Page 16 of Dangerous Affair (The Phoenix Three #2)

“A wesome house,” Liam said as he parked the car Grayson had loaned him until his was repaired.

“It’s too big for my dad, but he’s lived here since he and my mother married, and all his memories of her are here.”

Liam guessed the two-story Victorian house was four or five thousand square feet, and it fit the landscape of giant oak trees dripping with Spanish moss.

The wide front porch was perfect for sitting in the swing with a book and a sweet iced tea.

The ceiling fans would make hot summer days tolerable.

“You said your father’s in Asheville?”

“Maggie Valley actually, but that’s in the Asheville area.

He’ll come back to Savannah in early October when it starts to cool down a little.

He does come home if I’m here so he can spend time with me.

He wanted to be here now, but I told him to stay at his cabin, that I was only going to be here for a day, two at the most.”

She unlocked the door, and he held it open for her to step inside.

He followed her in and paused to appreciate the entrance.

They were in a large foyer, the feature a wide staircase, and he could imagine her walking down it on prom night, her date standing at the bottom, his gaze focused on the beautiful girl floating toward him.

In Liam’s vision, the girl wore a green gown that fit her curves and matched her eyes. He was jealous of that faceless boy.

“You look a thousand miles away,” she said. “What are you thinking?”

“Did you go to the prom?”

“Yes, why?”

“Did you walk down those stairs while your boyfriend tried his best not to drool at seeing you?”

She laughed. “I don’t know about the drooling part, but yes.”

“What color was your dress?”

“Emerald green. Why are you asking these questions?”

Because he’d seen her clear as day slowly descending the stairs, a soft smile on her face for the boy waiting for her to reach him.

“I just wanted to picture it.” If he married her, he’d ask her to walk down those stairs in her wedding dress, so he would experience that soft smile meant just for him.

He shook his head. Where had that thought even come from?

“You want something to drink?”

“I’m good for now.” They walked past the stairs and into a formal living room. “Your home is beautiful.”

“Thank you. I think so, too, although I sometimes forget to appreciate it. It’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

“Your father’s retired I take it?”

“For five years now. He owned a real estate company specializing in commercial property and decided one day he was working too hard, so he sold it. He dabbles in the stock market now, more as a hobby than a job. He seems to have a knack for it, though.”

It was obvious father and daughter were close, and he envied that.

Even before he’d been declared dead to his father, they hadn’t been close.

What Patrick O’Rourke saw when he looked at his son was a means to an end, just someone to carry on the O’Rourke legacy.

There had never been affection between them, and as hard as the boy he used to be longed for approval from his father, it never came.

Yet he still held on to the hope that someday, his father would…

well, undead him. That he’d be welcomed back into the family again.

She headed down a hallway. “Come on. I want to look for that thumb drive.”

“Right behind you.” He took those unwanted thoughts of his father and crammed them back into the box where they belonged.

“Cool room,” he said after following her into what he was expecting to be her bedroom but was not.

He turned in a circle, taking in the two large monitors sitting on a glass desk, a small blue leather sofa, the photos on the walls, the shelves of awards, and a long, chest-high table in the middle of the room.

Scattered across the table were cameras, two closed laptops, and things he couldn’t identify.

“Where’s your darkroom?”

She walked straight to the table. “You don’t know much about photography, do you? With digital cameras, computers, and hundreds of photography software, darkrooms aren’t much of a thing anymore.”

“Who knew?”

She glanced up from scattering thumb drives over the table and smirked. “I did.”

“I want to kiss that smirk right off your face.” When she laughed, he stepped around the table. “You find that funny?” He was close enough now to catch her scent, something that made him think of the sea, summer nights, and satiny sheets.

“Are you smelling me?” she asked when he leaned his nose close to her neck and inhaled.

“I am. What’s that scent? Makes me want to lick you.”

“Harlow brought me coconut-and-vanilla body wash and shampoo.” She tilted her head, giving him access to her neck. “You like?”

“ Like is such a mundane word for what I think.” Keeping his lips close to her skin, but not touching, he moved his mouth until it was an inch from hers. “Stop or go?”

“Go?”

“As in can I go ahead and kiss you?”

“If you want.”

“Oh, I want.” The first time he’d kissed her, he’d committed the taste of her to memory, but maybe his memory was faulty.

When his lips met hers this time, it was…

different. Their kiss in the woods had been sweet and tentative with a hint of possibilities.

This one, man, this one was electric, sending a shock wave of desire through him.

She tasted like sin and a craving only she could satisfy, a dangerous combination that had his head spinning.

When they finally broke apart, he was breathless, his heart hammering in his chest. He leaned his forehead against hers.

It was in that moment that he realized this wasn’t just a passing attraction; there was something deeper between them, something he wanted to explore.

“Wow,” she whispered.

“Yeah, that kiss was definitely a wow.” He cupped her cheek, her skin soft against his palm. “There’s more where that came from. All you have to do is ask.”

“I just might do that, but right now, I want to know if I have Jasper’s thumb drive.”

He picked up one that looked different. “What’s this?”

“It’s a SanDisk. Sometimes we store our photos on those, sometimes on a thumb drive. Jasper wants his thumb drive, and he knows the difference, so that’s what we’re looking for. Purple’s my favorite color, so mine are all purple. Jasper’s are black, and it’s not here.”

“So, you don’t have it?”

“Don’t get excited yet.” She got a bigger camera bag.

“This is the one I had with me in California. I didn’t really go through it when I got back.

You’d think if he has photos stored on a drive that are worth a million dollars to someone, he’d keep it safely locked up somewhere.

But that’s Jasper for you. Never takes care of his things. ”

“Most people would.” He leaned against the table. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s also a photojournalist. I met him in California when we were both covering the wildfires.

He likes to think he’s a macho man, gets embedded with teams on the front lines of wars or in California with the hotshots.

” She stared down at her hands where she rested them on the camera bag.

“It embarrasses me to admit that I had a short fling with him.”

“Why? You’re single, and if you were attracted to him and it was consensual, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.” Thinking of her being intimate with another man, though? Not a picture he wanted in his mind. “Did he treat you right?”

“He did in the beginning. Around the time for me to head home, he started getting possessive and talked about me staying even though my assignment was coming to an end. When I reminded him that I didn’t do relationships, something I’d been up-front about from the beginning, he just talked over me.

By then, I knew I’d made a mistake getting involved with him. ”

“You don’t do relationships at all?” That was not something he wanted to hear.

She lifted her gaze to his. “No.”

“How come?” If she wasn’t interested in him, he’d walk away, but she was.

He could see it in her eyes and in the way she kissed him back.

He wasn’t a man who let obstacles get in his way.

There were always a way around them. To do that, he needed to know what her obstacles were and why they were there.

“Why not, Quinn?”