Kade
I was both relieved and thoroughly pissed off when Abby was pulled away by her agent. You’re timing sucks, you asshole, I thought angrily, but even as I did I acknowledge the bullet I’d just dodged.
Maybe it was all coincidental, but I couldn’t help but sense that she’d been trying very hard to get me to just throw her down onto the couch and rock myself into her until we were both crying out from the pleasure of it all. Maybe it was just in my head, maybe I was just projecting my own wants and desire into her, but I didn’t think so.
You didn’t wear a dress like that while you were also making an offer so very, very open ended.
Whatever you want today.
And oh god, did I want. Everything. When she first threw that offer out that, dangling it like a carrot in front of my face, I thought I might lose it in my jeans right then and there. I wanted to slide my hands up beneath that pretty little pink dress of hers—the color of nipples, the color of her tongue, the color of the pussy between her legs that I imagined dripping with desire—and find out what kind of panties she was wearing. I wanted to see if her body was trembling with need for me like I was for her.
I would have taken her on the stairs at that point. If the circumstances had been just about anything other than what they very clearly were, I’d have already thrown her onto the ground. Or maybe I would have pushed her up onto that bar counter and shoved her dress up. I’d have pulled my pants down, probably not even all the way off, just enough to free my rock hard erection. And then I would have buried myself so deep inside her that she would have cried out at being so full.
I was pretty sizable, there was no question of that, and there were times where I just didn’t fit all the way. I kind of hoped that was the case so that I could bottom out inside of her and when I came, I could fill her up until my seed dripped down her legs.
None of which is ever going to happen, I had to remind myself.
Caleb had been clear, and while I wanted to act on my desperate desire for her, I knew that I couldn’t. Abby needed protection, not a good fuck.
Still…
I need to find some kind of release, I admitted to myself as I stood and adjusted my cock which was hard enough to be uncomfortable in my pants.
When I decided that Abby was taking too long talking to that blasted agent of hers, I went up the stairs in search of her. I found her sitting in the living room, looking…agitated. She was still beautiful, of course, but her face was drawn slightly and her full lips were pulled down into a frown.
I went to her, about to ask what was wrong when my phone decided to take that moment to ring. I cursed and glanced down at the screen to see who it was, hoping that I could just ignore the damn thing. But of course it was Caleb and I knew better than to ignore that call.
“Hello,” I answered briskly, trying not to sound like a dick, but feeling like being one all the same.
“Kade. We got an address to go with those letters.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise. I’d called Brody over to pick up the letters from me because I was unwilling to leave Abby alone in her home, even with the high gates and the multitude of rooms and the fact that her cell phone was probably attached to her hip. After our conversation that morning, I couldn’t leave her. She was too vulnerable, and whether I liked it or not, I was invested in her well-being.
Brody had taken the letters straight down to Caleb and had been pouring over them since this morning, but I didn’t think they’d actually get anything from them anytime soon. In fact, I was thinking it would be days before they figured anything out. There was likely something important about the letters that I’d glossed over, too enraged by their content and too distracted by Abby’s undeniable, unavoidable presence.
“How’d you manage that, boss?” I asked, legitimately impressed.
He grunted. “People who know people. Found out that in order to send the letter, there had to be some kind of return address for the purposes of the post office. You can provide it separately in certain cases, but you still have to have one. Of course, it’s classified and my guy could probably go to prison—federal offence, you know—if he gave out the information, but he’s a good guy. Used to babysit Abby.”
I winced at the mention of Abby as a little girl. My feelings for her were in no way feelings that belonged to a little girl—and she definitely wasn’t one. Her full breasts and the curves of her hips, that rounded ass…no, definitely not a little girl.
“Anyway, he did some backtracking for me using the post date. The address is downtown.”
I was genuinely pleased to hear they’d found something at least. It wasn’t a silver bullet; they didn’t have the guy in hand—or in the ground—right in that moment, but at least they had something to go on.
We were one step closer to making Abby honestly safe.
“Alright, you sending someone?” I asked next, wondering who he’d send down to the address. Brody maybe? I didn’t think it was really something he was going to stand a chance at being good at, but at least he was a loyal guy. I just worried he wasn’t smart enough to do the job right. And this job was important damnit.
There was a pause. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“You.”
And it was my turn to pause. Me? I glanced over at Abby, whose attention had been pulled by whatever was bothering her to me. She was watching me like a hawk with those wide eyes of hers sharp as a pin, narrowed in on me. I could tell that she wasn’t just watching me, but looking at me, too. I always felt like she was looking me over, fixating on pieces of my body that she liked—or wanted to see more of.
“I really don’t feel comfortable leaving Abby alone,” I said finally, and that definitely got her attention.
Her eyes shot up, her eyebrows raised in surprise, and she got up from the couch all at once. She stalked over to me like a predator, like she wasn’t temptation incarnate, daring me to reach out and touch her, to fondle her and slip into her.
“No,” she told me.
I didn’t think Caleb had heard her because he was talking in my other ear. “I’ll send someone else over there for a while, just while you’re checking the place out.”
“I thought you said there was no one else to send,” I reminded him. My mind flashed to Alex, and I realized I was very close to telling my boss to fuck off if he suggested that asshole would stop by. Alex was the kind of man I was protecting Abby from.
Caleb made an annoyed, impatient sound. “It’s temporary and Abby can stay home while you’re gone.”
Abby had her arms folded just beneath her chest, drawing my eyes down to her lovely chest and making me wish I could just hang up the damn phone already. There were such better things that we could be doing right now.
Focus, I reminded myself.
“I don’t want anyone else,” Abby informed me, but Caleb was talking at the same time.
“I’ll send Brody. He’s loyal and a good kid. A little dumb, but he doesn’t have to be there for long.”
“Look, I really don’t think—”
But I was cut off when Abby snatched the phone out of my hands and threw it down on the table. She must have hit the speaker button as she did so because I could hear the sound of the shop coming through from Caleb’s end.
She rounded on me. “I don’t want a different bodyguard,” she informed me fiercely, surprising me by how adamant she was being.
And while I’d been arguing with Caleb against it, I’d also understood that I was about to give in. I happened to agree with Caleb about Brody, so while I wouldn’t want him permanently protecting Abby—I didn’t want anyone doing that but me—I knew that I could trust him for a couple of hours while I dealt with this address thing. Because as I’d thought about it, I’d realized that I didn’t want anyone else going there either.
Yes, I wanted to stay and protect Abby, but if I could catch this bastard today, I wanted to be the one to do it. I wanted to kick his ass until it hurt. Until he was nothing left but a bloody, mushy bag of bones. If he was there, I wanted to be the one to stop him.
I needed to make sure that Abby was safe—both for the here and now and permanently.
“It’s only temporary,” I said to Abby. “I need to check this lead out and—”
She waved her hand at me in annoyance. “Why can’t someone else do that and you keep protecting me?”
“Look, I have to go and do this, okay? It’s a big deal. This could be what we need to catch this stalker and—”
“I don’t care!” she shouted, surprising me and apparently herself, too. She looked startled by her own outburst, but not enough to take it back. She stepped closer to me so that I could feel the heat of her body radiating out toward me, calling for me, begging me to close the small gap left between us. In a small voice that was just barely audible, she said, “I want you here. With me.”
And there was both desire in her voice as well as a vulnerable need that didn’t have anything to do with the dirty things I found myself needing from her.
I swallowed and was about to answer when a loud laugh came through the phone, startling us both. We jumped back at the same time as though we’d both been struck by a cattle prod at the same time. It was Caleb’s voice that was laughing, and I realized that he’d been on the phone the whole time.
I was relieved when it became clear that Caleb hadn’t caught much of what she’d said to me. About how she wanted me here. He didn’t hear the tenderness in her voice.
“Really, Abby?” he said between laughter. “Originally, you didn’t want Kade, remember? I’m sure you’ll come around to Brody, too.”
Abby shot the phone a murderous glare, then said, “That’s different.” When she looked at me, I thought it would be some form of that same furious glare, but instead it was a look that smoldered and burned like blue fire. It was searing, branding me until I felt as though I belonged to her.
“Yeah, well, different or not, those are my orders. Stop being a brat and deal with it.”
And then he hung up.
Abby was furious with him, and after begging me one last time to stay, she stormed away upstairs to her room. I waited just long enough to make sure that Brody was here—and to be clear with Abby that she was not to leave the house until I got back—then I hopped on my motorcycle and headed to the address Caleb had given me.
When I got there, I found that it was in an apartment complex. I asked for a tour under the premise of being a would-be renter. That got me into the complex. Just as the tour ended, the lady received a call and had to disappear, giving me the perfect opportunity to look around the gated apartments without any questions. I found the building number, then went to the third floor where I found the apartment.
I tried knocking several times, but no one answered. Frowning, I wondered at the wisdom of going further.
Checking the stairwells for anyone coming, I quickly decided to see if I couldn’t get into the apartment. It was a lost cause if the deadbolt was locked, but I tried it anyway. Kneeling down, I pulled out my lock picks—I had a set, just in case—and went to work. When I finally heard the click I was looking for, I held my breath as I tried the door.
It swung open with ease and I was relieved that whoever lived here was a big enough idiot that they didn’t use the deadbolt.
As soon as I entered the apartment, I noted two things: it was full of newspapers and it smelled. The smell was stale, the kind of smell you got from a place that hasn’t been aired out in a long time—or hasn’t been lived in. And as I looked at the papers, I realized that they weren’t all newspapers. Some of them were magazines, some were online printouts. But they all had something in common. They were articles featuring Abby and the pictures had been cut out.
I clenched my jaw tightly, grounding my teeth. This was definitely the guy.
I spent the next two hours going over the place with a fine toothed comb, searching for anything that might lead me to the stalker. But I didn’t find anything of his there. As I searched through papers, going through drawers and desks and filing cabinets, all I found indicated that an older woman lived there, not a young man as I anticipated.
In fact, I even stumbled across a copy of the lease agreement and it showed that the apartment was rented to a Mrs. Fleming. I kept the agreement and a few other things that I thought might be helpful, then was about to leave. But just as I reached the door, I noticed the stationary on the counter. It was from a hotel, and the address was in Orange County.
I took it with me and headed to Caleb’s to drop it off. Then I went back to Abby, finding myself impatient with the need to see her again.