Page 99 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“Good.” The sheet was thrown back, Joe’s inexplicable morning wood was discovered, and so the morning drifted away pleasantly.
CHAPTER FORTY
WE HAVE TO LEAVE THE HOTEL ROOM SOMETIME
Percy left Joe to recover in bed while he showered and dressed in the off-the-rack clothes Leo had left discreetly outside their door. Joe used the time to order breakfast, and as a fully dressed Percy settled back into bed next to him, pressed a hand to his cheek and pulled him in for a kiss, there was a rap at the door.
“Servizio in camera.”
“One interruption after another,” grumbled Percy, but he still made his way to the door with the widest smile he’d had in a week, and accepted the silver tray from the instantly adoring room attendant with far more quiet joking and chit chat than Joe thought was strictly necessary.
When he closed the door, Joe’s face was set on sour. “Were you flirting with her?”
“Who?” Percy replied, as though there had been more than one ‘her’ in their recent vicinity. “Caterina?”
“Oh, she’s ‘Caterina’ now?”
It was almost too easy. “She is a human being, Joe, not just your personal delivery service.”
Yes, thought Joe, a human being with long blonde hair and eyelashes to rival his own.
“And,” continued Percy, placing the tray down on the bed and stretching himself out long next to Joe, “she’s doing me a little favour.”
“Just like that?” asked Joe, softening only a little with the kisses that traced up his neck.
“Yes. Now…” Percy pulled back and assessed Joe’s lightly mollified face. “I’ve done something, and you need to promise me you won’t get mad.”
And straight back to sour. “What did you do?”
“Don’t be like that.”
“What did you do?”
“And don’t tell Caterina.”
“I don’t even know Caterina!” Joe cried. “Why would I tell her anything?”
“Exactly the answer I needed.” Percy rolled over, swung an arm down and came back with an icy, condensation-laden bottle of Dom Perignon, the large digits of the year reading a disconcerting ‘1968’.
Joe was silent for some time, trying to process the unexpected development. Percy could afford the champagne. Couldn’t he? Yet Percy didn’t want the room attendant to know he had it. Yet Percy said he had been down to the cellar that very morning…
Joe’s sharply lined jaw dropped open. “I know you didn’t steal that bottle of champagne worth thousands of dollars.”
“Lire,” Percy corrected with a maddening grin.
“Percy!” Joe whisper-screamed in that way he did. “You did not steal that!”
With a tilt of his handsome head that swept the dark hair enticingly before his blue eyes, “When you consider the priceof the room?—”
“I won’t consider it!” Joe shouted, not even a bit distracted by his partner's good looks. “Take it back!”
It was a fast flick of Percy’s fingers and the cork shot out and straight into the chandelier, which tinkled delightedly with a sparkling shimmer of sunshine all over Percy while he bit his lip and awaited Joe’s response.
Beautiful, beautiful, fiery eyes that would burn him to a cinder if they could.
But the door was tapped upon, Percy bounced across the room and Joe absolutely would have told Caterina there had been some mistake with the champagne had she not returned with two extra buttons hanging open on her shirt, a glimpse of her black bra in plain sight, and, to Joe’s eyes, appeared to be standing in a particularly provocative pose. She wasn’t. She just had nice hips. And that was incensing in and of itself. “I brought your mail too, Doctor Ashdown,” she trilled.
“Call me Percy,” he replied.
