Page 52 of Get A Fix

I was chuckling as we all got on the elevator. Before I got off with my new favorite family, Ash gave me a kiss and was smiling as the doors closed between us.

“Who won the boyfriend lottery?” Ainsley asked as we walked down the hall toward their room. “I’m going to say you, sir.”

If only it were true.

Once Gemma was down, which took a few minutes because she wanted me to stay while she changed into her pajamas and then needed me to tuck her in, as soon as I kissed her on the forehead, she rolled over and fell back to sleep.

“You really are the baby whisperer,” Ainsley told me.

I said my good-nights then, hugged both Ainsley and Jeff, and was out the door quickly.

When I got upstairs, halfway down the hall I saw that the door was open. Since I couldn’t think of a reason why that would be, I sprinted there fast, and when I slipped inside, I could hear raised voices from the bedroom—technically, one person yelling. Ash. Closing the door, I rushed toward the sound and arrived in the room to find a man putting on his clothes that were in a pile on the floor.

“Are you sure you want me to keep putting things on?” the guy asked Ash in a leering, seductive tone.

“I want you to get the fuck out!” Ash rasped, and I noted he was shaking as he paced at the end of the bed, looking pale and anxious.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

He jolted like I’d scared him and then rushed over, putting his hands on both sides of my neck, staring into my face. “I swear to you, I didn’t know this man was going to be in our bed when I⁠—”

“You were in our bed?” I roared, pulling free of Ash’s hands and charging the guy.

The guy swiped his shirt, suit jacket, socks, and shoes off the floor and bolted out of the room with just underwear and pants on. I followed fast, catching up near the front door, bodychecking him hard so that he was slammed face-first into the wall to the left.

“What the fuck, man?” he yelled, sounding a bit terrified. “It was a joke.”

“Yeah, it was hilarious,” I barked, holding him still with my forearm pressed between his shoulder blades. “I’m laughing my ass off, can’t ya tell?”

“The guy said I’d get the chance to fuck Ashford Lennox. How could I turn that down?”

“I get it, I do,” I said, fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.

“The hell are you doing?” His voice was rising in panic.

“If you move off that wall, I will call the police on you”—I had his driver’s license out now—“Robert Doolin.”

“It was a joke,” he repeated as I took a picture of his ID. “You can’t do⁠—”

“I can. You illegally entered this room with a stolen key that I want right now.”

He pulled it from his other back pocket and held it out to me.

“No, put it on the side table right there.”

He did as told, then turned to me, face scrunched up, looking like he was about to crawl out of his skin.

“I’m going to have that dusted for prints if you don’t tell me who gave it to you.”

“What’re you, some kind of cop?” he asked as I tossed him his wallet.

“No, I’m some kind of FBI agent,” I told him, scowling for emphasis. “Whoever gave you that card had you unlawfully entering the room of a federal agent.”

“Fuck,” he groaned loudly, beginning to fidget, shifting from one leg to the other. “I didn’t— You gotta⁠—”

“Tell me who gave you the key,” I pressed him. “And don’t lie to me because you go to jail for five years for lying to an FBI agent.”

And that was true, a fact I knew because I had a buddy in Chicago, Spencer Crouse, who actually was an FBI agent, and I remembered random crap he told me.