A bolt of sexual excitement burned through Nick now just as it had back then, along with guilt. But not enough guilt to keep him from opening one of Emily's erotic novels to a dog-eared page. In the scene, a police officer had handcuffed a woman to the bed and she loved every minute of the sensual torture. The descriptions were vivid and the sex scene graphic. Was this the type of thing Emily fantasized about?
"Hell." That was something he definitely didn't need to know.
He closed the book and shoved it into the drawer. But he couldn't shove away his own arousal. The sizzling image of Emily handcuffed naked to a bed taunted him. She'd be spread out before him, at his mercy. She'd beg him to touch her, to lick her. He'd be tempted to do that and more.
Cursing, he searched the chest, then moved to the dresser. A jumble of lacy panties of every color filled the top drawer. He stopped short, hesitant to touch them. This had to be forbidden. Everything about Emily was forbidden. But he had a job to do, a very personal job that had nothing to do with being an undercover narcotics officer in Atlanta.
A red lace thong lying on top caught Nick's eye and he held it aloft. "Damn," he muttered. He could easily imagine her in this. Not that he'd ever seen her anywhere close to naked. But he knew she had a cute little ass. That was obvious even in the dresses she usually wore. And this thong would look sexy as hell strung between her round ass cheeks. His cock throbbed. Unable to resist, he brought the lace to his nose and sniffed. Of course she'd laundered it, but he still smelled her perfume on it.
Dropping the scrap of lace and forcing himself to concentrate on the job, he dug beneath the frilly lingerie and encountered a box. It could be the antiquarian object he'd been suspicious about. He removed the box and flipped it open.
A vibrator?
"What the hell?" he muttered. Angelic Emily had been using a vibrator? Need spiked through him, making his cock rock hard.
Emily was beautiful, with curly, honey-blond hair and big blue eyes. But she was also classy, wholesome and innocent—at least he'd thought she was—and not his type at all.
So why did he get a hard-on any time he thought of her? Why the hell did he have to force himself to stay away the whole time Jared had been married to her, and after?
She was a female, that's why. He was attracted to almost any beautiful female. No big deal.
He slammed the box closed and stuffed it back into the bottom of the drawer.
He was going to have to totally shift his concept of Emily. She might look like innocence personified, but clearly she was a woman with a healthy sexual appetite.
Perhaps an appetite that matched his own.
Naughty Emily—that was his new name for her.
A door slammed downstairs.
Shit.
He crammed the lingerie back into the drawer and softly closed it. Footsteps echoed up the creaky old steps. He slid across the polished hardwood boards to hide underneath the high, four-poster bed a few seconds before she strode into the room. He watched her feet in those sensible beige heels. Emily, you are such a chameleon.
Now how was he going to get out of here? He hadn't expected her to come home at two in the afternoon. He hadn't heard a car in the driveway—then again, his attention had been diverted to other things.
Emily slipped off her shoes, then removed her skirt, hose and other things he couldn't see. Okay, she was probably naked. His erection raged back to life. He hated that Jared's wife had always made him horny, but he couldn't help it. She was lickable.
She disappeared into the connected bathroom and turned on the shower. Now was his chance. He silently slid from beneath the bed.
* * * *
The shower took forever to heat up in this old house. Emily Grant twisted her hair into a knot on top of her head and clipped it. Walking to and from her bridal shop in the Savannah heat, she sometimes had to shower twice a day. Thank goodness she was done for the day and could spend the rest of it in bed with a book. But first, she had a new, delicious-smelling, pomegranate shower gel to try. She hurried back to the bedroom to retrieve it.
A man was creeping across the floor away from her. She screamed and froze.
Muttering curses, he spun and faced her. Broad shoulders, longish blond hair and silver eyes.
"Nick?"
His gaze darkened to smoldering, then slid slowly down her body and back up. "Good god," he muttered, low and deep.
I'm naked! Burning with mortification, she shrank back into the bathroom and shoved the door closed. Where was her robe? Back of the door. She yanked it off the hook, her hands trembling as she struggled into it.
"Shit! What's he doing here?" she whispered. Her late ex-husband's younger brother had no business coming into her house uninvited, especially her bedroom, even if he was sex on legs.