Reason #7: When the stars and planets were in the right alignment,

he could actually be fun.

 

 

 

Who would have ever thought the day would come when Ben and Olivia actually worked together? Thirty minutes in, they were both shockingly still alive. She found that his shrewd cop mind was actually pretty handy, and he wasn’t too bad with puzzles himself.

The escape room was set up like a ballroom in a stately mansion and decorated for an extravagant party. Olivia had to hand it to the designers of the place—they really went all out. Most of the props were historically accurate, too. The silver dinnerware on the tables were tarnished with age. There was a phonograph in the corner, with an antique telephone bolted to the wall. The lace tablecloths were obviously old and delicate, and the furniture itself was all vintage.

“The statue!” she blurted out, shoving at Ben’s arm to get his attention. “That statue is pointing to that bookshelf.” The answer to their latest clue.

The two of them dashed over to the wooden shelf lined with aged books with tattered, worn spines.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Ben asked, running his fingers over the titles.

She wasn’t sure. “Just start pulling them out.”

She couldn’t tell how far ahead or behind the other teams were, but she wasn’t taking the time to try and find out. Each team had a different set of clues that all led to the same murderer anyway. After skimming through the pages of the first three books and finding nothing, she began to get discouraged. Then she pulled out the fourth book and a crumpled piece of paper slipped free of its pages.

“Eureka!”

Ben stared at her. “You really just said that?”

She picked up the piece of paper, sniffing. “It seemed appropriate for the moment and time period, okay?”

With his index finger, he mimed tipping up a fedora and leaned his shoulder against the bookshelf. “Ah, ya don’t say? Well, little lady, I reckon—”

She threw a hand up in his face, cutting him off. “Oh my God. That is the worst Jimmy Stewart impression I have ever heard.”

He tugged her wrist aside. “That one’s harder than people think.”

She ignored the spike of adrenaline that shot through her veins when their bodies made contact. It was just adrenaline from the game, nothing more.

On the piece of paper, they found the seating arrangement for the party. Each guest’s name was abbreviated to just their initials, and those initials were placed at their respective chair around one of the many tables.

“It’s a code,” she breathed, delighted. “These letters have got to spell out a message of some kind once rearranged.”

Ben took the paper from her, studying the scattered letters and copying them onto a separate sheet of paper. They had already determined that Ben was better at ciphers and code, while Olivia was better with riddles and locating clues among imagery.

After a few minutes, he shook his head, frowning. “They’re not forming any words. At least, none that make sense. I don’t think this is supposed to be a message.”

She grunted in frustration, slapping the book against her leg. “Well, that diagram obviously means something. If not a code, then what’s its purpose?”

His eyes took that moment to drag down her body in a perusal that sent sparks through her system, like flint being struck against steel. They’d been doing that throughout the game. Stealing glances at each other. She could admit being guilty of it, too, but this was an extra looong, extra obvious once-over from him. And her nipples might have been puckering under his attention, but she would remain in denial about it. Not the time.

Never the time with this man.

When his gaze still didn’t lift, she huffed. “This is no time to ogle—”

His hand shot out and snagged her wrist. He lifted the book in her hand up for his inspection.

“Hey! What are you—”

“Look.” He flipped the book around for her to see. Sure enough, there was a picture taped to the back of the cover. “That has to be another clue.”

She tried to make sense of what she was seeing. “What does that look like to you?”

The photo had obviously been zoomed in probably 100x, so it was hard to make out exactly what the object photographed was.

“I don’t know.” He placed his cheek right next to hers to take a closer look. “The grill on a car?”

As tuned in to the game as she was, there was no way she could ignore the heat of his skin, the subtle graze of his five o’clock shadow against her smoother flesh. The tantalizing smell of his breath—orange Tic-Tacs maybe?—or the barely-there notes of his aftershave that shouldn’t have still been lingering at that point in the evening. Damn. His proximity was getting her seriously keyed up.

“Maybe a washboard?” she suggested, hoping he didn’t detect the slight shakiness to her voice.

To her immense relief, he seemed too focused on their task to pay attention to the subtle changes in her behavior. “But neither of those really pertain to anything inside this room.”

Her gaze flew around the space, trying to find anything that had a similar pattern, similar shape. Anything that might—

“The air vent,” they both said at the same time.

They raced over to a corner where an air vent with a brass-plated covering contrasted the hunter green wallpaper. But the vent was probably nine feet off the ground—too high for Ben to reach even if he jumped. Frantically, she searched for something to stand on. One of the dining chairs would be their best bet.

Before she could drag one over, however, he crouched down to his haunches. “Climb on.”

She froze, certain she was having some kind of mental lapse. “What’s that now?”

He jabbed his thumb at his back. “Get on my shoulders, and I’ll lift you up.”

Um. She didn’t know if she was on board with having this man’s head anywhere near her crotch. Maybe under different circumstances… Nope, not even then.

“Are we married to this idea? If you’ll just give me a minute, I can come up with another option.”

“We’re going to lose if you don’t get your ass up here. Maggie and Finn aren’t that far behind us.”

Well, that did it.

Stealing herself—it does not have to get sexual—she slid her legs on either side of him and straddled his neck. Then she inched forward until her ass was sat right up on his shoulders. When he carefully stood up, he was supporting all of her, and holy shit, was he strong. The extra weight didn’t seem to faze him a bit.

It was also so not the right time to have friction on her hot box.

Oh, hell.

Could he feel that? How warm she’d gotten down there? Did he know what this was doing to her? He couldn’t actually feel the way her hoo-hah was throbbing, right? His hands had a firm grasp on her thighs to hold her steady, but she was off-balance regardless. The immense heat of his touch was making her lightheaded. What, had he washed his hands with molten lava? She could only imagine how good all that heat would feel in so many other neglected places.

He tapped her knee. “Uh, Liv? You still with me?”

She shook her head as a bead of sweat dripped down her back. “Present.”

“You gonna look for the clue or just hang out up there?”

She wiggled her butt, grinning when he grunted. “There could be more cushion up here, but all in all, it’s not too bad.”

“You realize you’re entirely at the mercy of my body right now? You weigh nothing. I could drop you—”

“You wouldn’t drop me.”

“I could tickle you. I know about that spot behind your knee.”

How the hell did he know about that? “You wouldn’t dare—"

“Hey, Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum.” Maggie, wearing a monocle over one eye, poked her head out from underneath a tablecloth. “Wanna keep it down? Some of us are hot on a murderer’s trail over here.”

Ben and Olivia fell silent.

“I’m obviously Colonel Mustard, right?” he grumbled, sounding offended.

She bit back a laugh. “I don’t know. I think you could pull off tweed and eyeglasses.”

He sighed. “Is there anything in the vent or not?”

He scooted them closer to the wall until she was able to get her hands on the vent. Luckily, the cover popped out easily without the use of tools. Lo and behold, inside the vent sat two lone puzzle pieces.

“It’s the last two pieces of the riddle.”

She eagerly grabbed them, replaced the cover, and slid down Ben’s front as he helped her dismount. It literally felt like she was sledding down a cobblestone street on her butt. Between his pecs and abs, there were so many ridges to glide over along his ripped torso. And sweet heaven, each hand on her waist felt like the size of her cast iron skillet. His palms were big and callused, his fingers thick and strong. That, combined with the light smattering of dark hair on the backs of his hands, all painted a very masculine picture.

She couldn’t meet his eyes as she tugged on the bottom of her shorts. “Thanks for the lift.”

“Don’t mention it.” His voice came out a strangled croak.

Throughout the game, they had collected various pieces of a puzzle that they’d eventually discovered comprised a riddle of some kind. Now, with the final pieces, they could finally read the riddle in its entirety.

Keys of metal, keys of brass.

To unlock the door, you need a pass.

Where are the clues you need before you go?

The ebony and ivory will tell you so.

“It’s talking about the key to open the door?” Ben asked quizzically.

“‘The ebony and ivory will tell you so’ is the real clue.” She started thinking out loud. “Black and white…two opposing forces or two complementary entities… But it also mentions keys.” A light bulb flickered to life, and her gaze flew to his. “The piano. Ebony and ivory keys.”

He smiled a brilliant smile, which she could confidently say she’d never seen from him before. She usually just got his condescending grins or cocky smirks. This was something altogether different and…beautiful.

“Let’s go.”

They ran across the room to the gleaming grand piano and searched all around the instrument. “Could a clue be hidden inside?” Ben peeked under the propped-up lid.

“I wouldn’t think so. The riddle mentioned keys.” Curiously, all of the keys were labeled with their corresponding notes—E, G, D, and so on. Only… “I don’t know how to play piano. How are we supposed to know which keys to play?”

Ben pulled the seating arrangement out of his pocket and unfolded it, along with the separate sheet of paper where he’d tried working out a code. He pointed to the last line of letters at the bottom. “Try playing this sequence.”

She did, and once the final note rang out, a compartment on the side of the piano popped open.

Olivia gasped. “Holy shit, it worked. You cracked the code.”

He scoffed, brushing invisible lint off his shoulder. “You don’t have to act that surprised.”

“Not surprised. Just impressed.”

Glancing away from his pleased expression, she pulled out another piece of paper that was tucked inside the compartment. “It’s a letter.” She quickly scanned the first several lines. “A love letter, apparently. To someone named Edwin from…” Her eyes lowered to the signature where a named was scrawled in swooping, feminine script. “Phoebe.”

“Ha!” Ben pointed at her. “I told you it was the wife. She was having an affair of her own and killed her husband so she could be with her lover. Probably thought there would be some life insurance in it for her, too.”

“Or,” Olivia countered, “the lover—this Edwin—killed the husband because he wanted Phoebe all to himself. She may not have even known about it.”

“Or she coerced him into it, and they were in cahoots together.”

Olivia returned her attention to the letter. “Either way, this introduces a new suspect, but there has to be more to it than just that.”

After several minutes of them tossing around various possibilities, it turned out the letter contained an acrostic puzzle hidden among Phoebe’s words. When put together, the first letter of each sentence spelled out a single word: INHERITANCE.

“Phoebe’s inheritance?” Ben posed. “Maybe she and Edwin wanted that money all for themselves, and they killed Warren to get him out of the way.”

“Or maybe Warren’s inheritance. Who would stand to benefit from a family inheritance if Warren was dead?”

“If it was a family inheritance, Phoebe wouldn’t have gotten it,” Ben said. “They would have kept it within the Astor family.”

They both looked at each other at the same time and blurted out in unison, “It was the brother.”

“They never got along,” Olivia rushed out, her voice growing in excitement.

“Bartholomew killed his brother in order to inherit the family money, the entirety of which was going to go to the eldest son, Warren,” Ben finished, smiling widely.

She looked around, expecting to find the final clue just lying about. “Then what’s his code name? We have to enter the murderer’s code name into the combination lock to open the door, right? Where do we find it?”

Several moments of silence passed where they were each lost in their own thoughts.

“Wait, let me see the love letter.”

Olivia handed it over and watched as Ben’s eyes flew over the writing. “What? What is it?”

He pointed to a particular line in the letter. “Look here. Phoebe mentions that she’s hidden money for them to run away with and references a specific place. ‘Behind the painting.’”

Olivia’s attention caught on a particularly large painting hanging behind the piano. “Maybe the last clue is there?”

To their mutual delight, taped on the back of the canvas painting was a blacklight. Olivia ripped the device free and scanned it over the sheet with the list of suspects. As predicted, next to each individual’s name was a code word that was only visible under blacklight.

And right next to Bartholomew Astor’s name was the word WEASEL.

Scrambling like mad to the exit door where a combination lock awaited them, Olivia entered the first three letters and left the last three for Ben.

The heavy door popped open.

Olivia screamed. Ben roared.

Blood pumped through her veins at an accelerated rate. She was out of breath and riding a high she hadn’t felt in years. Damn, that was fun. She’d been having fun. With Ben. In fact, she was kind of sad the game was over.

The next thing she knew, she was being lifted into Ben’s arms, hauled off the floor, and spun around.

Oh, and his dick was mashed right up against her.

And it was hard.