Page 23 of Olive Becket Plays the Rake (The Seattle Suffrage Society)

His forehead scrunched in thought. “Probably not enough.”

She chuckled despite her frustration. “Truer words have never been spoken.”

“Anyone want sugar in their tea?” Emil called.

“Three lumps,” Robbie hollered.

“We’ll both have one,” she corrected, kneeling on the woven rug. “That means we have two minutes to sort this mess. On the floor, sheriff.”

Robbie slid off the chair and, together, they re-stacked back issues of The Nickelodeon, The National Geographic, The Ladies Home Journal, Puck, and a half dozen others.

The sheer variety fascinated her. What would it be like to have spare money for a magazine subscription?

To be able to indulge one’s curiosity in different topics and sit around reading for pleasure? She couldn’t imagine.

“I brought these over from the family house up in Ballard,” Emil said, entering the living room with a wooden tray bearing three mugs and a plate of sweet bread.

He set them on the table and then squatted beside her to join in on the sorting.

“Once my father’s yacht company took off, my mother was determined to give us what they couldn’t afford before.

We chose magazines. And every Christmas, we argue over which two subscriptions to buy. We’ve tried them all over the years.”

Olive stroked a worn issue of Harper’s Bazaar from 1898. “That’s a lovely tradition.”

“You say that now, but imagine an entire year stuck with The American Bee-Keeper because your seven-year-old sister screamed the loudest.”

Chuckling, she stretched a hand under the settee to grasp a magazine that had slipped beneath.

When it resisted her tugging, she leaned down and peered underneath.

Her eyes widened. The magazine was stuck beneath a basket of yarn.

Yarn the same color as the scarf she currently wore. The scarf Emil had given her.

She pulled the basket out and goggled at its contents.

Six balls of yarn, three sets of knitting needles, one newly begun scarf, similar to the one she wore, and a damning pouch of tobacco.

She glanced up. Emil was still, looking as sheepish as her brother did when she caught him daydreaming during reading lessons.

“Are these yours?”

“That depends. Would you believe my mother is addicted to tobacco?”

“No.”

“Then yes, they’re mine.”

She touched the scarf around her neck. “And you made this?”

“I did.” He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “Knitting helps me think.”

Olive brushed a finger over the intricate pattern.

Emil, the cockiest man she’d ever met, was embarrassed to have made something so beautiful.

The realization stunned her. She could tease him—mercilessly, even—but something about this moment felt delicate.

He was showing her a side of himself he would have preferred to keep hidden.

She couldn’t ruin that. Couldn’t diminish the gesture.

“You’re very skilled,” she said. “I’m honored you would give me one of your creations.”

“Thank you.”

Their eyes held, and the air crackled between them. She felt it, deep in her belly. A yearning to lean in and press her lips to his for her first kiss. To feel his arms around her, stroking her skin and setting her on fire—

“This is boring,” Robbie announced.

Olive jumped and tore her gaze from Emil. “Robbie—”

“Let’s play cops and robbers.”

“I don’t think Mr. Anderson wants to—”

“Sure, why not?” Emil leapt to his feet. “As long as your sister and I are the robbers.”

Robbie rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. I know just the thing for bad men and women.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and dangled them in the air with a victorious expression.

Olive thought she might faint. “Where on earth did you get those?”

“They were on top of the magazines.”

“Oh my God.”

But Emil only laughed. “One isn’t enough. Let me get the second set.”

“The second…why do you have two?”

“Actually, I have three. Leftovers from my days on the Tacoma PD.” Her unease must have been obvious, because Emil added, “I also have several sets of keys. There’s no danger.”

Feeling completely overruled, she nodded jerkily. The room exploded into a flurry of movement—her putting the remaining magazines out of the way, Emil disappearing into a back room and emerging with more handcuffs, and her brother staging the crime scene to his liking.

“Back-to-back,” Robbie ordered, gesturing to the two chairs he’d arranged before the settee.

She sank into one, and Emil squatted at her side with the handcuffs.

“Will it hurt?” she whispered, settling her hands in her lap.

“Not the way I do it.” Her core throbbed at the promise, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. He gently enclosed her wrists with the smooth, cold metal, then looked up. “How’s that?”

“It’s all right.”

Robbie urged Emil into the other chair. “Your turn. And since you’re ten times more dangerous than Ollie, I’m going to put handcuffs on your hands and your feet.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Olive exclaimed.

“It’s my mistake for mentioning I had three sets. Can’t blame a man for using the knowledge he’s given.”

Olive opened her mouth to object again, but when Robbie puffed out his chest at Emil’s words, she swallowed the protest. Robbie had so little fun these days.

If Emil didn’t see a problem with it, then she wouldn’t either.

She listened as Emil explained how to apply the handcuffs—and how to unlock them—and convinced herself everything would be fine.

“All right, kid.” The chair creaked as Emil settled into it. “How do you want to play this? Should we cry? Beg for mercy?”

“You two stay right there,” Robbie ordered.

Olive raised a brow. “Well, we’re not going anywhere.”

“Good.” He beamed. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait—what?” Emil demanded.

“I have important police business outside.” He spun on his heel and darted through the living room.

“Robbie, the keys!”

“Olive, get him!”

She sprang forward just as Emil hurled himself toward the mischievous wretch.

They both missed—and slammed into each other.

They went down hard in a tangle of limbs and muffled yelps, upending the settee before hitting the floor in a heap.

He grunted when her elbow jammed into something firm.

His ribs? His arm? Hard to tell, considering she was now half on top of him, her cheek smushed awkwardly against his shoulder.

She twisted one way, and he wiggled the other.

But it was futile—they were firmly wedged between the settee and the wall.

In the next room, the door slammed shut, followed by footsteps pounding down the boardwalk.

A laugh bubbled up before she could stop it, tearing free in an undignified, breathless wheeze.

Emil’s chest vibrated with his laughter, and the movement was so startling that it sent her into peals of laughter.

Their mirth fed off each other until she could hardly breathe, tears prickling at her eyes.

Oh, how marvelous it was to laugh with someone.

“We were hoodwinked,” she managed between snorts.

“He’s craftier than I expected, but luckily, I kept the extra set of keys in my pocket.”

“Thank goodness.”

He contorted his body, then froze. “Uh oh.”

“What?”

“The keys…they’re in my back pocket.”

She shoved her hands against his chest. “I am not putting my hand in your pants!”

“Then it looks like we’re stuck. Forever.”

She dissolved into giggles once more. “Stop it. I’m getting a cramp in my side.”

“I can’t help it. You bring out my best jokes.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing at all.

Simply met his gaze and smiled. And for once, it felt natural.

Simple. As she watched, his breath slowed and his expression softened.

His eyes—those deep blue wells—held so much more depth than she’d previously thought.

Desire, held in check. But desire for her.

Suddenly, she was all too aware of their compromising position—their legs tangled together, her hands pressed to his chest, and his against her stomach. Their faces mere inches apart.

“Olive,” he whispered, his voice a silky caress. “Why are you really here?”

She inhaled his confidence, his solidness, and exhaled the words longing to be free.

“I was thinking about you. I wanted to see you.”

The smile he gave her was lopsided. Genuine. Beautiful. “I’m glad, because I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”

“Really?”

“You occupy my thoughts during the day, and when I close my eyes at night, you’re waiting for me in my dreams. It’s madness.”

She nodded, dazed. It was madness.

“I can’t stop wondering where you are. What you’re doing.

Whether you’re tired or hungry. If you’re laughing.

” His gaze fell to her lips, and his voice deepened.

“And God help me, I can’t stop thinking about your sweet lips.

How they’ll taste beneath mine when I finally claim them.

” Desire pooled between her legs at the thought, and her back arched toward him unconsciously. “Would you like that, Olive?”

“Yes.” It was more whimper than word, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t care about anything other than the spell Emil wove around her.

“I’ve thought of this moment a dozen times a day for the last few weeks,” he said. “I’ve kissed you a hundred ways. But first, I need to know. Have you ever been kissed?” Her cheeks heating, she shook her head. “What about in your dreams? Your imagination?”

“All the time.”

Her whisper wrenched a growl from his lips, and his hand splayed across her stomach. “Tell me. How does your first kiss make you feel?”

“It’s soft. Patient.” She lifted one shoulder in a self-conscious shrug. “It makes me hear music.”

“You deserve music, Olive,” he said, and she tensed, half-fearing her request was too high. Too demanding. Too strange. But all he did was lean so close that his next words could have been her own. “I’ll do my best to make that happen.”

His lips brushed against hers, soft and warm and damp.

She longed to raise her hands, to wind one through his dark locks, to have his hand cup her jaw.

But somehow, the restraints made every touch more vivid.

She fell into the kiss. Embraced the gentle cadence of their lips meeting, parting, and returning.

She gasped. He sighed. And their breath intertwined in a new melody. When he pulled back, she was trembling.

“Did you hear music?”

She nodded. And then, as if she were someone else entirely, she rocked forward, her nose bumping against his, and demanded in a voice raw with need, “More.”

“I’ll give you anything you want,” he said gruffly. His hands moved across her belly, her hips, holding her tightly to him. “But a second kiss isn’t gentle. Not ours, anyway.”

“Not ours,” she agreed, her knee pushing restlessly between his.

“Tell me what it is.”

“It gives everything. And it takes everything. It is passion incarnate.”

“God, you undo me.”

His mouth descended on hers, and coherent thoughts vanished.

This was not merely a kiss. It was a declaration.

A claiming. He nipped at her bottom lip, then soothed it with his tongue.

He teased her lips apart, then thrust his tongue inside her mouth to stroke hers.

He took what he wanted, and she gave everything she had. Then it was her turn.

She wrapped her fingers in the front of his sweater, demanding he close the small gap between them. She rocked against the iron bulge pressing into her thigh. He wanted her. He wanted her. She let herself fall even deeper into the kiss, craving more, always more, more.

At last, he tore his mouth away and pressed his forehead to hers, muttering something in Swedish. His breath was as harsh and ragged as hers. She was still dizzy with his taste when she felt the shift.

It was subtle. Not unkind. But it was there, in the gentle way he pried her fingers from his sweater. How he eased his legs from between hers and put as much space between them as their position would allow.

“Passion incarnate, indeed,” he finally said, leaning back to look at her. The words were correct, but the tone was wrong—the rough edges of want had gone brittle. Then she saw his smile.

A chill swept over her.

It was the dreaded smile—brilliant and charming and perfectly false. The one he bestowed on silly women. Women who would fall, or had already fallen, for him.

Oh no.

She was one of those women. She’d lost herself in their game, lost count of the moves, forgotten whose turn it was to make the other leap. She’d dared to think she was winning, that he was the one jumping through hoops for her.

Yet there she was in his house. She’d sought him out. She’d thrown herself at him. Worse, she had let herself feel something for him—a man who didn’t know the meaning of commitment! And for what, a fleeting moment of heat? The false promise of something more?

The game had reached new heights. Dangerous heights. The kind where the risks were too great. Where the fall would hurt too much. And she couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.

“Thank you, that was most instructive.” She lurched to a seated position, speaking so quickly her words slurred. “I have to go. I have to go right now.”

Emil rose onto an elbow. “Right now?”

“Yes.” She jerked at the handcuffs, the metal digging into her skin and helping her focus. “Unlock me.”

“Slow down, give me a minute,” he said soothingly. But she could not be soothed. She wrapped her hands around the chain and tugged again. “Olive, stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

And then the wretch lifted a hand—an unlocked hand—and dug into his back pocket for the keys.

“How long have your hands been free?” she whispered harshly, her throat aching with the urge to scream.

“Since before our first kiss.”

She gaped. Why hadn’t he said anything? Why would he let her think they were in the same position? What did it mean? Her thoughts careened, refusing to land on anything comforting. It was too much. It was all too much. The second she was free, she scrambled to her feet.

And ran away as fast as she could.