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S tone agreed with the sentiment, but Philly’s delivery had him rolling his eyes. Or nearly. Juliana’s soft laugh—no doubt Philly’s intention—stopped him.

He turned to her. “Do you want to start? You can project your notes.” He nodded to the wall.

“Thanks,” she said, and he rose, leaning over the table to grab the cord from the power strip. When he shifted to hand it to her, her eyes darted away suddenly. As if she’d been staring at his ass. He bit back a grin. He did not mind one tiny bit if she ogled his ass.

Juliana cleared her throat. “After I arrived home last night, I wrote down everything I heard. We didn’t go over that at my place. Why don’t we start there?”

He nodded as she hooked up her computer, savoring the spark of pleasure that ignited in his body at knowing she found him attractive. A new feeling. One he liked. A lot.

He chanced a glance across the table. Philly raised an eyebrow. Monk cocked his head. He shrugged in response. Juliana was special. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. Philly’s other eyebrow went up. A smile ghosted across Monk’s face.

“Here,” Juliana said, drawing their attention to the document projected on the wall. “Once I figured out who I’d overheard, I went back and attached name tags to the conversation so we can see who said what.”

The room fell silent as he and his brothers read, the only sound when one of them asked her to scroll down.

When they reached the end, they all looked to her. Without a word, she switched apps and brought up a web page featuring Supervisor Aaron Lowery and, beside it, another tab for Dean Polinsky. “These are the two men I heard,” she said.

“A politician and a cop,” Philly said. “Fun.”

“What do we know about them?” Monk asked as they stared at the images.

Both men looked in their late fifties or early sixties. Lowery had a full head of gray hair, fair skin, and elongated features. His smile hinted at two rows of straight teeth, and his blue eyes looked out at them as if he’d shake their hands right now if he could.

Polinsky, on the other hand, had thinning hair, round beady eyes, and a soft jowl. His mouth was smaller than the width of his nose, an impressive feat of genetics since his nose, though pointy, was also small. He had a face that looked as if all his features were shoved together in the middle.

“Other than what’s on their websites, nothing,” Juliana answered. “This is as far as I got last night. Finding Polinsky was easy. Lowery took me longer.”

“Then that’s our first line of business,” Stone said. “We’ll look into Lowery,” he said, gesturing to him and Juliana.

“I’ll take Polinsky,” Philly said.

“I’ll take the Bayview development,” Monk said. “Based on the conversation, we’ll find our third guy—the blackmailer and intended victim—tied to that project.” He’d risen as he spoke, no doubt intending to hole up in his room as he researched.

“Meet back here in two hours?” Philly asked, also rising. “I need food before we start. And my computer,” he added. Philly always needed food.

“We’ll need lunch by then,” Stone said. “Why don’t we meet in the kitchen, make sandwiches, then we can eat as we review.”

Monk and Philly both nodded before heading out.

“Does that work for you?” Stone asked Juliana, realizing he hadn’t consulted her.

She nodded, already closing out the web page for the police lieutenant. “I know a lot of research techniques, but only on public pages,” she said. “Do you have access to any others? If so, we could divide things up that way.”

He shook his head as his thoughts strayed to Leo Gallardo. The HICC cyber expert—and Joey’s boyfriend—had helped them with Charley’s mine mystery, but he’d been on vacation at the time. Now that he was back at work, Stone didn’t think he’d have the time to help. Although he would if asked. So would Ava Warwick, one of Leo’s colleagues. Before marriage and kids, she liked to visit Rita C’s, the bar the Falcons owned, and avail herself of their wide selection of whiskey. Both Leo and Ava were rock-solid people. But people with lives of their own. He’d keep them in mind if they couldn’t find a way forward, but otherwise, they were on their own.

“Let’s see what we find and go from there,” he suggested, nodding to her computer. “It’s not much of a plan…”

“But sometimes you need to get the lay of the land before you form a plan,” she said, sounding eerily like one of his lieutenants from his army days. It wasn’t uncommon for his team to receive sparse orders with a single objective and no intel or info to guide them. When that happened, they always started one way.

“One thing at a time,” he said.

She smiled, the dimple in her left cheek flashing. Without a word, she shifted her computer so he could see the screen and began typing away.

Two hours later, Stone leaned back, stretching his arms overhead. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought they’d find all the information they—mostly Juliana—had by only digging into the right public sites. She hadn’t been kidding when she said she knew a lot of research techniques.

“Time for a break and lunch,” he said, glancing at the notes he’d jotted down. Juliana had started an electronic file as well, but he liked having a written log of a few key items.

When she didn’t respond, he looked up. Her gaze darted over his face, and two tiny lines formed between her brows.

“What?” he asked.

Surprising him, she reached out and rubbed her thumb over the space between his own eyebrows—well, as best she could with the bridge of his glasses in the way.

“You have a headache,” she said.

He did. The glasses helped, but they didn’t fix the problem. Hard to fix a problem when no one knew what caused it.

He shrugged, a little uncomfortable. Not with her hands on him, but with her concern. He didn’t want her to worry about him—not ever, but especially not now when she had other things to think about.

“It’s fine,” he said.

She lowered her hand, resting it on his shoulder. “Can I try something? I don’t think it’s going to magically make a headache go away, but it might help a little.”

“Does it mean you’ll keep touching me?” he asked.

She grinned. “Actually, yes.”

“Then, yes,” he said, turning her grin into a laugh. He eyed her as she rose. He tried to follow her movements when she circled behind him, but she set her hands on either side of his head and kept him facing forward.

“Can you take your glasses off?” She sounded almost regretful asking, and he wondered if she liked the sight of him in his readers. It seemed cliché for a librarian to find that attractive, and Juliana was anything but a cliché, but he’d take more notice of her reaction next time he put them on.

After setting his glasses on the table, Juliana slid her hands into his hair. Less than five seconds later, everything other than the feel of her touching him faded. Her thumbs found his temples, and she pressed and massaged the small space, slowing her ministrations each time she found a tight bundle of muscles or nerves. After that, her fingers dug into his scalp, pressing and releasing pressure points. He didn’t bother smothering the moan that climbed his throat. He had no idea his head had so many nerve endings or whatever they were.

He almost protested when she withdrew her fingers, but then she began making tiny circles on the ridge of his brow, and the protest turned into another moan. He was a machine; he had done shit to and with his body that very few people could even fathom. He knew every muscle, every shift, every way his body moved. How had he never known about the pressure points Juliana now found with ease?

“I used to get migraines,” she said, her soft voice floating down as she stood over him. “A…friend used to do this for me.”

He had the distinct impression that friend wasn’t the word she’d intended to use, and he wondered if she’d learned her magic from another man. He forced his eyes open and looked up at her, the tilt of his head bringing him in contact with her breasts. She looked down in question but didn’t move away or stop.

“A former boyfriend?” The words were out before he could stop them. “Sorry, it’s none of my business,” he said. It wasn’t as though he thought she hadn’t had boyfriends. And if she had learned this magic from one, he was glad they were the sort to take care of her. But a primal part of him hated it.

She smiled. “No, not a former boyfriend. Someone who worked for my family,” she said, leaving it at that. “Like I said, it’s probably not going to make it go away completely, but it often helped me.”

He took stock of his head, and while the dull ache still hovered behind his eyes, it had eased. Once he had a break from the screen—and food in his stomach—he’d be good to go again.

“It helped,” he said, tipping his head even farther back. “Thank you.” He reached up and slid his hands behind her neck, pulling her lips close to his. Her hair fell around them, blocking out the rest of the world. The scent of something vaguely tropical but not fruity teased his nose. Her lips parted, and her pupils dilated as her blue eyes fixed on his.

Slowly, giving her every chance to say no, he pulled her closer. Her lips touched his, and all rational thought fled. Only their soft warmth and the fact that Juliana Morganstern was kissing him mattered. Easing her back, he brought her in close again, shifting his attention to the corners of her mouth, then to her cheek and jawline. Their position didn’t accommodate a deeper kiss, but he didn’t mind. He wanted that, of course. And judging by the way Juliana leaned into him—over him—she did, too. But he liked these sweet, almost innocent, touches.

A shout down the hallway startled her, and she straightened. The loss of contact stung, easing only when he reminded himself that there’d be more when the time was right.

“Thank you,” he said.

She smiled down at him. “Thank you,” she replied, with a slight emphasis on “you.”

He chuckled, then rose. “You ready for food? Dottie left chicken salad in the fridge, and there’s fresh bread from Bun Times.”

“Oh yes, food. Right,” she said with a self-deprecating eye roll. Then with a nod to her computer, she added, “Sandwiches with a side of murdering criminals.”

He looked down, then picked up his notebook with a huff. “Yes, let’s not forget about them.”