AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They also carry too fast when you get loose with your lips, and I’d rather keep certain craziness to myself.
“I think,” I say, “we had two bad coincidences at once. I’d bet poor Emma overdosed at one of the Arrendells’ big parties and they’re trying to avoid having it linked to them, even if they wouldn’t be criminally liable. I think you showed up just in time to stumble into bad fucking coincidence number one, and bad coincidence number two happened to follow you here.”
“Sometimes the simplest explanation really works, huh?” She says it like she wants to believe it, but there’s obvious doubt in her question.
“Pretty much.” I slam the hatchback of the Kia down, putting my shoulder into it until it latches, before I blow out a breath and step back, dusting my hands off. “Let’s go get you moved in.”
I wait till she’s settled in the driver’s seat of her car before I climb in my own. It’s ridiculous, almost like I’m afraid someone’s going to snatch her out from under my nose in the two seconds it takes me to get behind the wheel.
“Relax, you moose,” I growl to myself.
It’s not a long drive from The Rookery to Delilah’s little cottage, but then nothing’s a long drive in Redhaven. Before long, we’re turning down that winding lane that ends at her house and the cozy embrace of trees.
I’m worried about her being ready for this. Getting over a frigging corpse on the floor sucks more out of you mentally than you’d ever imagine.
Not for long, though.
Soon, I’m far more worried about the man standing on the porch in his glossy steel-grey Armani suit. His wine-red Benz is parked right outside Delilah’s gate.
He’s leaning against one of the porch posts like he’s posing for a magazine shoot, so casual I could punch him right in his ugly little face.
Ulysses.
Fucking.
Arrendell.
What the hell’s he doing here?
And how do I get him real damned gone, real damned fast?
7
Red Handed (Delilah)
I haven’t seen this much testosterone bristling in one place in ages—and I used to walk past construction sites every day, full of men who didn’t get the message that in the twenty-first century, we don’t catcall girls on the street and make obscene gestures with our—erm, jackhammers.
Not anymore.
When I agreed to let Lucas help, I forgot all about Ulysses wanting to help me move in, too.
I guess it’s his way of apologizing for failing to protect me from my move-in horror.
Honestly, I feel like I’m being smothered in kindness lately. Everyone wants to help me, coddle me, treat me like a delicate little flower who’ll crumple at the slightest breeze.
But I’m not a delicate flower at all.
I’m not wilting.
I also don’t want to turn down any hospitality since I’m grateful for the sentiment behind it. I just don’t like wallowing when I can pick myself up and get things done.
But getting things done would sure go a lot faster if Lucas and Ulysses would stop taking potshots at each other. Especially since right now they’re currently locked in a staring contest for the ages over my flatscreen TV.
It’s the one expensive thing I own, considering it’s almost sixty inches—no size queen jokes, thank you very much.
Instead of cardboard boxes salvaged from the corner bodega in my old neighborhood, the TV is inside a huge reinforced wooden shipping crate with enough room for plenty of padding inside, adding to its weight.
It’s not a one-man job.
They’re trying to make it one anyway.
Ulysses shucked out of his nice, expensive-looking suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his silk dress shirt. It’s already ruined, I think, little bits of threads torn and tatty from catching on things.
I’d feel worse about it if he wasn’t currently gripping one end of the TV crate and glaring at Lucas down the length of it.
“You can let go now, Officer,” he grits out past a smile that’s all teeth, his eyes jade daggers. “I’ve got this.”
“The hell you do,” Lucas snarls back with the exact same smile.
Oh my God.
He’s holding the other end, standing on the sidewalk outside the fence with his back to the house, his whole wall of a body a roadblock. I think it stops Ulysses from using the TV crate like a bulldozer and just shoving the whole tangled mess of men and crate inside.
Lucas also stripped out of his uniform shirt earlier. Underneath, there’s nothing but a paper-thin white undershirt that’s gone almost completely see-through with sweat, matted to his skin over packed muscle—the kind that can’t possibly be real.
But apparently, here I am, seeing my first real eight-pack out in the wild in the most awkward dick-measuring contest ever.
“You know,” Ulysses grinds out, “just because I’m rich doesn’t mean I’m weak.”
“Did I say that?” Lucas snaps. His chiseled forearms flex as he shifts the crate. “You fishing for compliments, Ollie? I hear narcissists do that. Need me to tell you your arms are pretty jacked?”
