Hot Secrets (Tall, Dark & Deadly #1)(32)

Chapter Eleven





Monday morning, after a weekend of pure bliss with Royce, Lauren stood in the kitchen holding a steaming cup of coffee, dressed in a tan fitted skirt and cream silk blouse, ready to start her work week. As much as she’d loved her escape with Royce, she’d bypassed work for movies, conversation, and a lot of unforgettable moments that required no clothing, and now she was behind.

Royce appeared in the archway, his dark hair tied at his nape, his jeans and t-shirt molded to delicious muscles she now knew intimately. “I’m driving you to work,” he said.

She should have been irritated about the command, but a few of his bedroom orders flashed in her mind — harder, faster, lick me — and her mouth went dry. Lauren set her cup on the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to take me to work.”

“Yes, I do.” He leaned on the archway, his shoulders taking up the entire tiny space.

She studied him, reading what he wasn’t saying, and nerves knotted her stomach. “Stop. Stop acting like a watchdog. You’re making me uptight. You’re making me think about the phone calls and the calendar pages. I can’t do my job if I can’t think straight.”

“You have to think about this, Lauren, and you have to look over your shoulder. And I’ll be looking too.”

“You can’t watch me all day, Royce. And even if you think you can, for how long? We didn’t get another call, or another calendar sheet, this weekend. Maybe it’s over. Maybe this person got their laughs and moved on. Or maybe you being with me scared them off.”

“No. He’s not tired. He’s not scared. He’s trying to get you to let down your guard.”

“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything at all. And you’re going to make me crazy.”

He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. ”Just humor me for a few days and play things safe until I get some answers. I’ll drop you off at work and pick you up. That way I have an excuse to take you to dinner,” his lips curved, “and have you for dessert.”

“Bribery isn’t going to make this better.”

He laughed. “Bribery, huh?”



She couldn’t laugh. She couldn’t do anything with the invisible vise tightening on her chest. “I’ve been working criminal cases for years. I’ve had threats. I did with those what I told you I do with everything else. Threats, bloody pictures, and random body parts in bags. They are the same to me. I put them in this imaginary place in mind, a box that I seal and don’t open unless I have to. It’s how I keep going.”

“I know,” he said. “If anyone gets that, it’s me. If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t push you on this. There’s something about the way this has all gone down that I don’t like. I need you to be on alert, and I need you to be cautious, until I figure out why.”

“Damn you, Royce. That just made me more on edge. I know to be careful. I’m always careful.”

“Curse me if you want,” he said. “Yell at me. Just do what I say.”

She let out a sigh. “What is it about me and controlling men? I’m drawn to them.” She stepped out of his reach. “Drive me if you must.” She tried to walk around him and he caught her arm. “Please don’t. Not now. And I know I’m probably being unfair but I just feel like everything is spinning out of control. I need some space to figure out where my head is.”

His eyes, so blue, so piercing, held hers, his expression unreadable, before he let her go. And God, she was so confused and conflicted, because she hated he let her go, when she’d just told him to.

***

Two hours after arriving to work, Lauren sat behind her simple steel public servant’s desk, in her box of an office. She and Royce had barely spoken on the way to her office and that had her just as crazy as everything else. He’d made her put his number and both of his brothers’ numbers in her phone, and told her not to leave the building. No kiss goodbye. Just a quick ‘I’ll call you later and check in.’

The intercom on Lauren’s desk buzzed and she jumped, silently cursing her edginess. She punched the button on her phone. “There is a Jonathan Wilkins here to see you,” came the familiar gravelly voice of her sixty-something year old assistant, Alice Harper. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, “He’s very determined.”

Of course he was. His sister was about to go on trial for murder. She could only hope this was heading towards a confession. “Send him in.”Lauren leaned back in her chair and waited for her visitor but she didn’t, and wouldn’t, get up. Not with this particular visitor, whom she’d read the file on. She’d learned a long time ago that sitting behind a desk was as good as towering over a man. It proclaimed ownership of the room, it said she wasn’t intimated into standing. It worked with the more dominant types.

Her door was open and it took all of sixty seconds for a strikingly large man, she knew to be thirty-six years old, to appear in the entryway. And true to his military duty, his hair was short, his jaw strong, his expression hard.

“Hello, Ms. Reynolds.”

There was something about the way he said her name, the way it came out almost like a threat, that set a warning bell ringing in her head. “Please, have a seat, Mr. Wilkins.”