Chaos & the Geek (Grace Grayson Security #1) - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,19

life. It was a weirdly neat mess, anyway. A mess that looked useful, necessary. A mess I could abide. And there was something oddly pleasant about evidence another human being was there with me.

Even if it was just my best friend’s little sister. Even if I barely saw her. Even if we barely spoke to each other. Even if she hated me. I realised it had been lonely in that big place all by myself for so long. And no matter how awkward I got around her indifference, it was going to be nice to not be alone anymore.

5

Amber

I sat bolt upright, expecting a crick in my neck. Then I registered that my vision was fuzzy. Then I registered I’d been lying down.

I looked down, thinking I must have fallen off my chair in the middle of the night – wouldn’t have been the first time. But that was definitely a bed under me. And I was still wearing my shoes. I blinked as I looked around the practically lightless room. There was only the faintest hint of sun coming around the curtains and it was wan. I looked over and saw my glasses were on the bedside table. I picked them up suspiciously as I looked around and suddenly wondered where I was.

I slowly slid on my glasses and suddenly everything came flooding back.

Dannie and Brent.

Patrick and Kit.

Nico and the droids.

Studying at the dining table all day because I couldn’t bring myself to go to sleep. Again.

“Wait…”

I looked around again.

I had absolutely no memory of going to bed. And there was the weird thing about still wearing my shoes and I was on top of the sheets under half a blanket. My cheeks flushed moments before I realised that all these things were adding up to the presumption that I’d fallen asleep at the table and Kit had brought me to bed when he got home.

“Oh, nice work, goober,” I muttered as I pulled myself out of the blanket and tried to remember what I’d shoved in the great Suitcase of Leaving that could be classified as clothes.

I pulled off yet another oversized jumper and dropped it on the bed as I stretched my slightly stiff neck and kicked off my shoes. I rifled through drawers and the (massive and almost empty) walk in robe for something to wear.

“Why did I pack so much underwear?” I muttered to myself.

And it wasn’t the everyday kind. I’d apparently just scooped out my entire lingerie collection – all those racy things that Dannie, Farrah and I loved buying but I’d had absolutely no reason to wear and now had no one to wear it for – without thinking of what I was actually going to wear. On closer inspection, it seemed like I’d done that for most of my clothes. It was lucky it was winter and most of my drawers had consisted of pants and jumpers.

Given the spectacular amount of nothing that really went together, I settled on some jeans and a hoody. I did a quick pass through the bathroom to detangle my hair and regain some sense of humanity before I wandered out to the main room. I always found that humanity made for a pretty decent start to the day.

Coffee also made a very good start to the day and it was all I could smell as I walked out of the little side passage and my stomach rumbled angrily.

“God, how long did I sleep?” I asked myself as I headed for the kitchen.

Kit kept saying make myself at home, so I guess I was going to do just that.

Halfway to the kitchen, I was stopped in my tracks as Kit walked out of his bedroom in nothing but his suit pants as he ran a hand over his hair. And blow me down. My knees nearly buckled out from under me where I stood.

Muscles bulged and rippled where they quite frankly had no place being. He had tattoos covering his left shoulder and down to his elbow, one on his right pec, and something on his right rib. And that had nothing on the scars I could see even from that distance. Not that they did anything but add to the sinfully sexy damaged bad boy persona Kit had exuded since his early teens.

And just as I was gawking, he pulled his eyes from the window and saw me. His step faltered. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised to see me, just being wary around me,