AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Summer was in so much trouble. That southern charm and wide-eyed innocent look would not get her out of trouble this time. She hadn’t told Alyssa that Shane and Sebastian had been there after Margot’s death. Just as she hadn’t told her how Alyssa had reaquired the necklace. Alyssa had actually thought Summer had stolen it somehow. The wretch.
“Whatever it takes.” Stepping into the bedroom, he moved through darkness to the bed and laid Alyssa gently on the blankets the maid had turned down earlier.
The maid turned them down every night, pulled them up every day. Alyssa never slept in the bed, despite the months she’d spent searching for it.
Light spilled into the room from the small table lamp and she felt Shane pause. Tension mounted inside her as he stared around the room.
“Did Stanhope ever sleep in this room with you?” His voice was harsh, rasping in his throat.
Alyssa shook her head.
Harvey had never slept in any bed with her. He’d never been a husband in any way but name. She’d insisted on it.
She knew what Shane saw, though. A near replica of the bedroom in Spain. The tile floors and scattered rugs. The iron bed and antique tables next to it. The windows behind the headboard.
It was her only concession to moving back to the Hampstead mansion after her mother’s death. The renovations to the bedroom had to be completed quickly. Alyssa didn’t sleep there, though. She slept on the couch in the other room and watched the night outside the windows.
“Alyssa,” the whispered sound of her name had her throat tightening.
“Leave,” she demanded, though her voice lacked any true strength this time.
“Alyssa.” His fingers clenched in her hair, pulling her head back.
She couldn’t meet his gaze, but that wasn’t what he wanted.
He wanted her kiss.
With hungry demands and fierce, arrogant eroticism his lips moved over hers, his tongue stroking forcefully between them to meet hers. It was nothing like any other kiss he or Sebastian had given her. It was nothing like any kiss she’d ever had in her life.
Hot, filled with dominance and sexual intent, it was erotic, spiked with lust and with something more. A something she didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to know.
When he pulled back, his lips slid to her ear and brushed against it softly. “Let it be another dream, siren,” he whispered, the bleak hunger in his voice tightening her chest. “When you wake, we’ll be gone and you can tell yourself it never really happened.”
16
Alyssa would have considered lunch at her favorite restaurant a treat at any other time, she thought as the waiter showed her to the private veranda where Ian Sinclair, owner of the Sinclair Men’s Club, his private investigator, Chase Falladay, and one of the higher-ranking members, Khalid Mustafa, were awaiting for her along with Ian’s wife, Courtney, and Khalid’s wife, Marty, a former FBI agent.
Allowing Ian to help her with her chair, Alyssa looked at each of them as Khalid poured her a glass of wine and placed it in front of her.
“Well then,” she said softly, letting her fingers touch the flared base of the glass. “I wasn’t really hungry this afternoon, so should we go ahead and get down to the reason for this little meeting?”
Ian grimaced at the question as she noticed Courtney’s arm moving as though to place a comforting hand on her husband’s leg.
“I knew it wasn’t a social call when you asked for the meeting, Ian.” Alyssa sat back and watched him closely. “So why not just get to the point so I can finish my errands for the day. Does this have something to do with Saturday night?” Her gaze flicked to Marty and Courtney.
“Not yet,” Khalid assured her, and though his dark eyes were friendly and warm, there was a tightness at his lips that assured Alyssa she didn’t want to hear whatever it was.
“Discussions concerning Saturday night are off the table,” she stated firmly, then turned back to Ian. “Is that why you’re here as well?”
“Unfortunately, no,” he sighed. “I wish my reason for being here were that simple, Alyssa. It isn’t.”
She picked up the wine and sipped. On second thought, she went ahead and took a healthy drink. She had a feeling she was going to need it.
“Shall I begin, Ian?” Chase asked then, though his tone of voice wasn’t one of a man seeking permission. “Alyssa, as you’re aware, the rules concerning the club aren’t just those that they agree to for the protection of the club. There’s also those the club itself makes for each member for their protection as well.”
Alyssa nodded warily. She could feel the trepidation rising inside her now, some warning that this meeting wasn’t going to be just about Sebastian and Shane. If it was about them at all.
“Yesterday, a little after daylight, a program was isolated in several computers used by members in the social rooms. The program was created to infiltrate the club’s mainframe and isolate all files and information concerning several club members. You were one of those members, as well as a close associate of the other two.”
