Eric put a hand over his phone. "Belle, baby, did you get the latest numbers from the EPA on the Hanover case?"
She'd put them on his desk last week. Unfortunately, his desk was in Chicago. "This is my kitchen. There are no latest numbers on the Hanover case here."
Kellan reached over her toaster and pulled some paperwork off what appeared to be a damn fax machine. "Here you go. I had Sequoia fax them. What a surprise. He sent a note protesting the use of fax machines and said to pass that on to you, too. Apparently we shouldn't use hard copies because it's bad for the environment." He turned back to her with a sigh. "Give me one good reason I can't fire him."
Belle half heard Kell. What had these crazy men done? Instead of using their heads and realizing they couldn't possibly run a practice from her house, they'd bought every piece of office equipment known to man and set it up in her kitchen. She was fairly certain she glimpsed a copy machine in the butler's pantry. "Given his connections, you know you can't. Don't forget, you have a very nice office in Chicago. Then Sequoia wouldn't have to fax you anything. Much comfier chairs there as well. This doesn't make a good office."
Eric covered his phone and murmured, "But you're here."
Belle didn't want to, but she melted a bit.
"See that you do, you piece of crap," Tate yelled into his phone, then paused. "Sure. Yeah, tell your mom hi for me." Another pause. "I doubt Wednesday will work. It looks like I'll be here for a while and the Internet sucks, but I'll see what I can do. Good luck on the raid." He frowned as he hung up the phone. "Sorry, that was Phil from Greene and Associates. He's such an ass, but he's in my guild. We're supposed to raid Jondor on Wednesday."
Most lawyers made deals on the golf course. Not the new geek. Instead, they made contacts in role-playing games online.
"There's something deeply wrong with you." Belle shook her head, trying not to smile.
Eric grinned, and before she could stop herself, her heart skipped a beat. "Hey, you should be glad you weren't around for his LARPing days. You think online games are weird, try a hundred geeks dressed in medieval wear, throwing little bags at each other and calling them spells."
Tate flushed. "I was trying to sleep with a girl. At least LARPing was more fun than those foreign films Belle made me see."
She narrowed her eyes. "I didn't make you do anything. You showed up at that festival and said you were a huge fan of Siberian cinema."
Tate groaned. "Babe, not even Siberians watch that shit. Seriously. It made me want to open a vein and bleed out." The sexiest smile heated his face, taking him from boyish to such a man. Then his voice dropped to an intimate growl. "But I was trying to sleep with a girl then, too."
Just like that her pussy clenched. Oh, they couldn't stay-or she'd do something she would regret. "You're going back to Chicago today, right?"
"Of course not." Eric frowned. "We need to put the HVAC unit on the list of items to have serviced. It seems to be malfunctioning. You look awfully cold." His glance lingered on her, and Belle had no idea what he was hinting at. "I've also felt icy spots in the house."
Belle wasn't worried about being chilly now, not when she was getting hot just being near them. "It's on my list. I'll take care of it."
She wasn't about to fess up that her room had gotten so cold the night before that she'd seen her breath. Surely, that had been a freak occurrence.
Fighting a smile, Kellan's stare caressed her chest before taking a slow path back to her face. "I believe Eric is referring to your nipples, Belle. They're very hard right now. If you're not cold, then you must have been having some juicy dreams."
She gasped and folded her arms over her chest. "The state of my nipples are none of your concern."
"I could warm them up for you," Tate offered. "Hands or mouth? Your choice."
She ignored him. "What am I supposed to do with all this stuff when you leave? You are flying back to your jobs and responsibilities soon, right?"
"Nope," Eric replied. "Like we said, you're here, so we're opening a practice in New Orleans. Unless you're ready to go home with us."
She held out a hand. "You were serious? No! You can't do that. This is my home now. Yours is in Chicago. And have your forgotten than you're not licensed to practice law in this state?"
"We're not trying cases here." Eric shrugged. "We're telecommuting until our office manager is ready to return to the office with us. When you won't come to the office, the office will come to you. We had a meeting last night after you went to bed and worked it all out. That's part of our new protocols."