“No. And he’s my brother-in-law, so you shouldn’t even ask that.”
That matches up. Vince is too hot-headed, he doesn’t fit the profile. I recall her acting a little strangely around Mateo’s brother Alec, but before I can ask her about him, Laurel falls in love with another book.
“Oh, Rafe, look at this,” she says, waving me over.
I shove
my hands into my pockets and approach her side. This one is also enclosed in a glass case, but the pages are fanned out so you can glimpse the illustrations. It’s really quite a beautiful edition of The Odyssey.
Shooting me a rueful look, she says, “I don’t suppose you know if you have any Homer in your library?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Not this edition, but I have my own rare copies of both The Odyssey and The Iliad. I did read those ones.”
“Not the rare editions?” she asks, wide-eyed.
“Of course not; I’m not a lunatic.”
Placing a hand to her heart, she sighs with relief, then flashes me a smile. “Good. You scared me for a minute.”
“When you get done lusting after the books here, what do you say we go to another bookstore? One where you can actually buy and read the books without owing me a week’s worth of sexual favors?”
“Only a week? Are we talking for the Homer, or the Brontë books?” she jokes.
“Hell, make it two weeks, I’ll buy you both.”
Laurel grins, but shakes her head and drifts toward the door. “We should leave this beautiful, horrible place. The fate of my immortal soul hangs in the balance.”
“I mean, we could stay a little longer,” I say, lightly.
“Technically, I paid up-front over Easter. If I had realized there were rare books on the table…”
“You would whore yourself out for books?”
Laurel shrugs with exaggerated lightness. “Hey, it’s as good a reason as any.”
I shake my head, draping a hand around her waist and dragging her close as we walk out of the book shop. “You’re such a nerd.”
27
Laurel
After a whole morning spent shopping for books and exploring botanical gardens, Rafe parks his car, grabs my hand, and drags me toward a helicopter. A freaking helicopter.
I am not dressed for a helicopter.
“Um, what are we doing here?” I ask him, walking a little faster to keep up with his long stride.
“You ever see the Grand Canyon?”
“I’ve only been here with you, so I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that question.”
Glancing back at me with a winning smile, he says, “This is the best way to see it.”
Ah, shit, I do want to see the Grand Canyon.
On one hand, I feel badly about spending the day with him when Sin isn’t around, but on the other hand, as many times as I’ve checked my phone since leaving the house with Rafe, I haven’t heard from Sin once. I didn’t expect to hear from him at all, but then, until the alarm went off and he called me, I didn’t even realize Sin had my phone number. This is the first day he has taken the chance to leave me uncuffed while he left the house, and he hesitated even after the good morning blow job I gave him before we got out of bed.
All caught up now.