The Private Serials Box Set(13)

"There's no one out there now."

"Okay," I said, whispering still, suddenly very aware I was in a dark  bedroom with Preston Reid. My pulse fluttered and I tried to remind  myself I was in the bedroom my husband shared with his mistress. I  tugged my hand from his grasp and started walking toward the hallway to  resume my post at the front door.

Two things happened in the next few seconds. The first thing was I heard  the front door opening down the hall. The unmistakable sound of the key  in the deadbolt caused all my blood to freeze in my veins, along with  the air in my lungs. The second thing that happened was me being swiftly  lifted fully off my feet, with a strong arm wrapped around my waist,  and hauled into a walk-in closet. My mouth opened, ready to scream, but  then I remembered we were on a stealthy B&E, and clamped my mouth  closed before any sound came out.

I was whisked into the closet and taken all the way to the back. Preston  pushed aside shirts and sweaters, bringing us both behind the clothes,  then fixed the hangers, trying to hide us. I found myself in the corner,  my back pressed up against a wall, and Preston pressed up against my  front. He was warm and tall, and magnificently hard. I felt all his  muscles pressing against every single inch of my body, and my hands came  to rest naturally on his chest, my eyes searching for his in the dark.

"Preston-" I started to object to his body pressing so deliciously into  mine, but I felt his finger press into my lips, effectively shushing me.  Something about his finger on my mouth sent my body into overdrive, and  I squirmed against him, my traitorous body searching for more contact.

"No talking, sweetheart," he said, so quietly I wasn't even sure I'd  heard it. But I felt his breath and the way his chest moved when he said  ‘sweetheart.' If I wasn't completely paralyzed already, I then heard  Derrek's voice ringing through the house.

"Jessica, it's not a big deal. Just grab your purse and let's go."

Then I heard her voice.

"I'm sorry. I thought I had everything, but Elise threw the biggest fit  when I was trying to leave the house and I must have just forgotten."

"It's really fine. I'm not mad. But if we don't leave soon, we'll actually be late instead of fashionably late."

Their voices were getting closer and closer until I realized they were  in the bedroom and the only thing separating us was a row of neatly hung  blouses and a closet door. At the realization of their nearness,  Preston pressed into me further and my eyes fluttered closed when I felt  his lips just barely touch mine. He didn't kiss me. He wasn't kissing  me. Our lips only just barely grazed against one another, allowing our  breaths to intermingle. When I realized he wasn't going to kiss me, I  opened my eyes. His hands were over my head, pressed up against the wall  I was leaning into. My hands were still on his chest, and one of his  thighs had parted my knees and was pressed against me.

"Here it is, honey," I heard the woman, Jessica, say brightly.

"Great," Derrek replied. "I'm just going to change my tie. Sadie had  some sort of muck on her hands when she grabbed it earlier."

My eyes grew wide when I realized Derrek was heading into the closet.  When the door opened, a dim light spread across the large closet, coming  from the bedroom. I gasped silently and then, even though I would have  bet it not possible, Preston moved even closer to me. His hands slid  further up the wall and he dipped his face down to rest in the crook of  my neck, his front pressing against me even harder, and my hands slid  around his back and up to grip his shoulders.

The sound of the closet door closing again came very quickly, as if  Derrek had grabbed a tie and left almost immediately. Preston made no  move to back away as we listened to the voices drift away down the hall  and then, finally, we heard the front door open and close again. Only  after we heard the deadbolt lock again did Preston move. But he didn't  move away fully, just far enough so that we were back to the  kissing-but-not-kissing stance.

"Lena," he whispered against my lips. I melted instantly. Simply  liquefied. His hands came away from the wall, but only came to cup the  sides of my face, but he was still not kissing me. I let him hold me  like that for a few moments, let the feeling of his hands on my skin  wash over me. I hadn't been touched by a man in months, and being  touched by Preston was proving to be the most heavenly experience of my  life, even if it was just his hands on my cheeks. I reveled in it,  soaked it in.         

     



 

Then, reluctantly, I let reality back in and pressed my hands against his chest again, urging him away from me.

"Preston, we can't do this," I said, no longer worried about the level  of my voice, but still speaking quietly. He made no move to let me go,  didn't move back even a centimeter. "Please, let me go," I begged  quietly. I heard him inhale deeply, then he stepped away and all of a  sudden, I was free of him, and I tried not to notice how cold I  instantly was. I didn't say anything, just pressed past him and made my  way back to the front door to keep watch. I figured Derrek and Jessica  probably wouldn't be returning, but I needed an excuse to get away from  him.

A few minutes later, he came out of the darkness and appeared by the door.

"Anyone else come by?" he asked coolly, as if he wasn't just pressed up against me in a dark closet.

"No."

"Let's go, then." He reached out, unlocked the door and walked out into the night.

I followed him out of necessity. "Aren't you going to relock the door?"

"Nope."

"But they'll know someone was here."

He shrugged. "Or they'll just think they forgot to lock it. Either way, I don't care."

"Hey," I nearly shouted. "You might not care what they think, or if they  know someone was here, but I do, and last I checked, I wasn't paying  you to cause problems."

"Last I checked, you haven't paid me anything."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You know what I mean. If you cause  suspicion, Derrek could catch on to everything." Preston, with his hands  planted on his hips, looked down at the ground, and even from fifteen  feet away, I could tell he was angry. I wasn't the resident lock picker;  there was no way I could make it look like no one had been there. I  needed him to snap out of it. "Please, Preston. Don't jeopardize me this  way."

He sighed but walked toward the door again. I turned, watching him  crouch and fiddle with the lock. I heard it click into place and he  stood, walking back to his car without a glance at me. When he reached  his car, he coldly said as he slid into the driver's seat, "Get in." It  wasn't a request; it was a demand.

The part of me that had liquefied before heated again at his words, and I  tried to keep my breathing even. He was obviously being a jerk, but  again, my body didn't care.



I spent the car ride back to Portland trying to dissect my attraction to  him. I wasn't even sure attraction was the right word. I wasn't  attracted to him. I was pulled to him. Drawn to him. It didn't make any  sense, not to me, anyway. He was almost the exact polar opposite of  everything I'd ever told myself I wanted. Well, as far as I knew. I  realized I didn't know much about him. All I really knew was he wore  that black leather jacket like a second skin, he never looked bad in a  pair of jeans, and his brown eyes were mesmerizing. Oh, and my body  craved the proximity of his.

We said absolutely no words all the way back into the city, and when he  pulled into my driveway, I opened the door and climbed out without  breaking the silence. I drew in a sharp breath when I heard his door  open and his footsteps coming in my direction. I did not, however, give  him the satisfaction of turning around. I continued up the path to the  door, only stopping to input the code in the keypad on the door.

"Lena." Just my name falling from his lips turned my stomach inside out.  I shook it off, literally shaking my head from side to side, trying to  give him a clear indication that I didn't want to hear what he had to  say. Not surprisingly, he didn't listen. Instead, his hand wrapped  around my elbow and he turned me, and then pulled me into his front, our  faces only inches from one another again. One of his hands found its  way to my cheek again and I resisted the urge to lean into it, to let  myself feel something from a man again.

Everything I was trying to accomplish, Preston was single handedly and  slowly going to ruin. I had only one goal at that moment and that was to  prove my husband was a cheating, lying bastard, get what was owed to  me, and move on with my life. Preston Reid was threatening to me in more  ways than one.

"We need to talk," he tried again.

"No," I said immediately. "You need to go home and finish this job on  your own. Get me my proof and then we can just go our separate ways." I  remembered that his money was on my kitchen table. "I'll go inside and  get your money. Give me one moment."