Zed looked way too uncomfortable with that suggestion, but his protest was cut off by a knock at my office door.
"Come in," I snapped, expecting Hannah to have returned with our lunch. It was our lunch, but it was Gen who brought it in with a bright smile. "Oh, hey, Gen. I didn't expect you today."
She placed the bags of food on my desk, then dragged a chair over to sit beside Zed. "I know; I didn't mean to drop by unannounced. I was at Zampati's getting my own lunch order and saw yours waiting for the courier. Figured I'd bring it up myself and check how the meeting with Leah went."
Leah Harris was the Mayor of Cloudcroft and a personal connection of Gen's. It was thanks to her that we'd been able to iron out the mess with Timber, so I really did owe her thanks for that. I was just in a shitty mood about Zed's promiscuity coming back to bite us all in the ass, and the coy glances Gen permanently seemed to be shooting him set my nerves on edge.
"Thanks, Gen," Zed started to say, clearly about to dismiss her. "We were just—"
"Finishing up," I cut him off, giving Gen a smile. "You're welcome to stay for lunch; we can discuss strategy for the Copper Wolf vodka distillery expansion." Zed shot me a hard glare, but I just nodded to the notepad. "You have a list to write, Zayden. Get to work; I don't want to be here late tonight."
He scowled but reluctantly picked up the notebook as Gen started unpacking our food. Hannah had also ordered a range of sides and desserts to go with our mains, so there was enough food to keep us fed all afternoon. Much to Zed's annoyance, Gen and I found plenty of things to discuss, so she ended up not leaving until we were all ready to head home at the end of the day.
41
As badly as Zed wanted to clear the air between us, fate was working against him. Both our phones were going nuts before we even got into his car, and we spent most of the drive home fielding calls about a million and one work-related matters. Then, just as we parked in the garage, he got a call from our foreman at Timber to say there had been an electrical fire in the new kitchen area.
"Go check it out," I told him with a sigh. "I'll get up to speed on the new security system."
Before I could head inside, Zed grabbed me around the waist and pinned me to the side of his car, kissing me hard. "I know you're pissed at me," he whispered, sounding pained.
"I'm not pissed," I retorted, giving a slight shrug.
Zed sigh in exasperation. "Fine, then you're irritated at me. But I can't change my past, Dare. And all those girls? They're in the past. I've only ever loved one woman, and that's you. Never forget that."
My heart softened at the sincerity in his eyes, and I tilted my head to kiss him softly. "I know. Go sort out Timber, and we can hit that rain check when you're back."
"Count on it," he replied, kissing me once more, then getting back into his car.
As he reversed back out of the garage, I made my way inside and found Dallas standing in the foyer with a laptop balanced on his arm. He was tapping the keyboard one-handed, his eyes on a wall panel where he was doing... something, but he looked up when I got closer.
"Boss, hi," he said with a tight smile. "Almost done. Sorry, we ran overtime."
I checked the clock on the wall and noticed it was a solid hour later than I'd told him to be finished by. Not that it really mattered, but I hadn't wanted Seph to notice the increased security.
"Don't worry about it," I told him. "Have Rex's guys gone?"
Dallas nodded. "Yeah, they left before Seph and Lucas got home. I figured you wouldn't want them hanging around your sister."
I flashed him an appreciative smile. "You figured right."
His eyes returned to what he was doing. "I told Seph we were just running routine maintenance checks. She seemed none the wiser."
"Sounds like her. Thanks, Dallas."
He nodded again, then tapped a few more keys on his laptop until the wall unit beeped five times and flashed green. "All done," he announced with a triumphant grin. "Want me to run you through it all?"
I accepted, and Dallas followed me to the kitchen so I could drop my bag and remove my weapons. He spent about fifteen minutes talking me through the new security system: motion detectors, cameras, spotlights, even heat sensors and gas particle detection units. I'd thought Zed's home was a fortress before? Not even close. Now it was a fortress. Seph would be lucky to sneeze without an alarm going off somewhere.
When Dallas was done, I showed him out, then armed our new alarm system as he'd shown me. I just needed to remember to disarm it before Zed got back, seeing as he didn't have the code.
"We all secure?" Lucas asked as I returned to the den, where he'd been studying on the couch. He'd listened to bits of what Dallas had been telling me, but I could tell his head was in his books. That was perfectly fine by me; it was nothing I couldn't show him when he needed to know.
I nodded, shifting some of his textbooks to the coffee table so I could sit beside him. Then I squirmed as the plug shifted in my ass.
"Yup, all done," I replied, wetting my lips. "Where's the brat?"
Grinning, Lucas capped the pen he'd been using and set his work aside. "In her room," he replied, snaking an arm around my waist.
"Hmm," I hummed, glancing up to the ceiling like my X-ray vision could tell me if she was likely to come down any time soon. "And Cass?"
Lucas shrugged. "No clue. Haven't seen him since I got home. Either he's gone out—sneaky cat—or he's hiding somewhere to avoid Dallas seeing him alive." He shrugged, then pulled me into his lap, making me squirm again. "So for now, it's just us."
"Just us, huh?" I repeated, draping my arms around his neck. He was still in his Shadow Prep uniform, the tie tugged loose and his top button open. "I can't decide if I'm turned on by this uniform or totally creeped out," I admitted, pulling the tie undone and tossing it aside.
Lucas nodded in understanding. "I should take it off, just to be safe."
Giving him a soft laugh, I unbuttoned his SP-monogrammed shirt and pushed it off his gorgeous shoulders. "Oh, much better," I murmured teasingly. "Wait. I'm interrupting, and you have exams coming up." I scrambled out of his lap in an attempt to be responsible, but Lucas caught me with his hands on my hips before I could make it far.
"I think I can take a study break, Hayden," he told me with a small laugh. He was still seated, and he tipped his head right back to hold my gaze. "Promise. It'll actually make me study better because I won't be distracted by my raging hard-on."
I pursed my lips, trying not to smile at his charming bullshit. Damn it, I couldn't say no to Lucas. Fucking Lucas. "What kind of mood was Seph in when she went to her room?" I asked.
He took that as the permission it was, his long fingers skating around to the back of my pencil skirt to drag the zipper down. "Terrible one," he replied, wrinkling his nose. "She got in some argument with a girl at school, and I wasn't super sympathetic about it on the way home. She slammed the door pretty hard." My skirt dropped to the carpet at my feet, and my blouse joined it a moment later.