Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Was Layna a criminal? No. Did she know how to pick locks? Of course. We all did. It was part of our survival training as kids. It was a skill I hadn’t practiced in years. Layna, though, clearly still knew what she was doing.
“Ooh, you brought me coffee!” she said, unfolding her long, willowy body from the couch, pausing to grab a clip to pin up her wavy mass of brown hair before grabbing the iced coffee from me.
“That was for me,” I said, but without any real annoyance. If I knew she was crashing at my office, I totally would have brought her a coffee. That was just my nature. I liked doing things for people, surprising my loved ones. It was what led me down the path toward party planning in the first place—all the little surprises I’d lined up for the people in my life and how much they’d enjoyed them.
“We both know you get a little twitchy with too much caffeine,” Layna said as she walked over to the mini fridge to get some ice out of the freezer for my low-ice iced coffee. Then she went ahead and put some coffee syrups from my rack in it as well.
“So, why would you crash on my office couch instead of at your parents? Or with Ariah and Kit? The club? Any of our aunts or cousins?”
“I’m only in town for a night or two,” she admitted. “And I know how things go if I crash with an aunt or one of our cousins with little niblings who would want me to hang around.”
“Fair. But Kit and Ariah don’t have kids.”
“I love everything Kit and Ria have done out there on their farm, but I’m a city girl, through and through.”
I also loved visiting the farm, but I had absolutely no desire to be covered in dirt all day like our cousins were.
“The club?” I asked. “I mean, my sectional is nice, but there is no shower here.”
“Listen, have you seen those new prospects?”
“Who?”
“Spike and Cain.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, I’ve seen them.”
“Then you know why I can’t stay there.”
“I’m missing a vital piece of information here.”
“If I crash at the clubhouse, there is no way I’m not going to hook up with one of them. And then our cousins would be all pissy and kick them out of the club and blah, blah, blah,” she said, waving a hand out. “More trouble than a few wicked good orgasms are worth. Even if Spike gives total ‘fuck you into the ground’ vibes. And Cain has all that repressed cop stuff that I bet makes him a filthy talker…”
“Dry spell?” I asked, giving her a smile.
“Don’t get me started. I’ve been so busy. I think I’ve visited eight countries so far this year. I’ve been spending so much time nursing my jet lag and travel fatigue that there’s been no energy for dating. What about you?”
“Busy too,” I said, waving toward my immaculate light wood desk.
The whole office was soft and warm, toeing that line between neutral and feminine. Okay, maybe the blush-colored couch pushed it a little closer to the latter, but I was careful not to make it the kind of place where a man would feel uncomfortable. Even if party planning was largely an activity sought out by women.
“Is that why you were so late today?” she asked, glancing at the clock.
“No, I was at the police station.”
“The police station? For what?”
“To speak to the sketch artist about the shooter.”
“The… shooter? What the hell is going on?”
“It wasn’t in the group chat?” I asked.
“Shit. I think I silenced that chat when Andi and Kit were going back and forth about vet care stuff. There was a shooting?”
“At the Grassi venue.”
“Where I’m assuming you were hosting a party.”
“You would have loved it. The general theme was: penis.”
“Okay. We are going to circle back to that. But are you okay?”
“Thanks to Perish.”
God, even just thinking his name made me feel flushed all over.
“Perish?” she asked, gesturing way up above her head to indicate his general giant-ness.
“He was there talking to Matteo. He, uh, tackled me to the ground and covered me during the shooting.”
“I’m sure your parents have already covered the whole ‘holy shit, that’s scary, we almost lost you’ thing. So I am going to go ahead and focus on the ‘holy shit, was it hot?’ thing instead.”
“It was a drive-by shooting.”
“Sure. Scary. Adrenaline. All the things. But… Perish. Pinning you to the ground.”
“He wasn’t pinning. He was covering.”
But now I was thinking of his giant hand on my wrists, holding them to the ground over my head as his hand and lips and tongue…
No.
Jesus.
What was wrong with me?
“Protective. Yep, yep. Hot stuff.”
“It was scary.” Just how attracted I’d been at such a tense moment.
“Did he whisper reassurances in your ear?”