Then Knight said, “So, say, if I wanted to flip you on your back right now and make love to you so slow and good it would take half the night…that wouldn’t bug you?”
Honey, baby. Reese knew that look in his eye. He hadn’t lost interest. At all.
“Why don’t you flip me on my back and we’ll see?”
FORTY-SIX
Derek was halfasleep and pretty sure he had heard Reese wrong. The coffeepot wasn’t done brewing yet, and he was half lying on his kitchen table, yawning. His prediction had been true. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, but for a much better reason than staring at the ceiling counting sheep.
“What did you say, Peaches?” He spoke in a low voice, aware of Claire still sleeping on the couch ten feet away, huddled under two blankets. Claire was also the reason he had thrown on a T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts.
Reese sat on the chair across from him, her legs drawn up and his sweatshirt pulled over them all the way until she tucked her toes under the bottom.
“I said that Chatterton wants me to go on a business trip with him.”
Damn, that’s what he thought she had said. The last thing he wanted was Reese heading off somewhere with that dirty old man. There was only one reason Chatterton would be taking Reese with him and it wasn’t for her people skills.
He was about to point that out when she added, “We’re going to New Zealand on October fourth through the eighth.”
New Zealand? He sat straight up.
“And I thought you’d want to know that Stanfield and Ricould are both going to be there, too. Of course, you probably know that already, don’t you?”
Yeah, but how did she know? This could only be a bad thing.
“Actually, I did know that. In fact, I’m going to be in Auckland myself.” He spoke with caution, waiting to see where this was going.
“Oh, great. We can get a room together, then.” Reese picked at a muffin on the table in front of her, crumbling bits between her fingers, then licking them off. “Because you know, I got the impression that Chatterton might want to pull something, you know, sexual with me, and this way I can just tell him that I’ve reunited with my fiancé. Also, that way if he sees you and recognizes you, it will be a good cover story.”
His ulcer burned. The way she sat there so casually and said she thought her boss wanted her drove him nuts. As did the thought of Chatterton actually succeeding in cornering Reese behind the water cooler or in a conference room. He really, really wanted her to quit that stupid job. “If you thought Chatterton was going to come on to you, then why would you want to go on a trip with him?”
“To help with the investigation. What if Markson flips out? I can take over.”
“If Markson flips out, the whole case is in the toilet. I want you to stay home. I don’t like you being with Chatterton.”
She snorted. “I’ll be with you at night. And what’s he going to do during a meeting with twelve people present?”
Derek so did not want to go there mentally. “Look, you cannot help the investigation, so I would really prefer it if you stayed home.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Reese shot him a mutinous look, her feet dropping to the kitchen floor, her hands landing on the round pine table, rattling it. “I already have helped you.Did you know that the meeting will take place in the Auckland Hilton? Did you know that they’re meeting in Ballroom B, on the fourth floor, and that they requested audio visual and that Chatterton plans to stay for three days?”
Wait a minute. She knew what room they were meeting in? “How do you know all that?”
“Because I booked the arrangements, you dill weed.”
That sounded like an insult, but he wasn’t sure. “What’s a dill weed?”
“You. You’re a dill weed.”
Well, that cleared things right up.
She stood up and got a mug out of his cabinet. She poured some coffee and took a sip.
He looked at the pot longingly.
“I’m not getting you any, so just forget it.”
As he pushed back his chair, she made a sound of total exasperation and slammed her mug down. She got out another mug, one that said FBI on the side, and poured coffee in it, sloshing over the sides as she turned.