In Her Secret Fantasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

you go back up.”
    “Sure,” Chrissy said, raising her glass to Louise.
    Brody eased his hip onto the arm of the sofa, and the kid, who suddenly seemed to have lost his legs, despite holding what was probably the latest of several fizzy drinks that night, wobbled over from where he’d been exchanging a shouted conversation with Aidan’s mother and sagged against him. Rather to Aidan’s surprise, Brody put one arm around him and took the lemonade glass from his fingers.
    “He needs his bed,” Louise observed with a sigh.
    Jack straightened like a ramrod. “No I don’t.”
    Brody smiled and released him, though he hung on to the lemonade.
    “Just five minutes,” Izzy warned. She cast Louise an apologetic look. “Sorry. Short visit.”
    “Glad you came,” Louise said warmly. “And brilliant to be Jack’s first first-foot!” Her warmth with these people, especially Izzy and her kid, wasn’t lost on Aidan. It was a complication that made him uneasy on several scores. It seemed this job wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he’d intended.
    “Unless…” Izzy glanced from Louise to Brody and then Morag and Aidan. “You’d all like to come back up with us? The boys’d be thrilled to have more company.”
    Aidan twisted his lips. “I doubt they’d be glad of mine. I’m an ex-cop.” Might as well have it in the open. And at least it gave him the satisfaction of attracting Brody’s startled gaze.
    “Is that worse than a parole officer?” Chrissy asked, finishing her drink.
    “Much,” Aidan said, refilling her glass.
    Brody said, “We’re all ex-something. You’re as welcome in our house as we are in yours.”
    Which was, Aidan thought sardonically, quite true. And Brody knew it.
    “Are you two having a pissing contest?” Louise asked with apparent interest, looking from Aidan to Brody and back.
    Brody let out a hiss that might have been laughter.
    Chrissy said, “No, Glenn means it. Come up whenever you want. If you want.” She didn’t look at Aidan, just at Louise and Morag.
    “We’ll see what we can do,” Louise said lightly.
    It must have been like this for her for most of the last few years, afraid to go out for longer than half an hour in case their mother fell asleep and Dad did something dangerous. He caught Louise’s eye and jerked his head towards the door. After all, he wasn’t sure he wanted to work tonight. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be anywhere near the strangely aloof Chrissy, who still took his breath away.
    In the black dress, her figure was even more alluring than he’d imagined, and the idea of running his hands all over those curves kept coming back to haunt him. He wondered how she kissed, how she fucked. If she’d only looked at him, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself flirting with her. Which, on this mission, might prove an awkward complication.
    She didn’t seem to be aloof with anyone else. On the contrary, quick and unexpectedly witty, she drank and bantered with the others, not deliberately excluding him, just never addressing him. But he didn’t flatter himself he’d got to her in a sexual way. She’d found out he was a cop, and she was living with a bunch of ex-cons who were, presumably, up to no good, whether she knew about it or not. At best, she was protective of them. At worst…
    At last, Brody stood and swung the boy onto his back. The kid smiled sleepily, wrapped his arms around the ex-con’s neck and closed his eyes, nestling into him. A smile flickered across Izzy’s face as she gazed at them and rose to her feet.
    Among the flurry of good-byes and “Happy New Years” flung from passersby in the street, Aidan found himself on the doorstep beside Chrissy Lennox. Awareness sizzled between them—or at least sizzled through Aidan. Chrissy had barely looked at him since she’d arrived. And yet when he turned his head towards her now, she was looking all right, and with unexpected intensity. She didn’t even drop her gaze when he