Sweet Seduction Shield(101)

"Then if that's your plan, you should have asked me when your fingers were still inside my pussy."

"Ah," he continued to whisper, shifting his hips to slide between my thighs. His returning erection made itself known. "Then I better get back to work."

I laughed beneath him as his lips began to slide across my shoulder towards my neck. My fingers threaded in his hair, my head tipped back, a smile on my face. And for once, since this all started, I felt completely and utterly at ease. No counting. No need to frantically clean. Nothing but free.

And then Ryan said, "So, the fact that you're giving helpful tips must mean you want me to succeed."

I snapped my head back down to look at him, delighted and mischievous brown stared back at me.

"Get a yes to my question," he clarified, but I didn't need it. I knew exactly what he was on about.

And a part of me wished him luck, as the other part of me said, "In your dreams."

He chuckled, his face nestling into my throat, his teeth starting to tease.





Chapter 29


A Hollowness Started To Expand Inside Me

I checked on Daisy, while Ryan did a circuit of the house. Knowing he took our safety so seriously gave me such an unusual thrill. You're not meant to get elated about something as mundane as checking locks and making sure sensor flood-lights work. But I did. A small smile playing on my lips as I heard the rattle of a locked door or the clunk of a window latch. Ryan made me feel safe.

There is something immeasurably wonderful about that.

By the time he made it back to the bedroom, I'd turned the lights down low and slipped between the sheets on the bed, leaning back against a pile of pillows. I was wearing a loose, worn Whitcomb & Associates Ltd t-shirt, one I'd had to don at the annual Round The Bays Run where my firm had a stand. There was absolutely nothing sexy about it at all. But Ryan stopped, just inside the door, and stared at me. A look of wonder and sheer delight on his handsome face.

I smiled back, held his gaze, then swallowed thickly as he stalked across the room towards his side of the bed. He was dressed in just his jeans, nothing else. And I think the look on my face said a hell of a lot more than his had.

"You're so perfect," he whispered, undoing the top button, then the zip on his jeans and slipping them off. New trunks in fire engine red greeted my eyes, making my lips twitch in amusement. "You like the red?" he asked, as he slid in beside me under the sheets.

"Love the red."

"Thought you might. Chose 'em just for you."

I laughed, rolling onto my side to face him. He was already on his side, waiting for my eyes to reach his. In his hand was his cellphone. The laughter died quietly on my lips.

"Who are you going to call?"

"Harvey and Nick."

"Can't it wait until tomorrow morning?" For some reason I didn't want anyone bursting the bubble that existed in this house. It was bad enough that Dominic had been in touch, but anyone else seemed an invasion, not just an imposition.

"Nick will need to organise his staff to accommodate us," Ryan pointed out levelly. "And Harvey is my partner. I need to check in and I trust him."

Of course. He was still a cop. Still under the employ of the New Zealand Police Force, assigned to protect a potential witness in a large scale case. If that wasn't a bucket of cold water over the head, I don't know what would be.

I nodded, but conversation was beyond me now. Every single step forward into the sunshine, seemed to come with a huge shadow of dread.

He sighed, turned onto his back, readjusting the pillows behind him and swiped his phone, placing the device to his ear. It didn't take long for the call to be answered.

"Nick. Pierce. Got anything for me?"

I sank down further under the covers, staring at the light from the beside lamp reflected on the ceiling.

"You still don't know where the leak occurred? Yeah. Yeah. I get it. But it leaves a hell of a wild-card out there, doesn't it?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing evenly. There was no point getting all worked up over something I had no hope of controlling. Tell that to my heartbeat though, which was currently sitting at ninety-seven beats per minute.

"OK," Ryan said, running a hand over his beard in a clear show of frustration. "Well, we're coming in tomorrow. Yeah, it's all sorted, Dom worked a miracle. Probably about eight in the morning. Good, that'll be good. Who will you use?"

I rolled onto my side and curled up in a ball. By eight o'clock tomorrow morning the bubble will have been burst. Nick will send an escort, a security detail to shadow us in. I was hoping it would be Ben and Abi. And then I would be facing the Crown Prosecutor with a hand-grenade shaped like a ledger in my palm.