“Well, we don’t know that for sure,” John said. “But it seems likely.”
Jack bobbed his head. “You drove straight to your hotel when you got into town?”
“Well, besides driving around the other day, just seeing the sights. Ooh, I went to Palisades and saw a wildfire! It was terrifying. And I got stuck on the side of a mountain and John had to save me and…” She ducked her head sheepishly. “Sorry. You don’t want to know all that.”
“Right now, honey, we just need to know where all you’ve been so we can make sure you’re safe,” Jack said patiently.
Trixie perked up. “I realized L.A. traffic is crazy. So I took a rideshare everywhere else.”
“Like to Auntie Athena’s,” Jack said.
“Uh-huh,” Trixie confirmed.
“Makes sense,” John said, now seeming to be talking to Jack instead of Trixie. “They didn’t have to follow her all the way here from Vegas. They just watched the tracker, saw what hotel she went to, and hired outside muscle to sit on it and keep watch.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “That damned Todd Stark and his so-called security firm.”
“Yep. We know the guy has the morals of an alley cat,” John said.
“That’s giving him too much credit.”
John laughed. “Fair enough. But working for a crime family is absolutely something he’d do. Anything to make a buck, right?”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t explain how they got the hotel keycard. But one of those can be snatched.”
“Just pickpocket a guest, take theirs, and you have access to the elevators,” John said.
All of it was making Trixie feel sick. The room was spinning. She was either going to pass out or throw up. Maybe both.
The fact that she was being hunted by such dangerous people was enough to nearly send her into shock.
For a moment, she was falling back, as if her body instinctively knew she needed to lie down. Before she could bang her head on the floor, John was at her side, on his knees, taking hold of her to gently guide her down.
She was okay now.
Daddy was there.
Chapter Seventeen
Trixie awoke to find herself nestled safely in a pair of strong arms in a very comfortable bed.
For a moment, she kept her eyes closed, breathed in the scent of the man who held her, and sighed wistfully. This was her favorite dream. She had it quite often, especially after falling asleep reading the Daddy romances that filled her Kindle.
It was wonderful.
Only… it wasn’t a dream this time.
Memories of the previous day came flooding back to her memory. She sat up with a start, wrangling free of those powerful arms, and looked at John.
That’s when she remembered—she’d nearly passed out, listening to John and Jack talk about her case, before collapsing in his arms and asking him to hold her.
Sometime after that, she must have drifted off to sleep.
Oh gosh, Trixie! You asked him to hold you? Can you be any more pathetic? You practically threw yourself at him!
All of that had happened on the floor of the playroom. Now, they were in a bed. Hmm.
“I carried you to bed,” he said, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “You asked me to stay.”
