“Ican explain,” Riley said for the third time.
There was a muscle twitching incessantly under Nick’s bruised eye. Not a good sign. He held up a hand. “No talking,” he snarled before returning to his survey of the window locks in Kellen’s bland dining room.
Five minutes after Riley and company had locked themselves in Kellen’s place, the men had arrived with lights blazing. If their sushi stalker had managed to follow them after Wilhelm’s aggressive driving, he was long gone now.
Riley hated disappointing people. Especially when those people were Nick. And especially when she was already feeling insecure about their relationship. “Look, I know you said to leave her alone, but—”
Nick whirled on her. “Thorn, one more word spent trying to defend why you disobeyed direct orders and not only left the house but you put yourself, your best friend, and the woman I told you to stay away from in danger, and I will…”
He was so mad he’d trailed off in the middle of a threat. That was a very bad sign.
But Riley had been through enough in the past two days to proceed with caution. “Direct orders?What do you think this is, a hierarchy or a relationship?”
Nick moved so he was toe-to-toe with her. “Right now it’s a dictatorship and… Is that a new sweater?”
The power of the boobs.
“Yes, it is, and it’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Was that before or after you lied to my face, left the house, and got followed again?”
“Nicky, calm the hell down,” Kellen said, joining them.
“I’ll calm down when my girlfriend explains why I shouldn’t be pissed off about her attracting her second stalker in two days,” Nick snapped.
“It’s not my fault that people keep following me,” Riley argued. It sounded stupid, but sometimes that’s exactly what the truth was.
“Hey, who wants some wine?” Kellen asked suddenly.
“Aren’t these the cutest vegan suede booties you’ve ever seen?” Sesame pranced into the room in pale purple ankle boots. Unperturbed by their hasty exit due to the stalker, she was going through her new purchases like she was getting ready for a date.
“It’s not a great time, Beth…ame,” Kellen told his sister.
Sesame’s eyes went wide when she took in Nick’s scowl and Riley’s. “Oooh,” she said. “Hey, big brother, would you mind clearing out all of your stuff from the master closet? I need to organize my wardrobe.”
“Uhhh,” Kellen appeared to be at a loss when it came to women in his home.
“Do you want some wine?” Riley asked him.
“Tell me again what this guy looked like,” Nick said to Riley.
Sesame perked up. “Yeah! Tell us again.”
Riley blew out a breath. “I told you I didn’t get a very good look.”
“Tell me what you saw, Thorn. And bysaw,I mean what you saw, thought, and heard from your damn spirit guides who do not seem to be doing a good job of keeping you out of fucking trouble.”
She winced. “He was at the antique store when we went to yoga this morning. At least I think it was him. He was hiding behind some display on the sidewalk when we went in the side door. I didn’t get much of a read on him…”
“Then what?” Sesame asked, hanging on her every word.
“And then in yoga I…” Riley glanced at Sesame and hastily decided to rewrite the truth. “I had another vision and saw him. First he was young and happy. It was just for a split second, but he seemed excited about something. He was waiting for someone. Then he changed, and he was like all sinister with a bad goatee. He was still waiting, but then he grabbed someone and dragged them into his van.”
She snuck a peek at Sesame, who hadn’t seemed to recognize her own abduction story.
“I’ve dated guys with goatees, and two out of every four of them are totally sinister,” Jasmine said, flipping through the mail on the kitchen counter.
Nick was looking at Riley with a stony expression on his handsome face. He was withholding his dimples from her, and it wasn’t fair.
