My Addiction (Club Desire #2)(60)
She would have to order out for Chinese food and get to work as soon as she got out of the shower.
She glanced down at her trusty companion. She’d get to work after she made sure Rusty was squared away. Some things were definitely more important than work.
She wondered if after leaving here, Dex had gone home and fallen back into bed like she had. It wasn’t as if either of them had gotten very much sleep last night.
Warmth filled her chest and the wide smile was back, stretching her tender cheeks and chin.
It was probably a very good thing she didn’t know where Dex was staying, or she would be tempted to go and see if she could talk herself into his bed.
Her instinctive denial over appearing so needy began to rise, and she shoved it aside with a laugh. For Dex, she might risk being thought of as weak if it meant sleeping next to him for the day, and maybe waking for another night of amazing sex.
She shook her head at her musings. “Get moving, Kate,” she admonished herself as she set Rusty gently on the floor.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s get you taken care of, and then I promise I’ll make it up to you as soon as I get out of the shower.”
—
Dex paced Brent Weston’s office at Club Desire. After fighting L.A. rush-hour traffic for two hours, and then driving for six hours straight following a night of very little sleep, he’d had enough of sitting for a while.
“Dex, you’re going to wear a hole in my carpet.”
He glanced up to meet Brent’s amused gaze.
Brent was his longtime friend and the founder of Club Desire. Brent had met Jason Tanner last year when Brent’s new wife, Sandra, had nearly been murdered by a serial killer who preyed on women in the fetish lifestyle.
“Sorry, Brent. I’ve been sitting all day. Just trying to get the blood moving again.”
Brent raised one dark brow and pinned him with the deep blue gaze that all the women raved about. “From your general look of happy exhaustion, I’d say your blood should be moving just fine, but I could be wrong.” Brent’s smug smile showed he knew he was right.
“Since you know me too well for me to get away with a lie anyway, I won’t even bother. How much did Jason tell you?”
The sound of the elevator doors opening behind him made Dex turn. Even though he had been around from the time the foundation for Club Desire was being laid, it always made him laugh that Brent had designed one of the secure elevators to open straight into his office on the fourth floor.
Jason Tanner stepped off the elevator, followed closely by Jake, Club Desire’s main manager and security specialist.
Dex greeted each man in turn, shaking hands with them.
Brent waved everyone toward seats.
Jake demurred, saying he had only escorted Jason upstairs and he had things to do.
Jason settled on the leather love seat, and Dex sank into a comfortable armchair nearby.
Brent flashed them both a smug smile before he followed Jake to the elevator. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. I promised my wife some undivided attention.” The elevator doors softly closed, leaving Dex and Jason the office to themselves.
Jason smiled. “You made good time. I’m glad you’re here. Last night was a rough one.”
Dex ran a hand over his stubbled jaw. He had come straight here, as requested, but he would have preferred a shower and a shave first, although he didn’t mind keeping Kate’s scent on him for as long as possible.
“After our phone call I figured you wanted me here as soon as I could manage it, so I made it here as fast as I could without breaking the sound barrier.”
Jason leaned back against the soft leather love seat and rested his interlaced fingers over his trim stomach. A man in his forties, he was still fit. “All right. The reason I yanked you back here so quickly is that after all hell broke loose last night, we had an informant call in a tip in exchange for immunity.” He took a deep breath and then let it out in a slow sigh. “She insists she had nothing to do with the larger plot other than to pass on some information that she overheard. When we pulled her in for an interview, all we got out of her before she shut down tight was that she overheard Ed Ralston sharing the fact that you were FBI with Senator Balkins and two other individuals that she couldn’t see. She also didn’t recognize their voices.
“The Fibbees in L.A. ham-handed her interrogation, and she finally said she wouldn’t talk to anyone but you, other than to say the men she overheard said they would have to move up their timetable. That, coupled with the massive action across the nation last night, made me rethink our deployment in L.A.”
Dex blew out a long breath. All of the planning and work they had done on his cover, and Ralston had been the one to talk. “I’m not surprised about Ralston. Like you said, he was always very interested in making sure he did everything he could to prove to us he should be ruled out as having any involvement. You mentioned something about information getting around that I had only told Kate?”
Jason nodded. “Apparently, in the VIP lounge Kate asked you if you were a PI for your night job?”
Dex frowned. “Wait, how does anyone besides Kate know that was said?”
Tanner tipped his head. “The informant overheard it, and mistakenly thought you were a private investigator.”
“Opal.”
Jason nodded. “But she says she didn’t tell anyone that part. She swears she found out you were FBI before she could tell anyone about what she had overheard in the VIP lounge.”