MY LUNGS BURNED AS I stepped into my walk-in closet and yanked a white T-shirt and pair of briefs out of the top drawers of the built-ins. Consumed with racing thoughts of how in the fuck Alex had ended up in my apartment, I dressed quickly and headed for the hallway.
At first, I’d thought I might have been imagining her, standing there in my bathroom in painfully short cutoffs, her tits spilling out of the spaghetti-strapped tank she’d been wearing without a bra.
I’d already been fantasizing about what it would have been like if she’d wrapped her sweet lips around my cock at Ari Simon’s party while I’d stroked the ache out of my dick. So it’d made sense that, while my mind was beckoning images, it might as well summon her there too.
But the girth of her eyes as they landed on my straining cock and sad replacement for a pussy—otherwise known as my fucking hand—hadn’t been a mirage or mental conjuring—they were all her. I couldn’t have imagined that sight, not for all the money in the world, not without having seen it myself.
Paralyzing, fucking shimmering, aqua blue, the power of her gaze was so powerful that it had superseded anything and everything else. In a simple fantasy, she’d have distracted me with the hardening peaks of her perfect nipples or stripped off her shorts to show me how wet her pussy was.
But this Alex, the real one, had done me one better. She’d connected intimately, almost down to the very root of my soul as she held me captive inside her gaze. Each stroke, each grind, each gasping zing of pleasure that’d run straight up my spine, she’d kept her eyes on mine. Staring, licking her fucking lips, the little voyeur had watched until my come covered my dick, my hand, my balls—all of it coated with the very thing I wanted to fill her pussy up with until it couldn’t fit any more.
And now, I feared she knew just how consumed by her I was. I wasn’t used to the emotional vulnerability. In fact, I didn’t think I’d felt like that since my mother died.
Slapping, impatient steps finally taking me to the end of the hall, the kitchen in sight, I scanned the room for the woman who never should have been in my goddamn apartment in the first place and came up empty. I didn’t know if I was pissed off, disappointed, or relieved.
Where in the hell had she gone?
I moved my focus toward the dining room, the living room, even the outside terrace, and still, no fucking Alex.
That’s when my anger started to set in.
Irrationally, I was frustrated with her for being something I wanted but didn’t need to have. And rationally, I knew she didn’t just stumble into my apartment all on her own. From the wide-eyed look on her pretty little face, she was just as surprised as I was.
There was something else at play here. I hadn’t deduced the how or why, but I was going to find out what the fuck had happened, or I’d kill somebody trying.
With my clenched fist around the knob, I yanked open my front door. The abrupt motion shook water droplets from the still damp ends of my hair and dropped them on my neck, soaking into the fresh fabric of my T-shirt.
Cal stood watch outside of my apartment, and his eyes met mine as he turned quickly from his position against the wall.
“Where the hell did she go?” I questioned.
He glanced toward the closed doors of the elevator. “She hauled ass out of here about five minutes ago.”
“And why in the fuck was she in my apartment in the first place?”
His eyebrows shot together. “She said Moosa sent her. You didn’t approve it?”
The cords of my neck strained and stretched with my bark. “No, I didn’t fucking approve it.”
“Christ.” His previously relaxed face turned to something that more closely resembled stone. “What’s Mickey got? A goddamn death wish?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out,” I vowed. “Find him. Get him here. But first, call IT and have them send over the last hour of Alex’s apartment microphone.”
“You’re going to listen to her?” he asked, alarmed. As much as we had this kind of shit as liability protection, I didn’t make a habit of using it. Apparently, Cal didn’t much like the idea of that changing.
Unfortunately, in this case, whether Cal or I liked it, I had to make an exception.
Keeping Alex close, but in the dark, had been the priority. Watch her. Test her a little. Make sure she hadn’t heard any information her delicate little ears shouldn’t have been privy to—specifically, Wonderland, Inc.’s connection and deal with King.
But mostly, keep her in the motherfucking dark.
Her walking into my apartment was the complete opposite of the plan. Hell, it blew the lid right off the fucking plan. And worse than that, it possibly made her a liability when she wasn’t necessarily one in the first place.
I needed to hear the events that led her to my apartment, and I needed to hear it right the fuck now.
With a slow inhale and an even slower exhale, I did my best to tamp down the rage that was practically choking the air out of my throat. “I’m going to get both sides of the story, and I have a feeling Alex needs some space right now. This is the easiest way.”
I couldn’t blame her for hauling ass out of my apartment without a word. There would’ve been cause for concern had she just hung around and acted like shit was normal. Because in her mind, there never should’ve been a connection between her so-called landlord and me. Hell, she hadn’t even known I lived in the building.
Fucking Moosa. I had a feeling once I listened through the voice surveillance recording of her apartment, he would be getting more than just my boot up his ass.
“Space?” Cal asked, concern and accusation roughening his voice. “What happened in there?”
“Cal,” I reprimanded.
He scowled but knew better than to push it. “I can fuck right off. I got it.”
“I like that you like her,” I praised. Someone needed to be looking out for her. Someone who could fucking think rationally around her. But it didn’t matter how much either of us liked her. Her knowledge made all of us vulnerable—probably her most of all. “But you can’t let that sway you. You know what we have to do here, how we have to be.”
Seemingly appeased, he nodded, his jaw tight, and took out his phone to call IT and Mickey. I shut the door and strode back into the kitchen. I looked around almost manically. Hoping to find something to break, something out of the ordinary, I didn’t know. But she’d been in here; I could smell the heavy sweetness of cherry blossom.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and I scooped it up immediately. The email from the IT department held nothing more than an MP3 file, so I clicked it to download.
The wait couldn’t have been any longer than a minute, but it felt like an eternity.
Dialing up the volume by several clicks, I listened as the file started to play.
It seemed like nothing more than the knock of a hammer with some soft, shitty music playing in the background for the first few minutes, so I moved the file forward in five-minute increments until I heard the sound of her voice.
She was midsentence, so I went back until I found the beginning and started to listen.
A few meows from her cat and a deep sigh from her were the last things I heard before she started a one-sided conversation that could have only been a phone call.
“How’d you know it was me?”
A pause.
“Well…the shower off the master bedroom…I don’t think it’s working right. My temperature options consist of boil my skin off or frostbite. Can you come look at it?”
Only a moment passed.
“Fantastic,” she responded. “So, I’ll see you in about thirty minutes?”
Another run of silence.
“Wednesday?” she questioned, after someone, likely Mickey, fed her some kind of bullshit excuse. “But that’s two days from now!”
A puff of sound filled the air like she’d thrown herself somewhere dramatically.
“Mike, this is ridiculous. How am I supposed to shower over the next two days?”
Definitely Mickey, the prick. Two days to fix her goddamn shower? After I broke his neck, I was going to break his fingers one by one, just for good measure.
“You mean like the kitchen sink?”
“The temperature is great, but the whole dilemma of not being able to fit my ass inside the sink might cause problems!”
I shook my head. Mickey thought this was giving her whatever the fuck she wanted?
“Seriously? You’re the only guy who can come fix it? There’s no one else in this building who can help me? Not even maintenance staff?”
I’d heard enough. Mickey was a lazy fuck who’d sent her up here on a whim because she was fucking annoying him.
I wondered how annoying he might find it to walk without toes.
“Cal!” I called harshly, and the door opened almost immediately.
“Yeah?”
“Tell me Mick’s on his way here.”
He smiled evilly, correctly reading every ounce of my pissed-off aura and relishing it. “He is.”
I jerked my head, and he stepped back outside as I fast-forwarded the file again and stopped it on the slam of her door fifteen or so minutes later.
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”
The cat meowed.
“Yeah, tell me about it. What am I supposed to do with this?”
Another two meows.
“I can’t do that!” she yelled.
Was she on the phone again? I listened closer as footsteps tracked toward the mic and away again.
“I mean, he’s my boss, right? He is my boss. I can’t just ride the joystick anytime I want, Deena, okay? So, stop. It doesn’t matter that it’s huge.”
Deena?
I pushed pause, picked up my phone, and jogged over to my home office to grab her file. I opened it right there on my desk and scanned the contents with the tip of my finger.
One cat. Name: Deena.
Her cat. Her fucking cat. She was talking to her cat.
More aptly, she was freaking out about wanting my cock to her cat.
I couldn’t help but smile as I pushed play again, closed the file, and made my way back out to the kitchen.
“What matters is that he lives in the same building as me. I mean, what’s the deal with that?”
The corners of my mouth melted straight into a scowl.
Fucking fuck, I was going to kill Mickey.
“Cal!” I yelled again.
He stepped inside this time and closed the door behind him, his brows drawn offensively. Normally amiable and friendly in my presence, I sometimes forgot he could look like a scary motherfucker when he wanted.
“What?”
“There’s only one rule when Mickey gets here, do you hear me?”
His head jerked in the affirmative.
“Don’t let me kill him. Not today.”
“But—”
“Alex,” I explained with just one word. She was starting to wonder about things, and one missing landlord was going to be more than enough to deal with when it came up.
“But we can make it hurt, right?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
I planned to make it hurt a fucking lot.