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Ronan
Iris’s townhouse might’ve been nice on paper.Quiet, tree-lined street, well-kept building, relatively low crime in the area. It wasn’t for her, though. As soon as our driver pulled up in front of her building, I cussed up a storm in my head.
I hadn’t even gone inside and I was already fighting back anger. Did she have such little self-preservation, she didn’t see how easily her safety could be stolen? Or did she not care?
“You live on the ground floor?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“It’s not sidewalk level, but yes, I live on the first floor.” She turned her head to look at me. “Are we going inside or…?”
I got out of the car without answering her. Her front windowswereabove street level, but I hopped up on the low wall blocking the basement windows and peered inside her apartment. She had no bars on her windows. If I wanted, I could easily crowbar one open and be inside in under a minute.
I felt her standing behind me. When I jumped down and faced her, her arms were folded across her chest and her teeth dug into her bottom lip.
“You’re going to say something I don’t like, aren’t you?” she intoned.
“Possibly.” I mirrored her stance, crossing my arms. “You need bars on those windows.”
“No, I don’t like that at all.” She heaved a sigh, rolling her narrow shoulders forward. “I’m not going to argue with you after everything you say I don’t like. I’ll just wait until the end to throw a big fit.”
“Which I’ll ignore.”
She brushed by me, climbing the short set of steps to the entrance. “You haven’t seen one of my fits,” she called over her shoulder.
I went after her and stood behind her on the stoop as she struggled to get her key into the lock, which appeared brand new. Standing so close was a mistake, but her warm honey scent had locked me in place.
“Now you’ve gotten me curious about these fits, Iris.”
She glanced at me, which brought her face startlingly close to mine. “With the rate we’re going, you’re bound to piss me off enough to get me worked up.”
Reaching around her, I closed my hand over hers, extracting the key from her grasp. She jumped slightly when my chest brushed her back.
“Move if you don’t want me to knock you out of the way,” I murmured.
“Oh, well, with an offer like that…” She shifted to the side, allowing me to jiggle the key around in the lock until it finally cooperated. “You traitors. You work for him and not me?”
“Are you berating the key or the lock?” I held the door open for her, and she slipped by, her warm honey pulling me along.
“Can’t it be both?” She gestured around to the vestibule we were standing in. “Do you need to inspect out here or—?”
I walked away from her, taking in the shared entryway. A grand, original wood staircase took up the right side of the space, leading to another apartment. Iris’s door was on the left. Another was below the staircase, which I assumed led to the basement.
“You’ll need cameras on all entry points.” I kicked the front door and rattled the glass panel. “This will have to be reinforced. It isn’t original to the building, so it would be even better if it could be replaced.”
I made notes on my tablet as Iris unlocked her door.
“If Mrs. Krause is on board with it, I don’t have a problem with the front door being replaced. We’ll need to talk about who’s monitoring the cameras, though.”
“Mrs. Krause?” I closed her door behind me and examined her locks. She had three. At first glance, they seemed to be sturdy, but I knew how easily doors could be kicked in. I made a note to add another lock.
“My upstairs neighbor. She owns the top two floors.” Iris threw herself down on her sectional sofa and toed off her boots. In loose, worn jeans, a wife beater tank, and studded belt, she managed to look both sexy as hell and like she didn’t give a damn. “God, it feels good to be home.” She stretched her arms over her head, and her tank slipped up, revealing a slip of tattooed stomach.
She was a distraction, but not enough of one I didn’t hear the implication behind her statement.
“You’re not staying here tonight.”
She jackknifed to a sitting position, pink-cheeked and stormy-eyed. “I hate to tell you, but you don’t get to decide where I sleep.”
I maintained a level voice even though she made me want to grab her and shake some sense into her. Her door had been broken down, apartment vandalized, in the time it took her to walk Daisy to the park in the middle of the day, and no one had noticed anything until it had already happened.
