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She leaned away from me. “Why?” she asked in a snarky tone. “You going to take care of them for me?”
“No. I just want to know.”
She shook her head, not looking me in my eyes. I’d found her fucking tell. “I don’t know.”
I let her aversion to be truthful with me slide. “Why hasn’t it been fixed yet?”
“Because I couldn’t find anyone to come out on a weekend to fix it.” She threw her hands up like this is a question she’d been asked a hundred times over.
I leveled her with a stare. “It’s not safe to have plywood covering the door to your office. Do you keep cash in there?”
She snorted.
“What about your tools? Someone could come through the office and clean your shit out. It wouldn’t be too hard for them to find your fucking apartment afterwards either.”
Alex looked stunned like she hadn’t even conceived these ideas before. Licking her lips, she confirmed, “Jesus, I hadn’t even thought of that.”
I noticed the way she stroked Lucifer, watched the way the tension melted from her shoulders as she did.
“You need protection.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “I’ve heard it all before, Nick.”
“From who, huh?” This time when she turned her head away, I forced her to look back at me with my hand around her jaw. “From who?” I asked again, more gently this time. I was used to getting the things I wanted through force, but Alex needed a softer touch.
“My brother’s best friend.”
I blinked, unprepared for that answer. And why the fuck did I want to wrap my hands around the faceless guy’s neck and strangle him for even speaking to Alex? “Does he hang around here?”
“Sometimes,” she whispered, as if sensing the building storm of rage inside me. “He made a promise to my brother a long time ago, and he’s determined to keep it.”
“What does your brother think about that?” My tone was sharp, and I mentally berated myself for being so forceful.
“He doesn’t think anything… because he’s dead.” Her pain leaked out with her words, and I felt the need to pull her into my arms. Fuck it. I did pull her into my arms, wrapping them around her—protecting her.
“I’m sorry, Alex. What happened?”
“He was murdered.”
Hearing my words being said back to me made me realize we had more in common than I thought. I cleared my throat. “When? How?”
“Two years ago. He was…” She hesitated, stumbling over her words. “He was doing something for my father when he was shot.”
Herfather. Talon La Croix.
“Did they ever find out who had done it?”
She shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks. I cupped her face, wiping away the wetness, then pulled her mouth to mine. The kiss was meant to comfort her, but it soon turned into something more when she slid her tongue against mine and invited me inside. Lucifer groaned and moved off the couch, and I lifted Alex onto my lap. She straddled my hips, and the heat of her body invaded mine. With my hand wrapped firmly around the back of her neck and head, I deepened the kiss.
It's all part of the plan, I told myself, unwilling to consider any other reason for wanting to bring this woman comfort. It was all part of the game, and I was the expert player. I’d take what I wanted from Alex—learn what I could—then use her to get my revenge, hurt her father like he’d hurt me, then raze his fucking empire to the ground.
Alex’s hands circled my neck, her fingers diving into the hair at my nape. Feeling her touch made me feral in my need to get back inside her. Her pussy had consumed too many of my thoughts since Friday night. Even while I was with Ithaca, all I could think about was Alex’s mouth. At the time, I hadn’t known who she was, and knowing now hadn’t changed a fucking thing.
Grinding her against my dick, I waited for her gasps of pleasure, needing to drive the nail deeper into this charade.
“Nick,” she moaned against my lips. “I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t.”
“Why not, baby?” I sucked on her neck. “We fuck so good together.”
