The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“She sleeps sixteen hours a day, so about eight at a guess. It’s not like she’s got anything else more pressing to do.”

Abruptly the racket stopped. They both said, “Ah,” and it started again.

“Is it me?” Derelie said. “Is she jealous?”

“It’s doors.”

She put her teeth to his earlobe. “How to put a lover in her place.”

He put his lover in the middle of the bed and got up to let his cat in. He had no memory of being so contented. With Martha under the bed and Derelie dozing in it, he checked his messages. Nothin

g urgent, but after two days not on top of them they’d started to pile up. He’d need to start early Monday.

He also checked the camera. The priest was a dirty rotten scoundrel. Shot after shot of him with Derelie. Each one made him look like a stranger. Barely recognizable. Barney had captured him smiling, laughing, and Derelie looked like a storybook Christmas morning. There were shots of them mock boxing. Shots of him showing her how to make a fist and deliver a punch. One shot of them right before a kiss, faces close, bodies aligned hip to chest. His head was bent to her, her chin tipped up. The smile she wore was filled with all the joy he’d never had and he looked like he’d kill to keep it.

He sent Barney a text. Lying is a sin.

He got back, So is lust, but I’m giving you absolution.

He understood why. They looked like the lesson took; they looked like a couple in love.

Chapter Nineteen

Seeing Jack’s Church of the Cocked Fist filled a gap in Derelie’s knowledge the experiment hadn’t. He wasn’t a reckless hothead in his off hours. The gym might have been the most unorthodox church in the world, but it was clean and well organized and Barney had ex-priest stamped all over him even though Jack hadn’t volunteered that information.

She could see the satisfaction in punching something. It was hard and cold and clean, had a straightforwardness that appealed to her. No doubt that’s what appealed to Jack. It was skilled yet uncomplicated.

The afternoon nap was anything but hard and cold. They knew each other now. The fear of the unknown gave way to the thrill of being together. They were getting good at pleasing each other. Jack was addicted to her mouth and she was addicted to his hands and how they could make her body alternatively tremble and give way to sheer purring pleasure.

Move over, Martha, you’ll have to share.

She purred again when they went out to eat, the moment Jack reached for her hand as they walked to his local steakhouse. “I never thought Jackson Haley would be a holding hands kind of guy.”

He wrinkled his nose, bumping his glasses higher. “It’s a new one on me.”

She stopped walking. “Is it too much? Me. Us. All of this too soon?”

“Not for me.”

An unembroidered answer. “We’re doing this.” She swung their joined hands like she was five years old and he put up with it. “At work?”

“That makes you nervous.”

“I can’t help it. I know people will think I’m trying to get ahead by sleeping with the paper’s biggest dinkus.”

He failed to retain his air of seriousness and laughed. “One of the reasons I never got involved with people at work. It’s fraught.”

“So we keep it out of the office.”

“At least until we see if we stick.”

“And if we don’t? I don’t own a dart gun, but I do know how to shoot.”

“Jesus, Derelie.” He stopped walking and yanked on her arm till she turned to faced him.

“I’m joking. I’m joking.”

Another yank and their bodies were grazing. The expression on his face was somewhere between “you’re playing with fire” and “burn, baby, burn.” It made her breath catch.