The Private Serials Box Set(21)

“Here it is, honey,” I heard the woman, Jessica, say brightly.

“Great,” Derrek replied. “I’m just going to change my tie. Sadie had some sort of muck on her hands when she grabbed it earlier.”

My eyes grew wide when I realized Derrek was heading into the closet. When the door opened, a dim light spread across the large closet, coming from the bedroom. I gasped silently and then, even though I would have bet it not possible, Preston moved even closer to me. His hands slid further up the wall and he dipped his face down to rest in the crook of my neck, his front pressing against me even harder, and my hands slid around his back and up to grip his shoulders.

The sound of the closet door closing again came very quickly, as if Derrek had grabbed a tie and left almost immediately. Preston made no move to back away as we listened to the voices drift away down the hall and then, finally, we heard the front door open and close again. Only after we heard the deadbolt lock again did Preston move. But he didn’t move away fully, just far enough so that we were back to the kissing-but-not-kissing stance.

“Lena,” he whispered against my lips. I melted instantly. Simply liquefied. His hands came away from the wall, but only came to cup the sides of my face, but he was still not kissing me. I let him hold me like that for a few moments, let the feeling of his hands on my skin wash over me. I hadn’t been touched by a man in months, and being touched by Preston was proving to be the most heavenly experience of my life, even if it was just his hands on my cheeks. I reveled in it, soaked it in.

Then, reluctantly, I let reality back in and pressed my hands against his chest again, urging him away from me.

“Preston, we can’t do this,” I said, no longer worried about the level of my voice, but still speaking quietly. He made no move to let me go, didn’t move back even a centimeter. “Please, let me go,” I begged quietly. I heard him inhale deeply, then he stepped away and all of a sudden, I was free of him, and I tried not to notice how cold I instantly was. I didn’t say anything, just pressed past him and made my way back to the front door to keep watch. I figured Derrek and Jessica probably wouldn’t be returning, but I needed an excuse to get away from him.

A few minutes later, he came out of the darkness and appeared by the door.

“Anyone else come by?” he asked coolly, as if he wasn’t just pressed up against me in a dark closet.

“No.”

“Let’s go, then.” He reached out, unlocked the door and walked out into the night.

I followed him out of necessity. “Aren’t you going to relock the door?”

“Nope.”

“But they’ll know someone was here.”

He shrugged. “Or they’ll just think they forgot to lock it. Either way, I don’t care.”

“Hey,” I nearly shouted. “You might not care what they think, or if they know someone was here, but I do, and last I checked, I wasn’t paying you to cause problems.”

“Last I checked, you haven’t paid me anything.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You know what I mean. If you cause suspicion, Derrek could catch on to everything.” Preston, with his hands planted on his hips, looked down at the ground, and even from fifteen feet away, I could tell he was angry. I wasn’t the resident lock picker; there was no way I could make it look like no one had been there. I needed him to snap out of it. “Please, Preston. Don’t jeopardize me this way.”

He sighed but walked toward the door again. I turned, watching him crouch and fiddle with the lock. I heard it click into place and he stood, walking back to his car without a glance at me. When he reached his car, he coldly said as he slid into the driver’s seat, “Get in.” It wasn’t a request; it was a demand.

The part of me that had liquefied before heated again at his words, and I tried to keep my breathing even. He was obviously being a jerk, but again, my body didn’t care.



I spent the car ride back to Portland trying to dissect my attraction to him. I wasn’t even sure attraction was the right word. I wasn’t attracted to him. I was pulled to him. Drawn to him. It didn’t make any sense, not to me, anyway. He was almost the exact polar opposite of everything I’d ever told myself I wanted. Well, as far as I knew. I realized I didn’t know much about him. All I really knew was he wore that black leather jacket like a second skin, he never looked bad in a pair of jeans, and his brown eyes were mesmerizing. Oh, and my body craved the proximity of his.

We said absolutely no words all the way back into the city, and when he pulled into my driveway, I opened the door and climbed out without breaking the silence. I drew in a sharp breath when I heard his door open and his footsteps coming in my direction. I did not, however, give him the satisfaction of turning around. I continued up the path to the door, only stopping to input the code in the keypad on the door.

“Lena.” Just my name falling from his lips turned my stomach inside out. I shook it off, literally shaking my head from side to side, trying to give him a clear indication that I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Not surprisingly, he didn’t listen. Instead, his hand wrapped around my elbow and he turned me, and then pulled me into his front, our faces only inches from one another again. One of his hands found its way to my cheek again and I resisted the urge to lean into it, to let myself feel something from a man again.