Voyeur - Lacey Alexander [18]
You’re just trying to justify this somehow, make yourself feel better about it.
She’d felt weird enough before the corset and vibrator had shown up. But opening that box to find them inside had somehow yanked her private nighttime sin out into the bright light of day in a whole new way. She eyed the gifts now, the velvet draped over the edge of the box still on the sofa, the fake purple penis jutting up from the tissue paper, as well. Why did it have to be purple, for God’s sake? And shaped so realistically like a freaking penis? Somehow that made the gift all the more blunt, all the more in-your-face. She couldn’t help it—she liked subtlety. So did Riley.
Of course, she thought, turning back to the computer, Riley wasn’t getting subtlety anymore than Laura was at the moment, given that searing and unexpected kiss the dark stranger had just delivered before they’d all been interrupted by the deliveryman—and concentrating on Riley’s situation seemed a lot more productive than continuing to stew over her voyeur and his so-called gift. She could deal with the reality of that later. For now—she’d come here to write, and she was going to write. Her deadline—and checking account—depended upon it. And besides, she was more than a little curious to see what happened next with Riley’s handsome stranger.
Riley’s lips tingled with the power of his kiss. Although, if she was honest, more than just her lips were left tingling—her entire body was getting into the act. When it ended, the handsome stranger pulled back and met her gaze. She’d never seen darker, more entrancing eyes, and merely looking into them made her want to melt onto the floor of the Dorchesters’ toolshed. “Wha-what was that?” she asked.
One corner of his full mouth quirked into a hint of a grin. “It’s called a kiss, honey.”
Even his voice made her insides quiver, but she tried to stand strong. “I know what it’s called, but who are you and what are you doing in the Dorchesters’ shed?”
This time, a full-blown but utterly mysterious smile unfurled on the man’s face just before he winked at her. “It’s a secret,” he said, then opened the door and walked out, leaving Riley in the shadowy heat, alone now but for the riding mower and a host of shovels and gardening hoes.
Feeling wholly unsteady, Riley eased back onto the mower’s seat, letting her gaze drift toward the dirt floor. Her eyes dropped to an old broken brick that had fallen from the wall beneath a workbench. In a normal shed, she wouldn’t have noticed such a thing, but the Dorchesters were unusually tidy, fastidious people, and that extended right down to their outbuildings. A chunk of brick on the floor of the Dorchesters’ toolshed was the equivalent of a kitchen scattered with dirty pots and pans or a bedroom sporting an unmade bed strewn with hastily stripped off clothes and underwear.
Not that she was thinking about stripping off underwear—hers or anyone else’s. She didn’t even know the attractive stranger’s name or what he was doing here, so she had zero interest in his underwear. Especially given that there was now a brand-new mystery to solve—who was he, and what had he been doing in here?
Riley stooped to look at the brick. Nothing unordinary about it—except that it had left an empty spot in the wall beneath the worktable. And Riley thought she must be insane to stick her hand into a dark hole that might contain mice or spiders or God only knew what else—God, please don’t let there be spiders; she hated spiders like she hated nothing else!—but she was on a mission, and she would not be deterred.
Easing her fingers inside the space, she felt cautiously around—until she touched something that felt suspiciously like lush velvet! Grabbing on to the fabric, she extracted it to find it was a small black drawstring bag, so