Not once in my life had I ever run toward a person, yet this woman I barely knew was the one I felt compelled to protect in this moment. Yanking on my briefs, I grabbed my phone, ran to the door and pulled it open. Sloane was already there, eyes wide with fear and hair a tangled mess around her face.
“Abe,” she said. “Oh my god, are you—”
I hauled her into the presumed safety of my hotel room and glanced both ways, caught a blur of movement at the far end of the hallway that could have been anything. Including whoever had just been here, trying to scare us.
Stepping back inside, I slammed the door. Locked it. Sloane had her palm to her forehead, chest rising and falling rapidly. Clutched in her hand was a note.
Beneath my feet was another note. I scooped it up, distracted, then bent to catch her eye. “What happened? Are you okay?”
I sat her on my bed, sank down in front of her to check for injuries. She wasn’t hurt—physically. She was, however, trembling.
“Did you get this?” she asked. I grabbed the note, held up mine to compare. It was a picture of the two of us sitting next to each other at Mycroft’s Pub earlier this evening. The picture was slightly blurred, clearly taken from a secret vantage point. Sloane is laughing at Humphrey.
I’m staring at Sloane with a look of unfiltered devotion.
For a split second, my mortification outweighed my fear—I didn’t need an outsider’s perspective showing me how badly I wanted this woman. Or how badly my pride had been damaged when she turned down my advances just a few hours earlier. She was right—she was right—that sex between us could be complicating and distracting at a time when she needed clarity and focus. Because look at this picture—this picture had nothing to do with overwhelming lust and everything to do with an instant attraction so strong I literally didn’t know what it meant. I was staring at her like she was my goddamn wife walking down the aisle towards me on our goddamn wedding day. I didn’t even recognize the look on my face.
Sloane reached out, wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Abe.”
“Who took this?”
She shook her head. Swallowed. “There’s a note.”
I flipped the pictures over. In identical spots, in identical handwriting, was written: Get the hell out of London and go home. Next time will be worse.
“We just received a threat,” she said softly. “In our hotel rooms. Which means whoever did this followed us from that pub to this hotel. Could be paying someone who works here to find out which rooms we’re staying in.”
“And followed us to the pub in the first place,” I added. “Unless Humphrey…”
Her forehead creased. “I can’t… my gut doesn’t like him for this kind of maliciousness.”
I stroked my finger across lettering. “I agree,” I admitted. “I’m calling the front desk to report to security first.”
I stood up, dialed. Paced the room to dispel the adrenaline. Sloane let out a long breath, pushed the mess of hair from her face. And looked down at my cock, which was still half-hard from my dream. And growing harder beneath her gaze. Just as the receptionist answered, I realized that I was half-naked, in black briefs, walking around for Sloane’s perusal.
“The Langham Hotel front desk. How may I be of service, Mr. Royal?”
My mouth had gone dry. Sloane, slightly flushed, turned away, stood, and wandered toward my desk and luggage.
“Hello? Mr. Royal?”
“Yes, hello,” I said. “I need to speak with hotel security. Can you send them to room #608 please? The woman staying in #610 and I received threatening letters at our doors at the same time. And in #610, it seemed like the person also tried to break in.”
The reaction from the receptionist was one of shock. I was sure The Langham wasn’t a hotel where threats to their patrons occurred often. She promised to send security as soon as she could as well as a complimentary pot of tea.
As I hung up, Sloane turned around, fingers near my laptop. Displayed on my screen were articles about Bernard, a few documents, and case notes I found myself turning to the past two days. Scratching an itch that made me feel both vindicated and guilty at the same time.
“Security will be here in a second,” I said, grabbing a pair of sweatpants from the ground and tugging them on. “But we need to be vigilant. If someone’s giving out our information, we can’t be sure who to trust here.”
“Smart idea,” she said. “Also we should both be much less naked.”
Which was when I finally realized she was wearing a white sleep shirt that barely skimmed her thighs. Every swaying movement bared the curve of her ass. Her legs were strong, toned. The polish on her toes was a mysterious purple.
“Yes,” I said.
“Would you mind waiting outside my room while I put on real clothes?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. We left my room, and she opened hers—an odd echo of our moment earlier this evening when I’d kissed her neck and asked to come inside.
My cock hardened again, and I gritted my teeth. Sloane went to step inside her room, but I grabbed her wrist. “Wait. We should… check first.”
Blasting the room with light, we checked her bathroom, beneath her bed, inside the closet. Convinced she was safe, I waited with my back turned in the doorframe.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
A snapping sound of elastic and shuffling. Then, “I thought a man was trying to get into my room.”
My fingers tightened painfully on the wood of the doorframe. “I think a man was. Or at least wanted you to feel fear.”
More muffling, the sounds of water being turned off and on. “I hate… admitting… when I’m afraid.”
I turned my head to the side and kept my eyes lowered. “Fear is our most important sense.”
“Or weakest sense,” she countered. “And you can turn around now.”
I did, slowly. Her hair was now in a side-braid, and she wore black leggings beneath her sleep shirt. Toes were still bare, face still scrubbed of makeup. Face still effortlessly, startlingly beautiful. My desire for her nearly incapacitated me.
“Fear keeps us alive,” I said, voice rough. “Fear is our survival instinct. I’ve known plenty of agents and trainees and PIs in my lifetime who didn’t trust their fear. Didn’t develop a relationship with their fear. And once that sense is deadened, you’re much more likely to take risks, be reckless, put your life on the line when you shouldn’t.”
She stayed silent. Her body was tensing, flexing.
“You’re the furthest thing from weak,” I said.
Sloane nodded and looked behind me where two hotel security guards were approaching. We spent the next ten minutes relaying what happened to the guards, who were more distressed than we were.
“Do you keep security footage of who enters and exits?” Sloane asked.
The guards exchanged a look. “We can take a peek at it for you. They’d have to have used another guest’s room key to access the elevators or the stairwell doors, though.”
“Could a member of your staff have given out this information?” I asked.
The guards exchanged another long look, both grimacing. “We’ve both worked here for years. I’d like to believe our staff wouldn’t do that, but we do have hundreds of employees, some recently hired.”