Dangerous Protector (Red Stone Security #14)(21)

“I never growled.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m a big teddy bear.” He kept his voice low as he slowly reached for her, grasping one of her hips in a purely possessive hold.

When her lips curved up, he groaned. Her mouth had starred in all his fantasies in the past eight months. Every. Single. One. She’d consumed all his thoughts to the point of distraction.

Her bottom lip was just a little fuller so she looked as if she was always pouting. What he wouldn’t give to—

The door opened and Carlito stepped in. He looked between them, his expression apologetic. “I’ve got a couple leads I need to follow up on De Fiore. I’m heading out.”

And that was their cue to leave as well. Disappointment washed over Aaron that the kiss was interrupted, but he shelved it.

Sooner or later he was going to finally get a taste of Tegan. Once he did, he was pretty sure he wasn’t letting her go.

*

Moving carefully, Alec scaled the fence to Tegan’s backyard and jumped down. The yard was small and lined up perfectly with all the others on the street. He’d just called in multiple bomb threats to a school very close by, giving specific details of where the bombs were located and what he’d used to make them. The details—and the similarity to the bomb he’d used on Tegan O’Kelly’s car—were too much for the cops to ignore.

The city was on alert after the car bombing so he knew that her security detail would be called off her house, at least temporarily.

Which was all he needed so he could get inside and kill her. If she was even there. And Alec wasn’t sure she was. He’d been by her place of work and he’d heard her boss mention something to another employee about Tegan being away indefinitely.

It was twilight so he used the cover of falling darkness to make quick work of jimmying her sliding glass door open. The security here was shockingly pathetic. Inside he immediately saw the motion sensor so he paused where he was and listened.

It was quiet. The kind of quiet that told him he was alone. There was no dog to greet or attack him, and he knew she had a dog. Still, he had to be certain she wasn’t here. Because he wasn’t passing up an opportunity to kill her if she was.

Alec lay down on his belly. He was familiar with most security systems, and sensors were usually programed to ignore anything under two or three feet if the owner had a pet. Belly crawling, he made his way down a hallway until he reached the foyer.

When he stood in front of the keypad, the alarm started beeping so he popped the cover off and placed the device on it he’d used many times before. Less than ten seconds later, the beeping stopped.

If you’re here, you’re dead.

It wasn’t personal, something he doubted she’d understand. Pulling out his weapon, he made his way upstairs. Considering no one had come to investigate the alarm going off he was almost positive he didn’t need his gun, but being prepared had saved his ass on more than one occasion. It was why he was always armed and, more often than not, wore gloves. No need to leave behind any trace of himself.

He swept the entire upstairs then focused on her bedroom. No laptop, and it was clear some clothes were missing from her closet. Not many, but enough empty hangers indicated she might have packed a bag.

After he finished checking the rest of the house, he saw that her dishwasher was empty, there were no dirty dishes in the sink, and the sink was completely dry, as if it hadn’t been used in at least a day. And her heat had been turned off.

His gut told him she was hiding out somewhere. He just hoped she hadn’t gone on the run again. Looking around her place, he didn’t think she had. There were too many things she owned still here, things she wouldn’t leave behind.

In her small office he riffled through what few files she had. Like most people she would pay whatever bills she had online anyway. Still, he needed a clue to where the hell she was.

When he found nothing, he headed out the way he’d come and set the alarm to away mode so it would arm itself. He made sure there was no trace that he’d ever been there.

Though he was frustrated, he kept his annoyance in check. He was a professional and used to setbacks. Hunting people took time. For years he’d done freelance work, just killing for hire. Now he had a boss and, though Alec knew he’d be angry that she wasn’t dead yet, the man would just have to deal with it. In his opinion, his boss should have killed her long ago.

But De Fiore hadn’t shown an interest in hunting her after he’d ‘died.’ Not at first anyway. A couple of weeks ago, De Fiore had made contact with Alec, of all people, and told him he might need help with getting a new false ID once he killed the O’Kelly woman. De Fiore hadn’t been sure how things would play out here in Miami and wanted a backup ID in case the one he already had in place somehow got flagged.

Alec was simply going to flush pretty Tegan O’Kelly out if he couldn’t find her. Make the bitch come to him. Sometimes that was the only way to do things, to make your prey come to you. He couldn’t risk De Fiore getting to her first.

Once Alec was in the safety of his newly stolen car, he turned on the voice digitizer app and called her cell phone.

No surprise, it went directly to voice mail. “If you make me hunt you down any longer I’m going to start killing your friends. I’ll start with your whore boss and her son. I’ll record their deaths so you can watch them both beg and scream. I’ll do the kid first.” He ended the call and tossed the phone out the window. The phone was a burner but he wouldn’t be using it anymore in case the cops tried to track him.