet rumble. “What time?” he asked softly.

  She glanced at the clock—2:45. Beth wanted to say now. She could do it. Cairo would be at the store in fifteen minutes. Beth could be home in thirty. And they could be naked within seconds. She could have him inside her, pushing deep, filling her until she screamed.

  “Eight,” she said, forcing herself to say the reasonable thing, instead of the “God, I need it right this moment” thing.

  “I’ll be there,” Eric said.

  When he hung up, Beth set her phone carefully on the desk, clenched her hands in fists and ducked her head to hide the slow grin spreading across her face. She’d spent her whole career serving the needs of others—it was time to serve the hell out of her own. If this was a mistake, she was going to milk every last drop of pleasure from it before the regret set in. Every. Last. Drop.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHEN THE REGRET CAME, it hit her like a collapsing brick wall. Actually, there was no metaphor needed. It hit her with all the force of opening her front door and finding her father standing there instead of Eric Donovan.

  “Daddy!” she squeaked, immediately regressing to her guilt-filled adolescence. “What are you doing here?”

  He winked and slipped off the old-fashioned hat he always wore when he put on a suit. He was a big fan of elegance. And modesty. Beth tried not to think of how much cleavage she was currently showing in this dress.

  “I was in town for a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Are you okay?” she gasped.

  “Healthy as a horse. It was only a checkup. And then I went out for dinner with an old friend, and when I realized how late it was, I thought I’d take you out for dessert before I headed home.”

  “You should have…” She dropped the thought when she remembered he didn’t own a cell phone. “Don’t you think you should start back now while it’s still light? Mom will be worried.”

  “Oh, she worries anyway. I’ll call and tell her I’ll be late. Unless you have other plans.” He finally seemed to notice her dress and craned his neck to look behind her.
<
br />   “I… No, I just…”

  “You won’t believe who called me up for dinner tonight, querida. I don’t think I’ve seen him since…”

  Her father heard the footsteps on the stairs at the same moment Beth did. He looked down, and Beth stepped forward.

  Eric bounded up two more stairs before his head rose and he stopped with comical suddenness. In fact, he nearly pitched face-forward with the momentum, but he grabbed the railing and saved himself.

  Her dad smiled. “I see I’m interrupting.”

  “No!” Beth said. Eric seemed frozen.

  “Come up, come up!” her dad said, waving Eric forward.

  He looked warily at Beth, but took one more step, and then another. Beth had no choice but to back into her apartment and let them both in. The landing wasn’t big enough for the three of them to stand around, with all that awkwardness taking up so much space.

  “Hello! I’m Beth’s father,” her dad said with an enthusiasm that deepened his faint accent.

  “Um, Eric, this is my dad, Thomas. He just happened to be in town tonight! Dad, this is Eric.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Eric said as they shook hands. His gaze slid to Beth’s and she cringed and shook her head.

  “The pleasure is mine,” her father said. “But I can see you two were on your way out. I’ll leave you to your evening.”

  “Dad. No. I’ll just—”

  Eric interrupted. “I was just stopping by. You should spend time with your daughter.”

  “Thank you!” Beth said. “You and I can go out, Dad. I’ll see Eric another time.”

  Eric started backing away.

  Her father eyed him, and then his weathered face broke into a wide smile. “I have the perfect solution. We’ll all have dessert and drinks together. I’d love to get to know some of Beth’s friends.”

  Beth almost choked on her tongue. Eric wasn’t even a friend. He was just a sex partner.

  She realized she’d been shaking her head for a full ten seconds. “No, Dad.”

  “Come. You haven’t introduced me to a gentleman friend since high school.”

  Oh, my God, why was he bringing that up?

  “Mr. Cantrell,” Eric started, but Beth cut him off.