East End (Hear No Evil Trilogy #1) - Nana Malone Page 0,54

wrapped around me, and I could almost hear the waves as they crashed upon the shore, leaving seashells and seaweed in their wake. That's what it felt like with him. The crashing of a wave and the end of peace, but also the hint of excitement that the waves promised on a hot summer day.

Jesus Christ, I needed help.

You kissed him.

No, I did not kiss him, I allowed him to kiss me. That’s different.

Uh-huh.

Fuck. I lifted my gaze to meet his, and of course, my eyes fell. His lips were so full and still slightly bruised from our kiss earlier.

God, that kiss.

The man’s kisses were like the air that I breathed. Necessary for living, necessary for existing. His tongue sliding over mine had left me with this lingering feeling of awareness. And if I was being honest, the awareness had been there from the moment I'd first seen him. It was an awareness that I hadn't indulged much.

Liar.

Okay, fine. I had made some good use of my battery-operated boyfriend. Thanks to him, since our stupid fight in the park, I couldn’t help having crazy longings. What was wrong with me? I knew exactly what he was, and I still found him irresistible.

You don't know exactly what he is. You have no evidence. Innocent until proven guilty.

That always irritated me about law enforcement. The presumption of innocence. Men like East Hale didn’t become billionaires by playing it safe—or playing by the rules. And I would do well to remember that. Because if I kept messing with him, I was going to get burned.

But not tonight.

Press.

Hiss.

Dab.

Groan.

Swipe.

"Holy fuck."

East compressed his lips together. "Sorry. You’ve got a couple of scrapes here. I'm just trying to get them clean."

"You know, you don't have to do this. I am capable of minor field dressing." But I’d stopped trying to get away from his ministrations.

"I'm sure you are.” Beneath his glittering eyes stretched a predatory smile. “Because, of course, you can do anything, can’t you?"

"Yes, I can."

"Well, you're in luck. We're done." He tossed the used supplies in the trash, held up the gauze and bandaged up my jaw that had taken the majority of the scrapes and hits. He applied another butterfly suture to my hand, and then wrapped my right wrist. It wasn't broken. It wasn't even sprained, but it was irritated as hell. So yay, thanks to the sexy billionaire, my injuries were tended to.

"You're all set. You can go sulk in your room now."

A twinge of guilt pierced my heart. He was trying to help. "Look, I'm sorry. I just don't like being man-handled. And those assholes just now, I—" My nose stung, and my eyes started to water. What the fuck? I was not going to cry in front of this man who was basically a stranger.

Can a man be a stranger if you've gotten off to the thought of him?

Not at all relevant.

"Hey. Hey, now, it's okay."

He moved close and wrapped his arms around me, and God help me, I did feel safe. Which was my first mistake. It was so warm in his space. And wrapped there, I would start to think I was safe. I would start to think that nothing could touch me. The problem was I needed to know the truth about him before I could let myself surrender to feelings like that.

But once you knew the truth, there was no going back. There was no return to sender. Men like East Hale were not to be trusted. Handsome, rich, ambitious, and then add in a dose of his general shadiness. Absolutely not. I’d been digging for months into their little boys' club at the London Lords. The clubs they belonged to. There were whisperings of a secret society, but they were just whisperings. That big old estate out in the village of Virginia Water where I had arrested Bram Van Linsted was listed as a property of Ben Covington.

And I couldn’t even fathom why the Van Linsteds seemed to have lived there or were arrested there for that matter. I’d checked into the deed of sale on the property, and it looked like it was a gift. I tried to dig up a little more, but no one would talk about it or the secret society that seemed to be connected with it, which really set my alarm bells off. Usually, there was someone willing to give up some information, but no one would talk, which only strengthened my suspicion that something was really going on