I could feel cold shivers run up and down my spine as the smell of the rat filled the room.
“What is that doing here?” Alex snapped, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
“Someone do me a favor and throw this out,” William said, staring at the bag with a frown.
“Wait,” I croaked, “that should be evidence for the police. We can show them the security tape and the footage.”
Suddenly, William’s phone beeped and we all stared at him as he pulled it out with a frown. His face turned dark and he gritted his teeth. “They fucking deleted the security footage.”
My jaw dropped open. “How did they delete the footage? Did they hack the system or something?”
He slammed his phone on the island. “Great, now what? We have no proof that Kelly and Natasha did this.”
His phone beeped again and I picked it up. There was a text message from a blocked number.
Did you think we were stupid? Please, we hear everything.
They heard everything? Why did that sound like they bugged the house?
Honestly, this was turning into one of those mystery crime shows on TV.
I turned to the whiteboard on the refrigerator and scribbled out, She bugged the house so don’t speak.
Chelsea and the guys looked at each other, and we started looking around for what the bug was. After a couple of minutes, Jackson suddenly grabbed the rolling pin from the counter and began smashing something near the windowsill. Once he was done, we crowded around to see what Jackson had destroyed.
It was a huge mechanical fly. It actually looked like a real fly, down to the very last detail.
“What the hell?” Ethan said, poking at the remains of the fly.
“How did you know it was fake?” Nathan asked.
“I have never seen a fly in this house. If one tried to get in, it would be electrocuted by the flytrap installed in the windowsill. Yet this thing was happily flying around without being electrocuted, so I knew it had to be fake. Plus, it’s huge! No fly is this big,” Jackson said, rubbing the remains of the metal between his fingers.
“So there was a microphone in the fly,” Chelsea said, frowning.
“Yep, the little metal bits were the microphone.”
“Do you think there are more microphones around?” I whispered, looking around.
A couple seconds later, we were searching all over again and soon discovered two more flies on the other side of the kitchen.
“I think that’s all of them,” William said, sitting up from his crouched position.
“This is ridiculous. Your sister is insane, William,” Nathan muttered.
William snorted. “You’re telling me.”
Everyone was quiet for a few moments before Chelsea suddenly broke the silence by erupting in laughter, and we turned to stare at her confusedly.
She shook her head in amusement. “Sorry, I was just thinking that they bugged your house with bugs.”
I snorted at her lame joke, and the rest of them just smiled in amusement.
“Now what?” William asked.
“Well, how about we take a break and play Call of Duty?” Ethan asked, standing up excitedly.
“Really?” I asked, giving him a blank look. You could never guess he was a lawyer from his behavior sometimes.
He pouted and sat back down in his chair. “Gee, what crawled up your ass and got stuck?”
Nathan smirked evilly. “William, of course.”
They burst into laughter as my cheeks began to burn red. I glanced at William, who wiggled his eyebrows and winked. I blushed harder and William chuckled, leaning over to press a kiss to my burning cheek.
My phone beeped and all of us stiffened. I grabbed it and sighed in relief when I saw who it was.
“It’s just Freddy. He wants to know why no one was answering their cell phone,” I said, raising an eyebrow at the guys. Freddy and Jason were both out of the country on business, so they were sort of left out of the loop of events for now.
William sighed and got up. “Tell him I’ll call him tomorrow. I’m tired.”
“Same. I think I’ll just crash here,” Jackson muttered. The rest of them nodded in agreement.
***
After I showed them to their rooms, I quickly entered my bedroom and shut the door. My eyes widened when I saw William laying on the bed.
Shirtless.
I gulped and tried not to glance down at the rest of him. I quickly brushed my teeth and changed into my black sweatpants and white pajama shirt before approaching the bed quietly. The moonlight was shining on his body, and his skin was glistening. I glanced down at his abs and swallowed hard.
“You know, you’re making it hard for me to control myself when you’re staring at me with those eyes,” William murmured huskily.
I gasped and stepped back. He opened his eyes and smirked. “Did you think I couldn’t feel your gaze burning into my chest?”
I bit my lip and looked away. William reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me on top of him before rolling over so he was on top. My breath hitched and I stared up into his warm green eyes. He ran a finger down my cheek gently. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I was breathing heavily.
He leaned down and began pressing soft kisses down my neck. My toes curled and I pulled his hair gently. William moaned and pulled back. He stared down at my lips hungrily, and before I knew it, he was kissing me almost frantically. It was like he would never see me again, and he wanted the moment to last. The room was filled with our soft moans and William’s animalistic growls.
But I sadly ran out of breath and pulled back after a couple of minutes. He played with my hair and ran a finger down my cheek. Suddenly, he laughed quietly to himself and shook his head.
I tilted my head and stared at him curiously. “What’s up?”
“They say it takes forty-three muscles to frown and seventeen muscles to smile. Lately, there’s only one thing that makes me smile and that’s you,” he said.
I stared at him for a moment, and then my face morphed into a grin. That was actually probably one of the cheesiest things I’d ever heard, but it was adorable. I pecked his lips, giving him a big smile. “Since when were you a cheeseball?”
He pinched my nose. “Ever since you invaded my mind.”
I raised an eyebrow, amused. “Mhmm.”
He rolled off of me and tugged me into his chest. I cuddled into his warmth and smiled softly when I felt him kiss my head and stoke my hair. I soon fell into a deep sleep, forgetting the dramatic events of the day.