Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
She’d accept some battering and bruising because that was the kind of heart she had.
But if you broke it, you were history.
That was a nightmare he’d faced when he inadvertently did that ten years ago. He didn’t know he’d delivered that blow. He’d considered it since he found out, whether or not he should have said what he said to slow down her pursuit of him so they could both get the wild out before they connected.
The answer he’d come up with was…no. He shouldn’t have said it.
It tore him up to know how deeply he’d hurt her.
He didn’t know what he should have done in that situation, because, fuck knew, they both needed to get the wild out, and since he wanted her as badly as she wanted him, it was hard as fuck to put her off.
He just wished like hell whatever he said hadn’t hurt her.
She spoke, taking him out of these thoughts and reminding him what was most important in the now.
She’d let him back in.
She’d made him work for it, but that was something he had no regrets about at all. He’d do it for longer. He’d relive it. Even if it wasn’t much fun the first time, he wouldn’t hesitate if it meant she’d be where she was right now.
“So it is a secondary command central,” she breathed as she looked at the monitors, computers, tech equipment, gun safes and piles of tactical gear. She turned to him. “Do you command legions of mercenaries in bloody coups from here?”
He chuckled. “No.”
She appeared disappointed.
He’d given it enough time.
That time was up.
He got in her space and circled her with his arms.
Her sweet tits rested against his chest as she relaxed into him.
Yup. Totally, her tits were high up on his list.
“What you see is the beta version of Nightingale Investigations,” he explained. “I didn’t have an office when I started, it all ran from here.”
“Whoa,” she breathed, also circling him with her arms, natural, easy, like they’d done it for more than the few weeks they’d been together.
It felt good.
The wait was over.
That was even better.
And he liked the look on her face. Like she’d just received a precious gift from him, knowing this part of his history, his life.
So yeah.
Oh yeah.
He loved her expressive face.
“Most of this is going to be recycled,” he shared. “It’s out of date, and it wasn’t top of the line when I bought it, because I couldn’t afford it then. The setup in the offices is the best you can buy. This has been wired into the surveillance room since I got the office, so I could work from home if I wanted to, but I rarely do that. Since it’s rare, there’s no need to have a space like this at our place. So it’s time for it to go.”
“If it’s essentially just a home office, why did you keep it locked down?”
“First, because there are weapons in here. They’re in safes, but I’m responsible for them, so I’ll use every measure of security at hand to keep them as safe as they can be.”
She nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Second, because even if this equipment is old, it’s still worth a whack. It’s not like the door is made of steel, but any lock slows down anyone. I have a security system. If someone breached this condo, it might give me thirty more seconds, or three more minutes for them to get through this door. But time is time, and the more you have, the more it’s on your side.”
“That makes sense too.”
He smiled at her.
“Is that why you’re here? You’re cleaning it out?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is there some reason you didn’t tell me you were coming here to clean this out?” she asked, which was a turnabout, something she was good at, far better than lying.
The way she asked that, it was on him why he was there and hadn’t told her, when they were not one of those couples who shared every move they made during their time apart (unless there was a possibility of snipers setting up for a shot, which, thankfully, was a zone Indy had cleared a few weeks ago). Instead of it being on her, when she had no reason to be there at all, except to break and enter into his defunct home office.
“Got word the place rented this morning,” Lee said. “Decided to hit it rather than procrastinate, because tomorrow, you might get kidnapped again. Or you and Ally might get arrested for trying to sneak backstage at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, and I’ll have to drop everything to wade into that.”
Her eyes got big. “The Peppers are in town?”
Noting she seemed unconcerned about future mayhem, considering creating mayhem was her way, even before the recent intensifying of it, but it was concerning to Lee, he looked to the ceiling in search of deliverance.