Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
Derek was half asleep and pretty sure he had heard Reese wrong. The coffeepot wasn’t done brewing yet, and he was half lying on his kitchen table, yawning. His prediction had been true. He hadn’t slept at all the night before, but for a much better reason than staring at the ceiling counting sheep.
“What did you say, Peaches?” He spoke in a low voice, aware of Claire still sleeping on the couch ten feet away, huddled under two blankets. Claire was also the reason he had thrown on a T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts.
Reese sat on the chair across from him, her legs drawn up and his sweatshirt pulled over them all the way until she tucked her toes under the bottom.
“I said that Chatterton wants me to go on a business trip with him.”
Damn, that’s what he thought she had said. The last thing he wanted was Reese heading off somewhere with that dirty old man. There was only one reason Chatterton would be taking Reese with him and it wasn’t for her people skills.
He was about to point that out when she added, “We’re going to New Zealand on October fourth through the eighth.”
New Zealand? He sat straight up.
“And I thought you’d want to know that Stanfield and Ricould are both going to be there, too. Of course, you probably know that already, don’t you?”
Yeah, but how did she know? This could only be a bad thing.
“Actually, I did know that. In fact, I’m going to be in Auckland myself.” He spoke with caution, waiting to see where this was going.
“Oh, great. We can get a room together, then.” Reese picked at a muffin on the table in front of her, crumbling bits between her fingers, then licking them off.
“Because you know, I got the impression that Chatterton might want to pull something, you know, sexual with me, and this way I can just tell him that I’ve reunited with my fiancé.
Also, that way if he sees you and recognizes you, it will be a good cover story. ”
His ulcer burned. The way she sat there so casually and said she thought her boss wanted her drove him nuts.
As did the thought of Chatterton actually succeeding in cornering Reese behind the water cooler or in a conference room.
He really, really wanted her to quit that stupid job.
“If you thought Chatterton was going to come on to you, then why would you want to go on a trip with him?”
“To help with the investigation. What if Markson flips out? I can take over.”
“If Markson flips out, the whole case is in the toilet. I want you to stay home. I don’t like you being with Chatterton.”
She snorted. “I’ll be with you at night. And what’s he going to do during a meeting with twelve people present?”
Derek so did not want to go there mentally. “Look, you cannot help the investigation, so I would really prefer it if you stayed home.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Reese shot him a mutinous look, her feet dropping to the kitchen floor, her hands landing on the round pine table, rattling it.
“I already have helped you. Did you know that the meeting will take place in the Auckland Hilton? Did you know that they’re meeting in Ballroom B, on the fourth floor, and that they requested audio visual and that Chatterton plans to stay for three days? ”
Wait a minute. She knew what room they were meeting in? “How do you know all that?”
“Because I booked the arrangements, you dill weed.”
That sounded like an insult, but he wasn’t sure. “What’s a dill weed?”
“You. You’re a dill weed.”
Well, that cleared things right up.
She stood up and got a mug out of his cabinet. She poured some coffee and took a sip.
He looked at the pot longingly.
“I’m not getting you any, so just forget it.”
As he pushed back his chair, she made a sound of total exasperation and slammed her mug down. She got out another mug, one that said FBI on the side, and poured coffee in it, sloshing over the sides as she turned.
“Here.” She handed it to him, sulking.
“Thank you.”
“It’s only because your knee looks swollen this morning. Don’t get used to it.”
It was right then that Derek realized that he cared about Reese way too much.
Reese wanted to stay aloof, she wanted to be tough and in control, distant from him. Yet she cared. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she cared about him and he wanted her to stay.
Which he knew wasn’t going to happen, and he was grateful for that.
He needed her to go home to New York, to put distance between them so he didn’t get any stupid ideas that maybe this could work out long-term and that maybe Reese wouldn’t mind getting married and settling down in the suburbs with an SUV.
He pictured Reese packing leftover chicken wings in school lunches for the kids.
Not a very plausible sight.
It was time to think with his brain, and not other body parts.
Later.
After a long sip of coffee, he took her hand and pulled her down onto his lap. She came willingly, but still frowning.
“Thank you.” He nestled into her neck, kissing along the warm skin that led down to the tops of her breasts.
Stretching the neck of his sweatshirt, he sucked the curvy swell of her chest. “Thanks for the name of the hotel. That’s a big help to me.”
She squeezed his shoulders, arching back so her breasts met his mouth more easily. “See? I knew I could help you.”
“You were right and I’m big enough to admit it. Markson probably won’t know the hotel for a couple of days still.”
“Working together isn’t so bad, is it? We can both get what we want.”
Derek knew what he wanted. He wanted to lay her across his kitchen table and have Reese for breakfast, but a blond head suddenly popped up from the couch.
“Morning,” Claire said, then frowned as Derek removed his head from Reese’s sweatshirt.
“Oh, geez. You two have a bedroom, you know. Use it and spare me first thing in the morning, please.”
Reese reached around him for her coffee mug. Actually, his coffee mug, but then Reese wasn’t known for being overly concerned with distinctions like that.
“Sorry, Claire. I’ll be more sensitive to your virgin eyes from now on.”
“Very funny.” Claire yawned and sat up. “But you’re about six years too late on that one.”
Derek shifted, rocking Reese’s behind on his thigh a little as he grew alarmed at the turn in the conversation. He had been joking. Now his stomach began to churn at the thought of his baby sister having sex. He had a whole new appreciation for Reese’s brothers and their high-handed methods.
Claire went on before he could find a sock to stuff in her mouth. “Remember Justin, that guy from your training class at Quantico?”
“What about him?” She could not mean that Justin, a friend he trusted, who had spent a weekend with him and Dawn about five years ago, had slept with her.
He was sure Justin valued his balls way too much to risk Derek ripping them off and shoving them down his throat.
“He took my virginity.”
Oh, hell. Derek felt his blood pressure go through the ceiling into Mrs. Frajapagne’s apartment above him. “Justin? He’s ten years older than you! You have fucking got to be kidding me!”
Claire laughed. “I am.”
“What?” he asked in confusion, trying to remember when he had last heard from Justin. He’d do a database search at work today, track the guy down, and murder him.
“I’m kidding. I didn’t sleep with Justin. He treated me like an annoying little sister the whole weekend he was here.”
Reese choked on her coffee, hot liquid spray hitting him across the face as her lips burst open on a laugh. He blinked, coffee dripping down his nose as his heart rate returned to normal and his murderous thoughts shifted from Justin to Claire.
“That is not funny,” he told them both sternly.
“I’m sorry,” Reese said as she choked back laughter, taking the sleeve of his shirt she was wearing and wiping the coffee mist off his face.
Claire was laughing on the couch, enjoying her joke.
Reese and Claire were both so young, so fresh, so connected to each other in their humor and outlook, that Derek felt a pang that had nothing to do with Claire’s sex life.
Given the pains in his chest, and his gut, and his knee, and listening to them lose it over something he found not even remotely funny, Derek suddenly felt grumpy as hell.