“Good girl,” he murmurs, and as his thumb strokes slow circles on my clit, his mouth eases down my leg and then, God help me, he slips off my sandal and draws my big toe into his mouth. This is new, but oh, holy fuck, the sensation is incredible, and I lose myself in bliss as he sucks me down even further under a tidal wave of need and craving and desperation.
“Like that?”
“Yes. Oh, God, yes.”
“Good. Because—”
The sharp ba-ching of a text to his corporate phone interrupts, and he curses, then mutters an apology about a server test. I hear him slide to the edge of the bed, then snatch up the phone. Almost immediately, he curses again, hard and sharp, and I mentally do the same, because if there’s a crisis at work, he’ll have to go in. And that is not the way I want this evening to end.
I know I shouldn’t, but I open my eyes, then shut them immediately before he catches me breaking that rule. But they were open long enough for me to see his face. Frustration, yes. But not just because of the interruption. Instead, I think I see fear.
But that makes no sense. Ryan’s the type to be energized by work, no matter how big the challenge. I can’t ask, though, because I’m not supposed to be looking, and I try to appear innocent, desperately pretending that I saw nothing at all.
Ping!
This time it’s his personal phone, and as Hunter curses, I peek at him again. He crosses the room to the table where he’d left it, reads the text, then sucks in air before he tosses the phone back onto the table. For a moment, he stands perfectly still. And when he does start to turn, I close my eyes.
A moment later, I open them, pretending it’s the first time. His expression is unreadable. A mask.
“Hunter? What is it?” I prop myself up on my elbows and watch as he hurries into his clothes. A cold chill washes over me, and I grab the edge of the comforter and pull it over my bare legs. “Ryan?”
“It’s nothing. Just some work stuff I thought could wait. It can’t.”
I swallow, then pull the blanket higher to cover my breasts. “Will you—”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He barely looks at me. But as soon as he’s dressed, he grabs his work phone, then hurries to the door. He pauses, then glances back at me. “I love you, Kitten,” he says, coming over to kiss me on the cheek. “I love you so damn much.”
I’m reeling at his change in attitude. But before I can ask, he takes a breath and hurries out, leaving me wondering what the hell is going on.
I’m still wondering after I’ve slid off the bed and wrapped myself in the hotel robe. I sit back on the edge of the mattress, thinking that maybe I’ll order one of the hotel’s adult movies, just to take the edge off, when I realize that Hunter walked off without his personal phone. I pick it up, and the face recognition feature causes the screen to pop on immediately. Not odd, since we added each other to our phones months ago, but I gasp anyway.
Not in surprise that I have access. No, I’m gasping in shock at the text that’s now staring me in the face. A text from a number I don’t recognize.
I’m sorry I ran from you.
But please believe me—
I need you again, Ryan. Now. Desperately.
Our last kiss burns in my thoughts.
You know what it meant for both of us.
Meet me at the same place.
Don’t let me down.
Love, F
Chapter Four
Goddamn fucking son-of-a-bitch!
Ryan pressed the call button for the elevator a second time, as if that would do anything, then forced himself to step back and lean against the wall.
After all, someone on his team might be monitoring the elevator bank, and even if the feed was unwatched, he hardly wanted a permanent memento in the video vault of him losing his shit. He needed to try to look like everything was normal.
But it wasn’t. Everything had stopped being normal three days ago.
That, he thought as he stepped onto the elevator, was when things had gone completely off the rails.
And, yes, that was when he should have called and told Jamie everything. But how could he when he hadn’t understood what the fuck everything was? When he still didn’t understand?
All he knew for sure was that three days ago, he’d gotten a text on his work phone from someone who insisted that Ryan come to a meeting at a pub near Marble Arch.
You helped me a long time ago. Now I need you again. Will explain in person. Please don’t let me down.
Curious and concerned that the mysterious text might be connected to one of Stark Security’s pending cases, Ryan had gone to the pub. But no one had been waiting for him.
He’d stayed for fifteen minutes, hoping the contact would show, before he spoke with the hostess.
“You must mean the lady who left the note,” the hostess had said. “She told me a guy with dark hair and blue eyes might ask about it.” As she spoke, she reached into a drawer and passed Ryan one of the pub’s napkins.
He’d glanced down, then frowned at the two neatly formed words: I’m sorry.
“Did she say anything else? Did you see which direction she went? Did she pay with a credit card?”
“No, she didn’t say a thing other than describing you. And she actually went out the exit in the back through the kitchen,” she added, pointing behind her. “Said she was going to the restroom, then suddenly the damn alarm’s going off.”
“How about a credit card?”
“I don’t know, but I couldn’t tell you her name even if she did. I mean, that’s—”
“A moot point unless she used a card,” Ryan had said. “Can we at least find out? If she did, I’ll speak to your manager. If she didn’t, maybe I can at least chat with her waiter.”
Her nose had wrinkled, but she’d nodded, then gestured for a tall man with bright flaming red hair to come over.
“Can I help you?” he’d asked in a voice thick with an Irish lilt.
The hostess had explained, and the waiter shook his head. “Cash. Good tip, though.”
“Did you speak to her at all?” Ryan had asked.
“Just to take her order. Red wine and chips. And water. Why? What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about it, Tommy,” the hostess had said, then added to Ryan, “I’m sorry. This is about more than getting stood up, isn’t it?”
He’d handed her a business card. “If you see her again, I’d appreciate a call.”
Her lips pursed, but she’d nodded. “Doubt I will. She wasn’t a regular. But good luck.”
He’d thanked her, headed out the door, and circled around to the back alley. But there’d been no sign of the woman. All he’d had left was the sick feeling in his gut that someone in trouble had turned to him for help, and that he’d had no way to find her and no explanation why she’d abandoned the meeting that she’d asked for.
But if she’d expected him to walk away and forget it, she was sorely mistaken. Because the whole incident had gotten under his skin. Was she a witness? A victim? Someone looking for help from Stark Security?
Whoever this mysterious friend was, he’d been determined to track her down and figure out what was going on. Texting her back hadn’t gotten him an answer, not that he’d expected it would. And when he’d run a trace on the number, he’d learned that it was a burner, not attached to anybody.