I followed it with my address, then turned my phone off. Fuck dealing with street gangs and stripper cat fights like I normally did on a Sunday. I was taking the afternoon off.
6
It took me longer to get home than I'd anticipated. Traffic had been heavy and I'd left my motorcycle at 7th Circle, so I couldn't just nip between cars like I usually did.
So when my elevator doors opened to my floor, I found Lucas already waiting outside my apartment door.
"You're here," I commented, completely unnecessarily. Obviously, he was; he was right in front of me, leaning against the wall like he'd just been posing for GQ or something.
His brow rose slightly, and a smile touched his full lips. "I'm not an idiot, Hayden."
My pulse quickened. Fuck. "Don't call me that," I reprimanded, but it lacked heat. There was something about hearing my first name on his lips that I liked way too damn much.
"Sorry," he replied with a smirk, sounding anything but. Fucking hell. His blatant disregard for danger around me was such a turn on.
Holding his gaze, I swiped my magnetic key over the lock on my door, then pressed my thumb to the biometric screen that lit up. It took two seconds to analyze my print, then it flashed green and the door clicked open.
"That's very secure," he murmured as I stepped inside and held the door open for him to follow.
I raised one brow, letting a tiny smile touch my scarlet lips. "Sort of necessary when you're me." Even though I'd never invited anyone home—until today—it would have been supremely foolish of me to have an easily picked lock on the door. As it was, the biometric scanner was also linked to an alarm system that only Seph and I had access to. No one could enter our space without one of us allowing them.
The door closed with a nudge from my red-soled stiletto, the locks reactivating instantly.
"So, what made you change your mind?" Lucas asked, taking a couple of steps into my home and letting his gaze sweep around the room. The slight raise to his brows and the widening of his eyes told me he was impressed by what he saw. My home was a huge open-plan apartment with double-height ceilings and craploads of floor-to-ceiling windows with soft gauze curtains draping all over the place.
I brushed past him, closer than I needed to, stripped my black blazer off, and dropped it over the back of a chair on my way to the kitchen. "Your first shift at 7th is Tuesday?" I asked, ignoring his question. There was no way in hell I was opening up my personal life to this total stranger with the angelic face and godlike dick. Okay, no more than I already was by letting him into my home.
Crap. I was going to live to regret this decision, I could already tell. A huge, old ass-biting was just looming on the horizon, waving at me like a bastard.
I unclipped my shoulder holster and placed it on my counter along with my heavy handgun, then rolled my shoulders to ease some tightness.
"Uh-huh," he replied, casually propping a hip against my kitchen counter as I pulled a bottle of wine from the temperature-controlled wine fridge underneath. It was barely past noon, but I really felt like day drinking was acceptable in my line of work, especially to cure the hangover still plaguing my brain and loosen the knot of tension Cass had managed to tighten up again.
"Good," I murmured, pulling two glasses out, then pausing. "Do you drink Barolo?"
His intense green eyes flicked down at the bottle in my hand, then he gave a small shrug. "I've never tried it," he admitted.
I hesitated only a second longer, then poured a glass of the rich red wine for each of us. "If you don't like it, I have pretty much anything else." I slid his glass over to him, and his fingers brushed mine when he took it.
Such a small, innocent gesture, yet it sent a shockwave through me and made my breath catch. Maybe I was just hormonal or something, but I'd never craved someone as badly as I did Lucas. Not even my crush on Cass could compare to the fire building inside me with every smile and glance from this stranger.
He held my gaze as he raised the glass to his face and smelled the wine before taking a sip. His tongue dragged across his plump lower lip, and I watched like some kind of sex-starved freak, groaning inwardly when he made a hum of approval.
"I like it," he told me. "Tastes like cherries or something?"
Cute. He had a good palate. I just took a long drink from my own glass and licked my lips to savor the taste. It really did have subtle cherry and black plum notes, and it was one of my favorite wines out of northern Italy. The winery was owned by my favorite aunt, Demi, and her wife Stacey. They always talked about retiring there one day, but so far the both of them were far too married to their work.
"So, I'm guessing you told me to meet you here for a reason?" Lucas prodded, curiosity burning in his emerald eyes. "When you stopped replying earlier, I thought I'd pushed too hard."
Nope. Just hard enough, pretty boy.
I couldn't just ignore his questions all afternoon; that would lead to a fairly awkward sort of encounter. So I took another sip of wine and drummed my fingernails on the marble countertop. He deserved a small amount of truth from me, especially as it concerned him.
"I had a meeting with... an associate." Yeah, I kept that vague. It was bad enough Zed had witnessed Cass rejecting me; I sure as fuck wasn't filling Lucas in on the whole sorry story. "He owns Scruffy Murphy's bar."
Lucas's brow creased slightly. "The bar we were at last night?"
I gave a small nod. "The very same." I bit my lip, inwardly cringing. "Turns out there was a security camera in the storeroom."
His eyes widened. He immediately understood what I was saying—that our whole encounter had been taped.
"He deleted the footage before his staff saw it," I told him before panic could set in. "But it's certainly not ideal."
Lucas didn't immediately respond, taking another sip of his wine as he watched the way my fingernails tapped an anxious tune on the stone counter. Then he reached out and placed his hand over mine, stopping me.
Also damn near stopping my heart. How the fuck was he affecting me so hard? This wasn't a sappy vampire romance novel.
"I'm going to guess the guy who helpfully deleted the tape was also the one you intended to make jealous in the first place," he said softly, not accusing but...
"I didn't know there was a camera in there, Lucas," I snapped, pulling my hand free of his and reaching for my wine simply for something to do. "I'm not that much of an asshole."
"That's not what I said, Hayden, and I think you know it." He gave a casual shrug, not even slightly worried about pissing me off. Such a turn-on. Anyone else would have been basically licking my shoes at that mere hint that I was irritated.
Cass flashed across my mind, quickly followed by Zed. Okay, maybe not everyone else. But Zed had known me long enough to read when he was in real danger, and Cass... was Cass.
"That was a Reaper-owned club, wasn't it?" He sounded so casual, but there was a thread of fishing in his voice.
I cocked a brow. "And here I thought you were totally ignorant of Shadow Grove gangs, Lucas."
His lips curled in a grin. "I might have done some studying this morning. Seemed like a smart thing to do when I'm about to start working for the infamous, terrifying Hades herself."