Their Divine Doctor(Divine Creek Ranch 9)(10)
They kidded with her a bit over that response and had the kitchen unpacked and put away in no time at all. They teased her with perverted, alternative uses for her kitchen gadgetry, and she’d felt heat steal into her cheeks a number of times. The wine relaxed her and sang a sweet, sensual song in her blood as they moved to the living room, taking their refilled glasses of Barbera d’Alba with them.
She tore open the first box and breathed a sigh of relief that she’d found this box of books first so she could get them stuck on their shelf and out of sight as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Duke and Gage must have picked up on her facial expression, because they both peered into the box as she turned to put the books on a low shelf.
“The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A. N. Roquelaure. Hot damn,” Gage said as he lifted it and the other two titles in the trilogy from the box. He glanced knowingly at her, and the naughty little grin she now recognized as his trademark stole across his lips.
Emma simply said, “I like to read all kinds of books.” She wanted to go splash cold water on her cheeks, grateful at least that she’d gotten her copy of The Story of O put away before they’d seen it. It was a little early for them to learn of her interest in BDSM in erotic fiction.
They must have noted her flustered state and said no more as they removed her erotic romance collection from the box and stacked them for her to place wherever she wanted them. She turned from the bookshelf in time to catch Duke as he held up a hardback copy of The Kama Sutra for Gage to see.
She gulped when she noticed the thickening ridges at their groins as she lifted a stack of books from the table. She bit her lip and busied herself with the books as she grouped them with care based on size. It might just have been the wine, but the tension sizzled in the air.
Duke brought an opened box and squatted beside her as he placed books on her shelves. He glanced at one and read the cover. “The Boy Scout Handbook. Handy for camping?”
“Oh, very,” she said with a smile and a nod, grateful they’d moved on from the erotica. She had a feeling that there were more of them in another box somewhere in that stack, though. “My dad gave me his copy. I used to take it with me when I went camping. Great reading, too.”
“Is there a chapter on arrow removal in there?” Gage asked with a chuckle as he brought a box and knelt carefully on her other side, still favoring his injury. She unpacked the medical textbooks she’d held on to after she’d graduated and her other medical references.
“Bartending 101: The Basics of Mixology?” Duke said as he held it up.
Emma chuckled and replied, “It came with the bottle of Galliano.”
“You also have the biographies of Golda Meir and Winston Churchill. This is quite a varied library you have here, Doctor Guthrie. What’s this—hey! Tom Clancy’s Net Force!”
“Seriously?” Gage asked in surprise. Duke held up the copy of one of her Tom Clancy novels.
Gage nudged Emma’s arm and said, “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Doc.”
Duke laughed out loud as he held up her copy of 101 Aggie Jokes and Paula Deen’s Southern Cooking Bible. “Your tastes are certainly eclectic, Emma.”
Gage opened the lid on a box filled with compact discs. “Florence + the Machine, Three Doors Down, and Elton John.”
Duke sat back on his heels and said, “You are a mystery, Emma.”
Emma lifted the CDs from Gage’s gentle hands and placed them on a shelf as they pulled more from the box.
“The soundtrack from Rocky Horror Picture Show, Taylor Swift, and Mediaeval Baebes. Wow. Wait a minute—no Gaga?”
Emma nearly choked, she laughed so suddenly. “No. Sorry. Although that one song is kinda catchy.”
During the course of the evening they helped her organize her book, music, and DVD collections. When she found out that they were both fans of it, she put on Shaun of the Dead. While they watched the movie, Emma discovered that Gage was every bit the neat freak that she was, as he organized her movies alphabetically and by genre. She laughed as Duke and Gage debated whether Caddy Shack and 10 Things I Hate About You deserved to be on the same shelf as Firefly, Farscape, and the first three seasons of Fringe.
It was past her bedtime when Gage finally said, “I suppose we should leave you to get some rest, huh, Emma?”
Honestly, Emma was tired, but she could have talked with them for several more hours. Even though they’d mostly just talked about her collection of books and entertainment, they’d learned a lot about each other. The other box of erotica and erotic romances had finally been discovered, but they’d said hardly anything about it as they helped her put them on the shelf space she’d reserved with the others.