* * * *
I couldn’t call Sonya. Staying with her was too risky considering what we were doing. Especially since she was looking into the Huntsmen angle. Since I didn’t have any friends, and had given up the hope of a family as soon as I’d gotten out of the foster system, there was really only one option.
“Phaedra Conners.” He sounded pleased as punch to hear from me, and I tried not to shiver at the sound of his voice. It wouldn’t be good for the officer who was currently letting me use his desk phone to see just how strongly I was reacting to Gabriel Evans.
“To what do I owe the pleasure? Change your mind about dinner? I’m delighted, but I’m afraid I don’t know any restaurants close by that are open at one o’clock in the morning.”
This was awkward.
“I was sort of hoping you could send someone to pick me up?”
“What’s wrong?” Almost instantly he shifted from easy flirtation to concern. It was sort of flattering. “Where are you?”
From where I sat, I could see the holding cell on the other side of the room. Turning my head, I waved uncertainly at the men currently handcuffed to their seats who were still waiting to be booked. The bald one with the dragon tattoo on his skull was the only one who waved back.
His name was Jack, and we’d become friendly acquaintances considering how often the two of us ended up in prison.
“About that…I-uh-I sort of need someone to come down to the police department.”
“Do I need to bring bail money?”
“I didn’t mean that you—” I sighed, “No. I don’t need bail.”
“Be there in five.” He hung up before I could say anything else. By “I,” I hoped he meant that he was sending some lower level office worker or something and not coming down to get me personally.
I held out on that hope, right up until the moment I saw him step into the precinct. He had on black silk pajama pants, a housecoat, and on his feet were a pair of Tasmanian Devil house slippers.
He was adorable.
After speaking briefly with the woman behind the front desk, he turned unerringly in my direction and beckoned me over. I got to my feet, but the sound of Agent Liam’s voice pulled me up short.
“Is this the ride you were talking about?”
“Sure is,” I told him smoothly.
“And you’re sure Evans’s little lackey will be able to keep you safe?” I thought I sensed genuine concern, but decided that it must have been a part of my imagination.
Looking at Evans I couldn’t help but relax for the first time since I’d been shot at. There was a quietness to him. Different from the charming playboy of before. It reminded me of the first time I’d seen him in the elevator. It was that same nameless something that had drawn me to him despite the blood on his face.
Turning back to Agent Liam, I reached out and shook his hand.
“More than sure. Thanks for your help earlier.”
He returned the handshake with a careful strength. “No problem.” His smile was lopsided, “You ever need anything else, you know where to find us.”
I laughed, “I’ll remember that.”
By the time I’d made my way over to Gabriel, he was staring at the agent with narrowed eyes and a curled lip. I patted his arm lightly as I passed and was rewarded when my touch dragged his attention away from the other man. I didn’t know what it was about Liam that had irritated him, and I was too tired to try and figure it out.
We left the police department and headed to his car in companionable silence. It wasn’t until I’d settled into the passenger seat of his red 2013 Viper that he spoke.
“What happened?”
I thought about lying, but figured the truth was my best bet. If anyone could keep me safe it was Evans, even if the reason I was in danger was also his fault.
“Someone shot up my apartment.”
He made a dangerous, unhappy sound in the back of his throat and I tried to appear very small in my seat.
“I’m not taking you home,” he snapped. His tone was bossy enough that it raised my own hackles.
“I’m not asking you to,” I barked back. “I just needed the cops to get off my back about police protection and I didn’t have anyone else to call.”
Admitting that I didn’t even have someone to crash with was painful, and for a moment an awkward silence filled the car as he acknowledged the fact that I was alone.
“Look,” I began, suddenly feeling defeated, “can you just drop me off at a Motel 6 or something?”
“Where’s your car?” he asked, not bothering to comment on my request.
I frowned. “It’s back at my place. I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll ask Marcus to help you get it.”
“Thanks, but I’ll need a ride to and from work in the meantime,” I reminded him. “The motel is too far away from the office for me to walk there.”
“A motel may be, but the company apartment buildings are only a few blocks away.”
I blinked, struggling to see him through the dark interior of the car.
“What are you saying?”
His hands tightened almost imperceptibly around the steering wheel. “You can’t go home and a motel is out of the question. I’ll set you up in one of our spare apartments until all of this blows over.”
The Lumière Corporation had bought and renovated an old hotel a few years back. They kept it for Board members and their families, as well as employees who came for business from out of state. It was also useful for those international clients who came visiting for various reasons. It kept them from having to worry about paying for a hotel room or renting a car while they were in the U.S.
Rumor had it that these apartments were more like penthouse suites than your generic housing community, and I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping at the thought that he was just going to give me one.
“I couldn’t—I mean, you can’t—” Again I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t come up with a good argument off the top of my head as to why I shouldn’t take the apartment. Even if the attack hadn’t been made by the Huntsmen, the only other enemies I’d made recently had been the Jensens. And even that had been done to help Evans.
He owed me sanctuary. Why was I surprised that he was actually giving it to me?
“Then it’s settled.” Sounding smugly satisfied, he pressed the gas and we flew into the upper echelons of society at almost ninety miles an hour. About half an hour later, I found myself standing in the center of my new, albeit temporary, apartment. It was double the size of my place and a hell of a lot nicer. There was a lot of stainless steel and exposed beams. Suddenly my life was an episode of House Hunters and I had a budget of $300,000 dollars. It was enough to give me an HGTV hard-on.
Evans, meanwhile, didn’t bother asking me if I liked my new accommodations. He could see the truth of it written all over my face.
“I’ll send Marcus to pick you up first thing in the morning.”
“And where are we supposed to be going?” I asked, running my fingers across the butcher-block countertop in the open concept kitchen.
“He’ll take you back home so you can pack…” He seemed to struggle for a moment. “…things,” he finished finally. Lamely.
“Things?”
I could hear the shrug in his voice. “You know. Whatever it is that women use to survive from day to day. Girl things.”
Thank god. I’d worried about what I was supposed to do for clothes and a toothbrush, but had dreaded the idea of going back home by myself. When I turned to express my thanks, I found him standing less than a foot away. He’d done it again. Gotten past my bubble without even the idea of a sound to betray his presence. It was darker in the kitchen than in the living room, since I had yet to turn on a light during my exploration. So when I looked at him, something about seeing all of that lean muscle towering over me made me feel as if I were trapped in one of those dr
eams. The kind of dream in which some shadow lover does wicked, dirty things to you before vanishing with the rise of the sun.
It didn’t help my delusions that there was just something about him…
There was a heat to him, something dark and smoky that drugged the senses and left me trembling and dazed. A heat that caressed the flesh like fingers and stirred something hungering and achy to life from the very center of my being. Was it just his proximity that made me react this way, or was it the look in his eyes and the way the shadows teased the strong lines of his face and jaw?
Maybe it was his proximity, or maybe it was just the fact that we were alone for the first time since I’d met him. No matter the reason, it didn’t take me long to reach a terrifying conclusion. I was lusting after Gabriel Evans. I wasn’t just reacting to a handsome man after a dry spell, or fixating on the forbidden.
I just wanted him.
Not so pure, but very simple.
“Mr. Evans-” I spoke without thinking about what I was going to say, or how I would disperse the sudden tension in the air. I’m sure I would have figured something out if he had given me the chance, but he sort of exploded at the sound of his name.
In a blur of movement, he had me backed up against the counter I’d been examining. Hips pressed flush against hips, the heat that had only teased me before now a searing brand where the hard length of him pressed against the soft promise of me.
His hands came up, and I gasped, growing still, either in anticipation or in fear of his touch. I wasn’t sure if I’d say no if he did put his hands on me. But he didn’t. At least not right away. Instead, his hands simply hovered, cupping the air on either side of my face as he leaned in and pressed his nose against my skin.
For a moment we were cheek to cheek. All I could feel was his hot, moist breath caressing my eardrum and the rough slide of his five o’clock shadow against my mouth.
“Gabriel,” he breathed, face rubbing against my own as if memorizing my features by touch alone. “My name is Gabriel.” His voice deepened and my thighs clenched, inner muscles clutching at nothing as that smooth baritone seemed to fuck every vowel and consonant that it uttered. “It’s the only name I ever want to hear come out of your mouth. Say it.”
“Gabriel.” His hips pressed forward, and my head fell back of its own accord as his erection pressed against something small and sweet.
“Breathe it.”
“Gabriel.” It escaped on a sigh as his teeth nipped my earlobe.
“Moan it for me.”
I obliged; I couldn’t help it. It was only when he growled against the side of my neck in pleasure that some semblance of common sense tried to return.
What the hell was I doing?
What the hell was I letting him do?
Even if he were really my boss, this would be so wildly inappropriate it wasn’t even funny. Pressing my hands against his shoulders, I tried to shove him back. At first he didn’t even so much as budge, but then sanity seemed to return for him as well, because he flew back from me as if stung.
“I—” His eyes were wide, his face pale, and his shoulders hunched. He met my gaze only briefly before jerking his own away and down. “I’m sorry, Miss Conners.” His voice was so stiff, so formal, that it actually stung a little.
We stood there, me staring at him, him staring at the floor, before, with a bitter little smile, he inclined his head and said, “Goodnight.”
He was to the door before I could find my voice again.
“Phaedra,” I told him. “Just Phaedra.”
Back still to me, he stiffened for a heartbeat. Two. Then, a rueful chuckle.
“Phaedra,” he agreed. The smile that he sent over his shoulder was softer, more intimate, than all the ones before. “Goodnight Phaedra.”
I swallowed. “Goodnight…Gabriel.”
Then he was gone.
I stood there in the half-lit apartment for what felt like a very long time. No matter how tightly I wrapped my arms around myself I couldn’t seem to erase the chill that his absence had left behind.
For the first time since agreeing to this whole mess, the task before me felt daunting.