“He does? You don’t want me to—”
“No.” Heathcliff’s fingers slipped between the pages. His mouth twisted up into a smirk. “I’ll take first watch.”
“You sure?”
He leaned back in his chair, folded his ankles over each other, and patted the stack of books beside him. “I’m happy.”
“Okay. Set your alarm and come get Morrie in two hours.”
“If you say so.”
I slipped upstairs. I’d strung even more fairy lights around the staircase. Morrie had left them on for me. As I made my way through the twinkling lights up to the second story flat, I felt like I was ascending into a magical world. Which, in a way, I was.
“Morrie?” I pushed open the door to the flat, expecting to see the glow of his computer screen from the alcove he used as an office. Instead, the living room was cast in shadow, the only light coming from the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedrooms.
“Oh gorgeous,” a sugary voice called to me from the depths of the flat. “Won’t you come and find me?”
I stepped into the hall, my heart pounding with delicious anticipation. Morrie’s door was open a crack. I pushed it with my foot and peered into the gloom. “What?”
“I have a surprise for you,” he whispered, his words dripping with lust.
“Yes?” All thoughts of catching the murderer fled as excitement shuddered down my spine. I stepped into the room. Morrie’s bedside lamp was on, the beam trained up toward the ceiling, where a pair of leather and steel cuffs hung from the hook above the bed.
“Surprise,” Morrie whispered in my ear, as he drew up behind me and lowered a blindfold over my eyes. “Tonight, you are mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As the material slid over my eyes, a faint flicker of panic flared in my stomach. I reached up and grabbed his wrist. “Morrie, what is this?”
He lowered the blindfold and stepped out of the shadows so I could see him. He wore a beautiful blue shirt that brought out the ice in his eyes, and a wicked grin – the grin that turned my limbs to jelly. He nodded to the handcuffs hanging from the ceiling.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Mina, about how you fear the darkness. Not just the darkness that may eventually become your world, but also the darkness you see inside me.” Morrie paused. “Inside Heathcliff and Quoth, too. But you fear your own darkness most of all.”
I gulped, staring at that blindfold. I thought back to the blue lights that had flickered across my vision that so far only Quoth knew about. “I sound like a real scaredy cat.”
“You’re not. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.” Morrie leaned forward, pressing his lips against my forehead. He lingered there, the heat of his lips searing through my doubts. “Maybe if you learn that the darkness is nothing to fear, then you’ll be able to unleash all that Mina fury I know is hidden inside.”
“I don’t know…”
“The other day, you said you wanted to try this. Do you retract that statement?”
“No, I just…”
“You kept up your end of the bargain with Heathcliff, so I’ve decided to reward you. Do you trust me?” Morrie asked.
Did I?Academically, I shouldn’t. I had to keep reminding myself that the sexy computer hacker I thought of as Morrie was really James Moriarty, the ‘Napoleon of Crime’ who was Sherlock Holmes’ ultimate arch-nemesis. And yet, even though I’d seen Morrie perform any number of illegal acts during the course of hunting out Ashley’s true killer and trying to get to the bottom of the Banned Book Club murders, I knew there was more to him than that. Iknewthat if I fell, he’d be there to catch me.
“I trust you.”
Morrie slipped the blindfold over my eyes. Darkness enveloped me, sweeping over my body like a cold wave. The panic flickered again.
Morrie’s mouth pressed against mine, his tongue searching, enjoying. His fingertips trailed down my arms, and the flickers of panic became shivers of desire.
I want this. Icravethis. But Dorothy Ingram… everyone downstairs…
“Morrie, we can’t do this now.”
“We can do anything you want,” he murmured against my lips. “I cleared it with Heathcliff. That’s why he’s taking the first watch. No one will disturb us unless there’s an emergency.”
