Merry and Bright(26)

“She had sex.” His fingers sped over the keyboard. “Here in this building.” His head whipped around so he could look at her. “Jesus, you had sex here? ”

Maggie did her best not to look at Jacob. “You want to discuss my sex life, now? With a gun on us?”

“Alice,” Tim demanded. “Put the gun down.”

“Not until I get that lotion!” Alice was looking quite unstable. She gestured the gun toward Maggie. “Hand it over.”

Oh, God. If she handed over the lotion, someone might be able to eventually reproduce it, and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. “Did you know Mary Stuart became the Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old?”

Alice cocked her gun. “Maggie, I swear to God, those quirky little facts were cute, oh . . . never. Okay? So please, shut up and give me the lotion.”

“Honey,” Jacob said, squeezing Maggie’s fingers, giving her a long look. “Give her what she wants. Give her the lotion.”

Maggie stared at him. Honey?

“The jig is up,” he said quietly. “So just give her the lotion. Honey.”

Honey. Of course! The honey lotion in her lab, the one he’d slathered on her and lapped off her breasts. “Right,” she said, trying not to be disappointed that he wasn’t calling her honey. “You’re right. I’ll go get it, but you’re coming with me.”

“Fine,” Alice said, through her teeth. “But do it fast. While you’re gone, Scott’s going to make me a copy of the software required to go with the stuff.” She waved at the windows. “Because I’m going directly to the *’s apartment, putting the lotion on him, and catching him in the act of f*cking his lab partner, and I’m doing that today, so hurry the hell up.”

“Go,” Tim said to Maggie and Jacob. “Quickly.”

“And remember I can see your heart rate on the screen and your location, so no running away. And no more sex. No one gets any more sex until I get sex!”

“Maybe we should add Midol to the lotion,” Jacob murmured into Maggie’s ear, as they ran into her office, where she grabbed her honey potion. Turning back, she saw Jacob hitting 9-1-1 on his cell.

“She’s got a gun—”

“Just get the honey lotion in a vial.”

She did just that, her gaze on Jacob speaking quietly and quickly to emergency dispatch, looking so big and tough and . . . hers, dammit. If something happened to him she’d never forgive herself. She put a stopper in the new vial. “Okay, let’s do this. But once she leaves with this vial, you’re out of here. It won’t fool her for long.”

“We’re both out of here.”

“Deal.” Her voice cracked a little, and she dropped her gaze, staring at his chest. “I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you, Jacob. I really couldn’t. Listen, I know I totally took advantage of you with that whole Mr. Wrong thing—”

“Whoa. There were two of us making that decision. I wanted you, too.”

“We’re different.”

Irritation flashed across his face. “We’ve discussed this, Maggie.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Did you know if you had enough water to fill one million goldfish bowls, you could fill an entire stadium?” he asked.

She blinked. “Um, what?”

“Yeah. And if you flew from London to New York by Concorde, due to the time zones crossed, you would arrive two hours before you left.”

She let out a low laugh. “What are you doing? Did you look those up for me?”

He held up his hand. “One more. I don’t want this to be a one-time thing.”

Her amusement vanished as fast as it’d come. She swallowed hard but the sudden lump of emotion wouldn’t go down. “Jacob.”

“It’s so much more for me. It’s always been more. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, whether it was the way you look at work when you’re concentrating, with your wild hair and fascinating brain, or how you make me smile all the time, or maybe it’s that you always have a pen behind your ear—”

“What? I don’t—”

Reaching over, he pulled a pen out from behind her ear.

“And your neck?” he whispered. “Always smells amazing. And then there’s the way you look first thing in the morning, when you open your eyes and see me.”

She let out a surprised laugh. “That was once.”

“Yeah, but we can fix that. And then there’s your laugh, that goofy, self-conscious laugh. It melts my damn heart every time. So you should know, it’s not just a one-time thing, not anywhere close. I’m in love with you, Maggie.”

Before she could respond, Alice screamed through the walls. “Why is your heart rate going up? Goddammit, are you getting naked?”

Maggie couldn’t hear anything past the roar of her own blood in her ears, and those three words still echoing between her ears.

He loved her.

Loved her . . . “Jacob—”

“Maggie!” Tim yelled. “She’s going to start shooting. Get back in here!”

“Come on.” Jacob led her back into Scott’s office, and Maggie, her heart still racing over what Jacob had just said, handed the vial over to Alice.