Page 42 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“Just the way you like it,” Joe replied. Then he glanced again at Percy, expecting a mildly irritating sexy quip, but received only an infuriatingly knowing look, as though Joe were the one causing trouble. Joe straightened himself and pulled at his collar. He glared again at the air-conditioning unit as a fresh trickle of sweat ran down his temple. “You fixed that, didn’t you?”
“I fixed it,” Percy replied. “You do look hot, though.”
“Stop it,” Joe griped, his irritation and attraction to Percy seeming to rise in equal measure with every degree of heat in the room.
“I’m being serious,” Percy said, and to his credit, he did sound more serious than he had for the entirety of the discussion thus far. “It’s impossible to concentrate in here. Do you want a glass of water or something?”
“No, I only want to get this job organised.”
“You know you can unbutton your shirt just a bit.”
“Percy—”
“I’m not flirting at all,” he insisted. “It’s just until the damned air conditioning starts working again. You know, if we got the penthouse, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s airy up there.”
Joe ignored the complaining and began unbuttoning his shirt.
“Can I do my shirt too?” Percy asked, watching him.
Joe felt his eyes, but refused to look up from the map. “Do whatever you want. Just try to pay attention.”
“I am paying attention.”
“To the plan!”
Percy let go a deep, frustrating laugh, and Joe couldn’t help but peek over as Percy swept his damp hair to the side, then unbuttoned his shirt even more than before, flapping it around extravagantly, exposing his chest and collarbones over and over. He rolled his sleeves to exactly the thickest part of his muscular forearms, and Joe wondered at the way the expensive poplin pulled firmly at his skin. Did he have the shirt tailored especially to show his arms off? Probably. Typical sexy Percy. Joe tried to push sexy-Percy thoughts aside. “So the plan is, we wander around the cathedral until we’re alone, we flick the switch on the coffin, go into the tunnel, and we kill the monks as quickly as possible. So far, so good. But there’s more.”
Without any hesitation, Percy suggested, “It’s rigged.”
“How do you know it’s rigged?”
“Standard Catholic practice. Booby-traps and pitfalls everywhere.”
Joe frowned very hard at him, yet conceded, “Apparently it is booby-trapped. But I can’t get access to any information about what exactly is down there. Only the monks know what the traps are and how to disarm them. The monks and a few people far higher up than me.”
Percy gave pause over these words. “Just how high up in the Church are you?”
“I have no idea. None of us have any idea what’s really going on. No one has until they reach the top. Or so I’ve heard. I’ve reached a level where…” He looked out at the blue sky through the floor-to ceiling windows, thinking it over, then said, “I keep a lot of secrets, and I have access to a lot of useful information. That may be because I’m lowly and expendable, or because I’m higher up and I’ve earned their trust. I really have no idea.”
Percy leaned in, his interest piqued. “Useful information like whatever your secret meeting this morning was about?”
“Yes,” Joe replied, holding his gaze steadily.
He lifted a sexy eyebrow. “What was it about?”
“That’s a secret.”
“And you won’t tell me?”
“No.”
“Very good,” Percy sighed out. He moved on from the disappointment quickly enough by returning to their heist. “We’ll have to kill all but one monk in the tunnel, then torture the last survivor until he tells us where the traps are.”
Joe had expected such a suggestion. “That’s a good plan, but it’s also possibly the biggest difficulty. I don’t know if we can make them tell us, even with torture.”
“Why? Did the Church take their tongues?”
Joe scowled for perhaps the twentieth time that morning, and explained patiently, “They may not be entirely human. At least that’s what I’ve heard. And if they’re not, well, I don’t know what they are.”
