The Last White Knight Read Online Free PDF Page A

that was good news or bad.
    Hand still gripping the doorknob, she tried to look the part of a hostess bidding a guest good night. “Thank you for dropping by, Senator.”
    “Giving me the bum’s rush, Counselor Shaw?” he asked, blue eyes sparkling like sapphires under the hall light. “We haven’t opened our fortune cookies yet. Maybe mine will tell me what Martha wouldn’t.”
    He didn’t give her a chance to say no, turning and sauntering back into the living room as if he had all the time in the world. Lynn heaved a weary sigh and gave in, rubbing at the knot of tension and pain above her eye.
    “What you need is someone to do that for you.”
    She jerked her head up, startled to see he had turned around and was leaning against the living room doorway watching her.
    “I took a course in massage when I was playing college football,” he said. “You can’t fully release tension when you’re actively generating energy.”
    “I’ll bear that in mind.”
    “Care for a demonstration?” He raised his hands, fingers splayed wide, like a surgeon waiting for his gloves to be put on. “I’m pretty good with my hands.”
    “I don’t doubt it,” Lynn muttered. She steppedaround him and went into the living room, where she began gathering up the supper dishes with efficiency.
    Erik hung back for a moment, admiring the fit of her jeans as she bent over the low table. She had a slim, angular build, but her backside was nicely rounded, inviting a man to touch. The old jeans hugged her lovingly, giving a faint, tantalizing glimpse of black lace panties where the denim had worn thin beneath one pocket. Desire stirred, warm and silky, in his groin.
    “Let me help you with that,” he said as she straightened.
    “You don’t have to.”
    “My mother raised me better than that. You fed me, I help clean up.”
    He didn’t allow her to protest, but took the stack of plates from her and headed out of the room in search of the kitchen. Lynn followed like a woman resigned to her own execution, the tray of take-out boxes held before her like the remains of her final meal.
    In the kitchen the sink was already filling with water and soap bubbles. Erik had set the plates aside and was busy snooping through drawers. He pulled out a dishcloth and a cotton towel.
    “You wash, I’ll dry,” he said.
    “Afraid of being seen in an apron?” Lynn asked dryly. She dumped the cartons in the garbage and set the tray on the counter beside the dishes.
    “Naw,” he drawled, handing her the dishcloth. “Voters understand aprons. They like the new Nineties Man image. It’s ladies’ underwear they frown on.”
    Lynn couldn’t help the little cough of laughter. She would have pegged Erik Gunther as a man who took himself too seriously. That he had a sense of humor was a nice surprise.
    “I don’t know,” she said, giving him a sidelong look as she sank her hands into the warm suds. “You might look kind of cute in a garter belt. You could attract a whole new demographic group.”
    “And a lot of weird phone calls.”
    “It could open new vistas in your personal life.”
    “I like the vistas I have right now just fine, thanks.”
    They worked in silence for a few moments, but it was hardly a companionable silence. Lynn was too aware of him standing beside her, and too aware of her desire to like him. He was here to help, she reminded herself, but he had his own agenda and his own goals. It just wouldn’t do for her to like him too much.
    “I don’t bite,” he said softly. Lynn started and looked up at him, wide-eyed. A rakish smile tuggedat one corner of his mouth and he waggled his eyebrows. “Unless it’s a specific request, that is.”
    “I was just … thinking about Elliot Graham,” she lied, turning her attention back to the dishes.
    Erik’s face crumpled. “Oh.” He pulled a plate out of the rinse water and dried it slowly. “Haven’t you had enough of him for one night?”
    Lynn sniffed. “I’ve had