Back In The Bedroom (The Wrong Bed #29)(12)

“And you liked it, right?” She rolled her eyes and mimicked zipping her lips and tossing away the key.

“Don’t tease me,” he said, and looked around. “Okay, listen. I want you to follow me. And seriously, toss away that key. We have no idea if we’re alone and once we get over another access, any noise at all will echo down.”

“I’ll be quiet. Let’s just do this.”

“Right.” He turned away from her and looked into the black, dusty gloom of the gaping attic.

And didn’t move.

“Reilly?”

“Yeah.”

But he still didn’t budge. She touched his bare shoulder. Beneath her fingers, his muscles leaped. “Hey. You okay?”

“Terrific. I love being in a small enclosed space with no light.”

“You’re really afraid of the dark?”

He didn’t look at her.

“Or…claustrophobic?”

“Neither, exactly.” His eyes glittered with humiliation and a good amount of bad temper. “I just had a bad experience and…”

“Oh, Reilly.” Leaning in, she hugged him. She couldn’t help it, because realizing that this big, bad, brooding man was really just a soft and squishy beta on the inside was the most attractive thing about him. And given the outer package, that was saying something.

But he set her away from him with just enough barely restrained roughness to tell her she’d poked at the hungry lion one too many times. “Let’s move it.”

“You should have just boosted me up here,” she said, trying to soothe. “I could have—”

“I thought you threw away the key to your mouth.”

Okay, so she’d only imagined his soft spot.

Without looking back to see her roll her eyes again, he moved forward. “And stay on the beam,” he commanded softly.

She followed, watching the lines of his sleek, smooth back, the way the black knit boxers hugged his tight butt and thighs, trying to convince herself she was so over her momentary lapse into lustville. So over him, period.



THE ATTIC WAS PITCH-BLACK except for where the occasional vent to the outside allowed slats of light to shoot in. Grateful for any light no matter how meager, Reilly stopped and bent as close as he could to the first access panel they came across, only to hear a muffled thump from below. Not a good sign. “Does my father have a daily maid service?”

Tessa came up behind him and put her hand low on his spine as she tried to see around him.

He felt his muscles leap at the touch and knew she’d felt it, too, when she skimmed her hand up and down his bare flesh as if soothing him.

He wondered what she’d do if she discovered that her touch was doing the opposite of soothing. “Does he?”

“I don’t know.” She set her chin on his shoulder as she whispered into his ear.

Her hair tickled his nose and smelled like a bunch of flowers. “Give me some room,” he muttered, and shrugged her off. Now he was distracted again, damn it, with thoughts of stupid flowers and all the bedrooms—empty—that his father had in this house and the things they could do in those empty bedrooms—

“Reilly.”

He sighed and glanced over his shoulder.

The lines of light slashed across her features. Her eyes were as big as saucers. “I hear voices,” she said a little shakily. “And they’re not maids. Not unless Eddie has hired big thugs who like to choke and throw women.”

Ah, hell. He squeezed her hand. “Tess…”

“Why would they still be there?” She sounded a little less thrilled about their great escape now. “They could have cleaned the place out and been far gone by now if they’d wanted.”

He’d been wondering the same thing. “Did you happen to mention to the guy who grabbed you that Eddie wouldn’t be back for a few days?”

“Of course n—” She bit her lip and looked stricken. “Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“I guess I might have said something when I was arguing with him.”

Wasn’t that just perfect?

“I’m sorry.”

Another thump, a closer one now.

Turning to her, he slid his hand across her mouth and put his lips to her ear. “Shh.”

When she nodded, he removed his hand but stared at her for a long time. Her hair was wild, and so were her eyes. He couldn’t see the bruises one of the *s below had left on her but knew they were still there. And though he couldn’t see her thoughts, she felt icy cold, and was trembling, her terror coming through loud and clear.

He squeezed her gently, trying to get some of his warmth into her. Ironic that he was sweating from being enclosed and she was a virtual Popsicle. “I want you to go back,” he said in her ear. “Go back to where we climbed up and wait there—”

She gripped him tight. “No—”

“I’m going to go alone. I can do it silently—”

“So can I—”

“No.” He didn’t want to bet on that, as he doubted she’d ever done anything silently in her entire life. “I’m going to drop down into the farthest room I can get to and then—”

“What if they find you?”