Guilty Pleasures (The Ladies of The Burling School Book 3) Read online

  She stepped back and, despite the heat of the summer evening, he felt cold now that she wasn’t in his arms.

  “Because whatever is in that room is evil,” she asserted firmly. “I’m not kidding, Cooper. It’s…possessed! I don’t think even a silver dagger will work. And I doubt a priest would enter that room. He’d just…give the sign of the cross and get out of there as fast as he could, spreading holy water on the way down the stairs.”

  Cooper laughed at the outrageous picture she presented. “Okay, so it’s a bit weird.”

  “No, Cooper. Not weird. Freaky! Scary freaky. I’m not kidding!”

  “Dolls? How bad can dolls be?” he asked, thinking she might be a bit touched. Beautiful, but nutty.

  Then she did that arm crossing thing and his mind blanked as he took in her bountiful breasts pressing against the material of her shirt. She was in leggings and another one of those soft tee-shirts. This one looked newer than the previous one, but still sexy as hell. How a tee-shirt could be sexy, he didn’t know. But probably anything on Willow would look amazing. She was just that gloriously beautiful.

  Tearing his eyes away, he turned back to the house. “I’m going to send some painters here to take care of the outside of the house,” he told her.

  She stepped in front of him. “Are you the one that sent the landscapers the other day?” she asked, her blue eyes narrowing sharply on him.

  “My assistant arranged for them to come by and fix up the yard, yes.”

  She shook her head. “Well, thank you. But this house is my baby, my project. After you put the idea into my head the other day, I called my team and sent them pictures. They are already working up ideas and making travel plans. We’re taking over this house and making it over. If you hire others to get the work done, then I won’t be able to post the progress on my website. So no more vendors. Got it?” she told him, pointing her finger up at him.

  He wanted to laugh. Her eyes narrowed and his first instinct was to take that finger she was pointing at him and suck on it, show her what he wanted to do to the rest of her luscious body. No one told him what to do, he thought. But this little lady didn’t know that and, if the truth were known, he was more turned on by her assertiveness than irritated. He wondered if she’d tell him what she wanted from him in bed. Would she be assertive then too? Damn, he hoped so! And would she blush when she told him what she liked?

  Oh hell! He needed to move before she realized what he was thinking and slapped him.

  “Let’s go inside and see these dolls,” he told her, taking her hand and pulling her behind him.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going in there!” she asserted firmly, but he only laughed softly as he moved forward. Instead of pulling away from him, he felt her fingers slide into his belt, her fingers skimming along the small of his back. He stopped and turned, looking down at her. But she only looked up at him with innocent, terrified eyes.

  “If you’re so scared, why are you coming in with me?”

  “Because someone needs to save you from the evil dolls,” she told him. “I got away once. I know how. You might not be so lucky.”

  He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “In an odd way, that makes sense.” Then he turned back to the house and headed inside.

  The foyer seemed the same, although it was brighter. She’d obviously been working hard. There was still a lot of issues that needed to be fixed, but the dust and grime was gone from most of the surfaces. The crystal chandelier he hadn’t noticed the last time, because it had been covered with dust and cobwebs, sparkled and lit with new lightbulbs, adding a charm that he hadn’t expected.

  “This is really nice,” he complimented, looking around.

  “Yeah, right. Nice. Just…go upstairs and get this over with so I can figure out how to get a priest here.”

  He laughed softly, shaking his head. “About dolls?”

  Willow’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “Mocking me isn’t going to change my mind.”

  He looked down at her, thought about kissing her, then banished the thought. Later, he told himself. Reassure her that her house was fine and not possessed, then invite her to dinner tonight. After dinner, he could take her back to his place. Then there would be kissing.

  Plan in place, he nodded. “Right. Let’s go see these dolls.”

  She walked behind him and he had to control his body’s response to feeling her fingers on his back. Not that he didn’t like her fingers on his back, but he didn’t want the material of his shirt to be in between her fingers and his skin. He wanted them both naked, her hands on his back and his chest and…hell, everywhere.

  “Why are you hesitating?”

  He turned to look back at her. “Something just occurred to me.”

  Her eyes widened. “What? Do you…?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he told her softly, lifting his hand to touch her cheek. Her skin was so damn soft! So amazingly soft! Her fingers nudged him and he chuckled. “Right. Dolls.”

  “Evil dolls.”

  “Let’s go find out what makes a doll evil, shall we?” he offered, feeling manly as she stared up at him hopefully with those big, blue eyes.

  The stairs creaked as he climbed, the old wood strong, but obviously aging. The paint on the treads had long been worn away and there were small depressions in the center where decades of use had worn away the wood.

  “Second floor?” he asked.

  “Yes. The first room on the right.”

  When he reached the top stair, he felt her fingers curl against his back, making a fist and the soft touch turned to knuckles poking him in the back. As he neared the first door on the right, Cooper felt her fingers tug on his belt and wanted to laugh. Already, she was getting ready to pull him back to safety?

  “Willow, I’m sure that it’s going to be okay,” he assured her. “Whatever is in that room, I’ll get rid of it, okay?”

  She bit her lip and he wanted to curse. He wanted to bite that lip, as well as lots of other places on her body. But he restrained himself, trying to be a gentleman.

  “I don’t think I want you to be cursed.”

  He blinked, confused. “How will I be cursed by getting rid of whatever is in that room?”

  She huffed with irritation. “Maybe you’d better just see for yourself.”

  He smiled. “Fine. How about if you stay out here in the hallway? I’ll look around.”

  “Fine but…be careful.”

  He wanted to laugh, but restrained himself. It occurred to him that he was usually a very restrained person. Rarely did he smile, but with Willow around, he was constantly fighting his amusement. An interesting realization, and he wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Turning around, he faced the room in question. From the hallway, he could see the canopy bed covered with old lace that was torn in several places and a yellowed quilt covering the mattress. He suspected that everything in this room that wasn’t wood needed to be tossed. It had been here, unmaintained, for too long. Mice, rats, and whatever other vermin snuck into abandoned houses, probably lived in the nooks and crannies of the house.

  He stepped into the room, confident that the issue was simply a rodent.

  He took another step and, slowly, his eyes adjusted to the dim light. When he focused, he looked around and….!

  “Holy mother…!” he gasped, stepping back as he took in the dolls. There were dozens of dolls, some with wild hair, others with clothes that were worn out and falling off, leaving questionable parts of their anatomy bare.

  But the most horrifying issue was the empty eyes. Not the blank stare that dolls usually gave to the world. But eye sockets without eyes. Or mouths that had rotted away.

  “What the hell?!”

  “I told you!” she whispered furiously. “Be nice! Don’t make them angry!”

  Cooper looked behind him and spotted Willow standing outside the doorway, peering around the doorframe. But she wouldn’t step into the room and Cooper didn�
��t blame her! At the moment, all he wanted to do was cross himself and back away slowly!

  “Where is the nearest priest?” he asked, looking warily at all of the dolls.

  “I don’t know! I’m new in these parts, remember?”

  He laughed and the sound seemed to ease the tension in the room. Were the dolls creating the tension?

  Okay now he was being fanciful but…seriously, these were the stuff of nightmares!

  “You said you would get rid of them,” Willow announced with an accusatory voice. It was as if she knew that he didn’t want to touch the damn things. And she was right! Touching them…he was afraid that they might pull out a machete and hack off his hand if he dared!

  And to be perfectly honest, he wasn’t sure if his hero status was going to hold out. These dolls…they were possessed! Exactly as she’d said on the lawn.

  Backing up, he stepped out into the hallway, breathing slowly as if any sudden breath might wake up the eye-less, mouthless dolls.

  When he was “safe”, he breathed a bit easier. “What in the world?!” he asked, looking down at her. He even pulled her into his arms and wanted to shout victoriously when she stepped into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest. Under normal circumstances, this kind of intimacy probably wasn’t warranted after the short conversations they’d had to date. But terror seemed to banish the lines a bit. And that room qualified as a house of horrors!

  “Why don’t you just close the door?” he offered.

  “Oh no!” she exclaimed, pulling back and looking up at him. “Now that I know those things are in the house, I can’t do anything else.”

  He laughed, but also agreed with her. Cooper didn’t like the idea of her staying here alone in the house with those dolls!

  “Okay, well, how about if we…” he searched his imagination for some way to carefully, politely, extract the dolls from the shelves without waking them up.

  “You got nothing, do ya?” she challenged. With a sigh, she pulled completely out of his arms and stood back. “I’m going to…” she pondered the possibilities.

  He waited, watching as she bit her lip, trying to come up with a solution. After a moment, he chuckled. “Admit it, you got nothing either,” he teased.

  She cringed and shook her head. “Not really, which is exactly why I ran out of the house screaming several minutes ago, if you’ll remember.”

  “Point taken.” He rested his hands on his hips and stared back at the room. “What about if we…?” he stopped, nothing coming to mind.

  She turned to face him, her pretty, blue eyes looking wary. “Okay, this sounds really crazy, but…” she bit her lip again. He was going to have to tell her to stop doing that. “I’m going to run to the store and get a cute little baby carriage. I’m going to carefully and reverently pick up each of the dolls and put them into that carriage, then roll them out of that room.”

  He wanted to laugh. “You know, the rational thing would be to grab a garbage bag and dump all of those…creatures…into the bag, tie it up, and toss them into the dumpster.”

  She looked up at him, hands on her hips and her eyes changed from wary to daring. “You’re right. So…you do it.”

  Cooper looked back at the room and shuddered. “You know what? I’ll drive you to the store to get that baby carriage.”

  She smiled brightly up at him, and, for some stupid reason, he felt as if his hero status was back in place. “Deal!” she agreed with a nod. For a brief moment, his eyes shifted up to her fiery hair. But then she turned and headed back down the stairs. “Let me get my purse.”

  He followed behind, noticing the cute curve of her butt in those leggings. Was she wearing panties? His eyes narrowed, searching for panty lines. It didn’t matter if she was or wasn’t. If she was wearing panties, he’d start imagining something lacy or silky. If she wasn’t…! He groaned, his thoughts shifting away from the possessed dolls in favor of her walking around without panties on.

  Hard to combine those two issues but Cooper was starting to realize how agile his mind could be. All his life, he’d known that he could multi-task better than most people. This only proved it.

  Chapter 4

  Two hours and three stores later, Cooper pulled back into the driveway. “Are you sure?” he asked, putting the SUV into park.

  Willow looked out the window, staring up at the window where the creepy dolls were, hopefully, still on the shelves and not wandering the house, wreaking havoc. Or setting traps. With those non-existent eyes, anything was possible.

  It was also possible that her imagination might be getting out of control. She looked over at Cooper. “Is it good enough?”

  He gave her the same look he’d given her at the previous two stores. The look said, “Are you kidding?”

  She laughed. “Okay, I know this is nutty, but I didn’t hear you arguing. You went along with the idea.” In fact, she’d truly enjoyed bantering back and forth with him over the best kind of baby carriage to buy. She’d intended to just go to one of the consignment shops but he’d suggested getting a new carriage. She’d agreed, only because it might help the dolls feel better about being removed from the house. Their easy banter in the stores had caused Willow’s body to tense every time he’d touched her and her mind…well, she was getting a baby carriage to get rid of dolls. It was safe to say that her mind wasn’t really functioning on all cylinders at the moment.

  He couldn’t deny that, so he simply took the carriage out of his truck and set it onto the ground. “So how are you going to get the dolls out of the house?”

  Before she could answer, his grandmother came out of her house and stopped at his SUV, peering at the baby carriage beside it.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  Willow looked at the carriage. “I thought that taking the dolls out of the house in this would be safer than just bagging the little demons up in a garbage bag.”

  Bonnie chuckled. “Dear, Camilla wouldn’t have kept demonic dolls in her house. They are just antique dolls that she didn’t take care of.”

  Willow shook her head, dismissing the kind woman’s reassurance. “I’m not taking any chances.” She looked up at the window. “Those dolls are…weird and scary.”

  Bonnie chuckled again. “Well, after you’ve finished, you two should come over for dinner. I’ve made chicken and potatoes with green beans.” With that, she walked back up to her house, shaking her head and chuckling every few feet.

  “I’m making too much of this, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” he replied, but he wasn’t going to offer to take the dolls out in a garbage bag either. “Come on, let’s do this. My grandmother’s chicken is legendary.”

  An hour later, they’d hauled all of the dolls out of the house via the carriage and taken them to the dump. It still felt weird, but Willow was relieved that the dolls were gone. She could sleep better in the house now. The fact that she’d slept pretty well the previous few nights didn’t matter. She hadn’t known about the evil dolls. Now that she knew, they had to go.

  “Come on,” Cooper said. “Let’s eat dinner.” He put a hand to the small of her back and Willow shivered, shocked by the heat of his touch. She looked up at him and he stopped. She stopped. Their eyes met and she shivered again.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, letting her know that he’d felt her reaction.

  “No,” she admitted with a whisper. When his eyes flared with heat, she wished she’d kept her honesty to herself. Because a man like Cooper, he was…too much.

  “Dinner’s ready!” Bonnie called from the other side of the rose bushes.

  Willow jerked away, feeling guilty even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. Not even kissed him. Although, she wanted to kiss him. To feel those hard lips against hers…

  Clearing her throat, she look towards his grandmother’s house. “I think we should go,” she told him, her voice sounding a bit strained. “I don’t want to miss this legendary chicken.”

  He didn’t smil
e, but continued to look down at her for a long moment. Then he sighed and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Throughout the meal, which was pretty amazing, actually, Willow spoke mostly to Cooper’s grandmother. “So, where did all of those dolls come from?” she asked as they sat down at a formal dining room table set with the good china and crystal glasses. Cooper poured white wine as she and Bonnie sat down.

  Willow had been over to visit with Bonnie several times in the past few days. Bonnie loved to serve tea and Willow was a huge fan of cookies in the middle of the afternoon. Especially homemade cookies! It was basically a match made in heaven.

  Willow’s eyes darted over to Cooper with that thought, then retreated. He looked so strong and powerful sitting at the head of the table. His broad shoulders and watchful eyes made her think of a powerful aristocrat from the old days. Not the current aristocrats who were sophisticated. Although, there was no denying that Cooper was sophisticated. But she pictured him on top of a war horse with a sword in his hand, fighting off invaders. And dolls. Willow smiled, thinking back to the way he’d carefully loaded the dolls into the baby carriage with her, wary of disturbing the evil spirits lurking behind the porcelain facades.

  Bonnie was explaining the dolls, but Willow was more focused on Cooper. So when his eyebrow lifted towards her, she realized that she’d been staring. Pulling her gaze away, she focused on Bonnie’s description of one of the china dolls and how Camilla had been gifted the doll several decades ago. Apparently, her grandmother enjoyed sewing new clothes for the dolls. Which was interesting since Willow’s whole life and career centered around making things. She loved sewing, gluing, crafting…just about anything.

  Throughout the rest of the meal, Willow kept her attention on Bonnie, but she was painfully aware of Cooper next to her. After having been caught staring, she only allowed herself to look in his direction if he spoke, which wasn’t often. He sat at the head of the table looking…powerful. Enticing!

  Goodness, she shouldn’t think things like that. Not only because they were dangerous, but because she wasn’t giving her full attention to Bonnie, which was just rude!