Trouble in Sudden Falls: A Sudden Falls Romance (12 page)

The inspector jingled the keys on his ring. “Most of the houses of this era had basically the same sort of key.” He opened it with a twist of his wrist. “You two stay up here. There’s no telling what might be found downstairs, and I’d hate for anyone to get injured.”

That was fine with Maddie. She took the opportunity to meander around the store and uncover a few pieces of furniture before making her way to Aunt Millie’s back office. It looked exactly as it had when her aunt was alive. She had a lovely memory of her aunt sitting at the Victorian Scrollwork desk, sipping tea, tallying her sales in a ledger book and regularly losing pencils when she’d poke them through the bun she always wore.

Her aunt had been considerably older than her father who was now in his late sixties. Millie had married young and her husband had died well before middle age. She’d spent the rest of her life alone.

Eli came up behind her and stood in the doorway. “I wonder why Aunt Millie never remarried,” she said, apropos of nothing.

“Millie was always kind of an odd duck. She danced to the beat of her own drummer.”

“True.”

There was a mutter from the basement and then Howard appeared in the stairway, his face flushed. “Is everything okay?” The contrast between the confident, poised man he’d been when he’d descended and the shocked, nervous stuttering man that returned was marked.

“Everything seems to be in place.” He didn’t make eye contact, instead he scribbled quickly on a clipboard in his hands.

“Is there something wrong with the basement?”

“You should have your furnace serviced… but I’d clean the basement up first. People don’t need to know…” He trailed off and gestured awkwardly.

“People don’t need to know
what
?” she asked, baffled at his behavior.

“You don’t know?” His eyes narrowed slightly as he sized Maddie up. “I don’t even know what some of that stuff is for, but I’m pretty sure it ain’t antique furniture.” He shuffled from foot to foot. “Maybe you ought not go down there, if you haven’t seen it. It’s not for decent folk.”

Maddie felt her eyebrows climb and her curiosity pique even further. “It’s my store. Of course I’m going to go down there. There might be more inventory down there.”

“There isn’t anything down there you’d want to sell in your store. I can promise you that.” He ripped a sheet of paper off the clipboard and handed it to her. “You can take this to the courthouse. I’ll file my report with them later today. You’re officially released from the condemnation order.”

“Thank you,” she said to his back as he beat a hasty retreat.

“What do you think that was about?”

“I don’t know.” She found herself giggling. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

He nodded and stepped toward the door. “Yes, but how are we going to get the chicken to wear the rubber pants?”

“Pinky of
Pinky and the Brain
.”

Eli winked as he opened the door and Maddie raced him for the stairs, sliding under his arm and brushing past his body, getting a faint whiff of his cologne. The scent almost brought her to a halt. When did he start smelling so good?

As Eli darted around her, he managed to land his hand on the back of her jeans right below her waist. She didn’t think he’d deliberately tried to cop a feel, but the end result was the same. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. Discombobulated, she followed him down the stairs at a slower pace.

The basement was dark and there didn’t seem to be any light switch at the top of the steps. Eli used the lit face of his cell phone to illuminate their path enough to get them to the bottom of the steps where he found a switch which turned on a number of black lights.

The floor appeared to be black as did the walls. “Spooky.” She looked around trying to make out anything while still trying to shake off her earlier uneasiness which Eli seemed completely immune to. Eli’s black shirt had white writing that glowed in the ultraviolet lights. It caused her to giggle as she read it out loud. “Sometimes, when I’m alone… I Google myself.”

“You boys and your funky T-shirts. I’m not sure whose are worse. Yours or your Rogan’s.” The day before, Rogan had been wearing one that read, ‘I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.’

He met her gaze in the dimness before looking away, a big grin on his face. His eyes opened wide when he caught site of something over her shoulder and he goggled. Maddie turned to look and gasped.

Chapter Seven

Maddie didn’t immediately understand
what
she was looking at. Two lengths of heavy silver chain hung from eyehooks in the ceiling rafters. A short wooden bar hung between the chains and hooked over it was a riding crop and another thing that looked like the pom-poms for the devil’s cheering squad—only made out of black leather.

Her vision must be playing tricks on her.

“Umm… what is that?” she whispered.

“Oh, my God.” Eli’s voice came out also in a whisper.

“What? What is it?”

His eyes opened wide as if realization had dawned and he spun in a slow circle looking at the rest of the room. Maddie’s gaze held tight to Eli as if he had some great revelation he wasn’t sharing.

“Look. Look around.” He flipped another switch and a standard florescent light illuminated the room.

To the right of the chains, an armoire style cabinet stood with one door open. Inside the cabinet hung all manner of leather and metal and fur-lined handcuffs. Not to mention whips and leather flaps in various shapes and sizes, more black leather tassels in varying lengths and widths, which hung next to blindfolds and a funky-looking leather hood.

“I think your aunt was into some things that we didn’t know about.”

“Ya think?” Maddie sucked in a shocked “Oh, wow.” She stepped over to the open cabinet and picked up a set of Satan’s pom-poms. “What is this?”

“What? The flogger?”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that.” She wandered over to a cat-o-nine tails. “I’ve never seen one of these up close and personal.”

“And thank God for that.”

Behind her, what seemed to be a padded bench, complete with eye-hooks and bolt snaps, which she assumed would attach to the leather handcuffs. She saw all sorts of other equipment that she couldn’t begin to guess the purpose of.

She ought to be horrified. And yet, it was completely turning her on. Especially when Eli came up beside her and his hand brushed against her as he reached for something in the armoire. Being helpless with those hands wandering all over her body… She shivered at the thought.

She picked up a riding crop with a leather flap at the end. “Oh look. This should be enough to keep you in line.” She half-heartedly reached out and swatted him on the backside.

He raised an eyebrow, and reached into the armoire to snag a pair of law-enforcement-style handcuffs, but painted red with a line of red marabou feathers along the inside edge. “I think these are meant for you.” He twirled the cuffs around one finger.

She chuckled, until he snapped one of the cuffs around her wrist, then quickly grabbed her other arm and shackled it to the first in front of her in one smooth motion. A second motion raised both arms and suspended the chain in the center of the handcuffs from a convenient hook hanging from the low ceiling.

“Please tell me you have a key.”

“Oops…”

Maddie’s eyes snapped to Eli’s.

“They have a quick release. Don’t worry.”

“Oh.” She felt a bit of her sudden tension drain from her body. This wasn’t exactly one of those things she’d want to explain to the local locksmith.

“You realize, don’t you,” he said, his voice causing chills in her arms above her head. “That you are completely at my mercy?”

A shiver raced down the side of Maddie’s body, and a quiet chirp escaped her throat. The thought of being at his mercy was more erotic than she wanted to admit to herself.

Eli leaned in toward her and she thought he was about to kiss her when he breathed in her right ear. She shuddered, unable to stop the whimper which followed when he pulled away, disappointment that he hadn’t kissed her flooded her entire being.

He moved around to her left side, placing his hand at her waist as he did so, branding the bare skin at her waistline with further tingles.

“Eli?” Maddie’s voice came out as a bit of a squeak. Every nerve in her body was on fire. Her nipples tightened and lightning streaked along her nervous system taking a quick and deliciously painful detour directly between her thighs.

He trailed a finger down the back of her neck before moving around to her front, sliding the tips of his fingers from the base of her throat up to her jaw and ear. Maddie felt her eyes widen and her breathing was far from steady.

“I could totally take advantage of you now,” he whispered near the side of her neck.

Maddie felt her chin jerk, whether she was agreeing to his statement or agreeing that the advantage-taking should commence, she couldn’t say.

“But if I took advantage—” Eli straightened suddenly, reaching up and unhooking the cuffs before pressing the easy-release catches and freeing her. “—then you’d claim I cheated to win the bet and I’d have to forfeit.”

The feeling of rejection hit her hard and fast. How could she have let him do that to her again?

Maddie felt proud that she didn’t cry—or slug him—at that moment. Disappointment warred with denial. How could he…
stop
like that? Without even kissing her?

Maybe he learned the last time that he wasn’t interested. Her eyes burned and she blinked rapidly and turned away.

“So…” She tried to regulate her breathing. “You think the mayor or someone at the court house knows about Millie’s little… predilections? Maybe he was trying to protect her.”

Eli shook his head. “First, how would he know? They had to be… thirty years apart in age. It’s not likely that they would have dated or had an affair. Second, why would he try to hide it at this late date? She’s been gone for a year and a half. She doesn’t have a reputation to protect at this point. Moreover, neither you nor any other member of her family would out her to the community. You’d be more likely to hide it. I suspect the nonsense with the inspection was leftover bad feelings.”

Maddie sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He squeezed her shoulder as if he’d forgotten their earlier encounter. “The town will come around. Promise.”

“I hope so,” she said, absently chafing the skin of her wrist, remembering how it felt to be at Eli’s mercy. How could he act like nothing happened? It was obvious she’d win this bet… whether she wanted to or not.

Eli turned back to the armoire and returned the cuffs to their designated hook, taking deep, steadying breaths. Holy God, what had he been thinking? He avoided looking at any of the other tools and toys in the cabinet. He already had a raging erection. No use in making it worse by thinking about how he’d like to explore the rest of the items.

He couldn’t let Maddie realize how much that little scene had affected him. He needed to play it cool until she trusted him again. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. The last time he had, she went three years barely talking to him. He refused to ruin their friendship or any chance of it becoming something more simply because of a momentary lapse of good judgment on his part.

He opened the left side of the armoire in order to get the right side closed first. There he found a bar, with neatly hung hangers containing all manner of kinky dress. He couldn’t imagine Maddie in the shocking black leather merry widow with garters.

He stifled a groan. Ok, so the
not imagining
was not going so well.

“Can you picture Millie wearing those?” Maddie asked, a giggle in her voice.

Oh great. Imagining her aunt Millie wearing this was so much pervier than imagining Maddie in them. Of course, it did help get his body back into control. “Aunt Millie of the calf-length calico dresses and the bun? Not so much.”

“That was so unexpected.” She moved up the stairs and out of the basement.

A truer statement had never been uttered.

The ringing of Rob’s private line dragged him out of the budget figures in front of him. “Mayor Watson.”