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But I felt like I was far past losing it. I felt like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole and was now just trying to keep upright in an attempt to land on my feet. I stood up and began my pacing again, ignoring the way Decker’s eyes followed my every step. A hitman was hired to take me out. A serial killer with a paycheck was already coming forme. I was pretty much a nobody when it came to real world issues. I wasn’t a diplomat or some leader, any occupation that could threaten someone else for power. I could understand someone targeting my father, but me? I looked back at Decker when I stopped pacing and couldn’t help the laughter that tumbled out of me. The sound became frantic and almost hysterical.
Then Decker was on his feet, looming over me, eyes a storm of intensity again, and I was lost in them, my laugh falling silent almost immediately. His hand raised to brush back several strands of hair that had fallen from my mess of a bun. As his fingers grazed my cheek, I felt the energy from him buzzing across my skin, causing goosebumps to raise across my body. I felt powerless in his gaze and couldn’t seem to catch my breath as the backs of his fingers brushed lightly down my cheek, his thumb tracing my jaw before his hand lowered slowly.
“Don’t lose it on me now, Lake.” His voice was husky and laced with something I wanted to imagine was lust. “You’ve held it together for a long time, and I know you can hold on a little more while I track this guy down.” All I could do was nod in response, my eyes falling to the full lips that I’d grown used to seeing in a frown. So close and tempting. I was shocked out of another desire-fueled day dream about kissing his beautiful mouth when his nostrils flared and he took a step back from me.
He cleared his throat before saying, “Why don’t you get to bed. It’s been a long day and you need some rest.”
I nodded and made for the door, stopping to turn back and face him. “You should get some rest too, Lieutenant, you look like shit.” I was out the door and almost turned back at the sound of a chuckle, just to see if he smiled for once with it. But I kept going, ready to surrender this day and just cry into my pillow.
CHAPTER 14
DECKER
I’d developed a personal routine on my off hours here in the mansion of a summer home. Being the one always on call and ready to go, I usually caught the minimum sleep required to function, then spent my time working remotely to stay informed on all the other Remington cases going on. When not catching up on cases, I was working out in my room until it was time to shower and head back on shift. Tonight I’d stripped down to my boxer briefs and sank back into my pillow staring at the ceiling like it would project a blueprint for figuring out the woman across the hall.
I was still kicking myself for the world’s worst death notification that I’d delivered with all the grace of an atomic bomb. Watching Lake’s face morph from shock to devastation to rage had stopped anger in its tracks, morphing into compassion and regret as I learned that the elderly couple next door had been another in the long line of people who’d fallen in love with Lake and worked to keep her appreciated in the absence of her father. She seemed to be all the rage with the retirement crowd, something I could never have predicted from the articles written about her.
I’d been making assumptions about her from the minute John Landow had asked if I would speak to Robert about the situation. I could admit that the ideas associated with her had been based on the work I’d done previously with women outwardly depicted the same. Beautiful and shallow was the label I’d slapped on her without even meeting the woman. But Lake Harrington was deeper than that. She’d kept the damn cards the Pasternaks had sent her through the years, and I was pretty sure the crime scene team working next door would find cards sent from her over the years right back to them.
She’d worked very hard to cultivate the image that she was only concerned with her next party, and while she claimed it was just to piss her dad off, I’d spent enough time around Fitz to start forming a theory of my own. She used an image she could control as a wall to hide behind. And fuck if I didn’t know the feeling of making sure every bit of outward appearance was expertly crafted, building that wall brick by brick. From one mason to another, I wondered how I had so easily missed it before. She was far more interesting than she’d ever let the world believe. Or let herself believe.
And the work she’d done so far for people who actually needed it? Kids who needed someone looking out for them just as I had needed as a child? I could feel my own carefully constructed walls rocking on their foundation at the thought of the work she did as anonymously as possible, only needing payment in the form of seeing the lives of others improve. The complete opposite of the woman I’d been prepared to meet that day in her father’s office.
I’d been so surprised to find out the lengths she’d gone to to help others and without any media attention. She seemed to divert attention away by making papers for her partying ways. She was a sexy little magician when it came to the illusions she spun for the world, that much was for sure. And I was finding it harder and harder to resist her when each new puzzle piece that was Lake slid together. And yet again, I found myself wanting to slide together with her.
Pressing a hand down to adjust myself, I rolled my eyes, wishing my dick would calm down whenever I thought about her. The shyness that came over her when she had to talk about her good deeds over her misdeeds, and the slight pink that rose in her cheeks when I’d touched her. The addictive need to keep touching her that I had to fight back as she looked up at me from below her long lashes.
There had been no game in that look from her. She hadn’t been playing up the temptress role like she had in clubs. No, that heat in her eyes, that need… it was genuine and almost innocent in a way that made me want to claim her mouth and then her body. Reactions. I was all reactions with her. And fuck, all I’d wanted was to keep touching her to seeherreactions.
There was a brief tap on the door and for a fleeting moment I thought it could be Lake, wanting exactly what I’d been thinking about, but when Cabot was the one to peek his head in, I deflated in an instant. In every way. At least I wouldn’t be pitching a tent while trying to talk to my friend. “Yeah?” My question came out gravelly like I hadn’t used my voice in far too long. I cleared my throat and sat up, the blanket pooling at my hips and my bare chest exposed to the cool air in the room. Nothing like a chill in the air to bring a man back to his senses after inappropriate fantasies about a client.
“Just making sure you’re okay, boss.” Cabot closed the door behind him and moved to sit in one of the chairs set around the fireplace at the far end of the room. Honestly this house had too many fireplaces, and the rooms were far too extravagant for me. Cabot and Fitz enjoyed the comforts provided by their temporary safe house, but I had come from so little that seeing so much for no reason had a tendency to irritate me. I knew it was envy turned hatred born from poverty, so it was a disdain I worked hard to hide. After all, it said more about me and my hang ups than the rich people wasting the money.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I honestly wasn’t okay, but I wanted to know why Aiden Cabot was asking. Was my facade of calm finally cracking beyond repair? Was it just plastered to my face now?
“Well, maybe because this whole assignment had you on edge before a hitman only whispered about decided to throw his hat in the ring to kill Harrington’s kid.” The eyebrow raised in my direction was challenging me to deny it and I was far too tired to even attempt denial.
Rubbing my hand down my face in frustration, I let out a breath of an unamused laugh. “It’s not ideal,” I said leaning against the headboard. “Attaching The Wraith to all of this doesn’t exactly give us any leads as to who is behind it. Could have been one person, a small group of people or, fuck, even a small country.” Cabot was chewing on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to hold something back and I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Spit it out,” I said pointedly.
“Well,” my friend leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “We also have to think about this guy’s success rate.”
“What is it?”
“According to information Kasey dug up? It’s looking like he hasn’t failed yet.”
A boulder-sized lump of dread settled in my gut at the news. A man who never walked away without getting his kill was more dangerous than I’d originally thought. I wanted to steal Lake away and hide her far from the world, then go hunting down this bastard myself or find the person who hired him and get them to cancel the kill order. Then still take them both out. I felt the flame of rage rising in me and causing my skin to heat.
“Deck, man, you have to calm down.” Cabot narrowed his eyes in concern. “You’ve been close to losing it too many times lately. What’s going on? Is it this assignment? The girl? Or being in the field again with the rest of us?”
“I’m fine,” I bit out, looking down at my blankets. Risking a glance up, I caught the look on Cabot’s face that clearly called bullshit, and I scratched the growing stubble on my cheek before letting my lungs empty on a woosh. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Lake fucks with my head. She needles at my nerves and pushes every button. It would have been different if she’d been the vapid party queen that she wassupposedto be.”
“But she’s an intelligent graduate with a heart of gold and a body made for sin.” I let out a growl of warning and Cabot laughed, hands going up, palms out in a sign of surrender. “Easy there, just an obvious observation. I know you Decker, and I know how seriously you’ve taken life since…” He didn’t have to finish; we both knew when life had changed for me. The same incident that brought me home, got me discharged and left me with PTSD that I refused to talk about.
“Anyway,” Cabot continued. “I’ve never seen you react to a woman who has actuallythrownthemselves at you. You’re like a damn monk. So, to see you up in arms about someone.” He grinned and wiped his hand over his mouth as if trying to wipe the grin away, no matter how unsuccessful. “I have a feeling we’re all going to be going hard on this assignment and not just because it’s a job. We’ve got your back, boss. Nothing will touch her.”
His implications had the air leaving my chest and an unwanted flapping in my stomach making itself known. The way he spoke about her, made it seem like Lake was mine and the other guys were taking the case personally just for that. And damn, did that brief image in my head look good. Comforting her and holding her, touching and tasting her. And yet with all the subtlety of an ice bath, I knew it was pointless to think that way. My momentary daydream was about the Lake I knew from our time together in this particular situation, far removed from the normal life she led. And that normal life had no room for me. She was jet-setting across the globe with fake friends just to get into the newest packed clubs and making the gossip sections of papers the next day. I couldn’t even picture a conversation with that version of her, let alone touching her. And my friend sitting her encouraging a lost cause, only managed to piss me the fuck off.
“Lake Harrington is a client and will remain so. Nothing more.” The finality of my tone had Cabot bristling. But I needed to put things back into their boxes and stop the gossip from continuing around our group. “Is that understood?” The ice in my tone was a challenge all its own.
