3 Buried Leads by Amanda M. Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

said, licking my lips nervously.
    “I wouldn’t want to disappoint your mom,” he laughed.
    That was only a plus from my perspective. I slowly got up and moved towards him. What the hell, right?
    
    I woke up in a tangle of arms, legs and Star Wars fabric. I could feel Eliot curled up behind me, with his right arm wrapped around me tightly. He felt me stir and snuggled in closer to me, mumbling into my tangled blonde hair as he did. “Good morning.”
    “Morning,” I murmured back, relaxing back into his strong arms for a few minutes. I looked up at the sliding glass doors in the kitchen and saw that the light was starting to filter in. It was almost dawn. Sally would be here soon. And, as comfortable and relaxed as I felt, I knew that if Eliot and I were found naked and wrapped in my childhood sleeping bag – things would get unpleasant, to say the least.
    “We have to get up,” I said reluctantly.
    “I know,” Eliot said. He kissed my temple quickly and then climbed up. I took a second to appreciate his naked rear end before I started getting dressed, too. I only had the same clothes I had worn the day before, so it didn’t take very long. I excused myself to go into the bathroom and ran my fingers through my hair. It was a losing battle.
    I asked Eliot to bring my purse into the bathroom for me. Luckily, I had an extra hairbrush inside of it. I wet it under the faucet and ran it through my hair. It wasn’t a vast improvement, but it was better than it had been. I threw all of my hair into a pony tail and then splashed some water on my face.
    When I came back out into the living room, Eliot had folded up the sleeping bags and stashed them back into the linen closet. Despite the fact that we’d had a, um, rigorous evening, Eliot’s hair barely looked out of place. I handed him the hairbrush anyway and watched as he disappeared into the bathroom.
    When he was done, Eliot came back out into the living room and shrugged into his flannel shirt. He then turned to me expectantly. A memory of last night rushed into my head and I could feel my face flush.
    Eliot smirked when he saw the reddening of my cheeks. “Are you regretting it now?”
    “No,” I admitted. “I just know my mom is going to take one look at me and know the dirty, dirty things we did last night.”
    “Do you think she’ll really care?”
    “Oh, yeah, it’s going to totally piss her off,” I responded.
    “Is that a bad thing or a good thing?”
    “It’s a good thing,” I said. “It’s definitely a good thing.”
    Eliot held his hand out to me and I took it, letting him pull me towards him and brush a soft kiss across my lips. Inviting him to dinner really was one of my better ideas – and that’s saying something, because I’m something of a genius (especially in my own mind).
    Eliot and I heard someone outside of the apartment door and I inadvertently took a step back. I wasn’t surprised to see Sally standing there. She was laden down with painting supplies.
    “Oh, good, you’re up,” she said. She was eying us both speculatively for a minute. I could tell she wanted to find out if anything happened – but she currently had other things on her mind. That would have to wait.
    “We’re going to go down to the restaurant and have breakfast and then we’ll go help pack your stuff,” I said.
    “Good,” she said. “By the time you get back here I should be done painting.”
    I led Eliot back downstairs. My cousin Mario was cooking this morning and he looked surprised when he saw Eliot and I descend from the upstairs apartment. “Looks like someone got lucky last night,” he teased.
    Mario was seven years younger than me and fresh out of high school. He was working at the restaurant while he put himself through college. He was one of my funnier cousins – but I wasn’t especially in the mood for his brand of humor this morning.
    “Are you jealous?”
    “Hell yes,” Mario answered amiably. “He’s very pretty. His