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Instantly the chill left me, and something else replaced it—need.
God, I wanted the woman.
Badly.
I knew it was a bad idea.
I knew that I should likely stay away.
I knew it, yet I stayed where I was anyway.
Stretching my arm out over the top of the swing, I slowly started to rock us back and forth, hyper-aware of how hot and soft her body felt pressed lightly against mine.
She wasn’t leaning into me per se, but she wasn’t leaning away, either.
“How many more hours of sleep do you need to catch?” I asked curiously.
She took a few seconds to answer, making my lips twitch.
“Umm.” Her voice sounded husky. “Probably at least two or three. Possibly even more. I rarely get over four hours of sleep a day, but I always shoot for at least six. Though it never happens.”
I thought about asking her for more details on why she got so little sleep, but I liked the softness of her body. I liked the way she kept leaning farther and farther into me, giving me more and more of her weight.
Soon she’d have her head resting on my chest.
“I haven’t caught any,” I admitted. “I had some work to do when I got home.”
“What kind of work?” she asked curiously.
I felt my lips twitch. “The kind that has to do with your dad. Are you privy to all that goes on at Free?”
She snorted. “Mostly. I have a few things that I help them with upon occasion, but they try to keep us out of it. Janie, you met her, right?”
At my nod, she continued. “Janie kind of wormed her way in, working on the computers and running background checks, etc. When she started making herself really useful, they offered her a job. Me, on the other hand? I don’t really have anything to offer them. I don’t have any special skills or anything like Janie.”
Janie was a computer wizard. I’d learned over the last couple of days about a lot of the people that worked for the organization. Janie was the youngest of them all, followed shortly by Hoax and his friend who, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name.
Slowly but surely, the men that created the organization were finding people they trusted to take over. Though, I wouldn’t be one of those people.
Max may trust me and want me to do it, but I had other reasons for not wanting to stay—I didn’t want to get another woman killed.
“I have to apologize,” Harleigh said softly, jumping slightly when a loud boom of thunder shook the still night air around us. “I was the one to give your name to my father.”
“You were?” I asked curiously. “When did you do that?”
She shifted against me and leaned even more into my side, positioning her legs to rest against my hard thigh.
“When I first met you a few years ago,” she answered. “Did my dad tell you about Tray and Dre?”
“No,” I answered. “You do remember I thought y’all were married, right?”
I heard her giggle.
“Tray is Dre’s brother…” she began the story, telling me about Dre, the home invader, and the memory loss associated with their story. “The man that lives across the street.” She lifted her arm and pointed to the house. The one that had the moving truck in front of it not too long ago. “That’s Dre’s…um, man.”
I made a grunting sound in my throat.
“That just fuckin’ sucks,” I admitted. “Did Dre ever try to get in there?”
“Dre’s afraid to push him,” she admitted. “Any time Dre gets close to him, Craig starts to get agitated. As if he’s remembering something, but he’s purposefully suppressing the memories—at least that’s what I think he’s doing anyway.”
I tapped my bottom lip with one finger, thinking.
“I’ve seen him staring at your house before,” I found myself saying. “Just standing there, watching. I almost went over there and asked him what his problem was. I’m kind of wishing I did, now.”
Harleigh made a noise in the back of her throat and leaned a little farther into me.
My arm snaked just a little bit farther around her, cupping her shoulder and part of her upper arm now.
“You’re like the smallest person I’ve ever had snuggled up against me,” I found myself saying.
She snorted. “I’m vertically challenged. I get it from my mama.”
I rolled my eyes and grinned. “I would’ve never guessed.”
“I was like a pound at birth.” She yawned. “I was born prematurely. We have pictures of me with my dad’s wedding ring around my ankle. And also me in a Sonic cup. They’re framed on the mantle at my parents’ place.”
A gust of wind had some of her hair up and blowing across my face, and I absently reached over and tucked it back down but left my hand in her hair.
