I turned the sink faucet on and splashed a couple of handfuls of cold water on my face then patted it dry with a washcloth as the shower turned off.
My eyes opened just in time to see the reflection of a very wet, very naked Sebastian Beckett stepping out of my shower.
“Sebastian.” I frowned, still fuzzy headed and confused. “Why are you in my shower? I don’t remember...” I was going to say that I didn’t remember going to bed with him, but really I didn’t rememberanything.
He grinned, taking his sweet ass time to pick up a towel andslowlydry off. It was like getting front row tickets to the Magic Mike show ... if Mike ditched the G-string. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember,” he said with a low laugh. “You were passed out cold when Stewart brought you home. Hit the Scotch a bit too hard with Richard, huh?”
“Huh?” I wrinkled my nose, then all of a sudden the night before came flooding back to me, and I gasped. “Holy shit,” I whispered, covering my face with my hands. Richard ... he’ddruggedme! What kind of sick, deranged, messed up...? But of course he was unstable. All of them were. It had to be scientifically impossible to maintain total sanity in the fucked up world Delta operated within.
“Butterfly?” Beck tucked his towel around his waist and stroked my hair. “Are you okay?”
My lips parted to tell him everything. All of it. Richard’s questions, the fact that he suspected a mole, the fact that I may have inadvertently cast suspicion on Dylan, the fact that he’d been working for Delta all along, conducting investigations into...
But I couldn’t tell him. Richard’s threat came slamming back to me, and I had to swallow several times to keep from throwing up. Not just because the threat had been really fucked up, but because I’d been mad at them for keeping secrets, and now I was doing the same fucking thing. And using the same excuse.
To protect him.
Beck would be pissed too, but that was just something I’d have to deal with. Keeping him alive was my number one priority.
“Uh huh,” I lied, giving him a tight smile. “Just, uh, really hungover. I guess.”
He cupped my cheek in one of his huge hands, peering into my eyes like he could read my soul, and secretly I hoped he could. Maybe then he’d have a heads-up on everything and be able to ... I didn’t know. Save himself?
“Okay,” he finally said, accepting my bullshit. “Get ready for school and I’ll grab you some aspirin. One of us should have warned you how heavily Richard can drink.” He said this last with a chuckle, and ice formed down my spine. Had Richard pulled this same trick on him at some stage? Except he didn’t remember it?
The whole thing was turning my stomach, so I just gave him a tight nod of acceptance.
“Sebastian, wait,” I blurted as he started to leave the bathroom. He turned back to me with interest in his gaze, and before I could second guess myself, I grabbed his face and planted a quick kiss on his lips.
It had caught him by surprise, no doubt, but not so much that he didn’t grab me back before I could pull away, deepening the kiss to something much hotter than I’d intended.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you this morning, Butterfly,” he whispered in a husky, lust filled voice. “But I like it.” He pressed another kiss to my swollen lips. “I’ll be back with those aspirin in a sec.”
He left the bathroom, and I hurried to shower and dress for the day. Beck had left the aspirin on the bathroom counter along with a glass of water so I gulped them down while blow-drying my hair. By the time I emerged ready for school, I was already feeling better.
“Coffee,” Beck said when I met him in the kitchen. He placed a steaming mug—my queen mug—in my hand, and dropped another quick kiss on my lips. “I just need to grab something from Dylan, I’ll meet you at the car?”
“Yep.” I nodded and took a long sip. Holy damn, Beck made an orgasmic cup of coffee. I might just keep him around to make me coffee for the rest of my life ... among other things. He bent down to pull his boots on, and I didn’t even try to pretend I wasn’t checking his ass out. He had a really great ass.
He glanced back, catching me staring, and I just shrugged.
After he left, I allowed myself a couple more minutes to drink my coffee while Richard’s threat echoed through my head. There were two major things I could take away from what he’d said.
One, Oscar had been murdered, and I think he suspected another council member. Just like Beck did. And two, I was sort of falling in love with Beck. Okay, fine. It had already happened, but my anger toward him had masked it all. Hearing his life threatened in such a callous way had sent such potent, soul crushing fear through me, that I couldn’t keep burying my head in the sand.
So now what the hell did I do?
Panic, I guess? For today, though, I would allow myself a little indulgence. Would it really be so terrible to drop my guard around him for one day and just see what it was like? After all, Dante himself had told me to let it go...
Lost in thought, and practically buzzing with butterflies in my belly, I made my way down to the parking garage. I was so distracted, I didn’t see the dark figure waiting between the cars until it was almost too late.
As it was, it was my heel catching in a drain grate that saved me when the person took a swing with his knife. Terrified, I let out a scream and ducked out of the way when he stabbed at me again. He didn’t get a chance to try a third time as a shot rang out with a deafening crack, and my attacker crumpled to the ground in a lifeless heap.
“Riley.” Beck rushed over, his gun still in his hand and his eyes darting all around us, even as he crouched beside me. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” He must have been satisfied that there was no one else jumping out of the shadows, because he tucked his gun away and pulled out his phone instead. “Dylan, parking garage, now.”
“What the fuck just happened?” I squeaked, staring wide eyed at the dead man. Blood had begun pooling under him and was slowly crawling toward the drain that had saved my life.
Beck gathered me up in his arms and stood, carrying me away from the body and placing me gently down on the fire escape stairs. “Riley, baby,” he coaxed. “Tell me if he hurt you anywhere. Did he hit you? Cut you?”
