Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2)(8)

That bastard Quentin. Vi smiled. “He regretted it.”

“I’ll just double-check to make sure he got enough bruises,” Chase said in a soothing, reassuring tone. “Sometimes it’s good to have a second opinion on these things. Is that gluten?” He pointed randomly.

“You’re probably more likely to find gluten where we keep the flours. As opposed to where we keep the fruits, vegetables, butters, and creams.”

“Is that safe?” He pointed at some slabs of butter.

“What do you mean, ‘safe’?” Vi asked warily. “It tastes good. Please, dear God, don’t tell me that your president is on some weird diet plan where he can’t eat butter.”

“He’s vegetarian.” Chase sighed and shook his head. “Hard to believe people voted for that guy.”

“Vegetarian?” Vi recoiled, grabbing the edge of the door for support. Then her eyes narrowed. “No, he damn well isn’t. The embassy would have said something when they called!”

Chase grinned at her.

“Okay, you know what? You can get out of my kitchens now.”

“Nobody could get sick from it, right?” he said. “The butter?”

Vi stared at him. “What, you mean like food poisoning?” she finally realized, outraged. “No one is going to get food poisoning from my kitchens!”

Chase held up a hand. “Just doing my job, honey. Just doing my job.”

She glowered at him and tapped her foot. His gaze drifted down her body all the way to her tapping toe, and he closed his eyes tight and gave himself a hard shake.

Then he bit back a tiny, wicked smile and bent from the waist. “What about here?”

Vi stared as his black pants pulled tight, tight, tight as he slowly bent, and then snapped her gaze away. “Of course not!”

“Anything up here?” He straightened to lift one of the heavy crates completely off an overhead shelf, holding it above his head at an angle that showed off biceps so sculpted and so perfect that they looked hot even through his shirt.

“Did you ever do any modeling?” she asked him dryly. “Or do you just practice that pose in front of the mirror?”

“It was for charity. They harassed me into it. And can I just say that I am entirely ready for this male calendar charity craze to be over? What’s up with that? Why can’t you women pose naked if you think it’s such a good idea for charity?”

Violette’s lips parted. “Like…are you nude in a calendar?” Her eyes tracked over that big body, most of it hidden far too thoroughly by clothing and body armor. But he had those biceps. And those buns of steel. Kind of suggested that once the vest was taken away, there wasn’t going to be much of a bulge to his belly.

“My private parts are discreetly covered in it,” he said loftily. And then winked. “With dog tags.”

“That’s all it took?”

He stopped still. “Plus my hands,” he said outraged. “And the angle of my thigh! That—I—” For once words failed him in his indignation.

Vi gave him a sweet smile. “Just checking.” Because it was much better to have in her head an image of a man whose private parts could be covered by dog tags rather than an image of one whose private parts couldn’t, where the dog tags and chain artfully draped and entirely failed to hide the…she coughed.

He narrowed his eyes at her. Then he slowly set the very heavy crate back on its high shelf, biceps flexing, and reached even farther so that his shirt and vest drew up from his waist, showing a line of tan skin. He gave her a second with that view before he wobbled, toppled, and grabbed her shoulder for support.

“Sorry,” he murmured, as he pulled her in snug for just one second and then let go. “I lost my balance.”

“Yeah, I know all about that. It’s amazing how many guys lose their balance around me when we’re by ourselves in the walk-in.”

He blinked. “Oh.” He let go of her and stepped back. “I never actually thought of it that way,” he said after a moment.

“I know. Maybe it’s some kind of testosterone thing. The men who fall on a woman in a walk-in are always convinced they’re special.”

He frowned, then shifted to make sure there was a good meter of distance between him and her. Violette followed immediately of course. She wasn’t going to let him get away with a thing.

“What happened to the rest of the photos from the shoot?”

“Destroyed,” Chase said firmly. “Are you sure your fingers didn’t brush my ass? Because I could have sworn…”

“Destroyed?” She didn’t mean to let her voice squeak, but darn…that seemed like a sinful waste.

“Except for one copy, of course.” Chase slid her a glance and then diligently examined the shelves—linking his fingers through the wire shelving above his head so that he was very clearly not touching her…and then lifting himself just slightly so that his butt tightened and his shoulder muscles flexed. “Which I have. It would be incredibly hard to convince me to share it. I’m not sure what someone would have to do.”

Oh, boy, did Vi have some ideas. She could handcuff those strong wrists of his back against her bed and probably get him to do anything she wanted. Oh, yes. She had ideas.