“One of the many things I’ll need to update you on is a private detective named Sloane Argento. She and I met here. She’s been hired by your former boss, Louisa Davies, to do exactly what we’re about to do.”
“Louisa? You have to be joking,” Henry said.
“I am not,” Abe said. “Lots to tell you. Go board the plane, sleep as much as you can, and call me when you’re all in the lobby.”
“Absolutely,” Henry said, sounding a little shell-shocked. “I’ll tell the team. We’ll be there soon.”
Abe was staring right at me. “Thank you. For coming to help.”
My chest was filling with light and buoyant air. I was proud of him. Another dangerous element to add into the mix.
“And thank you for asking,” Henry said.
The moment Abe hung up the phone, exhaustion crashed over me like a tidal wave. I broke into a massive yawn I couldn’t have stopped if I tried. Although as soon as Abe looked at me, I steeled my spine and kept my chin raised.
“They’re no litter of kittens you found in your backyard, Mr. Royal,” I said.
He chuckled softly. “No. They are not. They are extraordinary.”
My chest pinched at the emotion in his words—what would it be like to have coworkers like Abe and Henry and Freya? What would it be like to go to work with people who were proud of you? That you were proud of?
“It’s so obvious to me, the way they feel about you,” I said, a little tentative. “And it’s so obvious the way they call you on your epic amounts of bullshit.”
He put the phone down, leaned back against the window with a playful smirk. Tie tugged off, first two buttons open on his shirt, exposing a patch of skin I wanted to see more of. The man just embodied sex.
“I’m starting to believe I’m the kind of man who needs to be called on his bullshit,” he said. “You seem to enjoy it.”
Abe was flirting with me, and I was pretty sure he didn’t even realize it. And I literally couldn’t flirt back without wrapping my fingers through his belt loops and tugging him down on top of me.
“Tomorrow will be interesting.” I shrugged, sidestepping those urges.
“They’ll love you,” he said. “And you’ll love them. Just in case you have any doubt.”
“I’ll do anything to catch Bernard,” I said firmly.
With a nod, he pushed himself off the wall and rearranged himself back into impassive, serious observer. He must have sensed my raising walls—it was sheer survival mode at this point. Abe Royal was standing over my bed in a room we were going to sleep together in. My head literally spun with sexual fantasies, and between that, the adrenaline, my various cuts and bruises, and the nerves at meeting Codex, I was a hot goddamn mess.
“You and I need to sleep before the chaos of tomorrow,” he said. “What do you need? Water? Food?”
“Just this bed and the lights off.” I bit my lip and watched him prowl back and forth, grabbing the clothing that the hotel had given us from their gift shop.
“I can facilitate that,” he replied. “I’ll shower and flick the lights off, okay?”
I smiled until he was assured of my comfort. I’m sure he pegged my silence as a symptom of exhaustion when I was actually tongue-tied with wanting him.
He turned off the lights, slipped into the bathroom. A second later, I heard the water come on, and I quickly tossed my dress, threw my hair into a hasty braid and yanked on a gift-shop shirt easily three times my size. Beneath the covers, I tried to sink into the pillowy escape of sleep.
Instead, I could only think about Abe sliding his shirt off his shoulders. Could only think about his bare chest, his back, his naked body slipping beneath the steam. His hands, slicking back his wet hair. Would he think of me while in there? Think of me and touch himself? Stroke his cock beneath the arc of water and stifle his moans?
A flash of what I hoped wasn’t lightning streaked across the room, smashing my fantasy to pieces. I pulled the blanket all the way to my chin and tried to get comfortable, tried to mute my fear. Tried to strengthen my willpower to resist Abe Royal in all of his glory.
If only he’d stayed Hot Guy in a Suit—a hot, quick, anonymous fuck I’d take home as a souvenir