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Her eyebrows raise in surprise. “Just like that?”
I nod. “Just like that.”
“Maybe there are some benefits to you.”
A smile teases at my lips. “You have no idea.” I tug on the hem of my Deftones shirt, which she has apparently claimed as hers, and pull her into a kiss, deep and lingering, threading my fingers into her hair. Her heart starts to race as her body presses against mine, her hands sliding up my thighs and beneath my shirt. I slide slowly and purposely off the edge of the table, my mouth locked on hers, muscles flexing beneath her hands as I make sure she feels every hard inch of me in the process. Then I break away from her and stride into the kitchen, leaving her breathless.
“Where are you going?”
“To make something spectacular for us to eat out of whatever random shit Jax has in this kitchen.” I glance back at her. “Then I’m going to take all your clothes off and kiss every single place where that man touched you until you forget all about it.”
She rolls the ball of her tongue ring between her lips, the heat in her gaze unmistakable. “I’m a dessert-first kind of girl.”
I shut the cupboard and walk back to her, anticipation building with every step, my eyes locked with hers. My hands slide around her waist, then down to her ass, lifting her against me before sitting her on top of the table. “I can work with that.”
Chapter 27
Skye
Athunderous pounding wakes me before the sun, and I scramble out of bed, ducking behind Zaden as he reaches for a baseball bat sitting in the corner of the room. The pounding sounds again, and my gaze meets Zaden’s.
“I thought no one knows we’re here,” I whisper as fear creeps across my skin.
“One person knows,” he answers, striding intently to the farmhouse’s front door, bat raised, in nothing but boxer briefs. “And it better be him.” When we reach the foyer, Zaden peers through the curtains and slowly lowers his bat. He flips the lock on the door.
“Whoa man, it’s just me,” Ryan says as he steps inside, holding his hands up in surrender.
Zaden shakes his head, closing the door and running a hand through his hair. “It’s not even daylight yet, you couldn’t have texted me?” Zaden growls, propping the bat against the door. “You were almost a fly ball to left field.”
“You asked me to check into something, and what I found couldn’t wait.” He glances over and offers me a half smile. “Ivy, always nice to see you. Even more so when you don’t have pants on.”
I roll my eyes and stride back into the bedroom to pull on my shorts. “One person knows where we are, and it’s Ryan?” I question Zaden.
“You needed someone with a particular set of skills, and Ryan is that guy,” Zaden answers. “He may only be halfway through his IT degree, but he’s been an amateur hacker for years.”
Ryan scoffs. “I don’t like your usage of the terms amateur or hacker. I just have a fondness for exploiting poorly secured resources.” I hear the chairs around the kitchen table scrape against the floor as they sit down, and I wander back into the room. Ryan pulls a laptop from his backpack and sets it on the table. “What I don’t understand is why you care.”
I pull out a chair beside Zaden as he leans back, crossing his arms across his chest and meeting my gaze like he’s asking for permission.
“You’re here about the surveillance footage, right?” I ask him, and he nods. “I’m investigating the night Paige died, because I’m her sister. My name isn’t Ivy, it’s Skye Matthews.” His movements still, and his mouth parts in surprise. His attention flicks to Zaden.
“Did you know about this?” He asks.
Zaden rolls his eyes. “Recently. Long story.”
I give him the cliff notes version, and answer whatever questions he needs to get him back on track to explaining why he just woke me up before the fucking roosters in the yard.
“Okay, so I tried to recover the missing files from the Sandbar, but they’re gone. They wiped everything from that day, locally and in the cloud, at the device and manufacturer level.” The screen on his laptop comes on, and he navigates to a file set. “However, the Sunrise Motel has not. And their security is about as updated as the rest of the motel.”
I lean forward in my chair as he pulls up a video, swallowing the nervous lump in my throat. Every video I’ve had to watch in this case so far has haunted my thoughts, rolling on repeat over and over again, and I’m not super excited to see another one. But it’s necessary. As if sensing my uneasiness, Zaden reaches over and firmly places his large, warm hand on my leg. I reach down and lace my fingers through his.
“So there are several segments that I found interesting, given the context you provided last night,” Ryan begins, starting the video. The camera angle directly captures the Sandbar’s back parking lot, taken from the second story of the motel. My heart thunders in my chest, and I squeeze Zaden’s hand.
“The Tesla is in the back lot,” I whisper to Zaden, and he nods.
“It looks like Evan is cussing out that pizza guy,” Ryan comments, pointing toward the guy scrambling to the driver’s side of his delivery car. Evan’s hands gesticulate wildly until the driver pulls away, and I see a figure emerge from the kitchen. I immediately recognize her as Paige.
“Now he’s arguing with Paige,” Zaden comments. “He’s on a roll.”
