Baiting the Maid of Honor (Wedding Dare #2)(36)

Panic threatened. He needed to consider the possibility that she still intended to walk away at the end of the week, free and clear of him. Why wouldn’t she? He couldn’t offer her a damn thing. All he had to barter with was himself. Julie could do better. She probably had wealthy men breaking down her door, if not for her sweet disposition and bombshell looks alone, then the security and connections her family provided. He had a decent savings account, more than comfortable for a man in his early thirties, but his sparse one-bedroom apartment in downtown Atlanta left a lot to be desired. Her future was bright. He would only dim it. He should walk away now and let it unfold the way it was supposed to. Let Julie have her emotionally undamaged husband and two blond babies.

Over his dead, lifeless body. Reed pulled her tighter against his chest, grunting his pleasure when she clung tighter, making him feel invincible.

“We need to talk, pixie—”

Her phone buzzed on the side table, startling her. She reached for it with a gasp. “Twenty missed calls. And…oh my Lord, it’s almost four in the morning. I had no idea.”

“Whatever it is can wait until daylight.”

Reed cursed when she ignored him and answered the phone. “Mrs. Anderson, well aren’t you a night owl? Or is it an early bird? What did you need, sweetheart?” Her eyebrows rose. “A wake-up call at eight? Have you contacted the—” She nodded through a long pause. “Oh, you did request one with the front desk, too…well, you are one hundred and fifty percent right, Mrs. Anderson. You can’t be too careful. Don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. One of them is bound to break. You get your beauty rest, now. Kiss Mr. Anderson for me if he’s still awake, bless his heart. Good night, now.”

Her hand shook as she disconnected and frantically began taking notes while listening to her voice mail messages. Reed frowned. He knew she liked to be efficient, but something about her reaction seemed off.

“Hey.” He reached over and tried to pry the phone out of her hand. “Julie.”

She looked right through him. “Yes?”

“You can’t save the world right now. It’s almost morning—” Reed broke off as a possible reason for her abrupt attitude change occurred to him. Almost morning. She’d grown upset after noting the time. Unusually upset. The only other instance he could remember her losing her composure this way was that night in the forest. When they’d been talking about… “Is today the day? Serena…?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes, and as usual, I was off in my own world. Not sparing her a thought.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He sat forward, plucked the pen from her hand. “You deserve to sleep. You can resume your candidacy for sainthood at a decent hour.”

“Give it back.”

Her cell phone buzzed in her hand. “Don’t answer that.”

Defiantly, she raised it to her ear. “Kady?”

Reed rolled his eyes when she slipped out of bed. Phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder, she pulled a thong out of her suitcase and slipped it on, the white material nestling perfectly at the center of her ass. Just like that, his cock grew hard. The idea of ripping off her lily-white thong and dragging her underneath him was almost too tempting to deny. He’d banish the memory of her twenty phone calls or her misplaced sense of responsibility to return them. If he didn’t see the grief written all over her face, he wouldn’t be hesitating.

“When was the last time someone saw Christine? Wait, Tyler is missing, too? Were they together?” Reed raised an eyebrow at her, but she held up a finger for silence. He watched as her gaze tracked down his chest to the erection lying across his belly. Her breath caught, nipples hardening. She seemed to remember her state of undress then, and hurriedly donned a bra and T-shirt. He felt a flash of satisfaction that her voice sounded raw when next she spoke. “Of course I’ll help find them. Yes, of course I understand. We can’t leave them missing. I’ll take the trails…”

“Like hell,” Reed mouthed from the bed.

“Call me if they show up. We’ll all meet in the lobby after they’re safe.” Julie selected a pair of pants from her chest of drawers and wiggled them up over her hips, setting his teeth on edge. The longer it took her to get dressed, the more he became convinced she was teasing him on purpose. “Relax, sweetie. I’m sure they didn’t get eaten by a bear. Christine is smart, you know that. If anything, she’d just interview him into early hibernation.”

Reed swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on his jeans. He added his black T-shirt just as Julie hung up with Kady. “I gather Christine and Tyler are missing?”

She sat down to lace up her sneakers. “No one has seen them since the scavenger hunt.”

“Did anyone stop to consider they want to be missing?”

Julie scoffed. “Tyler wouldn’t…not with Christine. He’s all protective of her, like…oh.”

“Right.” He finished tying his boots and stood. “So we bust in like some kind of vigilante cock blocks and ruin their night. Sounds like a stellar plan.”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I know I sound like a broken record, but once again, no one is forcing you to come.”

“Do you actually expect me to let you go bumbling around on a dark mountain by yourself?”