A Wicked Song - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,58
scent teases my nostrils and his mouth crashes over mine, his tongue doing this deep, seductive lick against mine that melts me in my shoes. The taste of him is passionate, hungry, possessive. I moan with the delicious assault, and when his lips lift from mine, he says, “You okay?”
“Yes,” I say, and I mean it. I am okay. The danger was always present, but owning it and who I am feels good. He feels good, too. “I just need a minute to freshen up.”
He studies me a moment and seems to read that need as real. “Then I’ll see you back at the table.”
He releases me and then he’s gone, and like his music, he’s left me with the simplistic beauty that is Kace August. He hasn’t told me what to feel, but he made darn sure I felt his presence.
I head into the bathroom, lock the single-stall room, and stare at myself, guilt stabbing at me. I’m living my life, expanding my horizons, being kissed by a rock star in a hallway, and opening business doors while my brother is missing. Maybe he’s even dead. My phone buzzes with a text message. I pull it from my purse and find a strange number with too many digits. It looks like spam, but I click on it anyway. It reads: Look for the daisy in the wind. Be careful or you’ll end up dead.
My heart starts to race and my gaze jerks to my daisy ring, a memory piercing my mind. I click on the number, but it’s not a real number at all. I rush to the bathroom door, jerk it open and hurry into the restaurant. Kace and Savage are standing at the bar, and Mark and Crystal appear to have left.
One look at me and Kace heads in my direction and in a matter of seconds his hands are on my arms. “What is it?”
“This. Read this.” I shove my phone at him.
He reads the message and I say, “It’s not a real phone number. And the words, a daisy in the wind, that is something my father—”
“—used to say,” he supplies, looking up at me, his eyes shadowed. “I know.”
There is something in his voice, and beneath the shadows of his eyes. Something that radiates and overflows into me, and that I can only describe as tormented.
“What is it?”
“I’m the daisy in the wind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He’s the daisy in the wind? I blink, confused. “Kace, I don’t understand. You’re the daisy in the wind?”
His jaw sets hard, the handsome lines of his face drawn tight. “It’s something your father said to me.”
“Right. It was his saying. We just said that.”
The muscle in his jaw tenses. “He told me that I am the daisy in the wind. The only true daisy in the wind. He told me never to forget those words.”
I search his handsome face, now all hard lines and shadows, looking for the answers he’s not giving me. “And you think that’s related to this message?”
“Yes.”
“And it means what to you?”
“I don’t know what it means,” he says. “Not in this moment. Not in this context. I need to think.” He motions Savage forward and I can feel the wall that’s slammed down between us. He’s shut down and I’m more than a little rattled.
“I need more than ‘I need to think,’ Kace,” I say, rejecting his silence with a hard push. “What do you know that I don’t know?”
His steps into me, his touch gentle but firm, palm resting on my hip, his voice low, for my ears only. “Let me process, baby. We’ll talk when we’re alone. When we get home.”
I don’t miss the fact that he’s said when we get home, not when we get to his apartment.
I know enough about Kace August to know that everything he does has a purpose and he does nothing by accident. He’s reminding me that I belong with him and the fact that he feels that need to do this is as unsettling as his silence. I’m back to, what the heck does he know that I don’t know?
Urgency bubbles inside me, and I want to push him, but Savage steps to our side, and while I appreciate his protection, right now he’s just plain, big, and intrusive. Kace places a step between us and hands Savage my phone with the text message on the screen. Savage glances down at it and then glances between us. “What does it mean?”
“It’s something my father used to