Tempted & Taken (Men of Haven #4)(28)
“Not what I meant.” Seth pushed upright, his holier-than-thou smirk firmly anchored in place. “Meant it was too bad one of the drinks wasn’t for you. You’re gonna need something strong when reality kicks in and you realize you’re a goner.” He jerked his chin up in a manly see-ya-around. “You got a good thing with that one, Torren. Try not to fuck it up.”
Chapter Ten
Darya hurried up the steps to her apartment, Knox’s heavier footsteps sounding on the concrete pads behind her with the same driving punch as her heart. God, what a night. Four glorious hours of comfortable interaction with wonderful people, fantastic music and enough delicious food to make her belly ache. Not since before she’d left Russia had she had so much fun. Simply let loose without fear of who might see her. But with Knox’s family it was easy. As if within their presence, her past couldn’t penetrate and sully the moment.
Pausing outside her door, she dug in her purse for her keys.
Knox slid up beside her, slipped them from between her fingers and wedged himself between her and the door. Unerringly, he flipped to the right key and slid it into the deadbolt. “You have plans for tomorrow?”
Her heart tripped at the question, the same staggering response as when he’d intervened between her and Seth and all but claimed her with a touch. For a man who verbally insisted anything sexual was off-limits, his actions from the moment she’d opened the door to him had conveyed an entirely different desire. “No.”
He pushed the door wide, handed her back her keys and stole inside ahead of her, sharply assessing her living room. “Good. I’m sending Danny over before noon to change out your deadbolts.” He held up a hand for her to wait. “Stay here. Let me check the rest of the place.”
“Why?”
He stopped long enough to frown back at her. “You might not have said it outright, but it’s clear you’re running from something or someone. I’m not bringing you home and leaving you here without making sure you’re safe before I go.”
Well, damn. She’d hoped him following her inside meant he’d decided to waver his no-sex-with-employees policy. And while she appreciated him looking out for her, she needed help taking the edge off the burn he’d created with his heated looks and casual touches way more than she needed a security team. “No, I meant the locks. They’re perfectly fine. Why change them?”
He flipped on the light in her bathroom and strode inside. The swish of her metal shower curtain rings echoed out of the tiny space. “They’re not fine. You need bumpless locks at least.” He reappeared, flicked his attention to her briefly before moving to her bedroom door. “You could use a security system, too, but I’ll have to sweet-talk your landlord before I can make that happen.”
“Bumpless?”
He disappeared into her room without answering and a second later light from her bedside lamp spilled out of the opening.
Ignoring his command to stay put, she padded across her living room, too drawn by the promise of seeing him in her private space to do as she was told. She rounded the corner in time to find him on the far side of the room staring down at her bed, his mouth clenched in a firm line and his hand fisted at his side.
His gaze sliced to hers. “Thought I told you to wait.”
She shrugged. “I was curious. Besides, this isn’t the first time I’ve come home alone and it won’t be the last. I can take care of myself.”
He cocked his head and prowled a few steps toward her. “Curiosity can be a dangerous thing. Leads you into places and tempts you with things you shouldn’t know.”
“Like?”
“Like knowing what you keep under your bed and being all too capable of picturing you splayed on those sheets and using them to get off.”
She gasped and took a jagged step back, one hand pressed against her chest to still the jackrabbit rhythm of her heart. No way had he had enough time to see what she kept stored in her box. To see it, yes. But to take inventory, no. “How did you—”
“Like I said. Bumpless locks. You need some. Bad.”
The Post-its.
He’d been the one to move them. And if he’d been at her desk then that meant... “You broke into my place. Looked at everything.”
His mouth curled in a wicked smile, not the least bit repentant. “No one gets close to my family without me knowing everything there is to know about them. You came clean with my brothers tonight, so I’m returning the favor now. And before you get too fired up about me invading your privacy, there’s not one person on mine or the brotherhood’s payroll with the potential of getting close to our records who doesn’t get the same sweep. The only difference between you and them, is you actually know it happened.”
She swallowed, her mouth too dry to do the job properly. “Then why tell me?”
“Because you’re vulnerable. How much so, I’m still waiting for you to share, but the best way I can help you is to lay it out so you’ll be more inclined to let me help you fix it.”
Her files. She had to have at least a dozen articles solely about him. “You knew I’d been researching you.”
“I knew you had a lot of stories with me in them, yeah. Why you had them, I didn’t have a clue.”
“And JJ?”