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Jeff’s brows dip. “I’m not sure I know who you’re referring to. I’m the only one on duty today.”
“How do you take breaks?” I ask before I go down the rabbit hole of trouble this is taking me down. “Do you have back-up?”
“Not today,” he says. “I’m only on shift for five hours.”
Emma chimes in then. “But there was a man in uniform behind the desk when we got here half an hour ago.”
“There was?”
“Yes,” Emma insists. “There was.”
“Maybe my supervisor is in the building and I don’t know it.” He grabs his walkie talkie and makes a call while Emma casts me a concerned look. I nod to confirm my like mind as Jeff returns his attention to us. “He’s not here. No one is on duty. Maybe it’s my relief man. Can you describe him?”
“I can,” I say, giving him the rundown.
He frowns. “I don’t know. I’ll find out who that was. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Maybe that’s the person who let York into my apartment,” Emma says. “We need to know who that was. Please. Get your supervisor to call me as soon as possible.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll call him on the priority phone.” He hurries away.
Emma turns to me. “Your hotel is sounding better by the minute.”
She’s right. It is. And I can’t get her out of this building fast enough.
Chapter twenty-eight
Jax
The ride to the hotel is short and Emma and I don’t speak outside of ordering our pizza and dealing with the delivery we won’t be at her apartment to accept. Once we’re at the hotel, rolling our bags toward the door, Emma whispers, “What the hell is going on, Jax?”
“I told you, sweetheart, I don’t know, but we’re damn sure going to find out.”
“How?”
“My father always said surround yourself with people who know more than you, and you’ll learn what they know and become smarter. In short, we figure this out by hiring an expert investigator and an army if needed.” We enter the lobby, and I wave off the bellman as I add, “But first we eat, before I chew someone’s arm off.”
“No kidding,” she agrees. “You take the right and I’ll take the left.”
We share a look that is as easy and right, as is that exchange. I want to kiss her. I want to fuck her. I want to just eat pizza with her, the latter of which is the real damn unknown. I’m not arelationship guy. No matter what I’ve said or thought up to this point, I need to remember that I’m damn sure not a relationship guy with Emma Knight. I’m suffocating in this woman and with danger in the air, I need to rein this in now.
That resolve last seconds, as we step onto the elevator and the air around us crackles with sexual tension and when I look at her, when our gazes collide, I want her up against the wall, her pants down and me buried inside her. That’s right. Fuck. I want to fuck her. That’s what this is. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.I still want to eat a damn pizza with her. I still want to know her story, get lost in it. I decide right then that out of all the unknowns right now, if any of them gets the best of me, it might just be her.
Once we’re back in my room, Emma and I quickly get settled, our bags setup on luggage racks just in time for the pizza to arrive, the ease of which we interact so smooth, it’s comfortable. Comfortable gets a man in my position fucked in all the wrong ways. And yet, when that steaming hot pizza arrives smelling so damn good, and we settle on the floor in front of the coffee table, my resolve starts to crumble. I open the box, and together we stare at the bubbly cheese, and in a snap, Emma brings me right back to her.
“Thank God,” Emma gushes. “I’m starving and I don’t even care if you see me eat an entire pizza. I just want it in my body.”
And there she goes being adorably her again. I laugh, tension easing deep in my gut, tension that I didn’t think would ever ease. Tension that started months before my brother’s death, when he wasn’t acting himself. But it does ease now and I find myself in the moment, focused on Emma, who doesn’t even hesitate.
She digs into the pizza, picking up a slice and taking a bite, her eagerness honest. She’s honest. I don’t feel many people are honest, but she is, this woman is, and a wave of protectivenessrises inside me. Why the hell am I trying to make her the enemy? It seems that’s what she’s endured all of her damn life.
“Where do you live?” she asks, settling her slice on her plate and plucking up a pepperoni. “Aside from Maine, of course.”
I grab a slice for myself. “I live in the castle.” I take a bite of the pizza.
“Have you always lived there?”
“Yes.” My lips thin with a topic that leads to no place good. “It’s divided into living quarters and business offices. Hunter and I lived in the castle. My youngest brother, Brody, has an independent streak. He lives in New York City. He runs North Whiskey and Cigar Shops from there.”
