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“You bring me out here to attempt to seduce me?” I asked, lifting my leg and rubbing my calf against the back of his jeans-clad thigh. His eyes sparked with desire, though he didn’t move any closer. He had a hell of an erection, and that meant I had all the power. Power I had no problem using to my advantage.
Drew caught my leg and eased it back to the ground. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,Sonya?”
He looked triumphant at knowing my name, but the odds had just stacked even more in my favor. The man had taken enough interest in me to find out who I was, had sought me out this afternoon, and very obviously wanted me. My plans were quickly falling into place.
“No.”
He laughed sardonically, backing away to dig in his pocket. Immediately, I missed his heat, lifting away from the wall to follow his warmth. Minus a point for me, but I could get that under control. It would be a bonus to be attracted to a mark. I ignored the warning flag my mind threw up.
Drew put a cigarette between his lips, goading me as he deliberately returned the pack to his pocket and drew out a silver lighter. He lit the end, pulling a drag into his lungs, then tilted his head back to release a stream of smoke. My mouth watered as I zeroed in on the temptation. He didn’t ask if I wanted it, just placed it between my parted lips. My automatic response was to close them around the filter and suck.
I actually moaned when the nicotine hit my system. Drew made no move to retrieve his cigarette, and I let it hang between my lips for a moment before taking another long inhale.Just this one.It was a promise to myself I was damn sure I wouldn’t keep, especially around Drew. He was pure temptation, and he had my number. Another point to him.
He took the cigarette, and I whimpered with unabashed envy when he put it between his lips. Drew held in the smoke, leaned in, and pressed his mouth to mine, blowing it into my mouth. It wasn’t the shared nicotine that had my system lit up. The shock of his rough lips had my eyes wide open, staring into his. I’d kissed loads of wealthy men. Another thing they had in common besides their money was soft lips. But his almost felt weathered, like what I envisioned a real, tough, rough-and-tumble man’s would be. Something inside me melted, calling to the woman who lived for pushing the envelope and skirting the edge of danger.
The cigarette was no longer of interest to me. More of that rough mouth was. For a second, I forgot I was playing a game as I moved my lips against his, inordinate pride filling me at the heat in his gaze. Just before I made the mistake of tasting him with my tongue, I eased the cigarette from between his fingers, peeled my lips from his, and put the filter firmly in my mouth.
I grinned, sphinx-like, while my heart thudded furiously in my chest at his momentary anger.
“My little tigress,” Drew said, amused, tugging on one of my errant curls. “Is there anything you won’t do to get what you want?”
My expression turned serious as my eyes went hard. “Nothing.”
“That makes two of us.”
Chapter Twelve
Drew
Where hadshe hidden my wallet in those pajamas?
I still hadn’t figured that out or when she’d returned it to my back pocket without my knowing. After a quick inspection, I found she hadn’t taken a thing. A thief with a conscience? Or was she just letting me know she could play with me as she pleased? For once, I didn’t find it so unappealing to be at someone else’s mercy and was curious to see what she would do next. Oh, I still didn’t like her. Not at all.
She already had me by the balls, that briefest touch of her lips against mine making me determined to have more. And make no mistake, I would have her. She could play all the games she wanted, but I would know what it was like to fuck her senseless. Have her atmymercy.
I didn’t need to get involved in the complications Sonya had following her around. She brought it on her all by herself. Hell, I could sense her craving for it, and that was just another thing we had in common. We would go out in a blaze of glory, both of us too addicted to mayhem to save one another from it.
She already had me hacking into the Paths of Purpose system to find out more about her and nearly getting busted too. I’d covered by pretending I was collecting the trash from the administrative office, and once I was in the clear, I kept asking myself what in the hell I was doing. This place was keeping me out of jail. If I got kicked out, and all the shit I’d done caught up to me, I’d be there for a very long time.
I was impressed with their cyber security. One really had to know what they were doing to get past it. Unfortunately, one look at Sonya Hughes’s information, and I knew it was false. Even the story she’d given about her boyfriend getting drunk and violent and threatening her life sounded fake. I wasn’t even sure Sonya was her real name, but given enough time and digging, I could figure it out.
My brother hadn’t saida word on the ride home, silently fuming as he navigated the streets of New York. That was fine by me. I didn’t feel like talking, and I didn’t care to hear what was eating at him, considering it more than likely had something to do with me.
After a short drive, we pulled up to a building that wasn’t the apartment. It was so close to Paths of Purpose we could’ve walked. “Where are we?” I asked, glancing across the dark car at Easton, whose stony face didn’t give a damn thing away. Everything about him was tight—his eyes, mouth, shoulders, arms. Wherever we were, I wasn’t going to like it.
“You’ll see,” he said curtly.
We exited the SUV and entered the nondescript brick building. It was several stories high in a neighborhood lined with trees and BMWs. In the lobby, there was no desk, just dark chocolate walls framing the elevator shaft in the center. Easton pressed the call button, and the doors immediately opened. We rode up to the third floor. The walls were the same chocolate color, and there was one glass-paneled door directly across from the elevator.
My scalp started to tingle, and there was a sinking feeling in my gut. “Easton?”
He shook his head, his eyes clouded. I hadn’t seen my brother cry since our dog died when I was twelve. This was bad.
Easton opened the door to a waiting room of sorts. It reminded me of a doctor’s office but without the stark white walls and the magazines that usually littered the end tables. It was empty, but then again, it was after seven in the evening. Not the typical hours for a doctor, if that was where we were. Or maybe it was an attorney’s office.
Fuck.
I followed him down a narrow hallway to the door at the end, which was slightly ajar. He rapped lightly with his knuckles before pushing it open. A dim light from a tray ceiling illuminated a figure lying in a hospital bed. I turned my head away, unable to look, knowing it was my mother.
