“Yeah, I think I can handle the rest,” she said. “But I’ll give a shout if I need any more help.”
He chuckled as he backed out the door. “Any more help, and I might as well just get in the shower with you.”
Dreya bit back a moan as she imagined Braden washing her back—and her front. His lazy perusal of all her revealed skin along with a fresh wave of arousal implied he was thinking the same thing.
“I’ll get to work on dinner,” he said. “Take as long in the shower as you need to.”
She stood there long after he closed the door, wondering what the hell had just happened—or almost happened. The two of them had come damn close to kissing, and it probably wouldn’t have stopped there. Even as tired and beat up as she was, she’d still been thinking of stripping Braden naked and getting crazy all over him on the bathroom floor.
That didn’t make any sense at all.
She reached into the shower and turned on the water, letting it warm up while she took off the rest of her clothes. The situation with the DCO was complicated enough at the moment. She didn’t need to make it worse by getting tangled up with Braden. The man was a cop; she was a thief. There was no way she should be having those kinds of thoughts about him.
Even so, she couldn’t ignore the evidence when she finally slipped off her panties and found out that she was soaking wet down there. Her head might know Braden was completely wrong for her, but her body—and her inner shifter—didn’t seem to agree. She was more aroused than she’d ever been. And that had been with Braden doing nothing more than helping her get undressed.
What the heck would it be like if he’d kissed her or stripped her until she was completely naked? Based on how excited she was, she might have orgasmed right on the spot if things had gone any further.
She stepped into the tub and under the warm water raining from the shower, sighing at how good it felt. Only the sound came out more like a feline yowl. She slapped a hand over her mouth, terrified that Braden would hear her and poke his head in the door, thinking someone had slipped an alley cat in here with her.
When the door didn’t open, she relaxed and let the warm water do its magic. After her sore muscles loosened up, she grabbed her body wash from the cradle on the wall and squeezed some into her hand. As she ran her soapy hands over her body, she couldn’t help thinking about how different showering would be if Braden had joined her.
Dreya closed her eyes and slipped a hand between her legs. Oh yeah, this wasn’t going to take long at all.
She was imagining Braden’s naked body pressing up against hers as he reached around to tease her clit with his fingers when her fangs and claws slid out. Suddenly, she was left with fingertips that definitely weren’t going to work for what she’d been planning.
“Well, hell,” she muttered.
Chapter 8
“So, Miles, tell me. Have you ever tried to kill yourself?” Dr. Brand asked in a conversational tone.
Trevor Maxwell leaned back in the leather armchair and lazily regarded the man on the other side of the desk from him. When Gail Meadows had briefed him for this undercover mission before he’d left DC, she’d told him that question would probably be one of the first things Brand would grill him about. He didn’t have nearly as much of a problem with it as he did with the name he was using on this undercover mission.
Miles.
It’d been bad enough reading it in the file, but hearing it out loud? It sounded like something a socially awkward person would call their pet turtle—or maybe a houseplant they were really fond of. Where the hell had Ivy and Landon come up with that name?
“Miles?” Brand prompted.
Trevor still didn’t answer. Instead, he deliberately made a show of taking in the exotic wood paneling, expensive antique desk, high-tech computer, and collection of real potted plants that must be an absolute bitch to keep watered, as well as the two huge orderlies who stood off to the side, eyeing him like they were praying he’d give them an excuse to tackle his ass.
He gave Brand a smile. “I suppose that depends on what you mean byhave you ever tried to kill yourself?”
Meadows had told him the things he needed to avoid to keep the psychiatrist from figuring out he was faking it, just like she’d told him how to walk, talk, and behave to make a professional like Brand think he was looking at a textbook case of schizophrenia with a touch of bipolar disorder thrown in. Her best advice hadn’t been related to his supposed psychology disorder though. It had been about the man himself.
“If you hand him textbook responses like you’ve practiced it, he’s going to see right through you,” she’d said. “Make him have to figure you out, and you’ve got him.”
Brand returned his smile. “It’s not that complicated of a question, Miles. Have you ever intentionally done anything that could result in your death?”
Trevor had to fight to keep from laughing. If this guy knew what he did for a living, not to mention how many times he’d intentionally walked into a situation knowing he was going to get shot to shit, he’d stamp “Medicate Heavily” on his forehead and keep him locked up forever. But of course, Brand didn’t know what Trevor did for a living. He didn’t even know Trevor existed. He thought he was dealing with a rich guy named Miles Walker, whose very rich sister wanted him to put away.
“If you ask my dear sweet sister, the answer would be yes,” Trevor drawled. “But that’s because she’s a prissy prima donna who can’t imagine doing anything her boring socialite friends would disapprove of. When I go rock climbing, she calls me crazy. When I drive my bike a little over the speed limit, she says I’m suicidal and gets me tossed in a padded cell. I’m living my life, and she can’t handle it.”
Brand nodded and flipped through the pages of Miles’s very thick, very fictitious medical record. “I think you’d agree your sister might have a reason to be concerned. That rock climbing session you mentioned was on the U.S. Capitol Building. And that outing on your bike, the one when you were driving a little over the speed limit, was on the I-395 at four o’clock in the morning, and you were clocked doing a hundred and seventy before the police pulled you over. I think most reasonable people would consider both of those actions to be crazy and suicidal.”
Trevor shrugged and went back to looking around the room. “I don’t see what’s so suicidal about climbing around on the Capitol.”
Brand raised a brow. “Your file says that a sniper almost shot you. Didn’t you think that might be the response to a man climbing around on the Capitol when Congress is in session?”
