Page 91 of His Obsession
“Ooh, I like it when you call me by my full name. I was just going to tell her—”
“No,” I yelled at her, giving her a stern warning I expected her to heed.
“Fine, fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was nice to meet you, Liz.” She stood from her stool.
“Yeah, you too,” Liz said. “You must finish your story when there aren’t men here to ruin the fun.”
Charity laced her fingers into Tonk’s. “She’s a keeper,” she said in a sing-song voice while she pulled Tonk out the door.
I placed my cup in the dishwasher and leaned against the counter, releasing that long-held breath.
“I like her,” Liz said, breaking the awkward silence.
“Yeah, well, don’t. She’s worse than I am.”
“She can’t be that bad, Randall likes her. Did you see how he let her touch him?” she said, “I can’t even do that.”
“She is. That’s why he allows her to touch him,” I said. I leaned over and placed a kiss on her plush lips. “Trust me, stay away from her.”
She held her hands up and scrunched her chin. “Okay, I will, but only if I get more of those.” She puckered her lips, and I obliged.
Alek pushed the button on the Audi and turned it off. We sat in a small parking lot in a mom-and-pop storage facility. “What are we doing here?” My eyebrows knit together with confusion.
He unbuckled his seat belt and angled his body slightly towards me. “I said we weren’t going to the office. I have some stuff to check on, but I’ll be out in a minute. Just stay here.”
He opened his door and stepped out of the car before I could ask more questions. I battled back and forth whether I would get out of the car and follow him—I mean my curiosity and all. I settled on seeing how long it would take before he would come back and decided I would play a game on my phone. I moved the third candy over to make four and finished the game with fireworks.
After my fourth game, I got impatient and climbed out of the car, closing the door with a loud bang. I made my way through the gate to find Alek walking out of a storage unit. I caught sight of large wood crates stacked neatly against the wall as he pulled down the door with a notebook in his hand. “What are you doing?” Alek whipped around with a gun in hand, pointing it right at me. I squealed and put my hands up, an involuntary reaction.
“Jesus, Liz. Don’t fucking sneak up on me like that,” he yelled in a low voice through clenched teeth. He slipped his notepad in his pocket, moved his jacket aside, and put his gun away.
“I didn’t sneak, I came to find you. You were just preoccupied,” I said defensively.
After seeing Alek kill a man, the last thing I would do would be to sneak up on a man who carried a gun.
Alek finished pulling down the storage door and put a big deadbolt on it, locking it into place. “Well, next time, make your presence known.”
“Don’t get mad at me. You were taking forever, and it was getting hot in the car. What’s in there?” I asked, looking around, making sure there wasn’t anyone around. The paranoia obviously hadn’t left.
“I’m not mad. You just startled me. I can’t take you inside, but you already know what I do. Can we leave it at that?” Alek asked, coming to stand before me.
“I know it will drive me nuts, but okay,” I said, yielding.
I couldn’t believe I was giving up so quickly, but I liked how things were turning out between us, and I didn’t feel like rocking the boat. Besides, he mentioned that I knew what he’d done. It wasn’t like I needed to see the items to believe him.
He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Thank you.” He took my hand and led me back to the car where I should have stayed. Patience is a virtue.
“Yeah, well, I think I deserve a reward for not being able to satisfy my curiosity. It’s a hard thing to deny, you know?” I teased, but in all seriousness, it was like denying an addict their choice of drug.
He chuckled and opened my door. “I’ll see what I can do about that,” he replied as I got in, and he closed it.
“So, where do we go now?” I asked as he took his seat.
He pushed the button to start the car, and it roared to life. “How about a joy ride?” A devious grin across his lips and he pushed the gas pedal, revving the engine.
I knit my brows together, and sarcasm coated my words. “In this car?” I taunted. “You know, I always imagined successful businessmen and arms dealers driving a Ferrari or Maserati.”
Deep belly laughter erupted from his lips. “You didn’t even know what an arms dealer was until you met me. How could you know what they would drive?” His chuckling continued as I glared at him.