Free PerpetualPleasure by Dita Parker Page B

his
expression turned somber again.
    “I know I have no right, but could I ask for one small favor
before I go?”
    “What is it, Mac?”
    “Will you show me the box, if it still exists?”
    “Why would you—”
    “Please, Lucie. It would mean a lot to me.”
    “Then will you go?” she asked.
    “Only then will I go.”
    “Fine,” she sighed. Why not? “Follow me.”
    She led him out into the corridor, drawing the door closed
behind them.
    “Hold up.” He jogged back into her bedroom to return a
moment later, pocketing his phone and wearing his shoes.
    Getting ready to leave.
    Lucie led him in silence downstairs and through the house to
the room across from the double sitting room. She let him in and flipped the
lights on, the gasoliers converted to electricity lending light to a space she
had thought magical as a child and still loved.
    From wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, the room boasted
art and artifacts from different eras, gathered first by her father and later
by her. Everything from maps, prints and paintings through Asian chests and
china to sculptures and figurines big and small. Some had cost a small fortune,
some she had gotten for free or for a pittance, but each object was equally
precious and memory-laden in her eyes.
    Among her treasury, encased in thick glass with no openings,
stood her very own Pandora’s Box. Lucie walked MacCale to it, both staring at
the small forbidding lead chest in silence.
    “Why did you keep it?” he asked.
    “It’s a reminder of my youthful recklessness. My original
youth. Not that I could ever forget. It certainly hasn’t made me any more
cautious.” She gave a grim laugh. “I didn’t dare try to destroy it not knowing
what I might unleash on the world if I did.”
    Lucie turned to MacCale. He was studying her closely.
    “Why didn’t you marry, Lucie? At twenty-six, you were
certainly old enough.”
    How did he do it? Not much seemed to shake or amaze him. He
was unbelievable and so should have her history been, but MacCale looked at her
oozing calm as he waited for her answer.
    “My father died early on and I had to help my mother run the
house. The time never felt right and when it finally might have been it had
passed me by. I was relieved, to tell you the truth. I would have lost the
relative freedom I had as an unmarried woman. And when I…when I changed it
became a non-issue.”
    “Yes,” he said quietly. MacCale took her hands in his and
only held them for a moment, a strange expression she couldn’t read on his
striking features.
    “Thank you.” He kissed her hands softly, the warmth of his
lips making Lucie shiver with awareness. With one tender touch he could take
her apart.
    Just as she was about to step out of his reach, he wrapped
his arm around her waist and whispered near her ear, “May I have my shirt back
or will you get cold? I do love seeing you in it, though.”
    Lucie fought against the need to close her eyes and lean into
his strength and warmth. Before she succumbed, MacCale straightened and let go
of her.
    Lucie’s hands trembled as she went for the buttons. He took
hold of her hands again, set them to her sides and opened up the buttons for
her.
    Doing her damnedest to keep her voice even, Lucie said,
“There’s a guest bathroom two doors down the hall. You’re free to use it if you
want, and there really should be everything you need.”
    “Hmm, I seriously doubt that,” he murmured and peeled the
shirt from her body. A shiver of hot and cold ran through Lucie as she stood
naked before him, MacCale putting the shirt on in his turn.
    If he was trying to punish her for the dress stunt she had
pulled at Boyd’s…he succeeded. Lucie felt exposed, and so willing to be touched
and held by him she couldn’t believe where her head was at.
    Oh god…
    Lucie snapped her eyes open, realizing she had closed them.
MacCale ran his hands down her arms. He moved over to her belly and circled her
waist, skating up to brush the