Page 24 of Fury
“Could you unpack your gear somewhere else?”
“Am I distracting you, doll?”
There it was again. That word that made me want to hit him with something heavy, and that smirk, his insanely groomed beard making it clearer. And those dimples. Hiding, almost unnoticeable by the dark hair that covered the lower part of his cheek and jaw, but I could see the indent. And thick, fleshy, plump lips, like he’d had fillers. Fuck’s sake.
“Yes. Yes, you are. I need to concentrate. You couldn’t do this room last, could you?”
I tried to keep my voice steady, professional, unphased. Whether he bought it, I didn’t know, but he wasn’t moving on till he’d delivered one further infuriating jibe.
“No problem baby doll,” the smirk had morphed to a complete grin. The bastard knew he was winding me up. I wanted to kick him, throw something at him. And I had no idea why he could aggravate me as much as this.
Fury took his sweet fucking time getting out of my office, slowly packing his things, leaving some random shaped boxes in a corner and wandering off. I watched him go. Watched the way his trousers clung to his arse, the tan utility belt hanging down one side of his hip, the dark trousers stretched over meaty thighs. Fuck’s sake.
The numbers on my spreadsheet blurred into one, a jumble of black and the bright white of the background, and now my stomach tightened, a pulse developing in areas it had no business being, and a flush of heat to my cheeks, the same lick of fire deep in my stomach.
For the rest of the day, I stole glances at him as he moved throughout the building. Up ladders, pulling cables through the ceilings overhead, fitting cameras and sensors, and listening to him grumble as he cursed the state of the wiring in the building. The little brown-haired receptionist watched him as closely as I did, her eyes roaming over those same body parts, watching the flex of the muscles in his arms, the tension in his forearms as he screwed at something overhead.
Eventually, he returned to my office, plonking his stuff noisily on the floor and I glared, the heavy thump pulling me from the work in front of me.
“You ready for me now, Miss Fischer?” he accentuated my name annoyingly, and I bit back the urge to roll my eyes or flip him the finger, although the pull was strong.
“Don’t think I ever would be,” I sighed.
“No one ever is, doll.”
Fucking doll. I’d ram one up his arse if he wasn’t fucking careful. I took a breath. One more office to install these cameras in and then it’d all be over, and I wouldn’t ever have to set eyes on the arrogant mass of man who was now walking up ladders just over the doorway. His arse tightened through those trousers with each step, the t-shirt that was far too tight stretched across what could only be the muscles in his back. But the black of the fabric didn’t seem to stop at his neck, black tendrils and shadows climbing higher, creeping up his neck towards his hairline. A tattoo. The only hint of ink I’d seen so far, but there it was on his back, and now I wondered what was underneath.
An email notification popped up in front of my screen, pulling my eyes back to the laptop and away from the biker who was climbing up my wall. ‘FAO Heidi Fischer’ the subject line read. Clicking on it, it opened. Big bold words. I gasped, the danger in those words hitting me like a sledgehammer, my stomach recoiling instantly.
Chapter Eleven
She gasped suddenly. But it wasn’t in frustration, or tiredness, or because she’d nipped herself on something. It was filled with terror, a sound I’d heard all too often. Turning, I watched her from above. Her pretty mouth had dropped open, her eyes darting across the screen in front of her. Then she closed her lips and opened them again. Silent words, not quite able to escape. Her chin trembled, eyes opening even wider, so that I could see the blue even from over here.
“Heidi?” She jumped, springing out of her seat, her eyes searching for where the sound came from, and that same look of fear I’d seen on her face last night. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I…it’s nothing.” She slammed the lid of her laptop down, her eyes still unable to focus on anything as they flitted between points in the room.
She was panicking, her flight senses kicking off, and right now she didn’t know if she was going to follow them. Heidi prised the laptop open again, glancing at the screen and then at me, the colour in her cheeks fading right in front of my eyes.
I almost slid down the ladders, quickly hitting the floor and moving to her side, feeling her flinch as I got to her. But she didn’t close the screen down, just left the laptop open with an email on the screen.
‘[email protected]’. Yet it wasn’t the sender’s address that caught my eye, but the words typed into the message.
‘Fuck off home, bitch, or we’ll bury you here. We know where you’re staying. Get gone by the weekend.’
“Shit,” I said out loud. “When did you get this?”
“Just now,” she answered, her voice weak, the usual sting of her words now tame.
“Any idea who might have sent you this?”
Heidi looked up at me, her teeth raking her lip, shaking her head silently. And there she was, vulnerable as fuck, and insanely beautiful with it. Her blue eyes glistened, searing into my soul, my stomach jolting, the strategic side of my brain left hanging, as the other side that controlled the irrationality of my dick kicked into gear, which was the last thing anyone needed right now.
“What do I do, Fury?” she asked softly, my name a whisper on her lips. “Ring the police?”
“Could do. Though they won’t do much. They’ll log it and tell you to report any more. How serious do you think this is?”
“I dunno. It’s my first death threat.” There was a hint in her tone that the initial shock had cleared, some of her abruptness reappearing.