He didn’t recognize the number but answered, distracted and disturbed when one of the older women started doing a nasty dance with a large purple dildo.Jesus, when did matrons start acting this raunchy in public? The sex shops he’d visited for mostly male customers were a damn sight more subdued. Seeing shit like this would scar a lesser man.
“There’s the voice I’ve been yearning to hear all weekend.”
“Who is this?” he asked, forgetting there was someone on the line.
“Oh, my love, is my voice so very forgettable then?”
“Look, if this is Harper, your contract won’t be up for renegotiation until next week so don’t call back until then—or we can end this agreement right here and now.”
“You’re quite the intimidating negotiator, but no, my love, this is not business, this is your destiny… Well, Delilah actually, but…” Her laugh held a touch of irony before she quieted. “I’ve missed you.”
It washer…onhisfucking phone.
He shut down the connection to the security feed and brought up his tracking program, running a trace on the phone he also hoped to get the account information on. The last thing he wanted was to find out Delilah was at his front door, wanting to show him how she’d used some book-learning to master the art of giving a damn blowjob.
“Hey darling, how’d you get this number anyways?” he asked.
Shit, she was using a burner phone, so there was no identifying information for him to access.
“My big strong lover, are you tormented by demons that have consumed the beautiful memories of us?” Her words were gentle, but the caustic tone underlying them didn’t escape his awareness. “You gave me your number in the event that we were separated when I followed you home from the pub?”
He groaned away from the phone. Well, he remembered now. Lynx hadwarnedhim but no, he just had to—
“I didn’t want another day to go by without telling you how wonderful you made me feel,” she said, sounding sincere.
He didn’t buy it. Some of his earliest memories were of Belle Mère shifting into whatever skin she needed to manipulate the old man. Most women were treacherous, and most men were too blinded by sex and emotion to care.
His monitor flashed her location. She was calling from San Francisco.Got you.
Digging deeper, he learned that the owners of the house were not named Delilah, nor was the place a rental.Who are you, darlin’?
“And being a woman of resource, I learned a number of ways to make all our nights together as memorable as our first. Can I come over?”
Hell, no. Fuck, no.
He might be a lot of things but he wasn’t stupid; far from it.
“Delilah darlin’, you know them memory demons you mentioned are really doing a number on me, sugar, because for the life of me I can’t remember your last name.”
The Brood had enemies and he had to find out if Delilah was a threat to the team at large or just a crazy stalker who didn’t know how to say thank-you-and-goodbye after one little interlude.
He looked at the picture of Stormy, whose smile seemed to mock him now.I am not unaware of the irony of the situation, Sienna Red.
“What’s more important is the name that we will one day share.”
Okay, time to stop this bullshit in its tracks with some realmeeting-Jesus-by-the-seakinda talk.
“Delilah, I’m not about to sit here and make ’tend that what happened on my living-room floor was more than two adults sharing pleasure and I suggest you don’t, either.” He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. He never should have played fast and loose with an innocent, he thought, digging deeper into the house owner’s info to see if she was a family member of the owners. “Darlin’, I’m glad I gave you some happiness but understand this—if you try to make a relationship where there ain’t none, you’ll just be courtin’ a world of heartache. Trust me, sugar, there ain’t nothing a good woman like you could have with a man like me.”
He braced himself for the desperate histrionics he witnessed every time his crazy-ass Belle Mère didn’t get what she wanted, but the other end of the line stayed quiet. Eerily so. Almost like she was on the other end silently screaming…or plotting.
He didn’t know if she was hurt by his words, but he was fully prepared to wait her out. Even if she was putting on an act to get close to him, he doubted she was skilled enough to bring him or the Brood down.
Still, it was the hidden, the unknown, that sometimes posed the biggest threats.
He rubbed the bottom of the empty beer bottle over his forehead.
“You are a good man. I don’t doubt it for one minute,” Delilah said, her voice so soft and certain he wanted to believe it, but he knew his rot ran deeper than the eye could see. “It’s your weakness as a man that makes you want to push me away. Whatever your fears, we will overcome them. Together.”
