bunch of hungry guys.”
They passed a dining room with at least twelve men sitting around the table, and she counted six more in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast table.
“Sixty main courses for twenty men?”
“We have big appetites.” He put the bags on the counter and took the two she was carrying off her hands.
In a moment, she would be dismissed, and she still hadn’t learned anything useful. Perhaps it was time to use her feminine wiles.
Affecting a flirtatious smile, she struck a pose with a hand on her hip. “It isn’t every day that I make a delivery to a household full of hunky men. How come there are no women here? Are you all members of a football team?”
One of the guys sitting at the table chuckled. “We are a team, but we don’t play football. What’s your name?”
She sauntered over. “Gina. What’s yours?”
“Greggory.” He wiped his hand on his pants and offered it to her for a handshake. “Do you have a phone number, Gina?”
“I do, but I have a rule about that. I don’t give it out. I’ll take yours, though.”
He looked her up and down. “Do you have a pen?”
“Sure do.” She pulled it out from her shirt pocket and handed it to him.
Grabbing a napkin, he scribbled a number on it and added his name. “Here you go, doll. Call me when you are off work.”
Doll? Who called women that in this day and age? Was he enacting a 50s movie?
If any of this was for real, she would have told him what she thought about being called a doll. But since it wasn’t, Eleanor stuffed the folded napkin in her back pocket, put on her most coquettish smile, and decided to play along. “You betcha, I will, handsome.” She added a wink.
Except, none of his friends chuckled or snorted or made fun of him, which was odd.
One of the two who’d escorted her into the kitchen pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to her. “Thank you for the fast delivery, Gina. I’ll see you out to the van.”
So polite and so generous. She must have stepped back in time.
Eleanor whistled. “Oh, wow. Thank you.” She made a big production of folding the bill and stuffing it in her shirt pocket.
As she’d intended, all eyes went to her braless chest.
Men were so easy to manipulate. She wasn’t a looker by any standards, and yet she’d scored the phone number of a guy who was at least ten years younger than her and had a bunch of them staring at her modest but perky breasts.
Out in the front yard, her escort opened the driver’s door for her, and then waited on the driveway as she drove away.
Damn, it suddenly occurred to her that they might call the restaurant and ask about the delivery girl. She needed to get back there as fast as she could and compel everyone on staff to confirm that they had one called Gina.
But first, she had to collect Jesse.
With paranoia churning her stomach, Eleanor drove past her car and continued for ten more minutes, making sure that no one was following her. When she was certain that she had no tail, she let out a relieved breath and circled back to pick up the delivery guy.
So far, things were looking good.
Later tonight, she was going to call Greggory and suggest that they hook up. Then when she got him alone, she was going to pump him for information about his friends.
72
Edna
When a knock sounded at her door, Edna glanced at her watch. It wasn’t one in the afternoon yet, but Rufsur was probably a little early.
Smiling, she got up from behind her desk and went to open the door. “Did you miss me?”
He pulled her into his arms, stepped into her office, and kicked the door closed before pushing her against it. “I did.” He smashed his lips over hers.
It was so good to have his big body pinning her to the door, to feel every hard muscle through his thin T-shirt and his hard length through his jeans.
They’d made love only hours ago, and yet she was hungry for him as if he’d been gone for weeks. How was she going to survive until his next visit?
Reaching for his zipper with one hand, she popped his jean button with her other. Regrettably, he was wearing boxer shorts, but his erection had elongated, and the mushroom head was sticking above the elastic.
As she ran her thumb over it,