Текст книги "Nauti Seductress"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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What was it about those pale, pale green eyes and Zoey’s pleas not to leave her, to keep her warm, that caused the break in his control and in the wall he maintained around his emotions?

Rubbing his hands over his face and blowing out a hard breath, Doogan forced back the regret, the stirrings of anger. If he was going to help her, if he was going to fix this, then he had to keep his head.

Without saying anything more to Zoey he rose from the bed, his movements drawing the detective’s attention. Before she could speak, he motioned her to the other room.

He didn’t want Zoey’s memories further influenced by anything they might say between them. Her mind was so completely open at the moment, the effects of the hallucinogenic she’d been given at its height. Any suggestion, any discussion in her hearing could influence her thoughts and memories detrimentally.

Closing the door silently behind them, he pointed to the door of the guest room across the living room and followed her into that room. Once again securing the door, he breathed out heavily, wearily.

“Harley answer your text yet?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.

She gave a quick nod. “He asked to meet in another hour at Ziggler’s All Niter, the convenience store at the north end of town. He said he was hunting at the moment.”

Hunting. He was no wildlife hunter. Harley, despite his youth, was one of the best human trackers Doogan had ever had the discomfort of meeting.

Sam cleared her throat then, her hazel-green gaze wary, heavy with fear for the young woman now sleeping in her bedroom. Sam had a soft spot for the other young woman. It wasn’t lust, or love, but her affection for Zoey ran deep.

“I checked her arm,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “There’s evidence of several injection sites made in the past few hours . . .”

“Zoey does not do drugs, Doogan,” she hissed, furious. Gathering the long curls that fell over her shoulder, she pushed them behind her as though preparing to battle.

“You didn’t allow me to finish, Detective,” he pointed out, berating her mildly. “As I said, the injection sites were made in the past few hours. She has all the signs of having been dosed with a powerful hallucinogenic. It literally rips the mind open and allows someone with the right training to convince the person something has occurred that didn’t. In this case, that she killed Harley for trying to rape her.”

Sam flinched.

She crossed her arms over her breasts, the gray ribbed cotton wife-beater tank she wore with loose gray shorts attesting to the lateness of the hour. She’d been asleep when the sound of a vehicle stopping outside her neighbor’s small patio awakened her. At least, that was what she told her father, director of Homeland Security John David Bryce.

“Why?” she demanded.

To that, Doogan shrugged. “She’s a Mackay; according to Timothy, trouble shadows them. Where’s her sister Lyrica? Doesn’t she have the apartment beside you?”

“She’s staying the weekend with Kye Brock, Graham’s sister.” Sam paced across the room. Turning back to him she watched him suspiciously. “What the hell’s going on, Doogan?”

Doogan pursed his lips thoughtfully. Sliding his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he leaned a shoulder into the wall and considered her question for a moment.

“You would know that better than I do. What could the Mackays be involved in that framing Zoey for the murder of a friend, would profit someone?” he asked.

“Murder?” the detective snapped. “I just talked to him by text.”

“But Zoey believes she killed him. Harley said he was hunting,” Doogan agreed. “Harley doesn’t hunt four-legged prey, Sam. Despite his age, Harley’s the best damned human tracker I’ve ever heard of. He came to me when he tracked a killer to Somerset. That’s why he’s here, tracking a monster no one has been able to catch.”

Should he have anticipated this, Doogan asked himself?

But how could he have? Neither he nor Harley were connected to Somerset. His agents were based here, but Harley hadn’t known the Mackays before following his target into the area. As for Doogan, he’d seen Zoey only once, five years before. The target he and Harley were chasing couldn’t possibly know she was a weakness to Doogan?

“Who?”

Doogan let a grin touch his lips. “That’s why he’s good, Sam. Harley doesn’t know what his suspect looks like, he just knows the human ‘tracks’ his suspect leaves. He’s been trying to identify him for over a year now. But framing Zoey for his murder wouldn’t serve any purpose.”

“He and Natches are friends,” Sam pointed out. “Zoey’s Natches’s cousin and he’d never believe she killed him. Besides, she has an instant defense in her belief he was trying to rape her.”

“Makes no sense.” Doogan shook his head, one hand reaching back to rub at the back of his neck, irritation beginning to slip past his normally cool façade.

“There has to be a reason. Something we’re not seeing,” he muttered.

“Damn, Dawg will lock her in a hole so deep and filled with Mackay brotherly love she’ll smother to death.” Sam grimaced. “Hell of a way to die. So you can forget figuring out why anyone targeted her.”

It was a running joke that the Mackay cousins, once the scourge of Pulaski County and surrounding areas for their sexual hijinks and penchants for troublemaking, made certain Dawg’s sisters lived totally different lives. Completely innocent, virginal lives.

“Dawg can’t know about this, Sam.”

She froze for long seconds, simply staring at him.

“Are you kidding me?” she almost wheezed with wide-eyed disbelief. “Dawg finds out we held this from him, Doogan, and he’ll kill both of us. And he will find out. Trust me.”

It amazed him how terrified everyone was of Dawg Mackay and his cousins. They were formidable enemies, agreeably, and no doubt, they’d be enraged when they learned Zoey had been in danger. But they’d never kill a woman.

“And when she dies of brotherly love and overprotection? Or whoever did this to her tonight finds a way to get to her again and ‘suggests’ she kill herself? Herself and her family? Her nieces? Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” he asked, barely managing to keep the cool, uncaring appearance he’d adopted over the past hellish year.

Could he bear seeing anything or anyone harming this innocent young woman? After all he’d lost, the thought of losing more threatened the hard-won control he’d managed to salvage in the past months.

Sam’s nostrils flared and she glared at him in silent fury and denial. It was evident she had no desire to risk their wrath in any way.

“Hate me all you want to,” he suggested, icy determination reflecting in his tone. “But before you go to Dawg, remember this. They got to her tonight. She’s in her pajamas, so she was obviously in her room, asleep. Right beneath Timothy’s nose they took her, Sam. They drugged her and tried to convince her she killed Harley Perdue. And if they convinced her, then she’ll confess to it. She’s a Mackay.” Swiping his fingers through his hair, he knew no matter what he said, Sam would still go with her gut. “It’s in their fucking blood or some shit.”

And he had no doubt the little Mackay now sleeping in Sam’s bed was a Mackay all the way to her soul.

He gave a short, approving nod when she said nothing more.

“Now, we have to get her back to her bed without anyone being the wiser. Especially her brother. Otherwise, she’ll never believe this was all a dream.”

Sam shook her head, one hand slapping to her forehead in a gesture of utter amazement before glaring at him, the disbelief growing.

“Wow, Doogan, that’s a hell of a fucking order,” she snorted, her hands propping on her hips then. “Why don’t we rob Fort Knox next?”

His brow arched mockingly. She could be a smart-ass, even as a child.

“I haven’t finished the plan for that one yet. The plan for this one is easy, though. We have about four hours before the sedative I gave her wears off and she wakes up. We’ll slip her into my truck and I’ll get her to the inn, where Eli can help me do the rest.”

A light brown, heavily mocking brow lifted slowly. “Eli hates you, Doogan. Worse than the rest of us do,” Sam warned him.

Honest little bitch of late, wasn’t she, he mocked silently.

“That’s really not true.” He denied the claim, amused. “But Zoey Mackay, he loves like a little sister and he hates what Dawg does to her. He’ll help her, even if he does have a few issues with me. Now, go make that meeting. I’ll take care of our little Mackay.”

Her lips thinned, her eyes suddenly narrowing in suspicion.

“How do you just happen to have syringes, sedatives, and everything needed to draw blood samples, Doogan? And you’re just conveniently here?” She held one hand out as her expression tightened with anger.

“I’m just prepared like that,” he assured her. And he actually was. “Would you like to come see the other supplies I carry in my pickup? You might be amazed.”

“I might want to shoot you even more than I want to do so now.”

And that was possible.

“You have things to do,” he reminded her. “I’ll call Elijah and get him over here. Hopefully, this can be accomplished without too much trouble.”

–

It was late morning when Zoey woke in her bed. Terror was a sickening taste in her mouth, the fear of what she would find when she looked around the room dragging a sob from her throat.

She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want to see the carnage she was terrified awaited her.

Sitting up in the bed, she forced herself to look, though. Whatever had happened, whatever she’d done, she’d face it.

But oh God, she didn’t want to . . .

Biting back a sob, tremors racing through her, she sat up and opened her eyes.

Then blinked.

There was no body, there was no blood. No blood on the walls, no blood on her blankets and sheets as she remembered. Her sheets were wrinkled and tangled, the comforter trailing to the floor.

A whimper left her lips at the pain throbbing in her temples and echoing through her muscles. She hurt so bad. Every bone and muscle in her body screamed in protest as she slid her legs slowly over the bed and forced herself to stand, to check the rest of her suite.

Stumbling, holding on to the furniture to brace herself against the weakness that made her legs feel like jelly, Zoey forced herself to the bathroom. In that far-too-realistic dream she’d thrown up, more than once. If she had, there would be something in the bathroom. Some proof of it, surely.

But there was none.

It was as spotless as it had been the night before. There was nothing out of place; nothing had been moved. The shower door was open as she always left it, her used towel folded in half and hanging on the glass door.

Backing out of the smaller room, her steps halting, tentative, she pushed through the door to the sitting room.

It was similarly neat. Her sketch pad lay where she had placed it the night before, the canvas she was working on carefully covered and sitting on the easel. The plastic wrapper that covered a new paintbrush still lay under the coffee table where she’d forgotten to pick it up. It hadn’t been moved.

Forcing her steps backward again, Zoey returned to her bedroom and stood in the middle of it, shaking at the knowledge that whatever had happened . . . hadn’t happened?

Fisting her fingers, she fought back the tears that would have fallen and looked down at her sore wrists. They were unmarred, no bruising, no scratches.

Covering her lips with one hand, Zoey bit back the scream tightening her throat. A whimper escaped, though. Low, drawn out, the sound was filled with fear.

Just a nightmare?

Zoey shook her head.

“It wasn’t just a nightmare,” she whispered, to assure herself she could speak. Because in those nightmarish memories, or dreams, she’d been unable to scream.

Something had happened, she just didn’t know what. Or why.

But she knew to the depths of her soul, something bad had happened.

ONE

One year later

Music pulsed in a hard, throbbing beat, filling the exercise room on the ground floor of the small converted warehouse Zoey rented. The ground floor hid a twelve-foot-deep garage at the back that ran the width of the warehouse. A storage area hid the back garage, and then the gym was in front of it with its wall of mirrors, exercise machines, punching bag, and huge matted area she used for sparring with Eli, practicing the martial arts moves he was teaching her, or dancing to the oldies to tighten whatever.

She didn’t get to dance to the oldies much, but the sparring and martial arts practice she managed to get in pretty often.

In front of the gym was the front garage, an area large enough for four full-sized vehicles, though only one was kept there. Her bicycle, moped, and small work area were walled off. The rest of the lower floor, about the full length of the other half of the building, sat empty and closed off from the areas in use. Zoey was still considering the best way to utilize it if the owner ever decided to sell the building to her.

The second-floor apartment with its huge living area, master bedroom, and three guest rooms, all with their private baths, boasted floor-to-ceiling windows spaced perfectly along the walls to let in maximum sunlight. When combined with the unique custom-made clear acrylic skylights set abundantly in the roof, it was like being outside.

Or, with the press of an icon on the computer-controlled program, she could darken every window, or just one. It was the windows and skylights she loved. She could open a whole wall in the room she used for her canvases, and the ceiling as well, and flood it with heat and light. She loved the feeling of painting outdoors while protected by the fact that she was actually indoors.

She wasn’t painting now, though. She hadn’t painted much, period in the past year. She’d been too busy dealing with damned nightmares and fantasies and getting them all mixed up in her head to the point that she felt tortured by both. The best Zoey had managed were several dozen dark, blood-soaked nightmares cloaked as fantasy images of death and betrayal.

They were selling, though. They were selling too well, considering they were born from the terrifying images that stole her voice and her strength in her nightmares.

Slamming her fist into the punching bag, she danced around with slow, rhythmic steps, ignoring the fact that she could no longer feel the jolting pain in her muscles and joints that she felt when she first began. She wasn’t as weak or as vulnerable as she had been a year ago. She still had a long way to go, but she was learning.

She had learned to shoot and managed to purchase two Baby Glocks of her own. She was still learning to throw knives, but the expert at that was her cousin Natches’s wife, Chaya. And Natches was so damned suspicious of everything that she rarely had a chance to convince her cousin-in-law to teach her more.

Thankfully, Chaya and Natches’s daughter was becoming very interested in it, and Natches’s objections had been swiftly vetoed by his wife. So hopefully, soon, there would be regular lessons.

She was learning martial arts, learning how to fight, and toning her muscles to enable her to protect herself in most situations.

Sweat poured down her face, dripped from the side of her neck, and dampened the long, jet-black hair pulled into an intricate braid along the top of her head before twisting into the heavy rope that fell past her shoulders.

Her brief sports bra was soaked, her skin damp with moisture, while the black shorts she wore clung to her skin. Still, her heartbeat wasn’t up as it should have been, her pulse remained steadier than it had in past months, and her muscles weren’t burning yet.

She couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until her body was ready to collapse from weariness and exhaustion. She couldn’t. If she did, then she had to think, she had to remember the nightmares, and that she didn’t want to do.

She slammed her wrapped fist harder into the heavy bag, her teeth gritting, desperation lancing through her senses as she began pounding at the punching bag. She didn’t want to remember . . .

“It was a dream,” the dark voice commanded, barely loud enough to hear but pulsing with the demand.

The shadowy image stepped into her dreams, his warmth wrapping around her, sinking inside her. She could feel him, and it made her ache to feel him closer. To feel him without the barrier of clothes, hot and naked against him while his powerful hands touched her.

“You’re safe, Zoey. You’re safe. Harley’s safe. It was a terrible, terrible nightmare.”

A nightmare.

A terrible dream.

So why hadn’t anyone seen Harley since that night? He didn’t answer his phone or his texts, nor had he returned to the apartment he’d rented. Several witnesses saw him that night at an all-night convenience store, after an obvious fight, gassing his truck. He’d even told the young woman he was seeing that he was leaving town and didn’t know when he’d be back. But surely he would have answered calls to his cell phone, the texts or desperate emails she’d sent since that night.

It was just a dream, Zoey.

That shadowy image of the man who had taken her into his arms for such a brief time, danced with her, then left, haunted her. His voice, reassuring her and his arms holding her.

It was a nightmare. A terrible dream . . .

Damn, you were in trouble when your dream man lied to you in your dreams. There had to be some kind of psychosis that went with that. She had no doubt there was one. And it was just her luck to be afflicted by it. Because she knew he was lying to her, she could feel it. And she hated it.

“Zoey, do you hear me?” he urged her, that demand piercing her soul, pulling at her even now. It was just a dream, nothing more. And she believed it was all a dream. She really did.

“Don’t ever forget you killed me, Zoey . . .”

Her fist plowed into the bag as a harsh sob tore from her throat. Did she believe it? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. The nightmare of blood, death and pain, or the fantasy that stroked pleasure through her senses.

Holding on to the bag, her muscles trembling, Zoey closed her eyes, sinking into the memory of that nightmare, that fantasy, just as it had been before she awoke that morning.

“I’m scared . . .” She was terrified. Until his voice came.

Now it was a fear of being alone to face the demons once his voice was gone. The demons that raged and clashed inside her head and fought to convince her that she had indeed killed Harley.

“Don’t be scared anymore, Zoey.” Warm, callused fingertips eased from her temple to her jaw. “Listen to me, and everything will be okay.”

She imagined she could make out a hint of his face, his profile perhaps. Strong features, dark eyes. His smiles were sad and filled with a loss of hope.

“Zoey. You have to listen to me so the pain will go away.”

And that was all she had to do? Just listen to him? She didn’t believe that. She could sense there was more, something he did that made the fragments of her brain come back together again and the pain fade away.

What had he done? She could sense it, she could feel the answer, but it drifted away now, before she could capture it.

“See, I’m going to make it better, no matter what you do, pretty girl,” he whispered so softly she had to strain to hear him. Hunger filled his voice. Male hunger. The hunger a man feels for a woman, a lover. With no fear of the Mackays, no apprehension of what her brother might do. Just pure, carnal intent.

That intent filled her with pleasure. It stroked through her senses as his hands began stroking her body. Caressing her, stoking her need that much higher, hotter than ever.

“Isn’t this part of the dream so much nicer?” His lips brushed over her neck as he laid her back, his naked body coming over her.

For a moment she tensed. Harley came over her to hurt her. But there was no pain here. The shadowy features of her lover didn’t morph to Harley’s features as Harley’s did into a monster’s.

“I always like this part of the dream better than I do the part that rips open my skull and leaves me wanting to scream, but I can’t find my voice to scream.”

He knew what it felt like.

He knew the pain, the agony, and she hurt for him while she dreamed. Ached for the sense of intuition that assured her he’d suffered in untold ways and still faced the nightmares. “I hate that part of the nightmare too. See how much better this part is? See, that’s how you know it’s just a nightmare, baby. Because before it ends, if you don’t wake up, then I’ll be here with you and if I’m here, then the pain will go away.”

“Don’t leave me. Hold me.”

“Just for a little while, baby.” His lips eased over her fingers. “But I’ll be back. If you promise me you’ll know it was just a nightmare.”

She would promise him anything. “Just a nightmare.”

“Sleep for me now, Zoey,” he whispered. “Sleep. And know when you wake up that everything’s going to be fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“But it wasn’t just a nightmare,” she cried out as she pushed away from the heavy bag, her breathing rough and heavy, sweat soaking her skin.

Tearing off the tape wrapped around her hand, Zoey restrained the urge to kick something. She’d felt the anger burrowing deeper, growing stronger inside her since the night she dreamed she’d murdered Harley Perdue.

Her fingers found the plastic water bottle sitting on the cement ledge that ran along the outside wall. Gripping it firmly, she placed the straw in her mouth and drew on it, the cool water washing over her tongue, easing the dryness in her throat though the bitter taste of fear remained.

When she finished drinking she tipped her head back, squeezed the bottle, and let the water cool the heated flesh of her neck and shoulders before it ran into the already soaked material of the sports bra.

The music cut off abruptly. Swinging around, body bracing defensively, she immediately relaxed when she saw who had managed to slip into the gym with her.

Her sisters called him her hot, sexy roommate. He actually just rented one of the huge spare bedrooms at the other end of her apartment. He’d been the answer to a prayer in that first week after she moved in and realized she was panicking at every sound, certain someone was coming in on her.

He was always there in the evenings, never left the apartment at night, and he didn’t creep around either. He walked like a normal person instead of a ghost like her brother, cousins, and brothers-in-law were prone to do. A person never knew when they were sneaking up on her.

“Cute moves with the water,” he drawled, though his gaze was somber. “Give it some music and hippy twists and you have a winner there, Zoey.” Elijah Grant gave her a little wink.

His amused voice wasn’t so much a shock as a bit of a surprise. She gave a little snort at his comment.

“Sorry, bub, no stripping in my future so far. Check back next year.”

“My luck.” He shrugged negligently at the rejection before tipping his head to the side and watching her closely.

She hated it when he did that.

“Thought Graham had you working for the next few days. Some hush-hush spy stuff.” She grabbed the towel hanging on a peg attached to the wall and dried her face and shoulders. “I wasn’t expecting you until later tonight.”

His gray eyes watched her with thoughtful consideration. She hated it when he did that too. It meant she wasn’t holding back the stress from the nightmares as well as she should.

“I finished up early.” He finally shrugged before giving the punching bag a glancing punch, his gaze still on her.

Dressed in jeans, the bottoms of which were frayed behind the heels of his boots, and a dark T-shirt, he looked more like someone’s kid brother than an agent for Homeland Security who worked with her brother-in-law.

“So why are you here if you’re not working after all?” she queried, flashing him a mocking smile while looping the towel around her neck. “Can’t find a date willing to overlook odd hours and last-minute cancellations?”

A wry grin tugged at his lips while his handsome features flickered with amusement. “Pretty much. But I was hoping I could get you to do me a favor.”

“Anything.” And she meant it. He’d saved her sanity more than once in the past year. And he’d never told her brother the secrets that mattered, even when he’d witnessed one of the horrifying nightmares in progress and heard her cries that she’d killed Harley.

“I have to go meet Graham’s boss,” he admitted with a grimace, hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. “Bastard’s always trying to pull me into one of his half-assed ops and get me shot at. If you went with me, though, I could just tell him I was out with you when Graham called, and since you’re Dawg Mackay’s sister, we have to run,” he suggested with a hopeful look. “He wouldn’t dare get you mixed up in anything dangerous.”

Well, that wasn’t nice. She would probably enjoy it for a minute.

She had to laugh at his explanation, though. “Really, Eli? I think getting shot at comes with the job description, ya know? Besides, I thought you were keeping me and your boss’s boss far apart because of my wild hairs.”

“Those wild hairs of yours are reckless and without a lick of sense, Zoey,” he snorted. “But I think the whole Dawg Mackay threat will work just this once.”

He always accused her of getting a “wild hair” stuck crossways in her brain whenever she decided it was time to slip away from Pulaski County and be someone other than Dawg Mackay’s baby sister.

The trip actually sounded like fun, though. Something to take her mind off the nightmares that had only become worse in the past months.

“What time do we have to leave? I’ll need a shower first if I have time.” She strode across the gym, heading for the stairs that led to the apartment above.

“It was that easy?” He followed, the question faintly surprised.

“I told you it was,” she reminded him, turning her head to glance over her shoulder at him. “Come on, Eli, I wouldn’t have told you no if I wanted to and you know it. But we have to take the bikes. I haven’t been out in too long and felt the air rushing around me. I’ll kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

“Leave the guns here?” Eli sounded so hopeful.

God love his heart.

“You know, Eli.” Coming to a hard stop, she turned and faced him with a frown. “I practiced for three months before going for my license to carry and I passed with flying colors. I even make sure I spend at least two to three hours per week at the gun range. So what’s your problem with my gun?”

The Baby Glocks just looked damned good too. Unfortunately, she had to carry them in her saddlebags or under her jacket rather than in the thigh holsters she’d bought for them.

“You’re no superhero, Zoey.” He repeated the same argument he always used. “You just look good enough to be one, okay? That’s all. Freaky paranormal abilities do not come with the sexy leather you wear, baby doll.”

She had to flash him a smile for that one. “Too bad you’re not older, Eli, you have promise.”

He kept telling her she needed a lover. Someone to keep her warm at night and chase the nightmares away.

“I’m not that much younger than you, Zoey,” he pointed out rather eagerly as he followed her up the stairs again until they reached the second floor. “Come on, we’re the same age but for a few weeks. I’d make a helluva fuck-buddy.”

She threw her towel at him with a laugh. “Not this week, Eli. Sorry, bub.”

“Man. Do a lottery or something; then I can at least cheat and make sure I win,” he protested.

That brought her to a stop.

“A lottery for the position of my lover?” She was more amused than she should be.

His brows arched, a grin tugging at his lips. “Sounds good to me.”

“What if I want more from my first lover? Some kind of commitment or promises?” Propping one hand on a hip, she flicked him a knowing look.

Eli did not believe in commitment.

He grimaced immediately, a mock shudder trembling through his shoulders. “Stop trying to scare me. That’s not right. Besides, who better to be your first than your best bud?”

“Keep dreaming,” she suggested with a little wave of her fingers. “Now be quiet and don’t break any of my stuff while I shower. How long do I have?”

“Long enough to shower and shimmy into that black leather you look so good in,” he promised hopefully, his gray eyes filling with hope. “Come on. If I can’t win the lottery, at least wear the black leather.”

“Moron,” she charged, striding to her bedroom. “We’ll have to see about that.”

Of course she would wear the leather if she was riding the bike tonight. The days of baggy jeans and shirts two sizes too big were over the night she’d dreamed of blood and death. Her research into protecting herself after that had suggested clothing that wasn’t so easy to grab and restrain.

Showering and drying her hair always took far longer than Zoey liked. She’d actually been ready to have the mass of curls cut back to above her shoulders when her sisters had lost their minds over the idea. Now, she just dried it enough to get by with, laid several hair ties aside for later, and dressed.

The black leather pants slid over her skin like silk but hugged her toned legs and rounded hips like a lover’s hand, while the black cotton tank hugged her from breasts to hips.

Her black leather riding jacket finished the outfit.

She slid her Baby Glocks into the soft holsters inside the jacket. One on each side.

A scarlet belt settled at her hips.

Pulling her boots on, Zoey adjusted the leather that rose just over her knee, grabbed her jacket, and hurried from her bedroom.

As she suspected, Eli was in her kitchen. He’d managed to sniff out her hidden stash of peppermint patties too. The ass.

“Stay out of my candy, Eli,” she ordered, bracing her hand on her hip and narrowing her eyes at him.

He swallowed tightly, gray eyes widening to the point that they nearly bulged just before he coughed, the candy obviously stuck somewhere.

“Fuck, Zoey. Maybe the leather was a bad idea,” he wheezed. “Change clothes. You’ll cause the big boss to have a stroke or something.”

“You’re funny.” She smiled indulgently. “Where are we riding to anyway?”