Frisky Business (14 page)

“You forgot
The
Big
Book
of
Bondage: From Playful to Paraphilic
,” Nancy said. “That hit the list too.”

“
Hit
being the operative word,” Will said.

“How lovely you two can finally meet,” April said, nodding like a bobblehead. “We were so surprised to learn Aunt Nancy wished to join us this evening.”

“Of course I wished to join you,” Aunt Nancy said, her tone mocking. “I spent my entire career focusing on sexual health and abnormal psychology. I have a particular interest in all forms of artistic phalluses.”

“Artistic,” Bethany said, and hiccupped.

Nancy ignored her and leveled a look at Marley. “So you’re the Marley Cartman I’ve been speaking to on the phone.”

“Wonderful to finally meet you, ma’am.” Marley smiled, but the gesture wasn’t returned.

“I do hope you’re getting a fair appraisal on the artifacts?”

Marley swallowed hard and nodded. “Of course. We’re flying in an expert appraiser to take a look next week.”

Nancy sniffed and looked around the room. “I trust you’ll find the donation to be quite large.”

“Quite large,” Marley agreed, ignoring the giant purple phallus making the rounds in her peripheral vision.

“I’ve already informed my accountant to expect a sizeable write-off on this year’s taxes, due to the donation,” Nancy continued.

Marley’s stomach clenched as her cousin’s words echoed in her head. Hopefully Kayley’s gut assessment was wrong. Hopefully the rock cocks—er,
figurines
—were worth every penny the family expected.

“We’ll leave it to the professionals to assess the value,” Marley said, “but sometimes the monetary amount is less important than—”

“The monetary amount is
always
important,” Nancy snapped. “You haven’t been in this business long if you don’t know that.”

“Right,” Marley said. “Of course. Money is the issue, and I’ll be certain we get a fair and accurate appraisal just as soon as possible.”

Nancy folded her arms over her chest. The tension in the room was so thick Marley could spread it on a bagel. Will stepped forward and took the tray from Aunt Nancy. “I’ll just pass these out,” he said, and moved around the sofa.

“Pussy,” Bethany muttered.

“Where?” asked a petite redhead on the end of the sofa. “Are we already on the page with the handheld Vajayjay and the Lotus Flower?”

Will ignored them as he made the rounds handing drinks to nervous-looking guests. “It’s not every day a guy gets to give out screaming orgasms to a dozen women.”

One of them reached out and grabbed Will’s butt, as another woman passed the Thunder Vibe to her neighbor. That woman turned a switch on the end and smiled.

“Buzzy,” she said.

“My husband can’t do that.”

“Damn shame.”

Aunt Nancy cleared her throat, snapping Marley’s attention away from the rest of the party. “So how long have you been in this line of work anyway?” Nancy demanded.

Marley swallowed and pasted on her best donor relations smile. “Well, I’ve been working in donor development for more than a decade, and—”

“So you’re a financial expert then?”

Marley blinked and resisted the urge to take a step back. She focused on smiling harder, on looking for some way to click with Nancy. “I do have a great deal of experience, yes.” Marley rubbed her lips together and put an extra note of enthusiasm in her voice. “I’m also a huge fan of vintage jewelry, and I have to say that’s a lovely necklace you’re wearing. Is it a family heirloom?”

“No. And why are you changing the subject?”

“I wasn’t changing the subject. Merely remarking on your exquisite taste in jewelry.”

“And I was asking how you got to be a financial wizard.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a financial wizard,” Marley said, folding her hands in front of her to keep them steady. Or to keep herself from wrapping them around Nancy’s neck. “I’d say I’m more of a people person who happens to enjoy working with individuals and corporations who wish to make charitable contributions to worthy causes like—”

“Cheez Whiz,” called Will.

“And other charitable entities of that sort,” Marley agreed. “I can help them maximize their donations in a way that’s mutually beneficial to—”

“So you schmooze rich people for money,” Aunt Nancy interrupted. “Not that there’s something wrong with that, but let’s call a spade a spade.”

Marley felt her smile beginning to falter, and she took a shaky breath to calm her nerves. “I can assure you, Ms. Thomas-Smith, I’m quite good at what I do.”

“I don’t doubt it. So what does your portfolio look like?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Nancy shrugged and took a sip of something Marley assumed was champagne but secretly hoped might be lighter fluid. An untimely death might be the only way to escape this conversation. “If you make a living telling other people what to do with their money, I assume you’ve handled your own just as wisely.”

Marley lifted her chin. “I prefer to keep my personal finances quite separate from my professional life, but I can assure you I’m comfortable. Why do you ask?”

Her voice quavered only a little on those last words, so Marley was pretty sure no one heard. Nancy opened her mouth to reply, but Bethany elbowed Marley in the ribs.

“She’s asking because she thinks you’re after Will’s money,” Bethany said. “And not in a donor relations sorta way.”

Marley choked back a bubble of laughter, which came out sounding more like a snort. “My only interest in Mr. Barclay’s finances is as they pertain to his professional investments in the operations of—”

“Cheez Whiz,” Will said, setting the empty drink tray on the counter as he rejoined the group. “Be nice, Aunt Nancy.”

“Hmph,” she sniffed. “Will’s had enough trouble with women in his life. Keep that in mind when you’re sniffing around his fire hydrant.”

“Will’s fire hydrant is safe from me,” Marley said, fighting to keep her voice bright and cheerful. “Our connection to one another is purely professional. But I’m sure he appreciates your concern.”

“Not especially,” Will said, touching Marley’s elbow so lightly she wondered if it was by accident. “But I try not to hold it against her.”

“The bike’s out here in the garage,” April called, her voice high and nervous. “It’s got a lovely little basket on the front you can take off when you go trail riding, and if you’ll just follow me—”

April started down the hall, and Marley turned to follow with Will right beside her. She looked up at him, careful to keep her voice to a whisper.

“So you and your sister diffuse awkward situations with dirty jokes, and April does it by being ridiculously chipper?”

Will grinned down at her. “You got a better method?”

“How about ruthless smiling?”

“Whatever works.”

From the sofa, Bethany called out to April, “You got it, babe? I’ll make another round of drinks if you can handle the bike thing.”

“Absolutely,” April chirped over her shoulder.

“Okay then,” Will said, turning back toward the group. “It was lovely meeting all of you. Aunt Nancy—always a pleasure.”

“Hmph,” said Aunt Nancy.

“A pleasure meeting you, ma’am,” Marley said. “I’ll keep you posted on the appraisal. And thank you for having us over, Bethany. This has been… well, lovely.”

Bethany grinned from her perch on the sofa and squeezed Marley’s hand. “Don’t mention it. You sure you don’t want to order anything? Here, take a catalog in case you change your mind.”

She thrust a pink-paged, glossy magazine into Marley’s hands, and Marley took it, not sure what else to do.

“Have a great evening,” Marley called to everyone, and turned to where April waited by the door to the garage, shifting nervously from one bare foot to the other.

Will followed behind her. “Well, that was fun.”

“We should do it again sometime.”

“Definitely. A few more visits with my family and you’ll be able to get in on our group therapy discount. Watch your step.”

Marley marched down three short stairs into the garage and spotted April polishing the bike’s handlebars with the hem of her dress.

“It’s a little dusty,” April sang, “but let me just get it tidied up and it’ll be lovely.”

“It’s a mountain bike,” Will said. “If it isn’t dusty, you aren’t using it correctly.”

“Right,” April said and stepped back. “I hope it’s the right size.”

“It looks perfect,” Marley said, studying the shiny yellow and white bike that looked brand new. Marley knew very little about bicycles, but she could tell this was a nice one. “Are you sure this is okay? It looks too nice for you to be loaning it to a complete stranger.”

April beamed. “You aren’t a stranger, Marley. You’re our new friend, and friends take care of each other.”

“That they do,” Will said.

Marley looked at him, surprised to hear the hint of ice back in his voice. Sensing Marley’s eyes on him, he offered her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and patted the seat of the bike. “What do you think?” he asked.

Marley glanced between April’s earnest expression and Will’s brittle one, thinking it was no wonder everyone was a walking coping mechanism considering the amount of awkwardness in this family dynamic.

“It’s lovely,” Marley said, and beamed at them both.

Will surveyed the scene as he pulled up Marley’s driveway. As much as he hated to admit it, he was keeping a tense watch for expensive-looking cars.

“My dad isn’t here,” Marley said, reading his thoughts. “He had a business meeting in Burns, so he’s staying the night over there.”

“There go my plans to earn an extra twenty bucks,” he said as he opened his car door and swung himself out. Magoo hopped over the seat and jumped out behind him, padding over to a water dish at the edge of the garage. Marley followed and punched a few numbers on a keypad beside the door. The garage powered open, revealing an interior so spotless you could lick the concrete floor. Not that Will wanted to, but the option was there.

He turned and nodded toward the bike attached to the rack on the back of his Volkswagen.

“You want the bike in the garage, or on your back porch?” he called.

Marley looked up, and Will felt something clench in his chest as her eyes locked with his. Hers skittered away first, studying the interior of the garage.

“Let’s put it in the garage. I’ll feel better if I know it’s locked up.”

“From thieves or from Magoo?”

“Both.”

Will pulled the bike off the rack as Marley uncoiled a garden hose off a neat wooden rack beside the house. She dragged the hose over before bending down to tip the slobber-saturated water out of Magoo’s dish. It shouldn’t have been sexy, but Will still caught himself staring. There was so much to see. Wisps of hair drifting free from her ponytail to frame her face. A shadowy glimpse of curved flesh beneath the neckline of her T-shirt. Her taut backside in those snug cotton shorts.

Stop
it,
Will commanded himself.
You
are
not
a
Neanderthal.

Yes, he was. The trick was not to act like it.

Magoo pranced around while Marley splashed fresh water into the dish and Will wheeled the bike into the garage. He propped it against the wall and then trudged back to his car and grabbed the box containing Marley’s new bike rack. He hefted it out and carried it back toward the garage.

He found Marley standing over Magoo’s dish, the hose still splashing water over her bare toes as she studied the Pure Romance catalog she’d gotten from Bethany.

“Need help hooking this to your car?” he asked.

Marley looked up, blinking in surprise as she closed the catalog. “Oh—I almost forgot about that.”

“It shouldn’t take too long to attach it. Got any tools?”

Marley gave him a sheepish grin and waved the catalog. “Funny you should ask. I was just studying the Jelly Tool Belt.”

“Does it have an Allen wrench?”

“That may be the only thing it doesn’t have.” Marley rolled the catalog up and tucked it under one arm, effectively ending Will’s efforts to peer at the pages.

He set down the bike box and nodded back at the Volkswagen. “I’ve got tools in my car. The real kind, not the ones you’d be embarrassed to have spotted in your luggage by airport security. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“I can’t ask you install my bike rack, Will. It’s too much trouble.”

“You aren’t asking me,” Will called as he dug his toolbox out of the trunk. “I’m offering. Totally different thing.”

“At least let me make you dinner. I could throw something really simple together. Shrimp scampi, maybe, and a salad. I grabbed some fresh bread from Baked, so I can heat that up with garlic butter.”

Will grabbed his toolbox and returned to the garage, his stomach already growling. “That sounds amazing.”

“How long do you think the bike thing will take?”

Will shrugged. “Twenty minutes, thirty tops.”

She smiled, and Will felt his heart twist. “Perfect,” she said. “I’ll have dinner ready by then. Thanks again, Will.”

He stared after her as she retreated into the house, the smell of blueberries drifting after her even though he hadn’t seen her drinking any of her iced tea all evening.

He had to admit, the meal sounded incredible. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman feed him. For the first year after they’d divorced, April would bring him food. Some lamb stew here, a plate of cookies there—“
just
leftovers, and I happened to be passing by
.”

Will had known the truth. April felt guilty, and when April felt uncomfortable, she turned into a Stepford wife.

She’d spent the last half of their marriage being relentlessly cheerful and efficient. Will had to admit, he’d enjoyed it sometimes. Now he just felt like hell for putting her in a position to feel compelled to fake anything at all.

You
should
have
known
she
was
unhappy,
he told himself.
You
should
have
seen
the
meatloaf
and
stiff
smiles
for
the
warning
signs
they
were.

Maybe so. But having Marley cook for him seemed different. More intimate somehow. His mouth watered as he thought about Marley hovering over a steamy pot of noodles, her nimble fingers dropping fat, tender shrimp into the butter. Will sighed and opened his toolbox.

The heady smell of garlic was wafting through the garage door before Will had the last screw tightened. He knocked twice on the door leading from the garage to the condo, then wiped his feet on the doormat and walked inside.

“Marley?” he called, stepping into the foyer where he noticed the giant pink rabbit still occupied copious floor space. “I’m all done out here. Where would you like me to wash up?”

Marley popped her head around the corner of the kitchen, her cheeks flushed from cooking. At least Will assumed it was from cooking. She had that catalog, after all.

“There’s a bathroom right around the corner there,” Marley said, nodding at the hallway. “First door on the left. Great timing, by the way. The scampi’s just about done. I hope you don’t mind garlic.”

“I’m not a vampire, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That saves me the trouble of staking you at the dinner table then.”

Will trudged through the foyer en route to the bathroom. As he passed the small end table by the door, something buzzed. He looked down at a small basket of keys and coins and saw Marley’s phone vibrating on top of the pile. He froze as an incoming text message flashed on the screen.

Did more research. Rock cocks almost definitely worthless. Call me.

The words flashed up so fast Will didn’t have time to register whether he should be reading them. And who the hell was Kayley?

Will stepped away from the phone and moved toward the bathroom. Two waves hit him at once—a wave of guilt for snooping, and a wave of suspicion about the message. It had to be about Aunt Nancy’s figurines. But Marley had said she couldn’t get them appraised until next week. So what was going on?

There
has
to
be
an
explanation. Just ask her.

He shook his head as he stepped into the bathroom to scrub his hands.

Great idea.
“So, Marley, I was reading your private text messages and couldn’t help noticing—”

No. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.

Will twisted off the taps and ignored the twist of uneasiness in his gut. By the time he returned to the dining room, Marley had the table set and was ladling giant servings of buttery scampi onto plates. “Hang on a sec. Let me clip some parsley from my plant on the back deck.”

“Wow,” Will said, sitting down to survey the spread. “Is this blueberry iced tea?”

“It is. There’s white wine too, if you want it. It’s right inside the fridge. Take your pick between the Sauvignon Blanc and the Chardonnay.”

Will pulled the wine from the refrigerator and located a corkscrew in the drawer beside the refrigerator. He returned to the table right as Marley dropped a handful of chopped parsley over a steaming plate of pasta and set it on a blue placemat.

Will sat down and spread a green polka-dotted napkin across his lap before uncorking the wine.

“This smells incredible. It
looks
incredible.”

“Now we just hope it doesn’t taste like cardboard,” Marley said as she set down her own plate and took a seat beside Will. “I’m not a great cook, but this is the one thing I make pretty well. I have to go a little light on the butter since I’m lactose intolerant, but parmesan is one of the few cheeses I can handle.” She placed a frosty glass of blueberry tea in front of him before picking up the dainty, stemmed wineglass Will had filled with Sauvignon Blanc.

“Cheers,” Marley said, and took a sip.

“Cheers.”

They clinked glasses, and Will noticed the flush still hadn’t left Marley’s cheeks. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy knot on top of her head, and damp little curls framed her face. She looked ridiculously beautiful, which was crazy. She was wearing a dirt-smudged T-shirt, for crying out loud. She couldn’t be beautiful. She couldn’t be trusted, either.

Give
her
the
benefit
of
the
doubt. Stop snooping, stop being suspicious, and eat your damn pasta.

Magoo trotted into the dining room and looked from Marley to Will and back to Marley again. He licked Marley’s bare calf twice, then curled himself into a tight donut shape at the base of her chair.

Will set his glass down and took a bite of the pasta. “This is delicious.”

“Thank you. It’s my go-to easy meal when company drops by.”

“I don’t cook much myself.”

“No? What do you eat?”

He shrugged and speared a fat, pink shrimp with his fork. “Rubber chicken.”

“Rubber chicken?”

“At charity functions, local fund-raiser galas, that sort of thing. I attend a lot of them, and no matter how swanky it is, they always seem to serve chicken that’s been cooked to the consistency of a superball.”

“Rubber chicken. Got it.”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it. Sometimes it’s actually pretty tasty.”

Marley laughed and forked up a mouthful of pasta. “I thought the food at Bed’s event was pretty good. I’ll have to get the name of that caterer.”

“It was April.”

He could tell from Marley’s expression he’d surprised her. “Your ex-wife is a caterer?”

“Yep. She works out of 900 Wall downtown. Another chef runs the restaurant portion, and April handles the catering side of things.”

“Wow. So will she be catering the event your sister hosts next month?”

“Probably. It’s good promo for the business, plus April can’t ever resist the urge to feed people.”

Marley was quiet a moment, and Will wondered what she was pondering. He didn’t have to wonder for long.

“Is it weird having so much social interaction with your sister and ex-wife? I mean, given the circumstances—”

“—of my wife leaving me to play snuggle-the-hamster with my sister?” Will took a sip of tea. “No.”

Marley’s eyes were fixed on his face, waiting for more detail. But Will wasn’t interested in offering it. Instead, he picked up the basket of sliced baguette and offered it to her. “More bread?”

Marley shook her head and speared another shrimp. “No thank you. Sorry to be nosy. It’s just odd to me. As soon as my ex-fiancé and I broke things off, that was pretty much it. Aside from a few awkward interactions where we sorted through belongings and decided who got what, we didn’t have a whole lot to say to one another.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I think so. And since I moved three hours from Portland, we pretty much eliminated the chance of running into each other on a date or backsliding into post-breakup pity sex.” Marley laughed and speared another shrimp. “Of course, without the post-breakup pity sex, I probably should give some serious consideration to the merchandise in Bethany’s catalog.”

Her eyes flitted to the china hutch behind them, and Will realized she’d set the Pure Romance catalog there. He stared at it a moment, feeling very warm under the collar of his T-shirt. He speared another mouthful of salad and chewed thoughtfully, his eyes still fixed on the glossy pages. He finished chewing and set down his fork, reaching over to snatch the pink and black cover page featuring a photo of a woman looking rosy-cheeked and joyful over the contents of a gift-wrapped box.

Will flipped past the first few pages as Marley dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin. “I kinda want to see what all the fuss is about,” he said, flipping another page.

“There’s something for everyone in there. Especially Aunt Nancy, given her apparent phallus fixation.”

“There’s a visual I didn’t need.” Will flipped another page as Marley twirled the tines of her fork in her last puddle of noodles. He stopped flipping and stared at a photograph of a pink lotion tube.

“Coochy?” Will squinted at the page. “They make a product called
Coochy
?”

“I’m afraid to ask what it is.”

“Apparently it’s a shaving lotion.”

“Don’t feel you need to explain which body parts it’s intended to shave.”

Will grinned and flipped another page, pausing to take a bite of garlic bread. He dropped the bread as his eyes landed on the next section of merchandise.

“Wow,” he said, picking up the bread again. “I didn’t realize there’s so much variety.”

“Variety in what?” Marley stretched toward him to get a look at the page, and Will resisted the urge to look down the front of her shirt. Instead, he turned back to the page, holding it up so she could see. “Vibrators,” he said, flipping to the next page to demonstrate the array of products. “They’ve got g-spot vibrators, vaginal vibrators, dual-action vibrators, and clitoral stimulators. Which are we shopping for?”

“
We
are not shopping for anything,” Marley said, making a grab for the magazine. “Give me that.”