Isobel took a long, deep breath, scratching her nails lightly over the nape of his neck. “This is eating you up.”
“I have to figure it out.”
“I know,” Isobel said quietly. She closed her eyes. “But not tonight.”
Dane didn’t answer, but he leaned into her a little more.
“Why was Lenny at the cottage yesterday?”
He hadn’t answered her when she’d asked him before. Arthur had distracted them when he’d offered himself up for arrest. Isobel wasn’t used to seeing Lenny around. For years, he’d gone off with friends of his own, living somewhere down in the valley. It was only a year or so ago that he’d started showing up here again on a regular basis, picking up odd jobs now and then.
Lenny had told his brother he wanted a fresh start.
Dane pulled back, an expression she couldn’t quite parse flashing across his face. “I asked him to pick something up for me.”
“Oh?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he would elaborate. Then Dane sighed. “Jack’s tea helps with my chest pains.”
Of course. Her father had a remedy for everything. But why hadn’t he told her? An uneasy feeling sat at the back of Isobel’s mind. “Were you in pain yesterday?”
He grunted. “I’m fine.”
Isobel bit her lip, choosing not to call him on the obvious lie as she weighed what he’d said. Even if Lenny was sincere in wanting to turn over a new leaf, Eva wouldn’t like it if he started showing up on their doorstep regularly. Next time, Isobel would deliver the tea herself.
“You can tell me, you know.” She brushed a bit of lint off Dane’s shoulder. “When you don’t feel well.”
In response, Dane’s hand found its way under the flowing hem of her skirt, and he traced a line from her outer thigh all the way down to her calves. The springs in his chair creaked as he pushed back and, one by one, eased off her pinching shoes. He swiped a tissue from its box on his desk and wiped the mud off the heels.
“You’ve got a bit of a Prince Charming complex,” Isobel hummed.
“I know my job.” With a gentle tug, Dane pulled her into hislap. “And it starts with undressing you.” When she laughed, he nuzzled her neck with a little growl. “I fucking love that sound, Isobel.”
She craved him like this, needful and devoted. It healed up something inside her to feel so wanted. There was honesty in the push and pull of craving another person. She had to lie about so many things, but she’d never lied aboutthis.There was truth in the way they lost themselves in a heavy-lunged kiss, truth in the way Isobel gasped at the scrape of his teeth down her earlobe, the soft bite sending a strobe of bone-melting desire between her legs.
This was better than Dawson’s. Better than whiskey, by far.
She loosened the knot of Dane’s tie and let her fingers linger there, gently brushing the curve of his throat, the skate of her nails raising goose bumps across his skin. A gravelly sound vibrated against her fingertips. “You will be the end of me,” he muttered.
“I think you mean ‘Get on the desk.’”
He grunted assent and reached behind her, gathering the witness accounts on his desk into a slender pile and slipping them into his top drawer. Then he lifted her by the hips and set her firmly on the smooth, hard wood of the desktop.
Anticipation hummed through her body as Dane planted the soles of her feet on his thighs. He kissed the inside of her knee, massaging a hand down a calf Isobel hadn’t even known was aching. It pulled a groan from her.
And a wicked grin from him. “You like that?”
“Shut up, Charming.”
When Dane stood, he brought her legs with him, wrapping them around his waist as his tie slithered to the floor. Isobel shivered as Dane brushed his nose down the line of her jaw androughed a kiss to her chin, then dragged his thumb down her lip to coax her mouth open for deeper plunder.
Isobel loved when he touched her like this. When he made her feel likehis. Opaque. Real. Keepable.
“Want to go upstairs?” he asked, breathless. Isobel thrilled with the power of it. Dane Walker was a stone, uncrackable, yet he cracked for her.
“No.” She urgently worked the rest of his buttons free and ran a finger down the raised pink scar on his sternum, right over his heart. Dane’s skin stippled with goose bumps as she craned her neck and loved her mouth against the ruined skin. An apology, to soothe the lie. “Here.”
A rumble of assent sounded from his chest. “I can—”
