A Billion Little Clues by Samantha Westlake

rods in the back burrowed deep into my spine. How in the world was anyone supposed to sit in a seat like this for any length of time without needing to see a chiropractor afterwards?
    The second thought in my mind, much more recent but also much more powerful, was how sexy the man in front of me looked as he leaned in towards me. My scumbag brain wouldn't stop replaying the kiss that we had shared the night previously, how he had pulled me in to press against his body. I remembered how his hands had slid all over me, how they had expertly managed to burrow in beneath my little dress and find all the right points to transform me into a mindless bundle of desire. I wanted him to do that again, only this time for us not to be interrupted by someone getting murdered.
    Wait a minute.
    That was right, wasn't it? We had been running inside the mansion to find a private place where we could finish ripping off each other's clothes, when we had been interrupted by a scream. The scream of Geoffrey getting murdered! And then Roman had turned and run off to go see what had happened.
    But if Roman had been with me when Geoffrey started screaming, he couldn't have been the one to commit the murder!
    My eyes must have widened as I put these pieces together inside my head. And the man sitting in front of me, watching me so intently, couldn't have missed that sign. "Exactly," he said, once again showing off his uncanny ability to read my brain. "You know that I'm innocent!"
    #
    "I do," I agreed, still a little stunned by the realization. This insight was almost immediately followed by another on its heels, one which slipped out of my mouth. "But if I know you're innocent, why didn't you just tell the police that you were with me?"
    Roman's eyes briefly broke away from me, and he reached up to run his fingers through his hair again. I felt a slight urge to reach forward and smooth his hair back down, to fix the mussed look he was inadvertently causing. "Because I can't let it get out what we were doing," he admitted.
    What we were doing... he meant the kiss! And then, I suppose, also the dash inside to go find a place to do a lot more than just kiss. At the thought, I felt color creeping up into my cheeks, and probably flushing across my chest as well.
    I didn't have to say anything. "That's the thing," Roman nodded, speaking as though my innermost thoughts were being broadcast out loud. "I can't let it get out that we were committing any sort of unprofessional act, or else I'll have a major scandal on my hands here."
    "More of a scandal than getting sent to jail for murder?" The words slipped out of me.
    Instead of being upset, however, the man just chuckled. "Pretty close," he replied in a light-hearted tone. But then his face grew serious again, and he leaned forward. His hands reached out and clasped mine, wrapping around the backs of my palms and pressing my fingers up against the coffee cup in my grasp. "But I know that I'm not the murderer - which means that the murderer had to be someone else at that party! Someone with a reason to want to kill Geoffrey. And I need your help to find the real killer."
    I could feel his heart beating through his hands as they pressed against mine. When my eyes slowly crept up to his face, I could see naked need on his features. He really did need my help! But was there something else in his eyes? A spark of something?
    For just an instant, his eyes dropped down to my lips, and then flicked back up. There was! He wanted to kiss me, I realized with a shock - at least as badly as I wanted to do the same to him!
    "Yes." The word was so quiet, I wasn't even sure I had spoken it out loud.
    "Yes?" Roman repeated it back to me, his eyes still on me. God, I could get lost in them forever. "Yes? You're willing to help?"
    I nodded, just a tiny bit. "Yes. I'll help."
    The man moved in a blur. I felt my coffee cup snatched from my hands, and he set it down on top of his desk. And then, an instant later, he was